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HealthDay - MONDAY, Sept. 18 (HealthDay News) -- A study of Texas residents suggests that tiny metallic bits of air pollution could account for some cases of lung cancer.

A Maine couple accused of tying up their 19-year-old daughter, throwing her in their car and driving her out of state to get an abortion were upset because the baby's father is black, a Maine sheriff said Tuesday. Katelyn Kampf, who is white, told Cumberland County Sheriff Mark Dion that her mother "was pretty irate at the fact that the child's father was black, and she had made a number of disparaging remarks about that," he said. Katelyn Kampf escaped Friday at a Salem shopping center and called police, who arrested her parents, Nicholas Kampf, 54, and Lola, 53, both real estate developers from North Yarmouth, Maine. The Kampfs were apparently taking their daughter to New York to try to force her to get an abortion there, police said. The parents were arraigned Monday on kidnapping charges. The judge set bail at $100,000 each and ordered the Kampfs to have no contact with their daughter. They posted bail Tuesday afternoon. If convicted of kidnapping, the Kampfs face 7 1/2 to 15 years in prison. Dion said he expects to bring charges in Maine also, after investigators consult with the district attorney Wednesday. Defense attorney Mark Sisti said Tuesday that a sworn statement by Salem police who interviewed both Katelyn Kampf and her parents said nothing about the father's race. "This whole race-card thing is ridiculous and objectionable," said Sisti, who represented both of the Kampfs for their arraignment Monday, but is now representing only Lola Kampf. "There wasn't any mention in the sworn affidavit to the court about race being a factor in any way, shape or form." Sisti also maintained there was no evidence a kidnapping had taken place in New Hampshire. The sworn affidavit said Katelyn described talking cordially with her parents during the trip from Maine. But Salem Police prosecutor Ryan McFarland said in court Monday the Kampfs had their passports, rope, a rifle and ammunition in the car. He argued they posed a danger if released and could flee the country. Dion said Katelyn Kampf told him her parents got upset when she called them Thursday night and told them she was pregnant. The Kampfs had met her boyfriend before and been friendly, but the pregnancy apparently "changed the dynamic," he said. Katelyn Kampf said her mother "kept referring to the baby as a thing, as 'It,' and there were other comments made," he said. They invited Katelyn, who is living in Portland with her boyfriend's mother, Peggy Johnson, to come to their house Friday morning. Dion would not say whether the Kampfs were already prepared to abduct their daughter when she arrived. In a court affidavit, Salem Police Officer Sean Marino wrote that Katelyn told him her parents "chased her out into the yard, grabbed and tied her hands and feet together." Her father carried her to the car and they headed to New Hampshire, he wrote. Katelyn Kampf escaped from her parents in Salem after persuading them to untie her so she could use a Kmart bathroom, police said. After her father went into the men's room, she ran to a nearby Staples store and used her father's cell phone, which she had swiped, to call 911, police said. The boyfriend, 22-year-old Reme Johnson, last week began serving a 6-month sentence for theft at the Androscoggin County Jail in Auburn, Maine. He also has previous felony convictions for burglary and receiving stolen property, the Portland Press Herald reported. He is also a self-styled hip-hop artist who has gone by the name Young Merk. Authorities in Maine said the parents apparently thought that, in light of their daughter's stage of pregnancy and the different abortion laws in each state, the abortion should be performed in New York. It was unclear how many weeks pregnant she was. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060919/ap_on_...g&printer=1

AP - School officials apologized after an X-rated font was used on a third-grade spelling packet handed out to parents. The font showed male and female stick figures in provocative poses to form the letters of the alphabet.

Bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman, arrested last week as a fugitive from Mexican authorities, is turning his legal predicament into a special edition of his hit cable TV show on the A&E channel this week. Chapman, who simultaneously ran afoul of Mexican law enforcement and paved the way for a TV career when he captured fugitive rapist Andrew Luster in Puerto Vallarta three years ago, is currently free on bail awaiting an extradition hearing set for November 16 in U.S. District Court in Honolulu. A&E will present his side of the story in a one-hour television special set to air on Tuesday night, titled "Dog: The Family Speaks." Chapman and two members of his bounty team, son Leland and associate Tim Chapman (no relation), were taken into custody by U.S. marshals who raided his home in Hawaii last Thursday. The three were seized on an outstanding warrant stemming from their 2003 arrest in Mexico, where they were charged with illegal deprivation of liberty for their abduction of Luster. Bounty hunting is illegal in Mexico. Luster, the Max Factor cosmetics heir who had eluded an international manhunt for months before Chapman caught up with him, was immediately returned to California to serve a 124-year prison sentence he had received in absentia. Chapman and his team subsequently jumped bail in Mexico and fled back to the United States. The episode gained Chapman, an ex-felon and born-again Christian with 12 children, worldwide fame and led to the creation of a reality TV show chronicling his exploits, "Dog the Bounty Hunter," which now ranks as A&E's top-rated series in its third season. Appearing with his wife, Beth, on the cable news channel MSNBC on Monday, Chapman, who claims to have apprehended more than 6,000 fugitives, said was "completely freaked out" by his arrest last week. And he suggested that U.S. authorities might have acted on a warrant that was close to expiring in exchange for Mexico's recent extradition to the United States of a suspected drug cartel kingpin. "If cop killers ... and drug lords that have hurt thousands of people are brought back from Mexico, and my sentence is six months, then I'll gladly meet him at the Juarez border, if they turn him over," Chapman said. Chapman was freed last Friday on $300,000 bond to await his extradition hearing. But he was required to wear an electronic monitoring device around his ankle and is barred from leaving his house without permission between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. One of his Honolulu-based lawyers, Brook Hart, suggested in a separate interview with Reuters that U.S. and Mexican authorities might be able to reach a deal to avoid an extradition of Chapman. He declined to elaborate. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060919/tv_nm/...c&printer=1

Mickey Hargitay, the actor and world champion bodybuilder who was married to 1950s [bleeped!] siren Jayne Mansfield and whose daughter is Emmy-winning actress Mariska Hargitay, has died. He was 80. Hargitay died Thursday in Los Angeles, according to a family statement issued Monday through publicist Gary Mantoosh. The cause of death was not released. "Words cannot express how saddened we are by the loss of Mickey," the statement said. "At the same time, we are so grateful for who he was and is to all of us, and for the love he gave us in our lives. He will continue to be our source of inspiration and strength." Born Miklos Hargitay in 1926, he emigrated from his native Hungary to the United States after World War II. He became interested in bodybuilding in the 1950s and was named Mr. Universe, Mr. America and Mr. Olympia in 1955. "My dad's a bit of a superhero," Mariska Hargitay told the National Public Radio show "Fresh Air" last year. He parlayed his perfect physique into a performing career when Mae West tapped him to be one of the musclemen in her stage show. It was there that Hargitay met Mansfield, whom he married in 1957. That same year, he made his big-screen debut in "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue." He went on to star opposite his wife in three films: "The Loves of Hercules," "Promises! Promises!" and "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" The couple had three children together, including Mariska, before divorcing in 1964. Mansfield died in a car crash in 1967. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who played Hargitay in the 1982 TV movie "The Jayne Mansfield Story," offered his condolences and called Hargitay "a magnificent individual." "Mickey was such an inspiration and always had such a positive attitude," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "He was a role model of mine for being a successful immigrant who came to this country and pursued his dreams." Hargitay's career continued after his divorce with appearances in a half-dozen Italian films and horror flicks. He even guest-starred in a 2003 episode of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," the show in which his daughter Mariska plays a leading role. When she won an Emmy for her work last month, Mariska tearfully thanked her father, "because he is the reason I'm standing here today." Besides Mariska, survivors include his wife, Ellen, sons Mickey Jr. and Zoltan, and another daughter, Tina. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060919/ap_en_...y&printer=1

