Andreas Whittam Smith: The lessons May 1940 has for today Why was France, a superpower with an extensive empire and well-equipped armed forces, defeated within a matter of weeks, leaving Britain alone to face Hitler's Germany? During the astonishing political events that have taken place since the general election on 6 May, my mind has often turned to an even more remarkable month of May in British history, May 1940. We have been so absorbed by the construction of Britain's first coalition government since the Second World War that we haven't paused to recall the extraordinary circumstances in which its predecessor came into being. A whole series of 70th anniversary dates has passed by unnoticed. Only the evacuation of Dunkirk still catches the imagination. Yet the month of May 1940 poses a great question for which no totally convincing explanation has ever been found: why was France, a super-power with an extensive empire and well-equipped armed forces, defeated within a matter of weeks, leaving Britain alone to face Hitler's Germany?Winston Churchill succeeded Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister on 10 May 1940. He immediately sent a message to Clement Attlee, the leader of the Labour Party, the official opposition, asking him to join the new Government. Attlee agreed and Churchill then mentioned four of Attlee's colleagues - "men whose service in high office were immediately required".On that same day Germany invaded Holland and Belgium. Thus the phoney war ended and the real war began on the same day that Churchill entered Downing Street - as if waiting for him. Until then, Hitler had made no move against the West since his troops had invaded Poland on 3 September 1939 and Britain and France had immediately declared war on him without being able to do a thing about Poland, which was quickly…

 UC Irvine protest case raises questions about discipline practicesCampus suspends Muslim Student Union for allegedly planning to disrupt Israeli diplomat's speech, and then denying it. Experts say it's unusual for a whole group to be sanctioned in civil disobedience cases. Read Article

 F.B.I. Faces New Setback in Computer OverhaulBy ERIC LICHTBLAUWASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation has suspended work on parts of its huge computer overhaul, dealing the agency the latest costly setback in a decade-long effort to develop a modernized information system to combat crime and terrorism. The overhaul was supposed to be completed this fall, but now will not be done until next year at the earliest. The delay could mean at least $30 million in cost overruns on a project considered vital to national security, Congressional officials said. F.B.I. officials said that design changes and “minor” technical problems prompted the suspension of parts of the third and fourth phases of the work, which is intended to allow agents to better navigate investigative files, search databases and communicate with one another. The decision to suspend work on the $305 million program is particularly striking because the current contractor, Lockheed Martin, was announced to great fanfare in 2006 after the collapse of an earlier incarnation of the project with the Science Applications International Corporation. “This is terribly frustrating,” Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who has been a frequent critic of the F.B.I.’s computer systems, said in an interview Thursday. “We’ve been through this song and dance before. Wouldn’t you think after hundreds of millions of dollars being wasted that they’d finally get it right?” Beyond the financial costs are concerns about the F.B.I.’s ability to handle its law enforcement and national security responsibilities with an information system still regarded as sub-par in some crucial areas. In a paper-driven culture, the agency’s computers were so…

  Wall Street Journal set for No 1 spot in USDan Sabbagh The Wall Street Journal is on track to overtake USA Today as the highest-selling print and online daily newspaper in the US — and the only title selling over two million copies a day.The average weekday sale of the Journal, which is published by News Corporation, parent company of The Times, reached 2.02 million copies in the year to September, according to data filed with the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC). That was 12,270 copies up on the year. Equivalent figures for USA Today showed that the newspaper sold 1.88 million copies, a fall of nearly 17 per cent compared with last year, after increasing its price by 25 cents to $1. That means the Journal is expected to be confirmed as the leader by ABC when it releases its verified data for the period on October 26.However, USA Today, the long-time bestseller, expects to remain ahead when it comes to the number of print copies sold each day. The ABC allows some newspapers to count online-only subscriptions towards the daily average, and in the year to March, 350,000 people paid for The Wall Street Journal’s internet edition. The number of Journal subscribers buying online only in the year to September will be released when the ABC publishes its audited data.Todd Larsen, chief operating officer of the consumer group of Dow Jones, the News Corporation subsidiary that owns the newspaper, said: “Subscribers continue to gravitate to the Journal franchise”.   

  Tim Burton: Boyhood traumas of a directorHis films are pervaded by darkness and peopled by outsiders. As the director's 'Alice in Wonderland' opens, he talks to Gill Pringle about the origins of his demons. "In movies you kind of work out your issues, but then you realise that those kind of traumatic issues stay with you forever so somehow they kind of keep recurring. No matter how hard I try to get them out of my head, they sort of stay there."