New York Times: “Twenty-seven workers made an improbable escape from a collapsed tunnel in Los Angeles on Wednesday night by climbing over a large mound of loose soil and emerging at the only entrance five miles away without major injury, officials said. Four other tunnel workers went inside the industrial tunnel after the collapse to help in the rescue efforts. All 31 workers emerged safely and without significant injuries, said Michael Chee, the spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts. The Los Angeles Fire Department said that no one was missing after it had dispatched more than 100 rescue workers to the site in the city’s Wilmington neighborhood, about 20 miles south of downtown Los Angeles.”
To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.
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Commencement ceremonies are joyous occasions, and Steve Carell made sure that was true this past weekend (mid-June) at Northwestern's commencement:
~~~ Carell's entire commencement speech was hilarious. The audio and video here isn't great, but I laughed till I cried.
CNN did a live telecast Saturday night (June 7) of the Broadway play "Good Night, and Good Luck," written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, about legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow's effort to hold to account Sen. Joe McCarthy, "the junior senator from Wisconsin." Clooney plays Murrow. Here's Murrow himself with his famous take on McCarthy & McCarthyism, brief remarks that especially resonate today: ~~~
~~~ This article lists ways you still can watch the play.
New York Times: “The New York Times Company has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant’s artificial intelligence platforms, the company said on Thursday. The multiyear agreement 'will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences,' the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement encompasses material from NYT Cooking, The Times’s food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is The Times’s first licensing arrangement with a focus on generative A.I. technology. In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by The Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: I have no idea what this means for "the Amazon customer experience." Does it mean that if I don't have a NYT subscription but do have Amazon Prime I can read NYT content? And where, exactly, would I find that content? I don't know. I don't know.
Washington Post reporters asked three AI image generators what a beautiful woman looks like. "The Post found that they steer users toward a startlingly narrow vision of attractiveness. Prompted to show a 'beautiful woman,' all three tools generated thin women, without exception.... Her body looks like Barbie — slim hips, impossible waist, round breasts.... Just 2 percent of the images showed visible signs of aging. More than a third of the images had medium skin tones. But only nine percent had dark skin tones. Asked to show 'normal women,' the tools produced images that remained overwhelmingly thin.... However bias originates, The Post’s analysis found that popular image tools struggle to render realistic images of women outside the Western ideal." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The reporters seem to think they are calling out the AI programs for being unrealistic. But there's a lot about the "beautiful women" images they miss. I find these omissions remarkably sexist. For one thing, the reporters seem to think AI is a magical "thing" that self-generates. It isn't. It's programmed. It's programmed by boys, many of them incels who have little or no experience or insights beyond comic books and Internet porn of how to gauge female "beauty." As a result, the AI-generated women look like cartoons; that is, a lot like an air-brushed photo of Kristi Noem: globs of every kind of dark eye makeup, Scandinavian nose, Botox lips, slathered-on skin concealer/toner/etc. makeup, long dark hair and the aforementioned impossible Barbie body shape, including huge, round plastic breasts.
New York Times: “George Clooney’s Broadway debut, 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' has been one of the sensations of the 2024-25 theater season, breaking box office records and drawing packed houses of audiences eager to see the popular movie star in a timely drama about the importance of an independent press. Now the play will become much more widely available: CNN is planning a live broadcast of the penultimate performance, on June 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern. The performance will be preceded and followed by coverage of, and discussion about, the show and the state of journalism.”
No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. -- Magna Carta ~~~
~~~ New York Times: “Bought for $27.50 after World War II, the faint, water stained manuscript in the library of Harvard Law School had attracted relatively little attention since it arrived there in 1946. That is about to change. Two British academics, one of whom happened on the manuscript by chance, have discovered that it is an original 1300 version — not a copy, as long thought — of Magna Carta, the medieval document that helped establish some of the world’s most cherished liberties. It is one of just seven such documents from that date still in existence.... A 710-year-old version of Magna Carta was sold in 2007 for $21.3 million.... First issued in 1215, it put into writing a set of concessions won by rebellious barons from a recalcitrant King John of England — or Bad King John, as he became known in folklore. He later revoked the charter, but his son, Henry III, issued amended versions, the last one in 1225, and Henry’s son, Edward I, in turn confirmed the 1225 version in 1297 and again in 1300.”
