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With a hidden video camera rolling, Memphis City Councilman Edmund Ford allegedly pocketed a $1,900 payoff from a government informant in October, then promised results. "I'll drum up seven (votes) or make somebody walk out." That was among allegations levied Thursday against council members Ford and Rickey Peete, who were arrested by FBI agents on federal bribery charges accusing them of accepting thousands of dollars from an informant in exchange for their votes. In the second major local public corruption investigation in two years, authorities say secret audio and video recordings show the pair received cash payments -- $12,000 for...

They didn't even keep their shirts on. Instead, hundreds at The Peabody Thursday were exposed to the AARP-age man boobs of Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton, 66, and former heavyweight champ Joe Frazier, 62. As I watched the exhibition match between a bouncing braggart and a punch-drunk former great, I had to keep reminding myself that this was a fund-raiser for the Shelby County Drug Court. Otherwise, I would have left in disgust. I know it's supposed to be entertainment, but what's entertaining about seeing just how far Smokin' Joe has declined? During three one-minute rounds, Herenton batted at Frazier's head...

Is Crime Causing Locals To leave? NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Even among the best-off post-Katrina returnees to New Orleans and neighboring Jefferson Parishe — those living in houses or apartments, rather than trailers — about one-third say they may leave the area within the next two years, a small poll indicates. The poll only reached people whose houses or apartments were in good enough shape to have a land-based phone, pollster Susan E. Howell of the University of New Orleans noted as she released the results Tuesday. "They are presumably not in trailers," she wrote. And, since the university's Survey...

Got the Steelers game wrong Sunday. I thought they'd lose, 30-0. Maybe you saw a hopeful and heroic fourth quarter in Cleveland the previous week, 21 points that alchemized a 24-20 victory; I saw a team that was so much like the Browns as to be barely distinguishable from them, barely above pathetic. That a twitching Steelers offense cowered -- or is it Cowhered? -- at the approach of Sunday's raucous Ravens beating wasn't terribly surprising, although it was a minor annoyance that Baltimore lost interest at 27-0. Ravens defensive coordinator Rex Ryan was just slightly wrong as well. "Pittsburgh...

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Saturday renewed the nation's commitment to help victims of last year's Gulf Coast hurricanes and thanked U.S. troops fighting abroad. In his Saturday radio address, Bush said Americans are grateful to those who rallied after hurricanes Katrina and Rita to bring food, water and hope to people who lost everything. "We renew our commitment to help those who are still suffering and to rebuild our nation's Gulf Coast," Bush said. This week, the president will attend a NATO summit in Europe and will meet in Jordan with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. On Saturday, he...

ATLANTA -- Michael Vick apologized for making an obscene gesture toward Atlanta fans as he walked off the field after the Falcons' fourth straight loss Sunday. Vick used both hands to deliver the gesture and flashed an angry look toward the handful of fans remaining in the Georgia Dome. Those who hung around booed the home team loudly after its dismal 31-13 loss to the New Orleans Saints. "First and foremost, I would like to apologize for my inappropriate actions with fans today," the quarterback said in a statement released by the Falcons. "I was frustrated and upset at how...

HOUMA -- A well-liked local Catholic priest landed in jail Thanksgiving night after he fired a shot in the air with a hunting rifle and resisted arrest, kicking a deputy in the groin, authorities said. The Rev. Joseph Tu Tran, 51, from St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Pointe-aux-Chenes, was "highly intoxicated" when he went into Roland’s Mini-Mart in Bourg around 8 p.m. carrying a 12-gauge shotgun and later threatened a store clerk with a .270-caliber rifle, Sheriff Jerry J. Larpenter said. No one was hurt in the incident. According to Larpenter, a deputy was near the store on Bourg-Larose...

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - Belfast's most infamous militant stormed into the Northern Ireland Assembly headquarters Friday with a bagful of pipe bombs, forcing an evacuation that overshadowed the politicians' failure to meet a deadline for forming a new Catholic-Protestant administration. Two security guards trapped Michael Stone — an icon of Protestant extremism because of his grenade-and-gun attack on an Irish Republican Army funeral in 1988 — halfway inside the brass revolving door of Stormont Parliamentary Building. Stone, a long-feared figure who boasts of his desire to kill Sinn Fein leaders, repeatedly screamed "No surrender!" as one guard twisted Stone's arm...

Lebensborn children feel shame of 'master race' ideology Anne-Lise Fredriksen was walking on the beach one day during a Key West vacation when her husband told her to straighten up so her back wouldn't ache later. To his shock, she burst into tears. Her husband's innocent remark had dredged up a far darker memory, from the time when she was a young girl growing up in a fishing village in Norway, the child of a German father and a Norwegian mother. Because her father had been a Nazi soldier during the occupation of Norway in World War II, children threw...

