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In January 2002, As U.S. Forces in Afghanistan were hunting down Al Qaeda suspects, the CBS news show 60 Minutes II got its hands on some sensational footage: seven hours’ worth of videotape showing Al Qaeda terrorists training in an Afghan camp. The source of the tapes, a former U.S. Special Forces soldier named Jonathan Keith Idema—known familiarly as Keith—was more than a little dubious. Idema claimed to be working as an adviser to the Northern Alliance, but he was also an ex-con who had served three years in federal prison for wire fraud and had a criminal record in...

French companies were counting some $5 billion in spoils Monday after President Jacques Chirac used an official visit to China to boost economic ties, in a bid to prevent France from being left behind in the emerging Asian superpower's markets. Chirac and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao presided over a weekend signing ceremony in Beijing at which French companies inked more than 20 new deals with local partners. But some struggled to hide their disappointment after the size and scope of deals fell short of expectations. The contracts included a $1.5 billion rolling stock order for Alstom SA, the French...

Wall Street Journal staffers tell Tim Rutten that Farnaz Fassihi isn't allowed to write about Iraq for the paper until after the election, presumably because her e-mail about the bleak situation in the country calls into question the fairness of her journalism. Rutten asks managing editor Paul Steiger: "If this correspondent wishes to write about Iraq for the Wall Street Journal, is she free to do so?" His reply (via a PR man): "She is going on a long-scheduled vacation outside Iraq and has no plans to work during that time."

Filed at 2:14 p.m. ET SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- John Walker Lindh asked President Bush on Tuesday to commute his 20-year prison sentence for aiding the Taliban. His lawyer, James Brosnahan, said Lindh was a young man in the wrong place at the wrong time. He said that Lindh was fighting alongside the Taliban in a civil war against the Northern Alliance, that he is not a terrorist and that he never fought against U.S. troops. Brosnahan said the sentence should be reduced because Yaser Esam Hamdi, another American citizen captured in Afghanistan on suspicion of aiding the Taliban, is...

NBC will announce today that Conan O'Brien will succeed Jay Leno as host of the ``Tonight'' show at the end of Mr. Leno's current five-year contract, in 2009. Mr. O'Brien signed a new contract today that guarantees he will take over ``Tonight,'' still the leading show in late night television, sometime in 2009. The deal was announced to both staffs this morning. Mr. Leno planned to announce it publicly on his program tonight. The deal was put in place by the president of NBC Universal Television, Jeff Zucker, who had been working for some time on a plan that would...

Filed at 11:17 a.m. ET NEW YORK (AP) -- CBS News has shelved a ``60 Minutes'' report on the rationale for war in Iraq because it would be ``inappropriate'' to air it so close to the presidential election, the network said on Saturday. The report on weapons of mass destruction was set to air on Sept. 8 but was put off in favor of a story on President Bush's National Guard service. The Guard story was discredited because it relied on documents impugning Bush's service that were apparently fake. CBS News spokeswoman Kelli Edwards would not elaborate on why the...

SUPPOSE you were doing a little research into the history of Supreme Court nominations, and you learned from one book that Grover Cleveland "bested Benjamin Harrison by almost 100,000 votes in the election of 1888, but the vagaries of the electoral college caused him to lose the election" (p. 130). And then, browsing through a later book on the topic, you read that Harrison is remembered for "losing the popular election in 1888 by 100,000 votes and still managing to take the Oval Office from incumbent President Grover Cleveland through the vagaries of the Electoral College" (p. 63). Perhaps you'd...

Canvass the country's artistic elite and you probably won't find much affection for President Bush and his policies. And yet the current administration may be inadvertently responsible for a small-scale theater boom. Stages in New York and London are awash in plays condemning or lampooning the Bush bunch and its influence on world affairs. Arriving relatively late to the party is the performance artist Karen Finley, not an unexpected guest. Ms. Finley fell afoul of the right wing when Bush père was in the White House - critics of the National Endowment for the Arts had a problem with her...

As CBS News faces one of the worst public embarrassments in its history, experts say that the damage to the network's news division could be significant - and costly. But CBS's parent company, Viacom, is not expected to suffer much of a blow from the scandal over the National Guard documents that CBS News now concedes cannot be authenticated. Viacom, which grew out of a small chain of movie theaters that Sumner M. Redstone, its chairman, acquired from his father in the 1950's, stretches far beyond CBS, and the fate of its other businesses is not closely tied to the...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following are remarks of Senator John Kerry, as prepared for delivery, at New York University: Monday, September 20, 2004 I am honored to be here at New York University -- one of the great urban universities, not just in New York, but in the world. You have set a high standard for global dialogue and I hope to live up to that tradition today. This election is about choices. The most important choices a President makes are about protecting America... at home and around the world. A president's first obligation is to make...

