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The organizers of the Miss USA pageant said Thursday they are evaluating the "behavioral and personal issues" of the reigning winner and will decide her future within a week. Pageant officials and Donald Trump, who co-owns the Miss Universe Organization with NBC, would not say what Kentucky native Tara Conner, 20, had done to prompt the serious evaluation. "I can't really talk about it now," Trump said. "But we have to make a decision. There is no question about that." Internet gossip Web site TMZ.com reported that pageant officials and NBC met Tuesday to discuss Conner's alleged bad behavior, "including...

Southern Ocean Could Slow Global Warming The Southern Ocean may slow the rate of global warming by absorbing significantly more heat and carbon dioxide than previously thought, according to new research. This image shows the oceans and continents that surround Antarctica. The tip of South America is on the upper left, the tip of Africa is at the upper right and Australia is at the bottom right. The ocean colors indicate temperature, with the darkest blue indicating the coldest water. The black arrows show the direction the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current take as they swirl...

1. "Strange Fruit" -- Billie Holiday (1939). Atrocity becomes bitter poetry in this anti-lynching song written by a Jewish schoolteacher and union activist from New York named Abel Meeropol (aka Lewis Allan). When Billie Holiday took it on, it became one of the most powerful pieces of popular music ever recorded. The chilling images are made even more horrifying by Holiday's reportorial, matter-of-fact delivery.2. "Summertime" -- written by George and Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward (1935). Our favorite version is by jazz goddess Sarah Vaughan, who sings smooth and slow, capturing the pace of life in a land where time...

Vandals pour paint on Elamite bas-reliefs in southern Iran Tehran Times Culture Desk TEHRAN -- Unidentified men have poured paint on the bas-reliefs of the Elamite Tarisha Temple in the Izeh region of Khuzestan Province, the Persian service of CHN reported on Sunday. In response, the Izeh Cultural Heritage Lovers Society has asked Iranian cultural officials to mobilize security guard teams for the Tarisha Temple, which is also known as Eshkaft-e Salman, and for the nearby Kul-Farah site. The security detail for Izeh’s ancient sites has no means to defend themselves or the ancient sites, society chairman Faramarz Khoshab told...

If you've ever read Willie Morris' My Dog Skip, or seen the movie, then you know a great deal about my own youth, growing up in the Deep South. My hometown was not unlike many small towns across the South, and the similarities between Morris' Yazoo City are many. Other than the technological differences between the 1940's and the 1960's, only the backdrop of the American Civil Rights Struggle, and the War in Viet Nam provide the more significant differences between the two periods. As I write this, I remember the shoot 'em up games that boys often play: Cowboys...

Although my days of overplaying my Beach Boys albums are over, whenever I happen to catch California Girls, I completely ignore that Mike Love wishes all girls were cute, tan Californian girls. Instead, I take pride in my geographical origin and grin at "The northern girls with they way they kiss, they keep their boyfriends warm at night." I have lived in the state of New York my whole life, and although I often joke that I went south for school, Penn State, with its copious amounts of colorful trees surrounding old collegiate buildings, couldn't possibly exude the northern university...

The group Sons of Confederate Veterans met at Orlando's Lake Eola Park to show off their proposed personalized tag late Friday morning. They said it's simply a matter of time before the plate becomes one of the many you can purchase as a specialty license plate. The group said the plate honors Florida's heritage by showing all five flags of the confederate army, including their battle flag. But it's a heritage some say simply represents hate. Standing below the memorial for confederate soldiers, a small but vocal group made their point Friday. They want Floridians to learn that the Civil...

WASHINGTON, August 6, 2006 – The NATO force in southern Afghanistan has met resistance from the Taliban and other criminal elements, but the force remains committed to establishing a safe and secure environment in the region, NATO’s supreme allied commander Europe said Aug. 4. “NATO's operations in the southern region are focused on establishing a safe and secure environment in order to permit the government and international aid organizations to bring elements of reconstruction and hope for a better future to this region,” U.S. Marine Gen. James L. Jones, NATO’s supreme allied commander Europe and commander of U.S. European Command,...

No matter. Scene suggests the best in Southern songs, books and fried food Is Southern culture on the skids? We think not. In fact, with wrastlin' in Newberry this weekend and that artsy-fartsy Hippodrome State Theatre rompin' through Starke and gettin' all jiggy in single-wides, there never has been a better time to revel in the gritty guilty pleasures of the blue-collar South, even if your collar is white, starched, sweaty or splattered with strawberry jelly tossed by youngins chowin' down on frosted, generic-brand breakfast pastry treats (or "Pop-Tarts" brand pastry rectangles for special occasions). So you want some Southern-fried...

