MissKeys

Gangsta rapper Snoop Dogg's no-show at the Freedom Day concert in Johannesburg on Thursday night will cost organisers millions as they scramble to put together the remaining concerts in Durban and Cape Town.

Snoop Dogg and his entourage were released on bail from custody in England on Thursday and were to arrive in South Africa on Friday.

Snoop, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, 34, was set to take part in the People's Celebration concert with newcomer Mario, ragga star Sean Paul and producer Pharrell Williams, but he couldn't after he was arrested at Heathrow Airport in London.

The organisers had to give spectators a 25 percent refund. Big Concert's Attie van Wyk said he was aware they were going to lose money but could not say how much.

"We don't want the public to lose anything. That is why we have offered people a 25 percent refund."

The rapper and five other members of his entourage were released late on Thursday from Heathrow Police Station on police bail after being arrested earlier in the day.

The release was effected after former president Nelson Mandela's daughter, Zinzi Mandela, apparently approached the department of foreign affairs to get him out of the cells.

Foreign affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said that they had been contacted by Mandela after Snoop had been arrested.

"We were drawn in and were asked to intervene in the matter," he said.

When the Daily News contacted Mandela on Thursday night, she said: "I'd rather not comment."

Attempts to contact her this morning to get more details on her involvement were unsuccessful.

A London Metropolitan police spokesperson said this morning that the six men had been released and they would have to report back to a police station when requested.

When asked whether there had been any intervention by the South African government, he said: "You'll have to speak to the (British) foreign office."

The People's Celebration Concert will go ahead as planned at Durban's Absa Stadium tomorrow. However, thousands of fans in Johannesburg were left disappointed when Snoop did not perform at their concert. Only 8 000 attended that concert.

Yateen Jivan, 19, said he was very "naar", but it was okay.

"It's not that bad because of the 25 percent discount people would be receiving, and I'm more of a Sean Paul fan," he said.

Celesteine Moses, 23, said she was pleased that Snoop would be able to make his way to Durban.

"I've been looking forward to this concert ever since I heard about it and I'm glad that Snoop is going to perform. It's a pity about the ruckus, though," she said.

Meanwhile, Computicket has been inundated with phone calls from disappointed fans, many of whom had bought tickets just to see Snoop. "We've had plenty of calls from sad fans. Many of them said that they would not be attending the concert," said a source from a Computicket outlet.

Ticketholders who did not attend the concert were given a full refund on presentation of their ticket, while those who attended were given a 25 percent refund on presentation of their ticket stub.

The concert will take place on Monday in Cape Town.

According to one report, members of the star's entourage had hurled bottles of whisky and argued with staff at a duty-free shop at Heathrow Airport after being refused entry to a first-class lounge.

But Johannesburg resident Kelly Salvage, who was on the same flight from Los Angeles to London with Snoop Dogg, said a dispute over a boarding pass was the reason for the rapper's arrest.

He said the star's entourage was a few minutes from boarding the Johannesburg flight when the trouble started.

He said: "We were in the VIP lounge and Snoop was with his entourage, rapping about everything... Then a police officer came to where the group was and said, 'We wanna have a word with you, Sir' and that was when he stopped rapping and said, 'What's up?'. He and his entourage were refused permission to board."

As reported by IOL

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WASHINGTON — A Senate panel's proposal to abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency after its bungled response to Hurricane Katrina was criticized Thursday by the Bush administration and some lawmakers. Michael Chertoff, who oversees FEMA as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said dismantling it and creating an independent agency would be like "slapping a fresh coat of paint on."

But leaders of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee - Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn. - argued that Katrina revealed FEMA is too broken to be fixed. They said their proposed replacement agency would be much stronger and more effective.

"FEMA is discredited, demoralized and dysfunctional," Collins said. "It is beyond repair. Just tweaking the organizational chart will not solve the problem."

The Aug. 29 hurricane was the worst U.S. natural disaster ever, killing 1,500 people in three states and causing damage for which Congress has allocated $100 billion to fix.

Collins and Lieberman released an executive summary of conclusions and recommendations from a seven-month investigation of the Katrina response spanning 830,000 pages of documents, 320 interviews and 22 hearings. Their entire committee will review the report Tuesday.

