So a fear of spiders may in fact be an inherited defence mechanism laid down in a families genes by an ancestors' frightening encounter with an arachnid.

Dr Brian Dias, from the department of psychiatry at Emory University, said: "We have begun to explore an underappreciated influence on adult behaviour – ancestral experience before conception.

"From a translational perspective, our results allow us to appreciate how the experiences of a parent, before even conceiving offspring, markedly influence both structure and function in the nervous system of subsequent generations.

"Such a phenomenon may contribute to the etiology and potential intergenerational transmission of risk for neuropsychiatric disorders such as phobias, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder."

In the study, which is published in the journal of Nature Neuroscience, the researchers trained mice to fear the smell of cherry blossom using electric shocks before allowing them to breed.

The offspring produced showed fearful responses to the odour of cherry blossom compared to a neutral odour, despite never having encountered them before.

The following generation also showed the same behaviour. This effect continued even if the mice had been fathered through artificial insemination.

The researchers found the brains of the trained mice and their offspring showed structural changes in areas used to detect the odour.

The DNA of the animals also carried chemical changes, known as epigenetic methylation, on the gene responsible for detecting the odour.

This suggests that experiences are somehow transferred from the brain into the genome, allowing them to be passed on to later generations.

The researchers now hope to carry out further work to understand how the information comes to be stored on the DNA in the first place.

They also want to explore whether similar effects can be seen in the genes of humans.

Professor Marcus Pembrey, a paediatric geneticist at University College London, said the work provided "compelling evidence" for the biological transmission of memory.

He added: "It addresses constitutional fearfulness that is highly relevant to phobias, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorders, plus the controversial subject of transmission of the ‘memory’ of ancestral experience down the generations.

"It is high time public health researchers took human transgenerational responses seriously.

"I suspect we will not understand the rise in neuropsychiatric disorders or obesity, diabetes and metabolic disruptions generally without taking a multigenerational approach.”

Professor Wolf Reik, head of epigenetics at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, said, however, further work was needed before such results could be applied to humans.

He said: "These types of results are encouraging as they suggest that transgenerational inheritance exists and is mediated by epigenetics, but more careful mechanistic study of animal models is needed before extrapolating such findings to humans.”

It comes as another study in mice has shown that their ability to remember can be effected by the presence of immune system factors in their mother's milk

Dr Miklos Toth, from Weill Cornell Medical College, found that chemokines carried in a mother's milk caused changes in the brains of their offspring, affecting their memory in later life.

Summary: Memories may be passed down through generations in DNA in a process that may   be the underlying cause of phobias


08/04/2016 AT 01:40 PM EDT

has talked to some of Hollywood's biggest celebrities on his hit E! show

, but two boldface names he probably never expected to talk to are the late

The 20-year-old psychic gets his chance in the second season of his show, hearing from the dead stars while speaking with

– much to both of their surprises.

"Tyler is channeling Carolyn Bessette Kennedy," Radziwill says, after he mentions "someone who died tragically." The 52-year-old

author was a close friend of Bessette Kennedy and her husband

in July 1999. (JFK, Jr. and Radziwill's late husband

Feldman, who first appeared with Haim in 1987's

, breaks down in tears as Henry tells him about his late friend – the other half of "The Two Coreys."

"I don't feel like his life's story is completely done," Henry says of Haim, who

Radziwill and Feldman's reactions are similar to many of the celebrities who sit down with Henry, including

Also lining up (and breaking down) for the show's second season?

premieres Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET on E!

Summary: The second season of Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry premieres Aug. 17 on E!


Moderate Republicans who have been fighting off extinction ventured onto the primary ballot this week in the deeply red state of Kansas and scored a dozen impressive victories. The insurgents knocked off conservative loyalists of Gov. Sam Brownback, whose disastrous experiment in trickle-down economics has busted the state budget and angered voters suffering from slashed services.

While they were at it, Republican voters chose to send Representative Tim Huelskamp into retirement after a six-year career as one of the leading Tea Party obstructionists in Washington. His defeat was a setback as well for two of the naysaying lawmaker’s right-wing backers — the Koch brothers’ political money machine and the Club for Growth, a conservative advocacy group.

No one is yet proclaiming the start of a national revival of moderation in the G.O.P. But the primary results are an encouraging sign that voters in this election year will, if provoked, look beyond the statements of ideological crusaders to demand positive results in their lives. In the Kansas Statehouse, at least 11 Brownback loyalists, including the Senate majority leader, were defeated by candidates who drew support from voters appalled at deepening budget cuts in education, infrastructure and other basic services.

After his election in the antigovernment Tea Party surge of 2010, Mr. Brownback fully indulged the Republican fiction that huge upper-bracket tax cuts for individuals and businesses — and his were the largest in the state’s history — would somehow trigger healthy revenue flows and create jobs. None of that happened. Instead, the budget shortfalls from cutting taxes led Mr. Brownback and the Republican Legislature to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from education, sending the public school system into a crisis that continues; state agencies were shut and jobs eliminated; and sweeping cutbacks ranged from basic welfare to the state university system.

“My focus is to create a red-state model that allows the Republican ticket to say, ‘See, we’ve got a different way, and it works,’ ” Mr. Brownback bragged as he and other conservative hard-liners pursued the party’s supply-side fantasies. It certainly has been a different way, and it plainly doesn’t work.

If nothing else, the nation can now see the folly that results from the trickle-down foolishness that mainline Republicans like the House speaker, Paul Ryan, still try to peddle. Voters can also see that that some Republicans, as in Kansas, may now be willing to ake a second look at trickle-down politicians and decide that someone more moderate is a better bet.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTOpinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

A version of this editorial appears in print on August 5, 2016, on page A26 of the New York edition with the headline: Moderation Rears Its Head in Kansas. Today's Paper|Subscribe

Summary: Conservative backers of Gov. Sam Brownback, whose brand of trickle-down economics has failed, were defeated in a number of Republican primaries.


On Sunday evening, Kim Kardashian West posted a tweet that at the time seemed harmless enough: “do u guys follow me on snap chat?” she wrote. “u really should ;-)”

It was retweeted thousands of times, and those who heeded her call were greeted on Snapchat with footage that has, for want of a less cringeworthy term, broken the Internet. In the undated video, we see her husband Kanye West apparently on a speakerphone call with Taylor Swift, informing her that he was referencing her in his song “Famous.” The lyric in question: “For all my Southside n***** that know me best / I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that b**** famous.”

Swift appears to be heard on the other end calling the shout-out “tongue in cheek” and saying that she “really appreciate[d]” West giving her a heads-up. (The call is available in its entirety here.)

The years-long feud between the Wests and Swift has been one of the great culture dramas of our age. In February, the Guardian reports, Swift’s representative claimed that “Kanye did not call for approval” about the track, and that Swift was “never made aware of the actual lyric ‘I made that b**** famous.'”

After Kardashian West posted the video, Swift was, er, swift to speak out. “Where is the video of Kanye telling me he was going to call me ‘that b****’ in his song?” she wrote in a statement she shared on Twitter. “It doesn’t exist because it never happened. You don’t get to control someone’s emotional response to being called ‘that b****’ in front of the entire world.”

She goes on to say she has been “falsely painted as a liar,” describing the matter as “character assassination.”

At the time of press, however, the court of popular opinion seemed to be ruling in the Wests’ favor. The hashtag #KimExposedTaylorParty was trending on Twitter into the early hours of Monday morning; click it and find a litany of tweets cheering Kardashian West.

Summary: Swift has responded, but the court of popular opinion isn't having it


Video shot by a mum and her young children driving home from school might help police capture three men wanted over a stabbing north of the Gold Coast.

The footage shows a silver Mitsubishi four-wheel-drive hit a man on a Labrador street, before three men exit the car and can be seen beating him.

The driver of the Mitsubishi then stabs the man in the back.

Evidence is left at the scene. (9NEWS)

The family told police they had their phones out because the children were playing Pokemon Go.

Police believe one of the attackers was holding a blowtorch and said the attack was probably targeted.

The attackers remain on the run, while the victim remains in Gold Coast University Hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

After the attack, the men then re-entered their vehicle, and fled the scene.

The driver is described as having a light brown complexion and long black hair.

The second man is described as Caucasian with short brown hair, about 182cm tall, wearing a light grey or white shirt and football style shorts.

The third man is described as having a light brown complexion, short dark hair and was last seen wearing blue denim jeans and a dark T-shirt.

Anyone with relevant information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016

Summary: A manhunt is underway for three men following a stabbing on the Gold Coast.


Apple has another foe to contend with: Cupertino’s mayor.

Speaking to The Guardian in a wide-ranging interview published on Thursday, Cupertino mayor Barry Chang argued that Apple isn’t doing enough for the city where its headquarters lives, adding that he believes the company is abusing its hometown.

“Apple is not willing to pay a dime,” he told The Guardian.“They’re making profit, and they should share the responsibility for our city, but they won’t. They abuse us.”

Neither Apple nor Chang immediately responded to a request for comment.

Chang has been facing increasing tension in Cupertino over infrastructure and traffic congestion issues, among other troubles, according to his 2016 State of the City speech in January. He has since argued that raising taxes—especially on the big companies that call Cupertino home, like Apple—could help address the city’s issues. He has also proposed Apple give Cupertino $100 million for the city’s infrastructure, according to The Guardian.

Apple has been in Cupertino for decades, and the tech giant has contributed millions of dollars in local tax revenue to the city over that time. However, Chang is one of some citizens who believe Apple could do more to help the city and pay more in taxes. They point to the company’s billions in quarterly profits as proof that a little help from Apple could go a long way.

Meanwhile, Apple is building a new campus in Cupertino, to be known as Apple Campus 2. The “spaceship” as it’s become known, will have 2.8 million square feet of office space and house 12,000 employees. In his State of the City address earlier this year, Chang said that he had toured the construction site late last year and was told by Apple that it was on track to be opened next year, as expected.

However, Chang claims to have had a much different experience with Apple once before, when he tried to walk on to the company’s campus to talk about traffic congestion. He told The Guardian that Apple’s security escorted him off Apple’s campus, saying “you cannot come in, you’re not invited.” He told The Guardian that he hasn’t gone back to Apple’s current headquarters, despite visiting its new facilities.

