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A former corrections officer has filed a religious discrimination lawsuit against the Kane County Sheriff's Department, claiming he was forced to resign after refusing to shave his traditional Muslim beard. The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court, seeks unspecified damages and a letter of apology to Abal Zaidi, who says he was forced out of the department because of his faith. "I always had a beard as long as I can remember," Zaidi, 31, said in a brief telephone interview Tuesday. "They were just giving me a hard time." According to the lawsuit, Zaidi, of Streamwood, was a Kane County...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Florida Gov. Charlie Crist won't be sleeping alone in the governor's mansion much longer -- he is engaged (video: MyFoxOrlando) to a woman he met in New York City last September who quickly captured his heart. Crist, 51, asked Carole Rome to marry him Thursday morning at his St. Petersburg apartment, giving her a blue sapphire ring surrounded by diamonds. She immediately said yes. "I'm very happy and couldn't be more pleased. What a great way to celebrate America's birthday," said Crist, who has been mentioned as a potential running mate for Republican presidential candidate John McCain....

ST. PETERSBURG - Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is engaged to a woman he met last September during a trip to New York, according to a published report Thursday evening. Crist asked Carole Rome, his girlfriend of nine months, to marry him on Thursday at his St. Petersburg apartment, the St. Petersburg Times reported on its Web site. Crist says she said yes without hesitation.

FORMER DRIVER: I HAD THREESOME WITH JIM & DINA March 16, 2008 -- A former driver and aide for former N.J. Gov. Jim McGreevey says Dina Matos McGreevey must have always known her husband was gay - because he was the other man in bed with them. In an explosive interview with The Post, the McGreeveys' longtime man-in-the-middle, Teddy Pedersen, recounted explicit details of alleged, titillating, three-way sex romps he had with the now-divorcing duo, starting during their courtship and continuing into the marriage. Pedersen - who said he has already spilled the beans on the steamy ménage a trios...

For months, Gov. Charlie Crist has insisted that New York socialite Carol Rome is just "a friend," but Tuesday night at a soiree in the Governor's Mansion, he introduced her as "my girlfriend," says the Tallahassee Democrat, which snapped the picture above. In November, the New York Post reported that Rome, in the midst of divorcing Bluestar Jets CEO Todd Rome, was dating Crist. Then, the governor's staff said Rome, a mother of school-age girls, was just "a friend." Still, last month Crist took Rome to the White House for a dinner with President Bush. So far, that's two high-profile...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Elizabeth Edwards says avoiding the "Made in China" label on toys is not exactly child's play. With millions of recalls rolling in this year because of lead in toys, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards vowed during a debate there would be no Chinese made gifts under his Christmas tree. But, the former North Carolina senator says he immediately had to check with his wife to make sure he was right. The Edwards campaign says the kids will be unwrapping U.S.-made toys, but wouldn't get into the specifics as not to spoil anyone's gifts.

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - Presidential hopeful John Edwards inadvertently made the late night comedy shows this year when his campaign spending reports included two $400 haircuts. Now Mrs. Edwards has joined other candidates helping a Concord hair stylist who wants to turn the controversy into help for a good cause. David Holden owns Hair Biz on Main Street, a couple of doors away from an Edwards campaign office. After the Democratic former senator's haircut made news last spring, Holden challenged presidential hopefuls to come in for $400 haircuts of their own, promising to donate all of the proceeds to autism...

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070915/NEWS09/709150332/1001/NEWS Cannot be posted due to copyright issues.

Characteristically, no one is picking up on the significance of the dye job. The Shafi'i school of Islamic jurisprudence forbids men and women to dye their hair black "except when the intention is jihad...as a show of strength to unbelievers" ('Umdat al-Salik e.4.4). Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, in his The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam, says essentially the same thing: "Some of the early Muslims, including some sahabah [companions of Muhammad] such as Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, 'Uqbah ibn 'Amr, al-Hassan, al-Hussein, Jarir, and others permitted the use of black dye. Some scholars, on the other hand, do not consider...

Elizabeth Edwards Responds to Attack Over Parenting Skills August 28, 2007 7:36 PM ABC News Sunlen Miller Reports: Elizabeth Edwards is taking some heat about her parenting skills from the mom-friendly website "Silicon Valley Moms Blog." Blogger "Rebecca" wrote a fiery tirade on the site Monday morning attacking Mrs. Edwards choice to bring her two small children, Jack and Emma Claire, on the campaign trail with her while her husband, John Edwards runs for president. "…. you are being a terrible mother, forcing your young children, who should be in SCHOOL, to ride in buses and talk to the press...

