Pakistan is hemming and hawing about a report that the U.S. wouldn't cut it a cheque in February to fight al Qaeda and Taliban militants. Seems Washington is wondering if that's where the money actually goes.

Observe for yourself:

Some editors wait their whole lives for a chance to get away with writing a headline like that. :)

Here's the actual story.

Incidentally, it was the most e-mailed story on BBC as I write this.

Americans' newfound interest in presidential politics has been noticed by the celebrity magazines.

From the World home page of nytimes.com:

A Place to Read and Comment on Times Articles in Arabic

By ROBERT MacKEY

As part of Generation Faithful, our ongoing series examining the lives of young people across the Muslim world, The New York Times has established an Arabic-language blog.

From the NYT:

When the Pentagon announced in March that Maj. Gen. Jay W. Hood would become the senior American officer based in Pakistan, it reflected the military’s aim to put a crisis-tested veteran in a critical job at a pivotal time in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

But nearly two months later, the military has quietly canceled the assignment of General Hood, a 33-year Army veteran who was excoriated in the Pakistani news media for one of his previous jobs: commander of the United States prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

During General Hood’s command from 2004 to 2006, military authorities force-fed with tubes detainees who were engaging in hunger strikes at the Guantánamo prison, a step they justified as necessary to prevent the prisoners from committing suicide to protest their indefinite confinement. Also during General Hood’s tenure, reports that an American guard may have desecrated a Koran stirred wide protests in the Islamic world.

The decision to withdraw General Hood’s assignment has not been announced, but it appears to reflect the widening shadow that the military prison at Guantánamo is casting over American foreign policy. While the United States considers Pakistan a close ally in its counterterrorism efforts, the accounts by Pakistanis who have returned to Pakistan after being held at Guantánamo Bay have added to anti-American sentiment in the country.

From AP via Google News:

Dan Rather has filed an amended lawsuit against CBS that says other TV networks refused to hire him because of the damage executives at his former company did to his reputation after a disputed 2004 report on President Bush.

From CP via CBC.ca (May 7):

Readers appreciate good content and will always pay for newspapers, but only the strongest brands will survive the decades ahead by adapting with the times and giving people what they want, Thomson Reuters (TSX:TRI) deputy chairman Geoffrey Beattie said Wednesday.

The newspaper industry needn't worry about a future when readers demand free content because people value a good product and the relationship they build with a brand, Beattie told an audience at a joint conference of the Canadian Newspaper Association and the Canadian Community Newspapers Association.

"Everybody in the world doesn't want everything for nothing," Beattie said, adding that readers will pay for the best brands of newspapers known for their reliability and integrity.

"By paying for something and getting something of value, you're differentiating yourself and you're forming a relationship."

Deeper in the story, Beattie paints it as a packaging problem.

"We haven't come up with a way of presenting the content of a newspaper in a way that makes it attractive for people to pick it up and start reading it," he said.

"I don't think people's appetite for expertized, editorialized, high-value added, interesting content ... is actually going to decline."

So then what, exactly, are we seeing happening to newspapers, particularly in the United States?

Film critic Richard Crouse identifies some of the small summer films that look to be worth checking out between popcorn movies.

For example, Dennis Hopper, Michael Madsen and David Carradine are in the biker movie Hell Ride (woohoo!).

Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg, The Foot Fist Way and Lou Reed's Berlin are among the other promising flicks.

From TheStar.com:

A day after she was fired for giving away a single Timbit to a child, a Tim Hortons employee in London, Ont., has her job back.

Nicole Lilliman, a single mother of four, has been rehired at another Tim Hortons restaurant after what the chain described as an “overreaction” by a manager.

Lilliman was fired yesterday after she was seen giving one of the small blobs of fried dough to a small child who came in with a regular customer on Monday.

The 27-year-old woman, who worked at the outlet for three years, said she didn’t see any harm in giving away the 16-cent treat, since Timbits are often doled out to children and dogs.

But a manager fired Lilliman after telling her that giving food away free was against the rules.

Hours later, Lilliman received a call offering her a job at another Tim Hortons store.

Here's a rather terse and to-the-point news release from the coffee-and-a-donut king.