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LOWER HELMAND RIVER VALLEY, AFGHANISTAN (Reuters) –
U.S. Marines launched a helicopter assault early on Thursday in the lower Helmand river valley in southern Afghanistan, spokesman Capt. Bill Pelletier said.

A Reuters correspondent in the valley saw flares in the sky over the town of Nawa, south of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah.

Nearly 4,000 Marines and U.S. sailors are taking part in the assault, code-named Operation Khanjar (Strike of the Sword), along with about 650 Afghan troops and police, a Marines press statement said.

"What makes Operation Khanjar different from those that have occurred before is the massive size of the force introduced, the speed at which it will insert and the fact that where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold ..." it quoted Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, commanding officer of the Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan, as saying.

The valley of irrigated wheat and opium fields along the Helmand river is largely in the hands of Taliban fighters who have resisted British-led NATO forces for years.

The United States has sent 8,500 Marines to Helmand province in the last two months, the largest wave of a massive buildup of forces that will see the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan rise from 32,000 at the beginning of this year to 68,000 by year's end.

President Barack Obama has declared the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan to be the main security threat facing the United States.

Helmand province is one of the Taliban's main heartlands in southern Afghanistan and produces the largest share of the country's opium crop which supplies 90 percent of the world's heroin.

Attacks by Taliban fighters are at their highest levels since the strict Islamists were driven out of Kabul by U.S.-backed Afghan opponents in 2001 after refusing to turn over Osama bin Laden in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

U.S. and NATO commanders have said they intend to deploy American reinforcements to seize Taliban-held territory in the south in time for Afghanistan to hold a presidential election on August 20.

(Reporting by Peter Graff, editing by Tim Pearce)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) –
Abandoned by Michael Jackson after a humiliating child molestation trial in 2005, the late singer's Neverland Ranch could now become one of the biggest draws in the world as a memorial to the King of Pop.

Jackson's family has said there are no plans for a funeral or burial of his body at the ranch in central California after his death last week.

But the rural playground inspired by Jackson's alter-ego, Peter Pan, would remain an attraction in a region already visited by tourists, and it could rival Elvis Presley's Graceland as a future venue for his millions of fans around the world.

"Michael Jackson has worldwide appeal and probably a stronger fan base than even Elvis. Neverland is a lot larger than Graceland and Los Angeles is a major tourist destination already," said Roger Brooks, CEO of tourism company Destination Development International.

"Neverland embodied who Michael Jackson was -- the good and the bad. I think it could draw about one million visitors a year," Brooks told Reuters.

Los Angeles-based private equity firm Colony Capital bought the ranch in 2008 in a joint venture with Jackson when he went $24 million in arrears on his mortgage. Colony said "any discussion on the future of the property is premature."

But there has been a burst of activity around the ranch in recent days as fans gathered to mourn and place flowers at its iron gates, and TV pictures have shown moving vans and landscape workers going in and out of the property northwest of Los Angeles.

"If Elvis Presley has Graceland, Michael Jackson can have a place for him here at Neverland. And that's how I feel, and I hope it becomes a museum in memory of Michael," Amey Avila of nearby Solvang, California, told Reuters outside the ranch.

Graceland, the Memphis estate where Presley died in 1977, was opened to the public in 1982 and gets more than 600,000 visitors a year, according to Elvis Presley Enterprises, a subsidiary of CKX Inc.

The Presley business, including worldwide licensing of music rights, as well as Graceland and the Heartbreak Hotel, reported $11.7 million in operating income in 2008.

NEVERLAND SPIRIT VIOLATED

Jackson bought the 2,800-acre (1,133-hectare) Neverland ranch in 1988 and filled it with theme-park rides, a zoo, and statues of Peter Pan -- the fictional boy who never grew up.

It was there that Jackson hosted parties for local children and controversial sleepovers for young boys that prompted charges of child sexual abuse in 1993 and 2005.

But after a grueling 2005 trial and acquittal on child molestation charges, Jackson left Neverland, vowing never to return. He said its spirit had been violated by police raids looking for evidence.

Last year, auctioneers emptied the house of Jackson's furniture, toys, platinum records and its vast iron gates for an auction in April that was canceled at the 11th hour.

Many of those 1,400 items -- which included sequined costumes and Jackson's red gilded throne -- were thought to be among the belongings returned to Neverland this week.

"We removed everything -- the gates, the fireplaces, the chandeliers," said auctioneer Darren Julien, who spent three months at Neverland last year with the approval of the singer.

"It was still a magical place when we were given access to it. The outdoors was a little bit run down -- the rides needed maintaining. But on the inside, the rooms were exactly the way Michael left them in 2005," he said.

Brooks doubted the murkier associations of Neverland would deter potential tourists. "People are always curious. They want to see where things supposedly happened. Jackson had some of the most troubling times of his life at Neverland and he ran away from it, but that is part of the draw," he said.

(Editing by Sandra Maler)

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) –
Michael Jackson's funeral is being scheduled for 10 a.m. on Tuesday, July 7, at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles, sources said.

AEG Live, which owns the basketball arena and the adjacent Nokia Theater, will use both facilities and the surrounding plaza. There's no word yet on how ticketing will be handled.

Earlier speculation had the funeral being held everywhere from Neverland to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

(Editing by Dean Gooodman at Reuters)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) –
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday declared a fiscal emergency to force lawmakers into a special session to tackle a state budget gap that has widened to $26.3 billion from $24.3 billion after they failed to close it on Tuesday.

Lawmakers debated late into the night Tuesday but could not agree on a plan to balance California's budget for its new fiscal year, which began early Wednesday morning.

That cleared the way for state officials to suspend payments owed to vendors and local agencies, who instead will get "IOU" notes promising payment.

The notes would mark the first time in 17 years the most populous U.S. state's government would have to resort to the unusual and dramatic measure -- and would follow warnings by Wall Street that the state's credit ratings may be lowered, which would increase its borrowing costs.

"Though the legislature failed to solve our budget problem yesterday, rest assured that solving the entire deficit remains my first and only priority, and I will not rest until we get it done. I will not be a part of pushing this crisis down the road -- the road stops here," Schwarzenegger said in a statement.

While California lawmakers struggle with budget deadlines nearly every year, this budget fight is taking place amid the state's worst drop in revenues from personal income taxes since the Great Depression as recession and rising joblessness worsen damage done to the state economy from the housing slump.

Democrats, who control the legislature, could not convince Republicans to either back their plans to tackle the shortfall or make a stopgap effort to ward off the IOUs. The two sides agree on the need for spending cuts, but are split over whether to raise taxes to help fill the gap.

Democrats have pushed for new revenues while Republican lawmakers and Schwarzenegger, also a Republican, have ruled out tax increases. They want deep spending cuts to balance the budget. Democrats say that would slash the state's safety net for the needy to the bone.

California bonds due in 10 to 30 years traded stronger in the secondary municipal market as it priced in a missed budget deadline, said Municipal Market Data analyst Domenic Vonella.

"We've seen Cal GO paper widen for the last three weeks or so ... Today things are a few basis points better," added Parker Colvin, head of municipal securities trading at Stone & Youngberg in San Francisco.

CASH CRISIS LOOMS

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the Obama administration is keeping a close eye on California's woes. State officials have proposed the U.S. government help with financial aid or by vouching for state debt. "We continue to watch the situation and we'll see as it develops," Gibbs said.

In Sacramento, California's capital, State Treasurer Bill Lockyer's office is preparing plans to issue short-term debt assuming Washington will not guarantee it.

"We've been operating since May under the assumption that there will be no help forthcoming," said Lockyer spokesman Tom Dresslar. "We did not ask for a bailout, repeat, we did not ask for a bailout. We wanted the federal government to step in and provide a backstop for our cash-flow borrowing."

Meanwhile, the lack of a budget may trigger action by Wall Street credit ratings agencies.

Fitch last week downgraded its rating on California's general obligation debt by one notch to A-minus, placing it four notches above speculative, or "junk" status, and making it the lowest rating of any U.S. state.

Fitch also warned of further downgrades, just as Standard & Poor's has warned of possible downgrades to California's general obligation debt. Moody's has said the state could see a multinotch downgrade of its A2 rating.

Moody's had no immediate comment on California's IOU plan or its failure to pass a budget. Fitch and S&P analysts were not immediately available to comment.

In Sacramento, tempers flared in the state Senate as the midnight start of the new fiscal year and IOUs neared.

"There is no excuse to hold this whole state hostage," state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg told Republicans during a floor debate.

Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth countered that major cuts are urgently needed. Otherwise, "there will be entire programs that will have to be lopped off," he said.

Due to its steep decline in revenue, California risks running out of cash later this month to pay all of its bills unless its books are balanced quickly. To conserve cash, State Controller John Chiang plans to issue IOUs by Thursday to state vendors, some local agencies and various recipients of state aid, including the elderly, disabled and college students.

