Newsweek articles from August 2008

Newsweek archives from August 2008

Illuminating an Atypical Spiritual Quest.(Letter to the editor)
August 4, 2008... 'What He Believes': While readers were glad we shed some light on Barack Obama's religious convictions, many weren't particularly concerned. One said, "A candidate's beliefs have no bearing on his or her ability to perform the functions of the...

A $16 Billion Problem.(International; Lobbying)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Michael Isikoff; With Stephan Kuffner In "Quito ***** Clarification: NEWSWEEK's Aug. 4 story "A $16 Billion Problem" contained an imprecise statement about Chevron's disclosures to shareholders regarding a lawsuit against the...

Say Cheese! But Watch For The Applesauce.(Politics)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Holly Bailey And Suzanne Smalley McCain is losing the war of the photo ops. Even his aides say the campaign has to improve. John McCain figured he would have a tough time getting attention last week. The superstar images of...

'The American People Know Me'.(Politics; INTERVIEW)(John McCain)(Interview)
August 4, 2008... McCain talks about offshore drilling, how he plans to win women's votes and his recent foreign-policy gaffes. While riding in a black SUV through a crowd of protesters on his way to deliver a speech at the 2008 American GI Forum in Denver,...

A Viewer's Guide to Beijing.(Olympics: Inside the Games)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Mark Starr THE HOT RIVALRY The U.S.-China Gold Rush: Get Out Your Abacus From its inception, Beijing 2008 was ballyhooed as a nation's coming-out party, one that would presage the Chinese Century. But you don't get your...

Swimming: Michael Phelps Vs. The History Books, Round Two.(Olympics: Inside the Games)(Cover story)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Mark Starr By the time Mark Spitz was Michael Phelps's age, 23, he had retired from competitive swimming and was cavorting on TV with folks like Sonny and Cher, pursuing a career that, unlike his tenure in the pool, sank like a...

Boxing: When We Were Kings.(Olympics: Inside the Games)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Mark Starr ***** Correction: In the Aug. 4 item "When We Were Kings" in "A Viewer's Guide to Beijing," we reported that the last American Olympian to win a gold medal in boxing was Oscar De La Hoya in 1992. Two...

Track And Field: Hurdles For China's Icon.(Olympics: Inside the Games)(Liu Xiang and Dayron Robles)(Cover story)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Mark Starr There are only two things in Beijing bigger than 7-foot-6 hoops star Yao Ming: the Great Wall--and hurdler Liu Xiang. Liu's victory in the 110-meter hurdles in Athens was arguably the most surprising of China's 32 gold...

Doping: Nobody Likes A Cheater.(Olympics: Inside the Games)(Cover story)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Mark Starr The games are still more than a week away and would-be Olympians--from the United States to Bulgaria to China--have already tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. And no doubt more Olympic athletes will flunk...

Gymnastics: Two Archrivals Go To The Mats.(Olympics: Inside the Games)(Cover story)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Mark Starr China's girls on bars and beams are adorable. Ours are, too. More important, though, the Chinese and U.S. women's gymnastics teams are the best in the world, making this the one sport in which the two Olympic powers can...

Long-Distance Running: Can't Beat 'Em? Import 'Em.(Olympics: Inside the Games)(Cover story)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Mark Starr THOSE who view the Olympics through a red-white-and-blue prism tend to regard track's distance events as bathroom breaks. Too bad, because that means they've missed some classic duels, usually between African runners. No...

Dara Torres: The Tale Of 'Supermom'.(Olympics: Inside the Games)(Cover story)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Mark Starr The Summer of 1984, Los Angeles: A year before Michael Phelps was even born, hometown girl Dara Torres, just 17, won an Olympic gold medal in the 4x100 meter freestyle relay. Three golds, one silver and four bronzes...

Bicycle Motocross: Come On, Let's Go For A Ride.(Olympics: Inside the Games)(Cover story)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Mark Starr New Olympic sports can usually be summed up with one of three words: "fast," "sexy" or "splat." Anything that showcases speed, skin or danger makes the sport TV-friendly. Snowboard cross, with its downhill velocity and...

Basketball: What Dream Teams Are Made Of.(Olympics: Inside the Games)(Cover story)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Mark Starr The "dream team" label hasn't fit for a long time. Lately, it's been more like a nightmare. Our NBA hoopsters bottomed out at the 2002 worlds, finishing in a pathetic sixth place--on our home court in Indianapolis, no...

