Courier

As we mark the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death , President Obama deserves credit for making the right choice on taking out Public Enemy No. 1. But his administration never would have had the opportunity to do the right thing had it not been for some extraordinary work during the George W. Bush administration. Much of that work has been denigrated by Obama as unproductive and contrary to American principles. He is wrong on both counts. Shortly after bin Laden met his maker last spring, courtesy of...

EDISTO ISLAND, S.C. — A slave cabin on Edisto Island in coastal South Carolina will be preserved by the Smithsonian Institution. The Post and Courier of Charleston (http://bit.ly/10vGSXn ) reports the two-room, wooden building is being dismantled and will be taken to Washington, where it will be placed in the new National Museum of African American History and Culture. The Edisto Island Historic Preservation Society had planned to relocate and restore the cabin but could not find enough...

In 2005, a CIA analyst named Rebecca (a pseudonym) wrote a memo laying out a new strategy for the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Given the absence of any real leads, she asked, how could you plausibly find him? She sketched out what she saw as four pillars on which the search needed to be built. Her solution turned out to be prophetic. "The first pillar was locating al-Qaeda's leader through his courier network ," Peter L. Bergen writes in his new book, " Manhunt . " "The second...

For border officials in Hong Kong, baby formula trumps heroin. Since the former British colony on March 1 restricted outbound travelers to two 2-pound cans each, a syndicate has been cracked and more people have been arrested for smuggling milk powder than were detained all of last year for carrying heroin. The reason? Mainland Chinese demand, fueled by distrust of locally made food after product-safety scandals that included the deaths of at least six babies because of tainted milk.

The long trail to Osama bin Laden began with the arrest in 2005 of a senior al-Qaeda operative known as Abu Faraj al-Libbi. He had spent the previous two years as bin Laden's "official messenger" to others within the terrorist group, according to military documents. And now, Libbi was being turned over to the CIA. The resulting interrogation provided critical early intelligence that allowed the agency to begin unraveling bin Laden's courier network and eventually to discover his hideout in the garrison city of Abbottabad,...

Steve Ballmer couldn't choose between Courier and Windows and needed Bill Gates to step in, according to  CNET's  sources within Microsoft.  CNET  says that a good deal of infighting occurred between the Courier group led by Xbox creator J Allard and the Windows group led by Steven Sinofsky, and that Gates opposed Courier for not aligning with Microsoft's cash-generating Windows and Office software. Allard reportedly told Gates that an email client wasn't needed for the tablet and that its...

Vladka Meed, a courier and weapons smuggler for the Jewish resistance in Poland during World War II who published a harrowing early chronicle of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, died Nov. 21 at her daughter's home in Paradise Valley, Ariz. She was 90. The death was confirmed by her son, Steven Meed. The cause was Alzheimer's disease. Mrs. Meed was born Feigel Peltel in Warsaw on Dec. 29, 1921. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, she and hundreds of thousands of other Jews were...

When Lickety Ship launched in late 2006 to deliver ecommerce items to purchasers within four hours of checkout, I asked if it would end any differently than the ill-fated Kozmo, which burned through $280 million in capital before a spectacular flame out in 2001. Kozmo didn't charge for deliveries, and people would jokingly buy a packet of M&Ms or other small item and have it personally delivered for free. A $150 million marketing deal to get Kozmo promoted in ...

EDISTO ISLAND, S.C. — A slave cabin on Edisto Island in coastal South Carolina will be preserved by the Smithsonian Institution. The Post and Courier of Charleston (http://bit.ly/10vGSXn ) reports the two-room, wooden building is being dismantled and will be taken to Washington, where it will be placed in the new National Museum of African American History and Culture. The Edisto Island Historic Preservation Society had planned to relocate and restore the cabin but could...

Depictions of waterboarding in a new movie about the manhunt for Osama bin Laden are "grossly inaccurate and misleading" and the film's producers should make clear to viewers that the production is a dramatization of actual events, three senior senators said late Wednesday. The movie "Zero Dark Thirty," which was released in New York and Los Angeles on Wednesday, dramatically depicts efforts over the past decade to capture and kill the al-Qaeda leader. Producers describe the film...