The proposed new agency would recombine disaster preparedness and response activities, reclaim power over billions of dollars of state and local grants, gain responsibility for securing critical infrastructure, and restore an emphasis on natural as well as terrorist threats. Those functions and approaches were part of FEMA when it was a freestanding agency, but were divided up by the Bush administration when FEMA was merged into DHS.

The report criticized federal, state and local emergency responders for a variety of failures. People weren't evacuated ahead of the forecasted storm, leaving dozens to die unnecessarily in nursing homes; emergency responders couldn't relay information about dire conditions; and confusion among agencies delayed aid to the stranded, according to the report.

"The first obligation of government is to protect our people," Collins said. "In Katrina, we failed - at all levels of government - to meet that fundamental obligation."

Recommendations include:

Creating regional "strike teams" of emergency responders from all levels of government who train together to coordinate better when disasters occur.

Increasing funding to train and equip emergency responders because FEMA teams have been cut back and neglected.

Negotiating contracts for food, water, fuel distribution and housing before disaster strikes. Complaints after Katrina included the lack of food and water, combined with $400-a-night hotel rooms.

Former FEMA director Michael Brown, who resigned after Katrina, said the proposed replacement agency would basically be the same as FEMA before it lost its disaster-planning responsibilities a year ago. "It sounds like they're just re-creating the wheel and making it look like they're calling for change," he said.

Collins and Lieberman recommended abolishing FEMA and replacing it with a National Preparedness and Response Authority within DHS. The new director would report directly to the president during emergencies.

Also, the agency's budget would increase significantly to finance preparation for emergencies and the distribution of grants for local jurisdictions. But Collins and Lieberman argued that separating it entirely from DHS would lead to duplication of responsibilities and a lack of coordination.

The proposal, which would be subject to congressional approval, aims to restore the agency's independence in a way similar to how the Coast Guard and the Secret Service are treated in the department.

FEMA, which has 2,500 workers, had been an office in the president's Cabinet before being subordinated and weakened in the larger department. For example, Lieberman complained that the agency had a 15 percent staff vacancy rate for a year.

Frances Fragos Townsend, the president's homeland security assistant, said Thursday she still was reviewing the recommendations. But she urged a strengthening - not a reshuffling - of current operations and said the FEMA director should continue to report to the DHS secretary. She also said it was the wrong time to debate agency changes because hurricane season is about a month away.

"Now is not the time to really look at moving organizational boxes," Townsend told reporters aboard Air Force One on a flight to New Orleans.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. and a member of Collins' committee, said FEMA should be separated from the department and restored as an independent agency in the president's Cabinet. "That's how it was done in the past, and it worked as we hoped," he said.

Despite the report's criticisms, Collins said it is "highly unlikely" that legislation could be approved before June 1. But she said she would work to do it this year.

"It does not in any way diminish our determination to make these urgently needed changes in the long run," she said.

Townsend said FEMA offices in the Gulf Coast region have been strengthened with three top officials who have a combined 100 years of experience managing large organizations and crises.

"So we are far better prepared today than we were this time last year, and we will be even better prepared by June 1," Townsend said.

Collins agreed. "We're clearly better prepared than last year," she said. "But are we prepared enough? Not if we're still operating with a flawed system."

As reported by the Washington Post and Portland Press Herald

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National High Five Day falls on the third Thursday of April each year, which falls next year on April 19, 2007. The holiday originated at the University of Virginia in 2002, and has since spread across the nation, and around the globe.

Imagine that while on your way to class, you pass a dignified looking middle-aged man in a suit. You, of course, are wearing the same underwear as yesterday, a pair of pants off your floor, and a T-shirt with something ironic printed on it. Instead of noticing this respectable pillar of society fifteen seconds or so before your interaction is fated to occur, and lowering your head to avoid his disapproving scowl, you take another course of action. You confidently walk forward, and at the moment of passing, you and the businessman simultaneously raise your hands and wordlessly high-five. The sound of the perfect high five resonates, causing those nearby to silently and enviously take notice. You both walk on, and likely relate the story to whomever you eat dinner with that night. There is no reason why this should not happen with alarming frequency.

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NEW YORK - All 69 people trapped for hours in two cable cars that were suspended hundreds of feet above the East River after losing power have been rescued, police said Wednesday.

The passengers became stranded around 5:15 p.m. Tuesday, and police worked through the night to free them. Passengers in one of the dangling cars were plucked one by one and hoisted onto a gondola, while those in the second car were removed in an industrial crane and bucket.

