At first glance, the Arab League’s decision seems laudable. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi hailed the decision as a historic step to fight extremism and "to protect Arab national security." Arab League General Secretary Nabil Elaraby celebrated the resolution as a watershed given the "unprecedented unrest and threats endured by the Arab world," and US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter endorsed the plan as "a good thing." The Saudi pro-government daily al-Riyadheven proclaimed the rebirth of the Arab League as a “resurrected breathing, speaking, acting body."

However, the envisioned Arab League military force would have severe negative repercussions for sectarian relations in the greater Middle East. After all, the announcement was made as a Saudi-led military force continued to bombard alleged Iranian-backed Shia insurgents in Yemen and as Western negotiators raced to finalize a framework nuclear agreement with Iran. Escalating tensions with Iran and the unprecedented rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham did energize the Arab League. But some skepticism is in order about the new force’s ability to serve as a pillar of regional stability.

So far, details of the proposed Arab force remain vague. The summit formally requested participating nations’ chiefs of staff to draft a comprehensive plan to be presented to the Arab League's Joint Defense Council within three months. Until then, the scope and character of the envisioned force can be assessed only through press statements. Officials have described it as comprising up to 40,000 elite troops, supported by naval and air capabilities. Saudi Arabia is expected to provide most of the funding, and Egypt is likely to contribute the bulk of the personnel. Other Arab countries, such as Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait, will make smaller contributions. The headquarters will probably be in Riyadh or Cairo.

Essentially, last week’s announcement resulted in the factual exclusion of Shia Arabs from Mesopotamia to the Levant from the heart of the organization, and has thus greatly increased polarization within the Arab world. As a consequence, the Arab League might become more effective, but it will certainly become less comprehensive and inclusive. Action will come at the expense of division.

The Alborz destroyer and Bushehr support vessel sailed from Bandar Abbas on a mission to protect Iranian shipping from piracy, Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari said in comments cited by Press TV. Saudi Arabia and several Arab allies have imposed an air and naval blockade on Yemen as part of a two-week campaign to oust the Houthis, who have taken most of the country and forced President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to flee to Riyadh.

Iran has condemned the campaign and called for dialogue. Saudi Arabia accuses Iran of providing military support to the Houthis, a charge the Islamic Republic denies. The Iranian ships will patrol the Gulf of Aden, south of Yemen, and the Red Sea, Sayyari said. The area is one of the world's most important shipping routes and a gateway between Europe and the Middle East.

Offering the Omer is a commandment from the Torah, and was instituted to be held annually at the Temple. It marks the first day of the fifty day countdown from Pesach up until the Shavuot holiday, which commemorates the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai in Biblical times.

The event was held as part of the Temple Institute's activities to prepare for renewed Temple service at the time of the Third Temple.

If the sale is given the OK by Congress and details are worked out between the two governments, it would represent the first sale of the R model of Hellfire to Egypt. Egyptian military forces currently operate the F and K variants. The sale, with a projected cost of $57 million, would occur under a Foreign Military Sales agreement. Lockheed Martin would be the prime contractor, with work occurring at its Orlando, Florida, facility.

The announcement of the sale, posted on the Defense Security Cooperation Agency's website, noted that it would help "improve the security of a friendly country that has been and continues to be an important force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East. Egypt will use the enhanced capability as a deterrent to regional threats and to strengthen its homeland defense," the notice reads.

While the justification statement on weapon sales notifications are usually bland, those two statements are notable, given current events.

“The sensors are the input and the radios are the output. The other key to being a complete computer is the ability to supply its own power.” The Michigan Micro Mote contains solar cells that power the battery with ambient light, including indoor rooms with no natural sunlight, allowing the computers to run perpetually.

This line of ‘smart dust’ devices includes computers equipped with imagers (with motion detection), temperature sensors, and pressure sensors. One key application for this line of smart sensors lies in personal security and information. Numerous specks of technology could be discretely placed to invisibly monitor a home, business, or personal device.

According to the report by ThinkProgess, in March alone, 111 people died during police encounters — 36 more than the previous month. This high number in March increased the average for police killings from every 8.5 hours, to nearly 1 police killing every 6.5 hours in the US.

