The James Logan Courier

By Saeed Shah
McClatchy Newspaper (MCT)

NAUDERO, Pakistan — Benazir Bhutto left a last will and testament that maps out the future for her political party and who should lead it in her absence, her husband Asif Zardari disclosed on Saturday.

The document will be presented to her Pakistan People's Party on Sunday. It's expected to include her preference for who should lead the party in her absence. Zardari himself would be a highly controversial contender. Their son Bilawal would win a huge amount of goodwill, but is still a teenager, and Zardari appeared to rule him out on Saturday.

"He's too young. He's 19 years old," Zardari said.

By Julie Hinds
Detroit Free Press (MCT)

DETROIT — "Don't tase me, bro."

Much like the guy who yelped that phrase as he was dragged from a John Kerry event, we're leaving 2007 feeling stunned and a bit silly.

The past 12 months have zapped us with issues of substance— war, climate change, little things like holding on to a house or a job.

But there also have been jolts of amusement, tingles of optimism and a few buzzing scandals — a celebrity melting down here, a media figure mouthing off there — just to remind us our own lives aren't so bad.

And now, the awards for the sanity-saving distractions of the year.

By Christine Surna Khayat, Courier Staff Writer

We hear it nearly everyday at school: “Respect Y.E.S.”; Respect yourself, everyone, and your school. Sadly, it seems as though people brush these words along and ignore them as they do a small annoyance. Have we become so self-centered that we, as human beings, cannot communicate with one another without having to pause to turn down our Mp3 players or to put someone on the phone on hold? Can we not make it through the day without the mass amounts of distractions keeping us from interacting with the world and those around us?

From wikipedia:
George Catlett Marshall, Jr. (December 31, 1880 – October 16, 1959) was an American military leader, Secretary of State, and the third Secretary of Defense. Once noted as the "organizer of victory" by Winston Churchill for his leadership of the Allied victory in World War II . Marshall supervised the U.S. Army during the war and was the chief military adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As Secretary of State he gave his name to the Marshall Plan, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.

George C. Marshall was born into a middle-class family in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Marshall was a scion of an old Virginia family, as well as a distant relative of former Chief Justice John Marshall. Marshall graduated from the Virginia Military Institute (VMI),[3] where he was initiated into the Kappa Alpha Order, in 1901.

Read George Marshall's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, free from NobelPrize.org.