The rescue effort ended around 5 a.m. Wednesday. No injuries were reported.
At least a dozen of those stranded were school-age children or babies. Police delivered food, water and diapers to the passengers.

The cause of the outage of the Roosevelt Island Tramway cars was not known, said Herb Berman, president of the agency that operates the system, which offer breathtaking views of the city from up to 250 feet high.

One of the tramcars had 46 passengers plus an operator, the other had 21 passengers and an operator, police said. Each car can hold about 125 people.

Tramcars on the system stall occasionally, the last time around Labor Day, said Berman. Police said both the main and backup power systems failed.

Lynn Krogh, spokeswoman for Gov. George Pataki, said the state Department of Labor would conduct a full investigation and review of the incident and the tram before service was allowed to resume.

Positive mood in the trams
Robbyn Maier said her 12-year-old son, Dax Maier, was going to Roosevelt Island to play tennis when he got stuck. She talked to him by cell phone.

“He’s like a trouper through it all,” she said. “He’s really a little hero.”

Once safely on the ground, Dax Maier said he told himself not to look down while being rescued. He said the mood in his car was almost festive, with people singing and telling jokes.

“Sometimes you can find great people in New York,” he said.

The tram system, which opened in 1976, is the only commuter cable car system in North America, according to the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp. Web site.

The system has been featured in such movies as “Spider-Man” and “City Slickers.” It travels 3,100 feet in about 5 minutes at an average speed of 16 mph, the Web site says.

Roosevelt Island, which lies in the East River between Manhattan and Queens, is about 2 miles long and 800 feet wide. About 10,000 people live on the island, which also is accessible by bridge and subway.

as reported by the Associated Press

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June Pointer, the youngest of the singing Pointer Sisters known for the 1970s and 1980s hits "I'm So Excited," "Fire," and "Slow Hand," has died, her family said Wednesday. She was 52.

Pointer died of cancer Tuesday at Santa Monica University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center, the family said in a statement. She had been hospitalized since late February and the type of cancer wasn't disclosed.

She died "in the arms of her sisters, Ruth and Anita and her brothers, Aaron and Fritz, by her side," the family statement read. "Although her sister, Bonnie, was unable to be present, she was with her in spirit."

The Pointer Sisters began as a quartet in the early 1970s with sisters Ruth, Anita, Bonnie and June. The group became a trio when Bonnie embarked on a solo career.

The group's hits also included "He's So Shy," "Automatic" and "Jump (For My Love)."

The sisters, along with their two older brothers, grew up singing in the choir of an Oakland church where their parents were ministers.

Bonnie and June formed a singing duo and began performing in clubs around the San Francisco Bay area. Anita and Ruth later joined the group and together, they sang backup for Taj Mahal, Boz Scaggs and Elvin Bishop, among others.

Their first, self-titled album, "The Pointer Sisters," debuted in 1973 and the song "Yes We Can Can" became their first hit. They followed up with the album "That's A Plenty," which featured an eclectic mix of musical styles ranging from jazz to country and pop. They won the first of their three Grammy awards in 1974 for best country vocal performance by a group for the song "Fairytale."

Bonnie left the group in 1977, and the sisters recorded several more albums, scoring several hit songs that became identified as the soundtrack of the 1980s.

The successful 1984 album "Break Out" earned two Grammy awards for the songs "Automatic" and "Jump (For My Love)." The album's other hit song, "Neutron Dance," was prominently featured in the movie "Beverly Hills Cop."

June recorded two solo albums, and later left the trio.

Anita and Ruth still perform under the group's name.
Ruth's daughter, Issa Pointer, is the trio's newest member.

Two years ago, June Pointer was charged with felony cocaine possession and misdemeanor possession of a smoking device. She was ordered to a rehabilitation facility.

Funeral arrangements were incomplete.

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Police and his defense attorney confirmed the death of Logan Young, 65, but did not say how he was killed.

Investigators found "a lot of blood," police Sgt. Vince Higgins said. "The nature of the attack was brutal. The entire house is a crime scene."

Higgins said there were signs of a struggle in the house, a two-story stone Tudor home in one of Memphis' most exclusive country club neighborhoods.

Investigators don't know a motive or if the attack was related to Young's federal conviction, Higgins said. Police haven't determined how his home was entered or how many attackers there might have been.