Lawmakers angered by relentless violence in Iraq demanded Tuesday that the defense and interior ministers explain what they are doing to put an end to the death squads that have killed hundreds of Iraqis. Violence around Iraq killed at least 16 Iraqis on Tuesday, including 10 people killed in a rocket attack on a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad. An American soldier died in a suicide car bombing in northern Iraq. Nearly 200 bodies of Iraqis who had been tortured and shot have turned up around Baghdad in the past week, including three found Tuesday in an eastern section of the capital. Most are found bound and blindfolded, apparent victims of sectarian violence. Both Sunni and Shiite lawmakers called Tuesday for the defense and interior ministers to explain how they plan to stop the killings. "I demand the defense and interior ministers be summoned to let us know their plans to stop these criminal acts: kidnappings, killings and assassinations against our people," said Hassan Bejar, a lawmaker with the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni bloc in government. Shiite lawmaker Haider al-Safar said: "We are just sitting here and seeing these dead bodies being thrown every day in the streets." "We need to see real achievements from the defense and interior ministries to stop the daily kidnapping and bloodletting," he said. Abdul-Karim al-Enizi, another Shiite, proposed special security teams to investigate the killings. There was no immediate response from the ministries. The U.S. military command, meanwhile, said a soldier was killed Tuesday by a suicide car bomber in northern Iraq. It said another soldier died of non-battle related injuries Monday and two U.S. soldiers were killed Sunday afternoon. The top U.S. military commander in the Middle East said that because of the increased violence, the U.S. military will likely maintain or possibly even increase the current force levels of more than 140,000 troops in Iraq through next spring. Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, said military leaders would consider adding troops or extending the Iraq deployments of other units if needed. "If it's necessary to do that because the military situation on the ground requires that, we'll do it," he said. "If we have to call in more forces because it's our military judgment that we need more forces, we'll do it." The rocket attack in Baghdad's southern Dora district killed 10 people and wounded 19, police said. In a separate attack, a mortar round hit a house in the Shiite neighborhood of Abu Sayfeen in central Baghdad, killing one person outside the building and wounding three boys, aged between 11 and 15, and their father inside the house, said police 1st Lt. Ahmed Mohammed of the Risafa police station. About 20 minutes later, another mortar struck near a police checkpoint in Zayouna Street in central Baghdad, killing a policeman and wounding five other people, said police Capt. Mohammed Abdul Ghani. Earlier, a car bomb exploded near a gas station in Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding 25. Elsewhere, gunmen killed Faris Egab, the mayor of Udhaym town, about 40 miles north of the Diyala provincial capital of Baqouba, as he drove to work, the province's police said. Gunmen also struck in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, firing on a police patrol near the city prison, killing one policeman and wounding three, the police said. ___ http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060919/ap_on_...q&printer=1

An unfinished tale by J.R.R. Tolkien has been edited by his son into a completed work and will be released next spring, the U.S. and British publishers announced Monday.

Twenty-one lions are dying in a zoo in north India after a cross-breeding experiment to boost the park's attractions went disastrously wrong. In the 1980s officials at the Chhatbir Zoo in the northern city of Chandigarh, bred captive Asiatic lions with a pair of African circus animals, resulting in a hybrid species. Within a few years it became obvious it had not worked. The offspring found it hard to walk, let alone run, because their hind legs were weak. And by the mid 1990s the big cats -- which live for up to 20 years in captivity -- showed symptoms of failing immune systems. But it wasn't until 2000 that the breeding program was ended, and the male lions given vasectomies, by which time the zoo had 70 to 80 such lions. Their number dwindled slowly, with disease killing some and some dying of wounds inflicted by other lions. Authorities say they are waiting for the population to "phase out" before they can start breeding pure Asiatic lions. "But the effort here is to help them die with dignity," said Dharminder Sharma, a senior zoo official. "We give them all the facilities to live a happy life in their last years. Some of the old lions are even given boneless meat." Last year the zoo opened a special enclosure, away from the main exhibit area, where it keeps lions who have become too feeble to defend themselves. It has been dubbed an "old age home" for lions. Ailing Lakshmi and Lajwanti now live in these sheds, which have a small caged courtyard. Both are hybrid and are extremely weak. They can barely stand up or walk. Their only activity is a small but painful walk to eat their meals. However, if challenged, they can still muster a spine-chilling roar. In August, Lakshmi stopped eating. Doctors at the zoo put her on a drip and fed her glucose through water. "Those were nervous times for us," said Sharma. "We tried very hard to keep her alive and eventually succeeded when she slowly started to eat ... Even if they are meant to die, it doesn't meant we kill them by not treating them," he added. Asiatic lions are found only in India and, at present, there are about 300 of them in the Gir national park in the western state of Gujarat. In the mid-20th century, their numbers were less then 15 as they were vigorously hunted by the Maharajas and princes for whom the majestic animal was the most coveted game. The population recovered after a breeding program launched in the Gir sanctuary in the 1960s. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060917/wl_nm/...c&printer=1

