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Congressman Anthony Weiner today sensationally admitted he had exchanged a series of photos and messages of an explicit nature with at least six women. In a shocking confession, the shamed politician was close to tears as he broke down and told reporters he had lied about sending explicit pictures in a bid to protect his wife and family. But despite the humiliating apology, the Congressman repeatedly refused to resign. In an extraordinary press conference in Manhattan this afternoon, Mr Weiner said: 'I have made terrible mistakes that have hurt some of the people I care about most.

Iranian Press TV reports that a conference is to be held in Tehran today, March 14, to mark the anniversary of the 2003 death of American activist Rachel Corrie. The conference is titled "Which rights, which human, which American?" The report quotes Mehdi Foroutan, the director of the Enqelab Eslami (Islamic Revolution) Cultural Center, as saying that the conference will include representatives from 30 NGOs who are gathering "to condemn the inhumane killing of the American peace activist at the hands of the Israeli regime."

William Scott Ritter Jr., a former United Nations weapons inspector who gained renown for his criticism of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, contends his online sexual encounters with teenage girls were only fantasy. Nearly two years ago, Ritter, of Delmar, watched his computer screen reveal that an anonymous person who had been exchanging sexually charged messages with him for 80 minutes was not a 15-year-old girl. It was a cop from a small town in northeast Pennsylvania, alone in his station house and trolling the Internet for suspected child predators. Ryan Venneman, a detective for the Barrett Township...

The first thing that must be said about the mosque at ground zero is that it is not just a mosque, and it is not at ground zero. Facts matter, and they seem to be in short supply in this ugly fight. And why should the construction of a house of worship in America become a full-blown national controversy? Here we come to the key fallacy driving these fights - the "big lie," to use Hitler's term for a falsehood so preposterous that it goes unchallenged. In this instance, the lie is that Muslims attacked America in the name of...

Just a Manatee

Just a vanity.

Jerusalem (CNN) -- A 23-year-old American activist stands in front of an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza. The bulldozer drives over her, crushing her to death. These are the facts. Rachel Corrie, along with colleagues from the International Solidarity Movement, was trying to prevent Israel from bulldozing homes in Rafah, close to the Egyptian border. Her activism cost her her life in March 2003. A colleague said at the time, "Many times the bulldozer came up to us and buried us with dirt, but they always stopped." Corrie's parents want to know the truth about their daughter's death, whether the killing...

The family of US activist Rachel Corrie, run over by an Israeli bulldozer during a demonstration in Gaza in 2003, will sue the Jewish state over her death, their lawyer said on Wednesday. The 23-year-old killed at the height of the 2000 Palestinian intifada, or uprising, became an symbol of foreign support for the Palestinian cause and the subject of a 2005 play based on her emails and diary. "The state should take responsibility for the death of Rachel Corrie. We believe her killing was done intentionally or at least out of negligence and wrongdoing," Hussein Abu Hussein, the family's...

Israel has decided not to press charges against police involved in firing a tear gas canister that left a US protester severely brain damaged, the justice ministry said on Monday. Tristan Anderson, a 39-year-old activist from California, was shot in the head in the West Bank town of Nilin on March 13, 2009 during a protest against Israel's controversial separation barrier. He can only communicate with basic sounds after being in a coma for months and undergoing several brain surgeries at a Tel Aviv hospital, according to Jonathan Pollak, a friend and fellow activist who has visited him recently.

(CNN) -- Almost as soon as the botched Christmas airplane bombing hit the airwaves, the politics of national security reared its head. Many Republicans quickly attacked President Obama for being responsible for the fact that Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab was able to walk onto an airplane with dangerous explosives despite the fact that the government had received warnings about him. They argued that the failure proved the White House was weak on terrorism. We must make certain that the government sets up some kind of independent review to better understand what went wrong. Nothing should be excluded from consideration, from the...

Listening closely to the politicians with the most clout in the debate over health care, it is startling to discover how little they actually seem to know about the subject. Ignorance rules, even among the bipartisan group of senators known as the "Gang of Six," who supposedly have immersed themselves in the details of this life-and-death issue for many months. If they understood even the most basic facts about how the United States and other advanced countries provide and finance medical care, they simply could not utter the stupid comments that regularly emanate from their lips. Can they really be...

Emotions ran high at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival over the showing of Rachel, a film that looks at the International Solidarity Movement activist Rachel Corrie and her death in Gaza in March 2003. The controversy had been brewing for some time, concerning both the showing of the film and the invitation to Rachel's mother, Cindy Corrie, to speak at the festival. In the wake of protests against the showing of the film last Saturday, Peter Stein, the festival's executive director, invited Dr. Mike Harris, one of the leaders of the local Stand With Us chapter, to speak in...

Six months ago, embarking on the vice presidency, Joe Biden listed among his top priorities "restoring" the office to its proper constitutional role in the wake of the eight-year tenure of predecessor Dick Cheney. It's early to attempt a reliable assessment of his achievement of that goal. But at the half-year mark, he has from all appearances made a good start, if only because nobody is suggesting, as often was the case with Mr. Cheney, that Mr. Biden is really running the country. Nor has there has been talk of the vice president stealthily at work from an "undisclosed location,"...

The senator said healthcare would be Obama's 'Waterloo' – if Obama lost, it would break him. Now, Obama is using the comment as an example of crass Beltway obstructionism. Washington - “If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.” When Jim DeMint uttered those words late last week, he did the president a favor. In one memorable line, the Republican senator from South Carolina turned the healthcare debate into a personal battle against President Obama. Suddenly, Mr. Obama has a foil. “The Party of No” – the Democrats’ name for Republicans...

Small ferry carrying medical supplies that set sail from Cyprus Monday with 21 peace activists, medical supplies intercepted off Strip's shore; passengers say army jammed boat's radio signals. At around noon Tuesday the Israeli Navy intercepted and took control of a boat that had set sail for the Gaza Strip with three tons of medical supplies, Palestinian sources said, adding that the Navy jammed the boat's radio signals. The IDF Spokesperson's Office confirmed the report. Israeli military sources said there was no violence after the small ferry, sailing from Cyprus with activists from the US-based Free Gaza Movement, was intercepted...

The Beltway antics that greeted the great Cheney-Obama torture debate were an unsettling return to the post-9/11 dynamic that landed America in Iraq. Once again Cheney and his cohort were using lies and fear to try to gain political advantage — this time to rewrite history and escape accountability for the failed Bush presidency rather than to drum up a new war. The harrowing truth remains unchanged from what it was before Cheney emerged from his bunker to set Washington atwitter. The Bush administration did not make us safer either before or after 9/11. Obama is not making us less...

Last week Prince Charles said that our current financial crisis was “nothing ” compared to the horrors of global warming. This week he says it is “depressing” that his ravings about climate change have not been heeded. Prince Charles is flying around South America in a private jet and giving speeches about being depressed about global warming. Yes he is. Really. This from Agence France-Presse: Prince Charles said he finds it "depressing" that his frequent warnings over climate change have not been heeded. The Prince of Wales added, though, that he was "delighted'' that it seemed people had begun to...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – An Iraqi reporter who hurled his shoes at George W. Bush said in the past he had videotaped himself practising the Arab insult to use against the president whose "icy smile" had filled him with uncontrollable rage. Muntazer al-Zaidi said on Thursday at the start of his trial in Baghdad on charges of assaulting a foreign leader that he took a recording of his shoe-throwing training two years ago and had hoped to accost Bush in Jordan but this did not take place.

Dennis Kucinich is currently on the floor of the House presenting his bill to impeach President George W. Bush. C-SPAN, 8:00 PM 9 Jun 2008.