10 March 2010 | Marc Nongmaithem
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a lawsuit against the Westboro Baptist Church, the band of religious zealots who hold anti-gay protests at the funerals of slain soldiers. The case is being brought by the father of a Marine killed in Iraq, whose son’s funeral was targeted by the…
10 March 2010 | Marc Nongmaithem
Miffed by a ban on Canadian seal imports by the EU, which charges cruelty in the annual hunt, the country’s MPs have defiantly put seal meat on tomorrow’s parliamentary lunch menu. By eating seal, a Liberal MP tells the Guardian , “all political parties will have the opportunity to demonstrate to…
10 March 2010 | Marc Nongmaithem
Gunmen opened fire on a police chief’s house in southern Mexico, killing his 23-year-old daughter and a bodyguard and wounding three others, police said yesterday. Anacleto Flores Valle, the chief of police in the Pacific coast town of Petatlan, was uninjured when heavily armed men in two trucks opened fire…
10 March 2010 | Marc Nongmaithem
Temperament trumps class, Michael Wolff writes in explanation of why David Cameron, a Conservative aristocrat who should be anathema to recession-flattened Brits, is in fact about to beat the pants off of Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Cameron, who worked in PR for 7 years, has managed to reinvent himself…
10 March 2010 | Marc Nongmaithem
India’s preference for male children has spurred the practice of aborting female fetuses, aided and abetted by the widening availability of ultrasound technology. But tests are still expensive, and surveys show that female feticide is much more prevalent in richer areas, an observation born out by skewed gender ratios. In…
10 March 2010 | Marc Nongmaithem
Irish police arrested seven people today over an alleged plot to kill a Swedish artist who depicted the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog. Officials say the suspects are foreign-born Irish residents, mostly from Yemen and Morocco, who had been under surveillance since November and were identified based…
10 March 2010 | Marc Nongmaithem
When the uninitiated look at Jamaica’s Jews, they might see a small but resilient community: around 200 faithful, an historic synagogue but no rabbi, few choices for kosher food. But if you’re the nation’s tourism director, you see a goldmine. Plans are afoot to launch a Jewish heritage-themed tourist package,…
10 March 2010 | Marc Nongmaithem
Pope Benedict’s brother today revealed that he used to slap pupils in the face at the Catholic school in Germany whose prestigious choir he led, and that he’d ignored allegations of more serious physical abuses. “Pupils told me about what went on,” Georg Ratzinger said in an interview today. “But…
10 March 2010 | Marc Nongmaithem
Joe Biden condemned an Israeli plan to build hundreds of homes in disputed east Jerusalem today, casting a cloud over a high-profile visit that had been aimed at repairing ties with the Jewish state and kickstarting Mideast peace talks. His remarks came after Israel’s Interior Ministry said it had approved…
8 March 2010 | Marc Nongmaithem
A pair of Chinese herdsmen who trapped and stoned to death a rare snow leopard for attacking their sheep have been sentenced to up to ten years in prison. Wildlife officials estimate that only 4,000 snow leopards exist. They live in the rocky mountains in central and southern Asia….