While police waited for fingerprints and dental records to identify the body, Nashville defense attorney Jim Neal confirmed the victim was Young.

"I've had two or three calls about it, all to the same end, found killed in his home. ... I heard that there was blood everywhere," Neal said.

Higgins said Young's housekeeper found the body after she arrived for work Tuesday morning, and the pool boy told police he saw Young as he was leaving the house late Monday.

"All we can tell is (the killing) happened sometime overnight - late night or early morning," Higgins said.

Memphis police said there had not been any recent police calls to Young's address before his body was found.

Young was free pending appeal of his 2005 conviction on money laundering and racketeering conspiracy charges in a federal case involving the recruiting of defensive lineman Albert Means.

Young was sentenced last June to six months in prison, plus six months' home confinement, then two years' supervised release.

His attorneys had argued against any jail time because Young needed a kidney transplant and could not get proper medical care in prison. Final briefs in his appeal were to be filed July 14, according to court records.

Young was the son of a wealthy businessman in Osceola, Ark., and was never a student at Alabama, but he was widely known as the Crimson Tide's most influential booster in Memphis.

He claimed to be a friend of Alabama coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and was the original owner of the Memphis Showboats of the USFL in the early '80s.

But last year he became one of the first college football boosters ever to be sentenced to federal prison for recruiting violations.

Former high school coach Lynn Lang, who avoided jail time after pleading guilty to taking part in a racketeering conspiracy, testified against Young, saying the booster paid $150,000 to get Means to sign with Alabama in 2000.

The NCAA has said it believed Means was unaware his football talents were being brokered. The player later transferred to Memphis, where he finished his college career.

Lang testified at Young's trial that other universities, including Georgia, Kentucky, Arkansas, Memphis, Mississippi, Michigan State and Tennessee, offered him money or jobs to get Means.

No charges were filed against anyone with those schools.

Means' recruitment became part of an NCAA investigation that led to sanctions against Alabama in 2002, costing the Crimson Tide scholarships and bowl appearances.

Attorney Tommy Gallion, who represented former Alabama assistants Ivy Williams and Ronnie Cottrell in a defamation suit against the NCAA and others, called the news tragic.

Memphis attorney Phillip Shanks was assisting Gallion on the lawsuit in May 2004 when he was attacked in his office and left unconscious. Key case documents were stolen, he said. No one was ever charged in the case.

"I have no idea who could be behind this. I was shocked that Phillip Shanks was beaten, and this was more shocking," Gallion said in a statement read by his secretary.

Cottrell said he was horrified when he heard Young had been killed.

"I couldn't believe it. Logan was a friend, and he has been through so much already. Certainly for his life to end this way was a tragedy. My prayers are just with his family right now," Cottrell said.

Defense attorney Robert Hutton said he last talked with Young last week and called his death a total shock and a real loss.

"He was very generous man. He was generous with people around him. A pastor of a Catholic Church, he asked for money for some program, for the roof or something, and he gave him the money. Logan wasn't even Catholic," Hutton said.

(As per FOXSports)

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DETROIT -- A prominent member of Detroit's hip-hop community was killed in a shooting at a Detroit night club early Tuesday morning.

Rapper and producer Proof, whose real name is DeShaun Holton (pictured), was one of two shooting victims at the CCC Club on east Eight Mile Road, near Gratiot Avenue, according to Detroit police.

When police arrived at the scene, the club was empty, Local 4 reported. Both victims had been taken to a hospital, according to police.

Proof was taken to St. John Holy Cross Hospital, and the second victim was taken to St. John Hospital, police said.

Both victims suffered a gunshot wound to the head, police said. Local 4 initially reported the second victim also died but has learned the 35-year-old man remains hospitalized in critical condition at St. John Hospital, according to police. His name was not released.

The rapper is a long-time friend of rap star Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers. Proof appeared in Eminem's movie "Eight Mile" as Li'l Tic, the station learned.

Police are searching for a gunman. A description was not available.

A witness was being questioned by police.

The shooting remains under investigation.

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RIO DE JANEIRO — Ask Internet users here what they think of Orkut, the two-year-old Google social networking service, and you may get a blank stare. But pronounce it "or-KOO-chee," as they do in Portuguese, and watch faces light up.

