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She's big-busted, petite, very friendly and she runs on batteries.

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...

Conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh's got a new sweetheart - and she's nearly half his age. Limbaugh, who turned 57 Jan. 12, told Page Two he's been dating West Palm Beach resident Kathryn Rogers for the past six months.

Now obviously I can't speak for every male, but I feel qualified to speak in general terms. This is aimed at the married woman, but is applicable to the woman that is involved in a long term relationship. Learn these things and you might get your relationship to last. Ignore them at your peril. 1. He is not your zit. Stop picking at him. Women love to pick at zits. They'll sneak up on you while you're shaving and start squeezing. It's an annoying habit they can't break. They also do this emotionally and intellectually. This is done when they...

Authorities are searching for a woman they say might have stabbed her boyfriend in the head with a car key at a motel Sunday evening, the Washington County Sheriff's Department said. Deputies arrived at Motel 6 near Valley Mall at about 5:15 p.m. and found a man in the lobby with a car key embedded in his right temple just above his ear, the department said in a news release. The victim, James Leon Jackson, 28, said he and his girlfriend had been arguing, and she stabbed him with the key in the parking lot and fled the scene, deputies...

A Syracuse man was charged with assault after he tortured his girlfriend by burning his name into her back with a heated knife blade, according to police. Marcel Tirado, 23, of 501 Seymour St., was charged with assault and unlawful imprisonment, both felonies, and a misdemeanor charge of criminal possession of a weapon, said Sgt. Tom Connellan, a police spokesman. "It's incredibly cruel," Connellan said. "It's beyond imagination what this woman was going through." The woman, whom police did not identify, also had scars she told police were from earlier encounters with Tirado, Connellan said. Police gave this account: Tirado...

The family of an American woman who was found dead in Rome during a custody battle with her Italian boyfriend said Monday they're frustrated and relieved the man accused of killing her died on the witness stand. Carlo Ventre, 59, was testifying for the first time in Rome about his relationship with girlfriend Toni Dykstra when he suffered a heart attack and died Wednesday, his attorney Roberto Leonardo said. His sudden death was the latest chapter in a nearly decade-old international murder and kidnapping case. "I really wish that we had gotten to a conviction because it would have made...

No shrinking violet, Michelle Obama, the 43-year-old wife of presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told "Good Morning America" that she is a strong, professional woman and that her husband's ability to deal with her is one of the reasons Americans should elect him president. Called Obama's closest adviser and his daily reality check, Michelle was raised on the south side of Chicago and is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law school. Today she juggles a career, duties as a wife and mother of two little girls and the role of campaigner. I don't want to paint...

Just Breaking

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz will not resign under the current "cloud" and would rather push the matter to a vote of the bank's board to clear his name, his lawyer said on Wednesday. "Mr. Wolfowitz will not resign under this cloud and he will rather put this matter to a full vote," Wolfowitz's lawyer, Robert Bennett, told Reuters.

At some point even a sole superpower must recognise reality. Hopes for an effective presidency of the World Bank by Paul Wolfowitz are over. He must either go or be the lame-duck president of a deeply damaged institution. The special panel established to investigate Mr Wolfowitz's behaviour towards the re-assignment of his girlfriend has concluded that he violated rules governing conflict of interest. Mr Wolfowitz's lawyer demands sufficient time to prepare a rebuttal. This request should be granted to remove suggestions of a lack of due process. But if this concession is granted, the administration must accept the legitimacy of...

At the start of this week, European officials signaled that they'd had enough of World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz's dragging down the good name of the fine institution. It's only taken them two years to get on top of the situation, assemble a panel and offer Wolfowitz a deal if he steps down after it was revealed that he violated World Bank rules by rigging a raise and a promotion for his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, in 2005. For the past month, these violations have hit the media, and cries for his resign have grown into slightly louder cries. The man...

