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Queens parochial school principal who angered Catholic Church leaders by accusing a priest of looting school coffers to pay for a gay lover has won the backing of a prominent local Catholic educator. "Your courage in stopping this outrage, even at the risk to your own employment, has taught all of your pupils a lesson they will long remember," the Rev. Richard Van Houten, president of Archbishop Molloy High School in Jamaica, wrote to Barbara Samide. Van Houten went so far as to hint in the letter that he would come to Samide's rescue if she is ousted as principal...

Dan Wakefield wants to make it clear that he is not calling for "holy war." True, the title of his new book, The Hijacking of Jesus: How the Religious Right Distorts Christianity and Promotes Prejudice and Hate (Nation Books, $23.95), may sound like a shot across the bow of, oh, about half the churches in America.

An American Traitor: Guilty As Charged By Henry Mark Holzer and Erika HolzerFrontPageMagazine.com | June 10, 2005For three decades Jane Fonda obfuscated, distorted and lied about virtually everything connected with her wartime trip to North Vietnam: her motive, her acts, her intent, and her contribution to the Communists’ war effort.  With the aid of clever handlers, she so successfully suppressed and spun her conduct in Hanoi that many Americans didn’t know what she had done there, and, more important, the legal significance. Three years ago, our book, “Aid and Comfort”: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam (McFarland & Co.), laid bare...

The very same day that the Clintons go to Long Island to meet with the TWA Flight 800 families, security guard Richard Jewell is patrolling the grounds of Centennial Park in Atlanta. He's a little Barney Fife-ish, but a good guy and very observant. Right around midnight, Jewell spots a large, olive-green, military-style backpack, known as an Alice pack, under a bench. He immediately shares this information with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. When the GBI cannot find the pack's owner, the GBI officer and Jewell begin to clear an area around the pack. Soon afterward, the pack explodes. Two...

Editor's note: This article originally ran in 2003, when Pope John Paul II was experiencing a serious enough illness to make people begin to speculate about who might be his successor. This article has been slightly modified and updated. So, who will the next pope be—a black, a Hispanic, an American, or a Jew? PAPAL CHASE Will the Next Pope be Black, Hispanic, American, a Jew? No, it's not a joke. All four are real possibilities. The biggest differences between the papal selection process now and the last time are demographic ones. Of the five countries with the biggest Catholic...

n Avenue of the Americas from Greenwich Village to Chelsea, there is more sex for sale than at any time in the neighborhood's memory. At No. 313, near West Third Street, there are X-rated DVD's and anatomically correct gadgets known in the sex industry as "marital aids." A few doors down, at Crazy Fantasy, two mannequins in the window suggest the provocative lingerie that can be found inside, along with many more DVD's. Stores at 597 and 599 offer more, more, more of the same, and at Xcellent DVD, at 515, there are private booths for viewing videos, staffed by...