China, whose population is 4 and 1/2 times the size of the United States, recorded 12 killings by law enforcement officers in 2014. On average, US police kill people at a rate 70 times higher than any of the other first world countries as they “protect and serve” the American citizens. This is not what freedom looks like.

The Bank of England has warned that Britain's current account deficit could trigger a shock to market confidence in Britain if the economy does not continue to recover. "The current account deficit was large and could, in adverse circumstances, trigger a deterioration in market sentiment towards the United Kingdom," minutes of the March meeting said. "The Committee agreed to keep their assessment of this risk under close review and would monitor the maturity and liquidity of the financing of the deficit."

The current account balance is a combination of the trade balance (exports against imports), net investment income (income from overseas investment into the UK against outflows from foreign investments in the UK) and money transfers (money sent overseas against money from overseas).

An unstable government after next month's election could potentially shake confidence that the UK will be able to balance its books, hitting the value of the pound.

California, sometimes called the ‘nation’s salad bowl’, is the country’s largest producer of grapes, kiwis, olives, avocados, broccoli, tomatoes, spinach, tree nuts and dairy. Now in the fourth year of a massive drought ‒ and facing only a year’s worth of water remaining in the state ‒ food prices in the US and agricultural unemployment in California are set to climb as farmers do what they can to conserve water and protect their investments.

“Farms and agriculture are prospering and they could go out of business next year,” Joe De Bosque, a farmer in California’s Central Valley, told RT. “How many businesses do you know that are prospering and profitable that go out of business? None! It’s going to happen in California, I guarantee you! If we have no water next year it’s gonna happen! Successful farms are gonna go out of business!”

De Bosque has employed new irrigation techniques in an effort to save water, as 3 million acres of land go unplanted. “Since we've changed to drip irrigation we actually produce 30 percent more crop with 30 percent less water,” he said. “It’s not necessarily how much can we make per acre, it’s how much can we make with an acre-foot of water.”

Mayor Robert Silva of Mendota, in the heart of the agricultural Central Valley, told the LA Times that unemployment among farmworkers had soared as the soil turned to crust and farmers left half or more of their fields fallow. Many people are traveling 60 or 70 miles to look for work, Silva said, and families are increasingly relying on food donations. “You can’t pay the bills with free food,” he said. “Give me some water, and I know I can go to work, that’s the bottom line.”

Farmers in El Salvador are acutely aware of the importance of producing their own seeds, and avoiding those from the bioengineering giant. The farmers, who have already been consistently outperforming Monsanto with their seed, as the local seed is far healthier and more productive, have just managed to bring about a giant defeat of Monsanto by preventing it from supplying El Salvador with its seeds. Recently, the Ministry of Agriculture released a new round of contracts to provide seed to subsistence farmers across the country.

"Remember that Monsanto is together with DuPont, Pioneer, all the large businesses that control the world's seed market," said Juan Luna Vides, the director of diversified production for the Mangrove Association, a nongovernmental organization that was created to support a grassroots social movement for environmental conservation in El Salvador.

"Unfortunately, many of the governments in Latin America, or perhaps the world, have beneficiary relationships with these companies." Vides said that his group is working to "minimize this dependency" - and the dire situation in El Salvador demonstrates the importance of doing so.

The training will focus on alerting the elite troops and on their rapid relocation within NATO territory, with the official objective being to prevent "terrorists" from advancing onto the territory of an allied country and provoking a "government crisis." The culmination of this year's maneuvers will be the "Trident Juncture" exercise in September. Twenty-five thousand soldiers are expected to participate, training for a war of intervention in a fictitious country at the Horn of Africa.

The western troops will not only be confronting a guerilla army but will also encounter chemical warfare, food insecurity, and have to channel population displacements. According to NATO, "lessons" have been learned from the military operations in Afghanistan and the "contemporary conflicts" such as in Ukraine.

Yet the military — with the government’s approval — has been trying to maintain Palestinian economic stability and revive the local economy. The years of relative quiet on the security front have given leaders on both sides more freedom to make decisions without the pressure of violence. But American-brokered peace talks collapsed last year, and instead of agreements, the two sides are engaged in a tense political and diplomatic confrontation.

