Poetry professor had expelled gunman from class

Tiny, almost elfin, her delivery blunted by the loss of a lung, Giovanni brought the crowd at the memorial service to its feet and whipped the mourners into an almost evangelical fervor with the words: “We are the Hokies. We will prevail, we will prevail. We are Virginia Tech.”
Nearly two years earlier, Giovanni had stood up to Cho Seung-Hui nearly two years before he drenched the campus in blood. Her comments Tuesday showed that the man who had killed 32 students and teachers had not killed the school’s spirit.
“We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid,” the 63-year-old poet with the close-cropped, platinum hair told the grieving crowd. “We are better than we think, not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imagination and the possibility we will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears, through all this sadness.”
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Gingrich tells Christian group of affair

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group.
"The honest answer is yes," Gingrich, a potential 2008 Republican presidential candidate, said in an interview with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson to be aired Friday, according to a transcript provided to The Associated Press. "There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards. There's certainly times when I've fallen short of God's standards."
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Whaling ship fire ends the slaughter

The Australian understands the Nisshin Maru has suffered damage to its engines, generating system and communications gear but the owner has not decided whether it could make its own way or would need to be towed into port.
Commercial whaling is forbidden under a 20-year-old International Whaling Commission moratorium.
However, Japan uses a loophole that allows whaling for the purpose of scientific research. It sells the meat from its research - about 5300 tonnes last year - for eating.
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