By ANDREW TREES
Wednesday we celebrated the greatest day in our national history. Sound ridiculous? Not to John Adams, who in 1776 wrote to his wife, Abigail: ``The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. . . . It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfire and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the...
By TAD DALEY
This year is full to bursting with remembrances of the many historic events that took place during the epochal year of 1968. The Tet offensive in Vietnam. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy. The melee at the Chicago Democratic convention. The Mexico City Olympics and the black power salutes of Tommie Smith and John Carlos. And, on Christmas Eve, the flight of Apollo 8 from the Earth to the moon, and the first glimpse we had ever been granted -- gathered around televisions...
XX
By JACKSON DIEHL
Defenders of Hugo Chávez like to argue that there is no alternative to the Venezuelan caudillo other than the feckless and unpopular politicians who preceded him in the 1990s. The simple refutation of that canard is Leopoldo López, the 37-year-old mayor of central Caracas, whose boyish good looks only underscore the fact that he represents a fresh generation.
By MARC FISHER
Why has it taken federal regulators 17 months to decide whether XM and Sirius should be allowed to merge? Because both of these statements are true: Even with a merger of the two pay radio companies, satellite radio is a dead man walking; and with or without a merger, satellite radio is poised to be among the most important content providers in a confusing new media landscape.
By ED RAMPELL
One of America's most famous political prisoners is ready for his close-up. The film Trumbo, about the screenwriter who broke Hollywood's Blacklist -- opens June 27. The rise and fall and rise of two-time Oscar winner and Cannes Jury Grand Prize winner Dalton Trumbo is the stuff Tinseltown blockbusters are made of.
By MICHAEL DOBBS
Imagine a President McCain or a President Obama receiving the following top-secret briefing from his national security advisor: ``Iran has successfully developed a nuclear warhead and may have already mated it with a medium-range Shahab-3 missile targeted at Israel. A preemptive strike could trigger a nuclear exchange. What do we do, Mr. President?''
By JEREMY SCAHILL
From California to Iraq, business has never been better for the controversial private security company Blackwater Worldwide. Company President Gary Jackson recently boasted that Blackwater has ''had two successive quarters of unprecedented growth.'' Owner Erik Prince recently spun his company as the ''FedEx'' of the U.S. national security apparatus, describing Blackwater as a ``robust temp agency.''
By TOM TEICHOLZ
John Demjanjuk's last appeal to avoid deportation was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court on May 19. The 88-year-old accused Nazi concentration camp guard was stripped of his citizenship and ordered sent to Ukraine, his birthplace; Poland, the locus of the crimes; or Germany, the heir to the Nazi regime under which he served.
By VINOD KHOSLA
Last month The Wall Street Journal accused me of advocating subsidies for food-based ethanol. I ought to ''take a vow of embarrassed silence,'' it said, for claiming that ethanol's contribution to the food crisis is ''overblown.'' The Journal's claims would be laughable if the stakes were not so high.
By JOE MATHEWS
Hold the champagne. Or at least the California sparkling wine. This week should be a joyous one for those of us who believe in the right to marry the person you love. A month after the California Supreme Court overturned the state's ban on same-sex marriage, gay couples are able to walk into county offices here and secure the same marriage license to which heterosexual couples such as my wife and I are entitled.
By JONATHON FINER and JENNIFER RIKOSKI
On our last day in Syria, our interpreter, Sameer, asked us a favor. ''Please tell my brother not to go back to Baghdad,'' he said. ``He'll be killed.''
By PETER T. KELLY
In the fall of 2005, during halftime of the Boston College-Florida State football game, I sought shelter underneath BC's Alumni Stadium. It was not an ideal autumn day for football in New England. The skies were overcast and there had been a steady rainfall throughout the first half. At halftime under the stands, I was a wet spectator among a sea of maroon ponchos and yellow raincoats.
By KWAME DAWES
Early last year, Annesha Taylor's face was plastered on billboards, posters and flyers across Jamaica. Dancing and smiling brightly, she looked vibrant in her yellow blouse. The caption told her story: She was living with HIV, taking her medication, eating well and, above all, ``getting on with life.''
By KAREN LANGHORNE FOLAN
Forty-one years ago this month, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Virginia law preventing marriage between African Americans and whites. Every year on June 12, interracial couples across the country celebrate Loving Day, commemorating the ruling in Loving v. Virginia that made our unions lawful.
By MARC SAGEMAN
We are fighting the wrong foe. Over the past six years, the nature of the international Islamist terrorist threat to the West has changed dramatically, but Western governments are still fighting the last war -- set up to fight an old al Qaeda that is now largely contained. Unless we understand this sea change, we will be unable to ward off the new menace.
