The Lo Zone

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1. A slaphappy environmentalist is driving on the 405 in his cute little Prius on his way to a Greenpeace meeting. He cuts off a rapper in a gas-guzzling H2. Said rapper is exhausted (and blazed) after an all-nighter in the studio and has no time for such fuckery. Chaos and bulletholes ensue...

2. A slaphappy PETA member is driving on the 134 in her cute little Prius on her way to work at NBC and cuts off a big-shot film director in a gas-guzzling Aston Martin. The director's date is wearing a mink. The slaphappy PETA member gives both the finger. The director's just been pulled off his current film for going way overbudget and has no time for such bird-flipping fuckery. Chaos and bulletholes ensue...

3. A grim-faced-but-environmentally-conscious Crip passes an equally grim-faced-but-environment- loving Blood on the 101. Both are in Priuses of the same color and, for a fleeting moment, realize they share a common bond. The bangers smile and nod at each other, then suddenly remember their respective roles, frown, and pull out matching weaponry. Chaos, bulletholes, and identical shot-up Priuses ensue...

4. An elderly woman is inside the bank where the car is parked and has no idea the cute little Prius her sitcom-starring son gave her has been randomly shot up by bored, rowdy rich kids during the ten minutes that have lapsed since she's been inside. Chaos and coronaries ensue...

5. The world's most aggressive team of repo men attempt to recover the car from the sitcom-starring son after his show is abruptly cancelled. Chaos and lies to his elderly mother about his new job (moonlighting in soft porn) ensue...

6. The car, purchased at a police auction, is spotted by its former owner (an egomaniacal studio exec arrested for soliciting sex from minors on the internet) moments after he's just been released from jail. Chaos and recidivism ensue...

Game: So I was like, "Yo, nigga, fuck that. I know my man Dan is cool. He wouldn'ta been caught up in no bullshit 'less he knew it went down for real."

Dan Rather: Why, thank you, The Game. Uh...is that...is that...is 'The Game' what you prefer being called, or should I drop the article and just, uh, call you 'Game'?

Game: What article? You wrote a article about me? What, it was sum'n bad, but now that you talkin' to me and you know I'm cool, you gon' drop it?

Dan Rather: No, no, no. I didn't write an article about you. I was talking about the article 'the.'



Game: (stares blankly)


Dan Rather: (nervous) You know, like, um, uh, like a preposition or a conjunction. 'The' is an article, and I wasn't sure if you preferred the use of it or not when being addressed.


Game: So you gon' mail it to me?



Dan Rather: (confused) Mail what to you?



Game: The article. You said you wasn't sure how I want the letter addressed.

Dan Rather: Nooooo, I didn't say anything about a letter. I meant the "The" in front of "Game." Should I keep the "The," or should I drop it altogether?

Game: (laughing) Nigga, you crazy!! You a funny muhfucka. All that time I been seein' you on tv since I was a kid, I'an know you had jokes. You alright, nigga!! (holds out fist to Dan for a pound)


Dan Rather: (blinking rapidly at both the N word and the extended fist)



Game: Yo, nigga...gi' it to me!! (extends fist closer to Dan)


Dan Rather: (stares at the fist. bumps it with his own, front-to-front, like a battering ram, instead of on top. nervously awaits response. Game smiles. Dan breaks into a wide grin.)


Game: That's what I'm sayin'!!


Dan Rather: What? What did you say? Did I miss something?



Game: (laughing) Nigga, you crazy!! You cool as hell. (leans in, whispering) Yo, you ever smoke dro'?



Dan Rather: (blinks rapidly)

As more blacks move up the economic ladder, one fixture — some would say necessity — of the upper-middle-class income bracket often eludes them. Like hailing a cab in Midtown Manhattan, searching for a nanny can be an exasperating, humiliating exercise for many blacks, the kind of ordeal that makes them wonder aloud what year it is.

“We’ve attained whatever level society says is successful, we’re included at work, but when we need the support for our children and we can afford it, why do we get treated this way?” asked Tanisha Jackson, an African-American mother of three in a Washington suburb, who searched on and off for five years before hiring a nanny. “It’s a slap in the face.”

