Israel foils Al Qaeda plot to attack American embassy in Tel Aviv

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JERUSALEM –  JERUSALEM –  Israel has foiled an Al Qaeda plan to attack the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Fox News confirmed. 

According to a senior U.S. official who has been briefed on the intelligence shared by Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, about the plot,  “we have no reason to question the Israeli intelligence.”

 "Details are still emerging,” he said.

The official described the plot as “audacious” and involving a “small cell.”

Shin Bet said Wednesday it arrested three Palestinians it accuses of plotting to carry out bombings, shootings, kidnappings and other attacks.

It said the men, two from Jerusalem and one from the West Bank, were recruited by an operative based in the Gaza Strip who worked for Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Shin Bet alleges the Palestinians planned on attacking a Jerusalemconference center with firearms and then killing rescue workers with a truck bomb.

It said Al Qaeda also planned to send foreign militants to attack the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv on the same day using explosives supplied by the Palestinians.

Fox News' Leland Vittert and Jennifer Griffin and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Embryo 'adoption': Clinic seeks to match unused IVF embryos with loving families

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  Stephanie and Ben Hawkins conceived their daughter using a donor embryo.

Stephanie Hawkins is one of the 6.7 million women in the U.S. who struggle with infertility. But when she and her husband Ben realized they wouldn’t be able to have biological children, the Rochester, NY couple decided it was time to try to start their family another way.

“[Using a sperm or egg donor] seemed like going outside of our marriage,” Hawkins, now 33, told FoxNews.com. “So we decided [a baby] will either be from both of us or…we’ll go the route of adoption.”

But instead of a traditional adoption, the couple decided to pursue another option: embryo donation – also sometimes referred to as embryo “adoption.”

When a woman undergoes in vitro fertilization (IVF), she freezes a number of embryos in order to achieve a successful pregnancy – sometimes those frozen embryos go unused for various reasons. Embryo donation refers to the process in which a woman chooses to donate unused IVF embryos– usually anonymously – to a clinic so another woman can have a child.

For people with leftover embryos, their options include donation, destroying the embryos, keeping them frozen or allowing them to be used for scientific research. For this reason, Stephanie and Ben felt embryo donation was not only a good option for their family – but also the “pro-life” thing to do.

“These embryos, rather than being discarded or thrown out like trash, or used to be researched on in some lab or just sitting indefinitely frozen in limbo…you’re giving them this chance at life, releasing them from their frozen state,” Hawkins said.

A unique way to start a familyTo help them start their family, Stephanie and Ben chose Nightlight Christian Adoptions’ Snowflakes Embryo Adoption program, after receiving referrals from both a family friend and their obstetrician.

According to Kimberly Tyson, marketing and program director for Snowflakes Embryo Adoption, Nightlight chooses to employ the phrase embryo ‘adoption’ – as opposed to ‘donation’ – because the organization believes in utilizing practices common in traditional adoptions to match embryo donors with recipients.

Typically, embryo donations occur anonymously, requiring no contact between the donor and recipient, Dr. Paula Amato, the chair of the ethics committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) told FoxNews.com in an email.

The Snowflake Embryo Adoption program is unique in that it is one of a few clinics in the United States that allows the donor family to have a say in who receives their embryos – encouraging open communication between families after a donation results in a birth. Furthermore, recipients go through screening processes similar to those seen in adoption.  

“We treat [donors] in this perspective like a woman with an unplanned pregnancy, though the comparison ends there,” Tyson told FoxNews.com. “A birth mother chooses which family she will place her children with, and we feel donor parents should have same ability to choose who their embryos go with.”

Controversies surrounding embryo donation and ‘adoption’
The legal status of embryos in the United States has long been a topic of debate. In fact, in 2006, Nightlight Christian Adoptions was drawn into the debate surrounding the ethics of using embryos for scientific research when President George W. Bush invited the families of ‘Snowflake’ children to attend an event in which he vetoed increased funding for embryonic stem cell research.

The term embryo ‘adoption’ is also controversial in the world of assisted reproductive technology.

In a paper from the ASRM’s Ethics Committee, the group states that, “Embryos are deserving of special respect, but they should not be afforded the same status as persons. Adoption refers to a specific legal procedure that establishes or transfers parentage of existing children. Application of the term ‘adoption’ to embryos is inaccurate, is misleading, and could place burdens upon infertile recipients and should be avoided.”

However, Tyson noted that while Nightlight utilizes the best practices of adoption for their embryo donations, they’re aware that embryo ‘adoption’ is nothing like traditional adoption from a legal standpoint.