Chiang plans to send $3.36 billion in IOUs this month to help make $10.9 billion in other payments, including money owed to investors holding California's debt. "The general obligation bonds will be paid," he told Reuters. "California has never defaulted on its debt obligation and we don't plan to do so."

California, which had the eighth largest economy in the world in 2006, according it its Legislative Analysts' Office, now needs to reassure Wall Street because state officials see the need to sell $7 billion to $9 billion of short-term debt once there is a budget agreement.

(Additional reporting by Marianne Russ in Sacramento, Lisa Lambert and Doug Palmer in Washington))

LOS ANGELES – Karl Malden, the Academy Award-winning actor whose intelligent characterizations on stage, screen and television made him a star despite his plain looks, died Wednesday, his family said. He was 97.
Malden died of natural causes surrounded by his family at his Brentwood home, they told the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. He served as the academy's president from 1989-92.
"Karl lived a rich, full life," Academy president Sid Ganis said. "He has the greatest and most loving family; a career that has spanned the spectrum of the arts from theater to film and television, to some very famous commercial work."
While he tackled a variety of characters over the years, he was often seen in working-class garb or military uniform. His authenticity in grittier roles came naturally: He was the son of a Czech mother and a Serbian father, and worked for a time in the steel mills of Gary, Ind., after dropping out of college.
Malden said he got his celebrated bulbous nose when he broke it a couple of times playing basketball or football, joking that he was "the only actor in Hollywood whose nose qualifies him for handicapped parking." He liked to say he had "an open-hearth face."
Malden won a supporting actor Oscar in 1951 for his role as Blanche DuBois' naive suitor Mitch in "A Streetcar Named Desire" — a role he also played on Broadway.
He was nominated again as best supporting actor in 1954 for his performance as Father Corrigan, a fearless, friend-of-the-workingman priest in "On the Waterfront." In both movies, he costarred with Marlon Brando.
"When you worked with him, he was the character," said Eva Marie Saint, who garnered a supporting actress Oscar for her role in "Waterfront." "He was the consummate actor and he loved acting. He was dear and smart. Whatever he did he enjoyed life."
Among his other memorable roles were: "Birdman of Alcatraz" opposite Burt Lancaster; "I Confess" with Montgomery Clift; "How the West Was Won;" and "The Cincinnati Kid" opposite Steve McQueen and Edward G. Robinson.
His more than 50 credits included "Patton," in which he played Gen. Omar Bradley, "Pollyanna," "Fear Strikes Out," "The Sting II," "Bombers B-52," "Cheyenne Autumn," and "All Fall Down."
One of his most controversial films was "Baby Doll" in 1956, in which he played a dullard husband whose child bride is exploited by a businessman. It was condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency for what was termed its "carnal suggestiveness." The story was by "Streetcar" author Tennessee Williams.
Malden gained perhaps his greatest fame as Lt. Mike Stone in the 1970s television show "The Streets of San Francisco," in which Michael Douglas played the veteran detective's junior partner.
Douglas was 28 when he earned his first major break on the detective series with Malden, who was 60. He recalled that Malden often called him "buddy boy."
"He was fantastic. He just had a tremendous discipline, tremendous ethics," Douglas told AP Television News on Wednesday. "He insisted that next's week's script would be there when we was shooting that week's script. Every time between setups, between breaks, we'd go in the trailer and run lines for the next's week's show. That's the kind of discipline, training I got from Karl."
Douglas saluted Malden last month when he received the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award.
"It was Karl who, more than anyone, got me to understand that an actor is just one part of a whole team that makes a TV series or movie work," Douglas said at the event, which will be televised July 19 on the TV Land channel.
In the '70s, Malden gained a lucrative 21-year sideline and a place in pop culture with his "Don't leave home without them" ads for American Express.
"The Streets of San Francisco" earned him five Emmy nominations. He won one for his role as a murder victim's father out to bring his former son-in-law to justice in the 1985 miniseries "Fatal Vision." He and Saint played husband and wife.

Malden played Barbra Streisand's stepfather in the 1987 film "Nuts;" Adm. Elmo Zumwalt Jr. in the 1988 TV film "My Father, My Son;" and Leon Klinghoffer, the cruise ship passenger murdered by terrorists in 1985, in the 1989 TV film "The Hijacking of the Achille Lauro."

He acted sparingly in recent years, appearing in 2000 in a small role on TV's "The West Wing."

In 2004, Malden received the Screen Actors Guild's Lifetime Achievement Award, telling the group in his acceptance speech that "this is the peak for me."

Malden first gained prominence on Broadway in the late 1930s, making his debut in "Golden Boy" by Clifford Odets. It was during this time that he met Elia Kazan, who later was to direct him in "Streetcar" and "Waterfront."

He steadily gained more prominent roles, with time out for service in the Army in World War II (and a role in an Army show, "Winged Victory.")

"A Streetcar Named Desire" opened on Broadway in 1947 and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize and New York Drama Critics Circle awards. Brando's breakthrough performance might have gotten most of the attention, but Malden did not want for praise. Once critic called him "one of the ablest young actors extant."

Among his other stage appearances were "Key Largo," "Winged Victory," Arthur Miller's "All My Sons," "The Desperate Hours," and "The Egghead."

Malden was known for his meticulous preparation, studying a script carefully long before he stepped into his role.

"I not only figure out my own interpretation of the role, but try to guess other approaches that the director might like. I prepare them, too," he said in a 1962 Associated Press interview. "That way, I can switch in the middle of a scene with no sweat."

"There's no such thing as an easy job, not if you do it right," he added.

He was born Mladen Sekulovich in Chicago on March 22, 1912. Malden regretted that in order to become an actor he had to change his name. He insisted that Fred Gwynne's character in "On the Waterfront" be named Sekulovich to honor his heritage.

The family moved to Gary, Ind., when he was small. He quit his steel job 1934 to study acting at Chicago's Goodman Theatre "because I wasn't getting anywhere in the mills," he recalled.

"When I told my father, he said, `Are you crazy? You want to give up a good job in the middle of the Depression?' Thank god for my mother. She said to give it a try."

In 2005, the U.S. Postal Service honored Malden by naming the post office in Brentwood to honor his achievement in film and his contributions to the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee, which meets to discuss ideas for stamp designs.

Malden helped create the "Legends of Hollywood" stamp series that has featured Marilyn Monroe, James Dean and Gary Cooper, and another celebrating Hollywood's behind-the-scenes workers.

"As a kid, all the letters that would come from the old country, he would see the stamps and they always intrigued him," said David Failor, executive director of stamp services for the Postal Service. "He was such a regular guy."

Malden and his wife, Mona, a fellow acting student at the Goodman, had one of Hollywood's longest marriages, having celebrated their 70th anniversary in December.

"That was sort of the last goodbye," said Saint, who attended a party in the couple's honor. "His wish was, `After I die, I don't want you to do anything but have a party.' So another party is coming up."

Besides his wife, Malden is survived by daughters Mila and Cara, his sons-in-law, three granddaughters, and four great grandchildren.

___

Associated Press writer Polly Anderson in New York contributed to this report.

LOWER HELMAND RIVER VALLEY, AFGHANISTAN (Reuters) –
U.S. Marines launched a helicopter assault early on Thursday in the lower Helmand river valley in southern Afghanistan, spokesman Capt. Bill Pelletier said.

A Reuters correspondent in the valley saw flares in the sky over the town of Nawa, south of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah.

Nearly 4,000 Marines and U.S. sailors are taking part in the assault, code-named Operation Khanjar (Strike of the Sword), along with about 650 Afghan troops and police, a Marines press statement said.

"What makes Operation Khanjar different from those that have occurred before is the massive size of the force introduced, the speed at which it will insert and the fact that where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold ..." it quoted Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, commanding officer of the Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan, as saying.

The valley of irrigated wheat and opium fields along the Helmand river is largely in the hands of Taliban fighters who have resisted British-led NATO forces for years.

The United States has sent 8,500 Marines to Helmand province in the last two months, the largest wave of a massive buildup of forces that will see the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan rise from 32,000 at the beginning of this year to 68,000 by year's end.

President Barack Obama has declared the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan to be the main security threat facing the United States.

Helmand province is one of the Taliban's main heartlands in southern Afghanistan and produces the largest share of the country's opium crop which supplies 90 percent of the world's heroin.

Attacks by Taliban fighters are at their highest levels since the strict Islamists were driven out of Kabul by U.S.-backed Afghan opponents in 2001 after refusing to turn over Osama bin Laden in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

U.S. and NATO commanders have said they intend to deploy American reinforcements to seize Taliban-held territory in the south in time for Afghanistan to hold a presidential election on August 20.

