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BREAKING NEWS! The Rev. Jerry Falwell Dies at 73
By Aysha Hussain
May 15, 2007
BREAKING NEWS! The Rev. Jerry Falwell Dies at 73
Right-wing televangelist and cofounder of the Moral Majority the Rev. Jerry Falwell died today after being found unconscious at his office at Virginia's Liberty University, the conservative college he founded and for which he served as President. An icon of the 1980s Christian-right movement, Falwell had a history of heart problems and experienced two major health crises in 2005. Read more.
Lou Dobbs Links Undocumented Immigrants to Leprosy
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is criticizing CNN's Lou Dobbs for spreading false information about the prevalence of leprosy and its so-called link to undocumented workers. SPLC President Richard Cohen says it's imperative when given a national platform, as Dobbs has, that news anchors and organizations should report accurate data. Dobbs, however, contends that he's "100 percent behind" his show's claim that there had been 7,000 new cases of leprosy in the United States over a three-year period. He further suggested that an increase in leprosy was caused in part to "unscreened illegal immigrants coming into this country." During a recent profile story of Dobbs on CBS's "60 Minutes," correspondent Lesley Stahl attempted to challenge Dobbs' leprosy figure citing a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services document that reported 7,029 cases over the past 30 years. Dobbs defended the figure, stating, "If we report it, it's a fact." Read more.
Sunday News Programs Lack Diversity
It's become increasingly clear that some popular Sunday news talk shows are missing racial/ethnic and gender diversity. Media Matters, the media watchdog, found that today's most influential Sunday news programs are overwhelmingly dominated by white men, with women, blacks and Latinos having little presence. Within a two-year span, Media Matters found that in programs such as NBC's "Meet the Press," ABC's "This Week," CBS's "Face the Nation," and FOX Broadcasting Co.'s "FOX News Sunday," about seven out of every eight guests between 2005 and 2006 were white, while blacks made up about 7 percent of those appearing on most of the programs and Latinos made up about 1 percent, reports Yahoonews.com.
Indian Court Temporarily Suspends Arrest Warrant for Richard Gere
Richard Gere is temporarily off the hook. Even though India's Supreme Court has aggressively been after Gere for his public display of affection (that kiss) with Indian actress Shilpa Shetty at an AIDS-awareness benefit in New Dehli, the court has decided to temporarily suspend the arrest warrant against the Hollywood actor wanted for allegedly breaking public-obscenity laws. The court has suspended all legal proceedings against the pair until it decides on the proper jurisdiction for the case. Read more.
Amputee Runner at Odds With Opponents
Oscar Pistorius of South Africa says he wants to be the first amputee runner to compete in the Olympics. But despite his success, Pistorius, who calls himself the fastest man on no legs, is experiencing resistance from track and field's world governing body. Officials are trying to block him on the grounds that the technology of his prosthetics may give him an unfair advantage over sprinters using their natural legs. Pistorios' challengers have raised a number of ethical questions about the treatment of athletes with disabilities and whether amputees like Pistorios have more of an advantage over opponents because of artificial limbs. Read more.
School Viewing of 'Brokeback Mountain' Brings Lawsuit
The Chicago Board of Education is being sued by a 12-year-old girl and her grandparents for allowing a substitute teacher to show the R-rated film "Brokeback Mountain" during class. The lawsuit brought against the board claims that Jessica Turner suffered psychological distress after viewing the movie in her eighth-grade class last year. Now Turner and her grandparents are seeking around $500,000 in damages. According to the lawsuit, the video was shown without permission from the students' parents and guardians. The three-time Oscar-winning film is a movie about two cowboys who are secretly in love with one another. Read more.
Conservative Talk-Radio Host Pans Spanish-Language Programming
A Spanish-language channel is drawing criticism from a Maryland state delegate who's also the host of a conservative talk-radio program. Just three months before Maryland Public Television (MPT) added Spanish-language programming from the 24-hour digital-cable Latino TV network called V-me to its line-up, Delegate Patrick L. McDonough, R-Baltimore County, denounced the move as "a bad way to be spending taxpayers' money" during a taping of his talk-radio show, which airs on WCBM (680 AM). McDonough, who is a proponent of establishing English as the official language of Maryland, further criticized the MPT, calling the programming move "divisive." Read more.
Spanish TV Struggles to Reach Mainstream Advertisers
Although Latinos make up the fastest-growing population in the United States with strong buying power, Spanish-language networks are hurting for ad dollars. Univision and Telemundo are hard-pressed to make new sells. Even though advertising spending on Spanish-language media has grown, rising more than 14 percent last year from 2005, only 3.2 percent of total national television and print advertising is directed at Spanish markets in the Spanish language. Advertisers debate whether they need to reach out to Latinos in Spanish or whether their messages are getting across in English, states Los Angeles Times.
'Desperate Housewives' Goes Spanish
The hit primetime ABC program "Desperate Housewives" is going Spanish. The show is so popular that Univision Communications has decided it will produce a Spanish-language version of the program instead of relying on Mexican primetime Televisa as their main provider of Spanish-language content dramas. "Amas de Casa Desesperadas" is slated as the first production venture between Univision and Disney-ABC International Television Latin America, a unit of The Walt Disney Co., tells Yahoonews.com.
HBCUs Recruit Latino Students
Several historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are recruiting significantly underserved populations, especially Latinos, the fastest-growing U.S. population. Among these HBCUs are Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, Hampton University in Virginia and Tennessee State in Nashville. The schools are hoping to boost their enrollments, diversify their student bodies and educate a fast-growing segment of the population. Charles Greene, eome universities are placing ads in local Spanish publications and hiring Spanish-speaking recruiters. Read more.
Hawaiian Private School Settles Civil-Rights Case
A Hawaiian private school has settled a civil-rights lawsuit brought by a student denied admission because he was not of Hawaiian ancestry. The settlement between private Kamehameha Schools in Hawaii and a student identified only as John Doe was not disclosed. However, the settlement left in place an 8-to-7 decision of the federal appeals court in San Francisco that allows the schools to admit only students who can prove that at least one of their ancestors lived on the Hawaiian Islands during 1778, when the British explorer Capt. James Cook arrived. Read more.
George Lopez Unhappy About Show Cancellation
Comedian George Lopez is not happy about the cancellation of his self-titled ABC primetime program. The network said the program was falling in ratings. In response to the show's cancellation, Lopez said, "TV just became really, really white again."
"The George Lopez Show" has chronicled Lopez's personal life--everything from his sad childhood growing up with an abusive grandmother to his alcoholism and even his kidney transplant. Even though the program will live on in syndication, that's not making Lopez feel better about not getting the chance to tell one final season of stories. Read more.
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