How Not To Fly (about)

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, 80, Marries For Second Time

U.S. Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, who at age 78 won back a Senate seat in 2002 after retiring a year earlier, has also rejoined the newlywed ranks, with his second marriage on Sunday. Lautenberg, now New Jersey's junior U.S. senator at age 80, married Bonnie S. Englebardt on Sunday, at her apartment in Manhattan, his Senate office announced Monday.

Woman Feels 'Free' After 176-Pound Tumor Removed

[Bucharest, Romania] A woman was reported in stable condition Thursday after doctors removed a 176-pound benign tumor in an eight-hour operation....

Without it, she weighs 88 pounds, doctors said. The growing tumor had absorbed blood and nutrients from her body like a giant parasite.

NBC Dumps 'Best Comedy Ever' 'Friends' Ad

NBC promised Thursday not to rerun a promo using that phrase to refer to the show, which will go off the air after 10 years in May.

• The ad irked some people, most prominently Kelsey Grammer, star of "Frasier," five times the Emmy winner for best comedy. "Friends" has won the best comedy Emmy once. "I don't blame them for saying that," Grammer told reporters last week. "Although, we all know it's not true."
• "The people who did 'All in the Family' and 'M*A*S*H' and 'Mary Tyler Moore' and 'I Love Lucy' and 'The Honeymooners' and 'Cheers' and 'Seinfeld' and 'Everybody Loves Raymond,' all those shows, may have a little bit of a problem with that claim," [CBS chief Leslie Moonves] said.
• Thirty-second ads for the [final episode] are reportedly being sold for $2 million, just shy of prices for the Super Bowl, according to Horizon Media, an ad buying firm.

Mike May Be Rowe, But 'Soft' Is Trouble

[Vancouver, BC]

• [17-year-old Mike] Rowe registered the name [MikeRoweSoft.com] in August.
• In November, he received a letter from Microsoft's Canadian lawyers, Smart & Biggar, informing him he was committing copyright infringement. He was advised to transfer the name to the Redmond-based corporation.
• He wrote back asking to be compensated for giving up his name. Microsoft's lawyers offered him $10 in U.S. funds.
• Then he asked for $1,000.

Is Your Penis Too Small?

Virtually anyone with an e-mail address is bombarded daily with messages touting penis pills, herbal supplements and the latest rage, penis patches, all with the same inflated promise that they will enlarge a man's sexual organ....

According to Wired magazine, some 6,000 people ordered pills from Goringly.biz through the Amazing Internet Products Web site over a four-week period, spending on average $100 each for two bottles. Wired traced the ownership of AIP to a 19-year-old New Hampshire chess whiz, Braden Bournival, who shied away from a reporter for the magazine who approached him at a chess tournament last summer.

Chinese Government Won't Allow 'Friends' On TV

[Beijing] China's Central Television's entertainment unit issued a statement saying... "The attitudes of the six close-knit young friends cannot be generally accepted by Chinese audiences yet."

Kerry Belittles Edwards, Then Takes It Back

Asked by a young woman at an event at Des Moines Area Community College why she should vote for him and not for Edwards, the 60-year-old senator from Massachusetts talked about his experience and then said, "When I came home from Vietnam in 1969, I don't know if John Edwards was out of diapers then yet or not, I'm totally not sure. I don't know." He then appeared to re-think the issue, and said, "He was by then, it was earlier." A few minutes later, Kerry appeared to regret the initial comment...

• "That comment I made was not meant to be negative. I don't want to go that road."
• "I think that what's appropriate to recognize is he's a very talented person. I like him a great deal."
• "He's running a great campaign, I respect that."
• "You have to decide, in looking at the records between us, who do you think can stand up to George Bush? ...to convince the nation that we as Democrats have the ability to lead the world and make us safer?"

10-Year-Old Girl Eludes Kidnappers

[Fairview, AK] The mother [coached] that if anyone tried to abduct her, she should walk in the opposite direction of the vehicle or get on the other side of the street...." The girl began crossing diagonally left. As she was passing the truck, the vehicle pulled forward and over toward her, [police spokesperson] Shell said.

"The driver opened his door and the passenger steered the vehicle while the driver tried to grab her through the open door," she said. The girl, however, "dodged" the would-be abductor and jumped behind a large trash container, according to Shell. The child then ran back down the alley and was soon at her house, telling her mother the story, Shell said. Altogether the girl was gone about six minutes....