Numerous black parents successfully employ nannies, and many sitters say they pay no regard to race. But interviews with dozens of nannies and agencies that employ them in Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Houston turned up many nannies — often of African-American or Caribbean descent themselves — who avoid working for families of those backgrounds. Their reasons included accusations of low pay and extra work, fears that employers would look down at them, and suspicion that any neighborhood inhabited by blacks had to be unsafe.

The result is that many black parents do not have the same child care options as their colleagues and neighbors. They must settle for illegal immigrants or non-English speakers instead of more experienced or credentialed nannies, rely on day care or scale back their professional aspirations to spend more time at home.

Drivers obeying directions given by a sultry satnav [satellite navigation] voice have crashed into rivers, construction sites and roadside toilets in Germany, and had similar accidents in Britain.

"It's hard to understand how these things can happen," said Maximilian Maurer, spokesman for the German motoring club ADAC.

"It's not as if people are driving in a tank with only a small slit to see out. You'd think they have their own eyes and brains engaged to make decisions and not rely on the satnav. I used to think satnavs were 'idiot-proof', but perhaps not."

In October a 53-year-old German, obeying his satnav's command "Turn right now!" jerked the wheel over and crashed into a roadside toilet hut 30 metres (yards) before the crossing he was meant to take, causing 2,000 euros ($2,600) damage.

A few weeks earlier, an 80-year-old motorist also followed his satnav instead of common sense and ignored a "closed for construction" sign on a Hamburg motorway. He hit a pile of sand at high speed but was not hurt.

"I just thought the navigation system knew a shortcut," Volker Heinemann was quoted as telling a local newspaper. His car had to be towed away.

[...]

An ambulance driver with a faulty satnav drove more than 600 km while transferring a patient from one hospital in Ilford east of London to another in Brentwood -- 13 km away. He was near Manchester, northern England, before realizing his error.

Experts say that as cars get smarter, some people seem to get dumber, and the problem increases as more vehicles are equipped with the devices.

[...]

Joachim Siedler, spokesman for market leader Blaupunkt, said it was absurd to blame the gadgets for human errors and noted motorists are clearly warned the devices are there to help, not to take decisions.

"If a traffic light is red it's obvious you have to stop even if the satnav says 'drive straight on'," he said. "People who drive into rivers and then blame their satnav are just too humiliated to accept blame themselves."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told The Associated Press on Thursday that Iraq is "worth the investment" in American lives and dollars and said the U.S. can still win a conflict that has been more difficult than she expected.

In an interview at the State Department, the nation's highest-ranking black government official also said the United States is ready to elect a black president.

Rice was asked whether an additional $100 billion the Pentagon wants for the Iraq and Afghan wars might amount to throwing good money after bad in Iraq. President Bush and Congress have already provided more than $500 billion for the two conflicts and worldwide efforts against terrorism, including more than $350 billion for Iraq.

"I don't think it's a matter of money," Rice said. "Along the way there have been plenty of markers that show that this is a country that is worth the investment, because once it emerges as a country that is a stabilizing factor you will have a very different kind of Middle East."

...(allegedly) killed his 3-year old son...

An Alameda County jury today convicted an Oakland man of assault causing death and child abuse in connection with the 2003 death of his 3-year-old son, but have not yet reached a verdict on a charge of murder.

The panel convicted Chazarus Hill Sr., 27, of assaulting and abusing Chazarus "Cha Cha" Hill by repeatedly used a belt, his fists and switches whenever the boy wet the bed or misidentified numbers and letters on flash cards.

[...]

During closing arguments Monday, [Deputy District Attorney Darryl] Stallworth whipped the air with a switch and slapped his own palm with a belt as he described how Hill allegedly beat his son during the last month of his life.

Instead of putting the 40-pound toddler to bed at night, "the defendant put him in a casket," Stallworth told jurors, urging them to return a verdict of first-degree murder.

The boy died Sept. 20, 2003, of multiple injuries, including a blood clot in the brain.

[...]

The defense attorney questioned whether some of the injuries could have been inflicted by Kymberly Ford, Cha Cha's stepmother, when Ford was alone with the boy.

Ford, who also testified in the trial, was released from prison more than a month ago after serving part of a four-year sentence on a child-abuse charge for allowing the assaults to occur.

...yet fires another for doing basically the same thing.

Miss Nevada USA was stripped of her title Thursday after racy photos of her appeared on the Internet, pageant officials said.