“Everybody wants to know: Do you have to finalize in court like regular adoption?” Tyson said. “And the answer to that is ‘no’ because in the U.S. the woman who gives birth is considered the legal parent and the man she is married to is considered father unless they go to lengths to prove otherwise.”

A donation success story
Through Nightlight, Stephanie and Ben eventually matched with a donor. After going through the application process and a home study, the couple “adopted” the donor’s three leftover embryos – and in 2009, Stephanie gave birth to their daughter.

Stephanie and Ben have a good relationship with their donor family, and regularly exchange emails and pictures. They also agreed to a meeting between the two families when their daughter was 2 years old.

Overall, Stephanie said the process has been great and she would recommend it to other families.

“It’s a really cool thing that you’re doing, in the process you get to have your child or children but you’re also helping lives,” Hawkins said.

Tyson said she wishes more of the embryos that are simply destroyed or abandoned could be donated to other women seeking children. Furthermore, Nightlight works with all types of families to facilitate donations.

“We work with people of all faiths, no faiths…the LGBT community, we’ve worked with all of these groups,” Tyson said.

McDonnell fights corruption charges, goes after star witness, 'rickety' case

FILE: TUESDAY, JAN. 21, 2014: FORMER VIRGINIA GOV. BOB MCDONNELL AND WIFE MAUREEN AT A NEWS CONFERENCE IN RICHMOND, VA.AP

Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell is fighting back against federal corruption charges, arguing that prosecutors have a “rickety” case that lacks legal standing and hangs on a questionable witness with a criminal history. Further, his attorneys claim McDonnell's Democratic predecessor engaged in similar activity.

McDonnell’s defense was laid out Wednesday in two court motions from his high-powered Washington legal team, following a federal indictment charging the former Republican lawmaker and wife Maureen with 14 counts of corruption. 

Prosecutors say the couple accepted gifts, vacations and loans from executive Jonnie R. Williams Sr., who was seeking special treatment from the state for his fledgling nutritional supplements company Star Scientific Inc.

“Bob McDonnell is an innocent man,” the defense argued in the opening line of the documents. “He never entered into a legal agreement with Mr. Jonnie Williams or Star Scientific, nor did he ever promise to provide them any official benefits.”

The 43-page indictment reveals the couple’s financial strains and the extent of the McDonnell-Williams relationship, which started in 2009 when McDonnell was campaigning for governor and using Williams’ private jet. It escalated in December 2010 when Williams offered to buy the former Virginia first lady an Oscar de la Renta gown for her husband’s inauguration.

“We are broke,” Maureen McDonnell said in an email to a staffer who advised her not to accept the gown offer.

However, about a year later, Williams took Maureen McDonnell on a New York Cityshopping spree in which he spent about $10,999 at Oscar de la Renta, $5,685 at Louis Vuitton and $2,604 at Bergdorf Goodman, according to the indictment. 

In exchange for the gifts, including a Rolex for the governor and $15,000 to cater a 2011 McDonnell daughter wedding reception, Williams gained access to the governor and his world, which in part included sitting next him at a New York dinner and launching a Star Scientific product in August 2011 at the governor’s mansion, according to court documents.

In July, McDonnell said he repaid more than $120,000 that Williams had given his wife and a real estate business McDonnell and his sister owned, while maintaining he had done nothing illegal, as he continued to do this week.

 “We did not violate the law, and I will use every available resource and advocate I have for as long as it takes to fight these false allegations,” he said Tuesday after the announcement of the indictment, which included charges of wire fraud and giving false statements.

The multi-pronged defense case argues the gifts didn’t amount to bribes because McDonnell, as an elected official, never accepted them in exchange for agreeing to or performing an “official act.”

“Not everything a public official does to benefit a donor is an ‘official act’ … or every photo-op would be a crime,” the lawyers wrote.

They also argued that Democrat Tim Kaine, a U.S. senator from Virginia who preceded McDonnell as governor, accepted thousands of dollars in gifts “while often taking action to help those benefactors.”

Among the gifts that Kaine received was an $18,000 Caribbean vacation from a wealthy donor.

However, the defense team’s most forceful strategy appears to be its attack on the credibility of the prosecution’s star witness, McDonnell’s executive chef, Todd Schneider.

In 2012, Schneider provided federal investigators with such evidence as a copy of William’s $15,000 check to cover the wedding food and drinks, amid a joint state-federal investigation into whether he was pilfering governor's mansion food.

Schneider pleaded no contest to two counts of embezzlement in the case and was order to pay $2,300 to cover the cost of the food.

In 2000, he was found guilty of petty-larceny embezzlement, according to multiple news reports.

