In December 1996, the Peruvian Marxist guerrilla group Tupac Amaru (MRTA) occupied the Japanese embassy in Lima, taking hostage a group assembled to celebrate the birthday of Emperor Akihito. Four months later, Peru’s strongman president, the now-imprisoned Alberto Fujimori, ordered a team of elite Peruvian soldiers to retake the building. The handful of rebels who managed to survive the initial assault, witnesses later reported, were bound, dragged into a courtyard, and executed by members of the Peruvian army. Not a single member of the MRTA made it out alive.

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You want a happy ending. You want to say that everything eventually worked, that the system got it right in the end, that the latest twist in the seven-year long anthrax attack saga is a turn for the better. Except you can't.

By many measures, the University of Phoenix is the most successful institution for higher education in American history. With more than 325,000 students currently enrolled—22 times the number at the University of Chicago—Phoenix is vast, and contains multitudes. On campuses scattered across 39 states, and online as well, it offers everything from associate's degrees in sports management to Spanish-language MBAs. And unlike most universities, Phoenix makes a hefty profit. Its parent company, the Apollo Group, produced margins of 11.7 percent last year on revenue of $2.9 billion.

“A home-made bomb killed four people when it exploded in a cafe just east of Hilla …. U.S. forces killed two militants …. Two militants were killed in a gunfight with police … U.S. forces found the decaying bodies of 14 Iraqis, most of them blind-folded, in Samarra …” (07/03/08)

One of the pleasures of living in America is getting to argue about rights—what they are, who has them, and how to define them. In the last week, we've all had a rousing time debating the right to keep and bear arms. Americans can hardly talk about political issues without invoking these fundamental prerogatives.

Comedian Guy Earle says he regrets some of the things he said to Lorna Pardy in a Vancouver nightclub. Pardy and two of her friends were heckling him while he performed, so he laid into them with insults. Pardy, for her part, says Earle tried to humiliate her with sexist and homophobic remarks. It might have ended right there. But Pardy filed a discrimination suit against Earle. The British Columbia Human Rights Commission says it will accept the case.

“A group of gun rights advocates roared with approval as Alan Gura descended the stairs of the Supreme Court on the morning of June 26, having just learned of the high court’s decision in the landmark Second Amendment case, District of Columbia v. Heller.”Goodbye, gun ban!” they chanted. Gura, whom history will remember as the lawyer who successfully argued that Americans have an individual right to keep and bear arms, smiled broadly. Goodbye, gun ban. ….