And while the Palestinian Authority leadership is threatening to scale back its security coordination with Israel — a system of cooperation that is unpopular with many Palestinians — it has helped maintain the calm, and both sides appear to have an abiding interest in preventing a new outbreak of violence. “The instructions we get from the government are to maintain security, civilian and economic stability as much as we can,” said Major General Nitzan Alon, Israel’s top commander in the West Bank, in a rare interview at the end of his tour as chief of the military’s Central Command.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and his Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank, have a similarly clear interest in maintaining stability, according to General Alon. He was speaking at military headquarters in Tel Aviv shortly before he was to take up his new post as chief of the military’s operations branch, a senior position in the high command.

General Alon said that maintaining security coordination was important for Israel, but that for the Palestinian Authority, in its struggle to suppress Hamas, “it is largely essential.” Moreover, he said, Mr Abbas was well aware that new Palestinian attacks against Israelis would not help his international diplomatic and legal campaign. “What is surprising — or not,” General Alon said, “is that at the same time there is a strategic confrontation, there are also mutual interests for stability on the ground.”

After the priestly blessing was recited on Monday, the chief rabbis recited prayers for the peace and wellbeing of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces. They then blessed the Passover pilgrims who had made the trip to Jerusalem for the holiday, one of three annual Jewish pilgrimages.

"The pilgrimage of so many people to the Western Wall is powerful testament to the affinity of the people of Israel to the remnants of our Holy Temple," said Rabinovitch. "This joyful display of the people of Israel crowding the streets is reminiscent of times past, when pilgrims would arrive here. It reminds one of the Holy Temple itself rather than of its destruction."

Meanwhile, while the ceremony was taking place, hundreds of Palestinian protesters gathered on the Temple Mount in an effort to disrupt the holiday prayers, but police - prepared for such an incident with increased presence throughout the holy site - were able to subdue them.

The hackers had access to sensitive information such as real-time non-public details of the president's schedule. While such information is not classified, it is still highly sensitive and prized by foreign intelligence agencies, US officials say.

The White House in October said it noticed suspicious activity in the unclassified network that serves the executive office of the president. The system has been shut down periodically to allow for security upgrades. The FBI, Secret Service and US intelligence agencies are all involved in investigating the breach, which they consider among the most sophisticated attacks ever launched against US government systems.

The intrusion was routed through computers around the world, as hackers often do to hide their tracks, but investigators found tell-tale codes and other markers that they believe point to hackers working for the Russian government. National Security Council spokesman Mark Stroh didn't confirm the Russian hack, but he did say that "any such activity is something we take very seriously."

The two nations are also on opposite sides of the Syrian civil war. Iran strongly supports Syrian President Bashar Assad, including direct military aid, while Turkey openly seeks regime change in Damascus. Last month, Erdogan lashed out at Iran, accusing it of trying to "dominate the region." On Tuesday, Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rohani downplayed their differences.

"We had a comprehensive discussion about Yemen," Rohani said in comments broadcast live on Iranian state television. "We had common points; we have to witness the end of war and bloodshed in Yemen as soon as possible." Rohani again called for an end to the Saudi-led airstrike campaign in Yemen — now in its 13th day — and called for all Middle Eastern countries to "fight terrorism and extremism" together. Erdogan said, "The region is burning in a fire," and called for a comprehensive regional approach to end the crises in Yemen, Iraq and Syria.

"We discussed Iraq, 100 thousand people were killed there ... So far, more than 300 thousand were killed in Syria. All were Muslim. We do not know who is killing who," Erdogan said. "We have to get united and block the killing and bloodshed. We have to bring those who are fighting each other together and we can reach a conclusion."

Dubbed “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” in a 2007 documentary movie directed by James Cameron, the chamber contained nine burial boxes or “ossuaries” inscribed with the names “Jesus son of Joseph”, “Mary” and other names associated with the New Testament. The inscriptions and the approximate dates of burial have led some to suggest the Talpiot Tomb means Jesus married, that he fathered a child, and that the existence of bodily remains means the Resurrection could never have happened.

While the results are likely to rekindle the debate surrounding the possible remains of Jesus, they are still far from accepted in scientific circles. The collector who owns the James ossuary told the Times Dr Shimron’s work determines nothing “conclusively”, while other Jerusalem archaeologists say they await its publication in a peer-reviewed journal.