WATCH: Bill Clinton Defends Hillary on Benghazi

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Photo Credit: NBC

Photo Credit: NBC

Former President Bill Clinton defended Hillary Clinton’s actions as Secretary of State following the 2012 attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi, saying his wife “did what she should have done.”

“In my opinion, Hillary did what she should have done. She impaneled a very high level review committee,” Clinton said Wednesday at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation 2014 Fiscal Summit.

“They looked into what was wrong, they gave 29 recommendations,” he added. “She took them and started implementing them and they established the fact that, whether it was right or wrong in the past, secretaries of states never were involved directly in theses security decisions.”

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Republican Senators Demand Failed Obamacare Exchanges Pay Back Federal Government

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Mike Segar

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Mike Segar

Several Republican senators introduced a bill Wednesday requiring states that failed to produce viable Obamacare exchanges to reimburse federal taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, and Wyoming Republican Sen. John Barrrasso introduced the legislation Wednesday.

“Hard-working American taxpayers should not be forced to foot the bill for what has already turned into an almost $500 million boondoggle,” Sen. Hatch said in a statement.

The bill would only apply to states who give up entirely on their exchanges and belatedly choose to have the federal government take over and operate their Obamacare marketplace. It would require states to repay ten percent of their federal grant funding each year over a ten year period.

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Judge Rules Idaho Must Recognize Same-Sex Marriage

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A judge ruled that Idaho must recognize same-sex marriage.

According to a news release issued Tuesday, Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge for the District of Idaho Candy W. Dale ruled in favor of four same-sex couples who were challenging Idaho’s marriage laws.

Dale ruled the laws in question violated the rights of gays and lesbians under the 14th Amendment.

“If every individual enjoys a constitutional right to marry, what is the substance of that right for gay or lesbian individuals who cannot marry their partners of choice?” Dale asked in the memorandum decision and order. “Traditional man-woman marriage is no answer, as this would suggest that gays and lesbians can switch off their sexual orientation and choose to be content with the universe of opposite-sex partners approved by the state.”

Unless an appeal is filed in a higher court and that court issues a stay, Idaho must recognize the marriages starting Friday at 9 a.m.

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2 Boys Injured After ‘Bounce House’ Flies 20 Feet into Air

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Two boys, ages 5 and 6, in upstate New York were seriously injured Monday after an inflatable bounce house went airborne, according to police.

The house reached heights of between 15 and 20 feet, the South Glens Falls Police Department said in a statement.

Police said the two boys were still in the hospital Wednesday and are in stable condition, according to the Associated Press. One boy, who suffered a head injury, is in a medically induced coma, AP reports.

We’ve received more pictures of the #bouncehouse accident https://t.co/EBQ9jtl7K3pic.twitter.com/AI5LHgdtOS

— The Post-Star (@poststar) May 13, 2014

One boy was dropped onto a parked car and the other landed in the street. A 10-year-old girl was also tossed from the bounce house and suffered minor injuries, reports WNYT-TV in Albany.

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Christian Pregnant Mother in Sudan Sentenced to Death, 100 Lashes on Mother’s Day

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A Christian mother living in Sudan, pregnant with her second child, was sentenced to 100 lashes and death on Mother’s Day for adultery and apostasy, a persecution watchdog group revealed.

“We grieve today at the sentencing to death of a mother, pregnant with her second child, for the expression of her faith and legal marriage to a practicing Christian,” said International Christian Concern Regional Manager William Stark.

“The handing down of such an extreme punishment under a law inspired by the al-Turabi radicalism of the early al-Bashir regime brings into question the direction Sudan intends to head following South Sudanese succession. Having embraced policies of Islamization and Arabization in the past, ICC fears Meriam could be the first of many more Christians to suffer under an increasingly radicalized Sudanese government intent on enforcing Shari’ah (Islamic) law throughout the land.”

The woman, 27-year old Meriam Yahia Ibrahim, received the sentencing on Sunday, when the U.S. celebrated Mother’s Day. She appeared before El Haj Yousif Public Order Court in Khartoum, Sudan.

ICC reported that Ibrahim was raised as an Orthodox Christian, is a graduate of Khartoum University and was a practicing MD. She married a South Sudanese Christian, Daniel Wani, but since she was born in Sudan, a heavily Islamic country, she is officially considered a Muslim, which makes her marriage to a non-Muslim illegal in Sudan’s court system.