McDonnell lawyers say the “rickety legal foundation” of the prosecution’s case is based largely on “immunized testimony purchased with under-the-table promises to a key witness who would otherwise face criminal liability and massive financial liabilities.”

McDonnell, who left office earlier this month on term limits, is being represented by the firms Holland & Knight and Jones Day. The nonprofit, Virginia-based political group Restoration Fund is raising money for McDonnell’s legal defense.

The federal investigation that preceded the charges also overshadowed the final months in office for the once-rising star of the Republican Party as well as the state’s 2013 gubernatorial race, won in November by Democrat Terry McAuliffe.

Williams is no longer the company's chief executive officer.

A McDonnell spokesman in July broke down the $124,115.17 in repayments, including principal and interest, as $52,278.17 for a personal loan Williams made to Maureen McDonnell in 2011 and $71,837 for two loans to the MoBo Real Estate Partners.

Brain-dead woman kept alive by hospital is carrying 'deformed' fetus, attorney says

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  Jan. 3, 2014: Erick Munoz stands with an undated copy of a photograph of himself, left, with wife, Marlise, and their son, Mateo, in Haltom City, Texas. (AP/THE FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM)

DALLAS –  The pregnant, brain-dead Texas woman being kept on life support over her family's protests is carrying a fetus that is "distinctly abnormal," attorneys for the woman's husband said Wednesday.

Marlise Munoz remains hooked up to machines in a Fort Worth hospital, while her husband and the hospital are locked in a court battle about whether to retain life support.

The case has raised questions about end-of-life care and whether apregnant woman who is considered legally and medically dead should be kept on life support for the sake of a fetus. The case has gotten the attention of groups on either side of the abortion debate, as anti-abortion groups argue Munoz's fetus deserves a chance to be born.

Erick Munoz said his wife, a fellow paramedic, was clear with him before he found her unconscious on Nov. 26: If she ever fell into this kind of condition, pull life support. But John Peter Smith Hospital says it's bound by state law that prohibits the withdrawal of treatment from a pregnant patient, although several experts interviewed by The Associated Press have said the hospital is misapplying the law.

Munoz's attorneys, Heather King and Jessica Hall Janicek, issued a statement Wednesday describing the condition of the fetus, now believed to be at about 22 weeks' gestation. King and Janicek based their statement on medical records they received from the hospital.

"According to the medical records we have been provided, the fetus is distinctly abnormal," the attorneys said. "Even at this early stage, the lower extremities are deformed to the extent that the gender cannot be determined."

The attorneys said the fetus also has fluid building up inside the skull and possibly has a heart problem.

"Quite sadly, this information is not surprising due to the fact that the fetus, after being deprived of oxygen for an indeterminate length of time, is gestating within a dead and deteriorating body, as a horrified family looks on in absolute anguish, distress and sadness," the attorneys said.

Spokeswomen for the hospital and the Tarrant County District Attorney's office, which is representing the hospital in the lawsuit, declined to comment Wednesday.

A hearing in the case is scheduled for Friday. Munoz's lawsuit asks a judge to order the hospital to pull life support and return Marlise Munoz's body to her family.

Several experts have said the Texas Advance Directives Act doesn't apply in this case because Marlise Munoz, having suffered brain death, is legally and medically dead -- a key argument in Erick Munoz's lawsuit.

Munoz previously told the AP he wasn't confident about the health of the fetus. His wife was 14 weeks pregnant when he found her unconscious in November, possibly from a blood clot.

A 2010 article in the journal BMC Medicine found 30 cases of brain-dead pregnant women over about 30 years. Of 19 reported results, the journal found 12 in which a viable child was born and had post-birth data for two years on only six of them -- all of whom developed normally, according to the journal.

Supreme Court weighs gun rights challenge

The Supreme Court took up a new gun rights case on Wednesday, weighing whether it should be a crime for someone to buy a gun for somebody else, if both people are legally allowed to own one. 

Justices on Wednesday heard from Bruce James Abramski, Jr., a former police officer who got in trouble with the law after he bought a Glock 19 handgun in Virginia -- and transferred it to his uncle in Pennsylvania. 

Abramski bought the gun because he could get a discount, and checked a box on the relevant form saying the gun was for him. But he sold it to his uncle. 

Abramski was later indicted under federal law for making a false statement material to the lawfulness of a firearm sale -- and for making a false statement with respect to information required to be kept in the records of a license firearm dealer. 

But Abramski's lawyers told the high court that since both he and his uncle were legally allowed to own guns, the law shouldn't have applied to him. 