(Reporting by Peter Graff, editing by Tim Pearce)

MORONI, Comoros – The lone survivor of a Yemeni jetliner crash, who clung to wreckage for 13 hours before being rescued, lay in a hospital bed with a broken collarbone Wednesday, asking for little — except for a chance to see her mother.
But relatives said 14-year-old Bahia Bakari was too traumatized to be told her mother was feared dead, along with 151 others on board the Yemenia airways flight.
"I have told her that her mother is in the next room," the girl's uncle, Joseph Yousouf, told The Associated Press outside a hospital in this former French colony, where the jetliner was attempting to land in fierce winds before dawn Tuesday when it slammed into the Indian Ocean.
He said the girl was coherent and asking for food.
"They were coming to Comoros for vacation," Yousouf said of Bahia, who lived with her parents and three younger siblings outside Paris. "She was going to be staying with her grandmother."
The girl's father, Kassim Bakari, described his daughter as "fragile" and said she could "barely swim," but still managed to hang on for hours.
Her account of the crash aftermath seemed to indicate others survived the initial impact.
"I spoke to her this afternoon ... and I asked her what happened," Bakari said from his home in a suburb south of Paris. "She said 'Papa, we saw the plane going down in the water. I was in the water, I could hear people talking, but I couldn't see anyone. I was in the dark, I couldn't see a thing.'"
Bakari fingered his wife Aziza's old passport as he recalled the final moments before she and his daughter boarded the plane in Paris.
"When we arrived at the airport, I kissed both, then my wife turned around, she looked at me and she waved," he said. "That was the last time I saw my wife alive. My daughter... I will see her again I hope, but for my wife it was the last time."
The passengers on the downed plane, an aging Airbus 310, were flying the last leg of a journey from Paris and Marseille to Comoros, with a stop in Yemen to change planes. Most on board were from Comoros and 66 were French citizens. Severe turbulence was believed to be a factor in the crash, Yemen's embassy in Washington said.
For many, Bahia's survival was nothing short of miraculous.
On Wednesday, more than a dozen people — most of them government officials — crowded into a small room in Moroni's El Maaruf Hospital where Bahia lay curled in a fetal position, covered by a blue blanket.
She was conscious with bruises on her face and gauze bandages on her right elbow and right foot; at one point, she gamely shook the hand of Alain Joyandet, France's minister for international cooperation.
"It is a true miracle. She is a courageous young girl," Joyandet said of Bahia, who held onto floating debris from 1:30 a.m to 3 p.m. before she was seen by a passing boat, which rescued her.
"She really showed an absolutely incredible physical and moral strength," he said. "She is physically out of danger, but she is evidently very traumatized."
Bahia was flown home to Paris late Wednesday aboard a chartered executive jet and was to be taken to a hospital for further treatment, Joyandet said.
French and American recovery crews, meanwhile, continued to search for the plane's black boxes in deep waters off the Comoros after detecting a distress beacon. Officials hope the flight data and cockpit voice recorders will provide clues to the cause of the crash. Once retrieved, they will be taken to France for analysis, Yemenia said.

It was not immediately clear which section of the passenger cabin the girl had been sitting in. But if the plane flew into the water at speed, the impact damage to the fuselage would have been so violent and extensive that no part of the cabin would have been safer than any other, experts said.

Hassan al-Hawthi, the head of maintenance at Yemenia, told reporters Wednesday that air traffic controllers had instructed the pilot to change course because of the strong wind. He said there was no distress call before the crash.

The London-based International Federation of Air Line Pilots Association said the plane may have been trying to go around for another approach when it hit the sea.

The 9,558-feet long runway at Prince Said Ibrahim International Airport on Moroni island is adequate for modern airliners, but is considered a difficult one due to weather conditions and the surrounding hills. Some airlines provide special training to pilots who need to fly in there.

Pilots coming in from the north, as the Yemenia flight was doing, must land their planes visually and don't have any all-weather instrument landing system to help them.

"The field in question is thought of as being challenging, and certain operators consider it a daytime-only airport," said Gideon Ewers of the pilots' association.

Tuesday's crash came two years after aviation officials reported equipment faults with the plane.

The French air accident investigation agency BEA was sending a team of safety investigators, accompanied by advisers from Airbus, to Comoros, an archipelago of three main islands 1,800 miles south of Yemen, between Africa's southeastern coast and the island of Madagascar.

A judicial inquiry headed by three judges was also opened to determine the cause of the crash and those who eventually could be held responsible.

Rescue boats plied the waters north of the main island Wednesday and scores of people gathered on nearby beaches to watch.

"The sea is pretty rough at the present time, the wind is blowing hard and the drift is strong ... The bodies of the victims and the debris are drifting rapidly towards the north," said Christophe Prazuck, spokesman for the French military joint staff.

The tragedy prompted an outcry in Comoros, where residents have long complained of a lack of seat belts on Yemenia flights and planes so overcrowded that passengers had to stand in the aisles.

French aviation inspectors found a "number of faults" in the plane's equipment during a 2007 inspection, French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said.

European Union Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani said the airline had previously met EU safety checks but would now face a full investigation amid questions over why passengers were put on another jet in Yemen for the final leg to Comoros.

"We can't accept that a plane is banned from Europe but still allowed to fly in Africa. It's the proof that our world isn't fair and that human beings don't weigh the same depending on which side of the Mediterranean they are," said Gilles Poux, mayor of the Paris suburb of La Courneuve, where Comorans gathered for prayers.

Mohammed Abdul Qader, the Yemenia spokesman and deputy head of civil aviation, said the same plane that crashed had flown to London about a week ago.

Abdul-Khaleq Al-Qadi, chairman of Yemenia's board, said the company has decided to pay families $28,300 for each death.

He added that maintenance was carried out regularly according to high standards.

"The crash has nothing to do with maintenance," he told reporters in San'a, adding that the aircraft received maintenance just two months before the crash under the supervision of an Airbus technical team.

___

Associated Press writers Emmanuel Georges-Picot in Paris, Yoann Guilloux in Saint-Denis de la Reunion, Slobodan Lekic in Brussels and Ahmed al-Haj in San'a, Yemen contributed to this report.

NEW YORK (Reuters) –
Angelina Jolie is Hollywood's top earning actress, banking $27 million in the past year to beat out her partner Brad Pitt's ex-wife Jennifer Aniston, who raked in $25 million, a Forbes.com study showed on Wednesday.

Most of Jolie's income came from her share of the profits from her action film "Wanted," but she was also paid a large upfront sum for her role in "Salt," the study said. Jolie and Pitt have six children.

Aniston, who was married to Pitt before he became involved with Jolie, earned most of her millions from the romantic comedy "Marley and Me" and her upcoming film "The Baster."

"Aniston also still earns money from (reruns of TV series) Friends and she gets a nice paycheck shilling for Glaceau's SmartWater," Forbes.com said.

Meryl Streep came in at No. 3 with $24 million, most of which came from her role in "Mamma Mia," while Sarah Jessica Parker was ranked fourth with $23 million in earnings following the movie version of TV series "Sex and the City."

Cameron Diaz rounds out the top five, banking $20 million between June 2008 and June 2009.

Forbes.com said it spoke to agents, managers, producers and lawyers to work out what actresses were paid upfront for movies they are currently shooting and what pay they might have earned after a movie hit the theaters. Money earned from perfume or clothing lines was also taken into account.

"As is still typical for Hollywood, our actresses earned significantly less than their male counterparts," Forbes.com said, pointing out that the top earning male actor, Harrison Ford, made $65 million.

The full list can be seen at http://www.forbes.com.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols, editing by Vicki Allen)

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In the early 1800s, Spanish explorers named the area "Agua Caliente" (hot water). An alternative use of palm is revealed in the November 1992 issue of Art of California. At least one Spanish explorer referred to the area as la Palma de la Mano de dios or "The Palm of God's hand," (page 45). The current name for the area is "Palm Springs" which likely came into common usage in the mid-1860s when the land was first surveyed by U.S. Government surveyors who noted that a local mineral spring was located at the base of “two bunches of palms". By 1884 when San Francisco attorney John Guthrie McCallum settled in Palm Springs, the name was already in wide acceptance.

As of the 2000 census, there were 42,807 people, 20,516 households, and 9,457 families residing in the city. The population density was 454.2 people per square mile (175.4/km²). There were 30,823 housing units at an average density of 327.0/sq mi (126.3/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 78.33% White, 3.93% African American, 0.94% Native American, 3.83% Asian, 0.14% Pacific Islander, 9.78% from other races, and 3.06% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 23.72% of the population.

