From wild child to doting mother

As a tattooed wild child wearing her husband’s blood in a locket and luring Brad Pitt away from Hollywood rival Jennifer Aniston, Angelina Jolie was dream fodder for the tabloid press. But her transformation into a humanitarian campaigner and now poster girl for the fight against breast cancer with her revelation that, faced with a high cancer risk, she had undergone a double mastectomy has elevated her to heroine status in the media.

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Jolie urges end to sexual violence

Angelina Jolie has brought her celebrity wattage to London to back an urgent cause: fighting sexual violence in military conflicts. The Hollywood star joined British Foreign Secretary William Hague in announcing US$36 million in additional funding from G-8 nations to go toward a series of measures for preventing sexual violence and ensuring justice for its survivors.

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Supreme Court Overturns Fleeting Expletives Ruling and Sweeping Larger Issues Under the Rug

  A Supreme Court ruling regarding FCC indecency rules for broadcast TV calls for less vague standards but seems to back the public interest in safeguarding children from vulgarities and nudity on public airwaves. It will now be up to the FCC to provide a clear set of standards regarding what is to be labeled acceptable or […]

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Elizabethan Drama

Clarification Appended: June 30, 2011 Here’s some good news for consumers who feel themselves trampled by soulless banking and credit giants: on July 21, a new consumer-protection agency will open its doors in Washington, with the mission of making everything from mortgage documents to credit statements fairer and easier to understand and generally giving the little guy more power against the financial corporate juggernauts. Here’s the bad news: it’s not clear that President Obama will be able to appoint anyone to run it

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INTELLIGENCE: The CIA: Time to Come In From the Cold

Question: “Under what international law do we have a right to attempt to destabilize the constitutionally elected government of another country?” Answer: “l am not going to pass judgment on whether it is permitted or authorized under international law. It is a recognized fact that historically as well as presently, such actions are taken in the best interest of the countries involved.” That blunt response by President Gerald Ford at his press conference last week was either remarkably careless or remarkably candid

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Did Obama’s Speech Give Syria’s Assad a Breather?

The late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat used to be called “the great survivor.” Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad may be succeeding to the title. Many observers had expected Barack Obama to use a much-anticipated speech on the Middle East to call for Assad to step down, much as Washington has demanded that Muammar Gaddafi relinquish power in Libya.

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