Some of the photos show Katie Rees, 22, kissing other young women, exposing one of her breasts and pulling down her pants to show her thong underwear at a party in Tampa, Fla.

"Katie Rees has been relieved of her duties as Miss Nevada USA 2007," said Paula M. Shugart, president of the Miss Universe Organization, which owns the Miss USA pageant and others.

Rees' dismissal comes two days after Miss USA Tara Conner was allowed to keep her tiara when she admitted underage drinking at New York bars and agreed to go into rehab and undergo drug testing.

Lovely, no?

So wholesome and All-American.

Her parents must be bursting with pride.

"Katie wants the public to know she was 17 and had a lapse in judgment. This was an isolated incident that occurred more than five years ago when she was a minor."

A makeup artist nominated for an Oscar for her work in "Forrest Gump" shot her husband and killed herself in their home, authorities said Wednesday.

Hallie D'Amore, 64, and her 65-year-old photographer husband, Richard, were found dead Friday by co-workers who were concerned when she failed to show up for work, police Detective Mike DePasquale said.

There was no sign of a struggle or forced entry, and a gun was found, authorities said. The Los Angeles County coroner's office has ruled the deaths a murder-suicide.

[...]

"They'd been having marital problems," he said. "That's what the neighbors and family were telling us - and maybe monetary problems that created stress."

The couple recently celebrated their 22nd anniversary.

Scientists report of two cases where female Komodo dragons have produced offspring without male contact.

Tests revealed their eggs had developed without being fertilised by sperm - a process called parthenogenesis, the team wrote in the journal Nature.

One of the reptiles, Flora, a resident of Chester Zoo in the UK, is awaiting her clutch of eight eggs to hatch, with a due-date estimated around Christmas.

Being friends with your exes is generally not encouraged, but it can result in worthy elucidations of your character. Or your genitals.

“I need you to tell me what my vagina looks like,” I instant message my most significant and trusted ex-boyfriend.

His reply blinks on my screen a few seconds later: “Uhhh . . . like a beautiful flower?”

“Less gay,” I implore.

“A carburetor,” he deadpans, doubtlessly tittering over the slope of whichever bong is obscuring his computer screen.

And then he adds:

“If this is about, ‘Do I need a labiaplasty?’ . . . the answer is no.”

This exchange doesn’t say anything about my ex-boyfriend’s extra-sensory awareness of what I happen to be researching at any given time for any given story. No, it underscores the fact that suddenly—very suddenly—labiaplasty and other so-called “vaginal rejuvenation” surgeries have shown up on the list of Things People Actually Do.

First, the labiaplasty.

“Labiaplasty recontours mostly the labia minora, the smaller lips, to make the vagina more appealing in the way it looks and more comfortable in its function,” he explains. “It also encompasses the surgery for the labia majora, the larger lips. That surgery is done when the lady has excess skin, or baggy or loose skin of the labia majora, and it is unappealing to the lady.”

Next, the vaginoplasty.

“Vaginoplasty narrows the diameter of the vagina and reconstructs the floor of the vagina,” says Dr. Alinsod, “so that a wide-open vagina can become tighter and create more friction for a woman when she’s having sexual relations. Vaginoplasty is a modification of a standard gynecological surgery called a posterior repair, which is a surgery to fix a defect in the floor of the vagina from a bulge, usually from the rectum, which is like a hernia in the vagina.”

White people — old, young, middle aged, even teenagers — would cross the street when they saw me strolling in their direction. Even white men who seemed to be in their 20s would, more often than not, cross the street when I approached. Soon, even at a distance, I started to be able to sense when they, particularly the women, were preparing to cross the street as I drew near: First comes the sudden interest in where their wallets are. Then comes the pat down — is it in the purse; is it in the back pockets, or is it the jacket pocket? What a relief... it’s in the purse... perhaps the purse would be more snatch-proof if the strap were looped over the head and worn in the style of the old pony express mail carriers, from one shoulder and across the body.

I’ve seen these women do double takes when they look up to see that I’ve beaten them to the punch and crossed the street first.