The girl said the vehicle was a red, extended-cab pickup with a smaller door behind the driver's door and a white stripe running the length of the truck, Shell said. On the rear window was a decal of "Calvin" urinating...

Bush Planning Initiative To Boost Marriage

For months, administration officials have been working with conservative groups on the proposal, which would provide at least $1.5 billion for training to help couples develop interpersonal skills that sustain "healthy marriages."

The officials said they believed that the measure was especially timely now because they were facing pressure from conservatives eager to see the federal government defend traditional marriage after a decision by the highest court in Massachusetts. The court ruled in November that gay couples had a right to marry under the state's constitution....

"Such programs intrude on personal privacy, may ignore the risk of domestic violence and may coerce women to marry," said Timothy J. Casey, a lawyer at the [NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund.]

Bush To Seek Billions For Moon, Mars Treks

President Bush on Wednesday will call on Congress to increase funding for NASA by nearly a billion dollars annually over the next five years, while radically transforming the space agency's manned space flight goals -- from low Earth orbit -- to audacious missions to the moon and ultimately, Mars....

There is congressional concern that the lofty goals in the Bush initiative may far exceed the proposed budget.

"The first year after [President John] Kennedy announced the Apollo program, the NASA budget was doubled," said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, the only current member of Congress who has flown in space. "And in the second year it was doubled again. That's not realistic today. But five percent a year increases are not going to get us to the moon."

In fact, it cost the United States about $24 billion to put men on the moon in the 1960s -- $100 billion in today's dollars.

Chinese Bride A Man

The farmer paid 20,000 yuan ($3864) for his arranged marriage only to have her run away from him six days after their wedding, according to the South China Morning Post. He discovered she was a man when he tracked her to a neighbouring town.

Police Recover Stolen O'Keeffe Painting, Money

A security guard at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe was charged in the theft of an O'Keeffe painting and $14,000.... Red Canna 1919, which was estimated to be worth $500,000, and the cash were missing.

Bush: Let Illegal Aliens Work In U.S.

Promoting a plan that could brighten his election year prospects with Hispanic voters, President Bush on Wednesday proposed legal status... for millions of illegal immigrants working in the United States.... Applicants who can show they have a job... would get an initial three-year work permit that would be renewable for an unspecified period....

It also is the right thing to do, Bush said, to pull immigrants who now live in the shadows of American society under the protection of U.S. labor laws, allow them to travel freely back and forth to their home countries, bring dependents they can support here with them and grant them the confidence to talk openly to authorities about crimes and exploitation on the job.

Boy Rescued From Stuffed-Animal Game

[Sheboygan, WI] The aim of game is to maneuver a grabber-claw to snag a stuffed animal. When a stuffed animal is obtained, the claw releases the toy into a chute.

...the boy's father was on a nearby pay phone when the [7-year-old] boy quickly scurried into the toy machine through the chute where the toys come out. The boy tried to get out but couldn't, because the flap on the chute only moves in one direction.

State's Abstinence-Only Sex Education Doesn't Work Any Better, Report Says

The state's $5 million abstinence-only sex education program [ENABL, Education Now and Babies Later] isn't working, according to an independent study commissioned by the Minnesota Department of Health.

The study found that sexual activity among junior high kids at three schools where the program was taught doubled between 2001 and 2002 -- a pattern similar to that exhibited by kids statewide -- and that the number who said they would probably have sex during high school nearly doubled, as well.

...federal rules tied to the funding forbid any mention of the effectiveness of contraception or safer sexual practices that reduce the risk of disease....

[Minnesota] has some of the highest teen birth rates in the nation among some minority groups, blacks in particular. In 2000, the birth rate among blacks in Minnesota was 162 per 1,000, compared with 30 for whites.... Schmitz, the study's lead author, said ENABL is not really geared toward minority kids.

Carville: Dean Suffering From 'Political Lobotomy'

Top Clinton advisor James Carville is blasting Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean for making a series of devastating gaffes in recent weeks, saying the ex-Vermont governor sounds like he's suffering from a political lobotomy. "I'm scared to death that this guy just says anything..."

Ironically, Dean himself admitted two weeks ago that he's a volatile personality, saying he was so easily provoked by critics that he sometimes needs to be restrained. "If someone punches me I am apt to chase them down, and I need to be restrained by the people who know better and have been in the game longer than I have," the one-time medical doctor told MSNBC.