In the early 1960s, Johnny Carson hosted an afternoon TV show called "Who Do You Trust?" The title was grammatically incorrect, but I will use it anyway to pose a question regarding the current fuss over the Geneva Conventions: When it comes to George Bush and John McCain, who -- or whom -- do you trust? This is about as dumb a question as the Groucho Marx standard from "You Bet Your Life," yet another old TV show: Who's buried in Grant's Tomb? The contest, after all, is between a president who has repeatedly broken faith with the American people over the war in Iraq -- everything from weapons of mass destruction to disingenuous assurances that torture has not been used in the interrogation of suspects -- and a former Vietnam War prisoner who was tortured by his jailers because, among other things, he refused an offer of early release. There is nothing in George Bush's life that even approaches what McCain has done. Of course, McCain does not stand alone against Bush. He was joined on the Senate Armed Services Committee by three other Republicans: Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins and, importantly, the chairman, John W. Warner. They were in turn joined by the Democrats, who, for once, have wisely stepped out of the way to allow the Republicans to duke it out among themselves. But it is McCain who gets the lion's share of attention, and it was McCain who elicited that letter from Colin Powell saying, among other things, that under Bush's proposals to amend the Geneva Conventions, the world would "doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism." The lion had finally roared. In New Hampshire, the state's largest newspaper, the reactionary Union Leader, opened up on McCain for opposing the president. But McCain has carried New Hampshire before, over the protestations of the Union Leader, and could do so again. Still, the all-but-declared presidential candidate -- McCain now has a staff about as big as FEMA's -- has plenty of opposition within his own party. Between his temper and his iconoclastic positions -- campaign finance, for instance -- he has made loads of enemies. For the moment, the spotlight is on McCain and Bush -- a delightful GOP squabble. But it is the Democrats who ought to be paying close attention. For while the Democrats are awash in potential presidential candidates, they have nobody who even remotely approaches McCain's stature. I say this not because I agree with McCain across the board -- not on abortion, for sure, and not on Iraq, and not with his bellicose statements regarding North Korea -- but because he embodies a quality for which the country yearns: integrity. He is a man of his word. The conventional wisdom is that the Senate is the graveyard of presidential ambitions. In recent times only John F. Kennedy has gone directly from there to the White House, while countless others have gone grimly back to Capitol Hill, John Kerry being just the latest example. McCain, though, has so far figured out how to leverage his Senate seat without falling prey to the sort of institutional problems that have bedeviled others -- a clotted verbosity, for instance. McCain somehow still speaks English. The prime issue facing this country is not the war in Iraq. It is the people's loss of faith in their own government. In that, Iraq has played an important part but so, too, have campaign spending and fiscal idiocy of the sort represented by Sen. Ted Stevens's notorious "bridge to nowhere." Those of us who have been with McCain when he speaks of restoring faith in government know the effect on his audience. The man and his message are one and the same. To restore trust, many Democrats and independents might be willing to overlook disagreements with McCain on issues of lesser importance -- including, maybe, even his rah-rah support for the war in Iraq (after all, how different is he from Hillary Clinton in this regard?) and his disquieting move to make nice with his former enemies on the religious right. But if that is to be the case, McCain must remain true to the principles he has enunciated in his disagreement with Bush over the Geneva Conventions and similar matters. Compromise is not a dirty word, but abandonment of principle is a different matter entirely. The United States cannot conduct itself as its enemies have. We do not torture. We do not have kangaroo courts. We are John McCain, not his North Vietnamese jailers. As he did back in the Hanoi Hilton, this is McCain's moment to once again make that clear. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...1800994_pf.html