His refrain over taxes, though, is one that Apple has been hearing for quite some time. Indeed, Apple has been targeted by critics for not paying its fair share of taxes and funneling cash through countries, like Ireland, where tax rates are not as steep. While Apple is not alone in fielding that criticism—many Silicon Valley companies engage in the same practices—both European governments and lawmakers in the U.S. have said it should cough up more cash.

In January, the European Commission was said to be mulling whether it would seek back taxes from Apple that could cost the company billions of dollars. While that has yet to happen, the company has even been targeted by co-founder Steve Wozniak, who said in April that Apple should pay a 50% tax rate.

“I do a lot of work, I do a lot of travel and I pay over 50% of everything I make in taxes, and I believe that’s part of life and you should do it,” Wozniak said last month. He was then asked if Apple should be paying the same rate and added that “every company in the world should.”

For its part, Apple has scoffed at those who say it doesn’t pay enough in taxes. In an interview with 60 Minutes on CBS, Apple CEO Tim Cook said in December that his company “pays every tax dollar we owe.” He added that any idea Apple doesn’t pay its fair share in taxes is “total political crap.”

Given his tenor in his interview with The Guardian, Chang, who railed against Apple’s power in Cupertino by saying city council members don’t want to “offend” the company, doesn’t seem willing to give up the fight. However, he might not fight that battle in Cupertino for much longer.

According to his website, Chang is running for State Assembly this year. If he wins, he’d leave behind Cupertino politics and move to state politics. That said, for a politician that has issues with Apple and all the trouble that it might or might not cause in Cupertino, he readily promotes his work with the company. Indeed, on his own homepage, he lists a negotiation with Apple as one of his achievements during his time in Cupertino.

“Barry is an effective champion for the residents,” his homepage reads. “His diligent negotiations with Apple resulted in the approval of the company’s $5 billion Campus 2 Project, which is producing numerous local construction jobs and will assure the retention of more than 12,000 high-tech R&D jobs.”

This article originally appeared on Fortune.com

Summary: Mayor Barry Chang spoke out about his frustrations with Apple's relationship with their hometown


The sorting hat in Harry Potter shaped the destinies of the students of Hogwarts. Now the stars of the movies have been sorted into their respective houses — and they didn’t all end up where you might expect.

In the books and films, Ron and Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom were all assigned to the courageous House of Gryffindor, while Luna Lovegood was sorted to the cerebral Ravenclaw, but the online sorting hat on Pottermore had other ideas for the actors that played them.

Actors Rupert Grint (Ron), Bonnie Wright (Ginny), Matthew Lewis (Neville) and Evanna Lynch (Luna) answered a series of questions on the website ranging from “White or black?” and “How would you like to be known to history?” in order to find the house that they belonged to.

Surprisingly enough, only two of the four actors got Gryffindor, while the other two were sorted to the gentler Hufflepuff.

To see which actors got sorted where, watch the clip below.

Summary: The results might surprise you


The search for a lost Nazi gold train is back on.

Last August two amateur treasure hunters said they had "irrefutable proof" of the existence of a World War II-era Nazi ghost train, rumored to be filled with stolen gold.

Andreas Richter and Piotr Koper claimed they used ground-penetrating radar to locate the train, which is somewhere alongside a railway that stretches between the towns Wroclaw and Walbrzych in southwestern Poland.

"The train isn't a needle in a haystack," said Andrzej Gaik, a retired teacher and spokesman for the renewed effort to search for the train told AFP. "If it's there, we'll find it," Gaik added.

See photos of the mysterious tunnel:

Men find Nazi train in Poland

This file photo from March 2012, shows a part of a subterranean system built by Nazi Germany in what is today Gluszyca-Osowka, Poland. According to Polish lore, a Nazi train loaded with gold, and weapons vanished into a mountain at the end of World War II, as the Germans fled the Soviet advance. Now two men claim they know the location of the mystery train and are demanding 10 percent of its value in exchange for revealing its location. (AP Photo,str)

FILE - This Oct.2010 file picture shows the Ksiaz Castle in , Poland. During World War II, Adolf Hitler began to build a system of long tunnels underneath the castle. According to Polish lore, a Nazi train loaded with gold, and weapons vanished into the mountain at the end of World War II, as the Germans fled the Soviet advance. Now two men claim they know the location of the mystery train and are demanding 10percent of its value in exchange for revealing its location. (AP Photo/str)

WALBRZYCH, POLAND OCTOBER 20: (SOUTH AFRICA AND POLAND OUT) A tunnel that is part of Nazi underground complex on October 20, 2015 In Walbrzych, Poland. The mysterious underground Nazi city Riese where it is alleged the legendary Nazi Gold Train is hidden. In September 2015 the Polish Army started to examine the neighborhood where it is alleged that two treasure hunters hid a Nazi train filled with guns and jewels. Polish authorities are almost certain they located the train between 61km to 67km on the railway track between Wroclaw to Walbrzych. Local legend says the train mysteriously went missing in January 1945, moments before the end of World War Two. (Photo by Adam Guz/Getty Images Poland/Getty Images)

WALBRZYCH, POLAND OCTOBER 20: (SOUTH AFRICA AND POLAND OUT) A tunnel that is part of Nazi underground complex on October 20, 2015 In Walbrzych, Poland. The mysterious underground Nazi city Riese where it is alleged the legendary Nazi Gold Train is hidden. In September 2015 the Polish Army started to examine the neighborhood where it is alleged that two treasure hunters hid a Nazi train filled with guns and jewels. Polish authorities are almost certain they located the train between 61km to 67km on the railway track between Wroclaw to Walbrzych. Local legend says the train mysteriously went missing in January 1945, moments before the end of World War Two. (Photo by Adam Guz/Getty Images Poland/Getty Images)

WALBRZYCH, POLAND OCTOBER 20: (SOUTH AFRICA AND POLAND OUT) Nazi era railroad tracks, which are believed to lead to the underground city beneath the Ksiaz Castle, on October 20, 2015 In Walbrzych, Poland. The mysterious underground Nazi city Riese where it is alleged that the legendary Nazi Gold Train is hidden. In September 2015 the Polish Army started to examine the neighborhood where it is alleged that two treasure hunters hid a Nazi train filled with guns and jewels. Polish authorities are almost certain they located the train between 61km to 67 km on the railway track between Wroclaw to Walbrzych. Local legend says the train mysteriously went missing in January 1945, moments before the end of World War Two. (Photo by Adam Guz/Getty Images Poland/Getty Images)

Workers are clearing shrubs and trees from the alleged site of a hidden World War Ii Nazi tunnel that, according to two explorers, might contain an armored train with precious minerals in Walbrzych, Poland, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015. The Nazi built a system of tunnels and bunkers in the mountains around Walbrzych and local lore, based on research of explorers says they hid a gold train in one of them in 1945. (AP Photo/Natalia Dobryszycka)

Policemen talk to a man at a road block between Walbrzych and Wroclaw, on September 28, 2015 where a rumoured World War II 'gold train' is searched. The area where the Nazi train is supposed to be hidden is now fenced and guarded and soldiers are preparing for searching as treasure-hunters claimed to have located two more Nazi built railway tunnels in southwestern Poland. AFP PHOTO / PIOTR HAWALEJ (Photo credit should read PIOTR HAWALEJ/AFP/Getty Images)

An evacuation tunnel under Ksiaz Castle in Walbrzych, Poland on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015 that the Nazis built most probably for Adolf Hitler, leading to massive shelters that are part of a giant system of tunnels and bunkers around Walbrzych and believed by some explorers to hold a gold train that the Nazis allegedly hid in 1945 from the Red Army. Polish authorities recently said that two unidentified men used radar to locate an armored train deep under the woodlands around Walbrzych, and believe it could be the so-called Nazi âgold train.â Rumors have swirled for decades about the train, also said to be filled with weapons, though there is absolutely no evidence that it ever existed. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

An evacuation tunnel under Ksiaz Castle in Walbrzych, Poland on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015 that the Nazis built most probably for Adolf Hitler, leading to massive shelters that are part of a giant system of tunnels and bunkers around Walbrzych and believed by some explorers to hold a gold train that the Nazis allegedly hid in 1945 from the Red Army. Polish authorities recently said that two unidentified men used radar to locate an armored train deep under the woodlands around Walbrzych, and believe it could be the so-called Nazi âgold train.â Rumors have swirled for decades about the train, also said to be filled with weapons, though there is absolutely no evidence that it ever existed. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

An evacuation tunnel under Ksiaz Castle in Walbrzych, Poland on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015 that the Nazis built most probably for Adolf Hitler, leading to massive shelters that are part of a giant system of tunnels and bunkers around Walbrzych and believed by some explorers to hold a gold train that the Nazis allegedly hid in 1945 from the Red Army. Polish authorities recently said that two unidentified men used radar to locate an armored train deep under the woodlands around Walbrzych, and believe it could be the so-called Nazi âgold train.â Rumors have swirled for decades about the train, also said to be filled with weapons, though there is absolutely no evidence that it ever existed. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Back in December, after analyzing mining data, Polish experts said there was no evidence of the buried train.

Professor Janusz Madej from Krakow's Academy of Mining said the geological survey of the site showed that there was no evidence of a train after using magnetic and gravitation methods.

"There may be a tunnel. There is no train,"Madej said at a news conference in Walbrzych, according to the BBC.

One of the treasure hunters, Piotr Koper, insists that "there is a tunnel and there is a train" and that the results are skewed because of different technology used, the Telegraph reports.

According to a local myth, the train is believed to have vanished in 1945 with stolen gold, gems, and weapons when the Nazi's retreated from the Russians.

During the war, the Germans were building headquarters for Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in Walbrzych's medieval Ksiaz Castle (then-called the Fuerstenstein castle).

SEE ALSO: The head of the American Nazi Party now thinks Donald Trump is a 'real opportunity'

Below the castle the Germans built a system of secret tunnels and bunkers called "Project Riese."

The train is in one of these hidden passages, says Tadeusz Slowikowski, the only living source of the train legend. Slowikowski, a retired miner who searched for the train in 2001, believes the Nazi's blew up the entrance to the train's tunnel.

"I have lived with this mystery for 40 years, but each time I went to the authorities they always silenced it," Slowikowski told The Associated Press. "For so many years! Unbelievable!"

