The Lo Zone

Two Roman Catholic priests stole millions in offerings and gifts made to their parish as far back as 40 years ago, prosecutors said Thursday.

Monsignor John Skehan, who was pastor at St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church for four decades, was arrested Wednesday night on charges that he stole $8.6 million from the church, using the money to buy property and other assets, investigators said.

The 79-year-old priest was arrested at Palm Beach International Airport as he returned from Ireland and was being held on $400,000 bond on grand theft charges.

The Rev. Francis Guinan, who succeeded Skehan three years ago, has disappeared and was being sought, city police and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said. He is alleged to have stolen an unspecified amount of money to take gambling trips to Las Vegas and the Bahamas.

At Sylvia’s restaurant, a temple of Southern cooking in Harlem, the fried chicken tastes the same. At the Carnegie Delicatessen and Restaurant in Midtown, which beckons to tourists and New Yorkers alike, nobody has complained about the potato pancakes. At Junior’s, an institution in Brooklyn with two Manhattan branches, the cheesecake is still as popular as ever.

All three places have done what the city’s Board of Health has proposed that all of New York’s 20,000 restaurants eventually do: get rid of all but a minute amount of artificial trans fats in their cooking in the interest of better health. If the plan is enacted, New York would become the first large American city to severely limit trans fats in restaurants.

But while more and more restaurants are already moving to rid their kitchens of trans fats, which are squarely tied to the increased risk of heart disease, New Yorkers’ reaction to the city’s proposal, approved unanimously on Tuesday by the health board, typically went something like, “Right, but on the other hand ...”

...which debuts tonight, have been consistently glowing.

Set in the enchanted and dangerous forest of New York publishing and fashion, peopled with characters who are obviously good or evidently evil, it has the power and sweetness of a fairy tale; but it isn't exactly the Cinderella story it first seems. It is more emancipated than that. Betty is also Dorothy gone over the rainbow — though all the color is back home in Queens, where she lives with her loving father (Tony Plana), sassy sister (Ana Ortiz) and budding fashionista nephew (Mark Indelicato), while the offices of Mode are largely white and icy blue, designed with the clean, curving and slightly antiseptic lines of a 1960s vision of the future.

As the magazine's creative director Wilhelmina, frostily furious at having been denied the editor's job, Vanessa Williams is every inch the evil queen and comes with her own Magic Mirror/Flying Monkey, the obsequious and ironic Marc (Michael Urie), who does her dark errands and administers her Botox injections. Ashley Jensen plays a fairy godmother figure, a Mode wardrobe mistress who looks out for Betty. And Daniel is the charming prince, but only sort of.

This is not "Working Girl," though it repeats that film's Manhattan versus the Boroughs dialectic, nor "The Devil Wears Prada," though it also concerns an unfashionable person coming to work at a fashion magazine. Betty, though she is not what walks down the runways of Milan and Paris (and is sometimes shot in a way that emphasizes her wideness), is neither a frump nor a mouse for technicians or magicians to make over — she's a ray of sunshine, a whole sunrise, bursting with color, face lighted up by a wide smile doubly gleaming for the braces splayed across her perfectly white teeth. When she tells herself "You are an attractive, intelligent, confident businesswoman," she is only reminding herself of what she already believes.

Flamboyant Dallas Cowboys receiver Terrell Owens tried to kill himself by overdosing on pain medication, a police report said, even putting two more pills into his mouth after a friend intervened.

Having won Oscars earlier this year, the members of rap group Three 6 Mafia are heading next to Emmy domain _ television.

MTV announced Wednesday that the rap group will star in a new reality comedy series called "Adventures in Hollyhood."

The series, which will begin in 2007, will follow the group's main members, Juicy J and DJ Paul, and their entourage as they make their way from Memphis to Los Angeles.

Goony-goo-goo, y'all. Goony-goo-goo.

For the first time in years, large schools of giant sea bass are swimming right alongside divers at La Jolla Cove. One of those divers emailed us to say it’s a sight we shouldn’t miss.

Divers are always looking for that special moment underwater, the one they can savor. In the waters off La Jolla Cove, that moment has arrived. Giant sea bass started showing up about two weeks ago, but we’re not talking one or two.