Somalia's president narrowly escaped an assassination attempt Monday by a suicide car bomber outside Parliament in Baidoa, officials said. The blast and a subsequent gunbattle killed 11 people, including the president's brother. "This is the first suicide bomber in Somalia," Foreign Minister Ismail Mohamed Hurre told The Associated Press in Nairobi, Kenya. "This has the fingerprints of al-Qaida all over it." Hurre said investigators determined the blast was a suicide attack because of "the way the body was dismembered, it was cut in two pieces." There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack in Baidoa, the only town controlled by the virtually powerless government. But Hurre said he could not "rule out or rule in" an Islamic militia that has seized control of much of southern Somalia. The Islamic group, which is accused of having links to al-Qaida, denied responsibility. "The perpetrators of the Baidoa blast are enemies of Somali people and Islamic courts have no hand in it," said Abdirahman Mudey, a spokesman for the Islamic group. The suicide attacker drove into the presidential convoy, hitting the car that usually carries President Abdullahi Yusuf, Hurreh said. The bomber "thought that was the president but in fact it was his security people," Hurreh said. The president had been moved to another car that was not part of the main convoy in a routine security measure. The man who was driving Yusuf lost his hand in the attack, and the president was escorted from the car surrounded by bodyguards, said Baidoa resident Abdisalam Mohammed Nor Hassan, who witnessed the explosion. Other witnesses who didn't want to be named said the president appeared to have been hit in the face by flying glass. The bomb exploded outside Parliament just 10 minutes after Yusuf had given a speech, said Mohamed Adawe, a journalist who witnessed the blast. Yusuf's bodyguards chased several suspected accomplices, killing six of them in a gunbattle. The five other dead were in the president's convoy, officials said. "This explosion was intended to kill the president, but he escaped and he is safe," government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said. Two people were arrested, officials said. The blast came a day after a nun was gunned down outside a hospital where she worked in Mogadishu, about 250 kilometers from Baidoa. There was no claim of responsibility, but many fear the shooting could be linked to worldwide Muslim anger toward Pope Benedict XVI. Hurre said the government believes the nun's killing and Monday's car bomb have "the hallmarks of al-Qaida." The terror organization's leader, Osama bin Laden, has called Somalia a battleground in his war on the West. "Osama bin Laden has made it clear he wants to do harm to the government and to the president in particular," Hurre said. He also said the government believes the same people were responsible for both attacks. He did not elaborate. Somalia has not had an effective central government since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another, pulling the country into anarchy. The current government was established two years ago with the support of the United Nations, but it has failed to assert any power outside its base in Baidoa. The Islamic militia seized control of Mogadishu in recent months and has extended its reach over much of southern Somalia, in direct challenge to the government. The militia has imposed strict religious rule in the areas under its sway, and its Islamic courts are credited with bringing a semblance of order to the country. Many in the West, however, fear a Taliban-style regime could emerge. Peace talks between the government and the Islamic group were to resume October 30 in Khartoum, Sudan. Earlier this month, the two sides agreed to eventually form a unified national army - a rare and significant accord. Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi urged Somalis to unite behind the government. "When you link the Baidoa blast to the killing of the nun in Mogadishu you will see the worsening security situation in the country and the upswing of terrorist acts in Somalia," he said. "This will not only affect Somalia, but it will also affect other neighboring countries." http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apa...icle%2FShowFull

Hungarian police clashed with protesters demanding the resignation of the prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, yesterday in the first such violence since the fall of communism in the late 1980s. Last night there were reports that the state television station had been set on fire. Scores of protesters hurled bottles and cobblestones at riot police, who fired teargas in return. The violence in Budapest followed the release of a recording in which Mr Gyurcsany said his administration had lied to win re-election in April polls. On the tape, recorded during a meeting in May but broadcast on Hungarian television and radio on Sunday, Mr Gyurcsany told a group of MPs from his Socialist party that they had "screwed up". "It's obvious that we lied [about the state of the economy] throughout the last year and a half, two years," he said. In an expletive-riddled recording, Mr Gyurcsany said: "No European country has done anything as boneheaded as we have." He went on to admit that it was only due to "divine providence, the abundance of cash in the world economy and hundreds of tricks" that the economy had not collapsed. The tape broadcast prompted thousands of people to demonstrate outside parliament. President Laszlo Solyom said the prime minister had thrown the country into a "moral crisis" and imperilled people's trust in democracy. He joined the calls for Mr Gyurcsany to resign. The main opposition party, Fidesz, said its MPs would boycott parliament for a day in protest. Mr Gyurcsany's comments triggered market concerns that his government might be forced to abandon unpopular reforms designed to rescue the country from economic crisis. Hungary has the largest budget deficit in the EU. It is expected to reach 10.1 per cent of gross domestic product, compared with the government's pre-election target of 4.7 per cent. Admitting that the tape was authentic, Mr Gyurcsany said he had intended to warn people about the extent of the country's problems and to "prepare Hungary to face up to the past many, many years," referring to the 16 years since it returned to democracy. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...19/wriots19.xml

