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| Thursday • July 29, 2010 |
Rangel to Stand Trial:
 Representative Charles B. Rangel will stand public trial on 13 counts of violating House rules, after the veteran congressman failed to reach a settlement to avoid the rare and potentially embarrassing proceeding. Members of the House ethics committee detailed on Thursday the numerous charges against Mr. Rangel, a Democrat from Harlem, including multiple breaches of the House ban on accepting gifts of more than $50 and of the requirement that members act at all times in a way that reflects creditably on the House. Committee members struck a somber but determined tone in their brief public meeting, expressing affection for Mr. Rangel while at the same time saying they need to uphold the integrity of Congress, especially given its dismal standing with the public .
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RULING ON ARIZONA WARNS OTHER STATES
Wednesday’s ruling on immigration in Arizona has a large impact beyond the Southwestern state’s borders because a federal judge’s decision to block the most austere portions of a new law could give the federal government the upper hand in future contests with individual states. Nine states filed papers in favor of the Arizona law, which was opposed by the Obama administration and its attorney general, Eric Holder. The judge ruled that the Arizona law, which would have required citizens to show their papers at the request of police officers, interfered with federal law and policy. The decision, while not final, could put an end to the growing movement among states to fight illegal immigration with new state-level requirements. |
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SHERROD TO SUE BREITBART:
 Shirley Sherrod is going to sue Andrew Breitbart for the supposedly racist, heavily edited video he posted of her on his website Big Government. Sherrod announced her intentions at annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists. The version of the video Breitbart posted showed Sherrod telling an NAACP group that she had denied a farmer assistance because he was white; a full version of the video, however, shows that Sherrod had in fact saved the farmer’s home. Sherrod also addressed President Obama’s remarks on The View on Thursday, in which he blamed the media for the whole fiasco. Sherrod said, “It wasn’t all media. It was Fox.”
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NEW EVIDENCE LINKS MANNING TO WIKILEAKS:
 The Wall Street Journal reports that investigators have found concrete evidence linking Pfc. Manning to the 92,000 classified documents obtained by WikiLeaks. While it’s not clear what exactly the evidence it is, the Journal says that it was recovered from Manning’s computer.
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BODY OF SECOND SAILOR RECOVERED:
 The body of the second American sailor who went missing in eastern Afghanistan Friday has been recovered. Petty Officer 3rd Class Jarod Newlove, 25, was from the Seattle area. Villagers found a body in uniform in the Baraki Barak village Wednesday; the district neighbors the Charkh district where Newlove and Petty Officer 2nd Class Justin McNeeley disappeared last week. The body of McNeely, a 30-year-old father of two sons, was recovered Sunday. The Taliban claimed to have captured Newlove and left McNeely’s body to be found by U.S. forces. The sailors were attending counterinsurgency
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EIGHT DEAD BABIES FOUND IN FRANCE:
Eight newborn babies were found buried in the ground of Villers-au-Terte, a quiet village in north-eastern France. Authorities arrested a married couple in their mid-40s in connection with the finding. “They were normal people. How such a thing is possible is unimaginable,” said one neighbor. The husband built roofs; the wife was a nurse’s assistant. Police said they think they will find more bodies. The killings likely equal the deadliest infanticide in French history. |
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EXPLOSION KILLS 10 AT PLASTICS FACTORY IN EASTERN CHINA:
 10 people were killed in an explosion at a factory in eastern China, officials in the city of Nanjing told reporters that more than 120 people had been hospitalized after the blast ripped through an abandoned plastics factory Wednesday morning.
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FOUR JOURNALISTS HELD HOSTAGE IN MEXICO:
The Committee to Protect Journalists appealed Wednesday to the Mexican government to do all it can to bring about the release of four journalists abducted Monday. The four were abducted in the Laguna region, which includes Durango and parts of the neighboring state of Coahuila — all in the northern part of the country where the Zetas criminal group and the Sinaloa cartel have been fighting. |
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HOUSE PASSES BILL TO REDUCE DISPARITY IN COCAINE PENALTIES:
 Ending a decade-long campaign led by African-American lawmakers, the House Wednesday approved and sent to President Barack Obama a measure to reduce the disparity in penalties between use of crack and powder cocaine. Under a 25-year-old law, mandatory minimum sentences involving crack cocaine — a drug more commonly used by blacks than whites — led to far more severe penalties than for offenses involving powder cocaine, generally preferred by whites. “The Fair Sentencing Act will reduce sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine from 100-to-1 to 18-to-1,” said Congressman John Conyers, D-Michigan, who applauded the passage.
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LBN-NOTICED:
***Vanessa Hudgens hitting up a class in United Methodist Church in Hollywood wearing cute and casual clothing. ***Kate Gosselin and her eight little ones spotted landing at the Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday. The reality TV show mommy and her entire brood looked a bit worn out yet excited, as they made their way through the terminal with the help of bodyguard Steve Neild and a fellow helping hand. ***Orlando Bloom speeding through Los Angeles on his Ducati motorcycle before stopping at a local In-N-Out Burger for some delicious eats. ***BE AN LBN-CORRESPONDENT — Send your celebrity sightings to: LBNElert@Timewire.net. |
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LBN-HEALTH NEWS:
***The Rwandan government is giving out hundreds of cell phones in an attempt to save pregnant women and babies. Nearly 500 volunteer community health care workers in the rural district of Musanze have been given free phones so they can keep track of all the pregnant women in their villages. The cell phones are used to register and monitor expecting mothers. If there are any questions, complications or updates, health workers simply send a text to their local clinic and receive a response within minutes. ***Insured Americans are using fewer medical services, raising questions about whether patients are consuming less health care as they pick up a greater share of the costs. The drop in usage is showing up as health-care companies report financial results. Insurers, lab-testing companies, hospitals and doctor-billing concerns say that patient visits, drug prescriptions and procedures were down in the second quarter from year-ago levels. |
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AIR FORCE PLANE IN FLAMES OVER ALASKA:
With four crew members on board, an Air Force cargo plane crashed and burst into flames in Anchorage, Alaska on Wednesday. Military officials did not say w hether anyone survived. “With a ball of fire that big and a plume of smoke that high, it was probably nothing good,” one eye witness said. An Air Force officer said the plane was practicing its maneuvers for an upcoming air show. The military may now reconsider whether to participate in such shows following the crash. |
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LBN-BUSINESS INSIDER:
***Goldman Sachs has banned its employees from using curse words in their emails. Wall Street types are notorious for their foul language, a tendency that brought the firm some embarrassment during an April hearing, when angry senators seized on a Goldman email calling a product “one shitty deal.” The anti-swearing policy will be enforced with screening software. It’s unclear whether shorthand like “WTF” will fall under the ban, which was issued verbally. In June, Citigroup employees got a memo saying that “recent headlines involving inappropriate emails are an important reminder to ‘think before writing, read before sending’.” ***Mortgage rates have plunged to the lowest level on record for the fifth time in over six weeks, thus making buying a home and refinancing the most financially appealing it has been in decades for those who can get loans. The last time mortgage rates were this low was during the 1950’s when mortgages mostly lasted just 20 or 25 years. |
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NO SURVIVORS FROM PAKISTAN CRASH:
 No survivors were found from the crash of a Pakistani passenger plane that went down in the outskirts of the capital Islamabad. The crash of the Airbus A321 in Islamabad on Wednesday — Pakistan’s worst civilian air disaster claiming 152 lives — is a grim reminder. Civilian air travel, despite advancements in technology, has been far from safe in the new millennium. Statistics available say there have been 12,242 human casualties because of civilian aircraft crashes since 2000.
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LBN-BOOK INSIDER:
 ***The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, a story about a journalist hired to investigate the disappearance of an heir to a wealthy family has been on the USA Today’s Best-Selling Books Database at number 1, two weeks in a row and has been in the top 150 for 63 weeks. The book was also adapted into a movie by Niels Arden Oplev which has won 4 awards and 6 nominations. ***Former Playboy playmate, Kendra Wilkinson released her new tell-all memoir this month, “Sliding Into Home.” In the book Wilkinson opens up about her battle with drugs during her teenage years, her recent sex tape scandal, and her life as a Hugh Hefner’s former girlfriend.
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OBAMA TAKES ON MEDIA ON THE VIEW:
 President Obama’s appearance on The View was mostly a friendly affair, but he did take the opportunity to blame the media for last week’s Shirley Sherrod affair. He said that the “24/7 media cycle doesn’t get to the facts first” and that it ginned up the “phony controversy.” He did at least note that “people in my administration” were too quick to play along. Obama’s appearance was the first for a sitting president on The View. He also refused to address the Mel Gibson controversy, saying he’d rather talk about Afghanistan, and said he did not know much about Snooki from Jersey Shore.
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LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER:
***Sony has picked up the upcoming Meryl Streep and Tina Fey film called, Mommy & Me. ***Pregnant Julie Chen is the new panelist on CBS The Talk. Having her husband be the CEO of CBS looks like it could have helped land her the position. But Nina Tassler states, Chen has had more hosting experience than the other panelists on The Talk. |
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LBN-SPORTS INSIDER:
***Univisions coverage of the World Cup has proven to increase revenue and profit for the Spanish speaking station. Univision streamed World Cup games live, The Argentina vs. Mexico match drew 9.3 million viewers- making it the most watched telecast in the history of Spanish language TV in the US. ***USC is erasing Reggie Bush’s athletic track record in an effort to clean up the university’s image. This may require the university to request the return of the Heisman Trophy. In addition, the university may also take down Reggie Bush pictures and jerseys from the Heritage Hall and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. ***The body of former NBA player Wright has been found in a wooded area 15 miles south of downtown Memphis. Lorenzen Wright has been missing for 10 days prior to the discovery. |
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I, LBN:
 Singer & songwriter Tyrese Gibson, an LBN reader from Los Angeles, California.
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LBN-COMMENTARY By ALANA STEWART:
Something else I’ve learned from my journey with Farrah is that we all have a source of inner strength to call upon, no matter what difficulties we may be facing. During this time with her, I’ve found myself in circumstances where I felt momentarily terrified – completely unequipped to face what was before me. I’ve had to dig down deep and find that inner strength that we all have. I believe that it comes from a Higher Power or God r whatever one chooses to call this force greater than we are. Now I know that this source gives me strength and courage to face whatever challenges may arise. |
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LBN-COMMENTARY By DICK MORRIS (Political Commentator, Best-Selling Author):
 There is only one leader available who can unite the Republican Party, best Obama in debate, and carry a true conservative message forward: Newt Gingrich. We hope he will run. And, if he does, we predict that he will win.
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LBN-COMMENTARY By TONY CURTIS:
I lived with Brando when I first got to Los Angeles. We were 24, 25. He was an interesting man. Different, a genius. He had courage. He used to play drums on the pots and pans in the kitchen while I played the flute. We’d make up songs. We both always liked that about each other – that we started out at the same time. |
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LBN-COMMENTARY By DR. OZ:
 Health is a sacred process. Food is not something you pull off the shelf- it has a force to it.
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LBN-historical commentary by John Gibbon:
 Few of us will forget the wail of mingled grief, rage and horror which rose from the camp when the Indians returned to it and recognized their slaughtered warriors, women, and children.
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Lbn-a different view:
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LBN-OVERHEARD:
***Madonna’s daughter Lourdes is launching her own fashion line, Material Girl. Madonna was in her East Hampton mansion this weekend to support her daughter’s new business. ***Kevin Connolly and Kevin Dillon, Entourage stars celebrated their new ownership of a share of restaurant, Sirio in Las Vegas by hitting Saratoga Springs with friends and family. ***Lorenzo Martone (Marc Jacob’s ex) and Lance Bass are casually seeing each other but are not dating yet despite many rumors. ***Paul McCartney performed at the White House with the Obamas in attendance. The former Beatles’ member performed in acceptance of Gershwin Prize of Popular Song, an award given by Library of Congress. |
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LBN-QUOTE:
“Money can’t buy happiness, but neither can poverty.” – Leo Rosten. |
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LBN-HISTORY:
On July 29, 2005, Astronomers announced that they had discovered a new planet larger than Pluto in orbit around the sun. |
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| WEDNESDAY • JULY 28, 2010 |
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 JUDGE BLOCKS CONTROVERSIAL SECTIONS OF ARIZONA’S IMMIGRATION LAW: A judge has blocked the most controversial sections of Arizona’s new immigration law from taking effect Thursday, handing a major legal victory to opponents of the crackdown. The law will still take effect Thursday, but without many of the provisions that angered opponents - including sections that required officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws. The judge also put on hold a part of the law that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times, and made it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places.
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 PLANE CARRYING 152 CRASHES IN PAKISTAN: A plane carrying 152 people crashed into the hills near Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday morning.The Airblue plane left Karachi at 7:45 a.m. for the flight to Pakistan’s capital and, during dangerous cloudy weather, lost contact with the airport control tower at 12:43 p.m. The plane crashed into a wooded hill with no roads, making rescue efforts more difficult. Officials say they’ve been digging through the wreckage with their bare hands as helicopters remove bodies.
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 AL QAEDA NO. 2 THREATENS MORE U.S. ATTACKS: Al Qaeda’s second in command Ayman Al-Zawahiri has surfaced again, this time threatening more attacks against the U.S. and the West. “Oh American people. We offered you a peace plan, and mutual benefit; but your governments were proud and haughty, and so the attacks against you followed one after another, everywhere – from Indonesia to Times Square, by way of Madrid and London. And the attacks are ongoing, and more will come one after another,” said Zawahiri, according to a transcript provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute, based in Washington, DC.
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‘BP SQUAD’ TO START CRIMINAL PROBE: Perhaps they’re hoping to sell film rights once the investigation is complete? A team of federal investigators known as the “BP squad” is preparing a wide-ranging criminal probe of BP, Halliburton, and Transocean (which operated the Deepwater Horizon rig), says The Washington Post. Housed at the FBI offices in New Orleans, the team includes officials from the EPA, Coast Guard, and other agencies; the investigation will include looking into whether cozy relationships with federal regulators contributed to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
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 ANSEL ADAMS HEIRS SKEPTICAL OF LOST PHOTOS: After being lost for decades, 65 negatives shot by famed photographer Ansel Adams were discovered and authenticated by California painter Rick Norsigian, he announced yesterday. (The photos, purchased for $45, were valued at $200 million.) But Adams heirs are skeptical. They say they’ve been dogged by Norsigian for years, saying the painter has been on an “obsessive quest” and that the negatives are “an unfortunate fraud.” Norsigian plans to sell prints from the negatives online, and lawyers with the Adams estate are already looking into suing Norsigian for using a copyrighted name to make money. Norsigian says he bought the negatives years ago and never really considered their value until a friend said they looked like Adams’ work—the same locations, the same style, and sometimes the same associates of Adams were pictured.