One day after emerging from the subway at Vermont and Sunset, instead of hopping onto the shuttle bus I decided to walk up the hill to Los Feliz Boulevard. I eventually settled into a floating, meditative zone in which I was able to observe the world in what I felt was an honest way. I noticed a young woman who, at first glance, appeared very trendy with her crimson hair and black leather ensemble. She looked up from the bus bench, saw me and, in one smooth effort, quickly drew her two colorful, expensive-looking shopping bags closer to her as I passed by. As an afterthought, I did something I rarely do — I looked back at her and caught her glaring after me. That’s when it became clear: This 20-something woman actually knew that I would no sooner snatch her bags than I would apologize to her for the fact that I was wearing a suit and tie and not pushing a shopping cart filled with all my worldly belongings. But I got what she was doing.

It’s this: In today’s P.C. world, even the most intractable haters wouldn’t dream of calling me a nigger aloud (except, maybe, the indomitable Mr. Richards, who apparently does dream, and in color to boot). These days, the more sophisticated way to get the N word across loud and clear is to simply act it out. That’s what this woman’s intense stare was about while she gathered her bags close to her. It wasn’t fear at all. It was more like, “There, I still get to let you know what I think of you.” Now, another question presented itself. If the folks in this neighborhood weren’t frightened that I was going to rob them, molest them, say something weird or even make eye contact with them, then what was really taking place?

The answer was obvious, but shrouded by the hip accouterments of the supposedly liberal, urban sophisticate of the independent bookstores, book signings, cineastes’ queues, Mini Coopers, coffeehouses, biscottis, delicate tattoos, pierced bellies, yoga, Pilates and, of course, political correctness across the board. In spite of all this, when these folks cross the street to avoid me on the residential byways of Los Feliz, it registers as a silent scream of “Oh my God... nigger.” For some it may be almost instinctual, even mean. For most, crossing the street is probably nothing personal, just a wistful nod toward a collective memory when life was so much safer and simpler.

A transgendered woman who was told to use the men's room at Loehmann's has filed a complaint alleging discrimination by the discount retail chain.

Jane Galla, who describes herself as a regular Loehmann's shopper, says in a complaint filed Dec. 1 with the city Commission on Human Rights and announced yesterday that she was denied access to the Chelsea store's fitting rooms and rest rooms.

"I felt humiliated when I was publicly told to use the men's fitting room" in April, the woman said through a statement from the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund. "I've been living as a woman for 3-1/2 years and can no longer use a men's fitting room."

A commission official noted the city's human rights law was amended in 2002 to cover individuals in a "gender identity class" but had no comment on the complaint.

A rapist who preys on young men has struck five times in the Houston area since mid-September, and police said Monday there may be even more victims, but they are too ashamed to come forward.

The rapist typically stalks, robs and sexually assaults his victims at gunpoint, apparently choosing them at random and attacking them near or inside their homes, police said. The most recent attack was Nov. 30.

"I wish we had a link between the victims, because we might have a better chance of catching him," said Lt. Richard Whitaker of the police department in Baytown, where two of the attacks took place. "We don't have any affirmative links at all."

He said some victims may be reluctant to come forward because of their ages and "a pride thing" that makes men more reluctant to acknowledge being the victim of a sex crime.

Investigators believe that rape is the motive, even though some victims were robbed. DNA testing is under way in an effort to identify the attacker.

In some cases, the attacker approached his victim outside their home. Other times, he broke into the home.

A small airplane apparently took a nose-dive into a tank of raw sewage near Gilroy on Monday afternoon.

Gilroy police Sgt. Kurt Svardal said authorities have no idea where the plane was from or where it was going. The aircraft came pretty much straight down into a holding tank filled with raw sewage at a sewage treatment facility. It was too dangerous for even a dive team to go into the water and check for bodies or the tail number of the plane, which would indicate who owned it and where it was from.

Cuban officials told a group of visiting US legislators that Fidel Castro does not have cancer or a terminal illness.

It was the most comprehensive denial yet of rampant rumors about the ailing leader's health, the head of the US delegation said yesterday.

Representative Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona, said Cuban officials did not provide further details on the 80-year-old leader's health, but they did say that he would eventually return to public life.

"All the officials have told us that his illness is not cancer, nor is it terminal, and he will be back," Flake said in a telephone interview.

Castro's medical condition has been a state secret since he had surgery for intestinal bleeding in late July and temporarily ceded power to his younger brother Raúl Castro. He has not been seen publicly since July 26.

