Kurt Vonnegut, Novelist Who Caught the Imagination of His Age, Is Dead at 84  —  Kurt Vonnegut, whose dark comic talent and urgent moral vision in novels like "Slaughterhouse-Five," "Cat's Cradle" and "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation, died last night in Manhattan.

Bush aides' use of GOP e-mail probed  —  WASHINGTON - The White House said Wednesday it had mishandled Republican Party-sponsored e-mail accounts used by nearly two dozen presidential aides, resulting in the loss of an undetermined number of e-mails concerning official White House business.

Imus Now Off MSNBC  —  NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — MSNBC has announced the cable network will no longer carry the "Imus in the Morning" radio show.  —  NBC News released a statement Wednesday night that detailed Imus's dismissal.  —  "Effective immediately, MSNBC will no longer simulcast …

Prosecutors Drop Charges in Duke Case  —  RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Prosecutors dropped all charges Wednesday against the three Duke lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting a stripper at a party, saying the athletes were innocent victims of a "tragic rush to accuse" by an overreaching district attorney.

This Entry For A Limited Time Only  —  The doorbell rang 5 minutes ago.  —  It was delivery of a certified letter.  —  I am being ordered to take down all of my blog entries pertaining to JL Kirk & Associates.  If I don't, they will so me for tortuous interference and other damages.

The Rebirth of Civility?  —  A revolt against people who are behaving badly.  —  And so it came to pass in the year 2007 that a little platoon came forth to say unto the world: Enough is enough.  —  Two leading citizens of the Web, Tim O'Reilly and Jimmy Wales, have proposed a "Bloggers Code of Conduct."

Gates Announces Longer Tours for Active-Duty Army Soldiers  —  Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced this afternoon that all active-duty Army soldiers currently deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan could serve extended tours of up to 15 months in combat, meaning more than 100,000 troops …

In 5-Year Effort, Scant Evidence of Voter Fraud  —  Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews.

McCain campaign to cut back on staff  —  WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record)'s troubled presidential campaign is eliminating some non-senior staff positions and cutting some consultants' contracts.  —  The Arizona senator's campaign characterized the moves as …

Racist Literature Distributed in Berkeley  —  A study in hate, the left/right convergence, and media spin  —  During the first few days of April, 2007, racist literature was distributed in several Berkeley, California neighborhoods by members of an out-of-town white supremacist group.

Blair blames spate of murders on black culture  —  Patrick Wintour and Vikram Dodd  —  Tony Blair yesterday claimed the spate of knife and gun murders in London was not being caused by poverty, but a distinctive black culture.  His remarks angered community leaders, who accused him of ignorance …

Google puts the spotlight on Darfur  —  News blog: next stop - deleting Bolivia?  —  Google Earth, the search engine's online mapping service, has updated its images of the Darfur region in Sudan in an attempt to draw attention to the plight of people living there.