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The best-selling book on the current crisis is Jean P. Sasson’s “The Rape of Kuwait” (Knightsbridge. Paper, $4.95), with 1.2 million copies in print. An account of Iraqi atrocities in Kuwait, the book is written so simple-mindedly that the real horrors it describes seem to evaporate in the prose style. The second biggest seller, with 800,000 copies in print, is by far the more useful purchase. Judith Miller, a reporter for The New York Times, and Laurie Mylroie, a Middle East specialist at Harvard, were among the first writers out of the gate when Iraq invaded Kuwait....

It’s well known that Bill Gates co-founded the Microsoft Corporation in 1975 with childhood friend Paul Allen. It’s not as well known that Melinda Gates, then Melinda French, was a general manager at Microsoft when the pair met and began dating in 1987. Their origin story goes like this: After flirting a bit in the parking lot at work, Bill asked Melinda out for a date two weeks in advance....

On Wednesday night the Times published a story suggesting that McCain might have done legislative favors for the clients of the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, who worked for the firm of Alcalde & Fay. One example it cited were two letters McCain wrote in late 1999 demanding that the Federal Communications Commission act on a long-stalled bid by one of Iseman’s clients, Florida-based Paxson Communications, to purchase a Pittsburgh television station....

On Thursday, Dec. 8, President Joe Biden confirmed the news, adding that he has spoken with Griner, who is safe and on her way home. Griner’s detainment began in February when she was arrested after the Russian Federal Customs Service claimed it found hashish oil in her luggage at an airport near Moscow. The news of her detainment first surfaced in early March and instantly became the biggest off-the-court storyline in the basketball world....

K.C.’s heart isn’t into detective work. He moonlights as a yoga instructor whose students, every one of ’em, are lithe young women eager for some after-school instruction. But what he really wants to do is act. The haggard, debt-ridden Joe also has a sideline selling real estate, resulting in many desperate cell-phone negotiations that always come at comically inappropriate times, i.e., while chasing bad guys. The villain of the piece is power-hungry rap mogul Antoine Sartain (Isaiah Washington), who has a bad habit of offing his own talent when they stray from the fold....

NEWSWEEK: Do you agree with Gus Dur that most Acehnese want to remain in the republic? RAIS: We cannot jump to that optimistic conclusion, because most probably the Acehnese people want to imitate East Timor and choose full independence. People in Aceh feel that their human rights and dignity have been violated time and again by the security apparatus, which has murdered innocent people, raped their women and tortured them....

That phrase brings back cold family memories of New Hampshire. In the 1992 primary, President Bush’s broken pledge not to raise taxes helped power Pat Buchanan to a close second, demonstrating Bush’s vulnerability. This year George W. Bush’s brother Jeb, the Florida governor, has handed out oranges in New Hampshire. The former president, however, has stayed away from the state–partly to avoid giving the impression that George W needs dad’s help....

Her show, like her whole career, is a triumph of attitude. “Show business,” she says, “is all well and good but you can’t take it too seriously.” I liked it that one of the four chorus girls who herald her appearance with a blast of angelic trumpets comes on stage conspicuously chewing gum, faintest of tummy poking out over the waistband of her spangled diaphanous pants. Midler’s backup singers have been reconstituted as the “politically correct Harlettes,” living proof that no race has a monopoly on tackiness....

Here are his vitals: Since his nomination, Peake doesn’t seem afraid to speak critically about the Veterans Administration, while still acknowledging the good work of its rank-and-file employees. As he said upon nomination: Among the questions senators asked today are requests for clarification over Peake’s involvement with QTC Management, Inc. QTC is a company holding contracts with the VA, and so Peake says he’s cutting all ties and deferring contract decisions to others in VA....

Was the timing determined by Beijing? China has always been wary of Chan, who was appointed by the reformist former British governor Chris Patten. Her conflicts with her Beijing-appointed boss, Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, were legendary in Hong Kong’s media. In September Beijing summoned and publicly rep-rimanded her for not showing enough support for Tung. Chan denied she was being forced out. “My decision,” she said, “is unrelated to my visit to Beijing....

Now some entertainers and executives–most of whom would speak only anonymously–say this armor is starting to come down. In private, they are willing to talk about an evolving sense of responsibility. “I am more sensitive than a year ago because of what is in the air,” says the head of one major film studio. “Not that I believe [violent entertainment] causes street violence. But there is validity to the idea that it is a contributing factor, along with guns....

Got that? You’re probably not alone if you think Web addresses are becoming unmanageable and ugly, bordering on unsuitable for public consumption. A three-year- old company called RealNames hopes to put a more presentable face on unsightly URLs. It has created nothing less than a parallel domain name system in which “real names” correspond to the holy tangle of http’s, dashes, underscores and random- seeming words that make up the average Web site address....

No wonder he wasn’t invited. But by shutting him out, the debate commission may have turned a harmless gadfly into a martyr. After Nader was tossed from the Boston site like some bum who’d wandered into the Harvard Club, David Letterman declared him the winner. After watching the uninspiring debate, a lot of viewers apparently agreed; Nader jumped to 7 percent in some national polls. Last week, with celebrities like Phil Donahue and Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, an energized Nader packed 10,000 supporters into a Chicago arena and filled Madison Square Garden at $20 a head....

He was right when it counted most. Brandt was a German who opposed Hitler from the very beginning, a socialist who rejected communism and a West Berliner who refused to adopt neutrality, a tempting compromise in the West’s most vulnerable outpost. His Ostpolitik was deplored by some Germans. They complained that his rapprochement with East Germany and its Soviet sponsors ratified the division of their country and the loss of its lands in the east after World War II....

The values that I was taught by my parents, that life is about service–and that service is the rent you pay for living, not something you do in your spare time. It was also the values of being for something beyond yourself. They understood that parenting didn’t stop at their own front door. When I grew up there was an extended family commitment to all the children in our community....

Ma’s showmanship did little to dispel Beijing’s reputation as the biggest state sponsor of doping since East German officials gave steroids to athletes without telling them. Still, Chinese officials say they are determined to clean up their country’s image. What’s at stake: national glory at the upcoming Sydney Olympics and–more important–Beijing’s bid to host the 2008 Games. Chinese officials say doping is out. Last week 27 athletes were dropped from China’s Olympic delegation for allegedly taking erythropoietin, or EPO, a banned substance used to boost performance in endurance sports....

People have been ingesting Saint Johnswort, a yellow-flowered plant with the Latin name of Hypericum perforatum, for some 2,000 years. Some believe it was initially used in ancient Greece to drive away evil spirits. It’s been popular for about 15 years in Europe as a natural remedy for depression. In Germany, where it’s currently the leading treatment, physicians write some 3 million prescriptions a year–25 times the number they write for Prozac....