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The launch of US shuttle Endeavour is to be further delayed after a thunderstorm around Cape Canaveral, Nasa officials say. Blast-off has been postponed for 24 hours to allow technical teams to assess the effects of lightning strikes near the launch pad on Friday. Two previous launch attempts in June were scrapped because of a potentially hazardous leak in a hydrogen vent line. The craft is to take and install a last piece of Japan's space station lab. Lift-off had been scheduled for 1939 local time (2339 GMT). But on Friday evening, the area surrounding the launch pad was hit...

The Obama administration jumped quickly into the fray over the removal and expulsion of president Manuel Zelaya from Honduras, calling the action a “coup” and demanding his reinstatement. Fellow Democrats in Congress followed suit, but The Hill reports that they may be changing their minds. Suddenly, they have begun acknowledging the crimes Zelaya committed and stopped calling for his return to office: Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), chairman of a key House subcommittee with jurisdiction over Honduras, roundly criticized both factions at a Friday hearing. But he also stopped short of calling for Zelaya’s immediate reinstatement, which he’d done in previous...

Maybe a little too red on the eyes Chris. The photo is from 2009 and comes from Chris Miller of the AP. I could be wrong on this, but I know Photoshop and that adjustment would not be hard. If true would just be another indication of how reckless and out of hand the AP still is.

HUNDREDS of women have managed a great feet today - sprinting 100m in high heels. The barmy participants were taking part in the Glamour Stiletto Run in Berlin, Germany. All their shoes were at least 7cm high and at most 1.5cm wide. And it sure looks like they had a HEEL-y good time.

A zoo system in Massachusetts is more or less resorting to hostage-taking in response to proposed budget cuts. The Boston Globe reports that after Gov. Deval Patrick decreased funding for Franklin Park Zoo and Stone Zoo from $6.5 to $2.5 million in a line-item veto, the zoo officials wrote the governor saying that the steep budget cuts would render them unable to take care of the animals, and that many of them would have to be euthanized. In other words, give us our money or we'll start executing defenseless animals, beginning with the cutest ones first (or at least that's...

When it comes to the First Amendment, Team Obama believes in Global Chilling. Cass Sunstein, a Harvard Law professor who has been appointed to a shadowy post that will grant him powers that are merely mind-boggling, explicitly supports using the courts to impose a "chilling effect" on speech that might hurt someone's feelings. He thinks that the bloggers have been rampaging out of control and that new laws need to be written to corral them. "Although obscure," reported the Wall Street Journal, "the post wields outsize power. It oversees regulations throughout the government, from the Environmental Protection Agency to the...

This was one of the best speeches that President Obama has given in my opinion. There was none of the moral equivalencies, America bashing, and straw man arguments that President Obama has grown far too fond of using in other speeches. First, here's some of my favorite portions. So I do not see the countries and peoples of Africa as a world apart; I see Africa as a fundamental part of our interconnected world – as partners with America on behalf of the future that we want for all our children. That partnership must be grounded in mutual responsibility, and...

Two llamas on the lam in Louisville, Ky., have been safely herded and returned to their home, their owner says. The llamas' owner, Dale Hill of the Louisville Llama Farm, surmised beer bottles found near the animals' barn indicated some party animals decided to free the beasts, which are raised for their wool, The (Louisville) Courier-Journal reported Saturday. Hill said the 10 female llamas escaped, but only two -- Felicity and Prism -- wandered off the property. Prism was found along a road not far from the farm but Felicity was found by police and animal services blocks away. A...

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's backers are reportedly urging reporters to probe what one called the "troubled and litigious work history" of New Haven firefighter Frank Ricci.

Book of Mormon Explorers Claim Discoveries in the Desert, Part Twoby Bruce Santucci After battling two thousand miles of desert trails, sand dunes that tower seven hundred feet into the air, occasional sand storms that remove the paint from your truck, scorpions and six years of Arabian temperatures that fluctuate from freezing to 130 degrees Fahrenheit, George Potter and Richard Wellington are now ready to tell their story. Potter originally set out with Craig Thorsted and Tom Culler to find the mountain some people believe is the real mount Sinai.  Not only did they locate the mountain they were...