“Every once in a while, you’ll see one out here off La Jolla, but nothing like this many fish – 15, 20 fish is unheard of together so tightly spaced,“ said diver Roger Bly.

[...]

The giant sea bass we saw today ranged between 75 and 125 pounds, with the biggest bass well over 150 pounds.

These magnificent fish are as gentle as they are big, and will allow an up close look.

You know?

Yum.

Chavez sees Bush as 'devil'

"Yesterday, the devil came here ... and it smells of sulfur still today," said Chávez, whose international reputation has grown largely on the strength of his opposition to U.S. policy. Chávez said Bush was "talking as if he owned the world."

South African Christians seeking a quick spiritual boost will be able to download the entire bible on to their mobile telephones phones from Wednesday as part of a drive to modernize the scriptures.

The South African wing of the non-denominational International Bible Society, which translates and distributes the Bible, said mobile phone users with the right type of phone could download the whole bible in either English or Afrikaans using the text messaging function SMS.

"The Virtual Bible will enable the Bible Society to supply the Bible to every modern cell phone user in a fast and affordable format," Rev. Gerrit Kritzinger, chief executive of the Bible Society in South Africa, said in a statement.

The Bible Society hopes the gimmick, which costs 40 rand ($5.43), will appeal to young people in mobile-mad South Africa, where the majority of the population is Christian.

Customers can choose between the traditional King James version of the bible or more up-to-date translations. Zulu and Xhosa version will be available soon and other languages will follow.

A 3.3-million-year-old skeleton of a young child curled into a ball no bigger than a cantaloupe - a unique fossil described as "a bright beam of light" on human evolution - was unveiled Wednesday by paleontologists working in the sun-baked badlands of Ethiopia.

The tiny bundle of bones may be the best fossil yet found of the primitive human ancestor Australopithecus afarensis. That is the same species as the superstar fossil dubbed Lucy, an adult female discovered nearby in 1974.

The skeleton, described in the British scientific journal Nature and National Geographic magazine, represents the first juvenile remains of these ancient humanlike creatures, making the fossil the oldest child by far ever found.

"This is something you find once in a lifetime," said Zeresenay Alemseged, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, an Ethiopian paleoanthropologist who led the team that discovered it.

[Brad] Pitt is being seriously considered to take the place of his "Interview with the Vampire" co-star, Tom Cruise, in the next installment of "Missison Impossible."

The studio is reportedly willing to pay the actor $40 million, which, if he accepts, would make him the highest-paid actor in Hollywood history.

Chinese doctors say they successfully transplanted a penis on a man who lost his own in an accident, but had to remove it two weeks later because of psychological problems experienced by the man and his wife.

[...]

Fourteen days after the penis transplant, the recipient and his wife requested that the organ be removed "because of the wife's psychological rejection as well as the swollen shape of the transplanted penis," the surgeons report in the journal.

Astronauts on the International Space Station put on protective clothing after reporting a foul-smelling vapor on Monday, but the three crew members were not in danger, NASA said.

Initial reports of smoke on the space station proved false and the situation was now stable, said NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries in Houston.

"The crew was asked to put on some protective gear," Humphries told CNN.

He said the alarm was set off by "an odor that was not normal."

That's what I think.

When a man carrying a knife lunged toward six police officers inside a Wonder Lake home over the weekend, two beanbags fired from a shotgun failed to stop the charge, but a third bag penetrated his head and left him fighting for his life Monday, authorities said.

Illinois State Police are investigating whether the McHenry County sheriff's deputy who fired the silver-dollar-size beanbags Saturday did so with intent to kill the man, identified as David Maxson, 43.

[...]

The injury to Maxson caused dangerous brain swelling, said Anthony Redici, 33, whose mother is engaged to Maxson and who lives with the couple in the 4800 block of West Wonder Lake Drive, where the incident happened.

"David has severe depression, and police have been out here twice and they're aware of his suicidal tendencies," Redici said. "There should be police training that enables officers to calm down a person like David rather than resort to violence."

David Bowie and D'Angelo are fans. So is Elton John. But the soul man Lewis Taylor isn't exactly thrilled by his growing popularity. Happiest as a studio hermit at home in London, he has little interest in performing live or seeking a wider audience, say, in the United States...