WASHINGTON – Hardly a bank bailout hearing goes by in Congress without a lawmaker raising a question on behalf of constituent banks that have applied for federal assistance from the government's financial bailout fund.
Now, the case of Sen. Daniel Inouye and his office's inquiry to a federal regulator regarding a Hawaii bank is drawing new attention to the role lawmakers are playing in the government's decisions on how to divvy up the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Constituent service or undue influence?
In Inouye's case, the Hawaii Democrat was also one of the founders of the bank, Central Pacific Financial. And while he holds no official position with it, he is a shareholder who has watched the value of his stock in the bank drop precipitously.
According to Inouye's office, a legislative assistant placed a call last fall to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the bank's regulator, to ask whether the agency had received the bank's application for TARP money.
The inquiry by Inouye's office was first reported Tuesday by The Washington Post.
In a statement, Inouye said his aide simply left a voicemail message with the FDIC and did not speak to anyone at the agency.
"This single phone call was the entire extent of my staff's contact with regard to Central Pacific Bank, to any outside agency," Inouye's statement said.
Inouye's office said an FDIC official called back days later and left a voicemail message saying the application was still under review.
The bank announced in December that its application for $135 million in TARP funds had been approved.
"We did not ask for any preferential treatment in this process," bank spokesman Andrew Rosen said Wednesday. He said the bank briefed Hawaii's congressional delegation about its application "as a normal course of business."
Rosen said that thanks to the additional capital the bank this year is on track to exceed the amount of home loans it originated last year.
Numerous lawmakers have pressed regulators and the Treasury Department to act on the applications of banks that serve their districts or communities. The Ohio congressional delegation complained loudly last year when Treasury declined to give TARP funds to National City Bank, a longtime Cleveland institution.
OneUnited of Massachusetts received $12 million in federal funds in December after Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, contacted regulators and included in legislation a provision that assisted the bank. Before that, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., had organized a meeting with regulators and executives of minority-owned banks, including OneUnited, a bank in which Waters' husband has invested.
Earlier this year, Neel Kashkari, then the Treasury official in charge of the TARP program, faced questions during a congressional hearing about news reports suggesting that Treasury was getting political pressure.
"We do get calls from members (of Congress). We do get calls from governors who are concerned about their districts or their businesses, et cetera," he said. But he said those calls usually are referred to agencies that regulate the institutions.
"I feel very confident in saying there is no undue influence at Treasury," Kashkari said then.
Neil Barofsky, the inspector general overseeing the TARP money, is preparing a report on Treasury's guidelines and procedures for distributing the funds. The review includes an examination of whether there has been any undue outside influence on Treasury, including from lobbyists or politicians. The report could be ready by the end of the month, a spokeswoman said.

http://www.singlesoffaith.com

According to The San Francisco Chronicle in 2005, "Mobile dating is the next big leap in online socializing." More than 3.6 million cell phone users logged into mobile dating sites in March 2007, with most users falling in the under 35 age range.

According to Scientific American, Virtual Dating is "the next step in online dating" (Feb/March 2007, p.35) .

WASHINGTON – Federal health officials say at least 12 people have been hospitalized in connection with a possible E.coli outbreak in beef and two of them suffered kidney failure.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 23 people in nine states may have become ill after eating beef produced by JBS Swift Beef Co. of Greeley, Colo.
The company recalled about 380,000 pounds of beef this week after some illnesses were reported and a government investigation showed a possible connection to the company's product. That recall expanded a June 24 recall of just over 41,000 pounds.
The CDC says health officials in several states investigating the strain of E. coli found that most ill persons had consumed ground beef, and many reported that it was undercooked.

RFID Blocking Wallet

A wallet, or billfold, is a small, flat case used to carry personal items such as cash, credit cards and identification documents, such as a driver's license. Wallets are generally made of leather or fabrics, and they are usually pocket-sized.

Other types of small bags can also serve as wallets, such as this golf tee bag which is used to hold credit cards and money.

Halloween Costume

The telling of ghost stories and viewing of horror films are common fixtures of Halloween parties. Episodes of TV series and specials with Halloween themes (with the specials usually aimed at children) are commonly aired on or before the holiday while new horror films, like the popular Saw films, are often released theatrically before the holiday to take advantage of the atmosphere.

On Halloween night in present-day Ireland, adults and children dress up as creatures from the underworld (e.g., ghosts, ghouls, zombies, witches and goblins), light bonfires, and enjoy spectacular fireworks displays – in particular, the city of Derry is home to the largest organised Halloween celebration on the island, in the form of a street carnival and fireworks display. It is also common for fireworks to be set off for the entire month preceding Halloween, as well as a few days after.

Washington –
Next week, President Obama will travel to Moscow to attend a summit with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. He should use that opportunity to engage not only with the government of Russia, but to communicate directly to the Russian-speaking world.
Correctly, the Obama administration has focused on the need to reach out directly to adherents of the Muslim faith. Last month in Cairo, surrounded by hundreds of young people, students, and activists, Mr. Obama eloquently conveyed both America's values and hopes for a better relationship with the Muslim world, a relationship rooted in genuine respect.
As of now, no major speech to reach the hearts and minds of the Russian-speaking world is planned, but it should be part of the president's agenda during his visit to Moscow. Russians, and the vast majority of their neighbors, suffer from a freedom deficit comparable to that experienced by all too many inhabitants of the Middle East. In assessing the state of freedom in the countries of the former Soviet Union – excluding the three tiny Baltic States – the nongovernmental organization Freedom House actually finds lower levels of freedom than in the Middle East.
In most of these countries, including Russia itself, a corrupt ruling elite controls and exploits the country's major resources for its own enrichment. Elections are largely meaningless exercises in which there is no viable competition. And any civil society groups that attempt to engage in politically sensitive topics – like human rights or anticorruption – are stifled, sometimes brutally.
Within Russia, all meaningful mass media serve as a mouthpiece for the Kremlin. The Russian people are bombarded by a sophisticated propaganda campaign that taps into nationalist sentiments and invents outside enemies to justify the consolidation of power. School curricula have been adjusted to glorify Soviet achievements, while playing down its depredations. In May, President Medvedev announced the creation of a new Commission to Protect Russian History, which will serve to counter historical narratives that portray Russia in a negative light. Even the Orthodox Church feeds the idea of the strong state and Russian exceptionalism.
This campaign has been extremely effective in exploiting Russians' humiliation at the collapse of the Soviet empire. It incorporates both nostalgia for its superpower past with viciously anti-Western, and particularly anti-American, rhetoric.
Propaganda has also capitalized on anti-Bush sentiment to tarnish the ideas of freedom and democracy and to present these values as incompatible with Russian traditions and culture. No matter that these same arguments were once made regarding the culture and history of Asians and Latin Americans and adherents to the Roman Catholic or Muslim faiths – arguments that have since been repudiated by the reality that all people want to enjoy fundamental freedoms.
Can a speech from Obama hope to counter such a well-resourced and sophisticated anti-American and antidemocracy campaign? Certainly not by itself. But, just as in Cairo, it would be an important step if done in the right way. Russians don't like being preached to by foreigners any more than Egyptians, Turks, Iranians, or for that matter, Americans, do.
Yet they may respond to a frank and respectful speech that emphasizes America's real desire – not for a weak and subservient Russia – but rather a strong Russia that shares its democratic values and that can be a real partner in tackling some of the world's growing list of crises.
Even if successful, outreach to the Russian people will not resolve the problem of a Kremlin that subverts freedom and democracy. But the past eight years have taught us nothing if not the importance of the hearts and minds of people. We are already starting to reset our relationship with the Russian government. We should make a strong effort to do so with the Russian people as well.
Paula Schriefer is the director of advocacy at Freedom House, an independent nongovernmental organization that supports the expansion of freedom in the world.

Adult Diapers

The purpose of a diaper is to absorb moisture and contain mess so that the wearer can remain dry and comfortable after wetting or soiling themselves. When diapers become full and can no longer hold any more waste, they require changing; this process is often performed by a secondary person such as a parent or caregiver. Failure to change a diaper on a regular enough basis can result in diaper rash.

The decision to use cloth or disposable diapers is a controversial one, owing to issues ranging from convenience, health, cost, and their effect on the environment. Currently, disposable diapers are the most commonly used, with Pampers and Huggies being the most well-known brands in the industry. Plastic pants can be worn over diapers to avoid leaks.

