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A federal jury acquitted pitching ace Roger Clemens of all charges on Monday. The jury found Clemens not guilty of lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation into performance-enhancing drugs.

Revelations that President Obama's nominee for ambassador to Iraq had an extramarital affair with a reporter have cost Brett H. McGurk his nomination.

As The New York Times reports, a series of leaked racy e-mails between McGurk and Gina Chon, who was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, caused Republican opposition to his nomination as ambassador.

The Times reports:

They're time-consuming, demanding and require birthday cards, but they may help keep you alive. Friends and family, that is.

An interesting case of identity politics is playing out in New York's newly drawn 13th Congressional District, which includes Harlem and parts of the Bronx.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., faces four much younger competitors in next week's Democratic primary, in what could be the toughest re-election bid of his long political career.

NPR's Corey Dade explains:

Say the word Tijuana, and many people automatically think of a city riddled with drug violence. But native son Javier Plascencia is hoping to change all that by cooking up high-quality cuisine that focuses on the region's diverse ingredients.

The 35-ton boulder commands attention. The whale-shaped rock was brought to Berlin from Venezuela in 1998 by German artist Wolfgang von Schwarzenfeld who inscribed it with the word love written in seven languages. It's a work of art that sits in Tiergarten park.

But during the past few weeks, the boulder has become the subject of an international dispute.

Heard about the letter to the editor of a newspaper in Ohio demanding that the state find another tree to serve at its symbol because buckeyes are bisexual? It's starting to get some attention on the Web.

Well, it's a real letter to The Courier in Findlay.

But it's also our third hoax in as many blogging weekdays — or in this case, more accurately, a piece of social satire.