Search “Tiananmen” on Google and it will return images of the 1989 pro-Democracy rally in Beijing, and the Chinese government’s military crackdown. That is, unless you’re searching in China, where you’re more likely to see tourist photos of the public square than any hint of civil unrest.

As with its state-controlled newspapers, radio and television, the Communist Party maintains tight control over the internet — censoring websites critical of the government, and often with the help of America’s largest and best known technology firms.

“It is not something we are happy about,” said Google VP Elliot Schrage, testifying at a Congressional hearing back in 2006. But Schrage said that American firms must abide by Chinese regulations if they are to do business in that country.

The competition, he said, “would like nothing more than their three American counterparts to go to the Chinese government and say, ‘We won’t cooperate with those restrictions.’ Because that competitor will go to the Chinese government, I believe, and say, ‘Great! because we will.’”

Schrage and executives from Cisco, Microsoft and Yahoo faced tough questioning from lawmakers who were concerned, not only about censorship, but instances where U.S. companies allegedly provided Chinese authorities with user data on dissidents, leading to arrests, imprisonment and beatings.

For the past three years, Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) has been fighting for legislation that would penalize American companies that aid foreign regimes in such activities. Click on the video to hear his comments.

This story has two great ironies. First, U.S. internet firms — some of the strongest conduits and advocates for free speech in America are supplying the Chinese government with the means to suppress it. Second, some of those most actively trying to penetrate China’s “great firewall” are Chinese dissidents living in the U.S.

We feature one of those dissidents on tonight’s Fox Report w/ Shepard Smith. More details later.

Desperate for cash, and short on compassion, thieves have been stealing flower vases from cemeteries in at least eight states.

Investigators believe the vases, which contain copper, are being sold to scrap metal dealers for just a few dollars a piece.

This seemingly petty crime is especially cruel. The vases cost hundreds of dollars to replace. And the thefts exact an emotional toll on, already grieving, families of the deceased.

We traveled to a cemetery in Anderson, SC — where we met Tami Gordon. She has seen flower vases disappear from the graves of both her husband and her father.

Click on the video to watch our story.

I’ve just returned from St. Petersburg, where I was the alumni speaker at Canterbury School of Florida’s graduation ceremony.

I’ve always felt indebted to this small school for the dedicated teachers and generous financial aid that gave me a truly unique and comprehensive education.

With 24 graduating seniors (three more than my own Class of 1983), I expected this small and intimate event to be profoundly sentimental for me, but not so significant for Fox News. That is, until I found out the other guest speaker was veteran anchorman John Wilson from WTVT, Fox’s powerhouse station in the Tampa Bay Area.

Now Canterbury’s Fox/student ratio was 1 to 12.

Adding to the coincidence, John Wilson was the speaker at my own high school graduation which was held at the very same location.

Estimating the distance between the speaker’s podium and the graduating seniors sitting in the front pews of St. Peter’s Cathedral (where I sat listening to John Wilson 25 years ago), I joked that I had moved only 25 feet over the past quarter of a century.

The students had obviously changed and only one of my original teachers was still on the Canterbury faculty. Although, I was delighted to see in the audience, Ms. Donna Fowler, a former Canterbury teacher who helped me conquer my fear of math.

Names and faces had changed, but not much else — not the dedication of the teachers, the love of proud parents, or the dreams of a new graduating class.

I remember my own dreams from graduation night 25 years ago — dreams of becoming a broadcast journalist as I listened to John Wilson describe his profession in a single word: “awesome.”

Listening to John speak a quarter of a century later, it’s obvious he is still passionate about his career. I’m following my own professional dreams and was grateful to be able to return to, and thank, the school that helped make it all possible.

In this case, moving only 25 feet in 25 years is a good thing.

The questions from passersby here in Durham, NC quickly changed from “What are you covering?” to “What’s the type and grade of the senator’s tumor?” and other medical questions far more detailed than the answers we’ve gotten so far.

Sen. Kennedy’s family has yet to say how much of the malignant glioma doctors were able to remove. However, his neurosurgeon Dr. Allan Friedman said in general terms that “the operation was successful and accomplished our goals.”

