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A professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College who was propelled into the national spotlight when a noose was found on her office door last fall has been found to have plagiarized the work of a former colleague and two former students, the college has announced. The college, in statements to the faculty and the news media, said an 18-month investigation into charges against the professor, Madonna G. Constantine, had determined there were “numerous instances in which she used others’ work without attribution in papers she published in academic journals over the past five years.” ... Dr. Constantine, in an e-mail...

'NOOSE' PROF A PLAGIARISTM STOLE STUDENTS' WORK AT COLUMBIA February 21, 2008 -- The black Columbia University professor who last fall found a hangman's noose pinned to her office door plagiarized the work of another faculty member and two students, according to a school investigation released yesterday. The plagiarism probe was already under way last year when a 4-foot twine noose was discovered on the door of psychology and education professor Madonna Constantine's office, officials at the university's Teachers College said.

Excerpt - PORTSMOUTH — Presidential hopeful Delaware Sen. Joe Biden stated unequivocally that he will move to impeach President Bush if he bombs Iran without Congressional approval. Biden spoke in front of a crowd of approximately 100 at a Seacoast Media Group forum Thursday, which focused on the Iraq War and foreign policy. When an audience member expressed fear of another war with Iran, he said he does not typically engage in threats, but had no qualms about issuing a direct warning to the oval office. “The President has no authority to unilaterally attack Iran and if he does, as...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Top Democratic Senator Joseph Biden Tuesday told the US war commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, that his military "surge" was failing to translate into political peace in Baghdad. "We should stop the surge and start bringing our troops home," the Senate's foreign relations committee chairman said at the start of a second day of hearings with Petraeus in Congress. After a moment of silence on the sixth anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks, Biden assailed President George W. Bush's strategy launched in February of surging another 28,500 US troops into Iraq. "The one thing virtually...

WASHINGTON - President Bush's war strategy is failing and the top military commander in Iraq is "dead flat wrong" for warning against major changes, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Sunday. Ahead of two days of crucial testimony by Bush's leading military and political advisers on Iraq, Sen. Joseph Biden indicated that he and other Democrats would persist in efforts to set target dates for bringing troops home. "The reality is that although there's been some mild security progress, there is in fact no security in Baghdad or Anbar province where I was dealing with the...

If there's one person who should be relieved about the firing of Don Imus, it's CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric. All the airtime and ink devoted to Imus' getting fired from his radio show and its simulcast on MSNBC in the wake of racist comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team has obscured the latest foul in Couric's rocky rookie season. For those of you who missed it: A posting on Couric's blog, ostensibly a nostalgic piece about the use of libraries in the Internet age, not only was ghost-written by Melissa McNamara, a producer on the CBS...

Biden Vows to Narrow Bush's Iraq Mandate Feb 15 1:22 PM US/Eastern By BARRY SCHWEID AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said Thursday he would move to repeal the authority Congress gave President Bush in 2002 to send U.S. troops into Iraq and replace it with a narrower mandate. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said the legislation was based on the idea that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was designed to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. "The WMDs were not there," Biden said in prepared remarks at the Brookings Institution,...

Senator Biden announces White House bid 26 minutes ago US Senator Joseph Biden has announced he will seek the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. "I am running for president," Biden told NBC television's "Meet the Press programme on Sunday. He said he would file the necessary papers for a White House bid with federal authorities sometime during the month of January. "I am filing for exploratory committee before the month is out," he said. Biden, the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, one of the most powerful panels in Congress, first said several months ago he was mulling a...

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Sen. Joe Biden, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's incoming chairman, wants to get tough with Mexico, calling it an "erstwhile democracy" with a "corrupt system" responsible for illegal immigration and drug problems in the U.S. Biden, D-Del., was in Columbia on Monday in his first postelection trip to this first-in-the-South presidential primary state as he continues to line up support for his presidential bid. During a question-and-answer session before more than 230 Columbia Rotary Club members, Biden was asked about immigration problems. Biden, who favors tightening the U.S.-Mexico border with fences, said immigration is driven by money...

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., bucked a trend by announcing his intention to run for president over the weekend - distinguishing himself from other visiting hopefuls who have dodged the question on their respective visits to Iowa. Biden swept through eastern Iowa on Sept. 23, stumping and raising money for Democratic congressional hopeful Dave Loebsack during a two-day tour of the state. "I'm coming back next year to do something else," Biden said near the end of his speech in Cedar Rapids, referring to next fall's run-up to Iowa's January 2008 caucuses, which signal the official start of the presidential election...

