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The 28-year-old activist and mother arrived at a Kmart in New York City last Sunday afternoon to protest something she’d read about in The Village Voice, the New York weekly. The store has been selling Easter baskets filled not with traditional chocolate bunnies, but instead with military action figures. The packages, wrapped in pretty bows, also contained little machine guns, grenades and knives. She quietly stood inside the store holding a sign that read SOMEONE’S IN MY EASTER BASKET … AND IT’S G....

The evil nature dates back to the party’s origins. The CCP rose to power just as it has remained there: through deception. In 1924, it entered an alliance with China’s then-reigning Nationalist Party government, whom it quickly betrayed before dragging the nation into a 15-year civil war. Starting in the 1930s, the CCP conspired with Japanese invaders to take down China’s government. It pretended to join the nationalist government in a “United Front” against the Japanese, a feint it then exploited to sell critical intelligence to Tokyo....

He believes, with more stubbornness than evidence, that the federal government is a government of strictly enumerated powers, and nowhere in the Constitution’s enumeration (Article I, Section 8) can he find any reference to rice. So there. “Farm organizations fight me tooth and nail,” he says, “but the farmers are with me.” Of course they can afford to indulge their congressman’s philosophical eccentricity because lots of other House members represent rice farmers, so rice gets its share of gravy....

Commitment Watch, like the CW, was the brainchild of columnist and Senior Editor Jonathan Alter, and like its sibling, it relied on a wry sense of humor to make its point. But Commitment Watch also aimed to make a difference. When organizers announced plans in February for the nonpartisan Presidents’ Summit for America’s Future and called on corporate and nonprofit groups to make specific, public commitments to helping at-risk children, Alter suggested keeping tabs, week by week, on the mounting pledges–and challenging others to join the cause....

Six years of a chaotic and sometimes violent democratic transition, following the ouster of strongman ruler Suharto in 1998, has many Indonesians longing for the good old days of stable, authoritarian rule–minus the economic plunder and human-rights abuses. Indeed, a recent survey shows that 47 percent of the public wants the armed forces, which were all but stripped of their formal political role four years ago, to once again take center stage....

Jimenez’s own honeymoon is just beginning. Last week her collection–titled “Cosmology in Flesh”–was the talk of the prestigious Designer Debut presentation at New York’s Fall 2001 Fashion Week. “Jimenez may have stolen the show with her not-of-this-world clothes,” said Fashion Wire Daily. Although her designs have been displayed for years at a New York art gallery–and she’s built a cult following that includes Courtney Love, Jennifer Lopez and Cameron Diaz–she says she “felt like a debutante coming out” in front of the hundreds of editors and buyers at her first major runway show....

BROWNELL: What is the appeal of the “Live From the West”? SHISHKOVSKY: The show is quite different, unique. I know that lots of listeners are tuning in especially to listen to this radio show. Maybe the rest of the week they do not listen to the radio at all. It is the only program from the West playing the latest releases–by a Russian, for Russians–and it is like a window to the British and American music market....

LESS THAN 24 HOURS later, the compound’s consular section and gatehouse were a pile of rubble. The scene on the street corner was like something out of a war zone, wreathed in smoke and the acrid smell of burning gasoline from the parked cars in the consulate compound. And Roger Short, the British consul-general and someone I have known for two years, was dead. Short, 59, was one of the 27 killed in the two suicide bombings at the consulate and the Istanbul offices of a London-based bank on Thursday....

How extensive those might be, however, remains to be seen. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is now conducting an environmental impact review of the Starship project, possibly resulting in years of delays. The bureaucratic attention is sorely misplaced; instead of focusing on the potential environmental and climatological impact of Starship, the FAA (and the Biden administration at large) should instead be weighing the opportunity costs of delaying the venture. That’s because Starship has the potential to be a game changer in the fight against climate change....

