ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s powerful army was on a collision course Friday with the beleaguered civilian government led by President Asif Ali Zardari, after they presented conflicting evidence to a Supreme Court inquiry into a scandal dubbed “Memogate.” The army is said to be furious about an unsigned memo that surfaced last month, supposedly soliciting Washington’s help to rein in the military and prevent a possible coup in the aftermath of the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May. The memo was allegedly drafted by a Pakistani American businessman on the instructions of Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, possibly with Zardari’s backing. Read full article > >

Go here to see the original:
Pakistan’s memo scandal pits military against Zardari government

If former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) is the Republican presidential nominee, many members of Congress will run on a ticket with a man they worked with two decades ago. Judging by some of their public comments, not all of them would necessarily welcome the idea. Gingrich was hailed as a hero in the immediate aftermath of the Republican Revolution of 1994, but in the years after a large chunk of his allies abandoned the speaker in frustration. Then-Rep. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) helped organize a failed coup against Gingrich in the summer of 1997; former Rep. Mark Neumann (R-Wis.), who is now running for Senate, helped pressure Gingrich to resign from the House a year later. Read full article > >

Go here to see the original:
Gingrich run could bring up bad memories for former colleagues

Extra nursery places for two-year-olds and specialist maths colleges are announced in the chancellor’s Autumn Statement.

Excerpt from:
Free nursery places plan extended

Extra nursery places for two-year-olds and specialist maths colleges are announced in the chancellor’s Autumn Statement.

See original here:
Free nursery places plan extended

In the aftermath of Saturday’s humbling 5-1 defeat in Buffalo against a team that seemingly had as many minor league call-ups as NHL regulars on the roster, sobering questions must be asked of the Washington Capitals . Are players tuning out Coach Bruce Boudreau’s message? What’s at the root of Alex Ovechkin ’s ever-deepening slump? Read full article > >

Visit link:
On Hockey: For Capitals, staying the course is no longer an option

The British Association of Sport and Exercise Medicine (BASEM) is calling for mandatory ‘physical literacy’ tests in schools, alongside reading and maths.

See original here:
VIDEO: School ‘PE tests’ on trial

Aftermath of the M5 crash fill the front pages

Read more:
M5 crash fills the Sunday papers

The last time the Pentagon was forced to shrink, two decades ago, one of its nemeses was a determined deficit hawk named Leon E. Panetta . As chairman of the House Budget Committee and later as budget director in the Clinton administration, Panetta was an unforgiving enforcer of the bottom line as the United States grappled with record-size debts. As the largest government agency, the Pentagon found itself a frequent target of his whip, especially as it struggled to justify its missions in the aftermath of the Cold War. Read full article > >

More here:
Former deficit hawk Leon Panetta now fights budget cuts as defense secretary

Public school students across the United States posted record scores in math this year but stalled in making progress in reading, according to results of nationwide testing released Tuesday. In math, 40 percent of fourth-graders and 35 percent of eighth-graders scored at a level that was proficient or advanced, higher than at any level since the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) testing began 20 years ago. Read full article > >

Visit link:
U.S. students make gains in math but stall in reading

The proportion of teenagers in England getting five good GCSEs including maths and English rose by nearly five percentage points this year.

See more here:
Rise in pupils getting five GCSEs

Early reviews of the iPhone 4S may have been uniformly great, bordering on glowing. But the best part of Wednesday’s coverage of Apple’s latest has been reviewers’ transcripts of their conversations with Siri — the personal assistant. Initial reports revealed that Siri’s got answers for just about everything from pop culture queries to math problems. She’s even got an answer to the eternal question, “What is the meaning of life?” that pays homage to Monty Python . But she’s also shown she has a good sense of humor. Read full article > >

Read the rest here:
iPhone’s Siri shows off her sense of humor

In an ad that has blanketed radio airwaves in the Washington region, a woman’s voice gently intones, “Imagine . . . one million new jobs.” “One million new American jobs,” echoes a man. “One million new opportunities to build a career,” says the woman. “Support a family.” “Follow your dreams.” Read full article > >

See the original post here:
Companies use fuzzy math in job claims; candidates still buy in

It is a sad fact — an endlessly rehashed symbol of just what is wrong with America — that we make heroes of athletes but not mathletes, that we write comic books about men with capes but not real men with calculators, and that “Dancing With the Stars” has never tapped Andre Geim or Konstantin Novoselov, who — oh, admit it, you had to Google them — were last year’s winners of the Nobel Prize in physics. Read full article > >

See the original post:
Richard Feynman, the late physicist, is hero of new graphic novel

In “ Homeland ,” Showtime’s astonishingly good and tightly riveted new drama set amid Washington’s classified war on terrorism, Claire Danes stars as Carrie Mathison, a CIA agent racked with guilt over what she considers her personal failings to recognize clues that might have prevented the Sept. 11 attacks. She’s been trying to make up for it ever since, even though her mentor, Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin), constantly reminds her that the failure was shared across agencies. Read full article > >

Read more:
Showtime’s gripping ‘Homeland’: A Marine comes home, but is he now a terrorist?

The Obama administration is trying to avoid a repeat of what happened in Iraq, where the United States was not fully prepared for the aftermath of a leader’s fall.

Excerpt from:
News Analysis: U.S. Is Quietly Getting Ready for Syria Without Assad