"The administration's most profound strategic mistake was not finishing the job in Afghanistan — which everyone agreed was the central front in the War on Terror — and rushing to war in Iraq, which was not. Today, Afghanistan is on the brink of collapse and Iraq on the verge of chaos. In addition, five years after 9/11, each member of the so-called 'Axis of Evil' is more dangerous; terrorist attacks around the world have nearly quadrupled; the administration's simplistic equation of democracy with elections has helped empower extremist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas; and Katrina and the 9/11 Commission have...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., said Monday that Democrats shouldn't shy away from pointing out Republican failures on national security. "If anything is shown by the British uncovering the plot on the airliners, it's simple -- we are not protected," Biden said. Biden, who has said he is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, was in Iowa to campaign for Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, who is in a heated re-election campaign in Iowa's 3rd Congressional District. Biden said the report of a bipartisan commission named to review the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is an example of...

After more than 30 years in the United States Senate and nearly 20 years after his first try for his party’s Presidential nomination, Joseph Biden has no doubts about making another run for the White House. “I’m in,” the Delaware Democrat said Friday as he began a five-day visit to the first-in-the-nation primary state. “I know I’m supposed to hedge, but I’m in.” Biden dropped out of the 1988 nomination race amid allegations of plagiarism. He then suffered a cerebral aneurysm virtually on the eve of the New Hampshire primary. He recalls being given a 30 percent chance of surviving....

A University of Colorado committee recommended on Tuesday firing a professor who called some of the World Trade Center victims "little Eichmanns," citing repeated research misconduct. The panel's recommendation now goes to university officials for a final decision. Ward Churchill, a tenured professor of ethnic studies, denied the allegations. He has vowed to fight his dismissal with a lawsuit...

by Mark Finkelstein May 3, 2006 Imagine you're a US Senator. A citizen has just suggested that the CIA Director and named FBI agents merit the death penalty as much as convicted terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui. Do you: A. condemn such an outrageous comment? B. move on to another topic? C. congratulate the citizen for making "an absolutely accurate point"? If you're Joe Biden [D-DE], the answer, incredibly, is 'C'. Here's how it went down. In a 'Hardball' devoted to reactions to today's jury decision giving life in prison to Moussaoui, both Rudy Giuliani and Biden had expressed regret that Moussaoui...

He's accused of acting like a villain from one of his best sellers. James Patterson's ex-lover claims the scribe was a callous cad who stole her ideas, character names and even turns of phrase - then dumped her after saying they'd marry.... "He's a thief," [she] Sharp said. "He copies the material he's reading, taking the best parts. But no one wants to see him exposed. He makes too much money for too many people." Sharp says that shortly after they started dating, Patterson asked for her help in fleshing out the character Christine Johnson, the love interest for Alex...

Red America, my new blog at washingtonpost.com, has been under attack since its launch. It is a conservative blog on a mainstream media site, so many of the attacks were expected. If one bothers to read it, I believe it stands as a welcome addition to the opinion debate. The hate mail that I have received since the launch of this blog has been overwhelmingly profane and violent. My family has been threatened; my friends have been deluged; my phone has been prank called. The most recent email that showed up while writing this post talked about how the author...

NEW YORK A two-day effort by liberal bloggers to find, and publicize, numerous examples of plagiarism committed by new Washington Post blogger Ben Domenech culminated today in calls that he give up his new position--from some of his conservative supporters. One of them, most dramatically, is columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin. As an editor at Regnery, Domenech handled her most recent book. Conservatives had hailed Domenech's appointment to write the Red America blog. "I cheered for Ben, the editor of my last book at Regnery, when he announced his new position," Malkin wrote on her Web site today. "I criticized...

Biden: Domestic Spying Not Impeachable Offense Senator Biden says the President's wire tapping program is neither legal, nor necessary, but he says it's not an impeachable offense. By Annie Nefosky Monday, December 19, 2005 Senator Biden says for the President to order the monitoring of U.S. citizen's phone calls with suspected terrorists is not legal or necessary, but he says it's not an impeachable offense. But Biden says he wants to find out how extensive the monitoring is. "We want to find out, what has he done? All he said is generically he's done this." On the war in Iraq,...

The ranking Democrat of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joseph Biden of Delaware, told NBC "Meet the Press” host Tim Russert, Sunday, that "unless we fundamentally change the rotation dates and fundamentally change how many members of the National Guard we’re calling up, it’ll be virtually impossible to maintain 150,000 folks this year.” But the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John Warner of Virginia, disagreed, saying that in conference with chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, that top military leader opined: "That’s inaccurate, that assumption. We can do it. And we will do...