NPR lists all of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize winners. Poynter lists the prizes awarded in journalism as well as the finalists in these categories.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts. — Anonymous
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. — Edward R. Murrow
Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns
I have a Bluesky account now. The URL ishttps://bsky.app/profile/marie-burns.bsky.social . When Reality Chex goes down, check my Bluesky page for whatever info I am able to report on the status of Reality Chex. If you can't access the URL, I found that I could Google Bluesky and ask for Marie Burns. Google will include links to accounts for people whose names are, at least in part, Maria Burns, so you'll have to tell Google you looking only for Marie.
Ed O'Keefe & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Prospects for a bipartisan deal to expand federal background checks for gun purchases are improving with the emergence of fresh Republican support, according to top Senate aides.... Sen. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), a key Democratic broker, has spent the past few days crafting the framework of a possible deal with Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.). Manchin and Toomey are developing a measure to require background checks for all gun purchases except sales between close family members and some hunters...." ...
... Travis Waldron of Think Progress: "Arizona Sen. John McCain (R) Sunday became the latest senior Republican to question the 13 Republicans who have threatened to filibuster gun legislation they haven't yet seen. The blind filibuster threats, originally made by Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), have already been criticized by top GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tom Coburn, who 'bristled at the idea.'" ...
... Margaret Talbot of the New Yorker: why are members of Congress afraid to vote for legislation that has the back of 90 percent of the American people? CW: Talbot offers a number of explanations, but the obvious answer is that members of Congress don't represent 90 percent of the people & don't give a flying fuck about anyone but their constituency of one -- themselves. ...
... E. J. Dionne: "... election outcomes and the public’s preferences have ... little impact on what is happening in Washington. At the moment, our democracy is not very democratic.... This representational skew affects coverage in the media.... There is no immediate solution to the obstruction of the democratic will. But we need to acknowledge that our system is giving extremists far more influence than the voters would." ...
... Paul Krugman: conservatives are still opposing ObamaCare in the name of FREEEE-DOM, an ironical position that isn't playing so well anymore, "perhaps because the experience of losing insurance is so common...." ...
Joe Davidson of the Washington Post: the Obama administration will hit up federal employees to effect budgetary "retirement savings." ...
... CW: It's probably worth reading Michael Scherer's (Time) piece on Obama's abandonment of quasi-liberals just for a laugh. Scherer claims the President's move to the right is justified because Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Sunday that Obama was "showing a bit of leg." Apparently, Scherer is unaware that Graham is a tease: he loves to dance with the President, but he never goes home with him.
Contributor Keith Howard recommends this essay by David Graeber, published in Baffler. Consider it a short history of world revolutions.
The Never-Ending Ted Steven Case. (even though Stevens is dead & the court overturned his conviction.) Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "An administrative judge has overturned the suspensions of two federal prosecutors whom the Justice Department had tried to discipline for failing to turn over evidence that might have helped the defense in the botched corruption trial against Senator Ted Stevens."
Michael Schwirtz of the New York TimesprofilesAnne Smedinghoff, the young U.S. diplomat killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan Saturday.
... AND speakng of old media, here's Jon Favreau, formerly President Obama's chief speechwriter, in his "debut Daily Beast column," on the sequestration cuts, & -- BTW -- the media's failure to robustly cover the issue. Favreau, we should note, took a job with the first big old-media outlet to totally fold: Newsweek.
David Cameron says his government is cracking down on welfare queens (and kings). He chose the perfect venue to publish his op-ed -- The Sun -- the tabloid owned by Cameron's pal Rupert Murdoch.
Local News
Josh Margolin & David Seifman of the New York Post: "Former Rep. Anthony Weineris laying the groundwork for a political comeback, possibly as a startling addition to this year’s mayoral race, sources said yesterday. Political insiders were abuzz at news that Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin, had granted a lengthy magazine interview for the first time since his resignation in an embarrassing sexting scandal in 2011." CW: okay, it's the Post, Not The World's Most Reliable Newspaper, so I hope it's wrong again. Anthony Weiner will forever be known for his private attributes, & I don't want to think about them. He should go quietly & become a mortician or a restaurateur, or maybe both.
