BREAKING NEWS

Home schooling parents and children in California received an enormous scare last month when a California appeals court ruled that home schooling parents had to have a state teaching credential.

The triumphal visit of Benedict XVI to the United States was remarkable for many reasons, not the least of which is the massive outpouring of affection and respect for the octogenarian pontiff whose brilliant mind has long been respected but too many American commentators seemed to create distance in their eyes between the pope and his American faithful.

At a recent fundraiser in San Francisco, Barack Obama spoke to the well-heeled crowd in condescending terms about working class Americans. He said: "So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

America's relationship with the Roman Catholic Church and its popes has had its ups and downs.

Newsweek magazine has discovered the children of divorce. In this week's cover story, "The Divorce Generation Grows Up," writer David J. Jefferson went back to his 1982 graduating class at Grant High School in California's San Fernando Valley.

An important new study of divorce and out-of-wedlock birth shows that taxpayers lose more than a hundred billion each year to cover the costs of family break-up.

Senator Joe Lieberman summed up the attitude of his Democratic colleagues towards General David Petraeus and the general's report on conditions in Iraq. Petraeus: "See no progress. Hear no progress. And above all, speak no progress."

Who would have predicted that the 2008 Olympic Games, to be held in Beijing, China, would have run into controversy months before they were due to open? But it's happened. In London, protesters very nearly succeeded in dousing the Olympic torch as is was being carried by British sports figures through the city. In Paris, it had to be temporarily doused to deny demonstrators the chance to seize it. In San Francisco, organizers of the torch run wrapped the route in a blanket of security worthy of a presidential motorcade.

During Tuesday’s hearings on the Hill, all three remaining presidential candidates had a chance to talk with General David Petraeus about the progress being made in Iraq. Only Senator McCain took the opportunity to recognize the enormous strides made there since the surge began.

Every once in awhile, the federal government actually gets one right, as President Bush did when his first two executive orders, 7 years ago, created the faith-based initiatives program.

When a TV network offers new programming that's entertaining, inspiring and substantive, it's enough to renew our faith in miracles. HBO's epic eight hours on John Adams is precisely that sort of pop culture miracle: a lovingly-rendered tribute to the most misunderstood, most under-rated of our Founding Fathers.

Senator Barack Obama, so the polls say, has weathered the embarrassment of the racist and anti-American insults uttered by his former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright. What Obama has failed to be, however, is entirely honest about Wright himself.

In a recent Q and A with voters, Barack Obama got questions on a variety of sensitive subjects, one of which was sex education. Senator Obama noted he had two young daughters, and that he would first try to teach them morals, but added: "But, if they make a mistake I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at the age of 16."

A Dutch member of parliament, Geert Wilders, has just released a 15-minute documentary on the Internet titled "Fitna." It's the Arabic word for "strife," and the documentary shows gruesome scenes of violence and murder committed by Islamic radicals in many different parts of the world. It’s certainly offensive.

PBS is broadcasting four hours of a project called "Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?" bemoaning the four-year difference in life expectancy between the richest 20 percent of Americans and the poorest population. In response, Senators Obama and Clinton have introduced legislation demanding reduction of these disparities.

Journalist Robin Wright has written an extraordinary new survey of the Middle East titled “Dreams and Shadows.” Ms. Wright is no friend of the Bush administration or the Iraq War, but she is a keen observer of the dictators and extremists of the region and her assessments not only superbly crafted, but also alarming in the way that truth often is to those who have avoided looking at the hard facts for very long.

Well, here is another sign of the times. The New York Times reports that even the youngest of girls are being targeted as consumers of cosmetics and beauty treatments. The elementary set is showing up in trendy salons for pedicures and manicures. As the paper reports:

For cultural conservatives, the good news is that nearly all Americans--87 percent--still believe in the concept of sin, but the bad news is that we're deeply confused on how to define it.

Newspapers and politicians like to make a lot of anniversaries out of round numbers. In recent days, people were discussing the magic figure of five years since the start of the Iraq War. Now they are pointing to the figure of 4,000 deaths of American servicemen and servicewomen as, supposedly, a special landmark.

On the Saturday night before Easter in a service Catholics know as the Easter Vigil, Pope Benedict XVI baptized a prominent Egyptian journalist Magdi Allam who--until his conversion--had been a Muslim. This very visible baptism was almost instantly denounced by some in the West and from some within Islam as provocative.

This was supposed to be the Democrats' year. With a Republican president riding low in the polls, and Democratic fundraising and voter turnout both trumping Republicans in the primaries, the momentum was in their direction.

The Chinese government, and indeed the Chinese people, have been very proud to be the hosts for this year's Olympic Games. So they should be.

The fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam ignited all sorts of retrospectives.

Christians around the world are now observing their most solemn, yet joyous season of the year.

In the Jeremiah Wright affair, Barack Obama is clearly lying about something.