His team argued that Congress never intended for a lawful buyer who transfers a gun to another lawful owner to be prosecuted under this law -- and that the intent was all about making sure straw buyers don't purchase guns for people not allowed to have them, like certain convicted criminals. 

But the government argued that he violated the plain language of the law, when he said on the form that the gun was for him. They argued he never gave the seller any idea that he planned to essentially resell the gun to someone else the dealer would have no opportunity to vet. 

Much of Wednesday's arguments centered on the question on the form -- prepared by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives -- and whether the agency's decision to include the question gives it the force of law, enough to make it a crime to answer untruthfully. 

A decision in the case is expected by June.

5 years and 3 contractors later, Afghanistan school still deemed unsafe

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  Balkh Education Facility has at times been occupied by students a faculty even though the building was deemed unsafe. (SIGAR)

A school being built in Afghanistan with foreign contractors and funds from American taxpayers has become a money pit that is not even safe for students, a U.S. government watchdog said.

The Mazar-e-Sharif school in the northern Afghanistan region of Balkh, one of 16 schools built in the war-torn nation under a U.S. Agency for International Development plan, has been deemed structurally unsafe, according to Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko. But the faculty and students assigned to the school are so frustrated that they had been holding class there, anyway, according to Sopko's report, which was released Wednesday. 

After five years of construction, the school is still not completed and will require multiple repairs before it can be transferred to Afghan authorities, a report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction's office said.

Some of the building's problems included leaks, crossing sewer linesand an incomplete electrical system that has numerous deficiencies, the report said. The architecture is so poor that a second floor terrace slopes into a classroom, causing floods whenever it rains, according to the report. The report said critical structural calculations were missing during the audit, which was called "a significant oversight" given the chances of a roof caving in or collapse of the septic tank system.

The investigation was conducted during visits in March and October 2013 and focused the audit on the Mazar-e-Sharif school.

USAID provided about $17.1 million to the Army Corps of Engineersin 2008 to construct 16 facilities across the war-torn country. These facilities followed a standard design that included 10 classrooms, four laboratories and other amenities. The Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $2.9 million contract to an Iraqi company to build three facilities in the area. The Iraqi company was issued 62 deficiency notices involving its poor work, the report said. Two other companies worked on the project and the project is still not complete.

These schools are intended to prepare students to become teachers at the secondary level. 

The director of the Balkh facility pointed out that it lacks air conditioning rendering classrooms unusable during summer months, according to the report. USAID officials said they do not consider air conditioning a necessity and will not include the expense.

The agencies are seeking a contractor and hope to complete the project by mid-2014. They have since asked the Afghan Ministry of Higher Education to see to it the building stays vacant until the repairs.

Balkh province is near the Uzbekistan border, has a population of more than 1.1 million people and is divided into 15 districts. On average, only 31 percent of households use safe drinking water,according to the World Food Program.

Turn down the thermostat to support weight loss, say researchers

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  A Nest thermostat is installed in a home. (REUTERS/George Frey)

New research suggests weight loss isn’t just about living a healthy lifestyle—the temperature of the space you live in may have an impact too.

In a new article published in Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism, researchers examined evidence on whether temperature can impact an individual’s ability to regulate body temperature, generate heat and burn fat.

Previous research has indicated that prolonged exposure to mildly cold temperatures can effect a person’s energy expenditure over a period of time. One research group from Japan discovered that after people spent two hours per day in a 62.6 degrees F climate, they experienced a decrease in body fat after six weeks.

Furthermore, the researchers also discovered people adapt to colder temperatures over time. Study author Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt, of Maastricht University Medical Center in The Netherlands, studied a group of 17 subjects living in climate-controlled respiration chambers heated to 59 F for 6 hours a day. After 10 days, participants saw an increase in ‘healthy’ brown fat, felt more comfortable and shivered less compared to at the beginning of the study.

Brown fat is considered to be a healthy fat because it uses energy from food or energy stored in white fat to produce heat.

“Brown fat can be ‘turned on’ when you get cold,” van Marken Lichtenbelt told FoxNews.com. “Instead of shivering, you can turn on brown fat to warm up.”

Heat production affects energy balance, and thereby can affect ourbody weight, van Marken Lichtenbelt said. The researchers said that mildly cold temperatures – around 62 degrees – encourage the body to use nonshivering thermogenesis (NST), a process in which the body burns brown fat to heat the body.

Because indoor temperatures in most buildings are regulated, people are typically exposed to relatively high indoor temperatures during winter months. The researchers concluded that a lack of exposure to ambient temperature leaves populations prone to developing obesity.