News Ledes
New York Times: "Margaret Thatcher, a towering, divisive and yet revered figure who left an enduring impact on British politics, died on Monday of a stroke, her family said." The Guardian's obituary is here, with links to related stories. ...
... American women of a certain age will be more saddened by this. New York Times: "Annette Funicello, who won America's heart as a 12-year-old in Mickey Mouse ears, captivated adolescent baby boomers in slightly spicy beach movies and later championed people with multiple sclerosis, a disease from which she suffered, died on Monday in Bakersfield, Calif. She was 70."
... MEANWHILE, Not-Hillary Bobby Jindal is faltering. Kristen Lee of the New York Daily News: "Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a potential 2016 Republican White House contender, is struggling in his conservative home state, where his approval rating has fallen even below that of President Obama. The Republican governor's approval rating stands at 38% in the new Southern Media Opinion & Research survey, slightly lower than Obama's 43% approval....The pollsters said unhappiness about state cuts to higher education and health care contributed to Jindal's declining popularity. Also, 63% of respondents oppose Jindal's plan to eliminate state income taxes and raise sales taxes."
Bryon Tau of Politico: "President Obama's labor allies are unhappy about cuts to entitlements and benefits that are expected to be proposed by the administration in its forthcoming budget. In an email entitled 'Obama's really bad idea,' the AFL-CIO's policy director Damon Silvers blasted the leaked details of cuts to Social Security asking labor activists to 'make some noise about it.'"
Neil Irwin of the Washington Post: "On both sides of the Atlantic, democratically elected institutions have been helpless, slow or unable to act on the scale needed to protect the leading Western economies. And time and again, the central bankers -- a group of secretive, unelected technocrats -- have stood up while presidents and parliaments dithered." Adapted from his book.
Science News: "Residents of states with the highest rates of gun ownership and political conservatism are at greater risk of suicide than those in states with less gun ownership and less politically conservative leanings, according to a study by University of California, Riverside sociology professor Augustine J. Kposowa." Thanks to contributor James S. for the link. ...
... So Let's Give Guns to Sexually-Frustrated, Emotionally-Volatile Kids! Steve Benen on Liberty University, where everything is banned except guns: "At Liberty University, students are far more likely to see someone carrying a semi-automatic than carrying a bottle of beer. Mini-skirts have been deemed inappropriate, but loaded handguns have been deemed entirely appropriate. Students can see an extended magazine, but they can't see 'Django Unchained.'" ...
... Oh, Hell, Let's Give Guns to Everybody! Jonathan Allen of Politico: "Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's threat to filibuster any new gun restrictions is gathering steam, as a dozen of his Republican colleagues have now signed onto his plan." ...
... Scott Malone of Reuters: "The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said on Friday it had revoked the federal license of a Connecticut gun retailer that sold a weapon to the mother of Adam Lanza, who killed 26 people at an elementary school in December."
If the Republicans in the Senate don't start approving some judges and don't start helping get some of these nominations done, then we're going to have to take more action. -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, threatening to change the filibuster rules
"The Manchurian Speaker." Ezra Klein: "As badly as Obama wants a budget deal, Boehner seems just as determined to keep him from reaching one. For liberals, this is close to an ideal situation. The Republican Party's brand continues to worsen. The Democratic president manages to look reasonable without ever actually signing a painful compromise into law. And Medicare and Social Security remain safe."
Manu Raju & John Bresnahan of Politico: "New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenbergwill not return to Capitol Hill next week, and now it's unclear when -- or even if -- the veteran lawmaker will be back.... If Lautenberg were to give up his seat, under New Jersey law, Gov. Chris Christie (R) would have the power to name an interim replacement -- most likely a fellow Republican -- before a special election would be held to fill out the remainder of Lautenberg's term, which expires January 2015. But the timing of any potential Lautenberg retirement is critical."
Larry Henry of KFSM, Fort Smith, Arkansas: "U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., on Saturday (April 6) clarified his view on same-sex issues, saying he is opposed to same-sex marriage." CW: Pryor's term ends in 2015; presumably he's planning to run for re-election.
Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: A "back-room bargain [between Pakistani & CIA officials], described in detail for the first time in interviews with more than a dozen officials in Pakistan and the United States, is critical to understanding the origins of a covert drone war that began under the Bush administration, was embraced and expanded by President Obama, and is now the subject of fierce debate.... The C.I.A. has since conducted hundreds of drone strikes in Pakistan that have killed thousands of people, Pakistanis and Arabs, militants and civilians alike.... [Pakistan] became the laboratory for the targeted killing operations that have come to define a new American way of fighting, blurring the line between soldiers and spies and short-circuiting the normal mechanisms by which the United States as a nation goes to war." Mazzetti adapted the article from a book he has written.
Steve Eder of the New York Times: Rutgers athletic director Tim "Pernettiis hardly the only person who watched the edited video [of men's basketball coach Mike Rice abusing team players] and still approved of keeping Mr. Rice on staff until last week. The athletic department's human resources and chief financial officer saw the video, as did the university's outside legal counsel. At least one member of the board of governors saw it. Robert L. Barchi, the university president, has said he did not see it before last week, although at least one of his senior directors asked him to watch it. Interviews ... show that when the most senior Rutgers officials were confronted with explicit details about Mr. Rice's behavior toward his players and his staff, they ignored them or issued relatively light penalties." Here's the report.
... Peter Moskowitz of Gawker: "Republican [New York] City Councilman Dan Halloran ... was best known for making false claims about city snow plow drivers purposely slowing down their work. Fortunately his reputation as a liar was recently superseded by revelations that he accepted bribes in an effort to get Democratic State Senator Malcom Smith on the Republican ticket for Mayor. But now he can be best remembered for something else: Halloran was voluntarily tied to a tree and flogged 11 times with a leather belt by the leaders of his pagan sect as punishment for an 'undisclosed act' against a female 'thrall' (probationary servant, in non-pagan-Religion-terms).... In addition to being flogged as punishment, the Post reveals that Halloran once tried to start his own sect of Theodism and attract followers away from the main group. In order to do that, he had to battle another member of the group, which involved throwing 7-foot-long tree spears at each other."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Lilly Pulitzer, the Palm Beach princess of prints who created an enduring fashion uniform for wealthy socialites and jet setters almost by accident, died on Sunday at her home in Florida. She was 81."
Reuters: "Members of the U.S. military whose homes were unlawfully foreclosed upon between 2006 and 2010 will receive about $39 million from subsidiaries of Bank of America and Morgan Stanley, the U.S. Justice Department announced on Thursday."
Los Angeles Times: "Coroner's officials plan to conduct an autopsy on the youngest son of Orange County Pastor Rick Warren next week to determine an official cause of death, a routine event in cases where suicide is suspected, authorities said Saturday afternoon. Matthew Warren's death at his home on Pradera Drive in Mission Viejo was reported to Orange County sheriff's officials at about 5:25 p.m. Friday, said Supervising Deputy Coroner Dan Aikin. Aikin said he could not confirm an earlier report by coroner's officials to City News Service that Warren, 27, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound."
"Depression, Not Ended." Paul Krugman: "Lousy jobs report....Yet for what, the third time since 2009, all discussion in Washington has turned away from job creation to deficits (even though the debt problem has largely faded away) and the need for an early Fed exit from stimulus (even though unemployment remains high and inflation low). Clearly, the answer is to cut Social Security!" ...
The President lays out his plan in his weekly address:
... Here's the transcript. Funny, not a word about why it's such a good idea to cut Social Security benefits -- which have nothing to do with the deficit, but he's proposing anyway. AP story here. ...
... **Here's the lede in Stephen Ohlemacher's AP story, one that voters across the nation will be reading in their local papers this morning: "President Barack Obama's proposal to change the way the government measures inflation could lead to fewer people qualifying for college grants and anti-poverty programs, reduced benefits for seniors and veterans, and higher taxes for low-income families. If adopted across the government, the new inflation measure would have far-reaching effects because so many programs are adjusted each year based on year-to-year changes in consumer prices." ...
... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic relates Obama's budget strategy (see if you're convinced). BUT: "We have pressing problems on our hands -- people struggling to pay for basic necessities, kids trapped in poverty, infrastructure that desperately needs repairing. Instead of talking about how to fix those problems, we'll be debating how much spending to cut and how quickly. That should be the real news of the day." ...
... Jon Chait of New York: "Mainly this appears to be a message strategy aimed at advocates of BipartisanThink, who have been blaming Obama for failing to offer the plan he has in fact been offering. The strategy is that, by converting their offer to Boehner from an 'offer' to a 'budget,' it will prove that Obama is Serious. On the one hand, this strikes me as completely ridiculous. On the other hand, it might actually work! BipartisanThinkers like Ron Fournier ('a gutsy change in strategy') and Joe Scarborough ('Now THIS is a real budget … exciting') are gushing with praise." See also Krugman's comment linked in yesterday's Commentariat." ...
... Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post: Obama "seems to have been consistently pushing for a plan that breaks with the liberal establishment in significant ways, and after a certain point, you have to perhaps entertain the notion that it's something that he authentically desires." ...
... Sahil Kapur of TPM: "Liberals are mounting strong criticisms of President Obama amid news that his budget will include a Social Security benefit cut -- an official endorsement of a policy compromise he's offered Republicans for years -- and warning Democrats not to dare vote to cut the cherished retirement program."
... Steve Benen: "... if you're a progressive who strongly opposes changes to Social Security and Medicare, I have good news for you: House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) hasn't seen Obama's new budget, but he's already rejecting it out of hand."
** Ezra Klein: "In a report for the New American Foundation..., [the authors] conclude that the ongoing debate over how to cut Social Security is all wrong: We need to make Social Security much more generous." Again, see Krugman's comment linked yesterday.
Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "The NRA's recent successes on Capitol Hill -- as well as a string of victories in state legislatures across the country -- demonstrate the effectiveness of the group's strategy to overcome a post-Newtown tilt toward gun control. The organization has drafted and circulated legislation, mobilized its members and continued to put pressure on politically vulnerable lawmakers. At the same time, groups attempting to promote stricter gun control measures have faltered."
New York TimesEditors: "A federal district judge in New York has overturned the Obama administration's ban preventing girls younger than 17 from purchasing emergency contraceptive pills over the counter. It was a well-deserved rebuke to a politically motivated decision that overrode sound science and the health needs of young girls in order to placate political opponents of emergency contraception." ...
... Irin Carmon of Slate: "Today, a federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan did for women’s health what the Obama administration was too politically cowardly to do: Make safe, time-sensitive emergency contraception available to everyone, regardless of age. The shameful thing is that it had to come to this. The administration, said 2nd Circuit District Judge Edward Korman, acted in 'bad faith' -- a phrase that arises again and again in the stinging decision. And Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius acted in a fashion that 'was politically motivated, scientifically unjustified, and contrary to agency precedent.'" ...
... Josh Lederman & Lauran Neergaard of the AP: "The Justice Department said it is evaluating whether to appeal.... A Justice spokeswoman said there would be a prompt decision. And the White House said Obama's view on the issue hasn't changed since 2011.... Absent an appeal or a government request for more time to prepare one, the ruling will take effect in 30 days, meaning that over-the-counter sales could start then."
CW: Obama's public remark about Harris is consistent with his public remark about controlling his daughters' access to birth control, a rationale he used to "justify" imposing accidental motherhood on thousands of American girls & women.
Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama late Thursday night called Kamala Harris, the California attorney general, and apologized to her for telling a group of wealthy donors that she is the 'best-looking attorney general in the country.'" CW: He also said he was sorry he had asked her to go out and get coffee. In a statement, the White House noted that the President has withdrawn as an honorary judge of the annual Attorneys General Beauty Pageant even after organizers dropped the bathing suit competition.
Trenton Daniel of the AP: "A new report on American aid to Haiti in the wake of that country's devastating earthquake finds much of the money went to U.S.-based companies and organizations. The Center for Economic and Policy Research analyzed the $1.15 billion pledged after the January 2010 quake and found that the "vast majority" of the money it could follow went straight to U.S. companies or organizations, more than half in the Washington area alone. Just 1 percent went directly to Haitian companies." CW: OR, why I don't get all choked up & pull out my checkbook when Bill Clinton -- "the most influential man in Haiti" -- asks me to help people in need.
