A new book claims that Nobel Prize-winning American novelist Ernest Hemingway agreed to serve as a spy for the Soviet intelligence agency KGB in the 1940s.
“Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America” was co-authored by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev. It is based on notes that Vassiliev, a former KGB officer, made when he was given access in the 1990s to Stalin-era intelligence archives in Moscow, Newsmax reports.
Hemingway’s KGB …

US President Barack Obama ended his first meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican, the AP reports.
Obama and Benedict met for about 25 minutes in the Papal Library. First Lady Michelle Obama joined the President near the end of the meeting with the pope.
Obama and the pope exchanged gifts. Then the president headed for a flight to Ghana, the final stop on his weeklong trip.
Fox News‘ live coverage showed the two men meeting, shaking …

The “new” General Motors which have emerged from bankruptcy are going to focus more on customers (who did they focus on before???) and they’re in partnership with eBay for people to buy vehicles by online auctions.
Company’s CEO Fritz Henderson said that the “new” GM will be far faster and more responsive to customers than the old one, and will make money and repay government loans faster than required, FoxNews reports.
Henderson promised that they will repay …

84-year-old American from Colorado, Takeshi Murata finally got his high school diploma yesterday.
He left University High School in Greeley in 1944 when he was drafted to fight in World War II, FoxNews reports. The son of Japanese immigrants, Murata was trained as an interpreter in case of an invasion.
Murata says he barely spoke Japanese but was sent to Tokyo after the war ended. He married in Japan and returned to northeast Colorado in 1947, where …

US President Barack Obama is at this very moment meeting with Pope Benedict XVI in Vatican.
Fox News‘ live coverage showed the two men meeting, shaking hands and posing to photographers and cameramen. After that leaders of USA and Vatican sat down at a desk and began talking about earthly matters.
“It’s a great honour,” Obama told the Pope, according to FoxNews. They exchanged more pleasantries before reporters and photographers were ushered out of the room.
The pope …

Buckingham Palace have joined Twitter, now everyone can follow @BritishMonarchy.
The Twitter feed of the Palace will provide details of royal engagements as well as link to information about what members of the family are doing, the BBC says.
But the spokeswoman said neither the Queen nor other members of the Royal Family would be tweeting personally.
Oversight of the @BritishMonarchy account will be split between Buckingham Palace and Clarence House.
At the moment of writing this,  @BritishMonarchy had …

According to the results of the latest “The Empire Chronicles” poll, 83% of the respondents think that MP’s expense claims should be published monthly and without censorship. Altogether 305 people voted “yes”.
Only 17% or 64 people think that expense claims should not be published monthly and without censoring them.
There were 369 voters altogether.
New poll is up in the sidebar, please vote!

Jewish scholar Yaakov Wise, a research fellow at the University of Manchester Centre of Jewish Studies, has suggested that Conservative leader David Cameron could be a direct descendant of Moses, The Times reports.
Cameron’s paternal great-great-grandfather was a Jewish immigrant who became a successful businessman. But Dr Wise has traced the politician’s ancestry back to Elijah Levita, an eminent 16th-century Jewish scholar. His study of archival material also suggests that Cameron, who has described himself as …

The last day of our road trip in Wales started off with the toughest task yet – a walk in Snowdonia. Two roads to the peak of Snowdon start at Pen-y-Bass near Llanberis, one was 7 and one 8 miles long (there and back). Unfortunately, the parking lot at Pen-y-Bass was already full in the early morning, so we parked about 2-3 miles towards Llanberis at a layby, and took a bus from there back …

According to a study by the global hotel industry, French people are the world’s worst tourists, AFP reports.
TNS Infratest asked 40,000 hotels worldwide to rank tourists from 27 countries based on nine criteria, from their politeness to their willingness to tip.
Clean and tidy, polite, quiet and uncomplaining, Japanese tourists came top of the crop for the third year running. Britons came second for their overall behaviour, politeness, quietness and even elegance — second for dress sense …

Terror organisation Hamas “treats” children to a video re-enactment of their mother blowing herself up as she murders four Israelis. This, as part of its ongoing educational campaign to glorify Islamic shahids – martyrs who kill themselves together with Jews, Arutz 7 reports.
Hamas TV children’s program Tomorrow’s Pioneers has produced a special broadcast featuring the two young children of a female suicide terrorist murderer. The two were invited to the TV studio to watch …

I can’t take my eyes off the new Jaguar XJ – it is, indeed, incredibly beautiful piece of machinery.
Jaquar say that their new flagship XJ blend elegant, contemporary design with comfort Jaguar said their new flagship XJ blended ‘elegant, contemporary design with comfort, luxury and sporting style’.
Daily Mail is also hinting that the Prime Minister might get one of whose, of course, financed by taxpayers. The only question is, which Prime Minister would …

And now the good news. According to a source within the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s family, Kim is seriously ill and is likely to be dead before the end of the year.
The latest speculation over the health of the reclusive Kim has been triggered by his appearance on state television on Wednesday to mark the 15th anniversary of the death of Kim Il Sung, his father and the man revered as the founder of …

A man has been gored to death in the traditional running of the bulls in Pamplona, northern Spain – the first fatality at the event for 14 years, the BBC reports.
The man was gored in the neck and lung on Friday, during the fourth bull run of the festival. Three other runners were injured in the incident.
Friday’s incident happened close to the start of the 850-metre (yard) run through the streets of Pamplona.
Nevertheless, bull runs …

The number of convictions for carrying a knife has leapt by almost two thirds since Labour took office, the Daily Mail reports, with some police forces in England and Wales have seen the level of successful prosecutions treble.
Opposition critics warned last night that the latest data exposed the true scale of the “epidemic” of knife crime which has claimed dozens of young lives in major cities over recent months.
In 1998 there were 3,805 successful convictions, …

National Gallery’s director Nicholas Penny says that Trafalgar Square has become completely uncivilised, with loud music and loutish behaviour destroying the tranquillity of the Gallery, the Times reports.
Dr Penny is so concerned by the “bloody awful” state of London’s central square that he would prefer to restore the road that separated it from his gallery before a £25 million redevelopment programme in 2003.
“It’s impossible for anyone in my position not to really want the traffic …