Russia Relations Reset: France, U.S. Court Moscow. For the past two decades, Western nations have lunged between embracing Russia as a post-communist friend and confronting it as a recidivist foe. That alternation is now surging to the positive side. On Thursday, President Obama affectionately greeted his Russian opposite, Dmitri Medvedev, at the White House. Less than a week earlier, French leader Nicolas Sarkozy pitched similar love in Moscow's direction. And if there's any doubt that a spirit of cooperation now prevails, just ask one of the many Western CEOs lined up to do business with Russia, confident that the climate is right for partnership.
During a joint press conference in Washington, Obama told Medvedev that cooperation between the two countries must now go beyond achievements like a recent accord to reduce nuclear arsenals. The gaggle of American and Russian CEOs hovering around Medvedev's visit provided proof that efforts to increase economic ties are already under way. Found: New Planet Gliese 581g Is Habitable Like Earth. The star known as Gliese 581 is utterly unremarkable in just about every way you can imagine.
It's a red dwarf, the most common type of star in the Milky Way, weighing in at about a third of the mass of the sun. At 20 light years or so away, it's relatively nearby, but not close enough to set any records (it's the 117th closest star to Earth, for what that's worth). You can't even see it without a telescope, so while it lies in the direction of Libra, it isn't one of the shining dots you'd connect to form the constellation. It's no wonder that the star's name lacks even a whiff of mystery or romance.
But Gliese 581 does have one distinction — and that's enough to make it the focus of intense scientific attention. At last count, astronomers had identified more than 400 planets orbiting stars beyond the sun, and Gliese 581 was host to no fewer than four of them — the most populous solar system we know of, aside from our own. That alone would make the star intriguing. Heavy Drinkers Outlive Nondrinkers, Study Finds. Assassination of a Candidate for Governor Scars Mexico. Last Friday, June 25, gubernatorial candidate Rodolfo Torre raised both his arms to the sky in front of 15,000 cheering white-shirted supporters in a baseball stadium minutes from the Rio Grande. After he promised security in his violence-ridden border state of Tamaulipas, the crowd erupted to his campaign anthem, sung to the catchy tune of the smash hit "I Gotta Feeling" by U.S. pop band Black Eyed Peas.
They had reason for celebration. Opinion polls all concurred that the mustachioed physician would win the July 4 election by a landslide of more than 30 points. But on Monday, as Torre left the state capital to conclude his campaign, assailants showered his convoy with gunfire from automatic rifles and heavy-caliber weapons, killing him instantly. Army commanders said the attack bore all the signs of the Zetas, a paramilitary drug gang that was born in the state. The violence in Tamaulipas has scarred all the major political parties. . — With reporting by Dolly Mascareñas / Oaxaca. Spy Scandal: While Funny, Arrests Show Cold War Mind-Set. Leave it to the Russians to not understand that the Cold War is dead and buried. The 10 alleged deep-cover operatives who were arrested on Monday may number more spies than were here in the 1950s, when there was a real possibility of war between the U.S. and Russia. (An 11th suspect was apprehended in Cyprus but released on bail.)
You have to wonder what the Russians could have been thinking to spend the tens of millions of dollars that such an espionage infrastructure costs. Were they planning for a new Cold War? The other odd thing is that the suspected Russian operatives seem to have been stuck with a Cold War spy's craft, with secret writing, dead drops and money stashes. We can all laugh at this bad version of Get Smart, but the disturbing side of it is the suggestion that Russian intelligence has not grown up since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 — and that probably means neither has the Kremlin. But it's really Iran that is at play here. With U.S. Combat Troops Gone, Iraqis Say 'Thanks for the Mess' Even as Washington is recasting the narrative of the Iraq war in terms of the troop withdrawal and campaign promises, Iraqi citizens say they're still caught in the same old story of frustration and fear.
U.S. combat troops have now left the country, leaving behind an unfinished $53 billion rebuilding plan and some 50,000 personnel to advise and assist the populace. Meanwhile, President Obama is scheduled to speak about the end of America's seven-year military engagement in Iraq in a speech on Tuesday that will, among other things, officially change the code name for the U.S. mission from Operation Iraqi Freedom to Operation New Dawn.
But the rosy "rebranding" of the conflict, as some have called it, is hardly playing well in the bazaars of Baghdad and other embattled cities and towns where Iraqis of all stripes are scratching their heads over how charting their own course can possibly be a good thing. The U.S. insists that Iraqi security forces are continually improving. Twixter Generation: Young Adults Who Won't Grow Up. Welfare: A White Secret. Come on, my fellow white folks, we have something to confess. No, nothing to do with age spots or those indoor-tanning creams we use to get us through the | winter without looking like the final stages of TB. Nor am I talking about the fact that we all go home and practice funky dance moves behind drawn shades.
Out with it, friends, the biggest secret known to whites since the invention of powdered rouge: welfare is a white program. Yep. At least it's no more black than Vanilla Ice is a fair rendition of classic urban rap. The numbers go... Subscribe Now Get TIME the way you want it One Week Digital Pass — $4.99 Monthly Pay-As-You-Go DIGITAL ACCESS — $2.99 One Year ALL ACCESS — Just $30!