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LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER: ***Steve McPherson, president of ABC Entertainment, is stepping down after repeated clashes with his bosses that reached a climax in the last few days after he got wind that a replacement was in the wings. McPherson is to be succeeded by ABC Family chief Paul Lee. ***Starz Entertainment CEO Chris Albrecht and his associates have been meeting with potential partners around the world to raise $1 billion of off-balance-sheet financing for original programming. ***France’s first lady, a former supermodel turned songstress, is making her debut as an actress, filming this week in Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris.” Even her busy husband, President Nicolas Sarkozy, wasn’t about to miss the action. He showed up on the Left Bank set Tuesday, in dark suit but no tie, to watch his spouse in her latest creative venture.
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 WHO READS THE LBN E-LERT? TV hostess Suzanne Sena along with over 320,000 other “influencers” in all 50 of the United States and 24 foreign countries.
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LBN-MEDIA INSIDER: ***Newsweek is delaying a planned move from its 395 Hudson Street offices in New York’s West Village to a space at 888 Seventh Avenue. The new timetable should keep the newsweekly from having to pack up shop twice should a new owner have its own real-estate agenda. ***The Wall Street Journal is hiring Deborah Needleman, former editor of Domino magazine, to oversee its glossy style magazine and a weekly lifestyle section that is set to publish for the first time in the fall. Needleman led Domino until Conde Nast closed it last year.
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 GOOGLE WORKING ON FACEBOOK RIVAL: Apple isn’t Google’s only competitor these days: Google is working on a new social media site that would rival Facebook, The Wall Street Journal reports. The tech giant has been in talks with several top game developers—including Playdom Inc., Electronic Arts’ Playfish, and Zynga Game Network—to offer games in the social-networking service. Google CEO Eric Schmidt wouldn’t confirm the plan, and, when asked if the site would resemble Facebook, said “The world doesn’t need a copy of the same thing.” A Google social-networking site would be great for social-game developers because they wouldn’t be so dependent on Facebook. Demand for the games is high—more than 50 million people use Zynga’s Farmville game on Facebook—and on Tuesday, Disney bought Playdom for $563.2 million, plus up to $200 million more if it hits performance targets. Google launched Buzz in February; the service offers updates on friends’ photos and links but drew big complaints about privacy.
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EXPANSION: Government officials have expanded the investigation of Bradley Manning, suspected of spilling the Afghan war secrets, to include possible U.S. civilian accomplices.
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 LBN-MUSIC INSIDER: ***Wyclef Jean will formally announce his bid for the presidency of earthquake-shattered Haiti within two weeks, sources tell us. The former Fugees star, 37, who’s an ambassador under the current Haitian government, is ready to put his music career on hold to run for his homeland’s top job.
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 LBN-THIS DAY IN HISTORY: US Bomber Crashes into New York’s Empire State Building (1945)On a foggy Saturday morning in July 1945, a B-25 Mitchell bomber accidentally crashed into the north side of the Empire State Building between the 79th and 80th floors. One of the plane’s engines shot through the building and out the other side, and the other plummeted down an elevator shaft. Though 14 people died in the incident, the building was largely open for business on the following Monday.
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 LBN-BOOK INSIDER: ***Former Disney chief Michael Eisner has interviewed Bill and Melinda Gates for his new HarperCollins book, “Working Together,” a tome on how successful partnerships work. He’s also talked to Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, Valentino and Giancarlo Giammetti, and Joe Torre and Don Zimmer, a source tells us. Eisner was spotted leaving HarperCollins’ Midtown office earlier this week.
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 PANASONIC INTRODUCES 3-D CAMCORDER: As if home videos weren’t nauseating enough already: Panasonic introduced a 3-D camcorder for consumers on Tuesday. The device will sell for about $2,000 and go on sale in the United States later this year. (It hits shelves in Japan on August 20.) Videos shot on the camcorder will be compatible with 3-D televisions and will require glasses.
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 LBN-TODAY’S BIRTHDAY: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929) Onassis was the wife of US President John F. Kennedy and served as First Lady during his presidency from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. Her graciousness, elegance, and beauty endeared her to the American public, and her broad culture and ease in speaking Spanish and French impressed foreign leaders. Five years after her first husband’s murder, she married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.
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LBN-INVESTIGATES: The Mines of South Africa can descend as far as 12,000 feet and reach temperatures of 130 degrees. To produce an ounce of gold requires 38 man hours, 1400 gallons of water, enough electricity to run a large house for ten days, and chemicals such as cyanide, acids, lead, borax, and lime. In order to extract South Africa’s yearly output of 500 tons of gold, nearly 70 million tons of earth are raised and milled.
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 LBN-NOTICED: ***Squeaky-clean heartthrob Zac Efron and two of his pals spent more than $2,000 on lap dancers and vodka at a top New York strip club. The Disney-produced “High School Musical” prodigy showed up at Flashdancers Gentlemen’s Club on Broadway in NYC on Sunday night and stayed until 3 a.m., just hours before the New York premiere of his new family-friendly flick, “Charlie St. Cloud.” ***Beyonce Knowles dining at Strip House in NYC, taking over a corner table with a small group of girlfriends and sharing food and wine until closing time. ***Patty Raines checking out Jill Heller’s jewelry line at Heather Mnuchin’s home in the Hamptons. ***British singer Pete Byrne serenading actress Michelle Rodriguez with “Always Something There to Remind Me” at West Village restaurant Rabbit in the Moon in NYC. ***Kim Kardashian spending her well-earned money at the Mouawad Boutique on Melrose Ave, Los Angeles. ***BE AN LBN-CORRESPONDENT — Send your celebrity sightings to: LBNElert@Timewire.net.
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 LBN-COMMENTARY By MAUREEN DOWD: The waterfall of leaks on Afghanistan underlines the awful truth: We’re not in control. Not since Theseus fought the Minotaur in his maze has a fight been so confounding. The more we try to do for our foreign protectorates, the angrier they get about what we try to do. As Congress passed $59 billion in additional war funding on Tuesday, not only are our wards not grateful, they’re disdainful. Washington gave the Wall Street banks billions, and, in return, they stabbed us in the back, handing out a fortune in bonuses to the grifters who almost wrecked our economy.
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 LBN-COMMENTARY By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN: It is pretty much a tossup for me: Who poses a greater long-term threat to America’s Gulf Coast ecosystem: the U.S. Senate or BP? Right now, from what I’ve seen flying over the Louisiana coast at the mouth of the Mississippi, my vote is the U.S. Senate. BP at least seems to have finally gotten its act together and is cleaning up the oil spill. The Senate, in failing to pass even the most modest bill to diminish our addiction to oil and begin to mitigate climate change, has not even begun to do its job. I have to admit, I was surprised and pleased that it took us an hour of flying in our float plane over Breton Sound and Barataria Bay and across the marshes, bayous, barrier islands and open water that lie about 70 miles from the site of the Deepwater Horizon rig before we spotted any significant ribbon of oil. “There it is,” said our pilot, as he banked the plane for a better view of the small oil slick and as if he were pointing out a pod of whales we had been searching for all day.
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 LBN-COMMENTARY By RABBI STEVE LEDER (Author and Senior Rabbi of Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles): The idea of a God wanting bad things to happen to bad people posits a God that somehow has wants or needs akin to those of human beings. This does not make sense to me. God is not some being independent of nature that can either wish or cause things contrary to nature to occur. The problem of good and evil, reward and punishment is a human problem, not a Divine problem. God has created for us a world, a body and a soul that offers us free will what we make of that is up to us. |
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 LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By DANIELLE BERRY: No one ever said on their deathbed, ‘Gee, I wish I had spent more time alone with my computer.
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 LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW: Jessica Biel. |
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LBN-OVERHEARD: ***Sharon Stone narrowly avoided a “Basic Instinct” - like flash when a bug flew into her dress. The star, wearing a billowing white mini, played auctioneer at the Watermill Center Benefit in Southampton on Saturday. ***Cheating Randy Travis has begged his wife of 18 years to take him back - to save $50 million. But pals say the 51-year-old country music legend is still holed up with his married sweetie - the pretty wife of a Texas dentist - and doesn’t plan to move back home unless wife Libby Hatcher, 69, promises she won’t file for divorce. ***Katherine Jackson claims she “hasn’t been doing so well” since MJ died — in fact, according to a never-before-seen interview from last month, the singer’s mother has basically been an emotional wreck. Oksana Grigorieva’s spokesperson is tapping out of her war with Mel Gibson. Depending on who you talk to, Steve Jaffe either quit or was fired from his post as Oksana’s PR flack. We’re told there was definitely a money issue — as in Oksana doesn’t have any to pay for Jaffe’s services. Sources close to Oksana say she was not happy with the job Jaffe was doing. ***Eric Roberts checked into ‘Celebrity Rehab’ last week. His wife, Eliza, told E! that he would be treated for his addiction to medical marijuana. “Eric quit drugs and alcohol in 1995,” Eliza said. “He has no interest in anything, other than marijuana.”
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LBN-QUOTE: “Say not, ‘I have found the truth,’ but rather, ‘I have found a truth.’” - Kahlil Gibran.
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LBN-HISTORY: On July 28, 1951, The Walt Disney film “Alice in Wonderland” was released.
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LBN E-Lert Edited by Natgeda Remy
Contributing Editors: Charles Figueroa, Janthina Fong, Sophie He, Yesenia Martinez and Kelly Matarazzi.
LBN E-Lert Disclaimer: 1.) The LBN E-Lert accepts no liability for the content of this email, or for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided. The LBN E-Lert is not associated with any commercial or political organization and is transmitted via the web for the sole benefit of its subscribers. 2.) Unfortunately, computer viruses can be transmitted via email. The recipient should check this mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses.
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LBN E-Lert Edited by Natgeda Remy
LBN E-Lert Disclaimer: 1.) The LBN E-Lert accepts no liability for the content of this email, or for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided. The LBN E-Lert is not associated with any commercial or political organization and is transmitted via the web for the sole benefit of its subscribers. 2.) Unfortunately, computer viruses can be transmitted via email. The recipient should check this mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses.
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| TUESDAY • JULY 27, 2010 |
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 $8.7 BILLION MISSING IN IRAQ: Some more red ink for the loss column in Iraq: The Los Angeles Times reports that the Defense Department cannot account for nearly all of Iraq’s oil revenue from 2004 to 2007—$8.7 billion out of $9.1 billion. For $2.6 billion of the missing money, there is no record at all. The rest was not deposited in special accounts, as the Treasury Department requires, making it near-impossible to trace. The news isn’t likely to sit well with Iraqis, who are still angry over the $8.8 billion in oil revenues the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority spent in 2003 and 2004.
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 BP ANNOUNCES $17 BILLION LOSS, NAMES DUDLEY CHIEF EXECUTIVE: BP named Robert Dudley as chief executive Tuesday and reported a record $17 billion loss in the second quarter in the aftermath of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP set aside $32.2 billion for costs related to the spill, including $20 billion for an escrow fund announced earlier. To help cover the costs, the company plans to sell assets worth $30 billion over the next 18 months. Mr. Dudley, an American, is to become BP’s first non-British chief executive at the beginning of October, replacing Tony Hayward, who is stepping down following criticism about the way he handled the spill.
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 CLINTON WEDDING TO COST UP TO $5 MILLION: Rhinebeck is getting its own stimulus package, this week: Chelsea Clinton’s wedding on Saturday to Marc Mezvinsky—touted as the “event of the year” with a superstar-studded guest list of 500—will cost between $3 million and $5 million, the New York Daily News reports. At $3 million, the Clinton-Mezvinsky vows will cost $1 million more than the union of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. But Clinton’s is more important than any celebrity wedding, experts say, and could be a major influence on nuptial trends. The air-conditioned tents alone will cost $600,000 to keep guests cool on the private New York estate, and security to keep out gate crashers could run $200,000. One wedding planner estimates that the invitations alone could have cost more than $150 apiece.
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PENTAGON SEES NO THREAT FROM WIKILEAKS DUMP: Could the hullabaloo about WikiLeaks be more hype than substance? NBC News’ Michael Isikoff reports that the Pentagon’s ongoing review has found that, so far, the WikiLeaks’ document dump has not endangered U.S. national security or American troops in the field. “The initial Pentagon assessment is far less dramatic than initial statements from the Obama White House Sunday night,” he writes. A Pentagon spokesman adds that none of the documents reviewed so far are classified above “secret,” the lowest level of sensitivity. Andrew Exum, fellow at the Center for a New American Security, agrees on The New York Times op-ed page.
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BP TO SHRINK AS IT REFOCUSES: Has BP grown too small for its britches? The company plans to sell off $30 billion in exploration and production assets—estimated to be about 10 percent of the company—in a move to shrink the oil giant as it focuses on repairing its image after the massive oil spill in the Gulf. Robert Dudley, who has been in charge of the spill response, will take over for CEO Tony Hayward in September, and the board of directors will be very engaged. The move is intended to show that BP’s main concern is restoring its reputation in the U.S., site of a quarter of its oil and gas production. Dudley is widely viewed as a turnaround specialist. The selloff will take 18 months, and will help pay for the $20 billion the oil giant will have to shell out to victims of the spill. Assets in Pakistan, Vietnam, plus some in Alaska, Argentina and Egypt will be sold.
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 MISLABELED ARLINGTON GRAVES MAY BE ‘IN THE THOUSANDS’: The disgrace the United States has shown its fallen soldiers gets worse: The number of graves in Arlington National Cemetery that are mislabeled may be in the thousands, according to Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), who chairs the congressional committee looking into the problem. The Army reported that bad management was to blame for 211 people laid to rest in the wrong plots, but the investigation only looked at a small part of the cemetery, meaning there could be many more errors. McCaskill said the findings show waste—and potentially fraud.
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 LBN-SEE IT: LENNY KRAVITZ—-”2:10 am, toasting with the MASTER Quincy Jones, still discussing music & life,” Tweeted the singer, sharing this shot with the iconic producer.(Photo courtesy of Lenny Kravitz)
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 OLIVER STONE APOLOGIZES FOR ANTI-SEMITISM: Perhaps he was threatened with having to take a timeout with Mel Gibson? Film director Oliver Stone has apologized for an interview with the Sunday Times in which he said “Jewish domination of the media” forced Americans to focus on the Holocaust, and that “Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people.” He also said that his upcoming documentary would put Hitler and Stalin “in context.” “In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret,” Stone said in a statement released by his publicist—this is the best part—Rubenstein Communications.
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LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER: ***Warner Bros. has become the only film studio in history to surpass $1 billion at the domestic box office for 10 years in a row, the company says. The studio passed the billion-dollar mark on the heels of the current “blockbuster success” of Christopher Nolan’s “Inception.” ***News Corp.’s Fox studio says it plans no changes in the Sept. 24 release of “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” following filmmaker Oliver Stone’s controversial remarks about “Jewish domination of the media” in an interview on Sunday. Stone is apologizing for his comments. ***One year after the Twitter effect first presumably took hold - when the Sacha Baron Cohen comedy “Bruno” dropped more than 36% in its first 24 hours in theaters - The Wrap takes a look at the social media trend that was going to revolutionize word-of-mouth, and finds it hasn’t demonstrably done so. Rather, says TW, it’s social media as a whole that is changing the way Hollywood sells its films. Still, some experts claim Hollywood hasn’t seen the height of the little blue bird’s arc just yet.
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LBN-BOOK NEWS: ***Random House Publishing Group president and publisher Gina Centrello is turning over the publisher responsibilities to Susan Kamil. Kamil will remain editor-in-chief of little Random and Dial Press. Tom Perry has also been promoted, named deputy publisher.
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LBN-MEDIA INSIDER: ***Oracle’s Larry Ellison tops a list of the best-paid execs of public companies during the past decade, receiving $1.84 billion, according to an analysis of CEO pay. Coming in at No. 2 is IAC/InterActive’s Barry Diller, at $1.14 billion. “I’m not defensive about it,” Diller says. ***Sumner Redstone gave the lead singer of the Electric Barbarellas some of his own Viacom stock as a personal gift. ***Would you pay for Twitter? Like hell you would. According to the results of a study just released by USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, exactly 0 (zero!) percent of the 2010 Digital Future Report’s 1,981 participants said they would consider paying for the popular – and to this point, free — social messaging service. ***Mark J Davis, a veteran of digital media and most recently vice president of strategy and interactive media at the San Diego Union Tribune has joined TheWrap as the Chief Operating Officer. ***Television, magazine, and book writer Norman Chandler Fox, also a longtime talk radio host in L.A., died at age 71 after a fall at home that followed surgery to save his eyesight.
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MISSING NAVY SAILOR FOUND DEAD: One of the two Navy sailors who went missing last week—the Taliban claimed to have captured them—has been confirmed dead. His body has been recovered, a NATO spokesman said. The military is still looking for the second sailor, Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale. They both disappeared Friday in Logar, in eastern Afghanistan, after an armored SUV was spotted driving into a Taliban-controlled area. The sailor who died was Justin McNeley, a 30-year-old non-commissioned officer and father of two. The Taliban says the captured sailor is in a “safe place” where he won’t be found; NATO has distributed thousands of flyers offering a $20,000 reward for tips that help searchers find Breasseale.
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 LBN-SPORTS INSIDER: ***Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed documents from an arbitration case concerning whether Lance Armstrong used banned performance-enhancing drugs. The sought documents include depositions that Armstrong’s teammates gave when a promotions company was trying to prove that the cyclist was doping. Armstrong has denied all doping charges, which have popped up periodically over his long career. Though doping is generally not illegal in the U.S., prosecutors could say Armstrong defrauded investors if he accepted sponsorships based on an agreement not to use the banned substances. ***Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Matt Garza threw a no-hitter on Monday night—the first in franchise history. Garza faced the minimum 27 batters; the only baserunner for his opponents, the Detroit Tigers, came on a walk in the second inning. (The runner was then retired on a double play.) Garza’s no-hitter was the fifth thrown this season—and the sixth, if you count the perfect game that Armando Gallaraga lost on a blown call on what should have been the final out. That’s still two off from the record. That’s the most since seven were throw in 1991.
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 AFGHAN PRESIDENT SAYS NATO RESPONSIBLE FOR 52 CIVILIAN DEATHS: Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai on Monday condemned a NATO strike in Helmand province that he said caused 52 civilian deaths. NATO says there is no evidence of casualties beyond insurgents. A statement from Karzai’s office said Friday’s attack killed people in Sangin district’s Rigi village. Karzai called on NATO forces to make avoiding civilian casualties a top priority
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 KYRGYZSTAN SEEKS $1BN IN INTERNATIONAL AID PLEDGES: Kyrgyzstan is asking for $1bn in aid at an international conference in Bishkek. Reconstruction of the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh, damaged in violence in June, will be high on the agenda. But questions are being asked about the government’s commitment to human rights and to the reconstruction of Osh. In a leaked letter obtained by the BBC the UN calls on Kyrgyzstan’s president not to press ahead with redevelopment of the city at the expense of the Uzbek minority.
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IRAQI MILITANTS STEALING BLOOD FOR THE INJURED: Members of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia have been holding up blood banks and hospitals at gunpoint, stealing blood for their wounded fighters rather than risk having them arrested at medical facilities, according to Iraqi doctors, employees at health centers, and the Sunni insurgents themselves. Iraqi health officials say the raids have been occurring for some time in provinces with large Sunni Arab populations and appear to signal an insurgency desperate to safeguard its core group of fighters. But the insurgents have a diminished ability to intimidate hospital staffs into caring for them directly and dwindling support among fellow Sunni Arabs, including doctors, the officials said.
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 WHO READS THE LBN E-LERT? Celebrity hair stylist Janis Buller along with over 320,000 other “influencers” understands the information is power and the LBN E-Lert is a power-tool.
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LBN-NOTICED: ***Rachel Hunter getting chatted up by a string of jet owners at Avant Air’s party at a house in Bridgehampton. ***Katy Perry in the lobby of the Andaz Fifth Avenue Hotel in NYC in a skintight mini latex tank dress and 5-inch black platform heels. ***Kellan Lutz chatting to actress Amber Heard at the Wired Cafe at Comic-Con. ***Cyndi Lauper celebrating at Sessions 73 on the Upper East Side in NYC at the after-party for her sold out Memphis Blues show at Town Hall. ***The cast of “Jersey Shore” heading down to Wall Street to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Vinnie Guadagnino, Jenni “JWoww” Farley, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, Paul Delvecchio, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, Sammi Giancola, Ronnie Magro, and Angelina Pivarnick, all smiled for the paparazzi as they hammed it up in the financial district. ***BE AN LBN-CORRESPONDENT — Send your celebrity sightings to: LBNElert@Timewire.net.
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 LBN-BUSINESS INSIDER: ***Larry Ellison, founder and chief executive of software maker Oracle Corp., topped the list of best-paid executives of public companies during the past decade, receiving $1.84 billion in compensation, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of CEO pay. Coming in No. 2 on the compensation list was Barry Diller, who received roughly $1.14 billion from IAC/InterActive and Expedia.com, the online travel site IAC spun off in 2005, where he remains chairman. Following Mr. Diller were Occidental Petroleum Corp. CEO Ray Irani at $857 million, Apple Inc.’s Steve Jobs with $749 million and, in fifth place, Capital One Financial Corp. CEO Richard Fairbank at $569 million.
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 LBN-RECOMMENDS By ALEX MCCORD (Star of The Real Housewives of New York): My favorite opera of all time is Richard Strauss’ Elektra, which is going to be part of the Salzburg Festival in Austria in August. It is such a beautiful production. I remember the first time I saw it at the Lyric Opera in Chicago when I was in college. I will never forget it. It made my heart want to fly out of my body!
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LBN-COMMENTARY By BOB HERBERT: The pain coursing through American families is all too real and no one seems to know what to do about it. A rigorous new analysis for the Rockefeller Foundation shows that Americans are more economically insecure now than they have been in a quarter of a century, and the trend lines suggest that things will only get worse. Rampant joblessness and skyrocketing medical costs are among the biggest factors tearing at the very fabric of American economic life so painstakingly put together in the early post-World War II decades.
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LBN-COMMENTARY By OLIVER STONE: The Jewish domination of the media. There’s a major lobby in the United States. They are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Israel has f***** up United States.
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 LBN-COMMENTARY By ROBERT REDFORD (Actor, Director, and Environmental Activist): A minority of Senators robbed America of comprehensive energy and climate legislation. The officials who steered this turnaround have shown us, and the world, an America woefully deficient in leadership and ingenuity.
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 LBN-COMMENTARY By BILL GATES (Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation): In the past two decades, polio cases around the world have been reduced by 99 percent. If we can get rid of the last 1 percent, polio will become the second major infectious disease, after smallpox, that has ever been completely eliminated.
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 LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY BY ANATOLE FRANCE: An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.
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 LBN-OVERHEARD: ***Shedding 40 lbs. helped Valerie Bertinelli jump into a bikini nearly three decades after she last wore a two-piece, complete a marathon and even stop snoring. What it didn’t do? Change her sex life. “It was pretty good even when I was big,” the Hot in Cleveland actress, 50, tells Prevention in its September issue. “[My fiancé] Tom likes me at any size. I’m lucky that way.” ***Just as it once did for Paris Hilton, New York City tanning salon Beach Bum is planning a gathering today in support of another jailed celeb. Friends and fans of Lindsay Lohan, currently serving a 90-day sentence in California (and presumably without access to bronzers of any sort) will gather on 7th Avenue this afternoon to stage a “Free Lindsay” rally along with a press conference and ribbon-tying ceremony. ***Noel Neill, the former Santa Monica Canyon resident who portrayed Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane in the original Superman film serials and TV shows, is hospitalized with a broken hip in Tucson. ***Former “Price is Right” host Bob Barker put Drew Carey’s “PiR” hosting style on blast yesterday — because according to Bob, Drew fails to add an “excitement” to the legendary game show.
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LBN-QUOTE: “I think the most un-American thing you can say is, “You can’t say that”.” - Garrison Keillor.
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LBN-HISTORY: ***On July 27, 1965, in the U.S., the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act was signed into law. The law required health warnings on all cigarette packages.
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LBN E-Lert Edited by Natgeda Remy
Contributing Editors: Charles Figueroa, Janthina Fong, Sophie He, Noah Ludwin, Yesenia Martinez and Kelly Matarazzi.
LBN E-Lert Disclaimer: 1.) The LBN E-Lert accepts no liability for the content of this email, or for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided. The LBN E-Lert is not associated with any commercial or political organization and is transmitted via the web for the sole benefit of its subscribers. 2.) Unfortunately, computer viruses can be transmitted via email. The recipient should check this mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses.
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LBN E-Lert Edited by Natgeda Remy
LBN E-Lert Disclaimer: 1.) The LBN E-Lert accepts no liability for the content of this email, or for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided. The LBN E-Lert is not associated with any commercial or political organization and is transmitted via the web for the sole benefit of its subscribers. 2.) Unfortunately, computer viruses can be transmitted via email. The recipient should check this mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses.
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| MONDAY • JULY 26, 2010 |
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 MAN SHOWS FIRST FULL-FACE TRANSPLANT: A Spanish man who received the world’s first full-face transplant—it included jaw, nose, cheekbones, muscles, teeth, and eyelids—showed his new face for the first time on Monday. The 31-year-old man known as Oscar, who accidentally shot himself in the face five years ago, can eat soft foods, speak, and is expected to gain up to 90 percent of his facial functions. In fact, he had to shave a week after the operation due to beard growth. Earlier this month, French doctors performed a face transplant that included tear ducts.
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 MADOFF INVESTORS BRACE FOR LAWSUIT: A job we’re glad we don’t have: Irving Picard, the trustee in charge of recovering money for Bernard Madoff’s victims, is preparing to sue those investors who withdrew more money from Madoff’s accounts than they deposited, according to The Wall Street Journal. Picard predicts that he could end up suing half of the 2,000 investors. “The people who made money, who got more, have made money at the expense of the people who didn’t,” he says. The investors are, unsurprisingly, fighting the effort. “This is my money that I need now, and if he comes after me, I will be penniless,” says one 87-year-old former school teacher. Picard must file any clawback lawsuits by December.
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 WHAT THE WIKILEAKS DOCUMENTS REALLY REVEAL: The whistleblower website WikiLeaks has disclosed nearly 92,000 classified documents about the war in Afghanistan, painting a grim image of the military effort. The top-secret files, released in conjunction with The New York Times, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel, show basic and unsustainable contradictions in U.S. policy, says Leslie H. Gelb. One of the revelations details how Pakistani military intelligence has been providing arms, money, and intelligence to the Afghan Taliban, who in turn has been killing American soldiers, confirming “informed” stories that have been floating around for years. It’s now much more difficult to deny or dodge the truths that we’ve all be well aware of—and these leaked military intelligence documents underscore why the Obama administration needs to reconsider its Af-Pak policy, writes Gelb.
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INDIA UNVEILS $35 PROTOTYPE TABLET COMPUTER: India, home to the cheapest car in the world today, may soon make available a $35 touch-screen laptop. The device is part of a government program to extend broadband connectivity to all of India’s colleges and universities. Unveiled Thursday, the iPad-like computer should be available to consumers by next year and may eventually cost as little as $10. The Linux-based tablet supports web browsing, video conferencing, and word processing and uses a memory card rather than a hard disk
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 ACROSS THE UNIVERSE: Australia is just one of the 24 foreign countries with daily LBN E-Lert readers.