LOS ANGELES – Michael Jackson was so distraught over persistent insomnia in recent months that he pleaded for a powerful sedative despite warnings it could be harmful, says a nutritionist who was working with the singer as he prepared his comeback bid.
Cherilyn Lee, a registered nurse whose specialty includes nutritional counseling, said Tuesday that she repeatedly rejected his demands for the drug, Diprivan, which is given intravenously.
But a frantic phone call she received from Jackson four days before his death made her fear that he somehow obtained Diprivan or another drug to induce sleep, Lee said.
While in Florida on June 21, Lee was contacted by a member of Jackson's staff.
"He called and was very frantic and said, `Michael needs to see you right away.' I said, 'What's wrong?' And I could hear Michael in the background ..., 'One side of my body is hot, it's hot, and one side of my body is cold. It's very cold,'" Lee said.
"I said, `Tell him he needs to go the hospital. I don't know what's going on, but he needs to go to the hospital ... right away."
"At that point, I knew that somebody had given him something that hit the central nervous system," she said, adding, "He was in trouble Sunday and he was crying out."
Jackson did not go to the hospital. He died June 25 after suffering cardiac arrest, his family said. Autopsies have been conducted, but an official cause of death is not expected for several weeks.
"I don't know what happened there. The only thing I can say is he was adamant about this drug," Lee said.
Following Jackson's death, allegations emerged that the 50-year-old King of Pop had been consuming painkillers, sedatives and antidepressants. But Lee said she encountered a man tortured by sleep deprivation and one who expressed opposition to recreational drug use.
"He wasn't looking to get high or feel good and sedated from drugs," she said. "This was a person who was not on drugs. This was a person who was seeking help, desperately, to get some sleep, to get some rest."
Jackson was rehearsing hard for what would have been his big comeback — his "This Is It" tour, a series of performances that would have strained his aging dancer's body. Also, pain had been a part of his life since 1984, when his scalp was severely burned during a Pepsi commercial shoot.
Several months ago, Jackson had begun badgering Lee about Diprivan, also known as Propofol, Lee said. It is an intravenous anesthetic drug widely used in operating rooms to induce unconsciousness. It is generally given through an IV needle in the hand.
Patients given Propofol take less time to regain consciousness than those administered certain other drugs, and they report waking up more clear-headed and refreshed, said University of Chicago psychopharmacologist James Zacny.
It has also been implicated in drug abuse, with people using it to "chill out" or to commit suicide, Zacny said. Accidental deaths linked to abuse have been reported. The powerful drug has a very narrow therapeutic window, meaning it doesn't take doses much larger than the medically recommended amount to stop a person's breathing.
An overdose that stops breathing can result in a buildup of carbon dioxide, causing the heart to beat erratically and leading to cardiac arrest, said Dr. John Dombrowski, a member of the board of directors of the American Society of Anesthesiologists.
Because it is given intravenously and is not the kind of prescription drug typically available from pharmacists, abuse cases have involved anesthesiologists, nurses and other hospital staffers with easy access to the drug, Zacny said.
In recent months, Lee said, Jackson waved away her warnings about it.

"I had an IV and when it hit my vein, I was sleeping. That's what I want," Lee said Jackson told her.

"I said, 'Michael, the only problem with you taking this medication' — and I had a chill in my body and tears in my eyes three months ago — 'the only problem is you're going to take it and you're not going to wake up," she recalled.

According to Lee, Jackson said it had been given to him before but he didn't want to discuss the circumstances or identify the doctor involved.

The singer also drew his own distinctions when it came to drugs versus prescription medicine.

"He said, `I don't like drugs. I don't want any drugs. My doctor told me this is a safe medicine,'" Lee said. The next day, she said she brought a copy of the Physician's Desk Reference to show him the section on Diprivan.

"He said, 'No, my doctor said it's safe. It works quick and it's safe as long as somebody's here to monitor me and wake me up. It's going be OK,'" Lee said. She said he did not give the doctor's name.

Lee said at one point, she spent the night with Jackson to monitor him while he slept. She said she gave him herbal remedies and stayed in a corner chair in his vast bedroom.

After he settled in bed, Lee told Jackson to turn down the lights and music — he had classical music playing in the house. "He also had a computer on the bed because he loved Walt Disney," she said. "He was watching Donald Duck and it was ongoing. I said, `Maybe if we put on softer music,' and he said, `No, this is how I go to sleep.'"

Three and a half hours later, Jackson jumped up and looked at Lee, eyes wide open, according to Lee. "This is what happens to me," she quoted him as saying. "All I want is to be able to sleep. I want to be able to sleep eight hours. I know I'll feel better the next day."

Lee, 56, is licensed as a registered nurse and nurse practitioner in California, according to the state Board of Registered Nursing's Web site. She attended Los Angeles Southwest College and the Charles Drew University of Medicine and Sciences in Los Angeles.

Comedian Dick Gregory, who knows Lee and her work, said he believes Jackson's insomnia had its roots in the pop star's 2005 trial on child molestation charges. Jackson's health had deteriorated so much that his parents called Gregory, a natural foods proponent, for help.

Gregory said Jackson wasn't eating or drinking at the time and, after he was persuaded by Gregory to undergo testing, ended up hospitalized for severe dehydration.

But Jackson obviously was healthy enough to withstand the level of medical scrutiny needed to insure him for the upcoming high-stakes London concerts, Gregory said. "That you don't trick," he said of the exams.

Lee, who has also worked with Stevie Wonder, Marla Gibbs, Reynaldo Rey and other celebrities, said she was introduced to Jackson by the mother of one of his staff members. Jackson's three children had minor cold symptoms and their pediatrician was out of town.

Lee said she went to the house in January, the first of about 10 visits there through April, and treated the children with vitamins. Michael, intrigued, asked what else she did and took her up on her claim she could boost his energy.

After running blood tests, she devised protein shakes for him and gave him an intravenous vitamin and mineral mixture — known as a "Myers cocktail," after Dr. John Myers — which Lee said she uses routinely in her practice.

"It wasn't that he felt sick," she said. "He just wanted more energy."

Lee said she decided to speak out to protect Jackson's reputation from what she considers unfounded allegations of drug abuse or shortcomings as a parent.

"I think it's so wrong for people to say these things about him," she said. "He was a wonderful, loving father who wanted the best for his children."

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner in Chicago and AP Television Writer David Bauder in New York contributed to this report.

Women's Activewear

The practical function of clothing is to protect the human body from dangers in the environment: weather (strong sunlight, extreme heat or cold, and precipitation, for example), insects, noxious chemicals, weapons, and contact with abrasive substances, and other hazards. Clothing can protect against many things that might injure the naked human body. In some cases clothing protects the environment from the clothing wearer as well (example: medical scrubs).

Other cultures have supplemented or replaced leather and skins with cloth: woven, knitted, or twined from various animal and vegetable fibers.

and the US currency was involved in 86.3% of transactions, followed by the euro (37.0%), the yen (16.5%), and sterling (15.0%) (see table). Note that volume percentages should add up to 200%: 100% for all the sellers and 100% for all the buyers.

Trading in the euro has grown considerably since the currency's creation in January 1999, and how long the foreign exchange market will remain dollar-centered is open to debate. Until recently, trading the euro versus a non-European currency ZZZ would have usually involved two trades: EUR/USD and USD/ZZZ.

Forex Online Trading System MT4

WASHINGTON — The Social Security Administration has continued to pay millions of dollars in benefits to dead Americans, and other elderly U.S. residents are at risk of losing badly needed aid because they're improperly recorded as deceased, federal investigators warn in a new report.

The consequences of either bureaucratic error can be severe.

"The addition of erroneous death entries can lead to benefit termination, cause severe financial hardship and distress to affected individuals," investigators with the Social Security Administration's Office of Inspector General noted in the report, which was quietly released on Sunday.

The mistakes cost taxpayers and individual beneficiaries in different ways. Taxpayers are losing money when benefits are paid to the deceased. Individuals get into trouble when they're prematurely pronounced dead.

In Southern California and elsewhere last year, investigators analyzed 305 Social Security beneficiaries who were recorded as deceased in their Social Security Administration files. At least 140 of them were still alive.

All told, investigators say, more than 6,000 current Social Security beneficiaries are recorded as being deceased. An untold number of them are still, in fact, alive.

"There is no rhyme or reason," the Scott Nishioki, chief of staff for Rep. Jim Costa , D- Calif. , said Tuesday of the recurring Social Security problems. "Often, it's probably just a clerical error."

Costa's office has handled about 10 cases in the past four years in which constituents the Social Security Administration has incorrectly classified as dead, Nishioki said. Other congressional offices have periodically confronted the same problem.

The identified problems are only a fraction of the nation's 50 million Social Security beneficiaries, and Social Security officials say they've instituted protective measures.

Social Security officials already have recovered some of the improperly paid-out funds. They further agreed to investigate "as quickly as possible based on available resources" the correct status of 6,733 potentially deceased individuals identified in the new audit.

"We will investigate the alert and follow-up systems to assess how these cases were missed by our current controls," James A. Winn , chief of staff for the Social Security Administration , said in the agency's formal response.

An agency representative couldn't be reached Tuesday to elaborate on the audit.

Those affected can feel the problem acutely even if they're still getting Social Security checks, because Social Security death records can be used by other agencies.

Several individuals told investigators that they "had to prove to the Internal Revenue Service they were not deceased before receiving a refund," investigators noted. Some sought congressional help.

