Americans

In the months leading up to tonight's midnight tax-filing deadline, Americans have been feverishly pouring billions of dollars into Individual Retirement Accounts at a far faster pace than in 1990, according to Money magazine's Small Investor Index. Discount broker Charles Schwab, for example, has opened 17,500 new IRA accounts this year, compared with 12,700 for the same period a year ago. At Fidelity Investments, investors with existing IRAs have added 15 percent more cash to their accounts than they did a year ago. Analysts give two reasons for the heightened interest in IRAs.

LONDON - The last group in England with this many records was The Beatles. Carmelo Anthony and the U.S. men's Olympic basketball team rewrote the record books Thursday in a 156-73 romp over Nigeria, an epic blowout that answered the Americans' detractors after two opening routs that provoked criticism of their slow starts and outside shooting. They led by 26 in the first quarter; had an Olympic-record 78 points in the first half; and Anthony scored 37 points, including a 10-of-12 three-point shooting night, to break the U.S. single-game scoring record in less than three quarters.

I AM an American. I am neither a Democrat nor Republican, red or blue, left or right. I grew up a rebellious child, I challenged authority and would not stand up to salute the flag in high school. I didn't agree with the way MY country was run. I'm older now, and though I still carry a heavy stone in my stomach at the thought of the way MY country is run, I know it's not America's fault. I love America, and am a proud American. But, like every American, I have my opinions and beliefs that oppose those of others.

So, Nancy Reagan told the Los Angeles Times that she hasn't talked to her daughter, Patti Davis, for more than a year. What else is new? There is a reason that Americans feel compelled to talk about "family values. " We don't have any - or, rather, we have significantly fewer than almost any other people on Earth. We are the people who left our parents and grandparents behind in Europe to come to the New World. Then we left them behind generation after generation as young men followed Horace Greeley's advice to go West.

By Leonard Boasberg Rick Santorum was recently quoted as telling the blog The Iowa Republican that President Obama "is detached from the American experience. He just doesn't identify with the average American because of his own background - Indonesia and Hawaii. " The former Republican senator from Pennsylvania went on to say of the president: "His view is from the viewpoint of academics and the halls of the Ivy League schools that he went to, and it's not a love of this country and an understanding of the basic values and wants and desires of its people.

If it didn't know it before, the U.S. national soccer team has found out this year the difference between a "friendly" match and a "competitive" match. The difference is intensity. Learning to deal with an intensity that the Americans don't get from friendly-match opponents is a major consideration as they look toward the 1994 World Cup, which the United States will host. That is why two developments in recent months have been important to the American team. They are the increased movement of top American players to European clubs, where they are playing in professional, competitive situations week in and week out, and the announcement that beginning next year, the CONCACAF regional confederation, of which the United States is a member, will hold a biennial CONCACAF Nations Cup competition.

WHETHER it's South Carolina GOP Rep. Joe Wilson's angry outburst during President Obama's address to Congress last week, or Serena Williams' ouster from the U.S. Open for cussing out an official or Kanye West's meltdown at the MTV awards, Americans are losing their cool. And although it makes great headlines here, we have a very bad rap internationally. A friend of mine, recently returned from a visit to Asia, was most impressed with the impeccable manners of the people she met there in three different countries.

They came here with high hopes, but modest expectations. The first U.S. soccer team to play in a World Cup final in 40 years is down to its third, and probably last, game today (TNT, 2:55 p.m. EDT), against Austria in Florence's Stadio Comunale. Mathematically, the Americans still can advance to the second round. But realistically, when Czechoslovakia scored five goals in the game on June 10, the Americans were through for this tournament. Almost as much of a win, most of the players want to gain individual recognition on the international soccer market so they can play in a European professional league next year.

If it's redemption the Americans are after, they've certainly delivered a conclusive opening statement. This one looks like it's already history, even if it's hardly begun. Where's Yogi Berra when you really need a reason to continue paying attention through the weekend? The fourth Presidents Cup, the PGA Tour's even-yeared answer to the seven-decade tradition of Samuel Ryder, got under way yesterday at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club, 40 miles west of the nation's capitol.

Even though the last U.S. troops withdrew from Vietnam almost 15 years ago, the conflict continues to touch Americans, say two Philadelphia professors. They presented their views to 51 high school history teachers at a March 18 conference on Vietnam at Monsignor Bonner High School in Drexel Hill. Michael Zuckerman, chairman of undergraduate history at the University of Pennsylvania, told the teachers that Americans have not been able to forget the war. "There is a continuing presence of Vietnam in today's society," he said.

