| Will the UN's scenario for AIDS repeat for global warming reports?
A new report from the United Nations acknowledges the agency has routinely overstated both the size and growth rate of the AIDS epidemic. The new figures reduce the number of worldwide AIDS cases from 40 to 33 million, cuts the number of new cases by 40%, and reveal that the rate of new cases has been, contrary to past reports, slowing for many years. The pattern of exaggeration may date back as far as 1995, the year UNAIDS was founded. Just last year, the UN reported infections were rising faster than "even our worst estimates," and warned of the "dangers of inaction." Critics have long maintained the U.N. overstated cases to gain political and financial support. "There was a tendency toward alarmism, and that fit perhaps a certain fundraising agenda" said author and AIDS expert Helen Epstein. James Chin, a former AIDS researcher for the World Heath Organiztion, says even these revisions are higher than the actual number of worlwide cases, which he estimates at 25 million.
President Bush's final State of the Union Address
We enter the year 2007 with large endeavors underway, and others that are ours to begin. In all of this, much is asked of us. We must have the will to face difficult challenges and determined enemies -- and the wisdom to face them together. Some in this chamber are new to the House and the Senate -- and I congratulate the Democrat majority. (Applause.) Congress has changed, but not our responsibilities. Each of us is guided by our own convictions -- and to these we must stay faithful. Yet we're all held to the same standards, and called to serve the same good purposes: To extend this nation's prosperity; to spend the people's money wisely; to solve problems, not leave them to future generations; to guard America against all evil; and to keep faith with those we have sent forth to defend us.
Ledger farewell; 'New Power Girls!'
With these new role models pushing Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and the other celebutards out of the limelight, it finally may be safe to let your daughter out of her room. Then again -- with Lively confessing her newfound addiction to Chanel clothing, and Swift marveling over her new, million-dollar custom tour bus ("It has a treadmill!") -- maybe not. NATIONAL ENQUIRER: Remember all those perfect TV families you used to watch as a kid? It turns out they were just as screwed up as your own. Willie Aames writes in his new book, "Grace Is Enough," that while playing wholesome Tommy Bradford in the '80s series "Eight is Enough," he was drunk much of the time, and later began doing cocaine. Thankfully, the ultimate father figure stepped in: Aames is now a born-again Christian in Oklahoma.
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