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Mohammed Elkhatib surveyed his cafe and shook his head - no belly dancers, no live music, no dance floor. Just a handful of clean-cut men sitting around puffing tobacco from hookahs and watching Game 3 of the World Series. Business isn't likely to pick up anytime soon. After fielding hundreds of complaints from angry residents, the City Council on Tuesday night tentatively approved an ordinance targeting the 11 hookah bars that have popped up along the city's Little Gaza strip in the past five years. If it wins final approval next month, the new law will ban drinking, live music...

PORTLAND - The radio station KNRK at 94.7 FM is issuing an apology to its listeners after talk show hosts Marconi, Tiny and sidekick Nickie J. laughed at and ridiculed the beheading of American Nick Berg. The three were fired Thursday afternoon, after airing the audio recording of Berg's murder repeatedly on Wednesday and laughing at the incident. "Disgusting… I'm speechless," said one woman. KNRK and Entercom, the company that owns the station, apparently agreed, playing an apology over the airwaves for their listeners: The actions of the KNRK News Morning Show were insensitive, inappropriate and repulsive. On behalf of...

CLEVELAND (AP) - A maintenance worker was suspended for displaying a sign with the word "traitor" on his state snowplow while helping provide security for President Bush's motorcade, officials said. Michael Gerstenslager was asked to park a snowplow on an entrance ramp to block access to a highway the president's motorcade used to travel from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport into downtown Cleveland on Wednesday. A state trooper in the president's motorcade saw the sign and reported it to the Ohio Department of Transportation, the agency's spokeswoman, Lora Hummer, said

January 27, 2004 at 11:50:16 PST 3-Year-Old Girl Survives Desert Accident ASSOCIATED PRESS GLOBE, Ariz. (AP) - A 3-year-old girl survived five days alone in a car after an accident that killed her mother, authorities said. Angel Emery was airlifted Monday to Maricopa Medical Center, where she was being treated for dehydration and severe frostbite on her feet. She was listed Tuesday in good condition. "The only thing she could share with us is that she had been eating crackers and that's how she was able to survive these long days out in the elements," said Sgt. Frank Valenzuela, a...

HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) - A jealous husband killed his wife by smashing her head on the garage floor of their mansion, then staged a car wreck to try to make her death look like an accident, authorities say. Jonathan Nyce, 54, a former pharmaceutical researcher, remained jailed Wednesday on $1 million bond. He has pleaded innocent to first-degree murder. Speaking in court against the advice of his attorney and the judge, Nyce insisted his wife's death was "a pure accident." "I have no history of physical violence ever against any person," he said. "I never, ever had ill will...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Police in Florida say a 2-year-old girl survived by eating mustard, ketchup, rice and raw pasta -- after being left alone in an apartment for nearly three weeks while her mother was in jail. Jacksonville police say the toddler was watching cartoons when she was eventually found by her father, who's separated from the girl's 22-year-old mother.

(Burke, Va.) - An Annandale woman was critically injured Thursday morning in a McDonald's drive-through when she partially exited her minivan to retrieve some dropped change and the vehicle lurched forward, pinning her head in the car's door. According to the manager of the restaurant, the woman had pulled up to the payment window at about 8:30 a.m., and the accident occurred while she was in the process of paying for her order

Radio sucks. Across the dial each morning, teams of overcaffeinated on-air "personalities" start your day with jarring jive, vapid phone calls from bleary listeners, overhyped contests, and the occasional hit song of the moment. It's all mixed into a matrix held together with weather, traffic, headline news, and advertisements—lots of advertisements. At some stations, more than a third of each hour is given over to nonmusical clutter. As the sun rises higher in the sky, things don't get much better. The personalities surrender their seats to the shift workers, who slog through the day playing the same records they played ...