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Dr. Paul Rothman, the dean of medical faculty at Johns Hopkins University..., issued a statement Friday labeling Ben Carson's comments about gay marriage 'offensive' and said the school will meet with students who want him removed as commencement speaker. Carson, meanwhile, offered a fuller apology for the comments, which compared gay marriage to bestiality and pedophilia." AND here's a question for Blake: how come Rothman is "Dr. Paul Rothman" & Carson is "Ben Carson." They are both medical doctors. Why doesn't Carson get the honorific, too, even if he is a jerk?
Tom Canavan of the AP: Rutgers University "Athletic Director Tim Pernetti resign[ed] over his failure to immediately fire coach Mike Rice, who was caught on video hitting, kicking and taunting players with anti-gay slurs at practice.... Also resigning was John B. Wolf, Rutgers' interim senior vice president and general counsel, who is believed to have recommended against firing Rice in December over the video." ...
... Kate Zernike & Steve Eder of the New York Times: "On Friday, the university also released a 50-page report that John P. Lacey, an outside lawyer, prepared last year in response to the abuse allegations. It made clear that Rutgers officials were aware that Mr. Rice's outbursts 'were not isolated' and that he had a fierce temper, used homophobic and misogynistic slurs, kicked his players and threw basketballs at them. But it described Mr. Rice as 'passionate, energetic and demanding' and concluded that his behavior constituted 'permissible training.' It found that he aimed to 'cause them to play better during the team's basketball games.'" ...
... Ted Sherman & Kelly Heyboer of the Star-Ledger: "Pernetti -- under a settlement agreement obtained by The Star-Ledger -- will be paid more than $1.2 million in return for his resignation. Under the terms of his contract, Rice is entitled to receive more than $1 million." ...
... Kelly Heyboer: "Under Rice's contract, the coach could be fired for bringing 'shame or disgrace to the university.' If he was fired 'for cause' in December, the university would not have to pay him for the remainder of his $650,000 contract or give him his $100,000 bonus for completing the season, his contract said. The report stopped short of recommending whether Rice should be fired, suspended or punished in any other way."
War on Women, Ctd. John Hanna of the AP: " Kansas legislators gave final passage to a sweeping anti-abortion measure Friday night, sending Gov. Sam Brownback a bill that declares life begins 'at fertilization' while blocking tax breaks for abortion providers< and banning abortions performed solely because of the baby's sex. The House voted 90-30 for a compromise version of the bill reconciling differences between the two chambers, only hours after the Senate approved it, 28-10. The Republican governor is a strong abortion opponent, and supporters of the measure expect him to sign it into law so that the new restrictions take effect July 1."
News Ledes
AP: "Militants killed six Americans, including a young female diplomat, and an Afghan doctor Saturday in a pair of attacks in Afghanistan on Saturday. It was the deadliest day for the United States in the war in eight months."
New York Times: "J. David Kuo, an evangelical Christian who served as a leader in President George W. Bush's faith initiative but later became a critic, died on Friday. He was 44."
AP: "The Southern California church headed by popular evangelical Pastor Rick Warren announced Saturday that Warren's 27-year-old son has committed suicide. Warren's Saddleback Valley Community Church said in a statement that Matthew Warren had struggled with mental illness and deep depression throughout his life."
New York Times: "Nelson Mandela ... was discharged from a hospital on Saturday after a nine-day stay to receive treatment for pneumonia, the South African government said."
Reuters: "World powers and Iran failed again to end the deadlock in a decade-old dispute over Tehran's nuclear program in talks that ended in Kazakhstan on Saturday, prolonging a standoff that could yet spiral into a new Middle East war. No new talks were scheduled but big power negotiators, who earlier this year were insisting that time was running out, were at pains to say the diplomatic process would continue."
Reuters: "Three people were shot to death in a rural Idaho house where a man and his son were breeding pit bulls, police said on Saturday, adding that they found two small children and up to 70 dogs on the property."
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