When the political activist Al Sharpton pivoted from his war against bigmouth radio man Don Imus to a war on bad-mouth gangsta rap, the instinct among older music fans was to roll their eyes and yawn. Ten years ago, another activist, C. Delores Tucker, launched a very similar campaign to clean up rap music. She focused on Time Warner , whose subsidiary Interscope was home to hard-core rappers Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur. In 1995 Tucker succeeded in forcing Time ...

Like running backs and child actors, rappers usually do their best work in the first year or two of their careers. The inevitable decline is brought on not by bum knees or embarrassing arrests--in rap there's no such thing--but by something far more mundane: words. Jay-Z's aptly titled classic What More Can I Say is more than 800 words long, and when it's over, you know everything you could possibly need to know about him. Now multiply What More ...

For the first time in 13 days, a lull has descended upon the fierce fighting between armed tribesmen and forces loyal to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The consistent shelling and gunfire in the capital city of Sana'a have been replaced by a tense quiet, with most residents still choosing to stay in their homes or flee to ancestral villages. After an attack on his presidential compound, Saleh, 69, is now lying in a Saudi hospital recovering from ...

With a demure smile and a garland of jasmine, Thailand has always welcomed the world. China and Japan may have screened themselves off for centuries, but the ancient kingdom of Siam, as Thailand was once known, thrived on trade and tourism. Even today, the country depends on visitors lured by golden spires and white-sand beaches. But on Nov. 25, Thailand abandoned its traditional hospitality when antigovernment agitators swarmed Bangkok's international airport, grounding one of Asia's busiest air hubs. ...

In 1965, U.S. Army Sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins deserted his post in South Korea and fled to the communist Northa move he now calls "the stupidest thing I have ever done." He spent nearly four decades inside the Hermit Kingdom, as a lingering mystery of the cold war. In July, Pyongyang finally let Jenkins leave. He turned himself in to the U.S. Army in Japan and was sentenced to 30 days in jail. He left prison two weeks ago. In ...

What are you doing when you aren't doing anything at all? If you said "nothing," then you have just passed a test in logic and flunked a test in neuroscience. When people perform mental tasks--adding numbers, comparing shapes, identifying faces--different areas of their brains become active, and brain scans show these active areas as brightly colored squares on an otherwise dull gray background. But researchers have recently discovered that when these areas of our brains light up, other areas go ...

Scottish prosecutors are conducting a further review of the evidence related to the Lockerbie bombing, prosecutors have told families of victims from the United Kingdom.

At least 21 people were killed and more than 80 others injured during three days of rioting here last week, a police spokeswoman said Monday. Police spokeswoman Judith Nabakooba said 663 people had been arrested and 86 people had been injured. President Yoweri Museveni is to address the violence in a speech to parliament slated for Tuesday afternoon. Though the mood on the streets in the capital city was calm Monday, tensions between Museveni and the Buganda kingdom -- headed ...

A man suspected of robbing at least 10 banks in four states has been arrested, according to an FBI investigator and the Missouri State Patrol. Chad Schaffner was arrested Saturday in Callaway County, Missouri, according to a dispatcher for the Missouri State Patrol and an FBI investigator close to the case. The arrest took place in Kingdom City, Missouri, at about 2:45 p.m., said Missouri State Patrol radio operator Paula Price. Authorities received a tip from someone who recognized ...

A body that may be that of a Briton taken hostage in Iraq two years ago has been handed over to Iraqi authorities, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband announced Wednesday. The disclosures reported by the country's official news agency were highly unusual. The agency, SPA, reported the attacker, Abdullah Hassan Talea' Asiri, a wanted Saudi militant who had been hiding in Yemen, got in touch with Saudi authorities telling them he wanted to turn himself in to Saudi Prince Mohammed ...