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>>>

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has been putting on a full-court press in the last 24 hours, making the case for his plan to shore-up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“I would rather not be in the position of asking for extraordinary authorities to support the GSEs,” Paulson said in a speech Tuesday in NYC.  “But I am playing the hand that I have been dealt. There is a need to support efforts that strengthen Fannie and Freddie’s ability to continue to play their important role in financing mortgages and in our capital markets more broadly.” Read more »

Tomorrow, CBS’s Katie Couric will interview Barack Obama from Jordan. On Wednesday, ABC’s Charlie Gibson will chat with him from Israel. And on Thursday, NBC’s Brian Williams will do the honors from Germany. Call it the presidential campaign equivalent of Shooting the Moon.

And to think, a few short months ago the Washington establishment was buzzing about the press’s pending dilemma: With Obama and John McCain looking like the all-but-certain nominees of their respective parties, how would the media choose between its new crush, Obama, and its long-time paramour, McCain? The Illinois senator has been a media darling since he burst onto the scene at the Democratic National Convention in the summer of 2004, and during the Democratic primary season, he bested Hillary Clinton in both quantity of coverage (he got more) and tenor (his was way more positive). But McCain has gotten so much favorable media attention over the years that he often joked that the press was his political base. In a head-to-head competition, who would win? Read more »

Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin, in the Tuesday edition of the Washington Examiner’s “Yeas & Nays” feature, reported that Helen Thomas gave a vehement denial of whether the media, and the White House press corps in particular, has a liberal bent. “Yeas & Nays got a sneak peak at Rory Kennedy’s new HBO documentary — ‘Thank You, Mr. President: Helen Thomas at The White House’ — which premieres next month, and Thomas is asked whether most White House reporters are liberal. ‘Hell no!’ she responds. ‘I’m dying to find another liberal open their mouths. Where are they!’ This is the second day in a row that Dufour and Gavin have reported on interesting quotations from members of the mainstream media. Read more »

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s lawyers said on Tuesday they had uncovered contradictions and discrepancies in the testimony of a key witness in a case that threatens to topple the Israeli leader.

Wrapping up five days of cross-examination of American fund raiser Morris Talansky who has alleged that he gave the Israeli leader cash-filled envelopes, they also revealed he had claimed to have had dealings with late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Olmert has pledged to resign if charged. Both Olmert and Talansky have denied any wrongdoing. Read more »

BELGRADE, Serbia - Serb nationalists skirmished with riot police in the capital Tuesday, lashing out against the new Western-leaning government that captured war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic.

Karadzic’s lawyer vowed to appeal Serbia’s plan to extradite the former Bosnian Serb chief to a U.N. war crimes court.

Riot police deployed in downtown Belgrade to keep about 200 members of the extremist Obraz group under control. The demonstrators threw stones and clay pots at the officers, chanting “treason!” and trying to break through police cordons.   MORE>>>

A HIGH-RANKING commander who armed and led Janjaweed militiamen in attacks on hundreds of villages in Darfur has come forward to say he did so at the behest of the Sudanese Government.

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court are today expected to take a significant step towards putting Sudan’s leaders on trial by presenting evidence against the President, Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

As the lawyers pursue a case against the country’s rulers in Khartoum, some of the most damning evidence yet that the killing was directed by the Government has been provided by Arbab Idries, who was a commander between 2003 and 2007. Read more »

A jury found a 37-year-old San Francisco rap music figure guilty in the slaying of a Kansas City rival in what authorities called a West Coast versus Midwest rap war.

Andre “Mac Minister” Dow faces life in prison after being convicted Monday of first-degree murder in the May 2005 killings of 24-year-old Anthony “Fat Tone” Watkins of Kansas City, and Watkins’ friend, 22-year-old Jermaine Akins.

Dow is a promoter who has appeared on rap albums, made headlines several years ago when he brawled with another rapper at a nationally televised Source Awards show.  MORE>>>

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Wachovia Corp. reported a surprisingly large second-quarter loss Tuesday, deflating Wall Street’s hopes that the nation’s big banks are weathering the credit crisis well. The bank said it lost $8.86 billion, is slashing its dividend and eliminating 10,750 positions after losses tied to mortgages soared.

Even excluding one-time items, the results substantially missed analysts’ estimates.

But by the afternoon its stock joined a modest Wall Street rally and rose as much as 13 percent — after its shares sank to mid-1991 levels in premarket trading, and after Wachovia’s new CEO said he plans to cut $2 billion of expenses by the end of next year and sell parts of the fourth-biggest U.S. bank.   MORE>>>

VENTURA, Calif. —  A wedding reception brawl in Ventura involving more than 100 people has left three men facing charges and the mother of the groom with a knife wound.

Ventura police say several people still were fighting when officers arrived late Saturday night at the Knights of Columbus Hall on Figueroa Street.

It took about 15 officers to disperse the crowd. Several officers suffered minor cuts and bruises.