A North Carolina woman was arrested after complaining to a police officer that the crack cocaine she had just purchased wasn't very good, authorities said.

Eloise D. Reaves, 50, approached the Putnam County sheriff's deputy at a convenience store Friday, telling him that another man had sold her "bad crack" that contained wax and cocaine.

She pulled an alleged crack rock out of her mouth and placed it on the deputy's car for inspection, the Palatka Daily News reported for Tuesday editions.

The deputy told Reaves that she would be arrested if the crack tested positive for cocaine.

She was charged with possession of cocaine and bonded out for $1,504.

For years, activists in the marijuana legalization movement have claimed that cannabis is America's biggest cash crop. Now they're citing government statistics to prove it.

A report to be released Monday by a marijuana public policy analyst contends that the market value of pot produced in the United States exceeds $35 billion -- far more than the crop value of such heartland staples as corn, soybeans and hay.

California is responsible for more than one-third of the cannabis harvest, with an estimated production of $13.8 billion that exceeds the value of the state's grapes, vegetables and hay combined -- and marijuana is the top cash crop in a dozen states, the report states.

The report estimates that marijuana production has increased tenfold in the past quarter-century despite an anti-drug effort by law enforcement.

"Well, actually, I wasn't born in York. It was Butler, Alabama. Well, it wasn't really Butler, either. It was Oakchia, Alabama, but Charles (one of her brothers) says he can't find Oakchia anymore."

"Ma, Oakchia was not a town!! It was a plantation!! You were born on a plantation????!!!!"

EVINGTONS OF OAKCHIA

The Evingtons had ten children, with three sons to die at an early age.

1. Stella, who was Stella Blanche Plattor and served as Post Master at Oakchia in 1898, but by the time her mother's will was probated in 1900, she was married to Ed Kelly and lived at Mount Sterling. 2. Eugenia A.; 3. Minnie T., who died at age 28; 4. Nettie Mohr, who married Charles A. Batton and was Postmaster at Oakchia in 1901; 5. Marvin, who was mentally handicapped; 6. Green Berry Chaney Evington, who married Lillie Bell Lindsey; 7. Carrie H.; 8. W.H. Evington, Jr. who lived a year and three months; 9. W. H. Evington, 2nd, who lived three years and 10. John Kendall Evington, who lived only seven months,

After his two daughters, William H. Evington served as Postmaster from 1901 through 1913. His son Green B.C. Evington held that job from 1917 until 1928. when the mail was re-routed to Edna. The old wooden store/post office building still stands behind the house at Oakchia, which was built to face the river. W. H. Evington served in the Alabama State Senate representing that area from 1884 to 1887.

THIRD GENERATION OWNERS OF OAKCHIA

Green Berry Chaney Evington and Lillie Lindsey Evington's daughters Coralie Bell and Kathleen grew up in the isolated area of Oakchia. Times were changing and young people craved excitment and companionship, not isolation. Coralie married Robert Seale Eddins and Kathleen married A. B. Stutts. After inheriting Oakchia, the Stutts sold the house and built a modern brick home in York, notable for its decorative wrought iron grill work. The old home had stayed in the family for four generations.

Resting in peace in the small family cemetery a few hundred yards from the house are Caroline and William H. Evington, the three youngest sons, daughter Minnie T. Evington and her sisters Eugenia and Carrie and brother Marvin, the last three with no grave markers. Probably other family members and slaves lie there also without headstones. There is an Oakchia African-American cemetery "deep in the woods" in a different place, land purchased in 1898.

Rick Lisko hunts deer with a bow but got his most unusual one driving his truck down his mile-long driveway. The young buck had nub antlers — and seven legs. Lisko said it also had both male and female reproductive organs. "It was definitely a freak of nature," Lisko said. "I guess it's a real rarity."

He said he slowed down as the buck and two does ran across the driveway Nov. 22, but the buck ran under the truck and got hit.

When he looked at the animal, he noticed three- to four-inch appendages growing from the rear legs. Later, he found a smaller appendage growing from one of the front legs.

"It's a pretty weird deer," he said, describing the extra legs as resembling "crab pinchers."

"It kind of gives you the creeps when you look at it," he said, but he thought he saw the appendages moving, as if they were functional, before the deer was hit.