Willie Herenton's "My Way"

He croons songs including "Frosty the Snowman" on the festive CD 'Happy Holidays.' Billy Idol has stunned his diehard fans by ditching his punk image to record an album of classic Christmas songs. The rocker croons a selection of songs including "Frosty the Snowman," "Winter Wonderland" and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" on the festive CD 'Happy Holidays.' And the British rocker insists he had no trouble hitting the right notes, because the songs just flowed out of him. He says, "These songs were a challenge to sing as so many other singers have interpreted them in their own...

LONDON (AFP) - Fans have rushed to buy the first "new" Beatles album for a generation -- a radical remixing of some of the group's most famous songs -- more than 35 years after the break-up of the iconic band. "Love", which has the backing of surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, comprises 26 of the Fab Four's hit songs, but many of them mixed together using previously unheard material from the studio. "I hope this will help people to hear Beatles music again," said Giles Martin, son of the group's original producer Sir George Martin who is often...

BATON ROUGE — A state office that oversaw a series of controversial charities tied to African-American legislators is being scrutinized by the FBI, Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s office confirmed Tuesday in annoucing that it had complied with a subpoena for records from the department. “The governor’s office staff has complied with the FBI’s request for information dating back to 1996 regarding certain programs funded by the former Office of Urban Affairs,” Blanco’s office said in a prepared statement. The governor’s office confirmed receipt of the subpoena Tuesday after a reporter inquired about it. Before it was abolished earlier this year, the...

NEW YORK: No more Ku Klux Klan figurines on e-Bay. The online auction site says it's removing a listing for "K-K-K Snowmen and Snow-women." The ad said the crude clay figurines have removable white pointy hoods. The starting bid was listed at 13-77. As of last night, no bids had been placed for the items. An e-Bay spokeswoman told the New York Daily News that the listing violated the company's offensive materials policy and would be taken down. Past offerings removed from the site include a pocket knife with a Klan shield, an antique Klan hood and a T-shirt...

Two Republican terror groups opposed to the Good Friday Agreement have denied they are involved in any plot to kill Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. The Irish National Liberation Army and the Continuity IRA said this weekend there are no plans to assassinate Sinn Fein leaders. They also condemned any threats to the two Sinn Fein MPs even though they were political enemies. The INLA and its political wing, the Irish Republican Socialist Party, described claims by Adams that he and Martin McGuinness and Gerry Kelly were under threat as 'nonsense'. An INLA spokesman told The Observer that the allegation...

On Tuesday, Giant Eagle, Inc. announced their plan for a discounted generic prescription drug program in all of its Pennsylvania supermarket pharmacies. The offering, which will reduce the prices of more than 300 generic prescription medications, went into effect immediately. Giant Eagle's announcement came just one day after Target announced that it would expand its $4 generic prescription drug program.

MEMPHIS, Tenn, 11/22 - A church that wanted to do something special for Hurricane Katrina victims gave a $75,000 house, free and clear, to a couple who said they were left homeless by the storm. But the couple turned around and sold the place without ever moving in, and went back to New Orleans. "Take it up with God," an unrepentant Joshua Thompson told a TV reporter after it was learned that he and the woman he identified as his wife had flipped the home for $88,000. Church members said they feel their generosity was abused by scam artists. They...

Even though he was focused on making a better life for himself, Brandon Spincer always made time for kids. The former Tulane University football star worked with the children of Boys and Girls Town. He doled out his tickets to home football games to youngsters from troubled neighborhoods. And in the end, it would be his adopted families at Tulane and St. Augustine High School that would rally around his parents, his two children and other relatives after Spincer, 24, was cut down in a jealous rage Monday night. Authorities said Steve Adams, 25, of Algiers ambushed Spincer, killing him...

There was real pain in Andre Waters' voice. This was April. Waters was on his cell phone, driving a carload of at-risk teenagers to a barbershop and then on to a barbecue place. He was working with court-adjudicated youths, but still trying desperately to get back into the one business he knew best. "I love the kids, I really do," the former Eagles safety said that day, just six months before he apparently took his own life. "But football, that's where I believe I have the most to offer. I just can't get a chance." Waters, 44, died early yesterday...

This historic waterfront city was on the verge of becoming the great gambling destination of the South. Then came Hurricane Katrina. Now the Gulf Coast is fighting to get back in the game. BILOXI, Miss. -- Olivia Boglin stood in her yard, staring down at a pile of Sheetrock. Just staring in the Mississippi heat, dabbing the sweat off her forehead with a wadded-up tissue. A block away, a guy was riding a bicycle slow, so the front wheel swerved with each crank of the pedals. The heat, the humidity and the noon hour had everything almost at a standstill....