Greatest Hitter: Roger Federer

On June 7, as Roger Federer was on his way to equaling Pete Sampras’ record of 14 Grand Slam victories by winning the French Open, James Blake and a group of fellow pros watched on a television in the players’ lounge at the Aegon Championships at The Queen’s Club in London, a warm-up event to Wimbledon.

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Thirty Years After the Revolution, U.S. Still Struggles to Understand Iran

Tens of thousands of Iranians march across central Tehran to Freedom Square angrily demanding the overthrow of the nation’s leader in favor of an unlikely political leader. The scene describes Iran today, but it could be a snapshot of the Islamic revolution 30 years ago. Then, as now, the protest gradually picked up steam before exploding into a mass movement

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Will the Public Plan Make or Break Health Reform?

To the leaders of the Republican Party, a public health-care insurance option is a “non-starter,” the first step on a slippery slope to socialized medicine; in the eyes of the American Medical Association , it could “restrict patient choice”; and for President Barack Obama, as he put it Monday during his speech to the AMA in Chicago, it’s an essential part of any health care reform package that will “put affordable health care within reach for millions of Americans.” With all the hand wringing over a public plan, you could be excused for thinking there is already a specific plan on the table. There is not. But that hasn’t stopped House and Senate leaders on both sides of the aisle from turning a public plan into one of the most contentious issues being debated inside the Beltway, one that could potentially make or break the passage of landmark health care reform this year

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In a Lurch Toward the Center, Netanyahu Backs Palestinian State

If the 300,000 West Bank settlers identified by the American President as an obstacle to Middle East peace were expecting Bibi Netanyahu to support their cherished dream of an Israel stretching from the Jordan to the Mediterranean sea, they were disappointed on Sunday night. The right wing leader instead took a sharp and unexpected lurch to the center and said he’d support a two-state solution, meaning something called Palestine is a step closer to being inked onto their 3,000-year-old Biblical map. To his credit, clench-jawed Netanyahu could have used the re-election of Israel’s favorite bogeyman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran to raise the usual security alarms and resort to time-tested fear-mongering

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Bill Clinton: Global cooperation needed for mankind’s survival

Former President Bill Clinton urged people to accept themselves and others in a world system that is "unstable, unequal and unsustainable." Clinton gave the keynote address Saturday to members of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington. The organization gave the 42nd U.S. president its global leadership award

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Sonny and Cher’s child transitioning from female to male

Chastity Bono, gay-rights activist and child of performer Cher and the late entertainer and politician Sonny Bono, is in the early stages of transitioning from a female to a male and will be known as Chaz, his spokesman said Thursday.

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