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A look at the stories ranking highly on various news sites.

poses the question: do tyrants fear America anymore? The piece by Nile Gardiner, a Washington-based foreign affairs analyst and political commentator, accuses the Obama administration of having a "timid" foreign policy.

"Just a few years ago the United States was genuinely feared on the world stage, and dictatorial regimes, strategic adversaries and state sponsors of terror trod carefully in the face of the world's most powerful nation. Now Washington appears weak, rudderless and frequently confused in its approach."

Riding high at , published last week but seeing resurgence in interest following the Oscars on Sunday. The film, says writer Christopher Hitchens, is "riddled with gross falsifications of history". Hitchens, who has been one of the most vocal critics of the accuracy of the film, picks apart the allegiances and friendships in the film, particularly those of Winston Churchill, which he says are presented incorrectly.

The career of actor Charlie Sheen could be harmed by a series of "bizarre" interviews, . The actor produced "samples of his blood and urine for a drugs test" during one interview on NBC. Other interviews, which covered topics including "his past indulgence with drugs and porn stars" proved too much for his publicist, who announced that he would resign, the paper says.

Facebook is about to embark on the latest of its "controversy-fraught efforts to encourage users to be more liberal in sharing their data", . The social network is "moving ahead" with plans to give external developers access to its users' mobile phone numbers and home addresses, despite the firm already doing one u-turn on the decision in January.

with Nobel Prize winning biologist Christian de Duve who argues that natural selection means that humans are now riddled with "noxious traits" that could eventually kill us off. The answer, he says, could involve population control and giving more power to women.

A plastic that doesn't burn even under extreme temperatures and that acts protects from nuclear blasts and radiation may never see the light of day, . The material known as Starlite was invented by former hairdresser Maurice Ward, who had "no formal training, no academic background, no special equipment, no funding and no help other than from his wife Helen and daughters Jane and Caroline". Despite debuting on 91Èȱ¬ show Tomorrow's World two decades ago and winning plaudits from Nasa and the Ministry of Defence, Mr Ward's invention has never been bought or produced commercially. So what happened?

And finally, that it claims could be the elusive graffiti artist Banksy. The photographs, showing him wearing "a pulled-down green cap, a brown T-shirt and grey Adidas tracksuit bottoms" were taken in Santa Monica. The paper says the artist's work has been springing up around LA in the run up to the Oscars, where his film Exit Through The Gift Shop was nominated for best documentary.