ELIZABETH EDWARDS complained to the Progressive magazine that anti-war critics such as Sen. Barack Obama are "behaving in a holier-than-thou" manner on Iraq. Too bad for Edwards that Obama opposed the war in Iraq in 2002, while her husband then-Sen. John Edwards - as well as Sens. Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd - voted for the Iraq war resolution. Holier-than-thou anti-war Democrats. Isn't that phrase redundant? Elizabeth Edwards now is more than John Edwards' wife. She has become his Spiro Agnew. Remember Agnew, President Richard M. Nixon's first vice president and designated hatchet man, known famously for dismissing...

ABC News' Sunlen Miller Reports: In an interview in August's edition of The Progressive magazine, Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Senator John Edwards, D-N.C., takes candid shots at the other candidates battling for the Democratic nomination against her husband. "The problem for me with the other candidates is I don't know what it is that drives them," she explained, "I should think the president has to be somebody who has that kind of vision outside themselves." Mrs. Edwards praised her husband for apologizing for his vote in favor of the Iraq War, and questioned Senator Hillary Clinton's, D-N.Y., for not...

I just got off a conference call with John Edwards' deputy campaign manager Jonathan Prince and two supporters in the LGBT community in which the campaign sought to portray Edwards as the Democratic field's best champion of gay rights ahead of tonight's debate on gay issues in Los Angeles. Predictably, most questions focused on gay marriage. Edwards, like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, does not support gay marriage but backs civil unions. For the most part, Prince ducked the question of why Edwards does not support marriage by emphasizing the candidate's advocacy for civil unions, which he called "an issue...

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards included Helena-West Helena in his recent eight-state tour focusing on poverty issues. But local leaders feel somewhat slighted. Mayor James Valley says Edwards' brief visit was disappointing. Valley says he had wanted to hear more about what Edwards envisioned for east Arkansas, and he had hoped to pitch to the former senator from North Carolina reasons why there should be more development in the state's struggling Delta region. The Reverend Julious McGruder of the New Zion Missionary Baptist Church said he was glad to have the chance to see a presidential candidate, but said he...

July 17, 2007 | Elizabeth Edwards is not wasting time. She cut through the fog of sympathy and second-guessing about her decision to continue campaigning for her husband, John Edwards, despite learning in March she had incurable breast cancer, simply by hitting the campaign trail hard. By most accounts she has always been the campaign's leading strategist and still is. But lately she has emerged as its leading risk taker, too. At the end of June she won the nation's attention -- and the gratitude of many -- for confronting right-wing provocateur Ann Coulter live on MSNBC's "Hardball," after Coulter...

Why does the elegant senator from North Carolina continue his run for the presidency? Washington correspondent Geoff Elliott reports: POOR John Edwards. He follows Barack Obama on the podium at a conference of mostly anti-war Democrats and it's like watching air whistle out of a balloon. Obama, a charismatic candidate for change in the mould of Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, has just worked the crowd brilliantly. Then Edwards walks in, a little later than scheduled at the Take Back America conference, thanks to an impromptu grab-and-grip show from Obama. Cameras are being pocketed again and seats resumed for...

Elizabeth Edwards told a prominent gay rights group Saturday night that her husband, presidential candidate John Edwards, would help repeal more than a thousand laws that discriminate against same-sex couples. As she campaigns for her husband in California, Elizabeth Edwards has staked out an independent position on gay rights. She appeared last month at a breakfast before San Francisco's gay pride parade, where she announced her support for gay marriage. The next day, her husband, John Edwards, said her position surprised even him. The former North Carolina Sen. opposes gay marriage but supports civil unions. Her speech Saturday to the...

"Democratic presidential hopeful, former U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, left, helps Richard Knight, right, and David Martin with a firehose at a firefighter's muster in Moultonborough, N.H., Saturday, July 7, 2007. Edwards is vacationing in New Hampshire with his family. ""Rain begins to fall as Democratic presidential hopeful former U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina walks with his family, wife, Elizabeth and children, Jack, and Emma Claire, at a firefighter's muster in Moultonborough, N.H., Saturday, July 7, 2007. Edwards' is vacationing in New Hampshire with his family."

