Daily News Feed 1.20.09/Vocab: sycophant

New York Post Apologizes For, Yet Still Defends, Chimp Cartoon
A day after publishing a cartoon that drew fire from critics who said it evoked historically racist images, the New York Post apologized in a statement on its Web site — even as it defended its action and blasted some detractors. Many of those critical of the cartoon said it appeared to compare President Obama to a chimpanzee in a commentary on his recently approved economic stimulus package. “Wednesday’s Page Six cartoon — caricaturing Monday’s police shooting of a chimpanzee in Connecticut — has created considerable controversy,” the paper said about the drawing, which shows two police officers standing over the body of a chimpanzee they just shot. The drawing is a reference to the mauling of a woman by a pet chimpanzee, which was then killed by police. In the cartoon, one of the officers tells the other, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” (Continue Reading…)

Photo appears to show bruised Rihanna; police probe leak
Los Angeles police have launched an internal investigation to determine who leaked a picture that appears to show a bruised and battered Rihanna. The close-up photo — showing a woman with contusions on her forehead and below her eyes, and cuts on her lip — was published on the entertainment Web site TMZ Thursday. TMZ said it was a photo of Rihanna. Twenty-one-year-old Rihanna was allegedly attacked by her boyfriend, singer Chris Brown, on a Los Angeles street before the two were to perform at the Grammys on February 8. “The unauthorized release of a domestic violence photograph immediately generated an internal investigation,” an L.A. police spokesman said in a statement. (Continue Reading…)

U.S. Holds Firm on Reparations in U.N. Racism Talks
The Obama administration on Thursday concluded its first round of politically charged U.N. negotiations on racism, pressing foreign governments to drop reparation demands for slavery and to desist from singling out Israel for criticism in a draft declaration to be presented at a U.N. conference in April. The United States is exploring whether it will participate in the conference, which will review progress on a declaration from the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. The United States and Israel walked out of that meeting, held in Durban, South Africa. U.N. officials have urged the Obama administration to participate in the review conference, saying that the election of the first African American president presents the United States with an opportunity to inspire other minorities around the world and to highlight U.S. progress in the years since slavery was abolished and blacks were granted civil rights. (Continue Reading…)

sycophant \SIK-uh-fuhnt\, noun: