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2A I Friday, September 16, 2005 | The Red & Black
NEWS
TOP STORIES FROM AROUND
THE STATE, NATION AND WORLD
NAMES & FACES
Renee
Zellweger
and Kenny
Chesney
call it
quits after
only four
months of
marriage.
Zellweger and
Chesney split,
end marriage
NEW YORK — Bridget
Jones is untying the knot.
Renee Zellweger, who
played the lovelorn Brit in
“Bridget Jones’s Diary,”
and country music star
Kenny Chesney will have
their 4-month-old mar
riage annulled, Chesney’s
publicist, Holly Gleason,
and Zellweger’s Los
Angeles-based publicist
Nanci Ryder, confirmed to
The Associated Press on
Thursday.
The 36-year-old actress
and Chesney, 37, wed in a
small ceremony in May on
the Caribbean island of St.
John in the U.S. Virgin
Islands. It was the first
marriage for both.
They first met at the
Concert of Hope tsunami
relief benefit Jan. 15.
Tom Waits files
lawsuit
FRANKFURT, Germany
— Singer-songwriter Tom
Waits said Thursday he
has filed a lawsuit against
a unit of automobile com
pany General Motors
Corp. and a German
advertising agency for
allegedly using a sounda-
like in a series of
European ads.
The 55-year-old singer,
whose distinct, gravelly
voice has won him two
Grammy Awards, filed the
civil lawsuit this week
with a state court in
Frankfurt, listing Adam
Opel AG and the advertis
ing firm McCann Erickson
as the defendants.
Andreas Schumacher,
Waits’ German lawyer,
said the singer was
approached numerous
times about doing the ads
last year, but declined, cit
ing a policy of not doing
commercials. He said the
firm then hired a sounda-
like and the ads aired ear
lier this year in Sweden,
Finland, Denmark and
Norway.
John Rutter
will serve
a jail
sentence
of more
than three
years over
nude Diaz
photos
Photographer
sentenced to jail
LOS ANGELES — A
photographer who took
topless photos of
Cameron Diaz and tried to
sell them back to her for
$3.5 million after she
became a movie star was
sentenced Thursday to
three years and eight
months in prison.
John Rutter, convicted
in July of forgery, attempt
ed grand theft and per
jury, continued to insist in
court that he did nothing
wrong.
Rutter told Superior
Court Judge Michael E.
Pastor that the case was a
“misunderstanding.”
Diaz was a 19-year-old
aspiring model when the
pictures were taken in
1992.
—Associated Press
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Israel fears Al-Qaida will come to Gaza
DAVID MAUNG | Associated Press
A Doctor Leticia Chavez, 32, chats with a prostitute
before a medical exam at the city’s public health depart'
ment clinic on Wednesday, in Tijuana, Mexico.
RAFAH, Gaza Strip —
Israel and the Palestinian
Authority on Thursday said
they fear al-Qaida terrorists
will infiltrate into Gaza
through the open Gaza-
Egypt border, where
Palestinians and Egyptians
have been crossing largely
unfettered since Israel with
drew from the area four days
ago.
In a deal worked out with
Israel, Egypt is supposed to
deploy 750 border troops to
secure the frontier and pre
vent weapons smuggling, but
neither those troops nor
Palestinian policemen have
been able to halt the flow of
people and arms, including
hundreds of assault rifles and
pistols.
Palestinian leader
Mahmoud Abbas said the
chaos at the border had been
brought under control to a
“very high degree.” It
appeared most of the
Egyptian forces had not yet
been deployed.
A trickle of people were
still crossing Thursday,
although the numbers had
fallen from previous days,
when swarms moved freely
across the frontier. Some
Gazans were parking their
cars along the border wall
and filling them with smug
gled cigarettes and gasoline.
Israel fears that interna
tional terrorists will exploit
the chaotic border to infil
trate.
“We’re talking about Iran,
we’re talking elements in
Syria, we’re talking about
WORLD
groups like Hezbollah and
we’re talking also about inter
national terrorist groups like
al-Qaida,” said Israeli foreign
ministry spokesman Mark
Regev. Israel has long
accused both Iran and Syria
of sponsoring militant
groups.
Islamic militant groups,
some claiming connections
with al Qaida, have been
active in northern Egypt but
there has been no indication
they have infiltrated Gaza,
which until this week has
been tightly sealed.
U.N. to play central
role in fight
UNITED NATIONS — The
United Nations must shift its
focus from just settling dis
putes to coordinating the
world’s fight against terror
ism, Russian President
Vladimir Putin told the sec
ond day of a U.N. summit
Wednesday.
Echoing remarks by
Britain’s Prime Minister Tony
Blair and President Bush the
day before, Putin told the
U.N. General Assembly that
terrorism was the primary
threat to human rights and
economic development.
"There is a need to adjust
this organization to the new
historical reality," Putin said.
""Who else will take the role of
coordinating and organizing
this work but the United
Nations?"
The three-day summit was
meant to focus on U.N. reform
and world poverty 60 years
after the founding of the
United Nations, but the fight
against terrorism has become
a central focus. Several lead
ers have used their allotted
five minute speeches to dwell
on the new challenges that
fight presents, while attacks
in the Russian city of Beslan,
New York, London, Baghdad
and elsewhere have been
mentioned frequently.
Putin said the United
Nations needs to adapt to
meet those new goals, but he
spoke far more favorably
about the world body than
some of his predecessors at
the rostrum.
Coming into the summit,
diplomats had to dilute a
document on goals for tack
ling rights abuses, terrorism
and U.N. reform because they
couldn’t settle their disputes.
Tijuana to make
prostitution safer
TIJUANA, Mexico —
Tijuana is cracking down on
prostitutes by requiring them
to pass monthly exams to
detect sexually transmitted
diseases, part of new stan
dards aimed at protecting
them and their clients and
putting unsafe brothels out of
business.
The regulations amount to
an open, official acknowledg
ment of what has long been a
fact of life in this Mexican
border city. Before, the few
standards that existed were
unwritten, which authorities
say made them difficult to
enforce. They included
requiring prostitutes to sub
mit to regular health exams,
including three AIDS tests a
year.
Tijuana’s prostitutes have
drawn tourists since the turn
of the century, spreading in
recent years from the red-
light district known as “La
Coahuila” to other pockets of
the city of 1.2 million that
borders San Diego.
Prostitutes at a govern
ment-run health clinic this
week didn’t seem too con
cerned about the change.
They said they get checkups
anyway, to ensure they are
healthy.
The new regulations,
which took effect last month,
call for the city to issue elec
tronic cards to replace pink,
pocket-size health history
books given to Tijuana’s 4,700
registered prostitutes.
Inspectors will swipe the
cards through hand-held
devices to ensure women
have passed monthly health
exams. The city says it
expects to begin issuing the
cards later this month,
although there’s no prototype
yet.
—Associated Press
Katrina victims will be helped out by tax-cut bills
WASHINGTON — The
House and Senate each
passed tax cut bills Thursday
aimed at helping Hurricane
Katrina victims as part of the
government’s response to
the devastation’s financial
repercussions.
The tax cuts are designed
to provide those affected by
the hurricane with easier
access to their retirement
savings and to encourage
charitable giving, among
other incentives aimed at eas
ing suffering from Katrina.
Each chamber passed its bill
by a voice vote.
Lawmakers still need to
reconcile the minor House-
Senate differences in the leg
islation before it can be sent
to President Bush for his sig
nature.
The House and Senate tax
plan, among other steps,
waives penalties for hurricane
victims who tap into their
retirement savings accounts,
helps the working poor hold
onto an earned income tax
credit, and provides a tax
break to anyone who houses
evacuees for two months or
more.
Senate Finance
Committee Chairman Charles
Grassley also hoped to pass a
bipartisan $5 to $7 billion
plan to expedite health care
to Katrina victims by easing
rules for the Medicaid federal
health care program, though
objections from unnamed
senators had snagged the bill
as of midday
And the Senate is likely to
pass and forward to Bush a
House-passed bill to tem
porarily ease rules requiring
welfare recipients to work 30
hours a week for their bene
fits while extending the over
all welfare program through
the end of the year.
French Quarter to
reopen soon
NEW ORLEANS — Mayor
Ray Nagin announced
Thursday that large sections
of the city will reopen next
week and the historic French
Quarter the week after that.
“The city of New Orleans will
start to breathe again,” he
said.
The announcement came
amid progress in restoring
electricity and water service,
on the day after the release of
government tests showing-
dangerous levels of bacteria
and industrial chemicals in
floodwaters but that the air is
safe to breathe.
The first section to reopen
to residents will be Algiers,
across the Mississippi River
from the French Quarter, on
Monday, the mayor said. The
city’s Uptown area will be
reopened in stages next
Wednesday and Friday, he
said.
The French Quarter will
follow on Sept. 26.
The mayor also said busi
ness people will be allowed
into the central business dis
trict on Saturday and
Sunday. But he did not
address whether that section
would be formally reopened.