Sprinting: Gay's Day: Dashed By Lightning Bolt?(Olympics: Inside the Games)(Tyson Gay)(Cover story)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Mark Starr No Olympic sport has had more star reputations ruined by doping than track and field. Sure, cycling, swimming and weightlifting have all taken big lumps. But so many heroic runners have turned into goats--Ben Johnson,...

Martial Arts: Fighting Family Taes.(Olympics: Inside the Games)(Steven Lopez)(Cover story)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Mark Starr Steven Lopez is among the most accomplished U.S. Olympians you've probably never heard of. The 29-year-old Houston native will be bidding for his third consecutive taekwondo gold in Beijing. That makes him the biggest...

Softball And Soccer: Goodbye, Golden Girls.(Olympics: Inside the Games)(Cover story)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Mark Starr Two of America's most successful women's teams are hoping that Beijing will get them headed back in the right direction. The soccer team is trying to rebound from a disappointing and dispiriting performance in last...

Moscow on the Hudson.(Periscope; REAL ESTATE)(Russian oligarchs invest on Amercan real estate properties)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Daniel Gross In this summer of high-end real-estate purgatory, New York real-estate circles are abuzz over some good news. In early July, a town house on a gilded block of East 64th Street changed hands for $42.5 million. The buyer...

World Stage Edition.(Periscope; CONVENTIONAL WISDOM WATCH)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Barack Obama's trip to the Middle East and Europe was so boffo, he had to remind a reporter that he was a senator, not the president. Obama UP-Hits three-pointers in Kuwait, received in Europe like a head of state. Mon dieu! McCain...

Page Turning Edition.(Periscope; A CW LOOK AT BEACH READING)(Brief article)(Recommended readings)
August 4, 2008... Satisfying summer reading doesn't always come from the top of the best-seller lists. Some new titles and some you might have missed. 'Mr. S' UP-Frank Sinatra's former valet dishes about the Kennedys, the mob, Mia Farrow et al. 'Nothing...

Needed: A Real Bat Man.(Periscope; Sports)(baseball)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Adam De Jong Major league baseball fans, take note: you might consider swapping your glove for a helmet next time you head to a game. A recent surge in exploding bats has sent bystanders ducking for cover. In April, a woman was...

Why Are You A Democrat?(Periscope; Books)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Katie Baker To compile "Why I'm A Democrat," editor Susan Mulcahy recruited more than 50 fellow party faithful, including celebs like Tony Bennett, Isaac Mizrahi and Nora Ephron, along with farmers, waitresses and one billionaire...

Cristina Garcia.(Periscope; A LIFE IN BOOKS)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... The Cuban-born novelist has written four books, including "Dreaming in Cuban," a National Book Award finalist, and her latest, "A Handbook to Luck." Her picks: My Five Most Important Books 1. "Labyrinths" by Jorge Luis Borges....

The Techie in Chief.(Anna Quindlen; THE LAST WORD)(John McCain)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Anna Quindlen The terrorists have laptops in their hideouts. Can America afford to have a leader who is just learning how to use one? Honest Abe was a techie. Yep, it's true. President Lincoln pushed hard for the spread of...

Required Reading.(Entertainment; BOOKS)(How Fiction Works)(Book review)
August 4, 2008... Byline: David Gates Critic James Wood wrote the book on how to write a book--and how not to. James Wood's new book, "How Fiction Works," is as knowing as you'd expect from one of the best critics alive--more knowing than that, in...

Here's to the Health of the CEO.(The Technologist)(Steve Jobs)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Daniel McGinn Rumors that Jobs is ill may be overblown, but he's seen as so central to Apple's success that investors are jittery. His trademark black turtleneck hung a little too loose. His blue jeans sagged; his face seemed...

Love to Hate the Hummer.(Business)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Keith Naughton; With Tara Weingarten, Patrick Crowley and Mary Chapman It's gone from Hollywood status symbol to the butt of jokes faster than you can say $4 a gallon. Has the Hummer lost its street cred? To find out, NEWSWEEK...

The Editor's Desk.(The Editor's Desk)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Daniel Klaidman Years ago, when I was a freshly minted foreign correspondent in Jerusalem, a colleague offered me a valuable insight into Israel's national psychology. The key word to know, he told me, was freier, which, loosely...

