Google's startling purchase of the amateur-video website YouTube has raised eyebrows for a number of good reasons: The amazing $1.65 billion price tag, the frenzy caused by a company that's less than a year old, and the speed with which the deal was done—including final negotiations in a booth at Denny's.
Quick with a smile, Andrew Taylor comes across as a friendly and informal midwesterner, sounding at times almost bemused by the success of the company he leads, Enterprise Rent-a-Car. His father, Jack, has often said he was surprised at the growth of the St. Louis company he founded, now the largest car-rental business in the world.
If intelligence agencies confirm that the seismic disturbance picked up over the weekend was indeed an atomic explosion, North Korea will now have to be reckoned with on terms like those accorded other adversaries with a nuclear arsenal. The North is being condemned and may even be sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council.
AP - A strong earthquake in northern Japan on Wednesday may have led the Tokyo government to suspect North Korea had conducted a second nuclear test, while key powers mulled punitive action against the communist nation for its first atomic blast.
AP - Republican Sen. John McCain on Tuesday accused former President Clinton, the husband of his potential 2008 White House rival, of failing to act in the 1990s to stop North Korea from developing nuclear weapons.
AP - A fire broke out at an ammunition dump at a U.S. base in southern Baghdad on Tuesday night, setting off a series of explosions from detonating tank and artillery shells that shook buildings miles away. The U.S. military said there were no immediate reports of casualties.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday defended the Bush administration's refusal to hold bilateral talks with North Korea in the face of Pyongyang's claim of a successful nuclear test. She told CNN the Clinton administration tried that approach in the 1990s and it had failed.
Sexually charged, yes. Inappropriate, without a doubt. The instant messages reportedly sent to teen-age former pages by a Florida congressman were tailor-made for a political scandal.