It's the stuff of science fiction: a prosthetic arm that can be moved just by thinking about it and that can feel heat and the pressure of a handshake. It became a reality for US Marine Claudia Mitchell two years after she lost her arm to a motorcycle, researchers said last week. The bionic arm is controlled by rerouting nerves in Mitchell's shoulder to healthy muscles in her chest. This targeted muscle reinnervation directs the signals once sent to the amputated arm to the robotic arm via surface electrodes that respond to Mitchell's thoughts. "Before the surgery, I doubted that I would ever be able to get my life back," said the 26-year-old Mitchell, who has become the world's first bionic woman. "But this arm and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago have allowed me to return to a life that is more rewarding and active than I ever could have imagined," she said. "I am happy, confident and independent." The first major advancement in prosthetics since World War II, the bionic arm allows amputees a significantly higher level of functionality. They can open jars, reach up to high shelves and dress themselves with more ease. Researchers are hoping the bionic arms can be used to aid the more than 400 people who lost their limbs while serving in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. "It is so rewarding for me as a physician and a scientist to lead research with the potential to positively impact the lives of amputees, including our US service men and women," said Dr. Todd Kuiken who developed the technology as director of the rehabilitation institute's Neural Engineering Center for Bionic Medicine. "On behalf of RIC, my team and I consider it a great honor to be able to serve our country and the individuals with disabilities around the world in this way." Since the inception of the bionic arm in 2002, six amputees have gone through the targeted muscle reinnervation process and all but one have been successful in achieving thought-controlled movement. A former football player who lost both his limbs, Jesse Sullivan was the first person to undergo the experimental nerve-transfer procedure for the purpose of improving prosthetic control in 2005. Mitchell read about Sullivan in Popular Science magazine a few months after her accident and contacted the institute to see if she could receive a bionic arm as well. She underwent the surgery on her 25th birthday and has spent the past year learning how to control the bionic arm. One year later, she can peel an orange. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060918/ts_al...c&printer=1

The date when passports will be required for U.S. citizens flying or cruising to Canada, the Caribbean and Mexico has been extended by one week, to Jan. 8, 2007.

SPACE.com / LiveScience.com - Windmills that would float hundreds of miles out at sea could one day help satisfy our energy needs without being eyesores from land, scientists said today.

More than a quarter of New Yorkers infected with the AIDS virus are now dying of other causes, researchers said on Monday. An analysis of 68,669 New York City residents infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, found that of those who died between 1999 and 2004, 26.3 percent died of something other than HIV. That is a 32 percent increase from 1999, when just under 20 percent of HIV patients died of other causes. Cocktails of drugs that suppress the virus have been credited with allowing HIV patients to lead near-normal lives, and once- or twice-a-day dosing now makes them more manageable. Nonetheless, AIDS remains incurable and is always fatal in places where the drugs are not available -- notably much of Africa. Writing in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Judith Sackoff and colleagues at the New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said they found that 31 percent of HIV patients died because of substance abuse, close to 24 percent died of cardiovascular disease and 20 percent died of cancer unrelated to the virus. "Physicians everywhere must remember that most of their HIV-infected patients will survive to develop the diseases that plague the rest of us," Dr. Judith Aberg of New York University wrote in a commentary. Another study published in the same journal found that nearly 10 percent of men interviewed in New York who identified themselves as heterosexual reported having [bleeped!] with at least one man during the previous year. The survey of 4,193 men conducted by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene found that 70 percent of the men who had [bleeped!] with other men were married. Many admitted they had not used a condom and had not been tested for HIV. "Doctors need to ask patients about specific sexual practices instead of relying on self-reported sexual orientation to assess risk for unsafe sexual practices and risk for sexually transmitted diseases," said Preeti Pathela, who led the study. "Public health prevention messages should target risky sexual activities, such as unprotected receptive anal [bleeped!], and should not be framed to appeal solely to gay-identified men." http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060918/ts_nm/...c&printer=1

