To the British royal family, physical beauty and eating disorders are so 1997. Crow’s feet, turkey necks and middle-age spread are the new black. It’s time to make peace with Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, the blowsy, bossy lady born Camilla Shand, later known world over as the much-despised Camilla Parker Bowles. Or “the Rottweiller,’’ as Charles’ late, luminous and famously bulimic ex-wife, Diana, Princess of Wales, called her rival for Charles’ heart and other organs.(nypost.com)…[+]

AERZEN, Germany — President Barack Obama on Monday announced the deployment to Syria of an additional 250 U.S. special operations forces to assist local troops who are trying to dislodge Islamic State extremists from their war-torn country, significantly broadening the American presence there.

Obama, touting recent gains against the group, said the added troops would help “to keep up this momentum” against IS. The move will bring the number of personnel to roughly 300, up from about 50 special operations forces currently there.(nypost.com)…[+]

Stephen Hawking’s decades-old black-hole theory has been confirmed by another scientist — and that may finally land the renowned physicist on the short list for a Nobel Prize. Hawking — whose life with his former wife and struggle with motor neuron disease were dramatized in the 2014 movie “The Theory of Everything” — calculated back in 1974 that tiny particles should be able to rob black holes of a minuscule fraction of their energy and then escape.(nypost.com)…[+]

American actor George Clooney on Sunday joined Armenians marking 101 years since a massacre by Ottoman Turks of some 1.5 million ethnic Armenians. Clooney attended a service at a hilltop memorial in the capital Yerevan led by Armenian church leader Catholicos Karekin II to commemorate the victims of the massacre.(nypost.com)…[+]

WASHINGTON – Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are poised for a super Tuesday, according to two new polls. In Pennsylvania — one of five states holding primaries on April 26, Trump leads GOP rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich: 49 percent to 26 percent and 22 percent, respectively, according to a CBS News battleground tracker poll out Sunday. “He now has a clear sight line to clinching the nomination,” said CBS News pollster Anthony Salvanto.(nypost.com)…[+]

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will likely soon release at least part of a 28-page secret chapter from a congressional inquiry into 9/11 that may shed light on possible Saudi connections to the attackers. The documents, kept in a secure room in the basement of the Capitol, contain information from the joint congressional inquiry into “specific sources of foreign support for some of the Sept. 11 hijackers while they were in the United States.”(nypost.com)…[+]

BRAZIL/USA – Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff is travelling to New York to drum up international support for her ongoing domestic battle against impeachment proceedings. While she is away, the power will rest with Vice President Michel Temer, the man she accused of mounting a coup against her government. The trip remained undecided until the final moments owing to the political paralysis in Brazil. But Rousseff has decided to use the two-day tour to repair some of the damage back home. However, the trip is expected to have little or no effect directly on the ongoing impeachment proceedings.(International Business Times UK)…[+]

NORWAY – Mass murderer Anders Breivik may be allowed visits from a woman who claims to be in love with him after a court ruled that being kept in isolation in prison had violated his human rights. A court in Oslo ruled in the killer’s favor on one of two claims for alleged human rights violations this week.  The right-wing extremist, who has declared himself to be a Nazi, was convicted in 2012 after shooting dead 69 people attending a Labor party youth camp on the island of Utoya and planting a bomb in Oslo that killed eight people. District judges said that his detention in prison had violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which relates to “inhuman or degrading” punishment. The verdict said: “The prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment represents a fundamental value in a democratic society. This applies no matter what – also in the treatment of terrorists and killers.”

(The Independent UK).(Photo: Heiko Junge)…[+]

UK – The Duke of Cambridge has paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth II on her 90th birthday for helping him cope with the loss of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales. “She’s been a very strong female influence,” Prince William said on Sky News. “And having lost my mother at a young age, it’s been particularly important to me that I’ve had somebody like the Queen to look up to and who’s been there and who has understood some of the more, um, complex issues when you lose a loved one.” Diana died in 1997 in a Paris automobile crash.(CNN).

(Photo: Ranald Mackechnie/Royal Mail)…[+]

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton overwhelmed Bernie Sanders Tuesday in New York’s presidential primary — and next week could be a replay. Five states hold primaries Tuesday and polls indicate Clinton is ahead in all of them: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware. In Pennsylvania — the biggest prize with 210 delegates — Clinton is leading 52 percent to 39 percent in the latest Monmouth University poll.(nypost.com)…[+]