Slowikowski, who searched for the train in 2001, believes it is near the 65th kilometer of railway tracks from Wroclaw to Walbrzych.

NOW WATCH: A mysterious lost Nazi train — supposedly filled with gold — may have been found

Summary: Last August two treasure hunters said they had "irrefutable proof" of the existence of a World War II-era Nazi ghost train filled with stolen gold.


A second attempt at crowd-funding a biopic about the parents of murdered Queensland schoolboy Daniel Morcombe has received even fewer pledges than the first.

The initial campaign for Where Is Daniel?, a movie based on a book written by Bruce and Denise Morcombe, attempted to raise $300,000 in 30 days on Kickstarter.

It received 1293 pledges to the value of $152,000 when it ended on August 4 and under the rules of the crowdfunding site, none of the money could be accepted because the target was not reached.

Producers then changed tact and tried to raise $120,000 in less than two weeks on Indiegogo where the money pledged could be accepted even if it fell short of the mark.

The second time around 414 backers donated $63,225 towards the movie which will go to help securing locations and finalising the script.

The Morcombes are supporting the movie based on their book and the fight for justice following their son Daniel's abduction and murder.

Daniel Morcombe was taken from a bus stop in December, 2003. His remains were found in 2011.

His killer Brett Peter Cowan was handed a life sentence in 2014.

Summary: A second crowd-funding campaign for the movie Where Is Daniel? again fell short but at least producers get to use the pledged money.


Simone Manuel on Olympic cultural milestone

During the 2016 Olympic games, Simone Manuel became the first African American swimmer, man or woman, to ever to win an individual gold medal in the sport. She joins MSNBC’s Tamron Hall to talk about her accomplishments at the Olympics and her future.

MSNBC Live with Tamron Hall

Summary: San Francisco 49ers Quarterback Colin Kaepernick sat down during the national anthem to protest oppression of people of color in the United States. Donald Trump says he should 'find a country that works better for him.'


Queensland's education minister Kate Jones has reassured parents that students at a Brisbane school where asbestos material was found are safe.

Part of Holland Park State School is out of bounds after the substance was uncovered on the oval after heavy rain last week .

Ms Jones said work to remove it was scheduled for this month's school holidays.

"I can confirm that that is on track and from next week we will be on site removing asbestos from Holland Park throughout the school holidays," she said.

Ms Jones said "swift action" was taken to fence off the affected area.

"Can I please assure all parents that all measures have been taken in line with our asbestos management plans," she said.

Asbestos management frameworks had been in place for more than a decade and Holland Park was the only school with an active incident, Ms Jones added.

But the grounds didn't need to be completely shut down because experts assessed the risk and advised school operations could continue, she said.

Summary: The safety of students at a Brisbane school where asbestos material was uncovered is protected by careful guidelines, the Queensland government says.


09/23/2016 AT 05:50 PM EDT

, who co-directed and co-wrote

and is known for his founding part in British comedy group

, has been diagnosed with a rare form of dementia, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts

Jones, 74, is being awarded with the BAFTA Special Award for Outstanding Contribution to Film and Television for his contributions to the film and television industries.

A representative for Jones released the following statement on behalf of the BAFTA-nominated actor, writer and director: "Terry has been diagnosed with Primary Progressive Aphasia, a variant of Frontotemporal Dementia. This illness affects his ability to communicate and he is no longer able to give interviews. Terry is proud and honoured to be recognised in this way and is looking forward to the celebrations."

Born in Colwyn Bay, Jones was a co-writer and co-director on the 1975 comedy

and received an Emmy nomination in 2004 for outstanding writing for nonfiction programming for an episode of

. In 2004, he received a BAFTA nomination for best original song for 1983's

Formed in 1969, Jones was a founding member of the British Monty Python comedy troupe that also starred Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, Eric Idle and Michael Palin.

Summary: Jones was the co-director and writer on Monty Python and the Holy Grail


With the vestiges of stage makeup beginning to cake in what she calls the “gullies” of her face, Minnie Pearl finally sits down for dinner at a restaurant around 9 o’clock on a Friday night. She has performed this evening on both the Nashville Now TV show and the Grand Ole Opry radio broadcast, and she appeared at a convention earlier in the day. Now she orders a vodka martini and animatedly assesses the day. “I work so hard because I like it. Not like it,” she clarifies, “love it! These were good shows, happy shows. They popped.”

Minnie pops as well. At 9:30 the next morning the phone rings in a Nashville hotel room, waking a visitor who’s been run ragged for three days trying to keep up with the 74-year-old country comedienne. The caller is Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon, also known as Minnie Pearl, the gal famous for the $1.98 price tag swinging from her straw hat. She is worried about having ordered that drink last night. “I was still in costume and I should have changed,” she says, her voice tinged with worry. “I’ve never done that [ordered a drink while dressed as Minnie Pearl] before,” she explains, “but I was tired. See, Sarah Cannon may take a drink now and then, but she never does. Even a glass of wine isn’t in character for Minnie Pearl.” Cannon is protective of Minnie, and grateful to her. Minnie Pearl has, after all, been her alter ego ever since she first stepped out on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry in 1940. “I just don’t want anything to hurt her,” she says.

In fact, Minnie Pearl seems indestructible. There may be newer and hipper characters, but for 47 years now the nation has settled back happily and laughed every time Minnie has barged onstage with a bellowed “Howdee!” and a saucy flip of her size 12, full-skirted gingham dress. A raucous rural maid, she proudly tells audiences she is from Grinder’s Switch, Tenn., a town so small, “You don’t read the paper to find out who is doing what—you already know that—but to find out if they got caught.” Cornball, but funny. Many of her jokes are based on sly observations about modern life (“I ride jet planes. Yeees, I do, only I don’t put my weight down”). Then there’s her constant longing for a feller (“They named the fire engine in Grinder’s Switch after me. Yeees, they did. Named it the Minnie Pearl. ‘Cause just like me, it’s always ready but seldom called”). And her observations on hillbilly family life (“Mrs. Tugwell just had her 16th young ‘uns, She’s had so many young ‘uns, she’s running out of names—to call her husband, that is”).

The jokes are old. Real old. Some date back 40 years. Cannon often forages through her classic routines for material, with many of the best jokes coming from her set of bound Opry scripts for shows broadcast on the NBC radio network from 1947 to 1953. “All those old dumb jokes,” she says fondly. “They’re all old. They’re all dumb. The minute I look at a joke, it comes back to me.” Roy Acuff, 84, the Grand Ole Opry’s “King of Country Music,” has been straight man to Minnie’s punch lines since her Opry debut in 1940. “It don’t make no difference if you’ve heard them a hundred times,” he says, “it’s still a laughable joke.”

In real life, Sarah Cannon is in many ways the antithesis of Minnie. Cannon is a leading doyenne of Nashville society and charity circles, a happily married woman who lives next door to the Governor’s mansion in a large, well-furnished house with a tennis court and a swimming pool. A daily reader of the New York Times and slave to its formidable crossword puzzles, she is an articulate and precise speaker.

What has happened, though, after all these years, is that Sarah Cannon and Minnie Pearl at times merge. Cannon steals Minnie’s best lines, sidestepping an excessively analytical conversation by saying, “Of course, I’m about as deep as a biscuit” or, muttering about her own advancing years, “I don’t buy no green bananas anymore.” Conversely, Cannon’s life keeps shoehorning itself into Minnie’s act, with frequent mentions onstage of husband Henry Cannon. She sees one common trait in her two personae. “I’m crazy, and it don’t matter whether I have a costume on or not,” she explains.

Although in the last decade she has cut back her touring schedule, Cannon still clamps on Minnie’s hat and hitches up her white stockings an impressive four or five times a week for Nashville Now and the Opry, and does 20-minute stand-up routines at conventions in Nashville and elsewhere. She also co-writes a weekly Minnie’s Memories column for the Nashville Banner. Her husband, Henry, 70, urges her to ease up, but Cannon says she can’t stop. “I guess it’s ego,” she says.

Sarah Ophelia Colley was born Oct. 25, 1912, in Centerville, Tenn., the last of Fannie Tate and Thomas K. Colley’s five daughters. Her father owned a lumber business, and the family was well-off by small-town Tennessee standards. Their house had the town’s first indoor plumbing, and their father justified staying home from church on Sundays because, living with six females, he said it was his only day to use the bathroom. The house also featured the town’s best-stocked library, and Cannon says her parents stressed the value of education. “It was drilled into my bones when I made a grammatical error,” she says, “and then I go into a business where I commercialize on nothing but grammatical errors. It’s kind of a paradox.”

When she was 8, Cannon overheard a friend of her mother’s describe her as “a plain little thing.” That remark, she claims, was the start of her career as a comic. “I didn’t think I was very pretty and I did it to get attention,” she says. At 18, she went to Nashville and enrolled in the dramatic expression department at Ward-Belmont College, an upper-crust finishing school. Cannon planned on being a dramatic actress but found that her natural comic flair kept sabotaging her forays into serious plays. “Even when I did serious parts I got laughs,” she says. After graduating from the school’s two-year program, Cannon dreamed of becoming a Broadway star but found herself returning to Centerville. She was only 20, and no respectable girl left home until she was 21, so she opened a small studio and taught drama, dance and piano. “Teaching? Well, I was taking the money,” she says now.

Two years later she signed on with the Wayne P. Sewell Production Co., which produced amateur theatricals throughout the rural South. Sewell hired about 100 young women—” ‘winsome directors’ as he put it in his literature,” Cannon recalls. They traveled to a new town every 10 days to recruit local dramatic hopefuls and direct them in second-rate musical comedies written by Mrs. Sewell. “My check, as a rule, ran around $10 or $15 for the 10 days work,” says Cannon, who spent six Great Depression years on the road for Sewell.

She listened hard to the country expressions and stories she heard, not realizing she was gathering the bricks to build the foundation for her career as Minnie Pearl. “The Lord was taking me in that direction. I was supposed to be collecting that stuff. To be Minnie Pearl, that was my destiny,” says Cannon, a strong believer and regular attendee at the Brentwood United Methodist Church. It was in Baileyton, Ala., that she actually hit upon the Minnie Pearl character while boarding at a small mountain cabin with an old woman. “I started imitating her and people started laughing. I already had this incipient comedic frame, and here was the vehicle for it,” she says.

