Sargent Shriver, a Kennedy in-law who was the first director of the Peace Corps, is dead at age 95, CNN reports. He had suffered from Alzheimer’s for years and had been hospitalized for the last several days. Shriver entered political life through his 1953 marriage to Eunice Kennedy after having…
Continue reading …Joe Lieberman has decided not to run for re-election in 2012, a slew of media outlets are reporting. The Democrat-turned-independent will announce his plans tomorrow. A spokesman wouldn’t confirm the decision to retire: “After many thoughtful conversations with family and friends over the last several months, Senator Lieberman made a…
Continue reading …Chechnya’s Muslim authorities have handed down a new edict that requires all marrying couples to prove they are HIV-negative, Reuters reports. The order is not exactly a “law”—in fact, it violates Russian law, say human rights advocates—but given the wide influence of the nation’s Islamic clerics, it carries…
Continue reading …The UN’s food aid agency has only about half the money it needs to feed the world’s hungry as rises in food prices take their toll, the AP reports. The World Food Program is $2.8 billion short of what it needs, says director Josette Sheera, and the shortfall is…
Continue reading …Apple said its net income for the most recent quarter rose 78% as holiday shoppers snapped up more iPads than analysts anticipated. The company sold more than 7 million iPads, about a million more than expected. It also sold more than 16 million iPhones in the quarter. The rosy news…
Continue reading …MTV debuted its new series Skins last night, an American version of a British teen drama rife with sex and drugs. Not everybody’s a fan: Richard Lawson, Gawker : It goes even further than the Brit version in pushing the idea that teens are “messy jumbles of extremes with very little…
Continue reading …Camden, New Jersey, was America’s second most dangerous city in 2010, and its most dangerous in 2009, according to one annual study, and its median income of $26,752 is within the margin of error for the nation’s lowest. Yet the city today began laying off 167 of its 373…
Continue reading …Two Los Angeles high school students were wounded when a gun accidentally discharged in their classroom today, say police. A female student was shot in the head (she’s in critical condition) and a male student was hit in the shoulder. Witnesses and authorities say a 15-year-old student had a gun…
Continue reading …Sketchy reports are emerging about a school shooting in Los Angeles: A student who shot at least two fellow pupils—possibly by accident—has surrendered to police. School officials say the student brought a gun to school in his backpack and accidentally set it off when he pulled it out….
Continue reading …Author Amy Chua is getting roasted for her praise of strict Chinese parenting , so who better to defend her than her own daughter? “I admit it: Having you as a mother was no tea party,” writes 18-year-old Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld in the New York Post . “There were some play dates I…
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