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At the first annual Paul Wellstone Memorial Dinner, filmmaker and activist Michael Moore is honored. Moore speaks about Bush administration policy and various labor and economic issues. Sen. Wellstone (D-WI), one of the more liberal and progressive members of the Senate, died in a plane crash in October of 2002. TODAY [11-23-05] , C-SPAN, 8PM ET

Sacramento -- A bevy of Nobel laureates and celebrities have written a letter urging Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to commute the death sentence of Stanley Tookie Williams, himself a Nobel Peace Prize nominee. Williams, 51, the co-founder of the Crips gang convicted of four 1979 murders, is scheduled to be executed at San Quentin State Prison on Dec. 13. The letter praises Williams' work as an anti-gang crusader, including writing children's books. "Each year at the holiday season voices the world over cry out for peace," states the letter to the governor. "This year, one of them, a voice of great...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Hollywood director Rob Reiner warned the California Hospital Association Friday to withdraw or rewrite a ballot proposal it's pushing for 2006. "If the initiative remains in its current form, I will have no other option but to actively and aggressively oppose it," Reiner said in a letter to C. Duane Dauner, the association's president.Reiner championed a 1998 ballot proposal slapping a 50-cents-a-pack tax on cigarettes to fund health and education programs for children up to 5 years old, now known as First 5 California. In his letter, Reiner argued the hospital proposal, which calls for a...

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has a plan for stopping the orgy of destruction and violence in his country—give the rioters lots of money, preferential treatment, and expanded social services, and crack down on discrimination against them: French PM announces raft of measures for riot-hit poor suburbs. "The intiatives are: - the creation of an anti-discrimination agency with special officials appointed to be in charge of certain regions, and making the fight against discrimination a national priority; - 20,000 job contracts with local government bodies or associations paid a minimum wage would be reserved for those in the suburbs...

There are very few things as amusing these days as watching the French grapple with their backyard intifada. The suburbs of Paris are now more dangerous than Jenin, and the French are getting their comeuppance for decades of snootiness, anti-American and anti-Israel agitprop, and decades of cowardice. Paris is now being targeted by violent rioting hordes. For years the French accused American racism of having produced the race riots of the 60s and 70s in the US, as well as the Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King business. And the French are sure that only Jewish cussedness and just...

While American soldiers successfully combat terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, a widespread insurgency continues in France's emanating from Islamic migrant areas. The violence and destruction spread across the country yesterday with more than 900 cars torched in one night. Observers, experts in security and police operations, wonder if the French are capable of putting down this insurrection. French police initiated a helicopter response and claim they arrested close to 200 Muslim rioters. Police commanders and their superiors say they intend to step up action against rioters responsible for 10 nights of violence. The destruction has spread to the...

TORONTO - Actress Shirley MacLaine denounced US leaders while promoting her latest film, calling it an antidote for the angst and confusion felt by some of her compatriots. "In a country where we're all having trouble and struggling with what is the truth and who we are and why everybody is lying to us, I liked the idea of making a really honest picture," the Academy Award-winning actress said at the Toronto International Film Festival. In Her Shoes" by director Curtis Hanson ("8 Mile" and "L.A. Confidential") stars Cameron Diaz ("There's Something About Mary" and "Charlie's Angels") and Toni Collette...