"We were just talking about it!" said Suellen Monteiro, approached by a reporter as she gossiped with four girlfriends at a bar in the New York City Center mall here. The topic was the guy whom 18-year-old Aline Makray had met over the weekend at a Brazilian funk dance, who had since found her on Orkut and asked her to join his network.

Orkut, the invention of a Turkish-born software engineer named Orkut Buyukkokten, never really caught on in the United States, where MySpace rules teenage cyberspace. But it is nothing short of a cultural phenomenon in Brazil.

About 11 million of Orkut's more than 15 million users are registered as living in Brazil — a remarkable figure given that studies have estimated that only about 12 million Brazilians use the Internet from home. (And that 11 million does not include people like Ms. Makray, who clicked on Hungary as a nod to her heritage, or someone named Mauricio who wrote in Portuguese but jokingly registered as being from Mauritius.)

Expect Brazilian Portuguese dictionaries to add "orkut" to upcoming editions. O Globo, Rio's biggest daily newspaper, refers to it without further explanation. And the Brazilian media routinely measures the popularity of music groups and actors by the number of user communities dedicated to them on Orkut.

"Surto," a popular comedic play showing in Rio de Janeiro, is peppered with references to Orkut. And the site's jargon has entered the Brazilian lexicon, like "scrap" (pronounced "SKRAH-pee" or "SHKRAH-pee"), meaning a note that one user leaves in another's virtual scrapbook for everyone — including jealous boyfriends and girlfriends and curious suitors — to see.

But the sheer popularity of Orkut, which people can join by invitation only, has had several unexpected consequences. Almost as soon as Brazilians started taking over Orkut in 2004 — and long before April 2005, when Google made Orkut available in Portuguese — English-speaking users formed virulently anti-Brazilian communities like "Too Many Brazilians on Orkut."

And, more darkly, Orkut's success has made it a popular vehicle for child pornographers, pedophiles and racist and anti-Semitic groups, according to Brazilian prosecutors and nonprofit groups. Hatemongering on Orkut has also been decried in the United States and elsewhere, but it is in Brazil where the biggest effort is under way to halt the problem and confront Google's seemingly tight-lipped attitude.

SaferNet Brasil, a nongovernmental organization founded late last year, tracks human rights violations on Orkut and has generated much press coverage of illegal activity on the site. (Many forms of racist speech are outlawed in Brazil.)

SaferNet's president, Thiago Nunes de Oliveira, a professor of cyberlaw at the Catholic University of Salvador, said the problem had exploded in the last few months. "In 45 days of work, we identified 5,000 people who were using the Internet, and principally Orkut, to distribute images of explicit sex with children," he said. And that was aside from the racists, neo-Nazis and other hate groups the organization found.

In February, after several failed attempts to contact Google's Brazil office, Mr. Nunes de Oliveira said, SaferNet Brasil filed a complaint with federal prosecutors in São Paulo. Prosecutors summoned Google's Brazilian sales staff to a meeting on March 10 and asked them for help identifying users breaking Brazilian human rights laws.

Google declined a reporter's requests for a direct interview with Mr. Buyukkokten, but a spokeswoman forwarded some of Mr. Buyukkokten's responses by e-mail. The Brazilian office, he said, handles ad sales and does not even work with Orkut, which produces no revenue. "Orkut prohibits illegal activity (such as child pornography) as well as hate speech and advocating violence," he wrote. "We will remove such content from Orkut when we are notified."

But Mr. Nunes de Oliveira said that removing the content was not what they were asking for. "The incapacity of the authorities to investigate these crimes is principally the lack of cooperation by Google in identifying those users," he said. He also worried that Google was not archiving evidence of crimes as it deleted offending pages.

Thamea Danelon Valiengo, part of a team of federal prosecutors working on cybercrime cases in São Paulo, agreed. She said that prosecutors had asked judges to order Google to turn over information on users who perpetrate crimes. So far, she said, Google has agreed to send a lawyer to Brazil for a meeting in May.

Mr. Buyukkokten wrote by e-mail that Google would cooperate with the authorities, but did not specify whether, for example, it would provide logs allowing users to be traced by their Internet address, as prosecutors have asked. A Google spokeswoman, Debbie Frost, said by e-mail that in four to six weeks, Orkut would deploy a tool that would "better identify and remove content that violates our terms of use."

