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“I think that somebody should have required — and this is going to sound very harsh. I think somebody should have required all those members of Congress to go in a room, in a locked room, no press, nobody else, and look at the autopsy photographs of those babies. And then you vote your conscience. This has become a political issue.”

John Key: 'I'm not a reptile' He's been to a doctor and a vet just to make sure, but Prime Minister John Key is adamant he's not a shapeshifting reptilian alien. Mr Key was unusually forced to deny any previously non-declared extraterrestrial connections to reporters after an Auckland man put in an Official Information Act (OIA) request asking for proof he might be one. "To the best of my knowledge, no. Having been asked that question directly, I've taken the unusual step of not only seeing a doctor but a vet, and both have confirmed I'm not a reptile," a...

The newly-appointed archbishop of Warsaw resigned today after admitting he had spied for Poland's communist-era secret services, the Vatican's mission in Poland said. The mission said in a statement Pope Benedict had accepted Bishop Stanislaw Wielgus's resignation

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- Rep. Cynthia McKinney is controversial and outspoken, independent and unrepentant, all of which have endeared her to a dedicated corps of loyal supporters in her metro Atlanta district -- but not to a majority of her fellow Democrats who turned out in Tuesday's primary runoff. For the second time in three election cycles, McKinney was defeated in a Democratic primary in Georgia's 4th District, this time by Hank Johnson, a former DeKalb County commissioner who thumped her by a margin of 59-41 percent. Despite her defeat, McKinney was unbowed, unleashing a stemwinder of a concession speech...

A SPECIAL domain for sex websites has bitten the dust at an international meeting in New Zealand today, with Australia, the US and the European Union moving to kill off a proposal for ICANN to create a ".xxx" domain for pornography. Amid vociferous opposition, ICANN, the international body that is responsible for internet domain names, has been considering a proposal by US company ICM Registry for the new code. But governments have been fighting a rearguard action to have the plan canned, with the US Department of Commerce and the European Commission writing to ICANN opposing the proposal. Australia brought...

The West Wing is about to be demolished. No, not the edifice that is home to White House senior staff, but the television series that has aired on NBC since 1999. This week, NBC announced that the last episode will air on May 14. Like many viewers, I tuned out long ago. When Bill Clinton was still in office, there was something mildly amusing about the Hollywood fantasy version of what a White House should be. Josiah Bartlet was everything Bill Clinton wasn't: a devoted husband, a man who got down on his knees in the Oval Office only to...