For four decades, Joseph Torrenueva has cut the hair of Hollywood celebrities, including Marlon Brando and Bob Barker, so when a friend told him in 2003 that a presidential candidate needed grooming advice, he agreed to help. The Beverly Hills hairstylist, a Democrat, said he hit it off with then-Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) at a meeting in Los Angeles that brought several fashion experts together to advise the candidate on his appearance. Since then, Torrenueva has cut Edwards's hair at least 16 times. At first, the haircuts were free. But because Torrenueva often had to fly somewhere on the campaign...

Three months after Elizabeth Edwards said that her cancer had returned in inoperable form, her role and influence in John Edwards’s presidential campaign is undiminished. She has made a flurry of charged public appearances, become a regular presence advising Mr. Edwards on the campaign trail, and wields behind-the-scenes influence in many internal campaign decisions, aides said. Mrs. Edwards has also become a free operator on behalf of her husband of 29 years, a development that her friends suggest reflects the clarity and perspective that come from her cancer diagnosis, and her increasingly confident political instincts as she advises Mr. Edwards,...

This week, I read that Ann Coulter had said some pretty shocking things about Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards. I wondered why she would say such things. Then, as Paul Harvey might say, I read the rest of the story. Here's the gist: On ABC's "Good Morning America" broadcast, Ann Coulter was asked about some critical language she had used about Edwards. In her response, she recalled something that the often-coarse comedian Bill Maher once said about Vice President Dick Cheney. She said, "… you know, Bill Maher was not joking and saying he wished Dick Cheney had been killed...

Chris Matthews bushwacks Ann Coulter by setting up a call from Elizabeth Edwards during his full hour with Coulter on Hardball last night.Video Here Mrs. Edwards gets owned by Ann Coulter when it is brought up the sleezy tactics that Edwards (A Democrat candidate for President of the United States of America) has used in his profession as an Attorney that exploits doctors and children for his own enrichment.

"U.S. Democratic presidential candidate, former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) and his wife Elizabeth appear on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" with host Jay Leno (R) during a taping of the show at NBC Studios in Burbank, California, June 25. 2007."

Let us say right up front that it's terrific that John Edwards lives in a country where he can lose an election and still land a $480,000 part-time job as a consultant to an investment firm that keeps its hedge funds in the Cayman Islands as a tax shelter for its clients. This truly is the land of opportunity. We're also encouraged to hear that, according to the former Senator's spokesman, "John Edwards is running for President to give every American the opportunities that he's had." While there may not be enough half-a-million-dollar-a-year part-time consulting gigs to go around just...

Amanda Beard, a swimmer who has won seven Olympic medals, is planning to pose in Playboy, and Swimming World Magazine says that fact is "dominating discussion among the swimming community." Is a swimmer posing in Playboy really such a big deal that it should dominate the discussion among the swimming community? I don't think it is, but With Leather cites someone who thinks it's a very big deal:

Can we talk about naked women? Is that OK? We'll try to keep it mature and intelligent ... but not so mature and intelligent that you forget we are talking about naked women. Three-time U.S. Olympian Amanda Beard will pose nude for Playboy. Or, more likely, she has already posed nude for Playboy. In any event, the pictures will hit newsstands soon. Quite a few people will condemn Beard for setting a bad example. Many will scurry to see pictures of her. And some folks will do both.

Democrat John Edwards said Tuesday that he worked for a hedge fund between presidential campaigns to learn about financial markets and their relationship to poverty—and to make money too. In an interview with The Associated Press, the former North Carolina senator said his yearlong, part-time position with Fortress Investment Group helped his understanding of the connection but he has more to learn. Edwards has made eradicating poverty a focus of his second White House bid. Edwards, a multimillionaire after years as a trial lawyer, would not disclose how much he got paid for a year of consulting beginning in October...

AS I conclude my tour of duty as the second public editor of The New York Times, here are some final thoughts and concerns about the paper and its journalism that flow from what I’ve observed over the past two years from my perch outside the newsroom.

Democrat John Edwards is touting prominent gay supporters who have signed on to his presidential campaign, including a former adviser to President Clinton. Businessman David Mixner is one of 25 people listed on a news release that the Edwards campaign distributed Tuesday, along with a statement from the candidate saying he is honored to have the backing of so many respected gay leaders. "They work hard every day to make our country a better place and I am proud to join with them to fight for equal rights for all Americans," Edwards said. Edwards is making a push for gay...