They suggest that that keeping living spaces at temperatures closer to outdoor conditions may be healthier for people and also feel more pleasant. Van Marken Lichtenbelt maintained that temperatures should be in line with the outside temperatures – but not exactly the same, so people avoid both sweating or shivering.

“My message is that variable indoor temperatures and having more control can create a more healthy environment,” van Marken Lichtenbelt said. “Physiological studies now show that the cold can be healthy.”

Iran makes pitch for tourists as Americans languish in its prisons

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  Iranian women walk along the southern beach on the island of Kish in the Persian Gulf, south of Tehran. (Reuters)

It’s not quite “I Love New York,” but there’s a new campaign under way to promote tourism to a location with culture, history and beaches galore.

The only problem is the pitchman is President Hassan Rouhani, and the location is Iran, where at least two Americans languish in prison on dubious charges and the authoritarian regime routinely threatens the West with noisy saber-rattling and a rogue nuclear weapons program. Still, Rouhani’s administration claims tourism is up 30 percent over a year ago, and is putting on a full-court press to double its annualnumber of visitors to 10 million.

“U.S. citizens may be subject to harassment or arrest while traveling or residing in Iran.”

- State Department travel advisory

“There hasn't been a better time for Westerners to visit Iran since the 1979 revolution,” The U.K.’s Guardian gushed earlier this month, claiming the Islamic republic is now safer after “November’s historic nuclear agreement” between Iran and the P5+1 nations.

There’s no denying the natural beauty of the nation once known as Persia, with beaches on the Caspian Sea and Kish Islands, desert villages as old as civilization and some 16 sites listed on UNESCO’s World Heritage list. TripAdvisor.com lists such attractions as Tehran’s Treasury of National Gems, which is home to the world’s largest pink diamond, the 1,427-foot Milad Tower and the ancient desert city of Yazd as sites not to be missed.

Although direct flights between the U.S. and Iran haven’t taken off since 1979, when Iranian students took over the U.S. Embassy and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, travelers can connect flights in Istanbul. But they need a special visa and would have to ignore a warning from the State Department that “elements in Iran remain hostile to the United States,” and “U.S. citizens may be subject to harassment or arrest while traveling or residing in Iran.”

There are currently two American citizens being detained in Iranian prisons, former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati, who was charged with spying after going to visit his grandfather, and Saeed Abedini, aChristian pastor from Idaho who was arrested for proselytizing when he went to his homeland to help build a secular orphanage. In addition, ex-FBI Agent Robert Levinson is believed to be held there, although the Iranian government denies it.

In 2009, three American hikers -- Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer, and Joshua Fattal -- were detained for more than two years after allegedly hiking on the border with Iraq and accused of illegally entering Iran.

Abedini's wife, Naghmeh Abedini, blasted the campaign in a statement to FoxNews.com.

"Every time a tourist spends money in Iran, they directly or indirectly support the Revolutionary Guard and this radical government," she said.

The U.S. cut diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran following the embassy takeover of 1979.  Since then, the Swiss government has served as a protecting power for U.S. interests in Iran. Now, with a slight thawing in relations with the West, tour companies are trying to capitalize.

GeoEx, a San Francisco-based travel company specializing in travel to remote destinations, says it has seen a 160-percent growth in individuals traveling to Iran from 2012 to 2013, with more than four times as many people inquiring about Iran as a destination.

“Travel is a different kind of experience. It’s not about politics or war. It’s about the people, the art, the history, the culture, the food,” said Jean-Paul Tennant, CEO of GeoEx, who traveled to Iran in October. “If you had to pick one place where people fear traveling, but then they come back saying these are the friendliest people I have ever met.”

GeoEx, which, in 1993, became the first American tour company to send travelers into Iran after the 1979 Revolution, petitions for travelers’ visas and abides by Iran’s requirement to have all Americans travel with a government guide. Almost all of GeoEx’s clients have no problem getting visas, but if the traveler has previously visited Israel, they will not be let in, Tennant said.

Meanwhile, Rouhani’s administration has announced plans to ease visa requirements to help increase the number of visitors. Tourists from some Gulf countries could soon enter without a visa, and other travelers may be able to purchase a visa upon arrival in Iran.

Rouhani is also working on setting up direct flights between Iran and the U.S., Iranian news agency Tansim reported last September.

“It’s obvious when they come here that it’s not what they see in the news. They feel safe and love the people,” a hotel manager from the city of Tabriz, who did not want to be identified, told Fox News.

He said most of the travelers staying at his hotel are from Iraq, Turkey, China and different parts of Europe.

“The only problem they have is with the women’s hijab [a Muslim headscarf]. I see a lot of tourists, often European women, who complain about having to adhere to the strict dress code, especially during the summer.”