Defense attorneys and death penalty opponents were outraged Thursday over an execution in which the condemned man took more than half an hour to die, needed a rare second dose of lethal chemicals, and appeared to grimace in his final moments.

"I am definitely appalled at what happened. I have no doubt he suffered unduly," Angel Nieves Diaz's attorney, Suzanne Myers Keffer, said after Diaz died by injection.

Executions in Florida normally take about 15 minutes, with the inmate rendered unconscious and motionless within the first three to five minutes. But Diaz took 34 minutes to die and appeared to be moving for most of that time.

Prison officials promised to investigate but insisted Diaz felt no pain and that it was not unexpected a second dose would be required, because liver disease had affected his ability to metabolize the drugs. They offered no explanation for the grimace or why officials did not adjust the dosage from the start.

Foes of capital punishment seized on the execution to argue that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment, just as they did after two inmates' heads caught fire in Florida's electric chair in 1990 and 1997 and a condemned man suffered a severe nosebleed in 2000 during his electrocution.

Those cases led Florida to get rid of the electric chair and switch to lethal injection, which was portrayed as more humane and more reliable.

Congratulations, Oprah, you have been selected by Kitty Kelley as the subject of her next tell-all, unauthorized biography.

"Oprah Winfrey has fascinated me for many years _ as a woman, she has wielded an unprecedented amount of influence over the American culture and psyche," Kelley said in a statement issued Wednesday by the Crown Publishing Group, an imprint of Random House, Inc.

The book does not yet have a title and a publication date has not been set. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Kelley, whose many best sellers include biographies of Frank Sinatra, Nancy Reagan and the Bush family, has a long history of writing books as loathed by their subjects, and disputed by critics, as they are fascinating to readers.

Among her more notorious allegations: that Sinatra and Reagan may have had an affair while she was first lady, and that George W. Bush snorted cocaine at Camp David when his father was president.

For the Winfrey book, Kelley "plans to interview hundreds of sources, many of whom have never before spoken on the record about her subject," according to Crown. While the author has spoken disparagingly of the Bushes, likening them to the Corleones, she appears to have a higher opinion of Winfrey.

"She has built an empire around her personality and has been one of American's most admired business women and philanthropists," Kelley said in her statement. "Oprah's story is one of hope, promise and realization of the American dream."

A small spider bite turned out to be a big problem for Cindy Pettey. Pettey awoke when she was bitten on the stomach in the middle of the night a few weeks ago, but thought little else of it. Then she started running a fever, she felt achy and weak. The bite sore became larger.

Next thing Pettey knew, a doctor was telling her he believed she'd been bitten by a dangerous hobo spider.

Pettey had surgery that removed 10 pounds of skin and flesh, leaving her with an abdomen covered in stitches.

"It looks like I was bit in half by a shark," Pettey said.

Rob Hendrickson, a physician and director of the Oregon Poison Control Center, said the hobo is a non-aggressive spider that bites only when cornered. For example, when someone puts on a shoe with a spider inside.

[...]

"In reality, most spiders are venomous, but aren't capable of penetrating human skin," Hendrickson said.

Hobo spider venom may cause necrosis, or death of the skin. When a spider injects venom below the skin, it reddens, swells, then turns black. But there is some doubt in the medical community about whether venom causes the skin death, Hendrickson said.

"If the venom can actually cause necrosis in humans," he said, "... then it is a very rare event."

An incestuous romance exploded in a gruesome murder-suicide when a Brooklyn man clubbed to death his half sister - who was also his lover - and her two teenage kids, cops said.

Relatives and neighbors who had been trying to reach the family for a week summoned cops yesterday to the Walt Whitman Houses in Fort Greene, where a foul odor emanated from behind the locked door.

Inside, the bodies of Haydee Soto, 42; her 15-year-old son, John James (J.J.) Bordoy, and 13-year-old daughter, Valerie Rivera, were found bludgeoned in three different rooms.

The man believed responsible for the horror, Hector Viera, 34, was on the kitchen floor with a hypodermic needle in his arm, dead of an apparent overdose, police said.

A bloody baseball bat was found in the apartment, and there was no sign of forced entry, sources said.

As detectives tried to pinpoint a motive for the violence, they were also unraveling the twisted relationship between Viera and Soto.

The two were half siblings, with the same father. But cops say they also had a sexual relationship - one they didn't try to hide from friends and neighbors who frequently spotted them holding hands and kissing.