MIKE BAKER Associated Press RALEIGH, N.C. - Elizabeth Edwards says she is scared of the "rabid, rabid Republican" who owns property across the street from her Orange County home - and she doesn't want her kids going near the gun-toting neighbor. Edwards, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, particularly recalls the time neighbor Monty Johnson brought out a gun while chasing workers investigating a right of way off his property. The Edwards family has yet to meet Johnson in person. "I wouldn't be nice to him anyway," Edwards said in an interview. "I don't want my kids anywhere...

MIAMI — A former CIA operative and Cuban exile is the latest to call the 1997 reburial of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara a fraud, because he said the body of one of Fidel Castro’s closest friends is still in Bolivia. Gustavo Villoldo, 71, said he has strands of faded hair that he snipped before burying Guevara’s body under a Bolivian airstrip in 1967. He believes the remains are likely still there, not in the official grave site in a Cuban mausoleum. DNA tests could confirm his theory, he said. But Villoldo would also need Guevara’s relatives to come forward to...

John and Elizabeth Edwards stood side-by-side in the North Carolina sunshine to announce that her cancer was back and that his run for the presidency would go forward at full speed. It was a sympathetic tableau that drew an immediate outpouring of well wishes from people of all political persuasions. "You can cower in the corner and hide or you can be tough and go out there and stand up for what you believe in," Edwards said. His wife said her illness was a hurdle they would surmount together. That sort of can-do optimism in a grim and unavoidable situation...

By now, everyone has had their say on the most recent Ann Coulter brouhaha. I say most recent because she has had a history of saying things which offend many on the left, scare away moderates, and allow easy stereotyping of those on the right. Earlier examples of such quotes include her remarks on the proper reaction to 9-11: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.” Or her opinion of a certain set of 9-11 widows (conveniently chosen by the left to attack President Bush): "I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so...

Starting soon.

We love Chuck Norris just the same as you. That's why we thought you might want to know the following facts about your favorite he-man we found on various fan Web sites. + Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried. + Chuck Norris can speak braille. + Chuck Norris uses ribbed condoms inside out, so he gets the pleasure. + Macgyver can build an airplane out of gum and paper clips, but Chuck Norris can kill him and take it. + Chuck Norris isn't afraid of the dark. The dark is afraid of Chuck Norris. +...

Celebrating Our Survival: Why May 16 is Special for Scouting http://www.scouter.com/features/0026.asp May 3, 1999 By MaryAnn Gardner The founding of the Boy Scouts of America in 1910 was the establishment of the National organization. It opened the door to fun and learning in the outdoors to thousands of American boys. It's founding, however, did not guarantee that the organization would survive. Certainly, Baden-Powell had supplied the basics for Scouting in America along with Ernest Thompson Seton, founder of the Woodcraft Indians, and Daniel Carter Beard, founder of the Society of the Sons of Daniel Boone. Seton and Beard brought emphasis...

U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy was with a woman at his Capitol Hill home Wednesday night before he smashed his Mustang convertible into a barricade near a House office building, according to a published report. “She tried to dissuade me” from leaving the house, he told The Providence Journal. “And she wishes she had done a better job dissuading me.” The unmarried lawmaker declined to give the woman’s name and says he only knows she tried to stop him because she has since told him so. Kennedy, 38, spoke to the paper before heading to Minnesota for addiction treatment at...

The rumours about ‘Desperate Housewives’ actress Teri Hatcher dating ‘American Idol’ host Ryan Seacrest are true!!!! The couple were pictured looking very cosy and kissing after sharing a lunch in Malibu last weekend. According to People magazine, the happy couple ordered a lunch of lobster, oysters and crab cakes before walking down to beach for a bit of a kiss and cuddle…awww. A source told rival magazine, Us Weekly: "It's not super-serious. They're not on the road to marriage or anything." "They're taking it slow." Hopefully this means Teri is getting laid and will stop banging on about ‘how hard...

Jeddah. Former US Vice President Al Gore stated Iran’s regime presents threat to the whole world, AFP reports. “Iran is governed by corrupted politicians and religious leaders and presents a threat to the whole world’s future”, said Al Gore during Economic Forum in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. According to him corrupted Iranian government together with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israeli views are “a signal for the threat Tehran may pose”.