The mother of the groom, fifty-two-year-old Delphina Hernandez, was taken to a hospital with a knife cut to her face.   MORE>>>

 A San Francisco woman whose husband and two sons were gunned down last month — allegedly by an illegal immigrant who remained in the city despite previous crimes — is demanding the city do something about its sanctuary law.

Danielle Bologna was widowed on June 22 when Edwin Ramos, 21, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, allegedly gunned down her husband, Anthony, and two sons, Matthew and Michael, in a road rage incident when her family was returning from a picnic.

Read more »

A doctor whose father is the premier of Bermuda, already charged with molesting a female patient and an undercover LAPD officer, has been arrested for allegedly groping six other female patients, including a minor.

Dr. Kevin Brown, 37, the eldest son of Bermuda premier Ewart Brown, is being held in lieu of $4-million bail after his arrest at his Los Angeles residence this morning by LAPD detectives.

Brown, who practices medicine at the Crenshaw Expo Medical Center, was arrested after several other women came forward with new allegations that he molested them, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Ann Marie Wise with the sex crimes division. Read more »

A locksmith was robbed at gunpoint Sunday after he unlocked a man’s car behind a Subway restaurant in central Mesa, according to a police report.

The victim told police he got a call to help a man get into his locked car at around 3:30 in the afternoon.

When he met the man near 8th Avenue and Dobson Road they drove to the locked car.

After the locksmith opened the vehicle, the suspect pulled out a handgun and demanded the victim’s money.

He gave the robber the money in his wallet and the suspect left the area in a dark blue 1998 Ford Mustang.

The suspect was described as a Hispanic male, 5 feet 5 inches tall, 160 pounds, with a shaved head and about 23-years-old. He was wearing a blue shirt and dark pants, according to the report.

There are no reports of injuries to the victim.

SOURCE>>>

LAWRENCE, Ind. — Lawrence police are looking for a man in connection with more than a dozen burglaries at one apartment complex.Police released a sketch Monday.

Detectives said the burglar stole cash, electronic items, jewelry and guns from at least 15 residences at the Salem Courthouse Apartments in April and May of this year.

The man is described as black, about 25 years old and tall with a thin build, police said. He may be driving a white Buick LeSabre or similar vehicle.Anyone with information is asked to contact police or Crime Stoppers at 262-TIPS.

SOURCE>>>

WASHINGTON - Government inspectors finally have a big clue in the nationwide salmonella outbreak: They found the same bacteria strain on a single Mexican-grown jalapeno pepper handled in Texas — and issued a stronger warning for consumers to avoid fresh jalapenos.

But Monday’s discovery, the equivalent of a fingerprint, doesn’t solve the mystery: Authorities still don’t know where the pepper became tainted — on the farm, or in the McAllen, Texas, plant, or at some stop in between, such as a packing house.

Nor are they saying the tainted pepper exonerates tomatoes sold earlier in the spring that consumers until last week had been told were the prime suspect.

Still, “this genetic match is a very important break in the case,” said Dr. David Acheson, the Food and Drug Administration’s food safety chief.  MORE>>>

In the Ramada Inn, across I-10 from Ikea, dozens of young sales agents spill out of vans and head for the first-floor conference room. They’re in their late teens and early twenties, tired from a long day of selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door, but excited about the money they think they’re going to get.

In the conference room, a line of ­middle-aged managers sit behind folding tables and count the stacks of receipts and cash their agents place before them. It’s a ton of money. The crews hit Houston in late February, it’s near the end of March now and it’s been a lucrative stay. Houston is always a windfall.

It’s been a tough hop for this caravan of sales crews, though. Winding their way down from California, they lost a few agents. Two were arrested in Albuquerque after they allegedly forced their way into the home of an elderly couple and beat them to death, raping the wife first. A few weeks later, another agent allegedly raped a woman in Claremont, California, so he got picked up, too. Then, in West Texas, a van flipped, killing one agent and injuring three others. That’s seven agents out of commission. That’s about a $2,800 loss per day. Read more »

Apollo Braun (real name: Doron Braunshtein), an Israeli-born New York-area visual artist, has begun to gain notariety as of late for his ever-creative anti-Obama gear. In March, he launched his line of $129-250 custom “Who Killed Obama?” T-shirts, calling himself very “punk rock” to the fashion blogger at the New York Press. In May, Braun launched his Jews Against Obama T-shirt (pictured), also retailing for $250 from his Lower East Side boutique. On the release of this newest piece of politico-fashion, Braun gave his true feelings on Obama in a statement:

“I am a true anti-Obama New York Jew. The word on the street is that New York Jews will vote for McCain anyhow. The majority of the Jews – at least the ones that are proud of their religion and practice it – like me, don’t want to see Obama – a man who’s middle name is Hussein, and his family from his Kenyan father’s side is Muslim, as the leader of this great country.