For much of the last decade, arguably the most brilliant R&B artist of this generation has toiled in relative obscurity in Britain. It's not that Lewis Taylor is unknown -- Elton John, David Bowie, D'Angelo, Chaka Khan, Darryl Hall (of Hall & Oates) and the late Aaliyah -- are among his fervent admirers.

Lewis Taylor is a brilliant soul singer. But his artistic strength and Achilles’ heel is that he’s so much more: Musical tributaries flow in from Brian Wilson, Todd Rundgren, Prince and Jimi Hendrix, just for starters. His near-flawless eponymous 1996 solo debut had the faithful swearing that Marvin Gaye had been reborn...

On paper, Lewis Taylor's musical formula looks like a surefire recipe for disaster. But when the reclusive Brit combines his natural affinity for old-school soul with his flair for prog-rock bombast, the results are usually enchanting, sometimes jaw-dropping.

An Italian nun was shot dead at a hospital by Somali gunmen Sunday, hours after a leading Muslim cleric condemned
Pope Benedict XVI for his remarks on Islam and violence.

The nun, who was not immediately identified, was shot in the back at S.O.S. Hospital in northern Mogadishu by two gunmen, said Mohamed Yusuf, a doctor at the facility, which serves mothers and children. The nun's bodyguard and a hospital worker were also killed, doctors said.

Wait. Doesn't the Pope have The Ultimate Speech Writer????

Jay-Z, who declared that 2003's "The Black Album" would be his last, is coming out retirement and releasing a new CD.

"Kingdom Come" will hit stores this fall, Entertainment Weekly magazine reports in its new issue, due on newsstands Monday.

"It was the worst retirement in history," Jay told the magazine.

For real.

Police arrested 43-year-old Eneida Resto and charged her with child endangerment. She's behind bars on $25,000 bail. Her 5-year-old foster son had to have 12 teeth pulled, including all his molars after complaining of pains and headaches for a year. The child's dentist called police. He says 2-3 years of neglect led to the rotten teeth. And that if no action had been taken, the child would have been hospitalized for up to 6 months from abscesses. The boy has eight teeth remaining but without the molars has trouble chewing.

The world's first ban on overly thin models at a top-level fashion show in Madrid has caused outrage among modeling agencies and raised the prospect of restrictions at other venues.

Madrid's fashion week has turned away underweight models after protests that girls and young women were trying to copy their rail-thin looks and developing eating disorders.

Organizers say they want to project an image of beauty and health, rather than a waif-like, or heroin chic look.

Eva Longoria says she's done with television after "Desperate Housewives" ends. The 31-year-old actress said she loves the medium of television and the routine it provides, but that "Housewives" will be her last series.

"I would never leave 'Desperate Housewives,'" Longoria told The Associated Press. "I love doing both (TV and film), but I would never do another TV show after `Desperate Housewives.' No."

A Basque separatist prisoner on trial for threatening to kill a judge on Thursday told the presiding judge that he would shoot him and "skin him alive," risking yet another jail sentence.

[...]

"If you're a man, come here ... I'm going to skin you alive. Come here if you've got the balls... I look forward to shooting you seven times when I get my hands on you," the shaven-headed Bilbao Goikoetxea told Guevara in the Madrid courtroom.

It is the second time he has been tried for threatening Garzon after being jailed for two years at a previous trial.

An armed gang of suspected drug traffickers wearing ski masks threw five human heads onto the dance floor of a bar in western Mexico on Wednesday in an apparent revenge killing, prosecutors said.

Wielding handguns and rifles, some 20 men dressed in black drove up to the Luz y Sombra (Light and Shade) club on the edge of the city of Uruapan, in Michoacan state, shortly after midnight, barged inside and fired shots in the air.

They forced late-night revelers to lie on the floor and pulled the five male heads out of plastic bags, dumping them on the dance floor along with a handwritten message, a spokesman for the Michoacan state prosecutor's office said.

Cell phones, complete with a charger and data chips, were found in the body cavities of four inmates at a maximum-security prison, and they had used the phones to direct criminal activities on the street, officials said Wednesday.

The discovery was made Tuesday at the prison in Zacatecoluca, in central El Salvador, after suspicious officials took X-rays of the inmates, federal corrections chief Jaime Villanova said.