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LBN-MEDIA INSIDER: ***President Obama will appear on ABC’s “The View” on Thursday, marking the first time a sitting U.S. president has visited a daytime talk show, according to executive producers Barbara Walters and Bill Geddie. Obama’s appearance is scheduled to tape on Wednesday. ***Oprah Winfrey is said to have offered the cash-strapped Duchess of York her own prime-time talk show. Winfrey is launching her own cable channel in January, and last week reportedly called Sarah Ferguson to offer her a deal. For Fergie, “the offer is a ray of light.” ***Facebook says it “strongly suspects” forgery is involved in a contract showing founder Mark Zuckerberg signed away most of the rights to the social network in 2003. A lawsuit filed by a former work-for-hire employee attempting to take over the company is “absurd.” ***The Huffington Post has a big audience, but like most websites, it can’t monetize it very well. HuffPost generates just over $1 per reader per year. The site may seek salvation by being acquired by a big media company. There are rumors of offers from MSNBC and Yahoo. ***Us Weekly will mark its 10th anniversary as a celebrity weekly with “Stars Who Care,” which launches this fall, and will include a nationally coordinated volunteer day and articles about do-gooder celebrities who “have used their popularity to become advocates for others.”
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 LA SUBURB RESIDENTS MARCH OVER HIGH CITY SALARIES: Several hundred angry residents from a modest blue-collar Los Angeles suburb marched Sunday to call for the resignation of the mayor and some City Council members in a protest sparked by the sky-high salaries of three recently departed administrators. The residents of the city of Bell marched to Oscar’s Korner Market and Carniceria, owned by Mayor Oscar Hernandez, then to his home, demanding that he reduce his own six-figure compensation or quit.
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 LBN-THINK AGAIN: Modern medicine is good at staving off death with aggressive interventions—and bad at knowing when to focus, instead, on improving the days that terminal patients have left.
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IT’S PRETTY SIMPLE: Smart, powerful people read the LBN E-Lert because they understand that information is power and the LBN E-Lert is a power-tool.
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 MILITANTS EXECUTE FRENCH AID WORKER: President Nicolas Sarkozy announced today that Michel Germaneau, a 78-year-old French aid worker kidnapped by al-Qaeda in April, has been executed in the Sahara following a failed rescue attempt. The leader of al-Qaeda’s North African branch said that Germaneau was killed in retaliation for the “treacherous operation” that left six militants dead. Al-Qaeda had threatened to kill Germaneau by Monday if France didn’t free jailed members in the area. “Convinced he was condemned to a certain death, we had the duty to make this effort to pull him free from his captors,” Sarkozy said in a public address in Paris on Monday. The same al-Qaeda branch has been holding two Spanish aid workers hostage since November.
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LBN-BUSINESS INSIDER: ***When BP meets Monday to formally decide its CEO’s future, the company is expected to give Americans one of their own: BP’s managing director Bob Dudley is set to become the first Yankee to run the company when CEO Tony Hayward steps down later this year, according to the Wall Street Journal.
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 LBN-SNAP: Best-selling author and radio talk show host Bill Bennett.
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LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER: ***MTV has confirmed to THR that a reality show about an aspiring raunchy girl band favored by the boss, Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone, remains in development despite the embarrassing controversy of last week — and objections by some at the network. Gary Auerbach’s production company Go Go Luckey, credited with MTV’s “Laguna Beach,” episodes of “Ghost Lab” for Discovery and “Hot Girls in Scary Places” for E!, is taping the bisexual young women in the Electric Barbarellas on their quest for fame and fortune. ***Casey Affleck is firing back at the woman who sued him today for sexual harassment during the shoot of his upcoming Joaquin Phoenix documentary. Michael Plonsker, a litigator repping Affleck and production company Flemmy Prods, just issued this statement denying the allegations and vowing to file cross-claims against Amanda White, who worked on “I’m Still Here: The Lost Year of Joaquin Phoenix” and says Affleck refused to pay her when she wouldn’t spend the night in a hotel room with him. ***Elisabeth Shue will star opposite “Winter’s Bone” star Jennifer Lawrence and Max Thieriot in “House at the End of the Street,” a thriller from FilmNation and A Bigger Boat being directed by Mark Tonderai.
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LBN-NOTICED: ***Uma Thurman, her daughter Maya, 12, and son, Levon 8, all taking lessons together at Midtown Tennis Club in NYC. ***Harry Connick Jr. and his dad celebrating his Broadway show with cognac and cigars at the Carnegie Club in Midtown NYC. ***Pamela Anderson and tattoo titan Mario Barth surrounded by a bevy of security guards at Tao nightclub in Las Vegas. ***Heading out to SoCal for the weekend, Ellen Page spotted at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con on Friday with fellow actress Liv Tyler at the San Diego Convention Center. ***Situated back on the West coast following their recent honeymoon, John Krasinski and Emily Blunt spotted enjoying one another’s company at a local theater in Los Angeles, California on Sunday. ***Jenna Fischer and fiance Lee Kirk wrapping up their honeymoon with a trip to the Santa Barbara Zoo on Sunday. The two were married in Malibu earlier this month. ***BE AN LBN-CORRESPONDENT — Send your celebrity sightings to: LBNElert@Timewire.net.
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LBN-MUSIC INSIDER: ***Jon Bon Jovi is furious that he failed to make it into two widely followed 2010 Forbes magazine top celebrity lists. The singer was left out of the much-publicized “Power 100″ roster of the world’s most powerful celebrities in June topped by Oprah Winfrey. Then he was aghast when he didn’t make it onto the “Musicians’ Rich List,” led by rival rockers U2 last week.
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 DEPORTATION OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS INCREASES UNDER OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: In a bid to remake the enforcement of federal immigration laws, the Obama administration is deporting record numbers of illegal immigrants and auditing hundreds of businesses that blithely hire undocumented workers. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency expects to deport about 400,000 people this fiscal year, nearly 10 percent above the Bush administration’s 2008 total and 25 percent more than were deported in 2007. The pace of company audits has roughly quadrupled since President George W. Bush’s final year in office.
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LBN-SPORT INSIDER: ***Dallas Cowboy’s rookie Dez Bryant is not having any of the rookie hazing shenanigans. Almost every player in the NFL has encountered a small form of hazing, such as getting donuts and things of that nature. Dez Bryant told veteran Roy Williams “ I feel like I was drafted to play football, not carry another players pads” ***Philadelphia Police arrest two Drexler University Basketball players allegedly charged with armed robbery at a students apartment this past week. 21-year-old Jamie Harris is the starting point guard and 21-year-old back up forward Kevin Phillip. ***The New Orleans Hornets and Chris Paul will sit down today to discuss Paul’s contract and settle the trade predicaments. Hornet’s officials have a pitch and if it is unsuccessful, they will deal Paul only on their terms and timeline.
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LBN-INVESTIGATES: Red wines are red because fermentation extracts color from the grape skins. White wines are not fermented with the skins present.
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 LBN-COMMENTARY By PAUL KRUGMAN: Why didn’t climate-change legislation get through the Senate? The triumph of greed and cowardice.
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 LBN-COMMENTARY By TINA BROWN: Let’s NOT have a conversation about race. The calls for Obama to now make the Shirley Sherrod debacle a teachable moment fills me with panic that the president will retreat to the Oval Office and craft a soaring piece of oratory, instead of getting on with the humdrum business of firing the stumbling, bumbling members of his own team who, as the saying goes, can’t find their ass with either hand.
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 LBN-COMMENTARY By HOWARD DEAN (Former Governor of Vermont and DNC Chairman): Democrats must fight for what we believe is right. And we have to stop apologizing for it while trying to make deals with people who cannot be trusted to make deals for the good of our country.
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 LBN-COMMENTARY By MARK HYMAN, MD (Practicing physician): Problems related to yeast are usually ignored and not linked to patient’s complaints. If a subject is not taught in medical school, it is assumed not to be real. This is a dangerous assumption.
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 LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By JUDITH ANDERSON: There is nothing enduring in life for a woman except what she builds in a man’s heart.
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 LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:
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LBN-OVERHEARD: ***Constance Francesca Hilton daughter of Zsa Zsa Gabor, is currently with her mother at the hospital. “My mother Zsa Zsa Gabor is in guarded condition, is not in a coma, is talking, and is adjusting to the medications and healing process. There are no surprises and I am with her now. Thank you.” Said Constance Francesca Hilton. ***Sometimes the story is that there is no story. Trying to investigate Chelsea Clinton’s pre-wedding activities in Rhinebeck, New York; The New York Times was only met with stonewalling. Anyone involved in the wedding, from gift-bag suppliers to caterers, has signed a confidentiality agreement, The New York Times reports. This hasn’t kept journalists from descending on the town, and residents have been complaining to the police about trespassing reporters. Two Norwegian photographers have already been arrested for entering Astor Court, the presumed location of the wedding. Nevertheless, the Rhinebeck residents who aren’t sworn to secrecy have expressed excitement about the wedding and are optimistic that it will put the town in people’s minds as a possible wedding location or vacation destination. ***Country legend Randy Travis 18-year marriage is headed for divorce court - after his wife told pals she caught him cheating with his dentist’s wife, according to sources.
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LBN-QUOTE: “It’s good to shut up sometimes.” - Marcel Marceau.
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LBN-HISTORY: On July 26, 1999, 1,500 pieces of Marilyn Monroe’s personal items went on display at Christie’s in New York, NY. The items went on sale later in 1999.
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LBN E-Lert Edited by Natgeda Remy
Contributing Editors: Charles Figueroa, Janthina Fong, Sophie He, Noah Ludwin, Yesenia Martinez and Kelly Matarazzi.
LBN E-Lert Disclaimer: 1.) The LBN E-Lert accepts no liability for the content of this email, or for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided. The LBN E-Lert is not associated with any commercial or political organization and is transmitted via the web for the sole benefit of its subscribers. 2.) Unfortunately, computer viruses can be transmitted via email. The recipient should check this mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses.
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LEVINE JOINS OLIVER STONE PROTEST; CALLS HIS COMMENTS “FILTH EQUAL TO MEL GIBSON RANT!”:
U.S. AND S. KOREA BEGIN MILITARY DRILLS: Are you watching, North Korea? The United States and South Korea began a series of war games Sunday morning, essentially as a display of military might to make a point to an increasingly belligerent North Korea. Nicknamed Invincible Spirit, the military exercise features some 8,000 military personnel, 20 ships and submarines, and 200 aircraft. One of the drills focuses on handling enemy submarines, specifically creating a situation similar to the one that led to the sinking of the Cheonan, possibly by a North Korean torpedo. “The anti-sub-infiltration exercise works like this: if a sub is coming in to attack a ship, the military finds it and prosecutes it,” one Navy commander said. North Korea, needless to say, is not pleased by the military exercise.
BP CHIEF NEGOTIATING EXIT DEAL: After 28 years with the company, Tony Hayward has reportedly reached the end of the road at BP. According to the BBC, the gaffe-prone CEO, who has been widely lambasted for his handling of the oil spill, is negotiating the terms of his resignation and will formally announce it in the next 24 hours. He will likely be replaced by Bob Dudley, who is currently in charge of the clean-up operation. Hayward seemed to have been on his way out for some time, but the company wanted to be seen making some progress on plugging the leak before a management shakeup. Meanwhile, ships returned to the site of the blown out well late on Saturday. Retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said he hopes to finally have a relief well completed before another major storm hits. “We’re going to be playing a cat-and-mouse game for the remainder of the hurricane season,” he added.
LOVE PARADE TOLL KEEPS RISING: Germany’s Love Parade turned tragic Saturday as a stampede erupted inside a tunnel, leading to the deaths of at least 19 people and injuring 340. No one is quite sure yet what sparked the panic at the techno music festival in the western city of Duisburg, but the scene was so chaotic that many people kept partying on the grounds for some time after the stampede began. “There were piles of injured on the ground, some being resuscitated, others dead and covered with sheets,” one partygoer said. “It was way too full in the afternoon. Everyone wanted to get in.” Because of the crowds, rescue workers were slow to reach the victims. “The people literally trampled each other on the way into this tunnel,” said a German television report.
THE MOST CONSERVATIVE COURT IN DECADES: With the United States Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts ending its fifth term, The New York Times has broken down the ideological shifts of the court over the past 60 or so years. Their conclusion? The Roberts court is the most conservative in decades. While it may not be as right-leaning as it was under Roberts’ predecessor, William Rehnquist, the decisions rendered by the Roberts court—such as amending campaign finance laws—have been markedly conservative. A defining moment for the Roberts court that pushed it to the right was the confirmation of Justice Samuel Alito.
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE: India is just one of the 24 foreign countries with daily LBN E-Lert readers.
WHO READS THE LBN E-LERT? Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice along with over 320,000 other “influencers” understands the information is power and the LBN E-Lert is a power-tool.
ALBERTO CONTADOR WINS TOUR DE FRANCE: Alberto Contador, the defending champion, won his third title in the world’s most prestigious cycling competition on Sunday, beating out his closest rival, Andy Schleck.
LBN-SEE IT: ESPN sportscaster Erin Andrews.
LINDSAY COULD BE RELEASED TODAY: According to the Mirror, a British tabloid, Lindsay Lohan could be a free woman by the end of the day. A lawyer is understood to be pushing for the 24-year-old’s early release, less than a week after entering the Lynwood penitentiary. “Her team is doing everything to get her out of jail this weekend,” a source told the newspaper. Lohan entered the prison on Tuesday after being sentenced for failing to attend alcohol education sessions. And, according to various accounts, she is not well-liked by the other inmates. People reported that they resented the special treatment she received, while the Mirror claimed that she has been upsetting them by wailing at night.
LBN-SEE IT: Mark Ruffalo, Annette Bening, and Julianne Moore in Lisa Cholodenko’s movie “The Kids Are All Right.”
LBN-COMMENTARY By MAUREEN DOWD: The Obama White House is too white. It has Barack Obama, raised in the Hawaiian hood and Indonesia, and Valerie Jarrett, who spent her early years in Iran. But unlike Bill Clinton, who never needed help fathoming Southern black culture, Obama lacks advisers who are descended from the central African-American experience, ones who understand “the slave thing,” as a top black Democrat dryly puts it. The first black president should expand beyond his campaign security blanket, the smug cordon of overprotective white guys surrounding him — a long political tradition underscored by Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 when she complained about the “smart-ass white boys” from Walter Mondale’s campaign who tried to boss her around.
LBN-COMMENTARY By FRANK RICH: Elation from electing the nation’s first African-American president more than 20 months ago was destined to abate, but we reached a new low last week.
