PITTSBURGH - The head of a prominent cancer research institute issued an unprecedented warning to his faculty and staff Wednesday: Limit cell phone use because of the possible risk of cancer.

The warning from Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, is contrary to numerous studies that don’t find a link between cancer and cell phone use, and a public lack of worry by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Read more »

 Wow, he sounds really tough…

NEW YORK - 50 Cent has sued Taco Bell, claiming the fast-food restaurant chain is using his name without permission in advertising that asks him to call himself 99 Cent.

The rapper says in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday that the Mexican-themed chain features him in a print ad asking him to change his name to 79 Cent, 89 Cent or 99 Cent. His real name is Curtis Jackson.

The rapper’s court papers say the ad is part of Taco Bell’s “Why Pay More?” campaign, which promotes items for under a dollar, including Cinnamon Twists for 79 cents, Crunchy Tacos for 89 cents and Bean Burritos for 99 cents. The papers say the Irvine, Calif.-based company sent a bogus letter requesting the name change to the news media but not to the rapper.   MORE>>>

The mayor of Calgary says an internet offer by a white supremacist group to help pay the rent of new members willing to relocate to the city is “distasteful.”

Under a posting titled “White Nationlist Relocation Program — Destination Calgary” on an online forum earlier this month, a member of Calgary’s neo-Nazi Aryan Guard invited people to move to the city.

“The Aryan Guard is always seeking new brothers and sisters, if you are interested in relocating to our Calgary area, we will pay the damage deposit for your residence,” wrote someone nicknamed “pitbull-A.G.” on stormfront.org, a forum that promotes “white pride worldwide.”

“We believe that through fortifying our current locations with more White Nationlists we can spread the world more efficiently and than in the future branch out further throughout Canada.” Read more »

HOUSTON — A Willowridge High School teacher is accused of having inappropriate sexual relationships with students, KPRC Local 2 reported Wednesday.

Melvina Strickland-Terry, 35, is charged with indecency with a child, sexual assault of a child, and an improper relationship between an educator and a student.

Fort Bend County Independent School District police said they received information that Strickland-Terry had sexual contact with more than one victim at her Pearland-area apartment.

The Brazoria County Sheriff’s Department investigated and said it found that Strickland-Terry had sexual conduct with two 16-year-old Willowridge High School students. Read more »

SDEROT, Israel - From the solemnity of a Holocaust museum to a dusty village battered by Hamas rockets, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama on Wednesday professed “an unshakable commitment to the security” of Israel, whether the threat comes from terrorists, Iran or elsewhere.

“The way you know where somebody’s going is where have they been. And I’ve been with Israel for many, many years now,” he said on a day that bore striking similarities to campaigning in the United States. Read more »

The latest buzz is that this is considered a ‘racist’ murder since the policeman is white and the criminal was black and a cousin of one of the Jena 6.

WINNFIELD, La., July 23 (UPI) — Louisiana authorities are awaiting the results of a state police report before deciding whether to file criminal charges in the Taser death of a handcuffed man.

Baron “Scooter” Pikes, 21, was shocked nine times by officer Scott Nugent after being arrested on a cocaine charge in Winnfield earlier this year, CNN reported Wednesday.

Nugent, who was fired as a result of the incident, may face criminal charges now that Pikes’ death has been ruled a homicide.

Read more »

Last Thursday week, with famine approaching yet again, I wondered about the wisdom of forking out yet more aid to Ethiopia. Since the great famine of the mid-1980s, Ethiopia’s population has soared from 33.5 million to 78 million. Now, I do not write civil service reports for the United Nations: I write a newspaper column, and I was deliberately strong in my use of language — as indeed I had been when writing reports from Ethiopia at the height of that terrible Famine.

I was sure that my column would arouse some hostility: my concerns were intensified when I saw the headline: “Africa has given the world nothing but AIDS.” Which was not quite what I said — the missing “almost” goes a long way; and anyway, my article was about aid, not AIDS.

Since dear old Ireland can often enough resemble Lynch Mob Central on PC issues, I braced myself for the worst: and sure enough, in poured the emails. Three hundred on the first day, soon reaching over 800: but, amazingly, 90pc+ were in my support, and mostly from baffled, decent and worried people. The minority who attacked me were risibly predictable, expressing themselves with a vindictive and uninquiring moral superiority. (Why do so many of those who purport to love mankind actually hate people so?) Read more »

The WNBA on Wednesday said it is reviewing the skirmish involving the Los Angeles Sparks and Detroit Shock on Tuesday night at The Palace of Auburn Hills.

“The WNBA is reviewing the incident in its entirety,” WNBA communications director Ron Howard said.

Candace Parker was one of three players ejected, along with Detroit assistant coach Rick Mahorn, after the scuffle with 4.6 seconds left in the Los Angeles Sparks’ 84-81 victory over the Shock. Read more »

The deeply conservative Wagner Festival in Bayreuth breaks new ground this summer, employing a stunt man to heighten an operatic staging effect for the first time in its 132-year history.

Standing in for tenor Christopher Ventris, who sings Parsifal in the opera of the same name, Matthias Schendel, 31, will jump off a 6-meter (20-foot) high balcony at the premiere and festival opening night this Friday evening.

“I’m proud and honored to be involved,” said Schendel of his engagement for the highest of high culture events.

Read more »

Neo-Nazis in Germany are trying to intimidate left-wing politicians and activists by publishing their names, photos and addresses on Web sites, often accompanied by increasingly blatant threats. The police seems powerless to stop them.

Rainer Sauer, 51, a local politician from the western German town of Bocholt, had got used to the insults and death threats that neo-Nazis kept hurling at him via the Internet. Messages such as: “Hopefully someone will wipe out the fat scumbag.”

But recent events have left him extremely worried. First SS runes were daubed on his garage door, then at least five shots were fired in front of Sauer’s home. A few days ago he found a note from a “Storm Brigade 35″ in the letter box of his family home. “We will exterminate you,” it read. Read more »

NEW YORK - A judge signaled Tuesday that he would order the release in coming months of much of the secret testimony in the notorious espionage case against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

But U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said he would make an exception for a pivotal witness whose questionable testimony helped send Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair: her 86-year-old brother.

The decision on the brother, David Greenglass, came at a Manhattan hearing at which leading historical groups argued that the biggest spy case of the Cold War era was important enough to qualify for a rare exception to secrecy rules protecting grand jury testimony.  MORE>>>