Free Republic

It was 6:30 a.m. at the United States Military Academy, the sun was rising over the Hudson River, and Paula Broadwell was in athletic gear. With a half-dozen women, she rotated between sprints and burpees. Sweating onto the pavement, the group was perched atop an overlook called Trophy Point, in the shadow of a 46-foot battle monument memorializing those killed in the Civil War. There is a female statue in bronze at the top, arms outstretched regally, who is said to represent “fame.” Ms. Broadwell was here in April for a 40th anniversary celebration for the academy’s first class of...

Tomorrow, after returning from the velvet opulence of the luxury yacht that was their floating refuge for eight days, Charles and Camilla will be back home and enjoying the spacious comforts of Highgrove, where he can disappear thankfully into his garden and she can be alone . . . at last. Oh dear. No one told the Duchess of Cornwall just how suffocating life at sea in a relatively confined space with the Prince of Wales was going to be. She returns from their Caribbean tour a wiser, but somewhat disillusioned, woman. It certainly wasn't the smiling and curious West...

PARIS - Partial results showed President Nicolas Sarkozy's backers losing in Paris and other key French cities Sunday in the first round of municipal elections seen as a referendum on the increasingly unpopular conservative. Official results of the total vote nationwide showed candidates from Sarkozy's UMP party and its allies with 45.5 percent and the Socialists and their allies with 47 percent. The total was not broken down by city, but projections based on partial results by the polling agencies Ipsos and TNS-Sofres showed Socialists on track to take over key cities previously held by the right, including Strasbourg, Reims,...