The James Logan Courier

By Carol Rosenberg
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — The U.S. government opened its first war crimes prosecution Tuesday with a narrative of Osama bin Laden's driver overhearing his boss offer an eerie post-mortem in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks:

''If they hadn't shot down the fourth plane, it would've hit the dome,'' declared Navy Lt. Cmdr. Timothy Stone.

And so with his first words to a military jury, the Pentagon prosecutor conjured up a conversation from inside the world of al-Qaida, revealed by the accused, driver Salim Hamdan. Bin Laden told his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahari, that U.S. forces — not heroic passengers — brought down United Airlines Flight 93 in a Pennsylvania field on 9-11 before terrorist hijackers could slam it into ''the dome,'' of the U.S. Capitol building.

By Tony Pugh
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

WASHINGTON — More than 2 million low-wage workers will get a small raise on Thursday when the federal minimum wage jumps 12 percent, from $5.85 to $6.55 an hour.

And depending on whom you talk to, it's either the best of times or the worst of times for the nation's base wage to rise.

While most Americans have traditionally supported minimum wage increases, the new rate hike comes at a bad time for businesses, particularly small businesses, struggling through the economic downturn.

From wikipedia:
Dorothea Towles Church (July 26, 1922—July 7, 2006) was the first successful black fashion model in Paris.

Church was born in Texarkana, Texas. She was the seventh of eight children in a farming family.

She attended Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, where she majored in biology. After her mother's death, a wealthy uncle invited her to move into his house in Los Angeles. She transferred to the University of Southern California, where she received a master's degree in education.


Read Dorothea Church's obituary in the New York Times.