"A retired beneficiary expressed a recurring problem when he could not receive funding from his private pension plan since he was declared deceased," the investigators noted. "Each time he attempted to correct the issue, the problem recurred when the pension plan updated its death information."

The flip side of the problem occurs when a beneficiary is properly designated as deceased, but the Social Security benefits continue. Payments were made to dead beneficiaries in at least 88 out of the 305 cases studied by investigators. Some of these improper payments continued for years.

For instance, a New York City resident died in April 1990 . Nonetheless, Social Security checks of $1,185 were mailed out monthly, and cashed, until October 2008 . Investigators have since charged a suspect with improperly taking more than $210,000 in benefits.

All told, investigators found $2 million in improper payments were made to the 88 deceased beneficiaries. In some cases, a "death alert tracking system" hadn't properly notified Social Security field offices. In other cases, Social Security numbers were transposed.

Investigators in April further identified 6,733 Social Security benefit recipients whose master files "contained a date of death." Extrapolating from their smaller sample, investigators warned that more than $40 million may have been paid out improperly to deceased beneficiaries.

As a result of the new study, at least three dozen potential criminal cases have been forwarded to the agency's Office of Investigations for further inquiry and possible prosecution.

ON THE WEB

Audit report

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The modern bi-fold wallet with multiple "card slots" became standardized in the early 1950s with the introduction of the first credit cards. Some innovations include the introduction of the velcro-closure wallet in the 1970s.

Tri-fold wallet: a wallet with three folds, in which credit cards are generally stored vertically.

Here

DETROIT – Gunmen in a green minivan opened fire on a group of teenagers waiting at a bus stop near a Detroit school on Tuesday, wounding seven including three who were in critical condition, authorities said.
Five of the teens had just left Cody Ninth Grade Academy, where they were taking summer classes, when they were shot at the nearby bus stop.
The gunmen exited a vehicle and "asked for a person by name" before they "opened fire at the crowd," said Detroit Public Schools Police Chief Roderick Grimes. Detroit Police were looking for two suspects in a green minivan, said spokesman Rod Liggons.
The teenagers, four boys and three girls, range in age from 14 to 17 years old, Liggons said. Three of the teens were in critical condition, he said.
Another summer school student, 15-year-old Bria Wilson, said she was standing at the bus stop when she heard the gunfire. She said she was facing away from the shooters and ran away after the shots were fired. But she saw a 16-year-old male friend lying on the ground, bleeding.
"They were so close — it almost hit me," she said.
Schools spokesman Steve Wasko said there was "nothing that we're aware of at this time" linking the shootings with any fight or dispute at the school.
He said the shootings happened about 2:15 p.m., about 15 minutes after summer school students were dismissed for the day.
Imam Abdullah El-Amin, who co-owns the Numan Funeral Home near the intersection where the shooting took place, said drug-dealing, prostitution and "hopelessness" are common in the area, he said.
"It's terrible that these things are just laying there, festering, in society — time bombs waiting to happen," said El-Amin, a Muslim minister and candidate for Detroit City Council.
___
Associated Press writers Ben Leubsdorf and David N. Goodman contributed to this report.

Some of the significant cases the Supreme Court decided in its 2008-2009 term:
REVERSE DISCRIMINATION
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race. It was a decision that could alter employment practices nationwide and make it harder to prove discrimination where there is no evidence it was intentional. The white firefighters claimed they were discriminated against when the city tossed out the results of a promotion exam because too few minorities scored high enough. The city says it acted because it might have been vulnerable to claims that the exam had a "disparate impact" on minorities in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Decided on June 29, 2009.
STATE REGULATION OF BANKS
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that state attorneys general can investigate national banks for discrimination and other crimes in the states where they operate as long as they can convince a judge that investigations are needed. Federal courts had blocked an investigation begun by New York, which was backed by the other 49 states, of whether minorities were being charged higher interest rates on home mortgage loans by national banks with branches in New York. The high court ruled that state attorneys general cannot issue subpoenas or bring enforcement actions against banks on their own, but can go to court to get permission to investigate. Decided on June 29, 2009.
STRIP SEARCH
The Supreme Court ruled that school officials violated an Arizona teenager's rights by strip-searching her for prescription-strength ibuprofen. The court said educators cannot force children to remove their clothing unless student safety is at risk and they reasonably suspect where something is being hidden. In an 8-1 ruling, the justices said that Safford Middle School officials violated the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches with their treatment of Savana Redding, who was 13 at the time. The court ruled that the officials could not be held financially liable but left it to lower courts to decide if the school district could. Decided June 25, 2009.
VOTING RIGHTS
The Supreme Court narrowly ruled in a challenge to the landmark Voting Rights Act, siding with a small Texas governing authority but sidestepping the larger constitutional issue. The court in an 8-1 decision avoided the major questions raised over the federal government's most powerful tool to prevent discriminatory voting changes since the mid-1960s. The law requires all or parts of 16 states, mainly in the South, with a history of discrimination in voting to get approval before making changes in the way elections are conducted. The court said that the Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 in Austin, Texas, can apply to opt out of the advance approval requirement, reversing a lower federal court that found it could not. Decided on June 22, 2009.
SPECIAL EDUCATION
The Supreme Court ruled that parents don't have to send their special education students to public schools before seeking reimbursement for private school tuition. The justices ruled 6-3 that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act does not require public school attendance before parents of special ed students can ask to be reimbursed for the child's tuition at private schools. The family of a teenage Oregon boy has fought to get reimbursed for $65,000 in private tuition. Decided June 22, 2009.
AGE DISCRIMINATION
The Supreme Court made it harder to prove discrimination on the basis of age, ruling against an employee in his mid-50s who says he was demoted because of his age. In a 5-4 decision, the court said a worker has to prove that age was the key factor in an employment decision, even if there is some evidence that age played a role. In some other discrimination lawsuits, the burden of proof shifts to the employer once a worker shows there is some reason to believe a decision was made for improper reasons. Decided June 18, 2009.
DNA TESTING
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that convicts have no constitutional right to test genetic evidence to try to show their innocence. The court said it would not second-guess states or force them routinely to look again at criminal convictions. This decision could have a limited effect because 47 states and the federal government already have laws that allow DNA testing in some circumstances. William Osborne, convicted in a brutal assault on a prostitute in Alaska 16 years ago, sued for the right to test the contents of a blue condom the victim says was used by her attacker. Decided on June 18, 2009.
JUDICIAL ETHICS
The Supreme Court ruled that elected judges must step aside from cases when large campaign contributions from interested parties create the appearance of bias. By a 5-4 vote in a case from West Virginia, the court said that a judge who remained involved in a lawsuit filed against the company of the most generous supporter of his election deprived the other side of the constitutional right to a fair hearing. Justice at Stake, which tracks campaign spending in judicial elections, says judges are elected in 39 states and that candidates for the highest state courts have raised more than $168 million since 2000. Decided June 8, 2009.
IRAQ IMMUNITY

The Supreme Court ruled that the current government in Iraq cannot be held responsible for the actions of Saddam Hussein's regime. The high court unanimously turned away lawsuits from Americans who were held in Iraq during the Gulf War. The court said a federal law enacted in 2003 gave Iraq back the immunity that was stripped by the designation of Saddam's government as a sponsor of terrorism. Decided on June 8, 2009.

LAWYER REQUEST

The Supreme Court overturned a long-standing ruling that stopped police from initiating questions unless a defendant's lawyer was present, a move that will make it easier for prosecutors to interrogate suspects. The high court, in a 5-4 ruling, overturned the 1986 Michigan v. Jackson ruling, which said police may not initiate questioning of a defendant who has a lawyer or has asked for one unless the attorney is present. The court's opinion said the decision will have "minimal" effects on criminal defendants because of the protections the court has provided in other decisions. Decided on May 26, 2009.

QUALIFIED IMMUNITY

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that FBI Director Robert Mueller and former Attorney General John Ashcroft cannot be sued by a former Sept. 11 detainee who claimed he was abused because of his religion and ethnicity. This decision could make it harder to sue top officials for the actions of low-level operatives. The court overturned a lower court decision that let Javaid Iqbal's lawsuit against the high-ranking officials proceed. Iqbal is a Pakistani Muslim who spent nearly six months in solitary confinement in New York in 2002. He had argued that Ashcroft and Mueller were responsible for a policy of confining detainees in highly restrictive conditions because of their religious beliefs or race. Decided May 18, 2009.

MATERNITY LEAVE

The Supreme Court ruled that women who took maternity leave before it became illegal to discriminate against pregnant women can't sue to force employers to count their leave time for their pensions. Four AT&T Corp. employees who took maternity leave between 1968 and 1976 sued the company to get their leave time credited toward their pensions. Their pregnancies occurred before the 1979 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which barred companies from treating pregnancy leaves differently from other disability leaves. The high court, in a 7-2 ruling, overturned a lower-court decision that said that decades-old maternity leaves should count in determining pensions. Decided on May 18, 2009.