For Kayla Coley and Ciara Leonard, Saturday afternoon at Plymouth Whitemarsh must have felt just like practice. There was Coley, Cheltenham's Texas Tech-bound hurdler, capturing the 100-meter girls' hurdles at the Suburban One American Conference Championships. And near her side, just two-tenths of a second behind, was sophomore teammate Leonard. "We put them next to each other every day on the hurdling drills," coach Kelly Jensen said. "They work tremendously together and are competitive, but collegial.

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea delivered its most in-depth account yet of the case against a Korean American sentenced to 15 years' hard labor, accusing him late Thursday of smuggling in inflammatory literature and trying to establish a base for anti-Pyongyang activities at a border city hotel. Still, the long list of allegations included no statement from Kenneth Bae, other than claims that he confessed and didn't want an attorney present during his sentencing last week for what Pyongyang called hostile acts against the state.

CAIRO - An assailant stabbed an American man on Thursday while they were standing outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, security officials said. The area around the U.S. Embassy has been the site of anti-American incidents and violence in the past, but stabbings are uncommon despite political unrest that has roiled Egypt since the 2011 uprising. Embassy spokesman David Ranz confirmed that a U.S. citizen was stabbed, and said he was immediately rushed to the hospital. His condition was not known.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Seven U.S. service members were killed Saturday in one of the deadliest days for Americans in Afghanistan in recent months and the latest of attacks against international troops since the Taliban announced the start of its spring offensive. The U.S.-led coalition reported that five international troops were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, and a coalition spokesman, Capt. Luca Carniel, confirmed that all five were American. The coalition did not disclose the location of the roadside bombing.

SEOUL, South Korea - The United States demanded Thursday that North Korea immediately release an American sentenced this week to 15 years of hard labor on charges of trying to overthrow the government. The Obama administration is calling for amnesty for Kenneth Bae, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said. "What we're urging the DPRK authorities to do is to grant him amnesty and to allow for his immediate release, full stop," Ventrell said, using the acronym for North Korea's formal title, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

SEOUL, South Korea - An American detained for nearly six months in North Korea has been sentenced to 15 years of "compulsory labor" for unspecified crimes against the state, Pyongyang announced Thursday. The sentencing of Kenneth Bae, described by friends as a devout Christian and a tour operator, will further complicate strained relations between Pyongyang and Washington as the countries pursue tentative diplomacy after weeks of warlike threats from North Korea. Pyongyang's official state media said Bae's trial took place Tuesday; the dispatch provided few other details.

Alysia Montaño says it's a "visual clue" of her strength and femininity. The yellow flower in the U.S. Olympian's hair was more than that during the first race of the "USA vs. The World" showcase series at Saturday's Penn Relays. It was a sure sign to the 48,871 spectators on a spectacularly sunny afternoon in Franklin Field that something special was happening on the track. Running in splendid isolation on the anchor of the first 4x800 in the 13-year-old history of the popular series of world-class relay races, Montaño brought the baton, the crowd and that bright artificial flower home in record-setting time.

Francena McCorory thought the finish line was moving back as she dueled on the home straightaway Saturday at Franklin Field trying to extend the winning streak for the United States in the women's 4x400-meter relay in the Penn Relays' "USA vs. the World" races. The Olympic gold medalist strained and stretched across the finish line by scant inches over Great Britain's Perri Shakes-Drayton to give USA Red the victory, the 12th in a row for the home country at Franklin Field. "I was looking for the finish line," McCorory said with a smile.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The fishing trip off the rugged north coast of St. Lucia was supposed to last all day, but about four hours into the journey, the boat's electric system crackled and popped. Dan Suski, 30, a business owner and information-technology expert from San Francisco, had been wrestling a 200-pound marlin in rough seas with help from his sister, Kate Suski, 39, an architect from Seattle. It was noon Sunday. He was still trying to reel in the fish when water rushed into the cabin and flooded the engine room, prompting the captain to radio for help as he yelled out their coordinates.

With their baseball hats and sauntering gaits, they appeared to friends and neighbors like ordinary American boys. But the Boston bombings suspects were refugees from another world - the blood, rubble, and dirty wars of the Russian Caucasus. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was a southpaw heavyweight boxer who represented New England in the National Golden Gloves and talked about competing on behalf of the United States. His tangle-haired, 19-year-old brother, Dzhokhar, was a skateboarder who listened to rap and seemed easygoing to other kids in his Cambridge, Mass., neighborhood.