FOR the past few weeks, the world has been riveted by the difficulties of Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank, regarding a potential conflict of interest involving the salary of his partner, also a senior official there. With the bank’s board deliberating this week over how to handle the charges, the controversy now needlessly and regrettably threatens Mr. Wolfowitz’s presidency, which has been largely defined by his energetic support for a new Africa that is struggling to emerge. Over the last two years, Mr. Wolfowitz has effectively directed the bank’s energies toward fighting poverty and improving human life. He...

Pity Paul Wolfowitz: Every time he tries regime change, he triggers an insurrection. The latest revolt was launched by World Bank staffers and Western aid leaders in response to the revelation that Wolfowitz -- who had made a crusade against corruption the hallmark of his bumpy tenure as president of the World Bank -- may have awarded his companion a $60,000 pay increase. A staff that had always hated working for the intellectual architect of the Iraq war was now quite literally shouting for his resignation, and Wolfowitz was left wandering the corridors of the bank looking for a Green...

The U.S. government has zero investment in retaining Paul Wolfowitz as president of the World Bank, but millions of poor people rely on the economic health and credibility of the institution. Wolfowitz is an impediment, a liability, who ought to be sacked if he is too dense and proud to quickly step aside. He is in trouble because he lied about getting his girlfriend a promotion and pay raises after she left the World Bank for a job at the State Department when he became president of the international lending organization. Over the weekend, the board of the 185-member World...

We know no spectacle so ridiculous," wrote Macaulay about the vilification of Lord Byron, "as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality." Change the word "ridiculous" to "contemptible," and the words "British public" to "American press," and you have some sense of the eagerness for prurience, the readiness for slander, and the utter want of fact-checking that have characterized Paul Wolfowitz and Shaha Riza as if they were not only the equivalent of Byron seducing his half-sister, but as if they were financing their shameless lasciviousness out of the public purse and the begging bowls of...

When it comes to media reports of bad conduct by Administration officials and appointees, it is a good idea to Just Say No to the first accounts you read. Chances are the story was cooked up and peddled by political partisans (often one way or another funded by George Soros) or that disgruntled bureaucrats leaked to a lazy, gullible, if not complicit, press. The media conniption fit over Paul Wolfowitz' supposed "conflict of interest" at the World Bank is a prime example. Based over on claims by disgruntled staffers, non-government agencies and some World Bank officials, the Financial Times painted...

ON Sunday, World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz vowed to stay in the job, despite revelations that he ordered a $US60,000 ($72,000) pay increase for his lover before seconding her to the US State Department. Australia's Treasurer Peter Costello, lobbied by Wolfowitz at the annual World Bank meeting last week, observed that we "want to see a good example coming out of the World Bank". -SNIP- Wolfowitz began his World Bank tenure with the arrogance so characteristic of the Bush administration. For instance, he demanded an increase in a salary that already approached $US400,000 so he would earn as much as...

PAUL WOLFOWITZ'S enemies were undoubtedly out to get him from the moment the man best known as the architect of the Iraq war walked through the door of the World Bank. Just as surely, he has handed them ample cause to demand his resignation as the bank's president. But the real shame in this story is that Wolfowitz's most worthwhile initiative — the World Bank's fight against global corruption — may fall victim to the appearance of corruption in his personal life. On taking the job in 2005 after stepping down as deputy defense secretary, Wolfowitz was obliged to do...

World Bank chief fights for his job over pay deals for his girlfriend By Edmund Conway in Washington Last Updated: 2:15am BST 13/04/2007 Paul Wolfowitz: chastened and sombre Paul Wolfowitz, the president of the World Bank and once a pillar of the Bush administration, was fighting to save his career yesterday when he apologised over pay rises and promotions given to his former colleague and partner. Mr Wolfowitz admitted approving large pay rises for Shaha Ali Riza, a British woman of Libyan origin, who has been his partner since he separated from his wife six years ago. Mr Wolfowitz was...

Mar. 25 - For at least two days, neighbors at a city apartment complex noticed an acrid aroma, black smoke and leaping flames coming from two barbecue grills on the balcony of a second-floor apartment. What, neighbors at the Red Oak Place apartments wondered, was going on in the unit where 27-year-old Timothy Wayne Shepherd lived? What was he burning at all hours, for days at a time? The answer turned their stomachs. According to law enforcement officials, Shepherd dismembered, and then burned the body of his former girlfriend, Tynesha Stewart, a 19-year-old Texas A&M University student. Nothing remains of...