A puppy chewed off four of a baby girl's toes next to her sleeping parents, who were then booked on charges of child desertion and criminal negligence, police said Monday.

Mary Shannon Hansche, 22, and Christopher Wayne Hansche, 26, told police they woke to the baby's cries, found her mangled foot and took her to the hospital early Sunday.

Police said that they were sleeping on a mattress and that the month-old girl was in an infant seat beside them when the 6-week-old pit bull began chewing on her toes.

"They did not see the dog injuring the child," police spokesman Mark Natale said.

The puppy might have been trying to nurse on the toes of the baby, a veterinarian speculated.

"I know that sounds a little far-fetched, but that's the first thing that comes to my mind," Michael Dale said.

Condoms designed to meet international size specifications are too big for many Indian men as their penises fall short of what manufacturers had anticipated, an Indian study has found.

The Indian Council of Medical Research, a leading state-run center, said its initial findings from a two-year study showed 60 percent of men in the financial capital Mumbai had penises about 2.4 cm (one inch) shorter than those condoms catered for.

For a further 30 percent, the difference was at least 5 cm (two inches). A poor fit meant the prophylactics often didn't do the job they were bought for, and led to some tearing or slipping off during use.

"One of the reasons for a failure of up to 20 percent (of condoms) is the association of the size of the condom to the erect penis," the council's Dr. Chander Puri told Reuters, adding another reason was couples often put them on in a hurry.

Puri said many men in India, which has the world's highest HIV positive caseload, were too shy to ask for condoms.

"We need more vending machines for condoms of different sizes so people can pick a condom with confidence that is suited to their needs," he said.

An excommunicated Roman Catholic archbishop continued his defiance of the
Vatican on Sunday when he ordained two married men as priests.

In front of a congregation that included nearly two dozen members of the media at the Trinity Reformed Church, Raymond A. Grosswirth of Rochester, N.Y., and Dominic Riccio, of Newark, were installed by Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo.

The ceremony, in a blue-collar neighborhood situated directly across the Hudson River from midtown Manhattan, concluded a two-day convention of Milingo's advocacy group, Married Priests Now!

[...]

The wives of both men helped their husbands on with their vestments before each man was anointed. Grosswirth and Riccio concluded the ceremony at the West New York church by officiating over communion.

"I feel great elation," said the 72-year-old Riccio, who lives in Barnegat with wife, Claire, and has four children and two grandchildren. "This is the culmination of 31 years of waiting."

The men now will be able to perform the duties of a priest, such as administering last rites.

Grosswirth, 57, who has been married since 1994, recalled forming a group in Rochester in the early 90s comprising men over 40 who were interested in the priesthood, then seeing it dwindle down to nothing over the issue of celibacy.

Milingo has called celibacy "outdated" and noted on Sunday that it was not required of priests until the 12th century.

Prince Charles to use commercial flights

Putting his money where his environmentalist mouth is, Prince Charles is swapping gas-guzzling private planes and helicopters for commercial flights, train journeys and biodiesel cars.

A longtime champion of green causes, the heir to the throne says action is needed now to avoid leaving a ruined planet to the next generation.

"From February, we are going to look at the diary and see what we can do to reduce our carbon footprint," a spokeswoman for the prince's London residence, Clarence House, said Thursday on condition of anonymity in line with royal rules. "Wherever possible, we will be making less use of helicopters and chartered planes and rely more on car journeys, scheduled flights and trains."

Carjacked at knifepoint while pumping gas, a 75-year-old woman didn't give in without a fight. Mary Gean Smyth opened the door of her sport utility vehicle and doused the assailant in gas.

"I'm sure he was burning like mad," Smyth said of the Tuesday carjacking. "I mean, I drowned him right in the face."

Police caught up to Smyth's GMC Denali Envoy at a restaurant and arrested 52-year-old John Clay Stricker Jr., a transient with an address in the North Texas town of Lake Kiowa, Tyler police spokesman Don Martin said.

Smyth said police told her the suspect had apparently taken a shower because he had a bag with fuel-soaked clothes and a bar of soap [...]

Taco Bell ordered scallions removed from its 5,800 U.S. restaurants Wednesday after tests suggested they may be responsible for the E. coli outbreak that has sickened nearly four dozen people in three states.

