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When Americans play pingpong, it just isn't that big a deal. In China, however, table tennis is a national craze — and fans treat top players like rock stars.

The latest issue of Blender magazine includes a piece titled "White House DJ," which features lists of the top 10 favorite songs of presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama. Jonathan Schwartz talks about the candidates' selections, as well as their only commonality: Frank Sinatra.

It might not be surprising that waterboarding, the controversial interrogation technique that simulates drowning, would become the subject of satire. But it was shocking to many when artist Steve Powers created an attraction called the Waterboard Thrill Ride.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi with the goal of getting Russian combat forces out of the former Soviet country. Rice is carrying a draft cease-fire that requires Russia to withdraw combat troops and allows peacekeepers to remain in the flash-point separatist region.

For two years, the author lived in a Laotian hospital, in an apartment above the operating room. His experiences there inspired characters — including a country coroner — for the books he would later write.

The truce between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway territory of South Ossetia remains precarious. Russian troops are still inside the former Soviet republic. The United States is standing strong with Georgia.

For historian-turned-mystery-writer Jason Goodwin, the bustling Istanbul bazaar is a perfect setting for murder, and the evening call to prayer is "a good time to kick a man to death in the street."

The U.S. Olympic swim team struck gold in the 400-meter freestyle relay, beating the French team by a fingertip. The victory lets Michael Phelps continue his quest to win a historic eight gold medals, but it was teammate Jason Lezak who clinched this medal with the fastest relay lap ever.

Ballet dancer Carlos Acosta is known for powerful leaps that make him seem to fly. Those leaps have earned him comparisons with Nureyev and Baryshnikov. He grew up in a poor neighborhood outside Havana. How that boy became a man who dances with grace and power is the subject of Acosta's memoir, No Way Home.

ABC correspondent Bob Woodruff's personal reflections serve as the foreword for the new medical textbook. Woodruff nearly died in 2006 from the impact of a roadside bomb in Iraq.