Depictions of waterboarding in a new movie about the manhunt for Osama bin Laden are "grossly inaccurate and misleading" and the film's producers should make clear to viewers that the production is a dramatization of actual events, three senior senators said late Wednesday. The movie "Zero Dark Thirty," which was released in New York and Los Angeles on Wednesday, dramatically depicts efforts over the past decade to capture and kill the al-Qaeda leader. Producers describe the film as "an exciting...

Vladka Meed, a courier and weapons smuggler for the Jewish resistance in Poland during World War II who published a harrowing early chronicle of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, died Nov. 21 at her daughter's home in Paradise Valley, Ariz. She was 90. The death was confirmed by her son, Steven Meed. The cause was Alzheimer's disease. Mrs. Meed was born Feigel Peltel in Warsaw on Dec. 29, 1921. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, she and hundreds of thousands of other...

In 2005, a CIA analyst named Rebecca (a pseudonym) wrote a memo laying out a new strategy for the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Given the absence of any real leads, she asked, how could you plausibly find him? She sketched out what she saw as four pillars on which the search needed to be built. Her solution turned out to be prophetic. "The first pillar was locating al-Qaeda's leader through his courier network ," Peter L. Bergen writes in his new book, " Manhunt ...

As we mark the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death , President Obama deserves credit for making the right choice on taking out Public Enemy No. 1. But his administration never would have had the opportunity to do the right thing had it not been for some extraordinary work during the George W. Bush administration. Much of that work has been denigrated by Obama as unproductive and contrary to American principles. He is wrong on both counts. Shortly after bin Laden met his maker...

It's the symbol of all that's wrong with Washington, the front line where the Occupiers dug their anti-authoritarian trenches , the boulevard that has been shorthand for capital corruption during recent Republican debates. "We need people from outside Washington, outside K Street," Mitt Romney said in December, as if K were the heart of the heart of darkness. To the outside world, "K Street" means "lobbying" or " influence-peddling . " Except only one of the 20 highest-earning...

Steve Ballmer couldn't choose between Courier and Windows and needed Bill Gates to step in, according to  CNET's  sources within Microsoft.  CNET  says that a good deal of infighting occurred between the Courier group led by Xbox creator J Allard and the Windows group led by Steven Sinofsky, and that Gates opposed Courier for not aligning with Microsoft's cash-generating Windows and Office software. Allard reportedly told Gates that an email client wasn't needed for the tablet and that its focus was on content...

DeliveryEdge, the courier aggregator startup which refocused its business model several times in the past few years (and was previously known as LicketyShip until recently), appears to be in the deadpool. We wrote about the startup's countless changes to its business model and tumultuous history as a startup here. When LicketyShip launched in 2006, the startup tried to deliver ecommerce items to purchasers within four hours of checkout. We predicted that the company might suffer the same fate as Kozmo, which burned through...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A Kentucky pastor who hosted a rally celebrating God and guns a few months ago has resigned his ministry to promote gun rights and church security. Ken Pagano held the "Open Carry Celebration" at New Bethel Church in south Louisville in June. But he is now working part time at a local gun range and helped form the International Security Coalition of Clergy. He formed the group with a New York rabbi who and they are promoting the use of armed and trained security at houses of worship.

In a speech on the Senate floor last week , Sen. John McCain dismissed the role of CIA interrogations in the operation that got Osama bin Laden , declaring that "The first mention of the name Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti [bin laden's courier], as well as a description of him as an important member of al-Qaeda, came from a detainee held in another country. The United States did not conduct this detainee's interrogation, nor did we render him to that country for the purpose of interrogation.

Let me tell you a funny thing about the sinewy, Spandex speed demons who skitter past downtown gridlock like water bugs and treat the bicycle delivery of each legal brief with the urgency of an action hero ferrying secret nuclear codes to save the world from annihilation. A lot of them are pretty gray. Their bones hurt, and their joints flare up. "Arthritis in my thumbs," says Kevin Keefe, wiggling both his thumbs at me. Of course they hurt. He has been leaning on them...