Survive Cancer, Have Baby.(Medicine)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Anna Kuchment The emerging field of oncofertility offers hope to patients who worried that they couldn't conceive. When Annie Dauer's oncologist told her she'd need a stem-cell transplant to cure her non-Hodgkin's lymphoma,...

The Taliban's Baghdad Strategy.(Afghanistan)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Sami Yousafzai And Ron Moreau The insurgents are closing in on Kabul, not in order to overrun the capital but to terrorize its residents and drive away investors. It's working. Faridoon stares in alarm at the two NEWSWEEK...

'Yes, There Have Been Differences Between America And Europe. But The Burdens Of Global Citizenship Continue To Bind Us Together.'.(Politics; Campaign 2008)(Barack Obama interview)(Interview)
August 4, 2008... --Sen. Barack obama in Berlin, July 24, 2008 Even if he wins the election this fall, Barack Obama will have a hard time matching the rock-star reception he received in Europe last week. More than 200,000 fans came to hear him speak in...

Obama's Reagan Moment.(Politics: Campaign 2008; Dispatch)(Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Louisa Thomas He passed a test in Berlin, but harder ones await. Berlin has long been a testing ground for American statesmen. In 1963 John F. Kennedy faced the challenge of how to address the recently erected Berlin wall, and...

It's Not About The Flatware.(My Turn)(marriage)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Ed Goldman; Goldman Lives In Sacramento, Calif. After two marriages each, my new wife and I are learning what it means to combine households. My wife and I met on Aug. 2, 2007, became engaged on Nov. 10 and were married on Jan....

Rozita Swinton's Bad Call.(National Affairs)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Arian Campo-Flores And Catharine Skipp; With Anne Underwood Police say her deception set off the FLDS raid. Prank or personality disorder? When Flora Jessop answered her phone on the morning of March 30, a female caller spoke...

The Secret Life of Vampires.(Newsmakers; Q&A)(Stephenie Meyer's 'Breaking Dawn')(Interview)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Susan Elgin Susan Elgin "Breaking Dawn," the final book in the mega-successful "Twilight" series, about a sexy vampire named Edward and the girl who loves him, goes on sale Aug. 2. Author Stephenie Meyer talked to Susan Elgin...

Batty and Very Catty.(Newsmakers)(Christian Bale and Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... It was a big week for Hollywood fights--and we're not talking about Batman vs. the Joker. Actually, Batman himself, Christian Bale, turned himself in to police, reportedly after arguing with his mother and sister in a London hotel. The details...

Winehouse's Night at the Museum.(Newsmakers; POP QUIZ)(Amy Winehouse)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Amy Winehouse might look waxy from time to time--OK, most of the time--but now she's got her own wax figure at Madame Tussauds in London. See if you can pick out the fake Amy in a lineup of real ones: B is the wax Amy

Taco Beef.(Newsmakers)(Taco Bell)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... And you thought that Taco Bell gave you heartburn? Rapper 50 Cent is suing the fast-food chain for using his name without his permission in ads. The company said it would donate $10,000 to charity if for one day 50 Cent became 79 Cent, 89 Cent...

China's Agony Of Defeat.(Cover Story: Olympics)(Cover story)
August 4, 2008... It's impossible to understand what the Games mean to the Chinese without understanding their history of humiliation. The Olympics are an irresistible stage for athletes--but also for those who wish to act out their grievances before the...

The Road From Rome.(Olympics: Inside the Games)(Cover story)
August 4, 2008... Politics, commercialism, doping, nonstop TV coverage--it all started in 1960. Avery Brundage, the Crusty Chicago businessman who ran the International Olympic Committee as his vast personal fiefdom during the middle decades of the 20th...

Who'll Stop The Rain?(Sharon Begley; On Science)(Beijing Olympics)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Sharon Begley Weather modification is marked by 'failure to provide demonstrable successes.' Close pollution-belching factories around Beijing? Check. Restrict cars and trucks? Oh, yes. Send hookers, beggars, vagrants and...

Perspectives.(Perspectives)(Quotation)
August 4, 2008... "The whole Mississippi has a sheen on it." Plaquemines, La., parish president Billy Nungesser, on the aftermath of a 416,000-gallon oil spill that spread across 98 miles of river just north of New Orleans "He is convinced that with the...

Where Karadzic Drank 'Blood'.(Periscope; INTERNATIONAL)(Radovan Karadzic)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Rod Nordland Tomas (Misko) Kovijanic has been drinking all day, which may help explain why he sounds a touch maudlin as he recalls the fugitive who had become a regular at the Mad House, the tiny cafe Misko runs in New Belgrade....