LBN-COMMENTARY By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN: When I first heard on Thursday that Senate Democrats were abandoning the effort to pass an energy/climate bill that would begin to cap greenhouse gases that cause global warming and promote renewable energy that could diminish our addiction to oil, I remembered something that Joe Romm, the climateprogress.org blogger, once said: The best thing about improvements in health care is that all the climate-change deniers are now going to live long enough to see how wrong they were. Alas, so are the rest of us. I could blame Republicans for the fact that not one G.O.P. senator indicated a willingness to vote for a bill that would put the slightest price on carbon. I could blame the Democratic senators who were also waffling. I could blame President Obama for his disappearing act on energy and spending more time reading the polls than changing the polls. I could blame the Chamber of Commerce and the fossil-fuel lobby for spending bags of money to subvert this bill. But the truth is, the public, confused and stressed by the last two years, never got mobilized to press for this legislation. We will regret it.
LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By JAMES NASMYTH: From a very early period of my life I have derived the highest enjoyment from listening to music, especially to melody, which is to me the most pleasing form of composition.
LBN-COMMENTARY By ERIC SCHLOSSER: Every day, about 200,000 Americans are sickened by contaminated food. Every year, about 325,000 are hospitalized by a food-borne illness. And the numbers who are killed annually by something they ate is roughly the same as the number of Americans who’ve been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003. Those estimates, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suggest the scale of the problem. But they fail to convey the human toll. The elderly and people with compromised immune systems face an elevated risk from food-borne pathogens like listeria, campylobacter and salmonella. By far the most vulnerable group, however, are children under the age of 4. Our food will never be perfectly safe — and yet if the Senate fails to pass the food safety legislation now awaiting a vote, tens of thousands of American children will become needlessly and sometimes fatally ill.
LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:
LBN-FACESPACE:
GENERAL STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL FORMALLY RETIRES: ‘I NEED TO CELEBRATE’: Gen. Stanley McChrystal ended his 34-year career as an Army officer Friday in an emotional retirement ceremony at his military headquarters here, marking the last chapter of his swift and stunning fall from grace. Before a crowd of a few hundred friends, family and colleagues on the Fort McNair parade grounds under an oppressively hot July sun, McChrystal said his service didn’t end as he hoped. But he regretted few decisions he had made on the battlefield, cherished his life as a soldier and was optimistic about his future, he said.
GOP POUNCES ON RANGEL CASE: Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) has vowed to stick it out through his ethics trial, a promise that delights Republicans looking for campaign fodder for this fall’s midterm elections. Seeking to hang Democrats for their “culture of corruption,” the GOP will try to tie Rangel’s case (a trial that could last months by a special eight-member ethics panel) to the sexual harassment charges against former Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY). It’s a tactic with that’s proven to bring results—the Democrats used the same tack in 2006 to retake Congress from Republicans. The National Republican Congressional Committee plans to target lawmakers who took campaign donations from Rangel as well as those elected on a “change” platform in 2006, saying they didn’t live up to their promises. Democrats have returned $500,000 in donations from Rangel, but New York Democrats are especially concerned about the impact Rangel’s trial will have on their races.
OBAMA: GOP WILL MOVE COUNTRY BACKWARD: With a victory on the financial regulation overhaul in his pocket—a “key pillar” in his recession recovery plan—President Obama said a Republican plan for the economy would move the country backward to the job-killing policies of his predecessor. “It took nearly a decade of failed economic policies to create this mess, and it will take years to fully repair the damage,” Obama said in his weekly address that aired Saturday, vowing that his policies would move the country forward. That’s expected to be one of the White House’s main messages during this fall’s midterm elections. The president admitted that the growth since the credit crisis two years ago hasn’t created enough jobs, but said the GOP would make things much worse. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) countered that the GOP would promote growth by cutting spending and taxes.
KEY INSURGENTS ESCAPE IRAQI PRISON: Last week marked the official transfer of Camp Cropper, the last American-controlled prison in Iraq, to the Iraqi government. Its problems, however, are far from over: Five days later, at least four prisoners—three of whom are said to be high-ranking members of Iraq’s most violent insurgent group—escaped. Compounding the situation, the prison’s warden and several guards have now disappeared. This news offers little hope for the country’s long-troubled prison system, especially after the Abu Ghraib scandal, in which detainees were tortured and abused by Americans. Today, experts say the system remains abusive, with high-level suspects disappearing frequently. Iraqi officials didn’t reveal the prison break until Thursday, two days after it happened.
TALIBAN CLAIMS TO HAVE 2 U.S. SOLDIERS: The Taliban has captured two American soldiers and is holding them according to a Taliban official. A local radio station has broadcast appeals for information that leads to the return of the soldiers, with a $20,000 reward. The broadcast said the troops, wearing their standard-issue uniforms, had been captured by insurgents somewhere in the province and may have been separated or moved somewhere else. The message added that one of the soldiers is 6 feet tall, 200 pounds, with brown eyes and blond hair; the other is 190 pounds, bald with a moustache, and both have tattoos. A Taliban spokesman said that three soldiers had been captured but one had died.
LBN-SEE IT: Man uses his bare hands to clean up oil the spill in Dalian, China.
LBN-BOOK NEWS: ***“Girls Gone Wild” founder Joe Francis is on the war path over a “tell-all” book written by one of his former camera guys, a book that allegedly details incidents involving drugs, sex and jail. The man who wrote the book is Ryan Simkin — who began shooting naked, drunk girls for Joe back in 2002. In his lawsuit, Francis claims Simkin — like all of his employees — were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement, which strictly prohibited him from “writing and publishing any tell-all books about their work.”
TED HAGGARD RETAKES PULPIT: Ted Haggard was shamed into resigning as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and leaving his Christian ministry—as well as Colorado—after a scandal four years ago involving a sexual encounter with a prostitute, from whom he also bought meth. But now he says he “over-repented.” Haggard started a ministry with his wife Gayle in their backyard barn two months ago, and now the congregation has swelled to 200 people, so many people that they had to move out of the barn and into a community center this Sunday. Haggard says he was the victim of a “witch hunt,” and that the sexual encounter was really a massage gone wrong. Christian critics say the pressures of leading a church could cause Haggard to be tempted again, but the preacher says ministering is part of his repentance, reminding him every week of his sins. In one way, he says, his painful public scandal encourages his flock to confide in him: “It’s amazing. People tell me everything,” Haggard says. “That never happened when we were respectable.”
LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER: ***Sony’s Angelina Jolie starrer “Salt” was a box office hit during its premiere on Friday, ringing up an estimated $12.7 million to grab second place in the daily rankings during its initial day of release on Friday. “Salt” is on track to register $35 million or so through Sunday. ***Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” joined the $100-million club on Thursday, its seventh day of release.
LBN-SPORTS INSIDER: ***In an interview with Nightline, Floyd Landis says he saw Lance Armstrong using drugs. Landis has been stripped of his Tour de France title and banned from cycling for doping, but he says he’s far from the only one. The discredited cyclist says he started doping when he joined Armstrong’s Postal Service team. Landis claims Armstrong gave him testosterone patches, that he saw Armstrong get blood transfusions, and that he saw Armstrong use the banned drug EPO. Armstrong has long denied any doping charges, but Landis says that if Armstrong “didn’t win the Tour, someone else that was doped would have won the Tour. At some point, people have to tell their kids that Santa Claus isn’t real. I hate to be the guy to do it, but it’s just not real.”
LBN-COMMENTARY By TUNKU VARADARAJAN: Charlie Rangel, oleaginous octogenarian extraordinaire, put on a press conference at lunchtime on Friday that was such a master class in shifty-eyed flimflam that no one who watched it can have left its Harlem venue (or their TV screens) unconvinced that he is, by some great distance, the most knavish congressman in Washington. There can be little doubt that Rangel—who has served a mind-boggling, and, for those concerned with standards of official conduct, depressing, 20 terms—is not going to be able to run for a 21st term. His career is now over. I predict that he will resign by, or on, Thursday of next week, the day on which the House Ethics Committee lays formal charges against him, charges which—if he contests them—will go to public trial.
LBN-COMMENTARY By MIKE JONES (Male Prostitute Who Outed Ted Haggard): 15% of my clients in Denver were Clergy. More than once I was paid for my services with a handful of crinkled ones and fives. I would think to myself, how could they take from their own church’s collection plate? The answer is simple and sad: addicts will do whatever they need to do to support their habit.
LBN-HISTORICIAL COMMENTARY By ABEBE BIKILA: I wanted the world to know that my country Ethiopia has always won with determination and heroism.
LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:
LBN-OVERHEARD: ***Zsa Zsa Gabor is in critical condition after undergoing hip replacement after a fall last week. The Hollywood legend may have also suffered another stoke while undergoing surgery. ***Sources say married TV evangelist Benny Hinn is hiding a shocking secret love affair from his faithful flock. In a shocking revelation sure to rock millions in the Christian community Hinn, 57, recently sneaked off to a romantic Roman holiday in the Eternal City - with another beautiful blonde evangelist. ***Hollywood legend Liz Taylor has slammed chatter that Angelina Jolie and Catherine Zeta-Jones are battling to play her in planned biopic of her wild boozy love affair with Dick Burton. ***The soon-to-be divorced wife of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. settled her drunken-driving legal dilemma by pleading guilty - to a lesser charge. Mary Kennedy admitted in a Bedford Hills, NY court that her driving ability was indeed impaired when she drove over a curb outside a school, potentially threatening the lives of children. ***Oksana Grigorieva began taping her ex Mel Gibson’s rages over the phone on February 18, when the actor flew into a jealous rage because he thought Grigorieva was sleeping with the landscaper. Gibson had come over to visit on the same day he quit smoking, putting him in a terrible mood. Suspecting she was having an affair with the person he referred to as the “tree man,” Gibson feared he would hurt Grigorieva and his kid, so he left. Then the phone calls—and the taping—began. TMZ reports that all the recordings were made on that single day. ***Ten people were killed when chaos broke out at a music festival in Duisburg, Germany.
LBN-FACESPACE:
DISGRACE-WALL STREET’S POST-BAILOUT BONUS BINGE: The tension between Main Street and Wall Street is only growing. The Obama administration’s special master for executive compensation, Kenneth Feinberg, announces on Friday that 17 financial companies handed out $1.58 billion in possibly undeserved bonuses shortly after being bailed out by taxpayers in 2008. The report will likely call out Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, and AIG, among other institutions. Feinberg has no real power to order the banks to reimburse the government for the bonuses they’ve already handed out, yet he’s asked banks to voluntarily adopt a provision that would allow their boards to alter bonuses in the event of a future financial crisis. The banks have said they’ll think about it. 
IMMIGRATION LAW HEARING BEGINS: On Thursday U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton—a Democratic appointee—called into question the Obama administration’s insistence that Arizona’s controversial immigration law infringes upon federal immigration enforcement. “Why can’t Arizona be as inhospitable as they wish to people who have entered or remained in the United States?” she asked. As Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, a staunch proponent of the law, watched silently, Bolton questioned the core ethos of the Justice Department’s contention that the Arizona law is unconstitutional: that immigration enforcement is an exclusive federal privilege, one that pre-empts the Arizona law. “Where is the preemption if everybody who is arrested for some crime has their immigration status checked?” she asked. As the federal lawsuit moves forward, Bolton may or may not grant an injunction to stop the law from taking effect.
N. KOREA PROMISES ‘PHYSICAL RESPONSE’: North Korea really doesn’t like the idea of the United States and South Korea conducting military exercises in its back yard this weekend. And now, after months of saber rattling over the sunken South Korean warship, the Communist country has promised a “physical response.” It also accused the U.S., which imposed new sanctions on it, of “gunboat diplomacy.” The tensions on the Korean peninsula have dominated proceedings at the Asean Regional Forum in Vietnam this week, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling out North Korea for its “campaign of provocative, dangerous behavior.” China, meanwhile, without backing North Korea as its only ally in the region, has criticized the new sanctions and anything that it said could “exacerbate regional tensions.” 
STORM FORCES SHIPS TO ABANDON SPILL: Tropical Storm Bonnie is moving in on the gulf—and bringing with it complications for BP’s oil spill clean-up. Crucial ships are being forced to evacuate the site, including the rig that’s responsible for drilling a relief well that the company hopes will ultimately plug the spill for good. “While this is not a hurricane, it’s a storm that will have probably some significant impacts, we’re taking appropriate cautions,” Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, who is coordinating the response, said in Alabama today. Only some of the ships will stay, Allen added, in a development that will likely delay by 12 days the final plugging of the well.
FORD EARNS $2.6 BILLION PROFIT, AND PROJECTS IMPROVEMENT IN 2011: The Ford Motor Company on Friday said it earned $2.6 billion in the second quarter and expects to have more cash than debt by the end of 2011. It was the fifth consecutive quarterly profit for Ford, whose turn around has been gaining momentum as it has increased sales and market share in the United States. Ford, the only Detroit automaker not to file for bankruptcy protection or receive emergency federal aid, said it expects to be profitable in the second half of this year and deliver even stronger results in 2011.
CATHOLIC SEX SCANDAL AS UNDERCOVER REPORTER ‘FILMS PRIESTS AT GAY CLUBS AND HAVING CASUAL FLINGS’: A gay priest sex scandal has rocked the Catholic Church in Italy today after a weekly news magazine released details of a shock investigation it had carried out. Using hidden cameras, a journalist from Panorama magazine - owned by Italian Prime Minister and media baron Silvio Berlusconi - filmed three priests as they attended gay nightspots and had casual sex.
WHO READS THE LBN E-LERT? Prominent attorney, and legal analyst, Lisa Bloom along with over 320,000 other “influencers” in all 50 of the United States and 24 foreign countries.
INDIA UNVEILS $35 LAPTOP: It may not quite be an iPad, but then again it’s not quite priced like one either. India this week unveiled a $35 laptop that could increase access to computers for millions. The touchscreen gadget, designed for students, carries Web browsers, a PDF reader, and video conferencing capability, along with room to add more components. It was developed for the Indian government by research teams at the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science. Now, the government says it is already in talks with global manufacturers to begin mass production. It hopes to have it in classrooms by 2011 when the price could drop to $20. The ultimate goal is for it to cost no more than $10.
ZINC NASAL SPRAYS DULL SENSE OF SMELL IN SOME: Many people turn to homeopathic remedies, including products containing zinc, to mitigate the effects of the common cold. However, a new study indicates that over-the-counter zinc gluconate nasal sprays are ineffective in preventing or reducing the duration of the common cold. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that these sprays can dull users’ sense of smell or even eliminate it permanently. The loss of one’s sense of smell, a condition called anosmia, affects how sufferers experience food, hinders their ability to detect dangerous conditions like gas leaks or fires, and can even lead to feelings of depression. 
