News Photos of the Week

Swimmers start a heat of the women's 100-meter butterfly at the Good Luck Beijing 2008 Swimming China Open at the National Aquatics Center, known as the Water Cube, in Beijing. The event was one of a series of events held to test the venues for the 2008 Olympic Games.

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. William Lambert, 30, from Plainview, Ark., shares his rations with an Iraqi boy in Beijia village in Arab Jabour, south of Baghdad, Iraq.


A carnival float depicting Usama bin Laden taking a bath in blood is seen during the traditional carnival parade in Duesseldorf, Germany. Street spectacles in the carnival strongholds of Duesseldorf, Mainz and Cologne are watched by millions of revelers, marking the highlights in Germany's carnival season.

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Fox News-Photos of the Week

Celine Has Left The Colosseum

Celine Dion called it a wrap at Caesars Palace Saturday night, acknowledging on her final show that pregnancy and poor early reviews almost sank her titanic five-year engagement.
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For her final show, Dion interspersed her usual numbers with emotion-filled monologues. Adoring fans cheered, stood and clapped all the way through.

After her last number, Dion invited husband Angelil and her son, Rene-Charles, now 7, on stage with her. Rene-Charles repeatedly reached down to grab rose petals that rained down on the final bow, giving them to her.

"Most of us have left our families behind to give ourselves every night," she said. "I can assure you it was worth it."

Since opening in March 2003, Dion's show, "A New Day..." grossed more than $400 million and was seen by nearly 3 million fans. Dion said one fan had seen her Las Vegas show more than 100 times.


Read the entire story at Fox News.

Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks Stands Behind the West Memphis 3

Dixie Chick Urges Donations for Murderers

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The Dixie Chicks have a new controversy on their hands. Lead singer Natalie Maines is urging people to contribute money to a defense fund for three Arkansas men that she (and many others) believe were wrongly convicted of killing three children in 1993.

Maines writes her plea on the Dixie Chicks Web site, which has already been answered by several celebrities including, I am told, Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Eddie Vedder, Jack Black and Henry Rollins.

Read the entire story at Fox News.

TSA Warns Airport Security About Terror Dry Runs

Airport security officers around the nation have been alerted by federal officials to look out for terrorists practicing to carry explosive components onto aircraft, based on four curious seizures at airports since last September.

The unclassified alert was distributed on July 20 by the Transportation Security Administration to federal air marshals, its own transportation security officers and other law enforcement agencies.

The seizures at airports in San Diego, Milwaukee, Houston and Baltimore included "wires, switches, pipes or tubes, cell phone components and dense clay-like substances," including block cheese, the bulletin said. "The unusual nature and increase in number of these improvised items raise concern."

Security officers were urged to keep an eye out for "ordinary items that look like improvised explosive device components."

The 13-paragraph bulletin was posted on the Internet by NBC Nightly News, which first reported the story.

A federal official familiar with the document confirmed the authenticity of the NBC posting but declined to be identified by name because it has not been officially released.

"There is no credible, specific threat here," TSA spokeswoman Ellen Howe said Tuesday. "Don't panic. We do these things all the time."

Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke described the notice as the latest copy of a routine informational bulletin for TSA workers, airport employees and law enforcement officials.

A statement posted late Tuesday by the TSA on its Web site confirmed that "a routine TSA intelligence bulletin relating to suspicious incidents at U.S. airports" had leaked to news organizations. The statement added, "During the past six months TSA has produced more than 90 unclassified bulletins of this nature on a wide variety of security-related subjects."

The bulletin said the a joint FBI-Homeland Security Department assessment found that terrorists have conducted probes, dry runs and dress rehearsals in advance of previous attacks.

It cited various types of rehearsals conducted by terrorists before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon; the July 7, 2005, London subway bombings; the Aug. 2, 2006, London-based plot to blow up trans-Atlantic flights using liquid explosives and the 1994 Bojinka plot in the Philippines to blow up multiple airliners over the Pacific Ocean.

The bulletin said the passengers carrying the suspicious items seized since September included men and women and that initial investigation had not linked them with criminal or terrorist organizations. But it added that most of their explanations for carrying the items were suspicious and some were still under investigation.
The four seizures were described this way:

— San Diego, July 7. A U.S. person — either a citizen or a foreigner legally here — checked baggage containing two ice packs covered in duct tape. The ice packs had clay inside them rather than the normal blue gel.

— Milwaukee, June 4. A U.S. person's carryon baggage contained wire coil wrapped around a possible initiator, an electrical switch, batteries, three tubes and two blocks of cheese. The bulletin said block cheese has a consistency similar to some explosives.

— Houston, Nov. 8, 2006. A U.S. person's checked baggage contained a plastic bag with a 9-volt battery, wires, a block of brown clay-like minerals and pipes.

— Baltimore, Sept. 16, 2006. A couple's checked baggage contained a plastic bag with a block of processed cheese taped to another plastic bag holding a cellular phone charger.

Voila! Violin Stolen From Sleeping Owner in New York Subway Reappears

A prized violin that was stolen while its owner snoozed on a hot subway train has been recovered.

"I'm of course overjoyed!!!," Tom Chiu, a Juilliard School graduate and founder of the avant-garde Flux Quartet, wrote Wednesday in an e-mail message about his Scarampella violin.

The violin and his backpack were stolen June 27.

Chiu said it was raining that night and he went into a hot and humid subway station after a performance and fell asleep. When he awoke, he said, his bags were gone.

Chiu, who calls his violin his "heart and soul for the last 13 years," said in a statement that the violin and the backpack and its contents were turned in to the Metropolitan Transit Authority's lost-and-found, and an MTA official contacted him late Tuesday.

The contents included a violin bow that Chiu has used since childhood.

NYC Transit did not immediately return a call seeking details about the recovery.

At the time of the theft, Chiu said the violin and bow "all have great sentimental value to me and are completely irreplaceable. I hope the person who has my violin will return it to me. I would be forever grateful."

Chiu did not say what the violin was worth.

He said it had originally belonged to his parents.
The violin was made by Stefano Scarampella, one of the most highly regarded violin makers from the early 20th century in Italy.

This comes from Fox News

Fred Thompson, The Next President?

Check out the new website, I'mwithFred.com, for Fred Thompson and see what the man is all about. Besides being a fellow Tennessean, I haven't heard any other candidate truly discuss the real issues and real solutions. They all seem to just say the things that they feel will get them elected.

If the election was tomorrow, here is the man that would get my vote.

He is on Hannity and Colmes tonight.


Photo comes from the University of Tennessee website.