Today's Top News
Iraqi school guard, wife beheaded as children watch
11.23.07 -- 3:30 PM
Three suspected al Qaeda militants, including two sisters, beheaded their uncle and his wife, forcing the couple's children to watch, Iraqi police said on Friday.
The militants considered that school guard Youssef al-Hayali was an infidel because he did not pray and wore western-style trousers, they told police interrogators after being arrested in Diyala province northwest of Baghdad.
The three cousins executed Hayali and his wife Zeinab Kamel at the all-boys school in Jalawlah in Diyala province, village police chief Captain Ahmed Khalifa said.
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'Girls Gone Wild' Founder Claims Abuse
11.23.07 -- 2:53 PM
The millionaire producer of the "Girls Gone Wild" video series has accused guards of abusing him during his brief stay at an Oklahoma jail, a newspaper reported Friday.
Guards at the Grady County Law Enforcement Center denied Joe Francis food and blankets and threatened to strap him naked to a chair for 48 hours, Francis' attorneys alleged last month in court papers seeking his release on bail in a Florida case, The Oklahoman reported.
Francis, 34, was held at the jail from May 17 to June 4 while being moved from a Florida jail to a federal facility in Reno, Nev., where he is awaiting trial next year on a tax evasion charge.
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Lebanese Tensions Rise Amid Power Vacuum
11.23.07 -- 12:34 PM
President Emile Lahoud said Friday that Lebanon is in a "state of emergency" and ordered the army to take over security powers, hours before he was stepping down without a successor and leaving the divided country in a political vacuum. The government rejected the move, raising tensions.
Lahoud's announcement immediately raised further confusion amid Lebanon's political turmoil, which many fear could explode into violence between supporters of the government and the opposition.
The president cannot declare a state of emergency without approval from the government, but Lahoud's spokesman said the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora is considered unconstitutional.
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Cellphone Tracking Powers on Request: Secret Warrants Granted Without Probable Cause
11.23.07 -- 8:17 AM
Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint the whereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects, according to judges and industry lawyers.
In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime. Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives.
Such requests run counter to the Justice Department's internal recommendation that federal prosecutors seek warrants based on probable cause to obtain precise location data in private areas. The requests and orders are sealed at the government's request, so it is difficult to know how often the orders are issued or denied.
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Study: The Democratic Party is the Party of the Rich
11.23.07 -- 7:46 AM
Democrats like to define themselves as the party of poor and middle-income Americans, but a new study says they now represent the majority of the nation's wealthiest congressional districts.
In a state-by-state, district-by-district comparison of wealth concentrations based on Internal Revenue Service income data, Michael Franc, vice president of government relations at the Heritage Foundation, found that the majority of the nation's wealthiest congressional jurisdictions were represented by Democrats.
He also found that more than half of the wealthiest households were concentrated in the 18 states where Democrats hold both Senate seats.
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Pedophilia Rampant Among Islamic Warlords in Afghanistan
11.22.07 -- 8:21 PM
They are known as "bacha bereesh", boys without beards, teenage boys who dress up as girls and dance for male patrons at parties in northern Afghanistan.
It's an age old practice that has led to some of the boy dancers being turned into sex slaves by wealthy and powerful patrons, often former warlords, who dress the boys up as girls, shower them with gifts and keep them as "mistresses".
Afghan police are battling to crackdown on the practice which has angered Islamic clerics who say those involved should be stoned for sodomy, forbidden under Islamic law.
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Mom Killer Vows to Kill Romney
11.22.07 -- 7:05 PM
Former Gov. Mitt Romney said yesterday convicted killer Daniel T. Tavares Jr. should never have been released - a decision made by Romney’s own judicial nominee - as it also was revealed yesterday that the twisted felon vowed he would kill the governor and other officials when he got out of jail.
“This is a dangerous man who killed his own mother. He should have been held on bail, given his violent record, attacks on correction officers and a history of threats against public officials, including Gov. Romney,” said Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom in a statement. “It is because of monsters like Daniel Tavares that we need the death penalty.”
But Romney stopped short of expressing regret for his nomination of Superior Court Judge Kathe M. Tuttman. Overturning the bail decision of a lower court on charges he assaulted prison guards, Tuttman set Tavares free July 16.
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Painting goes from trash to $1 million treasure
11.22.07 -- 3:05 PM
An oil painting by Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo that was plucked from a sidewalk trash heap several years ago sold for more than $1 million on Tuesday at Sotheby's auction of Latin American art.
The auction house had estimated that "Tres Personajes" ("Three Personages"), which was stolen from a Houston warehouse after being bought at auction in 1977, would sell for between $750,000 and $1 million, but the work ended up selling for $1,049,000 including commission.
The oil-and-sand canvas was rescued from oblivion when a New York woman, Elizabeth Gibson, spotted it in a pile of trash at a curbside on Manhattan's Upper West Side and decided to bring it home.
Gibson walked by the vibrant, 38-inch by 51-inch (97 by 130 cm) work, then "immediately knew I had to go back. I knew I had to take it," she said weeks before the auction.
"It was a huge, powerful and beautiful painting and I said to myself, 'It is wrong to be in the garbage,'" Gibson added. She was told that shortly after her find, a trash collecting truck had come by and hauled away the refuse.
Gibson eventually researched the work and learned of its worth and history through an Internet site.
Sotheby's did not identify the seller, but Gibson was to receive a $15,000 reward for returning "Tres Personajes" to its rightful owners, plus an undisclosed percentage of the auction price.
Apart from the Tamayo, the auction was a relatively staid affair, with 20 of 70 lots on offer going unsold. In all it took in $15.235 million, coming in under the pre-sale estimate of $16.5 million to $21.6 million.
The top lot was Fernando Botero's "Le Dejeuner sur L'Herbe," which fetched $1,329,000, missing its low estimate, which was $1.4 million.
Roberto Matta's "Et At It," which was expected to sell for $2.5 million to $3.5 million, failed to sell. Another Tamayo, "Bodegon con Mujer," also failed to sell.
By contrast Christie's auction on Tuesday totalled $21.7 million, the second best ever for auctioned Latin American art and just under the $22 million record Christie's set in May.
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Paper: Giuliani in Business Partnership with Shady Characters Linked to International Organized Crime
11.22.07 -- 8:24 AM
Nine days after registering his presidential exploratory committee last November, Rudolph Giuliani appeared in Singapore to help a Las Vegas developer make a pitch for a $3.5 billion casino resort.
Though the bid ultimately failed, and there was nothing illegal about the involvement, it drew Giuliani into a complex partnership with the family of a controversial Hong Kong billionaire who has ties to the regime of North Korea's Kim Jong Il and has been linked to international organized crime by the U.S. government.
Giuliani's participation as a security consultant in the Singapore gambling venture illustrates the challenge he faces while attempting to win the Republican presidential nomination with a law-and-order message while maintaining a far-flung, international business portfolio, an unknown portion of which remains in the shadows.
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Missouri City Outlaws Internet Harassment
11.22.07 -- 8:01 AM
City officials unanimously passed a measure Wednesday making online harassment a crime, days after learning that a 13-year-old girl killed herself last year after receiving cruel messages on the Internet.
The six-member Board of Aldermen made Internet harassment a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $500 fine and 90 days in jail. Mayor Pam Fogarty said the city had proposed the measure after learning about Megan Meier's death.
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