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WASHINGTON -- Insurgents captured an American soldier in eastern Afghanistan, according to a U.S. military spokeswoman. Capt. Elizabeth Mathias said the soldier has been missing since Tuesday and that the military was using "all our resources to find him and provide for his safe return." The soldier wasn't taking part in the major military operation launched in the southern Taliban stronghold of the Helmand River Valley. The new operation is an early test of the Obama administration's new strategy for beating back the resurgent Taliban and stabilizing the country in advance of this summer's presidential elections. Operation Khanjar, or "strike...

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The U.S. military said today that insurgents have capture an American soldier in eastern Afghanistan. Spokeswoman Capt. Elizabeth Mathias said the soldier went missing Tuesday.

Where in the World is Obama's Missing Thesis? By Ed Lasky Barack Obama wrote his senior thesis at Columbia University on Soviet nuclear disarmament. Inquiring people have sought a copy of this thesis to no avail. Columbia says it cannot be found; Barack Obama says he lost it. How likely is that a person so impressed with himself that he writes an autobiography just a few years later would "lose" his senior thesis? After all, a Presidential Library must be filled. And as Jim Geraghty at National Review and others have noted there are a lot of blank spots --...

Fort Worth police are searching for a 72-year-old man who was last seen at his home Sunday evening. Homer Johns was last seen in his garage in the 4700 block of Ardenwood Drive. His car and cellphone were found at his home. Police said he was not diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or any other serious medical condition. He does take medication for high blood pressure. Johns is 5-feet, 8-inches tall and weighs about 170 pounds. He has short brown, graying hair and hazel eyes. He was wearing a dark gray shirt with the “Dell” logo, tan pants and flip-flops. Anyone with...

MORE than 2000 people are still in detention and hundreds more are missing in Iran since a government crackdown on protests over a disputed presidential election, the FIDH human rights group says. "According to the latest information we have, more than 2000 people have been arrested and are currently in detention,'' Karim Lahidji, vice president of the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), said. "Hundreds of people are missing, according to independent information that has came to us from Tehran since yesterday,'' he said at a protest meeting in Paris held to denounce the crackdown in Iran. Lahidji, who...

A city police officer found himself in the spotlight this week for solving a 1992 missing person case and identifying those responsible for the 22-year-old woman's death. Full details of the investigation, including the victim's name, have yet to be made public, but the officer responsible for clearing the case has been identified as Patrolman Kenneth Lee Mains, a city officer since 2003. Mains' unusual investigation, done largely on his own time, was made public Thursday night when he was named the Williamsport Bureau of Police "officer of the year" during a ceremony at the start of the City Council...

The bad news is that the Washington Post doesn't know where Virginia governor Tim Kaine is. The good news is they're pretty sure he's not in Appalachia or Argentina: But repeated attempts to review Kaine's schedule — in Richmond, around the state or across the country — before and after he became DNC chairman in late January have been unsuccessful. The Washington Post has requested Kaine's calendar through the governor's office, the DNC and his political action committee, Moving Virginia Forward. The requests have been denied or gone unanswered.

The bad news is that the Washington Post doesn't know where Virginia governor Tim Kaine is. The good news is they're pretty sure he's not in Appalachia or Argentina: But repeated attempts to review Kaine's schedule — in Richmond, around the state or across the country — before and after he became DNC chairman in late January have been unsuccessful. The Washington Post has requested Kaine's calendar through the governor's office, the DNC and his political action committee, Moving Virginia Forward. The requests have been denied or gone unanswered. Kaine's office cites security and privacy concerns, as well as state...

Don’t be too hard on Waffles. His humor’s always been laced with nastiness, which is why he periodically finds himself in clusterfarks over “botched jokes.” It’s not that he hates Palin. He’s just a jerk.

What Obama didn't mention By: Mike Allen June 23, 2009 06:04 PM EST A couple of surprising words were missing from President Barack Obama’s 55-minute news conference on Wednesday: “Iraq” — and “Afghanistan.” Also MIA: “Korea,” “Pakistan,” “soldiers,” “surge” and “war” — as well as the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. The omissions were partly a result of the short attention span of the press, which did not ask about those topics after the president did not mention them in his opening statement. But the silence on those subjects also provides a striking illustration of one of the singular...