Bob Novak Has Had Better Weeks.(Periscope; THE DIGNITY INDEX)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... A weekly mathematical survey of dubious behavior that measures, on a scale of 1 to 100, just how low a person can go. First, he whines that John McCain may have used him to peddle veepselection rumors to distract from Obama's trip. Really?...

Thanks for the Offer, But --.(Periscope; CHINA)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Mary Hennock Officials in China's devastated Sichuan province are getting a crash course in a novel concept: accepting philanthropy. Since the May 12 earthquake that killed nearly 70,000 people and destroyed homes across the...

Inside the Grieving Brain.(Periscope; HEALTH MATTERS)(complicated grief)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Jerry Adler Memories of the person they missed prolonged their grief, giving them pleasure as well as pain. Mourning the death of a loved one is about as universal a human emotion as exists, and it's not even confined to...

Hope Amid A Downturn.(Periscope; Poverty)(housing for the homeless)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Matthew Philips The real-estate bust is creating an unexpected benefit: housing for the homeless. Even as the foreclosure crisis pushes some low income families into shelters, chronic homeless rates are shrinking thanks in part to...

The Homeownership Obsession.(Robert J. Samuelson; JUDGMENT CALLS)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Robert J. Samuelson As a society, we overinvest in real estate. We build (and buy) too many extra-big homes and strive to make almost everyone into a buyer. The real lessons of the housing crisis have gotten lost. It's...

The Fiction Behind Torture Policy.(The Verdict)
August 4, 2008... The lawyers designing interrogation techniques cited Jack Bauer more frequently than the Constitution. The most influential legal thinker in the development of modern American interrogation policy is not a behavioral psychologist,...

Preparing for Splitsville.(Tip Sheet: Money; DIVORCE)(how to deal with divorce settlement during economic crisis)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Linda Stern It's been more than a year since Janette Chamberlin and her husband decided to divorce. To save money on lawyers, they've been negotiating their own settlement and are ready to draw up the papers and finalize the deal....

Bring Back The Birds And Bees.(Tip Sheet; Outdoors)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Christina Gillham Years of suburban development and unsustainable gardening practices have led to vanishing wildlife populations. The National Wildlife Federation has stepped up its efforts to promote its Backyard Wildlife Habitat...

And You Call This a Vacation?(Tip Sheet; MODERN FAMILY / Kathy Deveny)(Personal account)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Kathleen Deveny; With Joan Raymond My stack of novels is ready. I have sunblock ranging in SPF level from 15 to 50. I have located my bathing suit. By the time you read this I will be away on vacation. I can imagine my BlackBerry...

Checklist: Our Top Picks For The Week.(Tip Sheet)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Rent "The Band's Visit." An Egyptian police band en route to a concert gets stranded in a remote Israeli desert town. This droll and poignant crowd-pleaser, set several decades ago, wrings fresh and unsentimental variations on themes of...

A Word From Our Sponsor.(Culture; Television)('Mad Men')
August 4, 2008... Byline: Jennie Yabroff; With Susan Elgin 'Mad Men' may be set in the 1960s, but the show's period-piece ads tell us plenty about ourselves. This week on "Mad Men": an American Airlines flight has crashed into Jamaica Bay just after...

China Shouldn't be Inscrutable.(Fareed Zakaria; WORLD VIEW)
August 11, 2008... Byline: Fareed Zakaria To say that this new China is the same as the old is to be utterly ignorant or ideological--perhaps both. China Shouldn't Be Inscrutable With the Beijing Olympics starting at the end of this week, you might...

Boston's Soul Savior.(Entertainment; MUSIC)('I Got the Feelin': James Brown in the '60s')(Video recording review)
August 11, 2008... Byline: Brian Braiker A new DVD set captures James Brown at his peak--including his historic MLK memorial concert. The rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, and on the weekend that followed riots and civil...

Lessons From Locke.(Education)(Teach for America, Lock high school)
August 11, 2008... The author spent a year embedded with Teach For America. Can its recruits really remake education? Earlier this summer, Wendy Kopp flew round trip from New York to L.A. in one day. Kopp, the founder of Teach For America--the national...

