BILAL IS FREE: Iraqi Judge Dismisses Terror Charges

BAGHDAD (AP) — An Iraqi judicial committee has dismissed terrorism-related allegations against Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein and ordered him freed after nearly two years in U.S. military custody. The decision by a four-judge panel says Hussein’s case falls under a new amnesty law and orders Iraqi courts to “cease legal proceedings.” The ruling says that Hussein should be “immediately” released if no other charges are pending. The ruling is dated Monday but AP’s lawyers were not able to thoroughly review it until Wednesday. AP President Tom Curley is hailing the decision and demands that officials “finally do the right […]

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NEWS CLUES: ‘Two-Heads Better Than None’ Edition

STRANGER THAN FICTION: Two-Headed Baby Worshiped As A God In India A BABY born with two faces is doing well one month on from her birth. Tot Lali was born in a northern Indian village with two noses, two pairs of lips and two pairs of eyes – but only two ears. Hundreds of pilgrims have visited Lali, worshipped as the reincarnation of a Hindu goddess, and her impoverished parents to touch her feet out of respect and receive blessings. The baby has caused a sensation in the dusty village of Saini, 25 miles from New Delhi. When she left […]

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NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006

FRESH AIR The band R.E.M. recently released Accelerate, its first album in four years. Critics have been describing the disc as a “comeback,” saying it’s the band’s best album in ages and that the group is playing with “the urgency and insurgency they did in their early years.” Among the album’s tracks: “Houston,” which details the narrator’s crisis of faith after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the government’s unfocused response, and “Living Well Is the Best Revenge,” which R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe has described as a reaction to modern media culture. R.E.M. came together in Athens, Ga., in 1980, […]

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SCUM BAGGED: Mom Fends Off Baby-Beating Muggers

DAILY NEWS: She was born with the last name of Peace, but anything but that befell the young mother Monday night as she was walking to catch a SEPTA trolley at the 69th Street Terminal. Samara Peace, 18, of Sharon Hill [pictured below, with Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood], was carrying her 7-month-old daughter, Samya, close to her chest when, about 11 p.m., a young man later identified by police as Carlos C. Boothe, 19, of Upper Darby, approached her on Lennox Road near Penncock Avenue and asked for her phone number, she said. At the same time, a […]

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CINEMA: The Fraud, The Horror & The Rapture

ELECTILE DYSFUNCTION (2008, directed by Mary Patel & Joe Barber, 93 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Philadelphia City Paper columnist Mary Patel teamed up with co-director Joe Barber for this exhausting but not exhaustive look at the gaping flaws in the U.S. electoral system. It’s a Grand Central Station of talking heads, all delivering little more than soundbites. And while I love a diversity of opinion, I’m not sure what unique perspective Elliot Gould and Schoolly D bring to the stew. Freely mixing in the angry and clueless public with disgustingly hardened insiders, Electile Dysfunction never drums up […]

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NO WAY OUT: The Blight At The End Of Tunnel

NEW YORK TIMES: The senior commander of multinational forces in Iraq warned Congress Tuesday against removing “too many troops too quickly” and refused under stiff questioning to offer even an estimate of American force levels by the end of this year. Those comments from Gen. David H. Petraeus were met by sharp criticism from a senior Democrat, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, that the Bush administration had adopted “a war plan with no exit strategy.” General Petraeus said that security progress has been “significant but uneven.” Under questioning, he declined to estimate American troop levels beyond the withdrawal by July […]

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THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW: There Will Be Bloods

[Photos by JUSTIN ROMAN] EDITOR’S NOTE: The Valley of the Shadow is an ongoing series documenting how those in Philadelphia’s poorest and most violent neighborhoods publicly mourn and commemorate their dead. Jeff Deeney knows these neighborhoods well from his days as a social worker. The hope is to shine a light on the city’s untouchables, brighten the darkest corners and gather-and-share ultra-vivid and all-too-real stories of loss, grief and remembrance. * BY JEFF DEENEY The air around the Norris Apartments — the high-rise housing project on the eastern fringe of Temple University’s campus — is thick with blunt smoke on […]

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FEST PICKS: Spine-Tingling, Sperm-Injected Revolution

SPINE TINGLER! THE WILLIAM CASTLE STORY (2007, directed by Jeffrey Schwartz, 78 minutes, U.S.)BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC It’s hard to resist this documentary bio on the B-Movie King, mostly because Castle himself was such an irrepressible character of child-like enthusiasm. His was a story made for Hollywood: A young boy, orphaned by age 11, finds a home in the theater, then bluffs his way into success as a big-screen producer. Castle hooked up with many of the most colorful showbiz characters of the last century, working closely with Orson Welles, Bela Lugosi, Roman Polanski and, in a humorous episode, […]

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