AMERICA’S first lady, Michelle Obama, fought back tears yesterday as she toured a former Dutch slaving fort similar to the one in which it is believed her ancestors were held before being shipped to work on plantations in the deep south of the United States. On the second day of President Barack Obama’s historic trip to sub-Saharan Africa, the first family flew from the capital, Accra, for a tour of the restored 17th-century Cape Castle, previously one of the biggest slave outposts on the West African coast. “As painful as it is, I think that it helps to teach all...

The Discovery of the Valley of Lemuel: No, it wasn't a mirage, Part Oneby Bruce A. SantucciHave you ever wondered what it would be like to discover a Book of Mormon archaeological site like the Valley of Lemuel? It might change your life forever. Knowing where Lehi actually camped might set you off on a journey you wouldn't end until you had reached Bountiful. Such was the force that compelled George Potter, his colleagues and I each time we turned off the paved roads of modern civilization and headed our 4 X 4s, loaded with extra cans of gasoline and...

On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog, but someone in the liberal media just informed me that the president of the U.S. is a black man. And as such cannot be criticized or joked about by conservatives. Obama is off limits! They can make all kinds of rude and crude jokes about George Bush, even comparing him in thousands of crude cartoons over the past eight years as a chimp, but man. If you were to follow suit comparing today's president to a smirking chimp you would be crucified! And Sarah Palin's family and children? Open season! Even...

Wouldn't it be nice if Obama just said America is the last best hope for people of the world, a beacon of freedom and a shining city on a hill...

LAGOS, Nigeria -- When the White House announced two months ago that President Obama would visit Ghana this week, Nigerians read a different, glaring message between the lines: The American leader was not coming to their country. That Obama also is not visiting about 50 other African nations seems beside the point. Here in Africa's self-enthroned behemoth, Obama's sojourn to small but stable Ghana has spawned an outpouring of soul-searching and self-flagellation about Nigeria's image and dubious democracy. "Why would Obama want to come to Nigeria? To lend credence to the putrefying edifice that the nation has largely become?" one...

Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project By SCOTT SHANE The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday. The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy. Mr. Panetta, who...

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea wants the U.S. to show remorse for the actions of two American journalists convicted of illegally entering the country, and it might free the women if Washington does so, a scholar who visited Pyongyang said Saturday. The comments by North Korean officials to University of Georgia political scientist Han S. Park came as analysts say the isolated communist regime intends to use the detention of Laura Ling and Euna Lee as bargaining chips in its ongoing standoff with Washington over the country's nuclear and missile threats. The journalists were detained in March near the...

The Washington Post's ill-fated plan to sell sponsorships of off-the-record "salons" was an ethical lapse of monumental proportions. Publisher Katharine Weymouth and Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli have now taken full responsibility for what was envisioned as a series of 11 intimate dinners to discuss public policy issues. For a fee of up to $25,000, underwriters were guaranteed a seat at the table with lawmakers, administration officials, think tank experts, business leaders and the heads of associations. Promotional materials said Weymouth, Brauchli and at least one Post reporter would serve as "Hosts and Discussion Leaders" for an evening of spirited but...

Throughout the metro and in Council Bluffs, dozens dispose of unused fireworks and ammunition on Saturday. There were drop offs locations at Seymour Smith Park at 72nd and Harrison, Old Skate Land, Dave's Auto Body off Blair High Road and in Council Bluffs on 28th and Broadway. Fireworks and ammunition fill partially fill buckets, a mall sample of what was collected. "I dropped off some .22 ammunition and some shot gun ammo I don't use anymore." Fletcher Peters couldn't wait to unload his van. “In my case, I don't use that ammunition anymore, I just have it sitting around the...

St. Irenaeus and St. Clement of Alexandria, who both lived during the second century, tell us that after the Apostle John returned from exile on Patmos, he remained at Ephesus “till Trajan’s time.” Trajan became emperor in AD 98. According to the tradition, St. John was the last of the twelve Apostles to die. When the angels carried his soul into Heaven, was the Church then left to fall into heresy and apostasy?Assumption of St. John the Evangelist Taddeo Gaddi (1348-1353) Collezione Vittorio Cini, VeniceA DilemmaA few weeks after I graduated from seminary, some Mormon missionaries came to our door....