Many experts in cancer treatment believe that by surgically removing as much tumor as possible, you increase the effectiveness of followup treatments because there’s less tumor to fight. Sen. Kennedy is scheduled to receive both chemotherapy and radiation treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital after a week of recovery here at Duke Medical Center.

It’s unclear how much, if anything, family members or hospital officials will say during the recovery period. If the process goes according to plan, it should be uneventful.

In this case, no news is good news.

“What are you covering?” residents asked this morning as they passed the media assembled outside Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC.

Sen. Ted Kennedy’s arrival over the weekend happened so quickly and quietly, most people had no idea the legendary politician had selected a prominent Duke neurosurgeon, Allan Friedman, M.D., to operate on his brain tumor.

Before his surgery, Sen. Kennedy issued a written statement outlining his expected treatment: a week of recovery following today’s surgery here at Duke, then radiation treatment and chemotherapy at Massachusetts General Hospital.

In the statement, Kennedy writes, “After completing treatment, I look forward to returning to the United States Senate and to doing everything I can to help elect Barack Obama as our next president.”

President Bush drew laughter and applause as he indirectly acknowledged the protests preceding his graduation speech at Furman University.

“I know this is an institution where folks are encouraged to make their voices heard,” President Bush told the crowd of 10,000. “I, too, am a firm believer in free speech and to prove it, I’m about to give you one.”

In the weeks leading up to the presidential visit, more than 200 students and faculty members signed a petition entitled “(W)e Object,” criticizing the Bush Administration’s handling of the war in Iraq, civil liberties, the environment and the economy.

Fourteen faculty members wearing “WE OBJECT” T-shirts stood during the speech, which focused on civic responsibility. However, the protesters remained silent throughout the event and the rest of the crowd gave the president a warm reception that included several standing ovations.

The only negative comment directed at the president was a joke he made at his own expense about his verbal gaffes. Noting that his campus visit came 25 years after his father delivered a commencement speech at Furman, President Bush said, “This is a great step forward for the Bush family, and a great step backward for your English department.”

It was the peaceful outcome many students and faculty had desired and expected. Everyone had a chance to speak their mind, including the president.

Click on the video to watch my report on how Furman University handled the discussion and debate leading up to the president’s visit.

CLICK HERE to read “Bush Visit Draws Criticism at Furman”

“There are many people more admirable that we could have invited to speak,” said Religion Professor David Rutledge.

He wasn’t complaining about a gangsta rapper or a head of a rogue state, but President George W. Bush, who is scheduled to speak at Saturday evening’s graduation ceremony at Furman University in Greenville, SC.

Shortly after Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC), a Furman alumnus, helped arrange the presidential visit, Rutledge and more than 200 other professors and students signed a letter in protest of Bush Administration policies.

No one disputes their right to free speech. However, Business Professor Tom Smythe claims the protest is symptomatic of a double standard on campus, where politically-conservative speakers face more scrutiny than those on the left.

Click on the video for a sampling of opinion on campus:

“The notion of tolerance, as espoused by a wide variety of University professors, only seems to apply when those views are represented by what are considered the liberal political spectrum,” Smythe said.

Professor Rutledge admits academics have their political biases, but claims the Bush Administration “has gone so far over the line” with its handling of civil liberties and the war in Iraq, that the protest goes beyond a simple disagreement over policy.

“It’s become for many faculty a kind of moral statement rather than simply a political matter,” he said.

But graduating senior Christina Henderson said the protests run the risk of turning, what should be, a celebration for the senior class into a political event. Henderson, a Democrat who worked on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, urged students and faculty to show respect for the first sitting U.S. president to visit Furman.

“Regardless of who he is or what his procedures and policies have been, he’s still the president of the United States,” she said.

University administrators said they want to be gracious hosts for the president, but are also committed to being impartial facilitators of discussion and debate on campus.

The University’s website has published both the letter protesting the president’s visit and a conservative student group’s response, which was signed by more than 500 members of the Furman community.

Debate has remained civil on this polite Southern campus. And some who signed the letter of objection said they’re ready to take their seats and listen to what President Bush has to say.

