SUBTERRANEAN JUNGLE: Another Brutal Subway Attack By Gang Of Teens By Tyesha Tazwell’s count, there were a dozen of them — six girls, six boys — hanging around together. One of the girls tried to get Tazwell’s attention by uttering a polite-sounding “Excuse me.” Then they pounced. Tazwell, 24, said it took only a few seconds for the teens to knock her to the ground. They pounded her face with a barrage of kicks and punches, stole her purse and chanted “Watch your mouth! Watch your mouth!” when she finally got to her feet and tried to get help. Police […]
You Can Kill A Man, But You Cannot Kill His Dreams
BBC: To many, 40 years after his death, Martin Luther King has become a sort of secular saint. In 1968, many whites in Tennessee saw things differently. He was a rabble-rouser, an agitator, possibly a Communist. In a society built on open racial divisions, his arrival in Memphis in support of striking black sanitation workers was a source of white anger and resentment. In that very different America, not everyone was saddened by his death. Dr King died of a bullet wound to the throat just after 6pm on 4 April. He had been standing on the balcony of the […]
ZIMBABWE: Mugabe Withholds Election Returns, Arrests Foreign Journalists, Raids Opposition Party
[Still from Zimbabwe Countdown directed by MICHAEL RAEBURN] NEW YORK TIMES: Zimbabwe’s government staged separate police raids on Thursday against the main opposition party, foreign journalists and at least one democracy advocate, raising the specter of a broad crackdown aimed at keeping the country’s imperiled leaders in power. With the government facing election results that threaten its 28-year reign, security officers raided the Miekles Hotel in central Harare on Thursday afternoon, searching rooms that the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, had rented for election operations, said Tendai Biti, the party’s general secretary. About the same time, a […]
WHEN SUPERMODELS ATTACK: Naomi Campbell Arrested For Assaulting Cop In Airport Kerfuffle
TIMES OF LONDON: The spokesman said: “At 17.11, officers were alerted to a disturbance at Terminal 5. Officers attended, and subsequently a 37 year old woman was arrested on suspicion of assaulting an officer and was taken to Heathrow police station where she remains.” Unconfirmed reports suggest the model was due to catch a 4pm flight from Heathrow to Los Angeles but had apparently mislaid one of her three items of hand luggage. She then apparently demanded airport staff find the bag and turned down their offer to forward it on. As the incident escalated, staff asked her to leave […]
TAWK RADIO: Q&A With WIP’s Anthony Gargano
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] PREVIOUSLY: “Just wanted to give a little positive feedback — amazing blog! I stumbled on to the site a little while back, and it’s very well done. I think the site is thoroughly enjoyable, creative and rich! I enjoy something that will make people think or explore, that will reach them on another level. I’ve always tought if you truly want to reach people and express yourself, why settle for the topical? Reach them in a place where you force them to think. I’m not talking negatively or positively — I’m talking both, talking inspiration, whether […]
5 Things U Need To Know 2 Survive A Boredoms Show
Black Pus Stokes The Crowd For The Boredoms, Starlight Ballroom, Last Night 1. As with altitude sickness, you might expect to slowly acclimate to the stomach-flipping level of insanity in the room with the passage of time — let’s say, as the opening bands perform. This is would be foolish, as they are called Black Pus and if that’s not icky enough, they are all about the 10-foot-high walls of amplifiers, mind-bending drum gymnastics, and gimp masks a la Pulp Fiction. About this point it will hit you like a ton of bricks: I have ALWAYS been insane. This […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR w/ TERRY GROSS Perplexed by the U.S. economy? You’re not alone. Law professor Michael Greenberger joins Fresh Air to explain the sub-prime mortgage crisis, credit defaults, the shaky future of other types of loans and what we can expect from the U.S. financial markets. Greenberger is a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and the director of the University’s Center for Health and Homeland Security. ALSO, analysts wondered if Barack Obama’s speech on race in Philadelphia last month was the beginning of a “national conversation” on the subject. Meanwhile, Fresh Air‘s contributing linguist Geoff Nunberg […]
PAPERBOY: ‘The Bitch Is Back’ Edition
BY AMY Z. QUINN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week, PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and […]
SENATOR BARACK OBAMA: For Decades…
“Today’s job news showed that Pennsylvania had the largest increase in initial jobless claims of any state in the country two weeks ago. While John McCain and Hillary Clinton continually claim their Washington experience as the primary reason they should be President, these numbers show that the ways of Washington are not working for the residents of Pennsylvania. As Sen. Obama demonstrated in town after town across Pennsylvania earlier this week, he has an agenda that includes immediate relief for homeowners, a second stimulus package that expands unemployment insurance and helps state and local governments, and investments in millions of […]
Former NJ Stripper Convicted Of Murder For Hire
INQUIRER: A former stripper turned soccer mom, convicted of plotting with a South Jersey man to kill her fiance, was sentenced yesterday to 99 years in prison. Mechele Linehan, 35, was convicted of murder last year for orchestrating the murder of an Alaskan fisherman she had promised to marry. In January, John Carlin 3d, a love-lorn steelworker from Salem County, was sentenced to 99 years for shooting Kent Lippink outside Hope, a tiny mining community an hour from Anchorage. Linehan ordered Carlin to kill the fisherman, prosecutors said. The exotic dancer believed she would be the beneficiary of a $1 […]
JUST DO IT: The Dissident Olympics
Beijing 2008 Olympics Live Video Coverage Uploaded by Podrovnik [Hat tip to KEIKO KETSUGO] CHINA ASKS U.S. TO PUBLICLY SUPPORT THE MILITARY CRACKDOWN IN TIBET BLOOMBERG NEWS: The U.S. should understand the real motives of protesters in Tibet and support China’s moves to control unrest, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said. Yang made the comment after meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in Beijing, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported late yesterday. China blames separatists backed by the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, for last month’s unrest in Tibet and neighboring provinces, the most serious protests in 20 […]
SOLD AMERICAN: Live Nation Buys Jay-Z 4 $150 Mil
NEW YORK TIMES: In a move that reflects the anarchy sweeping the music business, the superstar rapper Jay-Z, who released his latest album to lukewarm sales five months ago, is on the verge of closing a deal with a concert promoter that rivals the biggest music contracts ever awarded. Jay-Z plans to depart his longtime record label, Def Jam, for a roughly $150 million package with the concert giant Live Nation that includes financing for his own entertainment venture, in addition to recordings and tours for the next decade. The pact, expected to be finalized this week, is the most […]
