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Dominique Strauss-Kahn will admit he had sexual contact with the hotel chambermaid who alleges he attacked her, but insist it was consensual, his lawyers have indicated. The International Monetary Fund chief allegedly locked the maid in his suite at Manhattan's Sofitel on Saturday and forced her to give him oral sex. He was denied $1m bail and is being held at Rikers Island jail. However in a hint at what may become his main line of defence, his attorney, Benjamin Brafman, said at New York criminal court: "The evidence, we believe, will not be consistent with a forcible encounter". It...

Kobe Bryant and four of his Los Angeles Laker teammates called for understanding, compassion and acceptance in a public service announcement released today. The release of the public service announcement comes six days after Bryant was fined $100,000 by the NBA for using an obscene antigay slur aimed at a referee during a game last Tuesday. The Lakers and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation announced on Friday they would work together to eliminate antigay slurs. The announcement begins with Bryant saying, "There are all kinds of different people in the world. That's what makes the world special. So...

It doesn't matter if it wasn't meant for our ears. It doesn't matter that NBA players might do it all the time. And it doesn't matter in the slightest that Kobe Bryant(notes) wasn't using the usual, hateful, meaning behind a homophobic slur that starts with an "f" and ends with those who are mindful of the pain and suffering that the LGBT community has gone through cringing as we hear it. Before we get to the specifics, here is Bryant's statement on the incident: "What I said last night should not be taken literally. My actions were out of frustration...

The Obama administration is considering it. The idea is to have the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) just start handing out green cards to illegals. USCIS, a part of the Obama administration, outlines the ideas in a draft memo that includes the possibility of issuing green cards to tens of thousands who entered the country illegally. "In the absence of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, CIS can extend benefits and/or protections to many individuals and groups by issuing new guidance and regulations," the memo advises.

Here ya go, boys and girls. They are just starting to roll: http://www.nba.com/lakers/multimedia/2010_parade_stream.html

NEW YORK – An advertisement featuring the NBA's two biggest superstars includes a gun reference, the same week two players were suspended for carrying firearms to the locker room.

Federal officials and police are interviewing a man, believed to be Nigerian, who allegedly was trying to "explode" a powdery substance aboard a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, injuring himself and two other passengers, law enforcement officials said.

Tiger: I Need a 'Kobe Special' Posted Nov 29th 2009 12:15AM by TMZ Staff Tiger Woods had a "Kobe Special" on his brain hours after what looks like a domestic dispute with his wife, Elin Nordegren -- this according to someone who spoke with Tiger on Friday. During the phone conversation on Friday, Tiger told his friend, "I have to run to Zales to get a 'Kobe Special.'" The person on the other end of the phone asked Tiger what a "Kobe Special" was. The reply -- "A house on a finger." During the conversation, Tiger said his wife had...

To celebrate its revival after the 1995 earthquake, the city of Kobe held the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the "life-size" statue of Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Tetsujin #28 ("Ironman #28" or Gigantor) robot on Sunday. Minoru Yada, the 78-year-old voice actor of Tetsujin #28's fictional inventor Dr. Shikishima, led the the 28 people who cut the ribbon by yelling out "Tetsujin-28-go!" Yada was holding a mockup of the trademark remote control that the manga and anime's hero, schoolboy Shoutarou Kaneda (Jimmy Sparks), carried to control the robot. MBS News, Jiji Press, and The Kobe Shimbun all posted video reports from the ceremony. The...

Noted Chicagoan and basketballophile Barack Obama appears to be writing off the California vote in 2012, at least the basketball fans around Los Angeles. In a pre-holiday interview with the Associated Press, Obama was asked who was the better player -- six-time NBA champion Michael Jordan or four-time champion Kobe Bryant? Without even a moment's hesitation, the ex-senator from Illinois blurted out, "Oh, Michael!" Then, apparently realizing what he'd just said and the profound impact on any 2012 election, the new president hastened to add: "I mean, Kobe's terrific. Don't get me wrong. But I haven't seen anybody match up...