Six Missing Israeli Soldiers By Norma Zager and Ari Bussel “The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see…” Ayn Rand Three years ago a Jewish son was taken from his parents. Hamas terror organization kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad during an incursion from Gaza into Israel. His captors have denied access to him by Red Cross workers in violation of the Geneva Convention. For three years his parents have suffered with worry for their son. For three years a merciless enemy has held captive a young man, a soldier. While Gilad Shalit became...

Mystery surrounded South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, whose whereabouts haven't been revealed since Thursday, when he took off in a sport-utility vehicle normally driven by a bodyguard, turned off his mobile phone and stopped communicating with his office, family and close political allies. On Monday, South Carolina elected leaders considered temporarily transferring the governor's power to another state official, according to people familiar with the situation. Officials decided against the move after being told by aides to the governor that they knew Mr. Sanford's location. ... Republican state Sen. John "Jake" Knotts, a former police officer and a political opponent...

Sanford, missing since Thursday, reportedly located The whereabouts of Gov. Mark Sanford was unknown for nearly four days, and some state leaders question who was in charge of the executive office. But Sanford’s office told the lieutenant governor’s office Monday afternoon that Sanford has been reached and he is fine, said Frank Adams, head of Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer’s office on aging. Neither the governor’s office nor the State Law Enforcement Division, which provides security for governors, had been able to reach Sanford after he left the mansion Thursday in a black SLED Suburban SUV, said Sen. Jake Knotts and...

<p>The whereabouts of Gov. Mark Sanford have been unknown to state officials since Thursday, and some state leaders are questioning who is in charge of the executive office.</p> <p>Neither the governor’s office nor the State Law Enforcement Division has been able to reach Sanford, who left the mansion in a black SLED Suburban SUV, said Sen. Jake Knotts and three others familiar with the situation who declined to be identified.</p>

Good morning America! On June 3, either an attempted attack on the economy of the U.S. on an unprecedented scale was narrowly averted--or a criminal conspiracy involving the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve that would legitimize the most radical of globalist conspiracies of all time--was exposed. In either event, a deliberate media blackout was employed in the U.S. When news of the event gained traction in the foreign media, the U.S. media was compelled to report it as well, but only after facts could be changed and damage control employed by the highest levels of the U.S. government, aided and...

A reporter is sent to Italy to learn more about the bond smuggling story. But nobody knows where the two men are. At least the Japanese press is sitll interested in story of the two Japanese men caugh withs ome $134.5 billion in (presumably fake) US bearer bonds. We can't read Japanese, and Google Translate isn't particularly helpful, but a reader informs us that the gist of this story is that a newspaper sent a reporter to Como, Italy and found that the men had been released, with their whereabouts unknown. Now, the easiest, most-benign explanation for this whole thing...

A Michigan man said Wednesday he is "99% convinced" that he's the Long Island toddler kidnapped in a long-unsolved 1955 crime. >

One of India's leading nuclear scientists has gone missing in mysterious circumstances provoking fears he has been kidnapped for classified information. Lokanathan Mahalingam had access to some of the country's most sensitive nuclear information and the government has ordered an inquiry into his disappearance. Mr Mahalingam, 47, worked at the Kaiga Atomic Power Station in Karnataka, close to Project Seabird, a major military base. He went for a walk early on Monday morning and has not been seen since. Authorities are not yet sure whether his disappearance poses a security threat and the Indian Intelligence Bureau is investigating whether he...

French aviation officials have said they may never find the flight data recorders of an Air France jet that went missing over the Atlantic. The officials promised a thorough investigation but said the circumstances were very difficult. Flight AF 447 was heading from Rio to Paris with 228 people on board on Monday when it was lost over the ocean. Debris has been spotted 650km (400 miles) off Brazil's coast and navy vessels are converging on the area. Brazilian and French officials said there was no doubt the debris was from the missing plane. A Brazilian air force plane found...

A commercial pilot has said he saw a "fire" on the Atlantic Ocean close to the route of a missing Air France plane. The pilot, for TAMAirlines, said he spotted what appeared to be orange marks in the ocean near to where the jet went missing. More follows...