IDENTITY THEFT

A unanimous Supreme Court said that undocumented workers who use phony IDs can't be considered identity thieves without proof they knew they were stealing real people's Social Security and other numbers. The court's decision limits federal authorities' use of a 2004 identity theft law against immigrants who are picked up in workplace raids and found to be using false Social Security and alien registration numbers. Advocates for immigrants had complained authorities used the threat of prosecution on the identity theft charge to win guilty pleas on lesser charges and acceptance of prompt deportation. Decided May 4, 2009.

SUPERFUND

The Supreme Court said Shell Oil Co. cannot be held responsible for cleanup of a contaminated Superfund site owned by a defunct company simply because it delivered chemicals to the site. The court, in an 8-1 decision, also decided that railroad companies that leased the defunct company part of the land would only have to pay for a small part of the cleanup. Decided on May 4, 2009.

BROADCAST INDECENCY

The Supreme Court ruled narrowly in favor of a government policy that threatens broadcasters with fines over the use of even a single curse word on live television. The court, however, stopped short of deciding whether the policy violates the Constitution. By a 5-4 vote, the court threw out a lower court ruling that said the agency could not now start levying large fines for the type of fleeting expletives that it had let slide for years. This was the Supreme Court's first major broadcast indecency case in 30 years. Decided April 28, 2009.

WARRANTLESS SEARCH

The Supreme Court ruled that police need a warrant to search the vehicle of someone they have arrested if the person is locked up in a patrol cruiser and poses no safety threat to officers. The court's 5-4 decision puts new limits on the ability of police to search a vehicle immediately after the arrest of a suspect, particularly when the alleged offense is nothing more serious than a traffic violation. The court said warrantless searches still may be conducted if a car's passenger compartment is within reach of a suspect who has been removed from the vehicle or there is reason to believe evidence will be found of the crime that led to the arrest. Decided on April 21, 2009.

POWER PLANTS

The Supreme Court ruled that the government can weigh costs against benefits in deciding whether to order power plants to undertake environmental upgrades that would protect fish. The court's 6-3 decision is a defeat for environmentalists who had urged the justices to uphold a favorable federal appeals court ruling that could have required an estimated 554 power plants to install technology that relies on recycled water to cool machinery. Decided on April 1, 2009.

TOBACCO PUNITIVE DAMAGES

The Supreme Court left in place a $79.5 million award to a smoker's widow, ending a 10-year legal fight over the large payout. The court let stand a ruling by the Oregon Supreme Court in favor of Mayola Williams and against Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris USA. Williams persuaded a jury in 1999 that the company should be held accountable for misleading people into thinking cigarettes were not dangerous or addictive. The justices initially agreed to review the Oregon court judgment, then changed their minds without explanation. Announced March 31, 2009.

VOTING RIGHTS

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that electoral districts must have a majority of African-Americans or other minorities to be protected by a provision of the Voting Rights Act. The court declined to expand protections of the landmark civil rights law to take in electoral districts where the minority population is less than 50 percent, but strong enough to effectively determine the outcome of elections. The decision could make it more difficult for Democrats, particularly in the South and Southwest, to draw electoral boundaries friendly to black or Hispanic candidates following the 2010 Census. Decided on March 9, 2009.

DRUG MAKER LIABILITY

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court forcefully rejected calls for limiting consumer lawsuits against drug makers, upholding a $6.7 million jury award to a musician who lost her arm to gangrene following an injection. The right arm of Diana Levine of Vermont was amputated after she was injected with Phenergan, an anti-nausea medicine made by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Levine's lawsuit said she wasn't sufficiently warned of the risks of using Phenergan. The justices turned away Wyeth's claim that federal regulation provides a shield against lawsuits like Levine's. Decided March 4, 2009.

RELIGIOUS MONUMENTS

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Summum, a small religious group, cannot force a city in Utah to place a granite marker in a local park that already is home to a Ten Commandments display. The court said that governments can decide what to display in a public park without running afoul of the First Amendment. The Summum believe that when Moses received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai he received a second set of tablets called the Seven Aphorisms. Decided Feb. 25, 2009.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FIREARMS

The Supreme Court affirmed the use of a federal law barring people convicted of domestic violence crimes from owning guns. The court, in a 7-2 decision, said state laws against battery need not specifically mention domestic violence to fall under the domestic violence gun ban that was enacted in 1996. The case involved Randy Edwards Hayes, a West Virginia man whose earlier misdemeanor conviction for beating his wife gave rise to a federal felony indictment for gun possession. Decided on Feb. 24, 2009.

RETALIATION

A unanimous Supreme Court ruled that workers who cooperate with their employers' internal investigations of discrimination may not be fired in retaliation for implicating colleagues or superiors.The justices held that a longtime school system employee in Tennessee can pursue a civil rights lawsuit over her firing. The court voted to reverse a federal appeals court ruling that the anti-retaliation provision of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not apply to employees who merely cooperate with an internal probe rather than complain on their own or take part in a formal investigation. Decided Jan. 26, 2009.

EVIDENCE

The Supreme Court ruled that evidence obtained after illegal searches or arrests based on simple police mistakes may be used to prosecute criminal defendants. The justices voted 5-4 to apply new limits to a rule requiring evidence to be suppressed if it results from a violation of a suspect's Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches or seizure. Justices acknowledged that the arrest of Bennie Dean Herring — based on the mistaken belief that there was a warrant for his arrest — violated his constitutional rights, yet upheld his conviction on federal drug and gun charges. Decided on Jan. 14, 2009.

CIGARETTE ADVERTISING

The Supreme Court handed a defeat to tobacco companies counting on it to put an end to lawsuits alleging deceptive marketing of "light" cigarettes. In a 5-4 split won by the court's liberals, it ruled that smokers may use state consumer protection laws to sue cigarette makers for the way they promote light and "low tar" brands. The decision was at odds with recent anti-consumer rulings that limited state regulation of business in favor of federal power. Decided on Dec. 15, 2008.

NAVY SONAR USAGE

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that military training trumps protecting whales in a dispute over the Navy's use of sonar in submarine-hunting exercises off the coast of southern California. The court said forcing the Navy to deploy an inadequately trained anti-submarine force jeopardizes the safety of the fleet. The most serious possible injury to environmental groups would be harm to an unknown number of the marine mammals the groups study, justices said. Decided Nov. 12, 2008.

BOSTON – Yoko Ono is the rightful copyright holder of rare, intimate footage showing John Lennon and his family in London in 1970, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Court Judge Rya W. Zobel last week refused to reinstate a copyright-infringement lawsuit filed by a Lawrence, Mass.-based company against Lennon's widow and the broker who sold her the tapes.
World Wide Video LLC sued Ono in March 2008, accusing her of copyright infringement and of wrongfully interfering with its personal property. Ono countersued, saying she is the rightful owner and that World Wide Video has no rights to the material.
Ono wants to keep the material private. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment made by The Associated Press through her Boston attorneys.
The 10 hours of footage was shot at Lennon's England estate in February 1970 — before the Beatles broke up — by Anthony Cox, Ono's husband before her marriage to Lennon in 1969. It shows Lennon hunched over a piano, smoking marijuana and joking about putting LSD in President Richard Nixon's tea. It has never been shown publicly in its entirety.
World Wide Video claimed it owns the raw footage. The company produced a two-hour documentary, "3 Days in the Life," using the footage, and planned to show it at a private school in Maine in 2007. The screening was scrapped after the company received a stop order from Ono's lawyers. The producers had previously shown excerpts from the film four times.
In court documents, Ono said she had a "clear and absolute" agreement with Cox when he shot the footage that it would never be "commercially exhibited, commercially exploited or released."
Ono said she purchased all rights to the videotapes for $300,000 in 2002 from Anthony Pagola, an intermediary who had copies.
But the principals of World Wide Video — John Fallon and Robert Grenier — say that sale was invalid and that the company bought copyright from Cox for $125,000 in 2000. They claim Pagola wound up with the tapes after they were stolen by an ex-employee.
Fallon and Grenier claim that, in 2001, Pagola approached them and threatened to destroy the tapes unless World Wide agreed to let him broker a sale. Fallon and Grenier claim that Pagola later sold the tapes and copyright to Ono without their permission and that he forged their signatures on the sale agreement.
The judge on Thursday sided with Ono. On Monday, the court issued a notice of default against Pagola after he failed to respond to the lawsuit.
The judge will issue the final order in the copyright infringement case after ruling on damages against Pagola, World Wide Video's attorney Joseph T. Doyle Jr. said.