(03-24) 15:05 PDT SAN DIEGO -- The man who once sang as the police officer in the Village People band has been arrested. Again. Police in Universal City arrested Victor "Macho Man" Willis, 55, early Friday morning. A woman, who described herself as Willis' girlfriend, told police she had been choked and threatened with a knife. The woman told officers that Willis had been abusive and was out on bail on a similar assault charge from last month, police said. Last year, when Willis was arrested in San Francisco for drug possession, he gave officers a fake name. They didn't...

The actress that plays Chloe on the Fox mega-hit '24' wants to set the record straight. Mary-Lynn Rajskub tells a popular men's magazine the straight dope - at least when it comes to her alleged relationship with conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The blonde actress and Rush sent tongues wagging over the summer when they were spotted smooching it up at the Heritage Foundation. Best Week Ever called it this way in June: Rajskub, who in the past has been romantically linked to the decidedly liberal likes of David Cross and Jon Brion, is as odd of a match...

CONCORD, N.C. - Greg Biffle's girlfriend faces a reprimand from NASCAR about her pit-road confrontation with Kurt Busch's fiance after the two drivers wrecked at Texas Motor Speedway. Busch hit the back of Biffle's car early in Sunday's race, causing an accident that ended Biffle's day. Biffle, the defending race winner, had led 49 of the first 82 laps before the crash and wound up 42nd. Moments after the wreck, TV cameras caught girlfriend Nicole Lunders slamming a water bottle on Biffle's pit box. She then marched down pit road and climbed halfway up Busch's box and had a heated...

Drug test subject 'looks like elephant man' says girlfriend (Filed: 15/03/2006) The girlfriend of a man fighting for life after taking part in a pharmaceuticals trial has said the drugs he was given have left him looking "like the Elephant Man". Myfanwy Marshall Myfanwy Marshall, 35, said her boyfriend, a 28-year-old British man who had taken part in drug trials before without adverse side effects, felt ill 80 or 90 minutes after being given the drug on Monday. He is now in the intensive care unit at at Northwick Park hospital in north-west London. Five other men were also admitted...

In his first political firestorm since taking office in January, Gov. Jon S. Corzine said Wednesday that he provided $5,000 in bail money to a lobbyist accused of stalking a state assemblyman. "I reacted as a human being responding to someone in need," the multimillionaire Democrat said. "However, in light of my position as governor, I realize this was a mistake." Karen Golding, a government relations manager for insurance giant Prudential Financial, is accused of breaking into the government-issued car of Assemblyman Joseph Cryan, a Democrat, and of writing threatening letters and making threatening calls to Cryan and others. Authorities...

Women working full-time are 29 per cent more likely to get divorced than those who stay at home and raise children. Research to be published this week in the European Sociological Review finds that the probability of divorce is in direct correlation to the number of hours a woman worked. Marilyn Stowe, a female divorce lawyer, suggested that working women had the economic freedom to consider life beyond marriage. She added that they had greater confidence in their ability to make new friends and find new partners. "You suggest going out to work to a woman who has been at...

FL AG Charlie Crist/GOP Candidate for FL Gov ...CRIST'S COMPANION: From a White House Christmas party to this morning's Martin Luther King breakfast in St. Petersburg, the couple are being spotted more and more: Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist and Katie Pemble, the chief operating officer of the Bank of St. Petersburg. "We're dating," the longtime banker confirmed last week. Pemble, 41, and Crist, 49, have been seeing each other for several months. And in terms of politics (which, of course, is how The Buzz views everything) this relationship has loads of small world wrinkles. A former regional executive with...

LONDON - Chris Taylor, a 30-year-old British computer programmer, grew suspicious of his live-in girlfriend when his pet parrot began to imitate her saying, “I love you, Gary.” Ziggy, an 8-year-old African gray parrot, would also make kissing noises whenever the name Gary was mentioned on TV and would mimic Suzy Collins saying, “Hiya, Gary,” every time she answered her mobile phone.