In general, though, Orkut fanatics seem undisturbed by illegal activity on the site, which most of those interviewed said they had never come across personally. They were more interested in finding long-lost classmates and friends, one of the site's most lauded abilities. Schools, workplaces, even residential streets have "communities" joined by people who have studied, worked or lived there.

And everyone has stories of romance foiled by a telltale posting. Ms. Makray once found the page of a man who had flirted with her in a club. "He hadn't told me that he had children or that he was married," she said. "I discovered it on Orkut."

Erika Laun, 23, checks Orkut every day from work to keep an eye on her boyfriend. "When we were first going out," she said, "a girl who liked him was always sending messages and making fun of the messages that I sent him." The rival's sister, whom he didn't even know, helped out, sending messages like "Hey big boy, love you, 1,000 kisses."

"I was really angry," Ms. Laun said.

No one quite knows why Orkut caught on among Brazilians and not Americans, although the fact that it is an invitation-only network might explain why it exploded in Brazil. In a 2005 interview with the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, Mr. Buyukkokten said it might be because Brazilians were "a friendly people," and perhaps because some of his own friends, among the first to join the network, had Brazilian friends.

Fernanda Leon, an architecture student eating at a Middle Eastern restaurant here with her boyfriend, said she thought Brazil had gravitated toward Orkut because of the country's inherently social culture. "Brazilians really want to interact with other people, both old friends and new people," she said. She has 379 friends on her network.

Mr. Nunes de Oliveira of SaferNet stressed that he was only against the illegal uses of Orkut. "It's a fantastic tool, an excellent service," he said. "We do not want it gone."

(As per the New York Times)

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According to law-enforcement officials the 73-year-old Mr. Provenzano ran a vicious Mafia family that dominated organized crime on the island of Sicily for decades, leaving behind a long trail of blood, in murdered prosecutors, reporters and investigators. He has already been sentenced at least six times in absentia to life in prison as a member of the so-called Mafia Cupola responsible for coordinating the mob's strategies.

The police have been conducting surveillance on Mr. Provenzano's wife and two sons. Today they spotted a bundle of laundry being sent from her house to a remote farmhouse. As investigators explained it, they saw a hand come out from a door to take the package, and they decided to act.

Mr. Provenzano did not put up a struggle when police special forces burst into a remote farmhouse near Corleone on Tuesday morning. "He didn't say a word," the Palermo police chief, Giuseppe Caruso, told reporters at a packed news conference in Rome.

When Mr. Provenzano arrived at a Palermo police station, bystanders called out insults. Television newscasts showed an unruly crowd yelling "assassin" and "bastard" at the diminutive, speckled, silver-haired man, dwarfed by the black-hooded police officers jostling him through.

Officials involved in the arrest described the leadup as complex, dating back several years. Working from one of the few known photographs of Provenzano, a 1959 snapshot, the police produced a computer rendering of his current appearance, and picked up his trail when he underwent surgery in a clinic in Marseilles, France, in 2003.

Mr. Caruso said cameras had been planted in fields surrounding Corleone, where, according to Pietro Grasso, Italy's top anti-Mafia prosecutor, the ailing mobster had come "to take refuge," near to those "he most trusted."

On Tuesday morning, police tailed a courier carrying a bundle of clean clothes from Provenzano's family home in town to the remote farmhouse. When police burst in, he put up no resistance.

"He was imperturbable," Mr. Caruso said, adding that Mr. Provenzano was in good health, but undergoing unspecified treatment.

"The Mafia has lost its most prestigious leader," Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said at the press conference. "It has undergone an undeniable decapitation."

Mr. Grasso said "an entire world" of professionals, businessmen and politicians had aided Mr. Provenzano during his time on the run, and Mr. Caruso said that other investigations should lead to results "in the coming months."

Mr. Provenzano's ability to outwit investigators for 43 years has become legendary but it also made him a lingering symbol for many Italians of the state's inability to eradicate the Mafia. And it raised suspicions that the elusive mobster had high-ranking friends who helped him stay hidden.

Mr. Provenzano went underground in 1963, when he became a suspect in the murder of a rival mobster. Under the heavy hand of Salvatore (Toto) Riina, the Corleonese family dominated organized crime in Sicily for 30 years, and mounted an attack on the state that culminated in the 1992 murders of top anti-Mafia prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, and their bodyguards, in separate attacks. Mr. Riina was arrested in 1993, and Mr. Provenzano is believed to have replaced him.

