Meetings

Former President Carter wrapped up his controversial Middle East tour Monday with an upbeat account of the militant Hamas movement's position on Israel, but with no apparent progress in promoting a cease-fire or bringing the Islamic group into peace efforts. Hamas turned down Carter's proposals for a one-month suspension of rocket attacks on Israel and a rapid prisoner exchange that would have transferred a captive Israeli soldier to Egypt. Israeli and U.S.

At the end of it all, Daphna Ziman and the Rev. Eric Lee were joking about the good cry they had together, pledging to work together to help children, and hugging each other goodbye Thursday. The two, who clenched hands at one point during the conversation at Ziman's Beverly Hills home, had clearly gotten over the controversy that erupted around a speech Lee made at a banquet April 4.

It looked like trouble. Or maybe it looked like the stuff that dreams were made of. The street was dark and the lighting was eerie as the hard-boiled book publishers from New York gathered outside an old factory building in downtown Los Angeles. They eyed the crowd that had massed inside. Some of the dames looked like femme fatales; some of the guys looked like saps.

"Recent substantial increases in the price of crude oil and other commodities have put considerable strain on American families, farmers and businesses," said Walter Lukken, acting commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. "We share public concerns about the need for the utmost transparency and integrity in the energy futures markets." It's a time-honored Washington ritual. When the price of oil goes up, so does the blood pressure of politicians.

Nearly a month after Charter Oak High School began investigating how fake names for members of the Black Student Union and other students were published in the yearbook, school officials are still looking for a way to resolve the controversy. Administrators at the Covina school will meet with BSU members and their families Monday to determine the best solution, said Principal Kathleen Wiard.

After coming tantalizingly close to a historic trade deal, World Trade Organization talks collapsed Tuesday in a dismaying blow to seven years of efforts to open up the global economy. Once promised as a recipe for lifting millions of people out of poverty, the end to nine days of high-level talks left no new trade openings for farmers and manufacturers, no global economic boost and no grand deal for Third World development. It was by all accounts a disaster.

His new campaign ad mocks Barack Obama for being a celebrity, but John McCain spent his weekend meeting with an unusual range of celebs himself. On Friday night he stopped by a free concert in Panama City, Fla., given by country singer John Rich, who unveiled his new song, "Raising McCain," as the Republican presidential candidate's Straight Talk Express pulled up. Today the Arizona senator is expected to meet with Frederick W. and Kimberly Kagan, inside-the-Beltway neoconservative luminaries.

Many questions arise when people hear that Armando Cervantes recently had lunch with Pope Benedict XVI. The answer to the most obvious question -- Did this really happen? -- is yes. Cervantes and 11 other young adults from across the globe met with the pontiff and Cardinal George Pell of Sydney during Benedict's visit last month to Australia. This wasn't a quick photo opportunity. They had a leisurely lunch and discussed their lives and their faith.

The meeting between John McCain and Barack Obama today at Saddleback Church in Orange County will be brief -- a handshake and perhaps an exchange of pleasantries in between back-to-back interviews with the church's pastor, Rick Warren. But for the 3,000 people in the audience and viewers watching live on cable television, this first onstage matchup will offer a preview of the three critically important presidential debates, the first next month at the University of Mississippi.

Sarah Palin, John McCain's running mate, has been getting a crash course in diplomacy and international affairs this week, meeting her first foreign heads of state courtesy of the U.N. General Assembly's annual gathering of international bigwigs.