NEW YORK It's too early to say what changes are really afoot at the Wall Street Journal, in its first weeks after the Murdoch/News Corp. takeover, but a front page article today might raise a few eyebrows. Was there really any pressing need to cover Dennis Kucinich's old, and much laughed over, UFO encounter, especially with him about to poll about 1% of the vote in Iowa?

Here is how the Michael M. Phillips story opens. It's up at http://online.wsj.com.
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The 2008 presidential race has raised many questions about the candidates' personal histories. Will Barack Obama's past drug use preclude a White House future? Will Christian conservatives forgive Rudy Giuliani his two divorces? Will voters forgive Hillary Clinton for forgiving Bill?

And what exactly did Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich see hovering above actress Shirley MacLaine's house 25 years ago?

This fall, Ms. MacLaine revealed in her new book that the Ohio congressman had seen a UFO and felt "a connection in his heart and heard directions in his mind." In a Democratic presidential debate in late October, Mr. Kucinich acknowledged seeing something airborne that he couldn't identify and then defused the issue with a joke about opening a campaign office in Roswell, N.M., the capital of unexplained sightings.

Since then, the long-shot candidate has refused to elaborate on the experience.

Now, after keeping quiet about the incident for a quarter of a century, the two people who say they were at Mr. Kucinich's side that evening have come forward to describe an event which they say left them convinced that there's intelligent life in outer space.

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