The fast-food chain said preliminary testing by an independent lab found three samples of green onions appeared to have a dangerous strain of the bacterium.

"In an abundance of caution, we've decided to pull all green onions from our restaurants until we know conclusively whether they are the cause of the E. coli outbreak," said Greg Creed, president of Irvine, Calif.-based Taco Bell.

The company would not immediately identify the supplier of the scallions, so it was unclear whether contaminated green onions reached other restaurants or supermarkets.

David Letterman isn't going anywhere. CBS Corp. announced Monday that the late-night funnyman has signed a contract to stay on the air until at least 2010. It was widely reported in September that Letterman had agreed to the deal.

The contract means Letterman plans to stay on the air longer than late-night rival Jay Leno. NBC has said that Leno will give way to Conan O'Brien on the "Tonight" show in 2009.

[...]

Letterman is expected to make somewhere north of $30 million a year. He's been competing with Leno since 1993, and the NBC comic has had the upper hand in the ratings for the past decade.

An E. coli outbreak that has sickened at least 22 people — two of them seriously — was linked by health investigators Monday to three Taco Bell restaurants in New Jersey.

All but two of the people who fell ill had eaten at one of the fast-food restaurants between Nov. 17 and Nov. 28, authorities said. But exactly what food contained the bacteria was still unclear.

"We have to find the food they all had in common," said David Papi, director of health for Middlesex County.

All but four of the victims are under 18, authorities said.

And guess what?

A man has confessed to strangling or suffocating 23 men during an eight-year killing spree and dumping their bodies in remote spots in seven parishes, police said.

Ronald J. Dominique, 42, was charged with nine additional counts of murder on Monday, bringing the total to 11 counts against him — 10 for first-degree murder and one for second-degree murder.

Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter said Dominique confessed to killing 23 men, all males between the ages of 16 and 46, between 1997 and 2005.

[...]

The victims' bodies were found in seven different south Louisiana parishes. All were found bound and had been killed in similar fashion, Larpenter said, leading investigators to suspect the work of a serial killer.

Authorities said Dominique said he had sex with each of the victims. Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee said investigators have DNA evidence linking Dominique to at least two of the killings.

You'd think folks would see a guy like this coming.

An investigation is underway in Tempe, Ariz., after a police officer told two African American men they could avoid getting a ticket if they performed a rap for him.

The incident was played out on a reality show produced by the local police force. It was supposed to highlight the department's philosophy of community policing, but has instead sparked controversy.

In the clip, an officer pulls over two African American men on charges of littering. He offers them a way out of the ticket, saying, "No littering ticket if the two of you just do a little rap."

The men, neither of whom are actors, agree. One of them rhymes, "The dangers of littering you will get a ticket. If you ain't with it, you better be experienced."

Famed paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey is giving no quarter to powerful evangelical church leaders who are pressing Kenya's national museum to relegate to a back room its world-famous collection of hominid fossils showing the evolution of humans' early ancestors.

Leakey called the churches' plans "the most outrageous comments I have ever heard."

He told The Daily Telegraph (London): "The National Museums of Kenya should be extremely strong in presenting a very forceful case for the evolutionary theory of the origins of mankind. The collection it holds is one of Kenya's very few global claims to fame and it must be forthright in defending its right to be at the forefront of this branch of science." Leakey was for years director of the museum and of Kenya's entire museum system.

The museum's collections include the most complete skeleton yet found of Homo erectus, the 1.7-million-year-old Turkana Boy unearthed by Leakey's team in 1984 near Lake Turkana in northern Kenya.

The museum also holds bones from several specimens of Australopithecus anamensis, believed to be the first hominid to walk upright, four million years ago. Together the artifacts amount to the clearest record yet discovered of the origins of Homo sapiens.

Leaders of Kenya's Pentecostal congregation, with six million adherents, want the human fossils de-emphasized.

"The Christian community here is very uncomfortable that Leakey and his group want their theories presented as fact," said Bishop Bonifes Adoyo, head of the largest Pentecostal church in Kenya, the Christ is the Answer Ministries.

"Our doctrine is not that we evolved from apes, and we have grave concerns that the museum wants to enhance the prominence of something presented as fact which is just one theory," the bishop said.

"If the monkey bones fit, then the truth we must get."