The reopened areas gener
ally suffered little or no flood
ing and were among the
least-damaged parts of New
Orleans. They were home to
182,000 residents out of a city
ROGELIO SOLIS | Associated Press
A U.S. Conference of Mayors president Beverly O'Neill,
left, listens as New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin addresses
reporters following a city council meeting in Baton Rouge,
La., Thursday.
of nearly half a million.
Nagin said there should be
power in most reopening
areas, but warned that the
water in some places will be
suitable for flushing toilets
but not for drinking and
bathing.
“My gut feeling right now
is that we’ll settle in at
250,000 people over the next
three to six months, and then
we’ll start to ramp up over
time to the half-million we
had before and maybe
exceed,” he said.
NATIONAL
Soldier pleads
guilty in drug case
FORT BLISS, Texas — A
soldier stationed in Colombia
as part of the U.S. war on
drugs pleaded guilty
Thursday to participating in
a scheme to smuggle cocaine
into the United States using-
military planes.
A military judge did not
initially accept the plea deal
reached with Army Staff Sgt.
Kelvin Irizarry-Melendez. He
pleaded guilty to conspiracy
and wrongful importation of
cocaine. The hearing was to
continue Thursday afternoon.
Irizarry-Melendez and
three other soldiers were
accused of smuggling cocaine
from a U.S. base in Colombia.
All four have been jailed since
their arrests earlier this year.
Irizarry-Melendez
acknowledged that he helped
take an unspecified amount
of money to Colombia.
Accused ringleader Staff
Sgt. Daniel Rosas, who is
scheduled to stand trial later
this month, told investigators
that he and Irizarry-Melendez
were responsible for the drug
smuggling, with the other two
soldiers concentrating mostly
on fronting money to buy the
drugs.
Spec. Francisco Rosa
pleaded guilty last month to a
series of charges and was
sentenced to five years in
prison.
—Associated Press
SCLC plans to set up a regional recovery center
JOHN AMBROSE | Associated Press
A In this photo released by the Georgia Department of
Natural Resources (DNR), an unidentified wildlife specialist
with the Georgia DNR holds a channeled apple snail near
Blackshear, Ga., on Tuesday.
ATLANTA — When a
desperate Mayor Theodore
Lindsey sent out a call for
help for his small town of
Tallulah, La. in the wake of
Hurricane Katrina,
the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference
responded within 24 hours.
The 40-year-old civil rights
organization beat both the
Red Cross and the govern
ment to the town with med
ical supplies, food, clothing,
water and toiletries. Lindsey
said neither agency has done
much to help the smaller
towns in the Gulf, pointing
out that many of those com
munities are run by black
mayors.
“When we needed help, the
SCLC was there for us,”
Lindsey said. “They cut all
the red tape from the Red
Cross.”
In the two weeks since
Hurricane Katrina ravaged
parts of Louisiana,
Mississippi and Alabama, the
SCLC has filled in gaps left by
the government and charity
organizations, which have
STATE
largely ignored rural towns in
the Delta region, SCLC
President Charles Steele, Jr.
said, adding that the neglect
shown in these areas
amounts to discrimination.
“It’s racial and it’s clas-
sism,” Steele said. “There are
people who are desperately
trying to survive in this
region.”
To continue its efforts, the
group announced Thursday it
will set up a regional recovery
center in Tallulah to help the
Delta recover — not only from
Katrina, but from a legacy of
poverty and racism that was
only magnified by the storm.
Invasion of snails
threatens Georgia
ALBANY — A ravenous,
fast-breeding South
American snail is posing a
threat to Georgia’s wetlands
and to vegetation that
supports a host of aquatic
species from common catfish
to rare black-banded sunfish.
Biologists say the invasion
of channeled apple snails is
worse than they initially
thought when the species
was first discovered in
January in southeast
Georgia’s Alabaha River, 20
miles north of the
Okefenokee Swamp, a
396,000-acre natural wildlife
refuge that is one of the
nation’s environmental jew
els.
The snails are often spread
through the pet trade as
aquarium enhancements,
even though it’s illegal to ship
them across state lines.
Georgia officials initially
thought the single snail found
in January came from an
aquarium. But now they’ve
found many more, and they
believe the marauding mol-
lusks hitched a ride on boats
or boat trailers from Florida,
one of several Southern
states with known breeding
populations.
The state confirmed the
discovery of the first apple
snail near Blackshear, a town
of 3,300 about 200 miles
southeast of Atlanta. Since
then, snails and eggs have
been found in several ponds
and streams in the Alabaha
River system, all within five
miles of Blackshear. The
Alabaha is a tributary of the
Satilla River, a major
southeast Georgia river sys
tem. During a recent search,
biologists removed 79 snails
and 151 egg masses from
a pond in less than four
hours.
—Associated Press