L.A. Lakers fans celebrated their NBA championship victory Sunday night (June 14) by rioting outside the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Eyewitness reports said that the police officers at the scene were being belted with rocks and bottles. There are also reports of fans starting fires, although it isn’t clear at this stage whether those fires included buildings or vehicles. One unconfirmed report says that at least one police vehicle has been set on fire.

Japanese scientists said Thursday they had successfully cloned the ancestral bull of a luxurious brand of beef, possibly opening the way to distribute cloned beef. At the start of the Year of the Ox, researchers announced they had kept frozen for 13 years the testicles of a bull named Yasufuku, the progenitor of the expensive Hida-gyu brand of beef in central Gifu prefecture. The researchers at Kinki University and Gifu's livestock research institute said they had cloned four Yasufuku calves between November 2007 and July 2008, although two of them died afterward. "Yasufuku's testicles were frozen for a decade without...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnMe-mRG_fY

NBC Questions Kobe Bryant’s Pride of Being on Team USA 2008-08-17 -By Warner Todd Huston In a recent interview with USA Olympics basketball team member Kobe Bryant, NBC Sports reporter Chris Collinsworth seemed to question Kobe’s patriotism when the player said that he was proud to wear the team USA uniform. Wondering if it was “cool” to be proud of being on Team USA, Collinsworth seemed to surprise even Bryant with the temerity of the question. Why Collinsworth wouldn’t think it would be “cool” to be proud to be on the American Olympic basketball team is anyone’s guess. In a...

Assorted TV commentators keep opining that the Olympics are all about the brotherhood of man, rather than national ambition or patriotism. But don't tell that to the fanatically nationalist Chinese -- or to Kobe Bryant, the NBA star who is playing with Team USA in Beijing. In an interview Friday on NBC, the world's most famous basketball player told Chris Collinsworth how he got "goosebumps" when he received his Olympics uniform. "I actually just looked at it for a while. I just held it there and I laid it across my bed and I just stared at it for a...

Four years, two teams and a championship later, Shaquille O'Neal is still ripping Kobe Bryant. Video on TMZ.com shows the Phoenix Suns center doing a freestyle rap in a nightclub on Sunday night in which he puts down his former Los Angeles Lakers teammate. "You know how I be," Shaq rapped. "Last week Kobe couldn't do without me." Bryant led the Lakers to the NBA Finals this season, but they were beaten 4-2 by the Boston Celtics. O'Neal and Bryant last played together during the 2003-04 season, when the duo led the Lakers to the Finals. They lost to the...

My top five (listed in alphabetical order) Tim Duncan Kevin Garnett Lebron James Kobe Bryant Chris Paul

MEMPHIS, Tenn. An Arkansas man filed a federal lawsuit against N-B-A star Kobe Bryant claiming the Lakers guard deliberately elbowed him during a game last year against the Memphis Grizzlies. Bill Geeslin was a spectator in the stands when the Lakers played the Grizzlies in Memphis last November. His three-page lawsuit filed Tuesday claims that Bryant came off the court during play, landed on Geeslin and "without provocation" committed assault and battery when he violently struck Geeslin with his elbow. Geeslin claims seeks more than 75-thousand dollars in damages for unspecified injuries that required medical attention. Geeslin's attorney, Robert Coleman,...

The month of September is officially Shameless Self-Promotion Month. And we care enough to honor that promise of self-promotion with stunning, unparalleled commitment never before seen in the world. Our competitors may shrink back in shy impotence like the girly boys they really are. But we shall never faulter. We're the best, most profitable, least worrisome, highest quality, perfect credit to our gender, brightest, silliest, nicest smelling, best dressed, most comfortable with small dogs, most talented, elite, A-list, baddest mofos, with the firmest body contours this side of Beverly Hills in all cyberspace. You have our word on it.

The U.S. basketball team will have to work on its internal chemistry if it wants to perform well at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Kobe Bryant said Thursday.