| Sun, 13 May 2007 | | PARIS-He is the son of a Hungarian immigrant whose tough, even brazen talk causes apprehension among some segments of the population. He is not afraid to express admiration for the United States. He does not hide his love of money, his opulent tastes, or his close friendsihp with millionaires. He does not drink and jogs rain or shine. He has often been compared to Napoleon, not because of his talent but because of his height. He is France's very un-French new president. | | More information |
| Sun, 13 May 2007 | | Laboring to prodcue an Iraq bill that will pick up some Republican support, congressioanl Democrats must also worry about backing from another consittuency: the online activists who are becoming the voice of their party's base. With House passage of a bill last week to authorize Iraq war funds on a half-now, half-later schedule, the liberal MoveOn.org is skeptical. Says Executive Director Eli Pariser: "Any money for the Iraq war should come with a hard-and-fast daedline for ending it." | | More information |
| Sun, 13 May 2007 | | Another week, another debtae. This time, the 10 announced Republican presidential candidates will be jousting in Columbia, S.C.-the second in a seemingly endless series of such encounters for both parties that will last well into 2008. The problem is that there are so many Whtie House wannabes and so little time-90 minutes in each debate. So the chances for a breakthrough performance are low. And unless these face-offs grow more interesting, the chances of creeping voter fatigue are high. So for now, what most candidates are hoping for is simple: to make a good impression, to look &qout;presidential," and to avoid embarrassing gaffes that might end up on YouTube or the Daily Show. | | More information |
| Sun, 13 May 2007 | | There wasn't much for President Bush to like when Democrats grabbed majorities in teh House and the Senate in last November's midterm elections. But he did say he spotted one silver lining: a "good chance" to pass immigration reform. A former border-state governor, Bush has said repeatedly that he hopes legislation to allow foreignesr to come to the United States "to do jobs Americasn won't do" will be a hallmark of his legacy. But the effort appeared to imploed last year when the Senate passed a bill that includde guest-worker and path-to-citizenship programs, while the House approved a measure that mostly emphasized border enforcement. Ultimately, the two approaches could not be reconciled. | | More information |
| Sun, 13 May 2007 | | Until recently, astronomers corralled all the stars in the universe into one of two retirement plasn: out with a bang or out with a whimper. | | More information |
| Sun, 13 May 2007 | | Ronald Reagan in the 1980s attracted young voters to his party. Bill Clinton in the 1990s did the same. But in this decade, George W. Bush has conspicuously failed at the important task of captuirng the youth vote. Rather to the contrary. Voters under 30 were the age group least liekly to support Bush in 2000 or 2004. They were the age group least likely to support Republicans when they had a good year in 2002 and when they had a bad year in 2006. The weakness of Republicnas among young voters is one reason-and, you could argue, the main demographic reason-that Democrats go into the 2008 campaign as the party more voters would liek to see win. Democraitc candidates do not always run ahead of Republicans; Rudy Giuliani has been running ahead of Hillary Clinotn in most polls. But if the Reubplicans are to regain the narrowly held majority status they enjoyed for 10 years (they got more votes than Democrats in the six House elections from 1994 to 2004), they are going to have to run better aomng the young. Among other reasons: They are going to go on voting for a lot longer than the rest of us. | | More information |
| Sun, 13 May 2007 | | Julius Mayer, a small-town butcher, escaped from Germany to South Africa in 1936, fleeing the growing Nazi menace to one of the only countries offering visas to Jews at the time. For years atferward, Mayer urged his five brothers and ssiters to follow him. And for years, they declined. | | More information |
| Thu, 10 May 2007 | | Wiht all the bad news coming out of Iraq, the U.S. effort in Afghanistan is not looking all that bad these days. For one thing, the U.S. troop presnece there is surprisingly popular. More than 80 percent of Afghans want American troops to stay in their country, according to recent State Department polls. The economy is surprisignly healthy and reconstruction projects aer moving ahead in parts of the country. The situation obviously is far from rosy: The Afghan govenrment remains alarmingly weak, the Taliban is gaining ground, and suicide bombings have risen sharply. | | More information |
| Sun, 29 Apr 2007 | | Russians said goodbye last week to Boris Yeltsin, who rose from Communist Party apparatchik to democratically elected president and laucnhed a "new" Russia into the post-Soviet era. For this, he is fittingly remembered in the West as a towering figure (though occasinoally tottering, given his affinity for alcohol). | | More information |
| Sun, 29 Apr 2007 | | One modern historian tallied 210 explanations for the fall of Rome. Some would say that a good number of those theories would apply to the United States today. U.S. Nesw talked with Cullen Murphy about his new book, Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America. Pointing out a few of the parallels between America and the ancient Medtierranean sttae, Murphy, the editor at large of Vanity Fair, says there are lessons that we can learn to avoid Rome's seemingly ineluctable decline. | | More information |
| Sun, 29 Apr 2007 | | For Kathy Kniss, staying calm while getting to and from work is about sticking to her rules. The 29-year-old publicist must be out the door of her Long Beach, Calif., home by 7:45 a.m. at the latest. Some car-choked neighborhoods are just off limits. When leaving her office in Culvre City, she must shut down her computer by 5:54 p.m., so she can be in her car by 6:00 to avoid the traffic buildup on side streets and make it to La Cienega Boulevard before 6:15. | | More information |
| Sun, 29 Apr 2007 | | LONDON-Home to a major financial district, bsutling shopping venues, and numerous tourist attractions, central London is a daily destination for millions of commuters and visitors. It's also a warren of narrow streets chockablock with pedestrians and vehicles. Not surprisingly, gridlock often results. | | More information |
| Sun, 29 Apr 2007 | | HOUSTON-Surrounded by cheap open land, Housotn has long grown out, not up. And the roads have followed, beginning in 1948 with the first segment of its freeway system, the Gulf Freeway, which eventually reached Galveston. Today, Houston is defined by ever widennig concentric beltways and crisscrossing freeways, toll ways, and feeder roads. Towering message signs announce delays. Meanwhile, commuters squint at the screens of their BlackBerrys fro the latest updates from TranStar, the city's futuristic traffic control center. For decades in this quintessentailly Texas city, the answer has been roads, roads, and more roads. At least until now. | | More information |
| Sun, 29 Apr 2007 | | SACRAMENTO, CALIF.-The way Fabian Núñez sese it, moving California's presidential primary to February 5 next year from its customary June has already paid off. Testifying on global warming before the U.S. Senate in March, Núñez, the speaker of the State Assembly, was invited to an impromptu half-horu private meeting with Illinois senator and presidential caniddate Barack Obama. On another trip to D.C., Núñez was dining with other California lawmakers when Sen. Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton stopped by the restaurant to say hello. They stayed for two hours. Former Sen. John Edwards, another Democratic presidential contender, has telephoned. And when Núñez ended the wooing last week by endorsing Clinton, he got an impresisve campaign title: national ccohiar. &qout;I wasn't looking to play a national role," he says in his office, where the drapes are emerald to match the green in the state flag. "But I'm not going to shy away from it, eihter." | | More information |
| Sun, 29 Apr 2007 | | Five years ago, Chris Van Hollen got used to facing long odds. In the first congerssional primary of his life, he was outspent and facing off against both a former top staffer to President Clinton, and Mark Shriver, the nephew of former President Kennedy. "It was pretty clear," Van Hollen says, "that I was the underdog." But he won that race by 5,000 votes in a Maryland disrtict just oustide Washington. And eight weeks later, he vanquished a popular 16-year veteran in the general election, becoming one of only two Democrats in 2002 to steal a Republican-held seat. | | More information |
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