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CAIR: Remove ‘Islamist Extremism,’ ‘Jihadism’ From 9/11 Museum Video

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Photo Credit: National September 11 Memorial Museum

Photo Credit: National September 11 Memorial Museum

Days before the National September 11 Memorial Museum opens in New York, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is stepping up its campaign to urge organizers to edit a video presentation on al-Qaeda, to remove terms such as “Islamist extremism” and “jihadism.”

An earlier CAIR initiative – a letter last month co-signed by several other Muslim and Arab-American organizations, complaining to museum directors about what they called “academically controversial terminology” – met with no success.

On Monday CAIR’s New York chapter began asking “all Americans” to lobby national and New York leaders on the issue.

A “click and send” letter made available by the chapter calls for the short video entitled “The Rise of Al-Qaeda” to be edited to remove “anti-Islamic terminology,” before the museum opens to the public next Wednesday.

The appeal is addressed to President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, New York Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer, Mayor Bill de Blasio, and City Councilwoman Margaret Chin, who represents lower Manhattan.

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Feds Spending $1.5 Million on ‘Bicycle Trains,’ ‘Walking School Buses’ to Get Kids to Lose Weight

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The federal government is spending more than $1.5 million to research how “bicycle trains” and “walking school buses” can help obese children lose weight.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is currently funding two studies to a researcher at Seattle Children’s Hospital, both of which aim to get more children to stop riding the school bus.

Dr. Jason Mendoza has received $405,835 for a pilot study on “bicycle trains,” or a group of kids who bike to school with adult chaperons. The project is billed as a “low-cost, practical program to reduce risk of obesity for at-risk children.”

The study, which just got underway in two Seattle elementary schools, is focusing on “low-income and ethnic minority children,” who are at the highest risk for obesity, according to the grant.

The project first received funding in February 2013, and will continue until next January. Mendoza, a pediatrician and associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine, is following 80 fourth and fifth graders for the “pilot cluster.”

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Judge Nap: Idea of Chaplain for Atheist Soldiers Is ‘Political Correctness Gone Crazy’

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

The Department of Defense may soon consider adding a chaplain for atheist service members. A source told Fox News that the Military Association of Atheists and Free Thinkers planned to make the request today, floating its president Jason Torpy as the proposed chaplain.

Rep. John Fleming, R-La., who last year opposed the creation of such a position, also voiced concerns about the planned request. He told FoxNews.com he’s got to wait and see how the proposal plays out, but threatened to use legislation to block it if necessary.

“We’re only finding out about this now,” he said. Fleming said the law is clear that any chaplain needs to have an “endorsing agency” and questioned whether the applicant would have that here. “We just don’t see any avenue, but you know we’ve been surprised before by the military.”

The move would come after lawmakers, including Fleming, battled over the same issue last year.

Democrats tried, unsuccessfully, to pass legislation creating such a post in 2013. In response, Republicans offered up a measure of their own to prohibit the Pentagon from naming such a chaplain. The House approved the measure in July.

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Eric Holder: No Plans at DOJ to Investigate Secret Waiting Lists and Veteran Deaths at VA Hospitals

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Photo Credit: Weekly Standard

Photo Credit: Weekly Standard

Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that the Department of Justice doesn’t have any plans to investigate allegations that veterans placed on secret waiting lists at VA hospitals died while waiting for care.

“Well, obviously these reports if they’re true are unacceptable, and the allegations are being taken very seriously by the administration. But I don’t have any announcements at this time with regard to anything that the Justice Department is doing,” Holder told reporters at a press conference.

“This is something on our radar screen at this point, but there is an investigation being done by the [VA] inspector general, and we’ll see what happens as a result of that inquiry and other information that comes to light in some form or fashion,” Holder added.

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Russia to Ban US from Using Space Station

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Photo Credit: Camera Press / Ria Novosti

Photo Credit: Camera Press / Ria Novosti

Russia is to deny the US future use of the International Space Station beyond 2020 and will also bar its rocket engines from launching US military satellites as it hits back at American sanctions imposed over Ukraine crisis.

Russia’s deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin announced a series of punitive measures on Tuesday against the US in response to sanctions imposed after Russia annexed Crimea.

The two countries have long cooperated closely on space exploration despite their clashes in foreign policy.

The Space Station is manned by both American and Russian crew, but the only way to reach it is by using Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft.

The US is keen to keep the $100 billion (£600) ISS flying until at least 2024, four years beyond its original target.

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