O/T stories 09/10
PUSSSYKATT
NY POST/BILL HOFFMAN
--A winning lottery ticket worth $50 million was never claimed - and now it's
worthless. Officials in Florida say the person who bought a quick-pick ticket
at a Miami-area food market for the March 12 draw let the 180-day deadline pass
yesterday. "Somebody didn't get their $50 million," lottery spokeswoman Sheila
Griffin said. "There is no second chance. Too late."
--A prisoner allegedly trying to escape a felony hearing fell through the roof
of a courthouse and into a judge's chambers. Ben Rogozensky was being held in
an empty jury room in Decatur, Ga., when he asked to used the bathroom, and
from there climbed into a crawl space, authorities said. But it gave way and
the barefooted inmate came crashing through the ceiling, landing on the desk of
stunned State Court Judge J. Antonio DelCampo.
--In another case of disorder in the court, a spectator was thrown in jail
after her cell phone went off as a coldblooded killer was being sentenced.
Judge Markley Dennis first hit murderer Travis Lamont Graham with a life
sentence, then turned his attention to phone offender Lashenda Floyd, whom he
ordered to spend a night in the slammer in Charleston, S.C.
--Cheerleaders have been banned from wearing their short skirts to class at
Elma HS in Washington state, because officials say the skimpy outfits are too
distracting. The move has parents fuming. "Elma has dropped back to the Dark
Ages," said Kathy Shaw, whose daughter is on the drill team. "They are making
our kids feel like they're not nice girls, when they are."
--A wife in Germany has been driven out of her bed by a jealous pet monkey. The
45-year-old woman, whose name is known only as Claudia S, said she could no
longer sleep with her husband, Bernd, because the monkey, Buddy, all but threw
her out of bed. "He would pull on my hair. I can't even get into the bed
anymore, as he gets jealous," Claudia said. She added that she tried locking
the beast out, "but that only lasts about an hour before Buddy starts
screeching and wakes the whole neighborhood up."
* * *
Mother Teresa on sainthood express
By PAUL H.B. SHIN
NY DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
The Catholic Church is putting the late Mother Teresa on the fast track. The
Vatican is giving "serious consideration" to proclaiming the Albanian-born nun
a saint in one step, skipping the intermediate step of beatification, church
sources said yesterday.
A Vatican official sent a letter on behalf of Pope John Paul to cardinals this
year asking for opinions on canonizing Mother Teresa in one move, breaking with
centuries of tradition.
The effort to declare the sainthood of Mother Teresa - known for her care of
Calcutta's destitute - has already progressed at record speed since she died in
1997 at age 87.
"One of the things that has been so characteristic of this Pope," said the Rev.
Joseph Koterski of Fordham University, "is that he has been interested in
moving the process along for lots of people."
But the initiative by the Pope - who has canonized more saints than any
predecessor - to avoid meticulously vetting a candidate has stirred resistance
within the Vatican among those concerned about the precedent, church sources
said.
"I know some serious Catholics who are worried about this kind of cultism - too
great a veneration and bending too many rules," said author Christopher
Hitchens, who has criticized Mother Teresa's ultraconservative views on dogma
and her collaboration with Haiti's notorious former dictator Jean-Claude (Baby
Doc) Duvalier.
The Vatican asked Hitchens to testify on Mother Teresa's beatification two
years ago, part of its scrutiny into candidates' lives.
To be declared a saint, one miracle has to be attributed to the candidate
before beatification and a second must be attributed after beatification. The
Pope was already set to beatify her at an Oct. 19 ceremony at the Vatican.
* * *
Man, 75, Arrested In Rape Of Orlando Disabled Woman
http://www.local6.com/news/2466828/detail.html
A 75-year-old man was arrested Tuesday for the rape of a severely mentally
disabled woman known as J.D.S. at an Orlando group home, according to Local 6
News.
Investigators said Phillip Strong, who is the husband of the group home's
owner, was arrested for sexual battery on a mentally defective person. Strong's
DNA was reportedly matched to the woman's newborn.
The baby, known as "Baby Girl S," was born Aug. 30 during a scheduled Caesarean
section at an Orlando-area hospital.
DNA samples of Strong and the child were recently submitted to the Florida
Department of Law Enforcement for comparison after the birth, according to
police.
Tuesday, FDLE informed Detective Rick Salcedo that the comparison determined
that Strong was the father of the child.
On April 30, police received the original complaint from the Department of
Children and Families in reference to a possible sexual battery at an Orlando
group home.
The statement said that the victim had missed her menstrual cycle and a
sonogram showed that she was approximately five months pregnant.
The victim was interviewed and it was determined that due to her mental
handicap it would be impossible for her to consent to sexual intercourse. Her
mental capacity was determined to be that of an infant.
A timetable was created and a number of possible suspects were identified,
including Strong, according to a police report.
Strong is being held without bond and his wife, Hester, was arrested for
neglect of a mentally defective person.
J.D.S. and her unborn child were at the center of a summer-long statewide
debate over treatment of the developmentally disabled and a national debate on
fetal rights.
Gov. Jeb Bush asked the courts to appoint a guardian for the fetus. The Florida
Supreme Court had decided in 1989 that appointing a guardian for a fetus was
"clearly improper" and a circuit judge had followed that precedent this summer
in appointing a caretaker for the 22-year-old rape victim, but declining to
appoint a guardian for J.D.S's unborn child.
The J.D.S. case prompted Bush to appoint a panel to investigate problems with
the state's guardianship system, particularly among the developmentally
disabled. The group came up with a series of proposals designed to help anyone
in state care who needs a guardian but lacks one.