Though selectors did not name any replacement for Dhawan, they announced that all-rounder Vijay Shankar will be replacing the fast bowler for the second Test. The 26-year-old from Tamil Nadu has been rewarded for his recent heroics in the Indian domestic circuit and for the India A side. His family members were elated after hearing this news as they felt Vijay’s hard work over the years has paid off. His brother Ajay, who plays lower division cricket, said he is very happy for his younger sibling and confident that he will do well if he gets a chance to play in the upcoming fixture....

Players Conventional Wisdom P. McCartney + Flak’s lie can’t tarnish Sir Paul’s class act. CW believes in Yesterday. Rat Pack + Cablecast of Dino, Sammy and Frank in ‘65 was politically incorrect. Everyone loved it. Ellen - Out of the closet, into the dumpster. Upside: fewer silly photos with that Heche woman. Airlines - ““Alliances’’ may look good now, but get ready for Mentos for dinner. Salon + Sassy (and still free) online zine shows N....

Every now and then, Star Wars: The Old Republic releases a brand new CG trailer, acting as a cinematic prelude to the story events of an upcoming expansion. These cinematic trailers have become a much beloved aspect of the game, even going as far as to overshine the actual expansion’s content in some cases. With every Star Wars fan being able to watch these trailers for free, they’ve become some of the most lauded Star Wars media in recent years, featuring tons of fan-service details and some excellent animation....

At 13, Chelsea doesn’t need much minding. But it was Hillary Clinton who asked Dickey to move into the White House as a familiar face for her daughter. “She’s really part of the family,” says Caputo. Dickey’s mother, Robyn, also has a White House job, as a deputy director of the visitors’ office.

" Death in Venice " by Thomas Mann. He is a master of capturing the darker side of the human soul and the disintegration of Venice as cholera hits. “The Life Before Us” by Romain Gary. A haunting story of alienation, rejection and unlikely love between two people. “In Search of Lost Time” by Marcel Proust. All the workings of memory that he describes are reflected in the writing itself....

“The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Religious hypocrisy in America–it’s all there, and amazingly relevant. “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand. Dagny Taggert is a woman of gigantic ego, purpose and arrogance. She’s Hillary Clinton. “Mixed Company” by Irwin Shaw. He’s a romantic–I am, too–and I wanted to write nonfiction in the spirit of his short stories. “Underworld” by Don DeLillo. He writes astonishing scenes. Seagulls hovering over a garbage dump–you can see the seagulls, smell the garbage....

CHILDHOOD: “The Arabian Nights.” The heroine was a brown, feisty girl who saved all the women in her kingdom with stories. Teens: “Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman. Behold El Señor Whitman, a Latino-sounding fellow with his long rhetorical lines. Twenties: “The Woman Warrior” by Maxine Hong Kingston. A beautiful, lyrical memoir about coming from somewhere else and reinventing yourself, while still bearing the burden of the past. Thirties: “Middlemarch” by George Eliot....

A classic that, on rereading, disappointed: George Orwell’s “1984.” Why I would believe it would be interesting beyond the date, I don’t know. In the 1970s it was scary. By the 1990s it was quaint. You almost can’t blame it. A Certified Important Book you haven’t read: “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy. For not having read it, I feel I may be a little undereducated. I could be missing some insight into the human condition, because after all, what is life but the interplay between war and peace?...

A classic that, upon rereading, disappointed: Hasn’t happened recently. Last year, Willa Cather’s “My Antonia” was better than ever.

Kante wins Player of the Year award His double award has come a year too late, but it is better late than never and you can be sure Kante will remain humble after a decade-long battle to get to the top of the game. Kante’s former Leicester team-mate Riyad Mahrez won the PFA prize last season, with Jamie Vardy taking the FWA honour, and it has taken an extra year of relentless running, tackling and composed passing for the France international to finally catch the eye....

Major airlines suffered financially throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, with Spirit Airlines making headlines throughout the past year for numerous issues, including periods of extended flight disruptions and widespread customer dissatisfaction. Statistics from the U.S. Department of Transportation show the company had a particularly high amount of customer grievances last year with 13.25 complaints per 100,000 passengers from January through September. Spirit also tied with Frontier in the American Customer Satisfaction Index of the industry’s worst customer satisfaction ratings....