ATLANTIC CITY, N.J.
Miss New Jersey keeps pageant crown
Amy Polumbo, who was named Miss New Jersey last month, responded to an alleged blackmail attempt by releasing the embarrassing photos herself.
The pageant board decided Thursday that the photos – which featured no nudity – did not warrant stripping Polumbo of her crown.
“This was meant to be private,” the 22-year-old told NBC’s “Today” show Thursday. “It was supposed to be between my friends and I.”
The photos of Polumbo, showing her in provocative postures and drinking – legally – came from her Facebook page, which has since been taken offline.
LOS ANGELES
Perks for jailed Hilton spur sheriff’s probe
Los Angeles County jail officials vowed to treat Paris Hilton like any other inmate.
But the Sheriff’s Department on Thursday launched an internal investigation into whether the hotel heiress received special perks while at the Lynwood detention center.
The department union, which has long clashed with Sheriff Lee Baca, said deputies have come forward to complain that Hilton had free access to a cordless phone while other prisoners waited in line to use pay phones during set hours.
Hilton also received daily visits from top brass at the facility – including a captain who hand-delivered her mail – in contrast to others who received letters brought to them by inmate trusties, the deputies said.
And officials were allegedly ordered to give her a new jail uniform while many inmates used recycled ones.
Two sheriff’s officials – who spoke on condition of anonymity – confirmed those details.
WASHINGTON
Hindu opening prayer a first for the Senate
A Hindu clergyman made history Thursday by offering the Senate’s morning prayer, but only after police officers removed three shouting protesters from the visitors’ gallery.
Rajan Zed, director of interfaith relations at a Hindu temple in Reno, Nev., gave the brief prayer that opens each day’s Senate session. As he stood at the lectern, two women and a man began shouting, “This is an abomination” and other complaints from the gallery.
Police officers quickly arrested them and charged them with disrupting Congress, a misdemeanor. The male protester told a reporter, “We are Christians and patriots” before police handcuffed them and led them away.
Zed, the first Hindu to offer the Senate prayer, began: “We meditate on the transcendental glory of the Deity Supreme, who is inside the heart of the Earth, inside the life of the sky and inside the soul of the heaven. May he stimulate and illuminate our minds.”
As the Senate prepared for another day of debate over the Iraq war, Zed closed with, “Peace, peace, peace be unto all.”
NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon
Lebanese advance on Fatah al-Islam camp
Lebanese troops advanced Thursday under cover of artillery fire upon positions held by al-Qaeda-influenced fighters holed up inside a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. Four soldiers and one civilian died in some of the heaviest fighting of the two-month standoff.
The military said it was making no final drive into the camp, only “tightening the noose” around fighters of the Fatah al-Islam movement.
Humanitarian workers evacuated 400 camp residents on Wednesday. Only a few hundred people, apparently the fighters and their families, are believed to remain of the estimated 40,000 refugees who filled the camp when fighting broke out between security forces and the militants in May.
SEOUL, South Korea
N. Korean military wants talks with U.S.
North Korea’s military proposed today holding direct talks with U.S. forces, an unusual plea amid recent progress on the nuclear standoff between the two countries.
The North’s Korean People’s Army proposed that the talks also be attended by a U.N. representative “for the purpose of discussing the issues related to ensuring the peace and security on the Korean peninsula,” the chief of the North Korean military’s mission at the truce village of Panmunjom said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands
Official: Jail women who wear burkas
A right-wing Dutch lawmaker wants women jailed for wearing the head-to-toe Islamic robe known as a burka, calling it a “symbol of oppression.”
Geert Wilders, whose Freedom Party has nine lawmakers in the 150-seat lower house of the Dutch parliament, filed a proposal Thursday to make wearing a burka in public a crime punishable by up to 12 days jail.