In 1940, her father having died and the family being in reduced circumstances, Pearl moved back home with her mother. She got a Works Progress Administration job as a recreation director. “Was I blue! I loved Centerville; I love it yet. But I’d had a little taste of independence and I wanted to stay that way,” Cannon says. “There I am, back in the country. If you weren’t married at 28, you were just an old maid, as in capital letters.”

Minnie Pearl came to her rescue. Three years earlier, Cannon had named the character (“Everyone has a cousin or an aunt named Minnie or Pearl,” she says), put her in costume and been paid $25 for performing before the Pilots Club in Aiken, S.C. Now, back in Centerville, a local banker asked her to “kill time” as Minnie Pearl at a convention. A Nashville banker saw her there, called a buddy who managed the Grand Ole Opry (then as now broadcast on weekends by WSM radio), and she was asked to audition for the show. “I been killing time ever since,” Cannon jokes.

In those early days at the Opry, Oannon performed there every Saturday night and then took to the road for one-night stands the rest of the week with other Opry stars, all men. “A lot of times, they thought I was asleep when they’d be driving along after performing. They’d drink some and talk, and I learned about a lot of things I never did know before,” she says. One of those things was the low regard many of her traveling companions had for women. “I became wary. Very. From 28 to 34, I just kind of wondered if I was ever going to get married.”

She knew she didn’t want to marry a fellow performer. “You cannot make blanket statements about who is a good risk and who isn’t,” she says, picking her words carefully, “but some careers or professions are just better risks than others, and I don’t think, as a rule, show people, unfortunately, can devote as much time to the nurturing of a marriage or a love relationship as someone perhaps in a less fragmented profession.” Susan Quick, 28, the Nashville Banner reporter who co-writes Cannon’s weekly column, says Pearl dressed her down earlier this year for dating a musician.

Maybe that’s why when her own husband, Henry, is asked how he feels about playing second fiddle to Minnie Pearl, he replies, “But I don’t play the fiddle.” Henry, a retired pilot, is her business partner (“We’re selling a product and a business and it’s Minnie Pearl,” she says). They were introduced in 1946 by a friend of hers and married in 1947, when she was 34 and he was 29. She had planned on having children and settling down but says the Lord apparently didn’t mean that to happen. Instead, for the next 27 years, they spent much of their time on the road, with Henry flying her, and many other country music stars, to concert dates all over the country.

Cannon says her fame had intimidated a lot of men before Henry, but Henry isn’t impressed by much and he took the crowds and autograph seekers in stride. For her part, she says, “I never could count, I never could fly a plane and I never could find directions to go anywhere. I never could do so many things Henry does, that I always think of Henry as being superior.” Henry does not discourage her in this impression, but if she brags too long about him, he says, “Now, honey…”

Cannon and many of her friends consider Henry, who is a charming mix of Southern gentleman and curmudgeon, to be the truly funny half of the couple. Cannon says Henry’s humor and support were crucial to her recovery, two years ago, after a double mastectomy. (She is an active American Cancer Society volunteer and last April was presented with the ACS’s Courage award by President Ronald Reagan.) She particularly remembers looking over silicone implants with Henry, and his volunteering, “Honey, now you’ll look like one of those Hee Haw girls.”

In a backstage room of the Opryl and Convention Center, Sarah Cannon is putting the final touches on her Minnie Pearl costume while she waits for her cue to go out and tell jokes to a room full of grocery store executives. She tugs at her white stockings, which are in danger of falling down. “Oh well,” she says, giving up on the stockings, “Minnie never was supposed to be elegant. If she was, she never would have made it.” She pulls her straw hat out of a plastic bag, only to discover that the trademark $1.98 price tag is missing. “I can’t go out without the tag,” she says. “It just wouldn’t be Minnie.”

Almost 50 years in show business have taught her not to panic, and she doesn’t. Instead, she improvises. Using a piece of white cardboard, a pair of manicure scissors and a string recycled from a used tea bag, Cannon fashions a new price tag and marks it $1.98. Half a minute later, the new price tag bobbing from her hat, she strides onstage and cries, “Howdee!” The grocery executives stand and cheer. From the back of the room one yells, “Minnie, we love you.” Yes, and he’d probably love Sarah Cannon too, even if he has no way of knowing it.

Summary: With the vestiges of stage makeup beginning to cake in what she calls the “gullies” of her face, Minnie Pearl finally sits down for dinner at a restaurant around 9 o’clock on a Fr…


AS Demi Moore WOULD LATER recall, she sensed “a certain animal fever” on the set when she performed exotic dances during the filming of Striptease. By all accounts, things got hottest on a day last October—the very first time Moore stepped onto the movie’s Fort Lauderdale nightclub stage. Some 200 male extras hired to play club patrons were gathered around small tables near the runway. Their fee was nominal, and they’d had to wait an hour—but the extras didn’t mind. They were there for one real reason: to see Demi Moore undress. When the cameras rolled at last and a hard-driving Annie Lennox tune, “Money Can’t Buy It,” kicked out from the loudspeakers, Moore strode onstage wearing a man’s suit with tearaway snap buttons. Maybe it was the anticipation. Maybe the sight of a superstar in the flesh. But as Striptease choreographer Marguerite Derricks recalls, Moore was just a few steps into her routine when the men in the audience erupted. “There was an uproar,” says Derricks. “The director yelled ‘Cut!’ They were really carrying on.”

Few, if any, top female film stars would have been out on that runway in the first place, ready to submit their bodies to the scrutiny of several million moviegoers. And after being confronted by 200 braying extras, even the most daring actress might have demanded a double. Not Moore. Order was restored, the scene was reshot, and Moore, 33, shimmied down to her bikini top and G-string. No big deal. When asked about the filming of her exotic dance numbers, Moore smiles the wistful smile of a born exhibitionist and replies, “After my experience, I felt very confident.”

Indeed, Moore has more to feel confident about than the physical attributes she calls her “goodies.” Her entire career has been marked by a determination to succeed, rivaling anything imagined by Dreiser—or at least Judith Krantz. A self-described “trailer park kid,” Moore kicked a drug and alcohol habit that nearly scuttled her career. She has also survived a turbulent family life featuring a mother, Virginia Guynes, 51, whose own substance-abuse problems have caused her several very public brushes with the law. Moore, for all that, has been the one member of the mid-’80s Brat Pack of young film actors (Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Andrew McCarthy, et al) to achieve superstardom, thanks to hits like Ghost (1990) and Disclosure (1994). For Striptease, she was able to command $12.5 million, making her the highest-paid actress in movie history. “She works harder than anyone I know,” says Striptease director Andrew Bergman. “She wants to be in control of her life.”

Not even she can control everything, and as anyone who has been following her career can attest, Moore, for all her self-assurance, does have things to worry about. Critics gave The Scarlet Letter an F, and audiences flunked it at the box office, too. This spring’s The Juror also failed to draw as expected. As some in L.A. see it, for Moore this is make-or-break time. “I think Striptease has to work,” says Martin Grove, CNN film industry analyst and a Hollywood Reporter columnist “Otherwise, Demi may have to get a day job at Planet Hollywood. It’s hard to justify $12.5 million when you’re not packing them in.”

But the buzz on Striptease isn’t encouraging. In marketing tests, many potential ticket buyers confused the film, which the studio bills as a comedy-thriller, with last year’s sleazefest Showgirls. Just a few weeks ago, Moore, Burt Reynolds and the film’s other stars had to reshoot the ending after test audiences objected to having Reynolds’s character turn violent. Such portents of another flop, one film producer says, may give movie execs doubts about Moore’s marketability. “You begin to ask if there’s an audience out there for Demi, or if her success has been more a function of the movies she’s been in,” he says. Audiences have an abiding affection for actresses who play vulnerable characters, like Julia Roberts, he adds, “but it’s a different situation for Demi.”

Certainly it may be hard for Moore to engender much empathy among women when almost every signal moment in her career has involved a display of flesh. Beginning with her first major picture, 1984’s Blame It on Rio, and now with Striptease, Moore has appeared topless six times on the screen. There were her notorious nude Vanity Fair covers in 1991 and ’92, and at this moment a photo in Arena magazine of Moore—made up as a man and baring her breasts—is causing a stir in Britain. Just one indicator that there’s no love lost on Moore comes in a story called “Public Enemies” in the current issue of Allure magazine. The article derides Moore’s “preternaturally perky breasts,” and dismisses her as a “famously buff mother of three [who] is despised by unbuff mothers of three everywhere.”

At the same time, she isn’t exactly being cheered on by Hollywood, where her tough-girl determination often causes her to be perceived as demanding and difficult. Even moguls who like Moore describe her in terms more commonly applied to the Dallas Cowboys on the eve of the Super Bowl. “She is extremely focused, really committed,” says Barry Levinson, who directed her in Disclosure. Others are less discreet. Adrian Lyne, who directed Moore in 1993’s Indecent Proposal, told Britain’s The Guardian, “If you want her to sit down, she tends to want to stand up. Or she wants to know why you want her to sit down.” Then, mixing his metaphors but making his meaning clear, he advised future Demi directors to “put on a suit of armor. She’s a very tough ride.”

In her own defense, Moore told Cosmopolitan, “I do take a stand about how a scene should be played. I have a passion for my work, and that sometimes triggers creative conflicts.” Carl Hiaasen, author of the novel on which Striptease is based, was impressed by her smarts—and surprised that she’d read his book thoroughly and then “struck out with a journalistic appetite and researched the stripping business.” While the movie was in production, Moore’s daily exercise encompassed a long predawn run on the beach, as many as three hours of dance rehearsal, a session with her personal trainer in a special trailer outfitted with $15,000 worth of gym equipment, and 2½ hours of yoga. Vanity may motivate Moore, but by making sure she looks every inch the $12.5 million woman onscreen, Moore also maintains her superstar status and the leverage that goes with it. “Everything is a matter of Demi trying to have a sense of empowerment,” says director Bergman. He pauses, then adds, “Given her early life, you can understand it.”