After 80 years in Hundred Acre Wood Winnie the Pooh is to get a female friend, replacing Christopher Robin, according to reports. The Walt Disney Company has decided to pair Pooh up with a red-haired six-year-old tomboy for its 2007 series, newspaper USA Today reported. Disney said My Friends Tigger and Pooh will keep the "trust, friendship and happiness" of AA Milne's stories. Pooh is being re-branded as part of its 80th anniversary celebrations. Active side "We got raised eyebrows even in-house at first, but the feeling was these timeless characters really needed a breath of fresh air that only...

Living in Minnesota, I'm no longer surprised at the punishments be handed out in the courts. Today's news is that Clarence Dunn Sr. was found guilty of killing his girlfriend with a hammer. For murdering her, this formerly violent felon, Clarence received a 25.5 year sentence and could get out in 17 years. The judges and legislators have learned nothing. The good citizens of tired of the recolving door in the prisons that continues to release violent people. This girl would be alive today if there was justice in the courts. That's my opinion.

Sofia Vergara

A St. Paul woman who bit off a piece of her boyfriend's tongue after an argument in June was sentenced Tuesday to 90 days in jail and ordered to undergo mental-health and chemical-dependency treatment.

A BRITISH fugitive held in Spain over the brutal murder of a British woman has claimed in a letter to the Daily Mirror that he killed her, then ate her, the mass circulation newspaper said today. Writing from his prison cell on the Costa Blanca, Paul Durant, 44, who was arrested in February over the killing of Karen Durrell, 41, confessed to having killed her, then cut her up in the town of Calpe in a fit of cannibalism. "After I killed her, I cut her body into small parts, eating what part of her I found eatable," he wrote,...

Condoleezza Rice Date of birth: November 14, 1954 Hometown: Birmingham, Alabama The girl next door: “I always say to [the President], ‘This is what I think, but let me tell you what the others think.’ The key is to not take advantage of the fact that I live a few doors down from the Oval Office.” Where you’ve seen her: Lighting up the small screen and the press in her current role as President George W. Bush’s sassy national security adviser. Look for her soon, when she will be making her hotly anticipated debut before the 9/11 commission.

It is being widely reported that Bill Clinton is seeing a gal from Canada. A rich attractive young Hillary-type woman. I hope Hillary does not find out because it might interrupt her run for President, affect her book sales, and cause her to have breathing problems. In reality, this marriage is a sham and it has about served its purpose for both Bill and Hillary. It will soon be time for Hillary to cut Bill loose and this might just be the excuse she needs. Who in their right mind would vote to let Bill back into the White House?

Tuesday, 19 November, 2002, 20:04 GMTSuicide hijacker's phone call to girlfriend Jarrah called his girlfriend on 11 September By Rob Broomby BBC correspondent in Berlin The girlfriend of one of the alleged 11 September attackers has told a German court how she received a phone call from him on the day of the attack. Aysel Sengun, a German-born doctor of Turkish origin, spoke at length about her close relationship with Ziad Jarrah, who investigators believe piloted the hijacked plane which crashed in Pennsylvania. Aysel Sengun admitted speaking on the phone with Mounir el-MotassadeqThe testimony came in the trial of a...

<p>Almost every month from 1990 to 1993, a sales agent from a life insurance company who sold group benefit policies to United Public Workers union members would show up at the union hall with a white envelope for union leader Gary Rodrigues, Rodrigues' former secretary testified in federal court yesterday.</p>

The girlfriend of the man charged with killing Dutch populist leader Pim Fortuyn has been arrested, police say. Petra Lievense is being questioned about materials found at her home which could have been used to make a bomb, according to prosecutors. They say she appeared to have been planning a "serious offence". She is not said to be suspected of involvement in the murder of Mr Fortuyn, who was shot dead in a car park in May. Her boyfriend, animal rights activist Volkert van der Graaf, was arrested shortly after the shooting. He has been on hunger strike in custody...