“I personally wouldn’t be in favor of any disruptive sort of protest during the ceremony,” said Pete DeMarco, a graduating senior who signed the letter of objection. “I think there’s ample opportunity to do that before the ceremony itself.”

This Memorial Day, a grateful nation pauses to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice — not just in past wars, but right now in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At Fort Bragg, home of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, a granite column listing the names of paratroopers killed in the War on Terror has run out of space. Veterans and members of the surrounding Fayetteville, N.C. community have been raising private funds to add and maintain a granite wall for the additional names.

President Bush attended the dedication of the new wall during his visit to Fort Bragg on Thursday.

The event was closed to the media. But the Army allowed our camera on scene immediately after the president’s departure. Some soldiers and family members were still there, making charcoal rubbings of the names on the memorial.

“It’s hard to put more names on every few months when another brigade combat team goes out,” said SFC Rick Hinkle, who serves with the 82nd Airborne. “But this is the nature of our business. Paratroopers are put in harm’s way on a daily basis.”

Traditionally, war memorials are installed after the fighting ends. The Vietnam War memorial in Washington was dedicated in 1982 — years after that conflict ended. And the World War II memorial nearby opened in 2004 — more than half a century after the fact.

What makes the War on Terror different?

First, the duration. The Afghanistan side of the conflict has been going on since 2001.

“Some of our guys have been there four and five tours,” said retired paratrooper SMA Roger Vickers. “We’ve been fighting this war longer than World War II — a lot of our soldiers have. So, we want to honor them now.”

Another factor is rooted in the past.

Vietnam veterans, who remember the poor treatment they received when they returned to the U.S., are determined to prevent history from repeating itself when it comes to those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have become some of the most vocal supporters of fast-tracking memorials, such as the one at Fort Bragg.

“I think we really have come a long way since Vietnam in recognizing returning veterans, whether you support the conflict or not,” Hinkle said.

One witness said the severe storm that tore through Georgia this week sounded like “a hundred monkeys with hammers banging all over the house.”

I must admit, after years of covering tornadoes and hearing people say, “it sounded like a freight train,” the unusual description of “monkeys with hammers” caught me off guard. But this tornado season has been anything but usual here in the Southeast.

Tuesday night’s severe weather came less than two weeks after an EF-2 tornado struck a suburb just south of the city, and two months after another EF-2 twister tore through the middle of Downtown Atlanta.

EF-2 is a categorization on the Enhanced Fujita Scale for tornadoes packing winds between 111 and 135 mph. Meteorologists believe Tuesday’s damage in Cherokee County was caused by a combination of straight-line winds and a tornado in the EF-1 category (winds between 86 and 110 mph).

Cherokee County authorities have increased their preliminary assessment to 1,000 homes damaged, 250 of them severely.

And while a storm-weary Southeast looks forward to the end of the spring tornado season, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has just issued its predictions for the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, which begins June 1.

According to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, there is a 25 percent chance of a “near normal” season and a 65 percent chance of an “above normal” season.

An average season produces 11 named storms, including six hurricanes.

NOAA’s 2008 outlook suggests a 60 to 70 percent chance of 12 to 16 named storms, including six to nine hurricanes.

This season’s first system to reach tropical storm strength will acquire the name “Arthur.”

It’s anyone’s guess whether Arthur will make landfall and whether its winds will produce sounds like “dynamite” or “a hundred monkeys with hammers.” For the sake of my region, I certainly hope not!

Our region just can’t seem to get a break from the weather. Today, the Atlanta bureau is in Cherokee County — a suburb just northwest of Atlanta — where heavy winds downed trees, knocked out power and damaged more than 100 homes.

The images of trees on houses and branches blocking rescue crews will, no doubt, prompt residents in other communities to chop down trees surrounding their own homes in a preemptive effort to avoid disaster in the next storm.

But experts say it’s not that simple. Trees can provide a buffer against damaging winds and their haphazard removal could actually increase the danger to homes.

But all this is of little consolation to Larry Smith, who has four trees down on his mobile home, and no insurance to help cover the repairs. Click on the video to watch my interview with him.