Comment on Troy girl in Scripps National Spelling Bee finals today

Gina Moffa’s fear of flying took off early. When she was 10, her mother—overwhelmed by bad turbulence on a flight to Italy—clambered to the emergency exit and tried to get out of the plane. A fellow passenger offered her Valium, and a nun onboard prayed the Rosary with her. “And then she was OK,” says Moffa, now a grief therapist based in New York City.

Almost all of the movies in the Planet of the Apes franchise focus on answering an understandable question: How did this planet become, well, a planet of the apes? The original 1968 movie and infamous 2001 Tim Burton remake are about astronauts who are stunned to realize the planet they crash-landed on was Earth all along, and the first sequel ends with the planet getting blown up.

(UNITED NATIONS) — The U. N. General Assembly voted by a wide margin on Friday to grant new “rights and privileges” to Palestine and called on the Security Council to favorably reconsider its request to become the 194th member of the United Nations. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The 193-member world body approved the Arab and Palestinian-sponsored resolution by a vote of 143-9 with 25 abstentions. The United States vetoed a widely backed council resolution on April 18 that would have paved the way for full United Nations membership for Palestine, a goal the Palestinians have long sought and Israel has worked to prevent. U.

One of the joys of watching reality competition shows is seeing how they evolve over time, adding new dimensions to the game and offering avenues for new ways of playing. Sometimes, that means new twists: Survivor introduced Hidden Immunity Idols in Season 11 and the “Shot in the Dark” mechanic in Season 41, and both have totally shifted the way players vote during tribal council.

A working paper from an independent body that gives economic advice to the Indian government has published controversial findings that critics say could sow communal discord between Hindus and Muslims during the ongoing parliamentary elections. The paper, titled “Share of religious minorities: A cross-country analysis,” was published on May 7 by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM).

It was 2:30 in the morning and our smaller newsroom up on the fifth floor of Pulitzer Hall—the esteemed Graduate School of Journalism building at Columbia University—was pulsating with the sounds of Camp Rock’s “Can’t Back Down.” Jude Taha, a Palestinian journalist in the program, was leading the charge in rallying everyone to sing it with her.