Mafia turncoats arrested over the past decade confirmed to investigators that Mr. Provenzano was at the head of a criminal organization that controlled public work contracts and a sizable protection racket.

Mr. Grasso said it was unlikely that the mobster would turn state's evidence, "though I hope I'm mistaken."

The arrest of one Italy's most wanted men was greeted with satisfaction by politicians mulling over the election results and Mafia investigators.

But in a televised interview prosecutor Giancarlo Caselli, who once headed Palermo's anti-Mafia team warned that other important bosses had been captured in the past, "and this didn't mean the end of the Mafia."

(As per the New York Times)

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Manchester United have announced a £56.5million shirt sponsorship deal with US insurance and financial services organisation, American International Group, Inc. (AIG).

The agreement - the biggest of its kind in English football - will run for four years from the beginning of next season.
The announcement was made by United chief executive David Gill at an Old Trafford press conference at 1pm on Thursday.

"We are delighted to begin our relationship with AIG," said Gill.

"This is a deal that is right for Manchester United and it underlines our position as the world’s leading club.

"AIG’s global operations complement our great fan base and we are excited about the global prospects this relationship brings.

"This is a blue chip deal for a blue chip club."

Sir Alex Ferguson was equally delighted, adding: "It’s a fantastic partnership. It can be very good for us. The club wants to pick the right partner and I think we’ve done that."

Martin J. Sullivan, President and Chief Executive Officer of American International Group, Inc. revealed AIG's delight at the deal.

He said: "We are very pleased to associate AIG, a global leader in insurance and financial services, with Manchester United, one of the most successful football clubs in the game and one of the world’s leading sports brands.

"We believe this relationship will mutually benefit both organisations and we look forward to maximising the value of this high-profile sponsorship to help grow AIG’s businesses around the world."

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A new study from Sweden found that “the chance of developing a malignant brain tumor was roughly eight times higher for cell phone users in the Swedish countryside than in urban areas,” according to Consumeraffairs.com.

The same article contends that “the risk of developing any brain tumor was four times higher for country dwellers using mobile phones for five years or more, compared with those who did not use the devices.”

Dr. Lennart Hardell, professor of oncology at university hospital in Orebro, Sweden, published his findings in the British journal, “Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

The test group included more than 1,400 adults aged 20 to 80 who had been diagnosed with a malignant or benign brain tumor between 1997 and 2000. Researchers asked them to recall their daily use of mobile and cordless phones and correlated those results with cell phone use and the geographic area where the patients lived.

To date, the United States Food and Drug Administration has not been able to conclusively assert a connection between cell phone use and cancers, so the jury may be out on whether cell phone use increases risk of cancers.

However, I know for a fact that cell phone use has had a fatal effect on courtesy.

Let’s take a typical scenario: I am out with a friend for lunch. During the meal, the cell phone goes off, and he or she takes the call. What I had envisioned as a chance for the two of us to talk becomes an opportunity for me to watch my friend talk to someone else.

Cell phones have given people an undue sense of self-importance. Does anyone really need ready access to communication 24/7 ­— that is 24 hours a day and seven days a week?

For the past several years I have worked as a facilitator for the North Carolina Teaching Fellows summer conferences. Inevitably, if a cell phone erupts during a general assembly, that phone belongs to a facilitator.

Last year during orientation, I told facilitators at both conferences, “Turn your cell phones off while you are on duty. The President is not going to be calling you today.”

I remember the good ol’ days when we had some sense of isolation from the high-tech world of communication. If someone called us, we actually had to listen to our answering machine — or read a note someone had taken for us. I never recall missing a call so important that World War III broke out.

Cell phones have impacted classroom courtesy. I tell ECU students that if their cell phones go off in my class, they must make a decision. They can immediately turn the phone off — and all is well. Or they can decide to take the call, pick up their book bags, leave class, and be counted absent.

How annoying to hear a cell phone ring at the library or in a movie theater.

I read recently that merely having a cell phone in a car doubles the risk of having an accident. Talking on the cell phone while driving increases accident risk four-fold.

But now you have another reason to get that cell phone away from your ear — besides practicing common courtesy: You might be giving yourself a brain tumor.

(As per The Free Press)

Posted by Kimberly Keys at 03:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)