Moore was born Demetria Guynes in Roswell, N.Mex., and grew up as the older child—half brother Morgan is now 28 and a film technician—of Danny Guynes, a newspaper ad salesman, and his wife, Virginia. (Her mother, Moore has said, got the name Demetria from a beauty product she saw in a magazine.) By his daughter’s estimate, Danny had moved the family some 30 times before Moore was a teenager. Sometimes the moves were prompted by a better job, but just as often they were to escape his debts. The accommodations, needless to say, were far from commodious. One scene from Striptease was shot in a trailer that, says Siobhan Fallon, an actress with a supporting role in the film, “was this dark, dreary one-bedroom thing, full of knickknacks.” But Moore’s reaction to the place “was a little shocking,” Fallon recalls. “She said, ‘Believe it or not, this is a pretty nice trailer. I’ve seen a lot worse than this.’ ”

Poverty wasn’t Moore’s only problem. At 12, she developed a crossed right eye, which required two operations to correct. At 14, she discovered that Guynes was not her biological father—she had been conceived during Virginia’s two-month marriage in 1962 to an Air Force man named Charles Harmon. That revelation, and the constant drinking and fighting of her parents, set her adrift. “I got lost,” she told McCall’s. “I had an essence in my life that I was nothing.”

Guynes and Virginia divorced when Moore was 15, and in 1980, Danny Guynes committed suicide by breathing carbon monoxide from his car exhaust. By that time, Demi was on her own. At 16, soon after she and her mother had moved to L.A., Moore dropped out of Fairfax High, got a job at a debt collection agency, took her own apartment and did some modeling. At 18, she married Freddy Moore, a rock musician 12 years her senior.

The seed of Moore’s acting ambitions was planted about the time of her marriage, when she took to reading scripts with a young German neighbor and aspiring actress named Nastassja Kinski. Moore enrolled in some drama classes, and in 1982, though she had little experience, beat out 1,000 other actresses for a role on General Hospital. “She had street smarts,” recalls GH veteran Norma Connolly. “She learned fast.”

In some ways, too fast. Drugs and alcohol took their toll while she worked on forgettable films like 1982’s Parasite, about a marauding giant slug. She left GH in 1983 to work on Blame It on Rio, and she and Freddy divorced in 1984. That same year she was cast in the Brat Pack drama St. Elmo’s Fire. But when director Joel Schumacher discovered the extent of Moore’s dissolute ways, he threatened to fire her.

That did it. Moore promptly entered a rehab program and arrived on the set two weeks later clean and sober. She never looked back. Her mother, who has a long record of arrests for crimes, including drunken driving and arson, has not been so lucky. Virginia posed nude in 1993 for High Society magazine, imitating her daughter’s Vanity Fair pregnancy cover. Through it all, Moore tried to get help for her mother, but when Virginia walked away from a rehab stay Moore had paid for at Hazelden in Minnesota, Demi broke off contact with her.

Given that background, it’s almost remarkable that Moore now finds herself in what is, by Hollywood standards, a long-running marriage. She met Bruce Willis—then the fast-rising star of TV’s Moonlighting—in August 1987, shortly after she had ended a three-year, on-again, off-again engagement to Elmo costar Emilio Estevez. Though Willis had a hard-drinking, womanizing reputation, Moore found him warm and funny. They married three months later. Kevin Pollak, Moore’s costar in A Few Good Men, recalls her early times with Willis as “basic, silly puppy love.”

Today, with their three daughters, Rumer, 7, Scout, 4, and Tallulah, 2, Moore and Willis have entered a more mature phase of their relationship. “We don’t have a storybook marriage,” Moore has told Cosmopolitan. “We argue. We fight.” But, she added, “the children are our glue, and we’re each other’s best friend. Those two facts see us through tough spots.”

A little walking-around money never hurts either. Moore employs two nannies and a personal staff that includes her assistant, the assistant’s assistant, bodyguards, a tutor, masseuse, yoga instructor and cook. With $21 million in paychecks over the past two years, she is the only movie actress on the Forbes list of top-earning entertainers. She and Willis, who according to Forbes has himself earned more than $35 million since 1994, own a $2.5 million white stucco home on the beach in Malibu, a 14-room pied-à-terre on Manhattan’s Central Park West, and a six-bedroom, seven-bath ranch house worth $5 million on 48 acres near the town of Hailey, Idaho. In Hailey, the couple has bought much of Main Street, including the Liberty Theatre and a club called the Mint, where Willis often sings with his rock band. Along with stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and her husband, Moore is also a partner in the Planet Hollywood restaurant chain, which last year pulled in $21 million in profits.

Such loot makes life a movable feast. On the Striptease set, Moore made “a little home for herself,” says Siobhan Fallon. She fenced in a patch of lawn outside her trailer for her two dogs. Mommy’s favorite artworks—crayon drawings by her daughters and Polaroid snaps of Dad and the kids—covered the walls. And on every flat surface, from tables to countertops to shelves, sat dolls from Moore’s 2,000-figure collection. It might not take a degree in psychology to conclude that these icons help Moore find a piece of her lost childhood. And, indeed, among her dolls, notes choreographer Derricks, “she’s like a little kid.”

Away from the dollhouse, though, Moore projects a different image entirely. She is confident, in control, serene. One night last September, Fallon recalls, huge, boiling cumulonimbus clouds rolled across the Florida sky, packing atomic-blast thunder and releasing crackling lightning bolts. Fallon lay in bed, fretful. The next morning, when she mentioned the storm to Moore, the star simply shrugged. “Last night,” said Moore, “I went running in the rain, then I took a swim in the ocean.” Spoken like a woman who fully expects to ride out all of life’s tempests.

GREGORY CERIO CAROLYN RAMSAY and JEFF SCHNAUFER in Los Angeles, LIZ MCNEIL in New York City and GREG AUNAPU in Miami, with bureau reports

Summary: Striptease’s Demi Moore knows that it takes the “A” in ambition to get to the top.


A Melbourne man charged with murder after a body was discovered in an inner-city flat has been ordered to undergo an immediate medical assessment.

Kevin Curtin, 57, had a black eye and scratches to his face when he appeared in an out-of-sessions hearing on Friday evening after he was formally charged with murdering Stephen Darrall on Thursday.

Police on Friday said they interviewed Curtin after they found a knife and "a quantity of blood" in Curtin's Kensington apartment.

A post-mortem has revealed Mr Darrall died from stab wounds.

The Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Saturday heard Curtin needed medical attention for the injuries to his face and that he was possibly withdrawing from alcohol, and at risk of self-harm.

Magistrate Ross Betts ordered Curtin to undergo an immediate medical assessment.

On Friday, a police investigator said Curtin made admissions during the interview, but Curtin denied this.

"I didn't make admissions," he said.

Asked on Friday if he has any medical conditions, Curtin replied, "Where do I start."

He said he suffers from emphysema, anxiety and has trouble with the discs in his back but was not currently medicated.

When asked if he understood the charge he was facing, he replied, "Murder, they were saying."

Curtin did not speak during his brief hearing on Saturday.

He was remanded to return to court on October 25 for a filing hearing.

Summary: A man charged with murder after a body was found in a Melbourne flat is due to appear at Melbourne's Magisrates' Court.


The government appears to have dodged a bullet, with PNG's top court rejecting an application which could have required Australia to take away more than 300 asylum seekers and refugees who had been sent to Manus Island.

But it may not be the end, with the application only dismissed late on Thursday on a technicality and the 302 planning to try again.

That follows an earlier PNG Supreme Court ruling which found detaining people on Manus breached their constitutional right to personal liberty and was thus illegal.

The PNG government is moving to close the centre but it's so far set no timeframe.

In the latest case, lawyers for the detainees applied for the return to Australia of all asylum seekers and refugees who wish to go. For those who didn't want to go to Australia, the court would require transfer to an acceptable third country.

The Australian government has repeatedly declared that none of those on Manus or Nauru, who sought to reach Australia aboard people smuggler boats from Indonesia, will be allowed to settle in Australia.

The Australian government has been trying to find a third country solution but so far hasn't succeeded.

In September, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said negotiations were continuing with unspecified third countries to resettle those on Nauru and Manus.

"We remain engaged with several countries to alleviate these issues but negotiations will necessarily be protracted," he said.

Summary: The PNG Supreme Court has dismissed an application which could have required Australia to take away a large group of asylum seekers from Manus Island.


Affordable housing for older West Australians has long been neglected but was just as important as housing for first homebuyers, WA Housing Minister Brendon Grylls says.

A discussion paper was released on Monday to develop a strategy to help older West Australians on low to moderate incomes with affordable and appropriate housing.

WA has the highest proportion of senior renters in the country, and by 2050 the number of people in WA aged between 65 and 84 is expected to double to one million people.

Mr Grylls said 'last homebuyers' were just as important as first homebuyers, but had long been overlooked.

"Despite the excellent work of the retirement living sector, the housing market is not keeping up with the demands of the ageing population," he said.

"Seniors are a very diverse group with a broad range of housing needs - just like the rest of the population - so they need the choice and diversity in housing options to cater for those needs."

Summary: Older West Australians are the focus of a state government strategy to make housing available, affordable and accessible for the ageing population.


A former Perth insurance broker who stole $254,000 from clients has been permanently banned from the financial services industry by the corporate watchdog.

Sergio Amaranti was a director at Phoenix Insurance Brokers from January 2002 to February 2016, and was a senior insurance broker from 2000 to November 2015, with signatory control over the company's trust account and an individual code and password to finalise transactions.

Between January 2009 and November 2015, he directed money for clients, comprising refunds of premiums from cancellations, adjustments or negotiated discounts, into his personal accounts.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission found Amaranti's conduct was misleading, deceptive and dishonest, but he can still appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

Summary: The corporate watchdog has permanently banned a former Perth insurance broker from the industry after he stole $254,000 owed to clients.


Federal Labor isn't about to sit back and bide its time until the next election.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and his economic team will announce a suite of proposed savings measures next year, while promoting plans for investments in priority areas such as health and education.

Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen said the savings would be "well thought through" like its previous proposals for the tobacco excise and superannuation, parts of which have been adopted by the Turnbull government.

"Some might assume that with this parliament so close we would draw up the bridge on policy boldness and adopt a small target strategy ... that's not our intention," he told the National Press Club on Wednesday.

Mr Bowen again expressed concern over the risk to Australia's triple-A rating before Treasurer Scott Morrison releases his mid-year budget review on December 19, saying it is under a "real threat".

The loss would drive up commonwealth borrowing costs, he said.

