1. Kuwait Airways Dispute

2. Kuwait Airways removed an entire flight service to avoid carrying Israeli passengers. The airline has this week pulled its connection between New York's JFK airport and London Heathrow after U.S. authorities threatened legal action over alleged discrimination. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) warned Kuwaiti Airways that it had "unlawfully discriminated" against a passenger using an Israeli passport by refusing to sell him a ticket. It sent a letter giving the airline 15 days to outline how it would in the future comply with anti-discrimination laws. Kuwait Airways response appears to have been to drop its London-New York route. On December 15th, Kuwait Airways informed the U.S. DOT that they will be eliminating that flight. The airline said it did not sell a ticket because it was not in compliance with Kuwaiti law, which forbids doing business with Israel or Israelis.

3. In Other News After a teacher at a Virginia school handed out a standard homework assignment on Islam, such an angry backlash flooded in that it prompted officials to close every single school in the county as a safety precaution. "While there has been no specific threat of harm to students, schools and school offices will be closed Friday, December 18, 2015," Augusta County Schools said. Extracurricular activities were shut down Thursday afternoon. The assignment: "Here is the shahada, the Islamic statement of faith, written in Arabic. In the space below, try copying it by hand. This should give you an idea of the artistic complexity of calligraphy.” The illustrative classical Arabic phrase was the basic statement in Islam. It translated to: "There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is the messenger of Allah.” In essence the assignment was an experience with calligraphy while also one assignment as a part of a world religions unit (other religions were also being taught). Some parents saw the homework as an attempt to convert their children to Islam (even though the teacher is not Muslim). Calls and emails flooded the school. Some of them demanded the teacher be fired for assigning it. Former students have taken to Facebook to defend the teacher. A new study in the journal Nature argues that external factors such as exposure to toxins and radiation are a major risk factor in developing cancer. Looking at the increasing incidences of various types of cancers, including lung cancer, the authors concluded that "large risk proportions for cancer are attributable to changing environments" such as smoking and air pollutants. Exposure to the sun and poor diet play a role. This has been widely known among scientists, and might sound like common sense. But what this study does is build upon a conversation about how cancer starts and why there is some variability in the kinds of cancers. Earlier this year a study that ran in the journal Science set off a public health debate when it was concluded that many of the cancers were due to "bad luck.” That study suggested it more about genetics.

4. Friday Photos