Being Mr. Big.(Business)(Steve Rattner)
August 11, 2008... Byline: Johnnie L. Roberts Financier and Democratic moneyman Steve Rattner seems to have it all. Looks can be deceiving. People to the manner born once deemed Manhattan apartment-living declasse. A century ago, only ostentatious...

This Bug Man Is a Pest.(Technology)(George Ledin)
August 11, 2008... Byline: Adam B. Kushner George Ledin teaches students how to write viruses, and it makes computer-security software firms sick. In a windowless underground computer lab in California, young men are busy cooking up viruses, spam and...

It's a Wonderful Life (In Jersey).(Daniel Gross; THE MONEY CULTURE)(Hudson City Bancorporation)
August 11, 2008... Byline: Daniel Gross Because of its geographic and cultural distance from Manhattan, the bridge-and-tunnel bank has thrived. "If you look to the right, you can see New York City," says Ronald Hermance Jr., CEO of Hudson City Bancorp,...

Anything But Crocs.(Business)
August 11, 2008... Byline: Steve Tuttle A rant against America's faddish footwear. Is the boom over? I like to play a game with my 10-year-old son, Joseph. We sit on a bench in touristy Old Town, Alexandria, Va., and we're not allowed to get up until we...

Tragic Tale of Two Troubled Teens.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
August 11, 2008... 'Murder in the 8th Grade': Readers in turn were angered and deeply perturbed by the systemic failure to prevent such a tragedy. One asked, "Did Larry King get a pass on his repeated sexual harassment of Brandon McInerney because he was gay, and...

The Editor's Desk.(Editorial)
August 11, 2008... Byline: Daniel Klaidman In May, after Barack Obama got trounced in the West Virginia primary, our foreign editor, Nisid Hajari, had an idea for a story. Why not send one of our veteran foreign correspondents through the American South to...

Homogenizers in Retreat.(George F. Will; THE LAST WORD)(European Union)
August 11, 2008... Byline: George F. Will At their worst--their best is bad enough--EU enthusiasts clumsily invoke the pale specter of a synthetic terror. When Alexander the Great's weary soldiers trudged into northern Pakistan around 327 B.C., they were...

Southern Discomfort.(Cover Story: Politics; Campaign 2008)(southern states)(Cover story)
August 11, 2008... Byline: Christopher Dickey For as long as I've been alive the old Confederacy has been a land without closure, where history keeps coming at you day after day, year after year, decade after decade, as if the past were the present, too, and...

Jerusalem Up Against the Wall.(Middle East)
August 11, 2008... Byline: Kevin Peraino; With Joanna Chen and Nuha Musleh in Jerusalem Israel's separation barrier has blocked West Bank bombers, but may be creating a new threat within. Jerusalem Up Against the Wall Ghassan Abu Tir's favorite...

The Happy Mellencampers.(Entertainment; MUSIC)(John Mellencamp's 'Thank You')
August 11, 2008... Byline: Kristi York Wooten The joys, and pitfalls, of selecting campaign music. By now, John Mellencamp is used to hearing his songs on the Election 2008 soundtrack. McCain, Clinton and Edwards all used his patriotic "Our Country"--the...

Ben Stiller Made $40 Million Last Year to Act Silly. But Let's Get Serious. What He Really Wants to Do Is Direct.(Entertainment; THE ARTS)
August 11, 2008... Byline: David Ansen "Tropic Thunder" is the funniest movie of the summer--so funny, in fact, that you start laughing before the film itself has begun. This needs explaining. Ben Stiller's movie is about a gaggle of pampered, self-important...

What Old Age Taught Me.(My Turn)
August 11, 2008... Byline: Kirk Douglas; Douglas lives in Beverly Hills, Calif. Now in my golden years, I've learned that you can't know how to live until you know how to give. "Grow old along with me!/The best is yet to be,/ The last of life, for which...

Here We Go Again.(Politics; CAMPAIGN 2008)(John McCain)
August 11, 2008... Byline: Evan Thomas, Holly Bailey and Jonathan Darman; With Sarah Kliff, Suzanne Smalley and Eve Conant Back and forth, back and forth. Wasn't this going to be a campaign free of the usual partisan bickering? Campaign staffers and paid...

Where Have You Gone, John?(Jonathan Alter; BETWEEN THE LINES)(John McCain)
August 11, 2008... Byline: Jonathan Alter His zesty attacks on corporate greed and inspiring plans for national service are no more. In the middle of John McCain's dopey Britney & Paris attack ad, the announcer gravely asks of Barack Obama: "Is He Ready...