It would also flow to the states and put further pressure on the budget, while hitting the ratings of the banks and making it more difficult to borrow from offshore markets, resulting in an adverse impact on mortgages.

"Just adding a modest 20 basis points to an average mortgage holder would have them paying up to $720 more per year," Mr Bowen warned.

Housing affordability will top the agenda when Mr Morrison meets his state and territory counterparts on Friday.

It follows comments by NSW Premier Michael Baird in which he said a review of tax concessions, such as negative gearing, should be considered as part of housing affordability discussions.

The Turnbull government is opposed to any changes to negative gearing, something Labor wants to pursue.

Mr Morrison says the issue is more than just about people saving to buy a home in Sydney or Melbourne.

The 30 per cent of people renting need to be considered as well.

"I'm not about to do something which is going to jack up their rents, which was the result of negative gearing changes last time," Mr Morrison told reporters.

Mr Bowen dismissed that as an "utter furphy" and an argument debunked by every serious piece of analysis.

"It is just utterly incomprehensible that Scott Morrison continues with these untruths," he said.

Mr Morrison has commissioned a review of the nation's resource taxes after a significant fall in revenues.

Revenues from the 40 per cent petroleum resource rent tax levied on profits generated from petroleum commodities had halved since 2012/13, while crude oil excise revenues had more than halved.

The review is due to be completed in April, which would allow for an official response in next year's May budget.

Summary: Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen says he doesn't want Labor to run a small target strategy but rather outline a bold budget strategy.


The chance of the Reserve Bank cutting its official interest rate heading into Christmas is virtually non-existent.

Financial markets see only the slimmest of risks of the cash rate going down any further, having stood at a record low 1.5 per cent since August.

When members of the central bank board meet for the last time this year on Tuesday, they are more likely to be concerned about the risks facing the Australian economy in 2017 rather than the need for further tweaking of monetary policy in the short-term.

Last week the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development predicted the Reserve Bank would be raising the cash rate by the end of 2017, in line with developments among other central banks.

For example, there is growing speculation the US Federal Reserve will raise its key rate this month, fuelled by figures on Friday showing the US jobless rate dropping to 4.6 per cent, the lowest in over nine years.

Timo Henckel, a lecturer at the Australian National University's Research School of Economics, believes while the Australian unemployment rates sticks at 5.6 per cent and inflation remains contained there is no need for the Reserve Bank to change rates.

"But the probabilities for a required interest rate increase have strengthened on all horizons," Dr Henckel says.

He chairs the ANU's so-called "RBA shadow board" made up of academics, economists and former RBA board members.

It sees the probability for the need for an interest rate rise in the next six months rising to 71 per cent, up from 63 per cent a month earlier.

Last week's decision by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countires to agree to production cuts will lift oil prices and point to an uptick in global inflation.

"Eventually, this pressure is likely to spill into the domestic economy," Dr Henckel says.

The rise in yields, or interest rates, on global government bonds since the US presidential election of Donald Trump on the expectation of an expansive push in the world's largest economy and potential inflation pressures has already had a knock-on impact Down Under.

Australian banks have started raising rates on their fixed-term mortgages, which are derived from the action of bond markets.

"Fixed rates are based on market expectations of future rates and are the best indicator that we've got that a variable rate hike is on the way," RateCity.com.au director Peter Arnold says.

"Previously, banks were betting on lower rates in the future but we're seeing those expectations change by the day."

Whether that view remains after Wednesday's national accounts for the September quarter remains to be seen.

Economists are concerned the recent run of quarterly data - weak retail spending, construction and business investment - points to a subdued economic growth result, possibly even a decline.

Economists will finalise their GDP predictions after a series of data for business profits and inventories, international trade and government spending over Monday and Tuesday.

After Tuesday, the Reserve Bank will not meet again until February.

Summary: The Reserve Bank is widely expected to leave the cash rate at a record-low 1.5 per cent when its board meets for the final time for 2016 on Tuesday.


Oct 13, 2016 1:32 AM EDT Politics

By Emily Schultheis / CBS News

As Republican nominee Donald Trump’s campaign tries to move past a recently released 2005 tape of his lewd remarks about women, more video of similar comments made by Trump is surfacing.

In an “Entertainment Tonight” Christmas feature in 1992, Trump looked at a group of young girls and said he would be dating one of them in ten years. At the time, Trump would have been 46 years old.

The video, released Wednesday evening, was shot at Trump Tower.

In the clip, Trump asks one of the girls if she’s “going up the escalator.” When the girl replies, “yeah,” Trump turns to the camera and says: “I am going to be dating her in 10 years. Can you believe it?”

It is not the first time Trump has made reference to his interest in dating much younger women.

In 2006, he made a similar comment about his own daughter, Ivanka Trump: “I’ve said that if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her,” Trump said.

The issue ballooned when 2005 video from “Access Hollywood” revealed lewd banter between Trump and entertainment reporter Billy Bush, who has since been suspended by NBC.

The GOP candidate has defended his remarks as “locker room banter,” apologizing for his suggestion that “when you’re a star” you can “grab [women] by the p****.” “You can do anything,” as he said in the 2005 tape.

In Sunday’s debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump insisted it was all “just words” and that he had never groped a woman.

But at least three women have now come forward to contest that dismissal, telling news organizations he groped them in personal encounters at his home, at Trump Tower in New York, and on a commercial flight. Trump’s campaign said late Wednesday that it would file a lawsuit against the New York Times over a story published by the paper earlier that day, with the accounts of two of the women.

Also Wednesday, People magazine published an account by one of its reporters who recalled Trump “pushing me against the wall, and forcing his tongue down my throat” during an interview session at his Mar-a-Lago home. The alleged attack, according to reporter Natasha Stoynoff, came as Trump’s wife Melania, who was then pregnant, changed into a different outfit in another room before they continued their joint interview. The encounter was in 2005, the same year the now-infamous encounter with Billy Bush was recorded, according to Stoynoff.

Meanwhile, a former beauty queen is confirming Donald Trump’s own words about walking into pageant dressing rooms unannounced, following recently resurfaced audio recordings where Trump boasted about his ability to do so as the owner of the Miss USA pageant.

Tasha Dixon, who competed as Miss Arizona in 2001, told CBS’ Los Angeles station that the GOP nominee had entered dressing rooms while her fellow contestants were “half naked.”

“Our first introduction to him was when we were at the dress rehearsal and half naked changing into our bikinis,” Dixon said in an interview with KCAL 9. “He just came strolling right in. There was no second to put a robe on or any sort of clothing or anything. Some girls were topless. Other girls were naked.”

In audio from Howard Stern’s radio show in 2005, Trump could be heard discussing how he would use his position of power in the pageants to peek at women while they were undressed.

“I’ll go backstage before a show and everyone’s getting dressed and ready and everything else. And you know, no men are anywhere. And I’m allowed to go in because I’m the owner of the pageant. And therefore, I’m inspecting it. You know I’m inspecting it. I want to make sure everything is good,” Trump told Stern at the time. “You know they’re standing there with no clothes. Is everybody OK? And you see these incredible looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that.”

Summary: In 1992 "Entertainment Tonight" video, Trump brags he'll date young girl "in 10 years," as women step forward to challenge his "it's just words" assertion


Heavy rain and flash flooding could put a dampener on Christmas Eve, with a severe thunderstorm warning issued for much of NSW and the ACT.

The Bureau of Meteorology says storms could produce flooding and damaging winds in towns such as Armidale, Orange, Canberra, Goulburn, Tamworth, Moree and Dubbo for several hours on Saturday night.

Almost 50mm of rain fell within half an hour near Braidwood in the Southern Tablelands on Saturday afternoon, while a thunderstorm produced 85mm at nearby Mongarlowe.

The State Emergency Service is urging people not to drive, ride or walk through flooding and to stay indoors away from windows.

The warning is relevant to people in the Hunter, Central Tablelands, Southern Tablelands, North West Slopes and Plains, South West Slopes, Snowy Mountains, Australian Capital Territory, Northern Tablelands and parts of the Mid North Coast, Metropolitan, Illawarra and Central West Slopes and Plains Forecast Districts.

The warning has been cancelled for the South Coast district.

Summary: A severe thunderstorm warning has been issued for much of NSW on Christmas Eve.


The mutual fund arm of Fidelity Investments is leading a $60 million round of venture financing for Rent the Runway, a New York-based company that rents designer clothing to women.

Fidelity Management and Research Co. is joined by a group of existing investors that include Boston-based Bain Capital Ventures and Highland Capital Partners of Cambridge.

The new funding round brings Rent the Runway’s total funds raised to $190 million, the company said Tuesday. The business was founded in 2009 by Harvard Business School graduates and has grown to 6 million members nationwide.

The company will use the money to grow its subscriber base, to invest in its operations and to expand its brick-and-mortar presence, it said. Rent the Runway also has opened stores in six cities.

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Jennifer Hyman, co-founder and chief executive, said in a statement that 2016 has been Rent the Runway’s strongest year yet. She said the new round of funding would help “as we continue to disrupt the closet and remain at the forefront of the access economy.”

Other investors in the company are Silicon Valley’s Technology Crossover Ventures and Advance Publications Inc., a Staten Island, NY, media company.

Summary: Fidelity is leading a $60 million venture round for the New york company that rents designer clothing to women.


Shares in Fresnillo rose 54p, or 4.6pc, to £12.24, Randgold Resources climbed 295p to £64.15, mid-cap Hochschild jumped 14.1p to 211.3p, Polymetal International advanced 31p to 861p and Centamin inched up 6.3p to 140.7p.

The latest leg up in gold miners propelled the FTSE 100 14.18 points, or 0.2pc, higher to 7,120.26, surpassing Wednesday’s closing high of 7,106.08.

Summary: A rally in gold miners helped the FTSE 100 set a new record closing high for a second consecutive trading session.


Katy Perry disses Kim Kardashian's infamous booty

Kim Kardashian rocked all denim with the entire Kardashian and Jenner crew!

At the very beginning of Kim's red carpet career, she didn't know how to properly dress for the occasion, like with this uber-casual jean and top combo.

Can you imagine Kim Kardashian stepping out like this today? We can't!

With then-boyfriend Ray J, Kim Kardashian changed her makeup style from event to event.

With then-BFF Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian hit the red carept in a strange sweater top.