She was called the diarist, the grande dame, the confidante of the Civil War. She moved in the highest circles, and was personally acquainted with Varina Davis, wife of the president of the Confederacy. Mary Boykin Chesnut was all that and more: She brought the war to life as did no other of the time. For her writings and her insight at the most critical time in the history of the United States, she is a heroine of the Confederacy. She was born to Southern aristocracy: Her father was Stephen Decatur Miller, a lawyer and later governor of South Carolina...

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israeli troops sealed off a Hezbollah stronghold Tuesday and widened their foothold in southern Lebanon, but officials said Israeli bombs killed six people in a south Lebanon town and two U.N. observers in a border outpost with two other peacekeepers feared dead. Two weeks into the war, a senior Hezbollah leader said the guerrillas had not expected such an Israeli onslaught when they snatched two Israeli soldiers July 12. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other key Mideast players gathered in Rome for a meeting Wednesday to discuss proposals for ending the fighting that has claimed more...

WASHINGTON, July 20, 2006 – A total of 341 Americans successfully convoyed out of southern Lebanon and are shipping out of Beirut harbor for Cyprus, State Department officials said today. Maura Harty, assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, said the bus convoy got the Americans to the harbor, where they are boarding the Orient Queen cruise ship. They are among the 2,250 Americans that left Lebanon today. "That brings the total of assisted departures to 3,850, and there are another 400 people our embassy in Damascus has confirmed have made it out by land to Syria," Harty said during...

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 19, 2006 – Afghan and coalition forces reasserted authority in two villages reported to be under Taliban control in the Helmand province of southern Afghanistan, military officials reported. The combined forces moved into the village of Narwa in the Nawa Barakzayee district yesterday, meeting no resistance and finding no Taliban extremists. There were no indications of damage or violence as the village was secured. Although media sources had reported the Taliban was in control of Narwa, village elders said a group of Taliban had been in the village, but had since left the area well before Afghan...

Posted on Mon, Jul. 17 Matera: A southern Italian town revives its ancient cave dwellings By Carol Pucci The Seattle Times (MCT) MATERA, Italy - Nicola Rizzi stands in front of his boyhood home where chickens and ducks used to wander, closes his eyes and smells bean soup and tomato sauce boiling on pots heated by wood fires. He was 11, a survivor in a neighborhood of windowless caves and damp walls, where animals and humans slept side-by-side and half the children born there died, among them three of his brothers and sisters. Mostly though, Rizzi remembers the smell of...

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 11, 2006 – Violence in southern Afghanistan is caused not just by militant extremists, but also by regional issues such as a lack of governance, the U.S. general in charge of coalition troops in Afghanistan said today. The Afghan government has not traditionally had strength and presence in certain provinces in southern Afghanistan, so the Taliban can easily gain strength, Army Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, commander of Combined Forces Command Afghanistan, told reporters in Tajikistan before boarding a flight here with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "It's not a question of the enemy being strong; it's very...

NEW ORLEANS - After most of New Orleans sat submerged in water for weeks after Hurricane Katrina, the eight months since Oct. 1 have been the driest southern Louisiana has been during the 111 years that records have been kept, the state climatologist says. Since October, most of the southern half of the state has averaged just 21 inches of rain, down from the usual 40-inch average, climatologist Barry Keim said. The National Weather Service says the rest of June promises more of the same. "We're in what's called extreme drought," Keim said of the state's record-breaking dry spell. "We've...

A kiss is just a kiss unless it's inflicted! It's that time of year, again, when experts have a warning about the desert-dwelling "kissing bug." It's a blood-sucking insect that can cause life-threatening reactions in some of us. "That's disgusting." "No, I've never heard of it." "Don't want any kissing bugs going in my mouth." No matter who we talked to around town, the kissing bug was not very popular. Just what is a ‘kissing bug?' "They are blood parasites that must suck the blood of other animals in order to survive." Doctor Leslie Boyer is the Medical Director of...

WASHINGTON, May 26, 2006 – More and more Iraqi national police are working alongside U.S. soldiers in securing southern Baghdad, a U.S. Army colonel working there said today. Terrorists would like the American public to believe violent groups are winning the fight in Baghdad, Army Col. Michael Beech, commander of 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, said from Forward Operating Base Prosperity in central Baghdad. "But, of course, that's not what's happening here," he said. Beech's brigade includes 4,400 U.S. troops, a battalion of soldiers from the former Soviet republic of Georgia, and about 2,000 Iraq soldiers and police....

MOUNTAIN BROOK, Ala. Some parents are asking for answers after their children sang a popular marching song of the Confederacy during a Civil War history lesson. At least five black students sang, along with other fifth-graders, the lyrics of "The Bonnie Blue Flag" at the closing of last Friday's program at The Highlands School in Mountain Brook. The 1861 song was written in honor of the blue flag with the white star that Mississippi flew over the state Capitol upon seceding from the Union. Some are the lyrics are --quote-- "We are a band of brothers and native to the...