World watches Michael Jackson memorial service

As the funeral for Michael Jackson got under way in California Tuesday, fans of the King of Pop gathered in locations across the globe to pay homage to their idol. Thousands of fans poured in to Los Angeles en route to the public memorial service at the Staples Center arena, while Jackson’s family and closest friends attended a private gathering at the Hollywood Hills Forest Lawn cemetery before going on to the memorial downtown.

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Gays in the Military: Does a Sailor’s Murder Signal Deeper Problems?

Even as Pentagon lawyers begin trying to ease the “don’t ask, don’t tell” prohibition on gays serving openly in the U.S. military, the murder last week of an apparently gay sailor at California’s Camp Pendleton has raised new questions over the readiness of the armed forces to accept openly homosexual personnel. Seaman August Provost of Houston was shot and killed while standing nighttime guard at his base on June 30.

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Jackson memorial ticket pickup going smoothly, police say

The cars drove up to the stadium in a steady, orderly stream Monday — some drivers giddy with anticipation as they entered and shaking with excitement as they exited. By 10 a.m. 2,200 fans had come through Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California, to pick up tickets to the star-studded memorial service for pop icon Michael Jackson

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Robert McNamara Dies: No Escape from Vietnam

At the beginning of his professional career, he made a name for himself as the wunderkind who reformed the ailing Ford Motor Co. At the end, he tried to rehabilitate his reputation, as a do-gooder striving to save the globe’s poorer nations as head of the World Bank. But Robert McNamara, who died early Monday morning in his sleep at home at the age of 93 , will always be best known for his role as the architect of Washington’s failed Vietnam policy in the 1960s.

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More Than 140 Dead in Clashes in China’s Xinjiang Province

Chinese authorities announced today that some 140 people had been killed and over 800 wounded in protests that roiled Urumqi, the capital of China’s far western Xinjiang province, on Sunday. According to the official news agency Xinhua, Urumqi police chief Liu Yaohua told a press conference that the number of dead was still rising and that there had also been extensive damage to property.

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