LBN-MUSIC INSIDER: ***Alicia Keys is gaining a husband and a baby — not necessarily in that order — and losing her manager, Jeff Robinson. And sources say it’s not a coincidence. “Her fiancé [hip-hop producer] Swizz Beatz definitely played a huge part in killing him off,” an industry insider says. ***The-Dream and Christina Milian getting a divorce? True. After The-Dream cheated on wife, Milian with his assistant, Melissa Santiago, things have been rocky for the couple but they have tried to work out their problems for their daughter, Violet, 4 months old. Unfortunately their marriage was unsuccessful and they have decided to call it quits. ***Is Justin Bieber’s career over once he hits puberty? Justin is not worried, he uses Usher as an example to compare himself, saying Usher made it through puberty, why cant I? Looks like there is a lot more to come from the 16 year old singer.
LBN-RECOMMENDS SPECIAL REPORT: The Editors of the LBN E-Lert Recommend—–Newcomer to Beverly Hills–Darioush Restaurant: Located on restaurant row in Beverly Hills, Darioush Restaurant is introducing French Persian Nouvelle cuisine–fusing French cooking techniques with the fantastic flavors from Persia. The restaurant’s elegant yet classic setting assures a cozy intimate visit. It’s global wine list and diverse menu will leave you amazed. Darioush Restaurant,111 North La Cienega Blvd. Beverly Hills, CA 90211,(310) 289 0300 
LBN-MOVIE REVIEW By A. O. SCOTT: In “Salt,” Angelina Jolie is a reminder that even in an era of technological overkill, movie stars matter.
LBN-RECOMMENDS By LLOYD GROVE (Editor at Large for The Daily Beast): It’s pretty amazing that Robert Duvall, who rivals Gene Hackman as America’s most durable movie actor, is almost 80. At 
LBN-COMMENTARY By PAUL KRUGMAN: Republican leaders seem to want a complete return to the Bush agenda, but how can they embrace Bush’s policies given his record? 
LBN-COMMENTARY By REV. JESSE JACKSON (Civil rights activist): The mass media proved completely incapable of handling this latest issue of race and racism in an objective and thoughtful manner. The media jumped on the bandwagon to unfairly smear her integrity.
LBN-COMMENTARY By MICHAEL LEVINE: When the door of opportunity is finally opened, you better be attractive or they won’t invite you in.
LBN-COMMENTARY By DAVID BROOKS: Where does our sense of right and wrong come from? Most people think it is a gift from God, who revealed His laws and elevates us with His love. A smaller number think that we figure the rules out for ourselves, using our capacity to reason and choosing a philosophical system to live by. Moral naturalists, on the other hand, believe that we have moral sentiments that have emerged from a long history of relationships. To learn about morality, you don’t rely upon revelation or metaphysics; you observe people as they live. This week a group of moral naturalists gathered in Connecticut at a conference organized by the Edge Foundation. One of the participants, Marc Hauser of Harvard, began his career studying primates, and for moral naturalists the story of our morality begins back in the evolutionary past. It begins with the way insects, rats and monkeys learned to cooperate.
LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By WALT DISNEY: All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles have strengthened me. You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you. 
LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW: Actress Natalie Portman.
A House investigative committee on Thursday charged New York Rep. Charles Rangel with multiple ethics violations, a blow to the former Ways and Means chairman and an election-year headache for Democrats.
PETRAEUS TO CHANGE TROOP STRATEGY: Gen. David Petraeus will intensify the American counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan, top military officials tell the Wall Street Journal. These officials are blaming implementation of the strategy, not the strategy itself, for setbacks this year. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, whom Petraeus replaced this month, focused on catching Taliban leaders at the expense of protecting civilians and building up the Afghan government, the officials say. Gen. Petraeus is expected to focus on training Afghan security forces and security for civilians. The general is under great pressure to accomplish a lot quickly, as the July 2011 deadline to begin withdrawing troops looms. So far, he’s managed to get Afghan President Hamid Karzai to endorse a plan to create village defense teams. 
SHERROD WILL ‘THINK ABOUT’ NEW JOB: Shirley Sherrod says she will “think about” accepting a new job offered by Agriculture Department head Tom Vilsack after being hastily fired when a conservative website posted a video edited to mischaracterize Sherrod’s views on race. Sherrod is expecting an email offering some sort of civil rights position in the department’s Office of Outreach. “I truly do need time to think about it,” Sherrod said, adding, that she wanted to see how the department handles civil rights issues. But she is “satisfied” with Vilsack’s apology for firing her. In the video in question, Sherrod, who is black, was giving a speech about having held racial prejudices early in her career but learning to let them go to help a white farmer keep his farm. The website Breitbart.com left out the part about overcoming prejudice. 
OIL WORKERS WORRIED BEFORE SPILL: Just weeks before the Deepwater Horizon exploded, Transocean commissioned a survey of workers’ views on the safety of the rig. Many reported that safety procedures weren’t being followed carefully, saw unsafe behaviors on the rig, and were worried about unreliable equipment. “Run it, break it, fix it,” one worker told investigators. “That’s how they work.” Transocean also commissioned a 112-page review of equipment, which in hindsight should have been a major warning sign. Many important components, like the blowout preventer rams and failsafe valves, hadn’t been inspected in 10 years.
RICH LITTLE DEVASTATED BY BELOVED WIFE’S SUICIDE: Plagued with unbearable, blinding headaches, impressionist Rich Little’s wife could no longer face a life of agony - and ended her horrible pain with a sleeping pill overdose. A tragic, chronic medical condition drove her over the edge despite her devoted husband’s unswerving love. Marie Little, 44, committed suicide at their Las Vegas home July 15 - devastating the comic who’s made millions laugh for decades. Rich found her in their bedroom, along with a suicide note that a friend described as a “loving explanation.” 
FACEBOOK GETS 500 MILLION MEMBERS: Mark Zuckerberg sure is popular. Facebook, the online social networking site, has reached 500 million members, making its Web population equal to the size of the world’s third largest country. Birthed in a Harvard dorm room in 2004, the site’s number of users has accelerated in the past year. In January 2009, Facebook had 150 million members. The company isn’t suffering for ambition: last month, Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO, said that the site would hit one billion users. This fall, Aaron Sorkin will release a movie depicting the rise of the company. The tagline? “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.”
CONGRESS EXTENDS EMERGENCY JOBLESS BENEFITS: Congress has approved a six-month extension of emergency jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed. The House gave the measure final approval and sent it on to the White House. The bill will revive a program that provides up to 99 weeks of income support to those who have exhausted state benefits, immediately restoring aid to nearly 3 million people who have seen their checks cut off since the program expired June 2. 
LBN-BOOK NEWS: ***There will not be a male version of “Eat Pray Love” from Michael Cooper, the ex- husband of “Love” author Elizabeth Gilbert. She dumped Cooper to embark on the year long trip that inspired her best-selling memoir. Cooper then struck a deal with Hyperion last summer to write “Displaced,” which would have told how he coped with the divorce and embarked on his own journey. But the deal’s off. Cooper told Page Six he finished the manuscript, but parted ways because of Hyperion’s “eleventh-hour demands” to make it racier. “I set out to write about how, in the wake of a devastating and unexpected divorce, I slowly rebuilt my life by redoubling my already decades-long commitment to humanitarian relief and human rights work. In the end, it seemed to me that Hyperion hoped to push the book in a more controversial direction — something I was unwilling to do. I am exploring options with other publishers.” Hyperion confirmed the cancellation but declined to comment further.
LBN-SNAP: Singer Sheryl Crow.
SECRET MEL GIBSON TEXT MESSAGE MAY PROVE EXTORTION: The Hollywood Reporter has learned that after the disturbing Mel Gibson audiotapes became public this month, Oksana Grigorieva wrote Gibson a text message explaining why she had surreptitiously recorded their conversations. According to a source familiar with the case, Grigorieva wrote that the reason she recorded him was because “you broke your agreement with me.” 
LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER: ***Howard Bragman, the gay Hollywood publicist who helped Meredith Baxter and Chely Wright is getting his own TV show, tentatively titled Coming Out. Bragman’s show will feature a number of high profile figures coming out of the closet. ***Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be a guest voice on “The Simpsons” for the upcoming season. Zuckerberg will portray himself as an “advisor” on entrepreneurship to Lisa Simpson. The episode could air near the Oct. 1 release of “The Social Network” movie. ***A report that 3 Arts and Untitled Entertainment are in merger talks was of no surprise to at least one rival-firm manager, who said Untitled has been “shopped” to a number of other management companies of late, including Jimmy Miller’s Mosaic. “I’m sure they’re talking to 3 Arts right now, too, but I have no idea where they’re at,” the manager told The Wrap. “This (merger) could happen, and it will be very interesting if it does.”
WHO READS THE LBN E-LERT: Laugh Factory comedy club owner Jamie Masada along with over 320, 000 other “influencers” in all 50 of the United States and 24 foreign countries. 
LBN-SPORTS INSIDER: ***All that bad press cost Tiger Woods at the bank. The golfer lost $22 million last year in endorsements, according to a new list compiled by Sports Illustrated. But the world-famous philanderer still has some earning power, making $90 million in 2009 and keeping the title of the top-grossing American athlete for the seventh straight year. Major companies like Gatorade and AT&T dropped Woods from their payrolls when news of the golfer’s serial affairs became public. America’s 50 richest athletes averaged an annual income of $26.2 million.
LBN-RECOMMENDS By ROCCO DI SPIRITO (Chef and 
LBN-COMMENTARY By WILLIE NELSON (Singer/Songwriter, President of Farm Aid): The real story of Shirley Sherrod deserved to be told a long time ago. She has had an amazing impact on the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of families and communities throughout the South.
LBN-COMMENTARY By CANDY SPELLING (Author): Everyone should be worried about security. But to strike out at a small religious group of Muslim women in France in case someone planning to do harm will emulate their clothing is not the way to go.
LBN-COMMENTARY By GWYNETH PALTROW: When my son, Moses, came into the world in 2006, I expected to have another period of euphoria following his birth, much the way I had when my daughter was born two years earlier. Instead I was confronted with one of the darkest and most painfully debilitating chapters of my life. For about five months I had, what I can see in hindsight as postnatal depression, and since that time, I have wanted to know more about it.
LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By JOHN F. KENNEDY: A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living. Today’s military rejects include tomorrow’s hard-core unemployed. 
LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW: Actress Gloria Huwiler.
LBN-OVERHEARD: ***Emmy award-winning nominee and industry veteran voice actor, Kevin Michael Richardson who plays 13 different voices on Fox Television shows will be at Comic Con this week partaking in panels for The Cleveland Show and the upcoming movie The Penguins of Madagascar. ***Michael Lohan has been charged with 2nd degree harassment for allegedly attacking his fiancée Kate Major earlier this week. ***Actress and international L’Oreal spokesperson Andie MacDowell is currently filming the indie feature “Mighty Fine” opposite Chazz Palminteri in New Orleans. When it came time to cast the role of their daughter in the movie, they didn’t have to look very far. Rising actress/singer/songwriter Rainey Qualley, who is MacDowell’s real life daughter, got the part. This is not the first project MacDowell and Qualley have done together, as the two appeared in a Mother’s Day campaign for L’Oreal Paris last year. Just prior to landing this film role, Qualley was performing her original songs at the Bitter End nightclub in New York City.
IT’S OVER: BLAGO WON’T TESTIFY AT TRIAL; ROD BLAGOJEVICH DEFENSE RESTS WITHOUT CALLING ANY WITNESSES: The trial of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich is coming to a sudden and unexpected end on Wednesday, as defense attorneys announced that Blagojevich was not taking the stand, despite repeated promises over the past 19 months that he would. The former governor’s defense team then rested it case. Attorneys for Robert Blagojevich are now calling a rebuttal witness.
CAMERON COOL ON LOCKERBIE-BP PROBE: British Prime Minister David Cameron met on Tuesday night with the four U.S. senators leading an investigation into BP’s role in the release of the Lockerbie bomber last year. While Cameron is cool on the idea of the inquiry—he said at a press conference earlier on Tuesday that “I don’t currently think that another government inquiry is the right way to go, frankly”—Senator Chuck Schumer said after the meeting that “Our request for an independent investigation is still on the table. He said that it’s not case closed.” Scottish President Alex Salmond, meanwhile, is defending his country’s decision to release Al-Megrahi: “If you take a decision in good faith you don’t regret it.”
30 HURT IN AIRPLANE TURBULENCE: Turbulence shook a United Airlines flight so hard on Tuesday that over 25 passengers and 4 crew members were injured and the plane was diverted to Denver. United Flight 967 was headed from Washington, D.C.’s Dulles airport to Los Angeles when it flew into the turbulence over Kansas, where there were storms. There were 265 people onboard, including the 10 crew members. One person was seriously injured and 30 were taken to the hospital. The plane itself suffered no damage.
LBN-THE “INSIDE” STORY: While a British government minister has recently suggested that a ban on the burka (above) won’t be considered for the UK, Syria has banned the face-covering Islamic veil from the country’s universities. The move comes as similar moves in Europe have sparked cries of discrimination against Muslims. The crackdown was ordered by the secular government in Damascus amid fears of increasing Islamic extremism among young Muslim students. “Syria is not a Muslim country,” said a Syrian government official, who went on: “the ban affects public and private universities and aims to protect the country’s secular identity.”
OUT-OF-IT LOOPY LIZA WOWS!: In a bizarre turn of events, Liza Minelli’s career has shifted into high gear after she appeared to be semi-coherent while hawking her fashion line on the Home Shopping Network. Job offers flooded in after the 64-year-old star delivered a slurred and rambling pitch as she launched her Liza Collection on June 30. Liza’s off-the-wall appearance on HSN has become a YouTube sensation. 
NUKES NEW TARGET OF PRODUCER BENDER: Global warming is so last year. Lawrence Bender — who produced “An Inconvenient Truth” and won a Nobel Peace Prize for Al Gore — has a new cause: nuclear proliferation. Bender, who produced “Pulp Fiction” and “Kill Bill” before his conversion to agit-prop, is about to release “Countdown to Zero,” a documentary by talented British filmmaker Lucy Walker, which argues that nuclear devastation is more likely now than during the Cold War because of terrorism and the theft of weapons-grade uranium. At screenings at Soho House on Monday night, Bender and Walker were joined by glamorous ex-CIA agent Valerie Plame in calling for all the nuclear powers to destroy their 23,000 warheads, even as Iran is trying to build new ones. Fat chance. But the documentary — with interviews of Mikhail Gorbachev, Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski — is sure to win an Oscar for its high-minded, good intentions.