LAS VEGAS — President Bush is “living in a fantasy world of spin,” failing to tell U.S. troops or the American people the truth about the situation in Iraq, Democratic challenger John Kerry told National Guard veterans Thursday. Two days after Bush addressed the same group, Kerry said of the president, “I believe he failed the fundamental test of leadership” by failing to level with the veterans. “Two days ago the president stood right where I’m standing and did not even acknowledge that more than 1,000 men and women have lost their lives in Iraq. He did not tell you...

BOSTON - Harvard University, the world's wealthiest, cracked the $20 billion barrier this year with another strong endowment performance by money managers whose compensation has drawn fire from some alumni and other critics. Harvard said Tuesday that its endowment earned a 21.1 percent return during the fiscal year that ended June 30, bringing its total value to $22.6 billion. The university is considered the wealthiest not-for-profit organization in the world after the Roman Catholic Church. The performance topped the 17.1 percent median for the 25 largest university endowments, Harvard said, citing preliminary numbers. Endowment earnings amounted to 31 percent of...

...Blue Chip Films and CABLEready are shopping for buyers that might be interested in a series called "Deadline @ The Philadelphia Inquirer." The premise, according to the breathless press release: "A reality series that goes behind the scenes of this major U.S. daily newspaper to follow 400 editors, reporters, and photographers as they cover breaking news and race against the clock to get their stories to press before midnight." "I think newspapers are a source of excitement and drama," Gary Lico, president and CEO of CABLEready, a distribution company that brought viewers "Inside the Actors Studio," told E&P. "We have...

NEW YORK, Aug. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- The 2004 Republican National Convention today unveiled a newly designed web site at http://www.GOPconvention.com where the American public can watch gavel-to-gavel live webcasts, access exclusive web cam angles of the floor, participate in video chats with program participants, and access a "W" blog page that will follow President Bush in the days leading up to his arrival in New York City. Americans can take part in the new interactive site by voting on their favorite photo of the day, or grab a "backstage" pass to see web exclusive video of convention events, party leaders...

When John Kerry decided it was time to do his first national TV interview since the Swift boaters for Bush launched their attack on the senator's Vietnam War record, he did not choose CBS's "60 Minutes," ABC's "Nightline" or "NBC Nightly News." Kerry picked Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," where he will appear tonight in an extended interview.

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - A man who heckled President Bush at a political rally was fired from his job at an advertising and design company. The graphic designer said he was told he'd embarrassed and offended a client who provided tickets to the event. ``I was told that my actions reflected badly on the company and that a client was upset,'' Glen Hiller of Berkeley Springs said. Hiller was escorted from Hedgesville High School on Tuesday after shouting comments about the Iraq war and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction there. The crowd had easily drowned out Hiller with...

ATHENS, Aug. 15 -- The Olympic crowd tried to roar with approval as the world's best female gymnasts did cartwheels and backflips inside the shiny-new Olympic Indoor Hall. But the cheers kept dying out, smothered by thousands of vacant seats in an arena that was at least three-quarters empty. The Summer Olympics entered their second full day of competition Sunday, but already attendance has been so far below expectations and sellouts so infrequent that ticket scalpers are losing their shirts. Passes for the most popular sports -- gymnastics, swimming, tennis -- are widely available. The non-stop television coverage is struggling...

Fay Wray, an actress who appeared in about 100 movies but whose fame is inextricably linked with the hours she spent struggling helplessly screaming in the eight-foot-hand of King Kong, died on Sunday night at her apartment on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. She was 96. Rick McKay, a friend, announced her death. The huge success of "King Kong," a beauty-and-the beast film that opened in New York at both Radio City Music Hall and the Roxy in 1933, led to roles for Miss Wray in other 1930's films in which her life or her virtue, or both, were imperiled: "Dr....

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- A man who was angry about a suspected theft recruited three teenagers to stab and beat six people to death with baseball bats in a Florida home, investigators said Sunday after making four arrests. Remains of the six victims - four men and two women - were found Friday in the blood-spattered home. All four suspects have been charged with first-degree murder and armed burglary, the Volusia County sheriff's department said. All of the victims had been stabbed, but autopsies determined the cause of death was the beating injuries. Troy Victorino, 27, of Deltona was...

WASHINGTON -- Though John Kerry's wife is an heir to the H.J. Heinz Co. fortune, the food company and its executives are providing President Bush with money and a campaign issue jobs flowing overseas in this year's election. Members of the board of the Fortune 500 company and its corporate political action committee have donated thousands of dollars to Republicans in recent years, including contributions to the Bush campaign. The corporate PAC has given nothing to Kerry. The Republicans are accepting the cash even as they criticize the Pittsburgh-based company's job cuts and overseas moves part of an effort to...