With a form-fitting brown dress, all eyes were on Kim K on the red carpet.

We're far from fans of this strange outfit--and those heels! The bow-tie straps are the look's strangest feature.

Kim K continued to rock super casual looks at event, like this unflattering nude-colored dress.

Kim Kardashian upped her red carpet game with this spring-y fun green and blue stripped creation.

We can't get past Kim's over the top sunglasses and super huge hooped earrings.

Kim K got glam with step-dad Bruce Jenner on the red carpet

Flaunting her curves in this super tight red dress, Kim K hit the red carpet with gold handbag in tow.

Kim seems to have gone a little too crazy with the self-tanner!

We're not sure how to describe this bedazzled cream dress, but it's definitely not a hit.

Nope, this outfit wasn't for Halloween! (It was in April, after all.)

This Kim K outfit was all types of wrong, and we're not a fan of the sunglasses on the runway trend.

Kim loved to wear her sunglasses and handbags on the red carpet!

Appearing at the Badgley Mischka runway show, Kim K stunned with this high-fashion pink dress without a pair of sunglasses or handbag in sight!

Upping her glam factor, Kim K rocked this gorgeous gold mini-dress. We aren't a fan of her prom night hair, though.

We began to see glimpses of the Kim K style we began to know and love at this event! A flattering silver top, the tiniest bit of midriff, and a shiny high-waisted skirt put Kim in the right style direction.

We loved seeing all of the Kardashian ladies together, but we wish they had dressed better!

Kim's makeup was bright and fresh, lifting her graphic dress to new style heights.

As soon was we thought Kim was far away from super-casual red carpet looks, she walked out in this purple sundress.

Kim went full-on glam for the 48th Golden Nymph Awards.

We hope this event was a pool party!

Kim K loves her button-up white shirts, and in this look, the reality star is rocking the questionable look to its full effect.

Simple and elegant in a red gown and nude heels.

Kim's portrait for her stint on "Dancing With The Stars"!

Kim's rocking the self-tanner look once again!

Elegant in a red dress and complementary gold accessories, Kim looked a lot different without her signature hair down.

All dressed up for the 14th Annual Make-A-Wish Ball, Kim glows in deep olive green.

Kim hit the beach in this black bikini with gold studded accents.

Kim stepped out with lil sis' Khloe in a casual tank and cardigan combo.

Kim pulled out the bangs for the 2008 "Video Game Awards."

Wearing a lovely silver dress, Kim let her long locks flow.

Kim K's signature sleek, long pony tail came out in full force.

Kim attended the 51st Annual Grammy Awards in this light blue-silver creation.

All dolled up in NYC, Kim was pictured in this beautiful cream and navy blue mini-dress.

Kim always looks amazing in all black.

The signature long ponytail is spotted again!

Stunning in all white with a peek of black with her shoes and clutch.

We couldn't resist this close-up on Kim's impeccable makeup.

Going professional chic, Kim rocked a blazer on the red carpet.

Sheer is always the way to go--and this gray dress was a great style choice.

This 3-dimensional dress was a definite style hit.

What could Kim be trying to say to us? We think she agrees with our love for her zebra print dress!

Kim rocked the perfect hot pink pout for the film premiere "Orphan."

With an enviable summer tan, Kim looked flawless with her new blonde locks.

Less than a month later she was back to brunette!

Kim's look was super sexy--but what's going on with her hair?

Kim went glam in sexy gold for the MTV VMA's.

Kim knew she couldn't go wrong in this all white stunner at the Emmy Awards.

Another stunning all white look!

Kim celebrated her 29th birthday in a super glittery look.

We're obsessed with this red leopard print dress!

A sexy and simple black and white outfit is signature Kardashian.

Kim stepped out in this sexy side-slit dress.

Sheer leopard print? Yes, please!

This fringe-tastic nude dress perfectly complemented Kim's sexy sun-kissed tan.

Kim let her luscious locks flow at the launch of her fragrance.

Back to sunglasses on the red carpet.

Kim Kardashian attended the White House Correspondents' Dinner in this black and cream look.

Kim stunned in this gold and white dress at E!'s 20th birthday party celebration.

Kim looked gorgeous even wearing just this racecar driver suit.

And officially, the era of Kim Kardashian full-on glam began.

Two of our favorite stylish sisters!

Kim's fun and flirty printed summer dress was instantly elevated with her black blazer.

We're seriously obsessed with Kim's sexy ponytail.

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Swim 2011 front row with none other than Selena Gomez.

All 3 sisters look absolutely impeccable!

Kim rocked this uber-glam off the shoulder look for the 2010 Teen Choice Awards.

Sleek and elegant in all black.

Red carpet perfection for the 63nd Annual Emmy Awards.

Seriously, how can we get Kim;s hair?

Kim K visited Munich and donned traditional German garb.

Look at those fringe-tastic heels!

A gray Birkin goes with anything.

The two sisters go for a neutral palette out and about in NYC.

Courtside, Kim looked glam in all black.

Kim Kardashian rung in the New Year at the Tao in the absolutely perfect glitzy dress.

A sexy sheer cutout is always the way to go.

Kim Kardashian rocked this purple dress at the 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Kim K rocked this iconic gold glam dress at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards.

Kim looked radiant in deep navy blue.

Nothing hotter than a black and white leather combo.

Stunning eye makeup pulled together an already stunning outfit.

Making an appearance with then-beau Kris, Kim rocked the red carpet.

Stepping out in a sexy leather jumpsuit, Kim K spent some quality time with designer Vera Wang.

A gold and khaki combo is the ultimate glam mix.

Kim rocked a fringe-y black skirt at the 2011 Teen Choice Awards.

Kim showed off the beautiful, crafted back of her dress on the red carpet.

Leopard print is always the ultimate way to go.

Kim knows how to shake up the normal poses.

Glamorous. What else can we say?

Top knot perfection front row at New York Fashion Week.

Kim's always partial to rocking huge hoop earrings.

Kim gets down to business in a blazer.

Top knot takes the red carpet.

Spotted again with then-beau Kris Humphries.

Post-divorce filin, Kim rocked a simple braided ponytail.

Kim pulled out the bangs for her New Year's Eve bash.

On that rare occasion Kim K is spotted in pants, she usually opts for the super-chic high-waisted variety.

From the cutouts to the cuff, Kim looked absolutley gorgeous at Elton John's AIDS Foundation's event.

Combining two of our favorite trends: floral and sheer, Kim looked radiant on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno"!

Kim Kardashian looked gorgeous in Valentino.

We're lovin' the hot pink heels.

Kim K looked gorgeous in emerald green at the 2012 White House Correspondents' Assocation dinner.

We're seriously obsessed with Kim's boxy Versace ensemble.

Kim stunned in this red floral dress and strappy, sexy black heels.

Kim turns to two of her staples: all white and a top knot.

A white top and skinny leather jeans.

Kim's outfit was ornate as can be while beau Kanye took the casual route.

Tan on tan for Kim in Cannes.

Showing some leg Kim went uber-glam for amfAR's Cinemas Against AIDS.

Kim attended the BET Awards and rocked her usual, all white, while her seatmate Nicki took a different route.

An unusual combo, white and neon green, but Kim pulled off the look perfectly.

Kim Kardashian rocked NYC with this strappy black and white dress.

Kim K went glam in deep green.

Training for motherhood with adorable nephew Mason Disick.

A gorgeous couple on the red carpet.

Kim K went as a mermaid for Halloween 2012.

Spotted in the Rolls Royce: Kim and Kanye looking as glam as can be.

Kim K begins showing off her pregnancy style.

Sexy lace was a definite motif for Kim K's pregnancy style.

Forget black, white is the new black when it comes to flattering looks!

Black and white style combo.

Kim begins to rock her baby bump--as well as her bangs!

This bejeweled gray dress is super cute.

Kim K rocked a little black dress for the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

Flanked by the police, Kim attended a divorce hearing in a printed white and silver frock.

With younger sister Kylie, pregnant Kim held down her style.

Forgoing traditional monochromatic colors, Kim went all bright teal.

Black dress, white shoes, no problem.

The infamous Met Gala dress!

The beautiful couple dressed down.

Post-pregnany, Kim steps out for Paris Fashion Week looking gorgeous and rocking this enviable camel coat.

Daring Spring 2014 Givenchy in Paris!

We all know that the

family gets a lot of attention. Whether its for

on Instagram or a wild trip to Thailand, they always seem to have a seat in the spotlight.

! The social media celebrity was the main focus of the latest issue of

...and she wasn't even featured in it!

, 29, was the cover story for the upcoming August edition. The famous pop star talks about her latest performances during her "The Prismatic World Tour". But how did Kim K wiggle her way into this conversation?

tells the mag that Kim was actually inspiration for her tour in some ways.

Not as flattering as it sounds though. Katy was called

by many critics after her dancers were in "big-bootied" mummy costumes. She addresses the diss by saying, "As far as the mummy thing, I based it on plastic surgery," and goes on to say, "Look at someone like Kim Kardashian or Ice-T's wife, Coco. Those girls aren't African-American. But it's actually a representation of our culture wanting to be plastic, and that's why there's bandages and it's mummies."

Yikes! Definitely wasn't the most sensitive explanation, but at least she was being honest. Sorry Kim, it looks like Katy isn't buying that your backside is real. But if you are an avid KUWTK fan, we all know that the X-rays showed that Kim was born with that booty.

Summary: We all know that the Kardashian family gets a lot of attention. Whether its for Kris' new cookbook coming out in October, Kendall and Kylie's bikini shots on Instagram or a wild trip to Thailand, they always seem to have a seat in the spot light. This time Kim was the main focus of the latest issue of RollingStonesKaty Perry, 29, was the cover story for the more recent article. "Prism". Katy was called "culturally insensitive" by many critics after her dancers were in "big-bootied" mummy  "As far as the mummy thing, I based it on plastic surgery," and goes on to say, "Look at someone like Kim Kardashian or Ice-T's wife, Coco. Those girls aren't African-American. But it's actually a representation of our culture wanting to be plastic, and that's why there's bandages and it's mummies."  But if you are an avid KUWTK fan, we all know that the X-rays showed that Kim was born with that booty.