More than that, after Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright honored Louis Farrakhan – definitely one of the most racist and anti-Semitic people alive – Obama lost us Jews totally. That made me start this political movement in the first place.”

And today, I get an Email from Mr. Braun’s publicist, telling of his new $30-creation, an “Obama=Hitler” T-shirt, perhaps his most shocking creation to date: Read more »

With the world focused on the antics of Africa’s newest dictator Robert Mugabe, it is perhaps not surprising that the South African government has apparently succumbed to pressure and has temporarily halted its intention to ram the Land Expropriation Bill through Parliament.

The government has badly misjudged not only South African opinion but world sentiment around the wholesale grabbing of productive land. World food hunger is no longer something that happens to other countries - as South Africa is a net importer of some crucial staples, what is happening around the globe could even jeopardize the ANC government’s hold on power, something the party has always taken for granted.

More than 2 000 residents of the Ugandan town Lokali fought and scrambled to collect World Food Program (WFP) aid one Saturday last month. Some received bags of corn or beans, and the WFP rations dwindled. Guarding this small food stash, “police clutch assault rifles to scare off bandits”, says Time magazine, “as well as sticks to beat recipients who try to steal. With just a few sacks remaining, thieves and the needy rush the stash. The officers thrash them all - old women and children too - until they drop the sacks and scatter”. Read more »

July 21 (Bloomberg) — Rochus Misch, Hitler’s bodyguard, telephonist and messenger, was the last person to escape alive from the bunker where the Nazi leader spent his final days.

Now aged 90 and no longer able to handle the many interview requests that come his way, Misch has decided to publish his story. “Der letzte Zeuge” (“The Last Witness”) is mainly motivated by his desire to set straight details that he says were misrepresented in reconstructions such as the 2004 movie “Der Untergang” (“The Downfall”) starring Bruno Ganz.

Misch’s perspective on “the boss,” as he and his colleagues referred to Hitler, is not the historical one of a racist monster bent on world domination and the extermination of an entire people. He gives us the private Hitler, with minutiae of what he ate (lots of gruel, because of persistent stomach problems), his small acts of kindness toward staff, his insistence on a hot-water bottle for his feet at night and his affection for his dog Blondi. Read more »

Black Panther-turned human rights campaigner Mumia Abu-Jamal has requested a retrial on his conviction of murdering a police officer, after his death sentence was overturned in March, his lawyer said Sunday.

A three-member Philadelphia appeals court on March 27 voted two-to-one to overturn the former radio journalist’s death sentence, while upholding his conviction for the 1981 murder of Daniel Faulkner.

The court said Abu-Jamal, 54, should face a new sentencing hearing or have his sentence commuted to life in jail.

Abu-Jamal, 54, has always claimed his innocence while on death row for 25 years. While in jail, he became a leading campaigner against the death penalty.   MORE>>>

PITTSBURGH - Authorities say a slain pregnant woman may have been alive and was possibly drugged when a baby was ripped from her womb, allegedly by a woman who tried to pass the infant off as her own.

The eviscerated body of 18-year-old Kia Johnson of McKeesport was found bound at the wrists and ankles with duct tape, and wrapped in a comforter and garbage bags.

Her partially decomposed remains were in the master bedroom of Andrea Curry-Demus, 38, who was charged Sunday with homicide, unlawful restraint and kidnapping, officials said.

Authorities said Curry-Demus, who served prison time in the 1990s for snatching a 3-week-old baby girl from a hospital, took the baby boy to a Pittsburgh hospital and claimed that it was her own.   MORE>>>

HAZLETON, Pa. - The mayor of Hazleton, Pa., who drew nationwide attention for his crackdown on illegal immigration, has been named the state’s Mayor of the Year.

Pennsylvania State Mayors Association gave Lou Barletta the honor Saturday. Group officials cited his illegal immigrant crackdown and his hands-on method of combating crime.

In 2006, the Hazleton City Council had approved a law that would deny business permits to companies that employ illegal immigrants, fine landlords who rent to them and require tenants to register and pay for a rental permit.   MORE>>>

By Patrick Buchanan-

To watch the contortions over that New Yorker cover cartoon of the Obamas is to understand whom it is impermissible to offend in the America of 2008.

The cartoon is a caricature of Michelle as an urban terrorist in an Angela Davis afro with an AK-47 slung over her back and a bandoleer of ammo in the Oval Office doing a fist-bump with a Barack decked out in turban and Muslim garb. On the wall hangs a portrait of Osama bin Laden. Blazing away in the fireplace is the American flag. Read more »

LYNWOOD, Ill. - Be careful if you have saggy pants in the south Chicago suburb of Lynwood. Village leaders have passed an ordinance that would levy $25 fines against anyone showing three inches or more of their underwear in public.

Eugene Williams is the mayor of Lynwood. He says young men walk around town half-dressed, keeping major retailers and economic development away. He calls the new law a hot topic.

The American Civil Liberties Union says the ordinance targets young men of color.   MORE>>>

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