NEW YORK – Bernard Madoff, even as he faces the prospect of dying behind bars for his epic swindle, has never wavered on one point: He acted alone.
Federal investigators haven't budged either: They don't believe him.
The day after Madoff was given a 150-year term, a person close to the investigation said Tuesday the sentencing marked "the end of the beginning" of a far-reaching investigation expected to answer lingering questions about how the disgraced financier pulled off perhaps the largest financial fraud history — and who helped him.
The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, told The Associated Press on Monday that prosecutors expect to charge at least 10 more people in connection with the scheme. The person said Tuesday that no arrests were imminent.
The U.S. attorney's office refused to comment on the status of the investigation or potential suspects.
Madoff, 71, pleaded guilty in March to charges that his secretive investment advisory business was a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that wiped out thousands of investors and ruined charities.
Madoff admitted his own crimes, but has claimed members of his inner circle — including a brother and two sons who ran a brokerage operation under the same roof as his firm — were innocent bystanders. Lawyers for the family have vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
"How do you excuse deceiving 200 employees who have spent most of their working life working for me?" Madoff said at sentencing. "How do you excuse lying to your brother and two sons who spent their whole adult life helping to build a successful and respectful business?"
Ruth Madoff broke her silence Tuesday to suggest she was among the victims of Madoff's deceit. Her husband, she said in a statement, "stunned us all with his confession and is responsible for this terrible situation in which so many now find themselves."
But in the six months since the former Nasdaq chairman's arrest, the family has not escaped intense scrutiny by federal authorities and a court-appointed trustee overseeing liquidation of Madoff's assets. A judge's forfeiture order has stripped Ruth Madoff of $80 million in assets, including a penthouse apartment where she still lives.
Besides the family, there have been questions about the role of Frank DiPascali, chief financial officer of Madoff's money management business, and that of several large money managers who funneled billions of dollars of investments to the firm. The trustee, Irving Picard, has filed lawsuits against the managers, accusing them of being Madoff cronies who either knew, or should have known, about the fraud.
Former prosecutors said Madoff's sentencing wasn't a grand finale.
"Once the primary wrongdoer has been sentenced, it typically is a fact that will take the wind out of the sails of an investigation," said William Devaney, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice. "However, this is an atypical investigation."
Another former federal prosecutor, Christopher J. Steskal, said that heedlessly benefiting from the fraud wasn't enough to bring a criminal case against a potential suspect. Investigators need convincing proof that the person had criminal intent and participated in the scheme. It's likely authorities are cultivating cooperators to provide that proof, he said.
"If you're under investigation, you have two options: You either dig a foxhole and hide in it, or you conclude that you have no option except to try to earn points by cooperating," said Steskal, who's now in private practice in New York.
The list of possible cooperators include DiPascali, who reportedly has given investigators evidence against the so-called feeder fund managers. Also, an accountant charged as the only other defendant so far has signaled in court papers that he wants to negotiate a plea deal. Their attorneys have declined to comment.
Federal authorities also have spoken to several clerks who handled some of the voluminous paperwork Madoff admits he fabricated, including tens of thousands of fake account statements.
One of Madoff's burned clients, Phyllis Feiner of Great Neck, N.Y., said Tuesday that she looks forward to more arrests.

"I would like to see everybody else who was involved in this evil scheme to be brought to justice," she said. "There's absolutely no way he could have done this all by himself."

Halloween is very popular in Ireland, where it originated, and is known in Irish as Oíche Shamhna (pron: ee-hah how-nah), literally "Samhain Night". Pre-Christian Celts had an autumn festival, Samhain (pronounced /ˈsˠaunʲ/from the Old Irish samain), "End of Summer", a pastoral and agricultural "fire festival" or feast, when the dead revisited the mortal world, and large communal bonfires would hence be lit to ward off evil spirits.

In the barmbrack were: a pea, a stick, a piece of cloth, a small coin (originally a silver sixpence) and a ring. Each item, when received in the slice, was supposed to carry a meaning to the person concerned: the pea, the person would not marry that year; the stick, "to beat one's wife with", would have an unhappy marriage or continually be in disputes; the cloth or rag, would have bad luck or be poor; the coin, would enjoy good fortune or be rich; and the ring, would be married within the year. Commercially produced barmbracks for the Halloween market still include a toy ring.

Halloween Costume

The Nation -- The Minnesota Supreme Court has confirmed what everyone pretty much knew: The voters chose Democratic Farmer Labor Party challenger Al Franken over Republican incumbent Norm Coleman in last fall's U.S. Senate election.

And while the election result was close, the court's decision was not.

The justices ruled 5-0 that: "Al Franken received the highest number of votes legally cast and is entitled [under Minnesota law] to receive the certificate of election as United States Senator from the State of Minnesota."

This should -- and, of course, the key word in this convoluted competition is still "should" -- settle the last contested congressional race of 2008.

Under Minnesota law,the court's decision gives Mr. Franken the right to occupy the seat that a series of recounts and official reviews confirmed was won by the satirist with a narrow but steady margin that ultimately expanded to 312 votes.

Minnesota Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty, who has delayed signing the certification of election that Franken needed to become the 60th Democratic member of the current Senate, has repeatedly suggested that he would abide by the decision of the state's highest court.

Even Coleman, whose dead-ender appeals have been funded by Republican donors from around the country as well as stipends from the campaign funds of sitting GOP senators, had indicated before the ruling that he would be disinclined to press his fight if he lost at the state Supreme Court level.

There are still "I"s to be dotted and "T"s to be crossed.

But it would appear likely that, by the time the Senate returns from its July 4 recess, Democrats will have a caucus that includes 58 party members and two independents (Vermonts's Bernie Sanders and Connecticut's Joe Lieberman) who sit with the majority.

That's the "magic" 60 that allows a majority party to avert filibusters and schedule votes on legislation and nominations.

With Republicans sticking to their "party of no" approach -- and maintaining remarkable unity -- the seating of Franken will have significance. It won't mean that the majority party can have its way with the Senate, as there will continue to be cases where individual Democrats break ranks. But it does mean that the will of the electorate -- which voted overwhelmingly in the last two electin cycles for a Democratic Congress -- will be at least somewhat more difficult for Rush Limbaugh's rejectionists to thwart.

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Murals are important in that they bring art into the public sphere. Due to the size, cost, and work involved in creating a mural, muralists must often be commissioned by a sponsor. Often it is the local government or a business, but many murals have been paid for with grants of patronage. For artists, their work gets a wide audience who otherwise might not set foot in an art gallery. A city benefits by the beauty of a work of art. Murals exist where people live and work and they can add to their daily lives.

Murals can be a relatively effective tool of social emancipation or achieving a political goal. Murals have sometimes been created against the law, or have been commissioned by local bars and coffeeshops. Often, the visual effects are an enticement to attract public attention to social issues.

Wall Art

One ancient design, the fighter kite, became popular throughout Asia. Most variations, including the fighter kites of India, Thailand and Japan, are small, flat, roughly diamond-shaped kites made of paper, with a tapered bamboo spine and a balanced bow. Flown without tails that would hinder their agility, these highly maneuverable flat kites have a length of cutting line coated with an abrasive attached to the bridle, which is then tied to a light cotton flying line. Although the rules of kite fighting varied from country to country, the basic combat was to maneuver the swift kite in such a way as to cut the opponent's flying line.

Kite flying began much later in Europe than in Asia. While unambiguous drawings of kites first appeared in print in the Netherlands and England in the 17th century, pennon-type kites that evolved from military banners dating back to Roman times and earlier were flown during the Middle Ages. Joseph Needham says that the earliest European description of a kite comes from the Magia Naturalis written in 1589 by the Italian polymath Giambattista della Porta (1535–1615).

Kites

As of the 2000 census, there were 42,807 people, 20,516 households, and 9,457 families residing in the city. The population density was 454.2 people per square mile (175.4/km²). There were 30,823 housing units at an average density of 327.0/sq mi (126.3/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 78.33% White, 3.93% African American, 0.94% Native American, 3.83% Asian, 0.14% Pacific Islander, 9.78% from other races, and 3.06% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 23.72% of the population.

The Agua Caliente band of Cahuilla Indians is composed of several small groups of Indians who were living in the modern day Palm Springs area when the Agua Caliente Reservation was established by the United States Government in 1896. Archaeological research has shown that the Cahuilla have lived in the area for the past 350-500 years. The reservation occupies 32,000 acres (130 km²), of which 6,700 acres (27 km²) lie within the city limits, making the Agua Caliente band the city's largest landowner. The reservation land was originally composed of alternating squares of land laid out across the desert in a checkerboard pattern. The alternating, non-reservation squares, were provided by the United States Government to the Southern Pacific Railroad as an incentive to bring rail lines through the open desert. Tribal enrollment is currently estimated at between 296 and 365 people. The Cahuilla name for the area was "Se-Khi" (boiling water).

Palm Springs Vacation Rental