| Giuliani, Edwards out of US presidential race, slimming down field for ...
The veteran Arizona senator wom a quick endorsement from Giuliani before national contests on Feb. 5, a series of 21 contests that could cement the White House nomination for the Republicans. Edwards' withdrawal turns the heated Democratic contest into a battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, who won a largely symbolic victory in Florida. No Democratic delegates were at stake and no candidates campaigned there because of a dispute between the state and national parties over the date of the primary. Speaking to a crowd in New Orleans on Wednesday, Edwards said it was time to "step aside "so that history can blaze its path" in the race between a black man and a woman for the White House. "With our convictions and a little backbone we will take back the White House in November" from the Republicans, he said.
A populist charges across the Iowa prairie
DES MOINES — On Jan. 3, the day of the Iowa caucuses, the front page of the local section of the Des Moines Register featured a story on Des Moines's recent growth: downtown d.m. became cool long before fear of frostbite. The piece discussed how the capital city has sprung to life since the last presidential caucuses four years ago. A new library, a river trail and revitalized downtown have made Des Moines more palatable to the reporters who cover the quadrennial affair. But it also suggested something about the first-vote-in-the-nation status that Iowa's leaders so jealously guard: The Iowa caucuses are as much a tourist event for the press and political volunteers as an election. “Iowa" — the state's name has become shorthand for the caucus process by which the state's delegates are chosen for Republican and Democratic presidential candidates — is essentially a huge fiesta that works roughly like this: Drag everyone involved out of the mundanity of quotidian existence, pack them into hotels, host campaign events at ballrooms with plenty of beer, then watch, charmed, as the little man of Iowa rushes into a small room to discuss the candidates, eat cookies and choose.
Greeks mourn popular Orthodox archbishop
The charismatic cleric was often named Greece's most popular public figure but was also criticized as a reactionary. He died of cancer Monday at his home in Athens, leaving the race for his succession wide open. Christodoulos, 69, was credited with reinvigorating a church seen as distant from its followers in a country where more than 90 percent of the native-born population is baptized into it. Greece's Orthodox Church holds considerable sway among the world's Orthodox churches. Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I is the spiritual leader of the world's 250 million Orthodox Christians. Despite vigorous protests from Orthodox zealots who marched through Athens denouncing the pope as the anti-Christ, Christodoulos in 2001 hosted the late John Paul II — the first pope to visit Greece in centuries.
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