LBN-SEE IT: Music icon Bob Marley’s youngest son Damian Marley is definitely the hair to his dad’s fortune.
LBN-TODAY’S BIRTHDAY: Don Knotts (1924). Knotts was an American comedic actor best known for his portrayal of the bumbling but earnest sheriff’s deputy Barney Fife on the 1960s sitcom The Andy Griffith Show. When the show first aired, Griffith, as Sheriff Andy Taylor, was to be the comedic lead, and Knotts was to play his straight man, but Knotts’s Fife proved so funny that this was soon reversed. The role earned Knotts 5 Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy. 
LBN-THINK AGAIN: Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page in Christopher Nolan’s new movie “Inception”.
WE, LBN: Cholie and Darby, two (2) LBN E-Lert readers from Brussels, Belgium.
HIGH-HEEL WEARERS HAVE SHORTENED CALF MUSCLES: High-heeled shoes are known to contribute to a host of ailments, including ankle sprains, bunions, hammertoes, knee problems, and low back pain, and researchers now say that shortened calf muscles and stiffer tendons in the calves can be added to the list. A new study shows that spending five or more days a week wearing heels at least two inches high shrinks a woman’s calf muscle fibers by an average of 13% and thickens the Achilles tendon—which connects the calf muscle to the heel—by 22%. When a woman like this wears flats or walks around barefoot, the muscles and tendons are stretched, causing discomfort.
LBN-COMMENTARY By JOHN STOSSEL: I’m confused about immigration. We libertarians believe in free trade. That includes trade in labor, too. New people bring us not just labor, but also good new ideas. Open immigration during America’s first hundred years helped make America rich. Open immigration is dangerous today, however, because some immigrants want to murder us. And now that America is a welfare state, some want to come here just to freeload. That great champion of freedom Milton Friedman said Mexican immigration is a good thing — but only so long as it’s illegal. “Why? Because as long as it’s illegal for people to come, they don’t qualify for welfare and Social Security. So they migrate to jobs.” But closing our eyes to illegal immigration cannot be good policy.
LBN-COMMENTARY By SETH MEYERS: I love baseball. I kind of messed around with little league, but in the end it didn’t work out. I always say, you didn’t get to be a comedian by being really good at sports.
LBN-COMMENTARY By JONATHAN ALTER: Many presidents’ biggest achievements came in the second half of their first terms, often with congress controlled by the other party: think of Franklin Roosevelt (Social Security, the Works Progress Administration), Dwight Eisenhower (the interstate Highway Act) and Bill Clinton (Welfare reform). So president Obama shouldn’t – and won’t – be content to rest on his big victories on health care and financial regulation. But “putting points on the board” (his preferred basketball metaphor for politics) requires harder thinking on how to frame the debate around every issue.
LBN-COMMENTARY By SARAH SILVERMAN: “Make it a treat” is similar in spirit to “everything in moderation,” but still very distinct. “Moderation” suggests a regular, low-level intake of something. MIAT asks for more austerity; it encourages you to keep the special things in life special. I apply this rule in a variety of ways. For instance, I wear makeup and high heels on special occasions. But if I dressed up all the time, it would become ordinary, and I would receive fewer compliments. If makeup and heels were my everyday look, I would be met with disappointed reactions if, one day, I went out in a hoodie and sneakers. Instead, it’s the opposite: A hoodie and sneakers are my everyday look, so on those rare occasions when I do dress up, I put any effort into my appearance at all, and it’s met with “Look at you!”
LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By SAMUEL ADAMS: It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds. 
LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW: 
OBAMA, CAMERON BLAST RELEASE OF LOCKERBIE BOMBER
SENATE COMMITTEE APPROVES ELENA KAGAN: The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 13-6 on Tuesday to confirm Elena Kagan and move her Supreme Court nomination to the full Senate. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham was the only Republican to vote for her. “I’m going to vote for her because I believe the last election had consequences,” Graham said. “This president chose someone who is qualified, who has the experience and knowledge to serve on this court … and understands the difference between being a liberal judge and a politician.” The full Senate will take up her nomination in early August.
SENATE SET TO EXTEND JOBLESS AID: Does someone have a white horse he can ride in on? The late West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd’s successor, Carte Goodwin, arrives in Washington Tuesday and will give Democrats the votes they need to extend unemployment benefits. He comes just one day after President Obama took Republicans to task for filibustering the measure. At least two Republicans, Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, are expected to join Democrats in voting to break the GOP filibuster. If the measure passes as expected, 2.5 jobless Americans will receive benefits retroactively.
BP CRAFTS NEW PLAN TO STOP LEAK: Back to the drawing board: With oil leaking once again from its containment-cap system, BP is looking into a new plan that it says would permanently stem the Gulf oil leak. This time it’s the “static kill,” a method in which heavy mud would be pumped into BP’s new containment cap, forcing the gas and oil back underground. If BP goes ahead with the procedure—it says it will consider it over the next several days—then the relief wells, which will not be completed until August, will only be needed to confirm that the “static kill” had worked. The procedure could be carried out with the same “top kill” equipment that failed in May.
TIMES SQ. BOMB ‘WOULD HAVE KILLED THOUSANDS’: Times Square terrorist Faisal Shahzad’s plan may not have worked, but law-enforcement sources tell the New York Post that a secret FBI test has shown that, had Shahzad constructed his car bomb correctly, it “would have killed thousands of people.” The feds reconstructed Shahzad’s bomb according to its original plan and detonated it in Pennsylvania. “It definitely would have been bigger than [the 1995] Oklahoma City,” a source tells the Post. Another source says, “If you look at the four corners [near the bomb] that night, there could easily be 500 people between 20 to 30 feet from the car.”
LOHAN’S FORMER LAWYER BACK TO REPRESENTING HER: Lindsay Lohan’s former lawyer will be by her side today in a Los Angeles courtroom after Robert Shapiro bailed on LiLo. Shawn Chapman Holley quit earlier this month because Lohan was an uncontrollable client. But with the ‘mean Girls” actress in a pinch, Holley has decided to represent her once again, TMZ.com reported. Sources told TMZ that LiLo is “furious” at Shapiro for dumping her and for using her to “get publicity.” Shapiro, of O.J. Simpson “Dream Team” fame, reportedly dumped her Monday night as she prepared to turn herself in today to begin serving a 90-day jail sentence.
WHO READS THE LBN E-LERT: Power-attorney Tom Girardi along with over 320,000 other “influencers” in all 50 of the United States and 24 foreign countries.
SYRIA BANS FULL ISLAMIC VEILS AT UNIVERSITIES: Syria has forbidden the country’s students and teachers from wearing the niqab – the full Islamic veil that reveals only a woman’s eyes – taking aim at a garment many see as political. The ban shows a rare point of agreement between Syria’s secular, authoritarian government and the democracies of Europe: Both view the niqab as a potentially destabilizing threat.
LBN-NOTICED: ***Sandra Bernhard praying and singing at the Chabad of Southampton Jewish Center Saturday morning. ***Kate Capshaw, fashion designer Nicole Miller and taxi tycoon Andrew Murstein landing in a seaplane with wheels at East Hampton Airport. ***Sean Penn and four male friends dining at Da Silvano Bistecca in NYC. ***Rosie O’Donnell at Fire Island’s Blue Whale, posing for pictures in her Crocs and no makeup flanked by barely clad men while No. 1 girlfriend Tracy Kachtick-Anders and author Bruce Littlefield looked on. ***New York Jets owner Woody Johnson –wearing shorts, sneakers, a backpack and Jets cap — scooting down Columbus Avenue in NYC on a Razor. ***Comedian Adam Christing having dinner at the Riordan Tavern in downtown L.A. last night. ***Music attorney Fred Goldring having drinks with his wife and friends at the Casa del Mar hotel in Santa Monica. ***Hilary Duff having dinner with her mother at Mastro’s Steakhouse in Beverly Hills, CA last night. ***Enjoying some time in the UK, Kate Hudson spotted leaving Scotts restaurant in London last night after a four-hour dinner with Harvey Weinstein. ***BE AN LBN-CORRESPONDENT — Send your celebrity sightings to: 
LBN-SEE IT: KATY & TAYLOR—–The pop stars went in for a cuddle while in London, with Taylor Swift writing that her pal Katy Perry “really puts the ‘fun’ in ‘Fundon.’” Swift had fun with Perry again, posting the same snuggly shot – but this time, altered with kitty icons from her. (Photo Courtesy of Taylor Swift). 
LBN-VIDEO LINK: 
BP PHOTOSHOPS ‘COMMAND CENTER’ IMAGE: BP has photoshopped images of its “crisis command center” to make it appear as though employees are watching several screens with images of the leaking well. AmericaBlog’s John Aravosis catches the company red-handed—you can clearly see white lines around the employees’ heads and the screens where someone cut and pasted the images. A reader points out to Aravosis that the meta info for the image is from 2001, so it appears as though BP took an old photo and pasted pictures of the Gulf well onto it to make it look updated. BP has apologized for the doctored photo but says it was the photographer who did such an amateurish job.
LBN-COMMENTARY By DAVID BROOKS: When historians look back on the period between 2001 and 2011, they will be amazed that a nation that professed to hate bureaucracy produced so much of it. During the first part of this period, the Republicans were in control. They expanded a vast national security bureaucracy. In their series in The Washington Post, Dana Priest and William M. Arkin detail the size of this apparatus. More than 1,200 government agencies and 1,900 private companies work on counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence programs at around 10,000 sites across the country. An estimated 854,000 people have top-secret security clearance. These analysts produce 50,000 reports a year — a flow of paper so great that many are completely ignored.
LBN-COMMENTARY By BILL GATES (Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation): There are reasons to be hopeful in the fight against AIDS. The number of people getting treatment has increased 12-fold since 2003. I’m confident we will write the story of the end of AIDS.
LBN-COMMENTARY By ED KOCH (Former Mayor, New York City): I am not a big sports fan. George Steinbrenner meant little or nothing to me before I was elected Mayor New York City in 1977. Then, suddenly, he meant a lot.
LBN-COMMENTARY By SIGOURNEY WEAVER (Academy Award nominated actress): As the oil disaster continues to ravage the Gulf, we are being reminded of the value of our oceans. That’s why I was filled with hope today when Obama announced he is creating the first-ever comprehensive national ocean policy.
LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By MOHANDAS GANDHI: A principle is the expression of perfection, and as imperfect beings like us cannot practice perfection, we devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice. 
LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW: Lindsay Lohan.
U.S. FEARS NEW OIL SEEPAGE: As the Gulf enters its fourth day with the leaking oil well capped, BP and its government overseers are struggling to agree on a long-term plan to keep the crude away. BP’s chief operating officer said on Sunday that he’d like to keep the cap closed for good, but news of a possible seep near the wellhead may prompt a different plan. Admiral Thad Allen, the administration’s response chief, said that the government is sticking to its original plan of eventually opening the well to siphon oil up to the surface, which is a more cautious route. In either scenario, the ultimate goal is to permanently fix the leak by drilling a relief well and pumping it with mud and cement.
BIDEN DOWNPLAYS AFGHANISTAN PULLOUT: Don’t expect the war in Afghanistan to end in July 2011: “It could be as few as a couple thousand troops,” Vice President Joe Biden said on Sunday of the troop drawdown scheduled to begin then. Biden acknowledged that it’s been difficult to train the Afghan army that is supposed to take over security in the country, saying “We are in the process, which is painfully slow and difficult, of training up Afghani forces in order to put them in a position they can deal with their own insurgents.”
LBN-SEE IT: Stars Without Makeup - Jennifer Lopez, Before and After.
WHO READ THE LBN E-LERT? Power-attorney Bruce Ramer along with over 320,000 other “influencers in all 50 of the United States and 24 foreign countries. 
WHITNEY DEAD IN MONTHS FROM $300K DRUG HABIT — INSIDER: Whitney Houston is blowing over $300,000 a year on drugs, sources say - and friends fear she’s locked in a downward spiral that will soon end in death. With the R&B diva’s drug habit raging out of control, her entourage recruited a drug dealer who sold her $6,000 worth of cocaine during a tour stop in Europe in June, an eyewitness to the deal told sources.
LBN-BOOK NEWS: ***Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino is writing a self-help book. The “Jersey Shore” star landed a deal to pen “Here’s the Situation,” a guide to ripped abs, grooming, and how to keep up with your GTL (gym, tan, laundry). Sources said it will be published by Gotham Books this November in a deal brokered by Jarred Weisfeld of Objective Entertainment and Sorrentino’s manager, Michael Petolino. The Sitch is already cashing in with a workout video and health supplements.
LBN-SEE IT: Jennifer Aniston is stripping down again. The Daily Mail published some grainy, previously unseen promotional ads for Aniston’s Lolavie perfume. Aniston will debut the fragrance on Wednesday in London at Harrod’s
LBN-SEE IT: Peter Paul Biro with an alleged Jackson Pollock.
LBN-COMMENTARY By PAUL KRUGMAN: Instead of focusing on how its policies play in the news, the Obama administration should be worrying about their actual effect on the economy. 
LBN-COMMENTARY By NICOLE LAPORTE: They have a history of partying, used to hang with a surfer gang, and have been described as “the holy terrors of Malibu.” Before Mel Gibson and Oksana Grigorieva had a daughter, who, at 9-months-old, is now at the center of their hideous, and very public, custody battle, Gibson was married for 28 years to his ex-wife, Robyn, with whom he had seven children. It turns out some are nearly as colorful as their dad.
LBN-COMMENTARY By MICHAEL LEVINE (Media expert & Author): Newspaper coverage of the Catholic clergy sexual abuse scandal grew more intense this spring than at any time since 2002, and European newspapers devoted even more ink to the story than American papers did. The heavy coverage in Europe was a reversal of the pattern in 2002, when a Boston Globe series triggered an avalanche of reporting on sexual abuse by priests in the United States but relatively few stories appeared in the European press. In early 2010, by contrast, much of the reporting focused on sexual abuse of children in Europe, and English-language European newspapers published three times as many articles on the scandal as U.S. papers did.