[...]

Capt. Juan Ramon Arevalo, director of the Zacatras prison, said the gang members had introduced the cell phones, wrapped in plastic bags, into their bodies through their anuses. The phones were relatively small — about as long as an adult forefinger.

Authorities also found nine cell phone chips, each slightly larger than a fingernail, and one charger.

"Each one had a cellular with a number of chips," Arevalo said, adding that one also had hidden a charger in his anal cavity.

An 11-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by as many as 20 boys as a 16-year-old girl watched and told her what sex acts to perform, authorities say in the latest mob attack to rock Milwaukee and set off another round of civic soul-searching.

[...]

The 16-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy have been charged in juvenile court in the alleged attack, which authorities say took place Monday in a house on the city's north side. A 40-year-old man said in court papers to have confessed to having sex with the child may also be charged, authorities said.

[...] the 11-year-old girl told police she was interested romantically in the 16-year-old girl, who looked and dressed like a boy.

The alleged victim and two friends went to the 16-year-old's house, where the child performed oral sex on three teenage boys, according to court papers. The 40-year-old uncle of the 16-year-old admitted he also had sex with the 11-year-old and told police that the 16-year-old was directing the child, the papers said.

The 11-year-old then went to the basement, where there were about 15 males and she told police she "began to choose who she wanted to perform oral sex on," court papers said.

Some species of male fish in the Potomac River and its tributaries are developing female sexual traits at a frequency higher than scientists have seen before, raising concerns about pollutants in a waterway that provides drinking water for millions of people.

The so-called "intersex fish," which produce immature eggs in their testes, were discovered in the Potomac rivershed in 2003 and have also been found in other parts of the country.

Bush admits the CIA runs secret prisons

The president declined to disclose the location or details of the detainees' confinement, or the interrogation techniques.

"I cannot describe the specific methods used — I think you understand why," Bush said in the East Room where families of some of those who died in the Sept. 11 attacks gathered to hear his speech.

"If I did, it would help the terrorists learn how to resist questioning, and to keep information from us that we need to prevent new attacks on our country. But I can say the procedures were tough, and they were safe, and lawful and necessary."

Bush insisted that the detainees were not tortured.

With shouts of "Banzai," Japanese celebrated the birth Wednesday of the imperial family's first male heir since the 1960s, a development that squelched hopes of reform to allow women on the throne.

...or a Plesident Hirary Crinton.*

Many people have experienced the phenomenon of receiving a telephone call from someone shortly after thinking about them -- now a scientist says he has proof of what he calls telephone telepathy.

Rupert Sheldrake, whose research is funded by the respected Trinity College, Cambridge, said on Tuesday he had conducted experiments that proved that such precognition existed for telephone calls and even e-mails.

Each person in the trials was asked to give researchers names and phone numbers of four relatives or friends. These were then called at random and told to ring the subject who had to identify the caller before answering the phone.

"The hit rate was 45 percent, well above the 25 percent you would have expected," he told the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. "The odds against this being a chance effect are 1,000 billion to one."

He said he found the same result with people being asked to name one of four people sending them an e-mail before it had landed.

A father, convinced he was the victim of a voodoo curse, drowned his two young children in the bathtub and then jumped to his death in front of a subway train, police said Thursday.

Franz Bordes, 39, died at Wednesday evening at a Brooklyn subway station. Investigators found several suicide notes indicating he was at odds with relatives of the children's mother, a Haitian immigrant like Bordes.

"They're using everything they can to destroy me, most of all voodoo," one of the notes read, according to police.

(Alright, that was a shameless plug, but this is my blog, after all.)

Juice could help stave off Alzheimer's: study

The nine-year study published in The American Journal of Medicine involving nearly 2,000 people, led by Professor Qi Dai of Tennessee's Vanderbilt University, showed that the risk of developing Alzheimer's -- a degenerative brain disease that affects a person's memory, thinking and mood -- was cut by 76 percent among those who drank fruit or vegetable juice more than three times a week.

Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs warned a teenage girl forced into a "spiritual marriage" to submit to sex with her husband or face "losing your salvation," Utah authorities claimed in an affidavit.