A day after publishing a cartoon that drew fire from critics who said it evoked historically racist images, the New York Post apologized in a statement on its Web site -- even as it defended its action and blasted some detractors. Many of those critical of the cartoon said it appeared to compare President Barack Obama to a chimpanzee in a commentary on his recently approved economic stimulus package. "Wednesday's Page Six cartoon -- caricaturing Monday's police shooting of a ...

Racist, unfunny, hilarious, confusing, lame. Reactions are as varied as they are strong to Tuesday's New York Post cartoon that depicted the police shooting of a chimpanzee. Two police officers, one with a smoking gun, are near the chimp's bullet-pierced body. "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill," one officer says. The Post's Sean Delonas used a typical editorial cartoon trope of linking two current news stories: the shooting of a chimp after it mauled ...

On a winter evening in early 1940, Hattie McDaniel became the first black performer to win an Oscar, a best supporting actress honor for her performance as Mammy, the servant in "Gone With the Wind." She accepted her award at the Academy Awards ceremony at the Coconut Grove, a nightclub in Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel, where she was seated in the segregated section at the rear of the room. Though her win was played as a sign of progress for ...

A New York Post cartoon Wednesday drew fire from civil rights activist Al Sharpton and others who say the drawing invokes historically racist images in suggesting an ape wrote President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package. The artist, Sean Delonas, called Sharpton's reaction "ridiculous," and the newspaper defended its decision to run his cartoon. But other African-American leaders joined Sharpton, who has been the butt of previous Delonas panels, in attacking what they called the cartoon's racial overtones. "Sean Delonas' cartoon ...

Last year's gripping campaign and the wave of popularity behind Barack Obama have focused tremendous attention on the White House and the presidency. As the country marks Presidents Day, TIME spoke with author and historian Richard Norton Smith about America's "schizoid" relationship with its President, the lofty expectations for Obama and the way history's verdicts can shift over time. What interests you as a historian about our new President There is a theory, and I think it holds some credence, that ...

The commuter plane that crashed into a home near Buffalo, N.Y., was new and had a clean safety record, officials said Friday, leaving investigators few immediate clues about why it suddenly plunged just minutes before its planned landing, killing 50 people. The twin turboprop aircraft — Continental Connection Flight 3407 from Newark, N.J. — was coming in for a landing when it went crashed Thursday night about five miles short of the Buffalo Niagara International Airport. It was the first ...

Casino gambling is part of the American Dream. "The World Series of Poker" gets better ratings than the Super Bowl. But, even the gaming industry is in trouble. The people who have visions of making millions on one roll of the dice are out of work Dow Jones reports that the overall take on the Las Vegas Strip was down 23% to $474 million in December. The madness of gambling is based on the belief that either the player ...

In today's carefully stage-managed Washington, the last thing anyone expects from members of Congress is candor or spontaneity. So perhaps it's not all that surprising that Representative Pete Hoekstra unwittingly triggered a maelstrom of criticism last weekend when he Twittered about his trip to Iraq. "Just landed in Baghdad," the Michigan Republican typed on his BlackBerry, alerting the nearly 3,000 people who have signed up to follow him on the social-networking service of the trip that he and five others, ...

A girl I knew in high school has memorized all of Janet Jackson's dance routines. A college acquaintance is afraid of train whistles. Five separate people harbor lifelong desires to visit New Zealand. How do I know these things? Because they won't stop writing about them on Facebook! Facebook's "25 Things About Me" meme seems harmless enough; people write 25 facts about themselves and post them on their Facebook pages, just as they do with videos, status updates and ...

For M.I.A., the show must go on. The vocalist, whose "Paper Planes" is up for record of the year, is ready to give birth. In fact, her due date was Sunday, but she was on the red carpet, looking dazzling in a blue patterned dress that couldn't help but show off her very pregnant form. "It's working its way down right now," she told CNN, patting her belly. "I'm taking it 10 minutes by 10 minutes by 10 minutes." ...