Ken Burns Turns Camera Next to Vietnam

Two-part series begins airing Monday

(NEWSER) - PBS begins airing a two-part documentary on Bill Clinton's presidency Monday night, with much of the early press focusing on its coverage of the Monica Lewinsky affair. Many advisers speak publicly about it for the first time, notes the Los Angeles Times , including Dick Morris: "When the Lewinsky scandal broke the president paged me and I returned the call," he says in the documentary. "And he said, 'Ever since I got here to the White House I've had to shut my body down, sexually I mean, but I screwed up with this girl. I didn't do what they said I did, but I may have done so much that I can't prove my innocence.'" More»

'A Nation of Drunkards' is the best episode: reviewers

(NEWSER) - Ken Burns' latest mega-documentary, Prohibition, starts a three-night run tomorrow on PBS. Reviewers are praising the 5 1/2-hour survey of America's war on booze, but warn that it's a bit slow and may reveal its best stuff in the first episode:

• "It's a great subject with many present-day echoes, as the war on drugs ever more loudly raises questions of legislated morality," writes Robert Lloyd in the Los Angeles Times . "The drama might flag or grow diffuse, but there is still a lot here to learn."

The network says it was a routine programming change

(AP) - Jane Fonda says she's been banished from QVC amid concerns about her political past; the network says it was a routine programming change. Fonda was set to appear on the home-shopping channel Saturday to promote her new book on aging, Prime Time. But the day before, she learned her segment had been canceled. In a statement posted on her website, Fonda says QVC told her it received "a lot of calls" from viewers critical of her opposition to the Vietnam War; they reportedly threatened to boycott the show if she was allowed to appear. More»

US will join decontamination effort early next year

(AP) - Vietnam today started the first phase of a joint plan with former enemy the United States to clean up environmental damage leftover from the chemical defoliant Agent Orange, a lasting legacy from the Vietnam War. Vietnam's Ministry of Defense will begin sweeping areas around the Danang airport, a former US military base in central Vietnam where the herbicide was stored, for unexploded ordnance. The US Agency for International Development will then assist in removing dioxin from soil and sediment at the site. It marks the first time the two sides will work together on the ground to clean up contamination. More»

Twitter users offer their best guesses

(NEWSER) - Decades after they were leaked, the Pentagon Papers are finally being released on Monday by the federal government—which originally said 11 words would remain censored. Officials have since changed their minds, and we may never know what 11 words they intended to keep quiet. Not even leaker Daniel Ellsburg or Leslie Gelb, whose task force wrote the report, have a clue. (Though Gelb guesses they might deal with peace negotiations.) The New York Times asked Twitter users to take a shot. A sampling, along with their Twitter handles: More»