THE LIST RANT By ERICKA T. BASS: 1. There have been times in my life where my brilliance has begun hot and true and then fades. 2. Fashion losers: Mary-Kate Olsen, Pamela Anderson, Rihanna, Cher, and Sarah Jessica Parker. 3. I speak only mouthfuls of truth. Deal with it. 4. The wreck of vast sundowns predicts the havoc to be. 5. Religion is excellent for keeping common people quiet. 6. I love singer Patty Griffin. 7. You are an asshole if you are afraid to jump into the river of love. 8. Much of the worst of the world is in the face of Parasite Hilton, a grand loser who’s picture belongs on my toilet seat. 9. If you have a choice between dating an actor or a mental patient, go with the mental patient every time. 10. Does anyone deny that Mormons are a cult? 11. I love listening to old Dave Clark 5 records. 12. I’ve been into S & M since I was age 7. 13. Mick Jagger looks like an old and ugly ally cat. ***Shout back at Ericka T. Email: 
LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By NATASHA RICHARDSON: A film is a director’s vision there is, however, much input an actor or actress can have. 
LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:
TESTS SHOW NO DAMAGE TO WELL: Finally, some good news from the Gulf of Mexico. As officials announced that they would extend the test on the blown-out well for a further 24 hours, there seem to be no signs of new damage. It has now been more than two days since any oil spewed out of it or through the seafloor. “The longer the test goes, the more confidence we have,” said Kent Wells, a senior vice president of BP. Once the test is completed, efforts will again turn to containment and the well will be reopened so ships on the surface can resume collecting oil. And even though BP has said that there is a possibility they will just keep the well shut if it is in good enough condition to withstand it, Admiral Thad Allen, who is coordinating the federal response, insisted that would only be considered if conditions are too difficult for ships to get near it. Although things are looking up now.
IRAN SCIENTIST: U.S. WANTED SPY SWAP: Shahram Amiri is alleging that the United States not only kidnapped and held him against his will for over a year, but pressured him to participate in a “spy” swap for Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd, and Josh Fattal, the three U.S. hikers in custody in Tehran. The U.S. government maintains that the three hikers were on vacation and accidentally ventured across an unmarked border, questioning whether or not the they were even in legitimate Iranian territory at the time. But Amiri insists that the government admitted to him that Shourd, Fattal, and Bauer were spies. “They [U.S. agents] wanted me to say that ‘I was an Iranian intelligence agent infiltrating the CIA,’” he told Iranian state television, “If I said this, they said I could be part of a spy exchange programme, whereby I could be handed over to Iran in return for the three American spies arrested near the Iraqi border.”
SUICIDE BOMBER KILLS 40: A suicide bomb attack this morning took the lives of 40 Iraqi security forces who were waiting in line to get paid. All 40 victims were a part of government-backed militia Sahwa (Sons of Iraq). In 2006 Sahwa turned against Al-Qaeda and joined the US and Iraqi government, helping to quell violence in the state. “There were more than 85 people lined up in three lines at the main gate of the military base when a person approached us,” a witness said. “When one of the soldiers tried to stop him, he blew himself up…I lost consciousness and woke up to find myself in hospital.”
CLINTON ARRIVES IN PAKISTAN: Charged with the task of fixing the United States’ frayed relationship with Pakistan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Islamabad early Sunday morning as part of a trip through Asia that will also include stops in Afghanistan, South Korea, and Vietnam. The U.S. is deeply unpopular in Pakistan, where American drone operations serve as a constant reminder of their adversarial relationship. “There was a huge trust gap,” said Vali Nasr, a senior adviser to Richard Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. “We are not going to be able to change their foreign policy on a dime.” Outside of military concerns, Clinton will also discuss American plans to spend billions of dollars on a series of social and economic improvements in Pakistan’s notoriously fraught tribal region.
GIBSON LEAVING THE COUNTRY: Mel Gibson is trying to get as far away as possible from his headline-grabbing scandal. According to one report, he’s supposedly packing his bags and moving back to his native Australia, where he will reunite with his ex-wife, Robyn. According to London’s Mail on Sunday, Gibson is so serious about leaving the country that he has already sold his homes in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Malibu. The Greenwich home, a mock Tudor property known as Old Mill Farm, went for $24 million—though it was listed at $39.5 million in 2007. The Malibu house, Lavender Hill Farm, was just put on the market at $15 million.
POLANSKI EMERGES FROM HOUSE ARREST: Roman Polanski has finally been let out of the house, and he’s back to living the good life. Less than a week after Swiss authorities declined to extradite him to the U.S. to face charges for having sex with a minor in 1977, the embattled director made his first public appearance to watch his wife, Emmanuelle Seigner, perform at a Swiss jazz festival in Montreux. Though his attendance caused quite a stir with the press and photographers, Polanski stayed mostly out of sight, watching quietly from a VIP box during his wife’s 55-minute set. Prior to the show, the famous director taped his first television interview since leaving the house, telling a Swiss media outlet that though he wasn’t sure of his future plans, he was “happy to be free.”
LBN-MUSIC INSIDER: ***Christina Aguilera’s new album, “Bionic,” is doing so poorly, music insiders say her label RCA is in “rescue mode.” Sales for Aguilera’s fourth album have barely hit 200,000 in five weeks of release. It debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard charts and quickly fell out of the Top 10. (In comparison, Drake’s “Thank Me Later” sold about 450,000 in its first week.)
WHO READS THE LBN E-LERT? Over 20 of our soldiers in Afghanistan along with over 320,000 other “influencers”.
FDA RECOMMENDS LIMITING ANTIBIOTICS FOR LIVESTOCK: Antibiotics have been used for decades to promote livestock growth and feed efficiency, but the US Food and Drug Administration is now recommending that livestock farmers phase out the use of antibiotics for these purposes and instead use them solely to cure or prevent disease in the animals. The organization said that the practice of mixing antibiotics in livestock rations or feedlot water supplies poses a “serious public health threat” because it promotes the emergence of antibiotic- resistant bacteria that can infect humans.
LBN-SEE IT: Singer Harry Connick, yesterday and today.
LBN-COMMENTARY By ROJA HEYDARPOUR: This week, the French came one step closer to enacting a law that’s supposed to set women free but which will, in effect; imprison women in their own homes. The bill making its way through the French Parliament would ban women from wearing full veils in public, effectively driving thousands of women inside. For the veiled women who either won’t or can’t be seen in public with their hair and face uncovered, Paris will come to resemble Kabul, if the ban is passed this fall. In some ways, living in Paris will be even worse. At least in Afghanistan, women can leave the house if accompanied by a man.
LBN-COMMENTARY By MAUREEN DOWD: If the Vatican is trying to restore the impression that its moral sense is intact, issuing a document that equates pedophilia with the ordination of women doesn’t really do that. The Catholic Church continued to heap insult upon injury when it revealed its long-awaited new rules on clergy sex abuse, rules that the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said signaled a commitment to grasp the nettle with “rigor and transparency.” The church still believes in its own intrinsic holiness despite all evidence to the contrary. It thinks it’s making huge concessions on the unstoppable abuse scandal when it’s taking baby steps. The casuistic document did not issue a zero-tolerance policy to defrock priests after they are found guilty of pedophilia; it did not order bishops to report every instance of abuse to the police; it did not set up sanctions on bishops who sweep abuse under the rectory rug; it did not eliminate the statute of limitations for abused children; it did not tell bishops to stop lobbying legislatures to prevent child-abuse laws from being toughened.
LBN-COMMENTARY By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN: On July 7, CNN fired its senior editor of Middle East affairs, Octavia Nasr, after she published a Twitter message saying, “Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah,” one of the most prominent Lebanese Shiite spiritual leaders who was involved in the founding of the Hezbollah militia. Nasr described him as “one of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.” I find Nasr’s firing troubling. Yes, she made a mistake. Reporters covering a beat should not be issuing condolences for any of the actors they cover. It undermines their credibility. But we also gain a great deal by having an Arabic-speaking, Lebanese-Christian female journalist covering the Middle East for CNN, and if her only sin in 20 years is a 140-character message about a complex figure like Fadlallah, she deserved some slack. She should have been suspended for a month, but not fired. It’s wrong on several counts.
LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By LUTHER VANDROSS: I’d like to be remembered as a premier singer of songs, not just a popular act of a given period.
LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW: Attorney Robert Shapiro.
LBN-FACESPACE:
NO OIL LEAKING AS BP CONDUCTS CRITICAL PRESSURE TESTS IN GULF OIL WELL: A highly anticipated test designed to measure pressure within BP’s ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well finally began Thursday, and for the first time in nearly three months, oil stopped flowing into the Gulf. The move was lauded by a variety of officials as a positive step, accompanied by a strong note of caution that the cutoff was simply part of the test, as BP and government experts try to assess how the well is holding up. The test got under way after two days of delays, first as government scientists scrutinized testing procedures and then as BP replaced a leaking piece of equipment known as a choke line.
COUNTRIES SLOW TO PROVIDE HAITI CASH: Despite the outpouring of support from governments all over the world in the immediate aftermath of the Haitian earthquake, most of the funds they pledged are still a long way from the devastated Caribbean nation. Only $506 million of $5.3 billion that was raised at an international donors’ conference in March has been delivered, according to the United Nations Development Program. Australia, Brazil, Estonia and Norway are the only countries that have handed over anything. The $1.15 billion promised by the United States, for instance, has been tied up on Capitol Hill. So Bill Clinton, the U.N.’s special envoy to Haiti, has taken it upon himself to find out what the holdup is. “I’m going to call all those governments,” he said. “I want to try to get them to give the money, and I’m trying to get the others to give me a schedule for when they’ll release it.”
5,000 ARRESTED IN ASIA: Police have arrested over 5,000 people across China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand in sweeping raids targeting illegal World Cup gambling. According to Interpol, Asian authorities “identified and raided nearly 800 illegal gambling dens” that had dealt with $155 million in bets. The effort, Operation Soga III, ran from June 11 to July 11. Police seized $10 million alongside cars, bank cards, computers, and cellphones. Interpol anticipates that the operation will have a lasting effect on Asian gang activity, and also curb corruption, money laundering, and prostitution.
VATICAN REVISES ABUSE PROCESS, BUT CAUSES STIR: The Vatican issued revisions to its internal laws on Thursday making it easier to discipline sex-abuser priests, but caused confusion by also stating that ordaining women as priests was as grave an offense as pedophilia. The decision to link the issues appears to reflect the determination of embattled Vatican leaders to resist any suggestion that pedophilia within the priesthood can be addressed by ending the celibacy requirement or by allowing women to become priests.
NEW ORLEANS TAKES ANOTHER HIT: First it was Hurricane Katrina, and then it was the BP oil spill. Now the Louisiana coastal region faces a third economic crisis: Northrop Grumman Corp. will close the shipyard in Avondale, eliminating 5,000 jobs. Northrop Grumman (NOC, Fortune 500) said late Tuesday that it will “wind down” the shipyard, located in the immediate vicinity of New Orleans, by 2013. First it must finish building two LPD-class Navy ships, which are used to transport Marines.
HOTEL FIRE KILLS 29: A fire in a five-story hotel in northern Iraq killed 29 people, including foreigners, police and hospital officials in the city of Sulaimaniyah said on Friday. At least some of the victims appeared to have died as they jumped from the windows to escape the blaze.
LBN-MUSIC INSIDER: ***Pink plummeted from her harness into a barricade during a performance in Nürnberg, Germany, Thursday night. The show was stopped, and she was then hurried into an ambulance and rushed to the hospital. But she was well enough to tweet her fans an apology: “I am embarrassed and very sorry,” she wrote. “didn’t get clipped in2 harness correctly—Getting xrays. I hope it at least looked cool!!!” According to recent tweets from Pink, nothing is broken—she’s “just seriously sore.”
WHO READS THE LBN E-LERT? KTLA news reporter Jaime Chambers along with over 320,000 other “influencers” in all 50 of the United States and 24 foreign countries.
BOMB KILLS 6 IN PAKISTAN TRIBAL AREA: A powerful bomb blast ripped through a busy market in an area along the Afghan border Friday, killing at least six people and wounding 15 others, a Pakistani official said. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in the Khyber, a tribal region whose security is of paramount importance to the U.S. because it is the home of a major supply route for Western troops in Afghanistan.
LBN-SNAP: Leonardo DiCaprio.
LBN-HEALTH NEWs: ***Whooping cough in the last month has affected more than 1,300 people in California. This highly contagious disease is receiving more attention from state officials after the death of 5 toddlers from this illness. ***New research has proven that wearing high heels for multiple days in a row shrinks fibers in the calf muscle and thickens the Achilles tendon. This can lead to discomfort when wearing flip flops and flats and other serious problems. 
GAZA AID SHIP UNLOADS AT EGYPTIAN PORT: A Libyan-backed ship carrying humanitarian goods for Gaza docked Thursday at Al Arish in northern Egypt and unloaded tons of aid from the Gadhafi Foundation, a charity headed by the son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The vessel reached Egypt after sailing from Greece on Saturday with 2,000 tons of aid. It was the latest ship attempting to breach an Israeli naval blockade of the Palestinian territory of Gaza whose captain was persuaded to dock elsewhere instead. The aid includes food, medicine, and construction materials to be taken from the port to the Gaza border about 25 miles (42 km) away.
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE: Ethiopia is just one of the 24 foreign countries with daily LBN E-Lert readers.
LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By EDWARD KENNEDY: For all my years in public life, I have believed that America must sail toward the shores of liberty and justice for all. There is no end to that journey, only the next great voyage. We know the future will outlast all of us, but I believe that all of us will live on in the future we make.
LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW: 
LBN-OVERHEARD: ***Pamela Anderson’s PETA ad, which features her in a scantily clad bikini with body parts labeled, has been banned for public display by officials in the city of Montreal. Public officials have deemed the ad to be overly sexist. ***Comedian Ben Morrison will be hosting & emceeing at the 1st Annual Diabetes Health & Well Being Weekend and Celebrity Benefit Concert at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles. ***Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin are reportedly in negotiations for a reality TV show. According to TMZ, the couple is trying to sell “multiple reality shows” and some of the pitches even include their two-year-old son, Tripp. At this point, it is unclear whether the show would be based in Alaska or include any appearances by Sarah Palin. But a deal could come in the near future.