Anyone out there hoping for a Nicole Kidman-Angelina Jolie smackdown probably shouldn't hold their breath. A Scottish newspaper has publicly apologized for attributing negative remarks about Jolie's charity work to Kidman in a Sept. 8 article. The report in question suggested that Kidman was judging Jolie for using her philanthropic toils as a means of getting attention. "It's not like Angelina is any better than a nurse working in a hospital, but she's getting the publicity for her contribution," Scotland's Daily Record quoted Kidman as saying. "I have a friend who is a doctor and every year he works in Africa for two months for no money. So everyone is on the same playing field, whether you offer your services as the doctor or as Angelina does." The purported remarks were subsequently disseminated via online gossip sites. However, according to Kidman's publicist, Catherine Olim, the actress never said any such thing. "The Daily Record, which attempted to suggest a rift between Ms. Kidman and Ms. Jolie, as well as malice on Ms. Kidman's part, has confirmed that it attributed remarks that she did not make to them," Olim said in a statement. "Ms. Kidman has tremendous admiration for Angelina Jolie and her tireless, worldwide charitable work, as well as for the work of countless less well known volunteers in areas of need around the world." The Daily Record acknowledged that Kidman never made the remarks and apologized for "any upset caused." Both Kidman and Jolie serve as goodwill ambassadors to the United Nations. Kidman represents UNIFEM, the United Nations Development Fund for Women, while Jolie represents UNHCR, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. http://news.yahoo.com/s/eo/20060918/en_cel...9&printer=1

This just in: Willie Nelson likes his herb. The country outlaw is back on the road again after a pot-powered pit stop early Monday. Nelson and several bandmates received misdemeanor citations for marijuana possession after their tour bus was pulled over in St. Martin Parish, Louisiana. The bust came just two days after Nelson called for the decriminalization of marijuana while stumping for Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman. According to Willie Williams of the Louisiana Highway Patrol, Nelson and crew were traveling along Highway 10 when they were stopped for a routine commercial inspection. Officers on the scene caught a whiff of something suspicious emanating from the vehicle as soon as the driver opened the door. And BioWillie be [bleeped!], a search of the bus turned up about one and a half pounds of marijuana, along with a small bag of psychedelic mushrooms estimated at two-tenths of a pound. "No one aboard the bus gave any of our troopers any problems," Williams told E! Online. "When the search was conducted, they were very cordial and...subsequently admitted to being the owners of the narcotics." Williams stressed that the group did not receive any preferential treatment from troopers. Nelson and his band members were not arrested, Williams said, because the St. Martin Parish jail was "filled to capacity." It will be up to the county district attorney to decide whether the musicians will be called to court. Aside from the 73-year-old ringleader, citations were issued to his sister, Bobbie Nelson, 75, of Briarcliff, Texas; Gates Moore, 54, from Austin; David Anderson, 50, of Dallas; and Tony Sizemore, 59, of St. Cloud, Florida. If convicted, they could each face up to six months in jail--but probation and/or fines are more likely sentences. Nelson's publicist, Elaine Shock, declined to comment. Before the bust, the Farm Aid founder and his band were in his native Texas to headline Saturday's Austin City Limits Music Festival. Nelson gave an interview there in which he urged politicians to scrap criminal penalties for pot possession. Those sentiments echoed the platform of his pal Friedman, a singer-songwriter turned politician who's mounting an independent bid for Texas governor and has called on the decriminalization of marijuana to help clear clogged state prisons of nonviolent offenders. Nelson has actively supported Friedman's candidacy, hosting a $1,000-per-plate fundraising dinner and signing a petition to get Friedman on the ballot. "The hundred times that Kinky and I have talked during his campaign--we talked about energy, health, biodiesel, immigration, war--and the pot thing has never come up. Of course, I felt always that I knew where Kinky stood on that, and he knew where I stood, but I also knew that it was very risky to bring that out politically, but what?s Kinky got to lose?" Nelson said. Aside from fighting for his right to toke, Nelson has been pushing for greener fuel (and has opened a chain of BioWillie diesel stations) and petitioning Congress to pass a bill banning the industrial slaughter of wild horses to sell as meat to consumers abroad. http://news.yahoo.com/s/eo/20060918/en_mus...7&printer=1

AP - The Pacific-10 Conference, finding merit in Oklahoma's complaints about the officiating in its loss to Oregon, issued a one-game suspension Monday to the officiating crew and the instant replay officials who worked the game and an apology to the Sooners.