Posted Sep 10th 2007 7:55AM by TMZ Staff

Crunk king Lil' Jon's repertoire is loaded with dirty hip-hop beats, grinding lyrics -- and '80s glam rock!? Whaaaaat?The ATL native hit up the Hard Rock's Body English last week for the Oakley Pre-VMA Bash, and thought it would be a good idea to get onstage with Metal Skool's mangy Sammy Hagar look-alike, and get nasty with some vintage tunes. Lil''s contribution to the "Jump" cover -- other than getting smacked by his own thick chain -- doesn't get past a couple of misplaced "Yay-uh's."The kicker was when Skool's lead throws out a "Yay-uh" of his own. Imitation is sometimes not the best form of flattery!

Summary: Crunk king Lil' Jon's repertoire is loaded with dirty hip-hop beats, grinding lyrics -- and '80s glam rock!? Whaaaaat? insertBCSinglePlayer(1170502734); ...


Sunday, September 21th 1997, 2:03AM

The 19-year-old son of romance novelist Danielle Steel died of a drug overdose yesterday, her publicist said.

Spokesman Howard Rubenstein said he spoke with the 49-year-old writer, whom he described as "very, very broken up."

Rubenstein said in a statement that Nicholas John Steel Traina died in San Francisco "after a long time struggle with a lifetime illness."

He said the cause of death was an accidental drug overdose, but would not say what drug was involved or specify the illness.

"She's certainly shaken up," Rubenstein said. "She had nine children, she has eight left." He said he had no information on funeral arrangements.

Rubenstein said Traina was a young musician who headed several rock 'n' roll bands playing in the San Francisco area.

The tragedy mirrors the grand soap operas of Steel's own novels. Steele has been married four times.

Nicky, as the boy was called, was fathered by Wiliam Toth, a heroin addict and convicted burglar, according to Vickie Bane and Lorenzo Benet in their book "The Lives of Danielle Steel."

Steel's first huband, Danny Zugelder, had been convicted of rape and bank robbery.

Her current husband is shipping executive John Traina.

Steel, who lives in San Francisco, is the author of more than 30 novels, several of which have been made into TV miniseries.

Summary: The 19-year-old son of romance novelist Danielle Steel died of a drug overdose yesterday, her publicist said. Spokesman Howard Rubenstein said he spoke with the 49-year-old writer, whom he described as "very, very broken up."Rubenstein said in a statement that Nicholas John Steel Traina died in San Francisco "after a long time struggle with a lifetime illness."He said the cause of death was an accidental drug overdose, but would not


Sunday, July 23th 1995, 1:13AM

UNION, S.C. A jury deliberated only 21/2 hours last night to convict Susan Smith of murdering her two young sons, setting the stage for a penalty trial to determine whether she will be punished with death.

Smith, 23, brushed away tears as she stood at 7:55 p.m. and heard the clerk announce twice for each of her sons the jury's verdict of "guilty."

Linda Russell, Smith's mother, wept into the palm of her hand. David Smith, the boys' father, showed no outward expression except for a reddening neck and pulsating jaw muscles.

On Nov. 3, Susan Smith confessed that nine days earlier, she had strapped Michael, 3, and Alex, 14 months, into baby car seats in the back of her Mazda Protege, then let the car roll into John D. Long Lake where it slowly filled with water and sank 18 feet.

Smith, her hair pulled back in a childlike ponytail, held her attorney David Bruck's hand as the jurors then stood one after the other and declared that they stood by their verdict.

As she was escorted from the court, Smith walked past the prosecution table and never looked back at her family.

Tomorrow, the jury of nine men and three women will begin hearing testimony as it considers whether Smith deserves the death penalty or life in prison with no parole possible for 30 years.

If she is sentenced to die, a recently signed South Carolina law will allow Smith to choose between lethal injection or the electric chair.

The verdict capped five days of testimony and a decision by Judge William Howard to offer the jury the option of convicting Smith of the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, which carries up to a 10-year prison sentence for both killings.

In a feverish closing statement, prosecutor Thomas Pope argued that Smith drowned her sons to salvage a relationship with a lover, Tom Findlay, who did not want children.

Pope mocked Smith's claim that the drownings were a failed suicide bid, saying she's "the same lady" who lied for nine days about a black carjacker abducting her kids.

Pope said she meant to kill her sons as soon as she released the hand brake.

"The hand brake is just like a gun," Pope said. "The intent was formed when she pulled the trigger, when she pulled the trigger of that car and took the lives of her boys.

"I submit to you that those children were in the car and they were screaming and crying and yelling for their father when she ran up that ramp, her ears covered."

Holding up photos of Smith's car after it was pulled from the lake, Pope spoke of the children "hanging upside down for nine days."

"Susan Smith made a horrible, horrible choice between the love of a young man and the love of two boys," Pope said. "She made an adult, conscious choice that would end the lives of those boys."

"This case screams just as Michael and Alex did this case screams for a verdict of murder," Pope shouted before retiring to the prosecution table where he clutched the photos.

Glaring at Pope throughout her reply, Smith's attorney Judy Clarke said Smith's feelings for Findlay played no part in the drownings. "This is not a young woman who would throw away the most precious two people in her life for Tom Findlay," she said.

"This is not a case about evil, this is a case about sadness," Clarke said. "She made a horrible, horrible decision to be at that lake that night. She made that decision with a confused mind and a heart that had no hope. But confusion is not evil and hopelessness is not malice."

Following the verdict, Bruck said Smith "was not surprised" by the jury's decision. Pope said David Smith "feels positive" about it.

Summary: UNION, S.C. A jury deliberated only 21/2 hours last night to convict Susan Smith of murdering her two young sons, setting the stage for a penalty trial to determine whether she will be punished with death. Smith, 23, brushed away tears as she stood at 7:55 p.m. and heard the clerk announce twice for each of her sons the jury's verdict of "guilty."Linda Russell, Smith's mother, wept into the palm of her


CENTREVILLE, Va., Sunday, Aug. 31,1862.

The commencement of the conflict now pending between the National and rebel forces may be said to date from Tuesday, the 26th inst., upon the night of which day Stonewall JACKSON appeared with a large force at Bristor, where he destroyed about fifty cars and two locomotives. He also tore up the railroad track for some distance and burnt two bridges. The ears were on the way to Alexandria, having conveyed a portion of Gen. HOOKER's Division to Warrenton Junction a few hours previous. One of the locomotives was thrown down an embankment and, upon examination, was found to have been pierced with sixty-three rifle shots. The other locomotive, which was remaining on the track, showed marks of having been shot at twenty- five times. One of the engineers jumped from his locomotive and surrendered himself as prisoner, but the rebels did not heed the usage of civilized warfare and shot him upon the spot. At the time of the raid but few persons were aboard the trains, and those were parties employed by the Government to superintend and assist in their running. The cars were empty. The telegraph wire was cut in several places and one of the poles severed.

From Bristor Station JACKSON proceeded to Manasses Junction, two miles below, where he burned about one hundred other cars which were standing upon a side track in readiness to be drawn to Warrenton Junction. The cars destroyed here were heavily laden with subsistence stores, ammunition and saddlers and blacksmiths materials. All, or nearly all the ammunition, consisting of three car loads was secured, and carried away. A few shells had been left in the cars as the fragments of ragged iron found upon the ground testified. All the subsistence stores that he could conveniently dispose of were taken by JACKSON, A half-dozen barrels of hard bread were discovered near the track, also a quantity of hams. At the Junction the rebels burned another bridge, tore up more railroad track and also burned a large bakery and several small buildings in the immediate vicinity of the same. Half an hour before the rebels appeared Gen. STURGIS, who, with his brigade, had been guarding the Junction, was ordered to report with his force to Warrenton. When Gen. STURGIS had left the Junction, six pieces of artillery, belonging to a New-Jersey battery, was left almost entirely unsupported, consequently the rebels found it an easy matter to overcome the artillerists and capture the guns. At about the time the rebels arrived at the Junction, Gen. DANA's New-Jersey Brigade, which was stationed at the railroad bridge over Bull Run, acting upon orders previously received, were advancing to Manassas. The bridge is situated about five miles from the Junction, and, of course, as the Brigade approached that place, they were surrounded by the rebels, and a great many taken prisoners. All the prisoners, however, taken at the Junction by JACKSON were paroled on the following day, he doubtless considering that they might occasion him much trouble before he could get them safely into Richmond.

From the Junction JACKSON proceeded to the railroad bridge over Bull Run and destroyed it. The reflection of the burning cars, bridge and building, could be seen distinctly at Warrenton Junction. The mass continued to burn throughout the night.

Until Thursday morning JACKSON remained in the vicinity of Bristor and Manassas Junction, and dined on Wednesday with a family living near the depot, at the former place. When preparing to leave, he ordered his temporary landlord to pack up his wordly goods and make ready to depart with his family into the land of Secessia. The host, however, was too keen to observe the import of the command, and began at once to conjecture how he should escape being forced into the rebel service. He gained permission of JACKSON to go a short distance from his home for the ostensible purpose of procuring a wagon, in which he might convey his family and goods from the Union line; but instead of returning immediately, he remained concealed in the woods until our forces appeared and drove the rebels from the line of the railroad, on the following day.


Five Iraqis have been killed and 20 wounded after a mortar bomb hit a market in the centre of the main northern city of Mosul, police and hospital sources say.

The attack on Wednesday came as at least four other Iraqis were killed and another four wounded near the southern city of Kut.

The Kut deaths occurred when a minibus carrying civilians was allegedly caught in crossfire between US forces and resistance fighters.

In Mosul, policeman Muzahim Abd Allah al-Shimmari said a mortar round struck the Bab al-Tub market at around 2:00pm (1000 GMT).

Five bodies and 20 of the injured were admitted to hospital after the attack, an official said.

Responsibility for the Mosul bombing has not been claimed.

In Kut, Iraqi police said five women students were killed and another five wounded when a US convoy was attacked at around 8:30am outside the southern city, AFP reported

"US troops returned fire just as a minibus carrying the students passed by. Five of them were killed and five wounded, three of whom are in a critical condition," said Lieutenant Husayn Abbas Rudhan.

But a statement from the US-led occupation forces in Iraq said four passengers in the bus were killed and four wounded when the bus was caught in crossfire.

Resistance fighters loyal to Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr have previously clashed with security forces in and around Kut, but it was not immediately clear if the al-Mahdi Army was involved in the shootout.