Orlando Figes, a celebrated author and Russian scholar, is embroiled in a scandal involving vicious reviews posted on Amazon's website. The anonymous reviews attacked books written by Figes' rivals, and last week his wife, law professor Stephanie Palmer, said she was responsible. But now Figes admits he actually wrote the nasty putdowns, which built up his reputation at other authors' expense.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/23/world/AP-EU-Britain-Vicious-Reviews.html

The family of famed fantasy artist Frank Frazetta has settled a bitter, and very public, feud that was marked by criminal charges and a lawsuit. According to a statement posted online early on April 23 by publisher Vanguard Productions, all litigation involving Frazetta's children and art "has been resolved." The Pocono Record reports the agreement comes after the family -- including Frazetta, sons Alfonso Frank Frazetta (Frank Jr.) and William Frazetta and daughters Holly Frazetta and Heidi Grabin -- met with their attorneys and a federal mediator for two days to resolve the legal battle before trial. Theft charges will be dropped against Frank Jr., who was arrested in December after he allegedly used a backhoe to break into his father's museum in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, to steal 90 paintings worth about $20 million. http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2010/04/lawsuit-and-theft-charges-dropped-as-frazetta-family-settles-differences/
Q: After a plane crash, what happens to passengers' luggage? I'm thinking of the Hudson River splashdown, for example.
A: The National Transportation Safety Board and airlines have rules for returning baggage and other personal belongings. How much baggage can be retrieved depends on the extent of damage in the accident. After investigators go through everything, airlines usually hire a third party to clean baggage and other belongings. Airliner wreckage is considered a biohazard site.
If belongings are intact, they go to passengers or family members. If the ownership isn't known, airlines often make photos available so people can claim their items. The airline is responsible for returning belongings, not the government. USAirways Flight 1549 collided with Canada geese shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in New York on Jan. 15, 2009, and ditched in the Hudson River. In that case, the airline hired a contractor to recover, sort, clean and restore more than 30,000 passenger belongings. -- Joan Lowy, AP, Washington.
Q: Who was the first president of the United States?
A: George Washington was the first president elected under the Constitution of 1789, but there were eight presidents of Congress under the Articles of Confederation from 1781 to 1789.
The eight had little of the executive power that Washington and his successors have enjoyed under the Constitution. Appointed by fellow members of Congress, each served one-year terms.
Their title was not "president of the United States of America," but "president of the United States in Congress Assembled." They were, in order: John Hanson, Maryland; Elias Boudinot, New Jersey; Thomas Mifflin, Pennsylvania; Richard Henry Lee, Virginia; John Hancock, Massachusetts; Nathaniel Gorham, Massachusetts; Arthur St. Clair, Pennsylvania; and Cyrus Griffin, Virginia. -- Peter Mattiace, from various sources.
Curious? Then just ask by e-mail to justask@thecourier.com, by fax to 419-427-8480, or by mail to Just Ask, The Courier, P.O. Box 609, Findlay, OH 45839.
http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2010/Apr/JU/ar_JU_042610.asp?d=042610,2010,Apr,26&c=c_13
The largest island in North America and the largest island in the world is Greenland. http://geography.about.com/od/lists/a/largestislands.htm Note that the ninth island in the list should say Vancouver Island, not Victoria Island. Victoria is the largest city on Vancouver Island.
Australia, an island continent, has 2,970,000 square miles compared to Greenland's 840,004 square miles. However, Australia generally does not appear in rank-order lists.
Australia has 8,222 islands within its maritime borders.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands_of_Australia

Lists of islands by ocean, continent and rank-order: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands

Eponyms are words that denote objects, events, or concepts that have been named after real people. During the French Revolution, a member of the Constituent Assembly, Joseph Ignace Guillotin, urged the new government to adopt the louisette as a swift and humane means of carrying out executions. Consequently, due to its widespread use, the device was quickly renamed the guillotine. As a soldier in the French army, Nicolas Chauvin not only welcomed Napoleon as a leader, but also was fanatically devoted to him and praised him at almost every opportunity. His extreme sense of loyalty toward Napoleon and his country became the source of many jokes, and eventually became known to the French as chauvinisme. Today, the words “chauvinism” or “chauvinist” are used to describe a person who is fanatically patriotic or rigidly convinced of the superiority of his own group. During an attack on the Dutch colonial territory of Surinam in 1802, Lieutenant General Henry Shrapnel invented a device that was then called a “spherical case shot”, which consisted of a round container filled with gunpowder and musket balls. This kind of artillery shell would prove to be a very effective anti-personnel weapon because the shell would explode on impact, spraying musket balls or other tiny metal fragments in all directions, causing many enemy casualties. These tiny metal fragments came to be known as “shrapnel”. http://www.karlonia.com/2007/06/25/eponyms-examples-of-words-from-the-napoleonic-era/