Just Ain't That Different Anymore.(Cover Story: Politics; History)(Barack Obama, southern states)
August 11, 2008... Byline: Jon Meacham; With Holly Bailey And Jonathan Darman The South tends to exemplify, if sometimes in an exaggerated way, much of what the nation thinks and feels. In a self-interview entitled "Questions They Never Asked Me," Walker...

1.0 Strategy in 2.0 Times.(Howard Fineman; LIVING POLITICS)(Barack Obama, southern states)
August 11, 2008... Byline: Howard Fineman As a well-traveled field organizer for Sen. Barack Obama, Jason Berry lives on Facebook. But it wasn't of much use when the campaign sent him to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. An agricultural region that lies...

To Live and Die in Dixie.(Cover Story: Politics)(Seamus Murphy)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... A TRAVEL ALBUM Accompanying Dickey, photographer Seamus Murphy recorded these contrasting images (clockwise, from right). They saw a majorette at a political rally in Crawford, Ga., a singer at the Savannah Tabernacle Baptist Church and a...

Her Tattoo is Taboo to You, Too.(Newsmakers; Q&A)(Penelope Cruz)(Interview)
August 11, 2008... Byline: Ramin Setoodeh Penelope Cruz stars in two new movies: "Elegy," where she falls in love with Ben Kingsley, and "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," where she kisses Scarlett Johansson. She spoke to Ramin Setoodeh. Should we do this...

Shia Stars in 'Crash 2'.(Newsmakers)(Shia LaBeouf)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... Is Shia LaBeouf the next Lindsay Lohan? The ex-Disney (and "Indiana Jones") star already had a drunken shopping spree in Walgreens last year, and his recent DUI got so much ink, it was like Paris was headed back to jail. LaBeouf's pickup truck...

Stone Moan.(Newsmakers)(Sharon Stone might be sued by Sichuan earthquake victims)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... There's bad karma, and there's billion-dollar-bad karma. Sharon Stone is being stalked by the expensive kind, now that 1,000 Chinese earthquake victims are reportedly planning to sue her over those nasty comments she made suggesting that the...

On the Trail of the 'W' Trailer.(Newsmakers; THE EQUATION)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... Poor President Bush is not only a lame duck, he's also the subject of a potentially lame movie. The trailer for the new Oliver Stone biopic "W" hit the Internet last week, and it's downright strange. So strange, in fact, that it looks to be a...

Perspectives.(Perspectives)(Quotation)
August 11, 2008... "Say it ain't so!" West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, clasping hands with fellow senior member Sen. Ted Stevens, of Alaska, who was indicted for allegedly accepting more than $250,000 in undisclosed gifts from an oil company "He was calm...

A Bid for Control Backfires.(Periscope; PAKISTAN)
August 11, 2008... Byline: Zahid Hussain, Michael Hirsh and Mark Hosenball Washington is losing faith that Pakistan's new civilian government can stop the expansion of Al Qaeda-linked terrorism in that country's tribal regions. One big problem: tensions...

Veepstakes: A New Name.(Periscope; CAMPAIGN 2008)(Barack Obama's running mate)
August 11, 2008... Byline: Michael Isikoff The "shortlist" of options to be Barack Obama's running mate is longer than most media accounts have suggested. In addition to the familiar front runners--Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh and Virginia...

That Song is Beyond Ridiculous.(Periscope; THE DIGNITY INDEX)(Alex Rodriguez, Martin Bashir, Ludacris)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... A weekly mathematical survey of dubious behavior that measures, on a scale of 1 to 100, just how low a person can go. In a divorce filing, Alex Rodriguez says his wife's claims that he's a cheater are "immaterial." Legally? Maybe. In the...

A Case's Last Bizarre Turn.(Periscope; ANTHRAX)(Bruce E. Ivins)
August 11, 2008... Byline: Michael Isikoff and Suzanne Smalley When the FBI was scrambling to unravel the 2001 anthrax attacks, one of the first scientists they turned to for help was Bruce E. Ivins, a veteran researcher at the U.S. Army bioweapons lab in...

Honda Gets It Right, All Over Again.(Periscope; CARS)(Honda Motor Company)
August 11, 2008... Byline: Caitlin McDevitt and Keith Naughton How do you know your ride is hot? When it's not only the most popular car on the road, but also the favorite boost among thieves. That's the case with the Honda Civic. In 2007, Americans bought...