Is that why all those people died on 9-11?

Phyllis Gates, the onetime talent agency secretary who married Hollywood heartthrob Rock Hudson in the 1950s and later insisted she married him out of love and not to cover up his homosexuality, has died. She was 80. Gates, who had a career as an interior designer after her brief marriage to Hudson, died of complications of lung cancer Jan. 4 at her home in Marina del Rey, said Mark Waldman, her attorney. "She was a lovely, very dignified woman," Waldman said today. Born in Dawson, Minn. in 1925 and reared on a 600-acre farm, Gates had worked as a salesclerk,...

He says former Cowboy tried to help him overcome addiction PLANO – "It's my pipe," says the man sitting across the table. "All you have to do is check it for fingerprints. Mine have to be all over it." It's a favorite pipe, he adds, a sheepish smile crossing his face. "My little bowl pipe. We go back awhile." Sitting alongside the man late Thursday night in a back booth of a restaurant is his friend Michael Irvin. Mr. Irvin has arranged the exclusive interview with a Dallas Morning News reporter. There is only one ground rule for the meeting....

Unlike the Olympics, with its highly-competitive qualifying tournaments, strict drug regulations, and gender testing, this competition is open to everyone willing to support his country. Well, at least everyone with a beard or moustache. In fact, it is almost unpatriotic not to grow a beard or moustache and enter the competition. Luckily, we are making the trip to Germany easy for those wanting to join the fun this year. As an added bonus, WBMC fans heading to Berlin will be able to stop over in Munich during the world-famous Oktoberfest.

Less than a week after Renee Zellweger filed for an annulment from Kenny Chesney after a four-month marriage, he said he's doing well but that "there have been better times." Chesney wants his fans to know he'll "be OK." Chesney spoke with Country Weekly magazine Monday at his home outside Nashville. He said he hit everything hard this year -- a big tour, a record to finish, and, of course, "something new" in his personal life. He said it's been a huge year that "really ended up being too much." Chesney is the reigning Country Music Association entertainer of the...

Renee Zellweger, who has filed for an annulment from Kenny Chesney after just four months of marriage, says the couple "hope to experience this transition as privately as possible." In court papers filed Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the Oscar-winning actress listed "fraud" as the reason for the breakup with the country music star. The term was "simply legal language and not a refection of Kenny's character," Zellweger said in a statement Friday. "I would personally be very grateful for your support in refraining from drawing derogatory, hurtful, sensationalized or untrue conclusions," she said. "We hope to experience...

File this under completely unsubstantiated, be we just heard the most delicious rumor that would be criminal not to repeat. Could (CNN Anchor) Anderson Cooper be a father? Possibly so!Someone we met yesterday swore up and down that Coop has just pulled a David Crosby.'Anderson is the sperm donor for Camryn Manheim's son,' said our new acquaintence. 'They signed an agreement that he would have nothing to do with the baby's life, but he is the father.

The teenage terrorist who blew up a double-deck bus in Tavistock Square, London, killing 13 people including himself, was caught on closed-circuit television two and a half hours earlier. Hasib Hussain, bearded and wearing jeans and a jacket, was pictured at Luton railway station as he and three other bombers headed for the 7.20am train to London last Thursday. In his rucksack was the 10lb bomb that exploded at 9.47am on the No 30 bus shortly after three other bombs went off in Underground trains. Hussain, 18, a nondescript character, troublesome at home in Leeds and an under-achiever at school,...

In a tale rich in lost love, closeted secrets and acrimonious divorce, it turns out that famed local writer Terry McMillan -- whose celebrated romance and subsequent marriage to a man 23 years her junior became the subject of her fictionized best-seller "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" -- actually got her groove back with a man who now says he's gay. The story is spilling out in made-for-Hollywood detail in Contra Costa County Superior Court, where McMillan has filed for divorce from her Jamaican- born husband of six years, Jonathan Plummer. McMillan, 53, said in court documents that the...

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Mayor Jerry Brown, who was twice elected California governor and ran for president three times, ended one of the longest bachelor streaks in American politics Saturday, marrying longtime girlfriend Anne Gust. It was the first marriage for Gust, 47, a former Gap executive, as well as for Brown, 67, who plans to run for state attorney general next year. "How fortunate you are to have found each other," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who officiated at the ceremony. "What a treasure it is to have a companion for life." The couple, who have known each other for 15...