Rumors

The accusation was damning: U.S. soldiers were said to have tossed a grenade into a crowd of Afghans in the eastern province of Kunar on Tuesday, killing two civilians and wounding five to 50 others. American public affairs officers previously have been slow in responding. U.S. military officials here complain that Taliban leaders are often better and faster at spreading their versions of deadly events.

Former mixed martial arts fighter Kim "Kimo" Leopoldo woke up Tuesday afternoon not knowing friends and fans were deeply concerned about his welfare. His manager Ron Kort, of Santa Ana-based New Era Fighting, broke the news to him: "According to the media, you're dead," Kort recalled saying. Reports of Leopoldo's demise originated from MMA websites that incorrectly reported the 41-year-old died from complications of a heart attack late Monday night, Kort said.

At long last, details about a super-secret computer tablet have emerged, complete with pictures and even a video showing how it works. But it's not the long-awaited tablet that Apple Inc. has been rumored to be developing. This prototype reportedly comes from deep inside Apple's archrival, Microsoft Corp., where its development has supposedly been so blanketed in secrecy that many high-ranking company executives didn't know it existed. If it's real, that is. The device, code-named Courier, showed up on the popular technology blog Gizmodo.

Robotics expert Robert Finkelstein has had a company in the field for nearly a quarter of a century without controversy. He never paid attention to blogs, didn't have a company website until last year and never felt the need to issue news releases about his work. That is, until blogs and news sites feasted on his EATR project. EATR, for Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot, is a robotic ground vehicle that Finkelstein's small company is designing with U.S.

An Internet blogger nicknamed Minerva was acquitted by a Seoul court Monday on charges that he spread malicious rumors about the South Korean economy that cost the government billions of dollars. Park Dae-sung was released after the court's ruling that he did not violate telecommunications laws with his popular weblogs, which regularly pontificated on South Korea's ailing economy, castigated policymakers and forecast dire scenarios that many investors took to heart.

He married her; he married her not. He married her; he married her not. He married her? France's rumor de jour is that First Bachelor Nicolas Sarkozy has done just what he said he'd do if he decided to marry his fetching former-supermodel girlfriend, Carla Bruni: He'd keep it a secret. "There are strong chances you will learn of it once it's done," Sarkozy told 600 reporters at a news conference a week ago after acknowledging that he'd gotten "serious" with his girlfriend of two months.

If Vanity Fair's current takedown of former President Clinton is any measure, a new standard of campaign journalism has taken root: We will now learn not just about politicians who have affairs. We will learn about politicians whose associates are afraid they might be having affairs. That's the foundation of a good part of a lengthy Bill Clinton profile featured in the July issue of the glossy celebrity-centric magazine, which is due to hit newsstands today.

Call me quaint and old-fashioned, but I give most of the mainstream media a hearty pat on the back for refusing to spread the inflammatory and thoroughly unsubstantiated rumor that Michelle Obama once railed against "whitey" from a pulpit. Fervent e-mails and blogs have buzzed since late May with "news" that a videotape would emerge of Barack Obama's wife spewing the racial epithet.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il was absent from a high-level funeral, South Korean officials said Friday, fueling a new round of speculation on his medical condition. The 66-year-old failed to appear at the funeral of Pak Sung Chol this week, South Korea's Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon said at a news conference. Pak, 95, was considered the last of the communist state's first-generation revolutionaries.

Students at South High School in Torrance this week mourned Pfc. Joe Anzack, a 20-year-old Army gunner stationed south of Baghdad, after a rumor surfaced that he had been killed in Iraq. On Monday morning, students who knew the South High alumnus cried. Others left messages of sympathy and last respects on his MySpace page. Student government members even posted a message on a sign outside the school that read: "In Loving Memory -- Joe Anzack -- Class of 2005."