* * *
Quirky Sculptures Installed in New York
By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK - No, the aliens have not landed at Rockefeller Center. It just looks
that way.
With giant balloons, a brightly colored, 30-foot-high sculpture and seats in
the shape of mushrooms, "Takashi Murakami at Rockefeller Center: Reversed
Double Helix" opened Tuesday on the plaza where the giant Christmas tree
annually stands.
The piece centers on the many-armed, pointy-headed Tongari-kun (Japanese for
Mr. Pointy) who is sitting on something that looks like a frog, surrounded by
four smaller, but still pointy-headed, guards.
Multicolored mushrooms with eyes all over them surround Mr. Pointy, waiting for
people to sit on them. Two giant balloons, also covered with eyes, hover over
the ice rink.
"It's a little bit science fiction, but also having art history in mind,"
Murakami said Tuesday through a translator. He said Mr. Pointy was influenced
by Buddhist imagery as well as Japan's animation and comics cultures.
The piece, on show through Oct. 12, is the latest collaboration between the
Public Art Fund, a nonprofit group that puts art in public places, and Tishman
Speyer Properties, which co-owns Rockefeller Center. Other exhibits at the
center included a nightly laser show last summer, a giant spider sculpture by
Louise Bourgeois in 2001, and a huge, flower-covered puppy by Jeff Koons in
2000.
"We never want to do what's expected; we want to activate this space," said
Susan Freedman, president of the Public Art Fund. "We really try to come up
with work that will work here ... and reflect the energy of the city."
They picked Murakami, she said, because he plays around with ideas of high art
and popular art.
"This work is accessible on many different levels and it will mean things to
different people, and that's what public art is all about," Freedman said.
It meant different things to 45-year-old Lourdes Lopez and her daughter,
Amanda, 5.
Passing through the plaza, Lopez took a look at Mr. Pointy and said, "I think
it's a little creepy, all the arms."
Amanda didn't think so.
"I like it," she said. "It has lots of heads."
PHOTO: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/030909/168/581ot.html
* * *
MUSIC-THIEF KID $INGS SORRY SONG
By TIM ARANGO, JENNIFER FERMINO and BRIDGET HARRISON
------------------------
The music industry settled its lawsuit yesterday with Brianna LaHara - the
12-year-old Manhattan girl sued Monday for illegally distributing music over
the Internet - after the girl's family coughed up $2,000. The Recording
Industry Association of America, the industry's lobbying group, reached the
settlement with Brianna's mother, Sylvia Torres.
"I am sorry for what I have done," Brianna said in a statement released by the
RIAA. "I love music and don't want to hurt the artists I love."
Like 260 other computer users named in the first wave of lawsuits by the RIAA,
Brianna had more than 1,000 copyrighted songs on her computer hard drive.
Her desktop music-sharing program Kazaa provided an open door for other music
fans to copy them.
Hers was an eclectic mix of a 12-year-old's favorite music - from Shania
Twain's "From This Moment On" to El Gran Combo's "Timbalero."
Meanwhile, through Kazaa, Brianna had also browsed thousands of other computers
to find and download songs she wanted - among them Teena Marie's "Dear Lover,"
Dido's "Here with Me," Madonna's "Material Girl" and Paula Abdul's "Opposites
Attract," court papers say.
The RIAA lawsuit names around 40 others in Manhattan alone who are users of
programs like Kazaa, Grokster, Gnutella, Blubster and iMesh and who have made
their personal music libraries available to other Internet surfers.
In the fist wave, those with more than 1,000 titles available have been
targeted - including a Yale University photography professor, two New York
University students, an unemployed woman and a music programmer for commercial
radio.
Chris, 26, a computer programmer from the Upper East Side whose student wife is
named in the suit, said he thought the record companies were being
hypocritical.
"Right now Sony is advertising to encourage people to share music through
minidiscs," he said.
"Surely sharing music through files or minidiscs is the same."
An unemployed Bronx music lover admitted to downloading "hundreds of songs,"
but doesn't think a "handful of people" should be punished.
"There's so many people," she said. "How can they pick a certain amount?
"They need to go after iMesh and Kazaa, not the people who download," she
insisted.
The wife of a radio music programmer who asked not to be identified insisted
her husband is innocent.
"He's got no need to download music, because he gets it all free from the
record industries anyway."
But the RIAA was unsympathetic.
"We're trying to send a strong message that you are not anonymous when you
participate in peer-to-peer file-sharing and that the illegal distribution of
copyrighted music has consequences," said its chairman, Mitch Bainwol.
Anyone who identifies themselves to the RIAA and promises to stop sharing tunes
will be given amnesty, he said.
"For those who want to wipe the slate clean and to avoid a potential lawsuit,
this is the way to go," said Bainwol.
* * *
NUKE GIANT TELLER DIES
NY POST
-------------------------------
STANFORD, Calif. - Edward Teller, known as the "father of the H-bomb," died
yesterday at 95. Teller exerted a profound influence on America's defense and
energy policies, championing the development of the atomic and hydrogen bombs,
nuclear power and the Strategic Defense Initiative.
In 1939, he was one of three scientists who encouraged Albert Einstein to alert
President Franklin Roosevelt that the power of nuclear fission - the splitting
of an atom's nucleus - could be tapped to create a devastating new weapon. Two
years later, before the first atom bomb was completed, fellow scientist Enrico
Fermi suggested that nuclear fusion might be used for an even more destructive
explosive, the hydrogen bomb.
Teller's enthusiasm and pursuit of such a bomb won him the title "father of the
H-bomb," a characterization he said he hated. The first H-bomb was exploded in
1952.
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