Canada Mulling a More Humane Seal Slaughter

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia -- (TYDN) Canada's fisheries minister said Thursday he is considering Nova Scotia's request to hunt more grey seals, an expansion backers say would boost coastal economies and fish stocks.

Anti-hunt campaigners say Canada's seal hunts are cruel and inhumane because hunters use spiked clubs and rifles to kill the animals for their prized pelts. Still, animal rights groups said they would be willing to cede to an increase in the annual slaughter if hunters practiced more humane killing methods.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, is demanding that hunters first blindfold the furry animals and offer them a cigarette before they are pummeled to death, their hides removed and their flesh and innards left to rot in the snow.

"Our survey of death row inmates who have been blindfolded and given a cigarette before their execution said their electrocution or lethal injection was more relaxing than without such amenities," PETA president Ingrid Newkirk said in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews.

The PETA study was first reported Monday by TheYellowDailyNews.

Harry VanPelt, chairman of SlaughterNow!, said cigarettes were too expensive. He promised the hunters would briefly pet the seals, say "You're a good boy, yes you are" before they were splattered on the frozen tundra.

The Tobacco Family Children No Abuse Forum Coalition also blasted PETA's proposal. "Seals that survive the slaughter might get hooked on cigarettes and die an early death from lung cancer," Patch Tokem, the coalition's spokesman, said in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews.

Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn said the growth of the grey seal herd is widely recognized and his office is discussing the issue with the province's fisheries minister Ron Chisholm. Chisholm asked last week for the quota review and also urged the government to press the European Union to reject a proposed ban on the import of seal products.

Under legislation proposed earlier this month, the EU's 27-member states would ban seal products from countries where hunting practices are deemed inhumane.

Chisholm is mulling whether to demand hunters offer seals a choice of a cigar or cigarette, in addition to a last meal. He is also considering proposals to ban rifles and clubs in favor hunters' fists.

Nova Scotia has a yearly quota of 12,000 gray seals but fishermen want the quota increased to 25,000. A fast growing grey seal population is depleting fish stocks.

The United States banned Canadian seal products in 1972. Several European Union nations, such as the Netherlands and Belgium, ban all seal products.

Photo: Advocacy for Animals

Olympians Tested at Gender-Determination Lab

BEIJING -- Olympic female athletes suspected of being males are to begin being tested Wednesday at a gender-determination lab here to confirm their status, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

Experts at the lab, located at the Peking Union Medical College Hospital here, told TheYellowDailyNews late Tuesday they would draw blood samples to test hormones, genes and chromosomes. Physical examinations are included, said lab director Dong Chin Loung.

Gender verification tests emerged in the 1960s when Communist countries in Eastern Europe were thought to be using male athletes in women's competitions. The tests were used at the Olympics for the first time at the 1968 Mexico City games.

But critics, recalling "Crotchgate," decried the accuracy of the tests.

The critics noted that U.S. female gymnast Pat Smith cleared a gender test. But she was exposed as a male during the 1996 Atlanta games when her penis flopped out of her leotard and dangled during the ending of her woman's floor exercise.

NBC was fined $550,000 for repeatedly airing what the Federal Communications Commission decried as an "unfortunate uniform malfunction." Encyclopedia Britannica, capitalizing on the episode, coined the phrase "flip flopper" in the controversy's aftermath.

Some linguists suggested the meaning of that phrase has mutated a long way from its original description of a female gymnast whose penis flings out of a leotard during an Olympic floor exercise. Today, the phrase describes a politician altering views â.. although revisionist linguists maintain the meaning of the phrase has gone virtually unchanged.

Despite Crotchgate, the Beijing lab will only test female athletes whose external appearance closely resembles a male's. The International Olympic Committee said athletes requiring testing "know who they are."

"Man-chicks who fail to take the test will automatically be disqualified from their events, regardless of whether they have a penis or not," the committee said in a bold statement.

Dong, the director of the Beijing gender-testing center, said Olympic games dating to 1968 required the testing of all women. He said he was sad to see the changeover.

"There's a lot of women here at the games who obviously don't require inspection. But as a scientist, the more subjects I can get my hands on the better," Dong said.

The committee promised to keep the existence and results of tests confidential. "It's a sensitive issue whether your spouse is a wife or a man, and whether you knew the difference," Olympic Committee Chairman Dexter Polevert said.

Statistics showed that in track and field the difference between the sexes ranged between 10 and 18 percent favoring men. In speed events the difference was as much as 20 percent.

Athletes who fail the initial gender testing could petition for a second, more rigorous examination. Secondary testing would be less intrusive than at prior Olympic games, Dong said.

Photo: spratmackrel

Obama Elected Leader of Israel, Germany and England

LONDON -- (TYDN) -- Democratic U.S. presidential contender Barack Obama brushed aside Republican criticism of his overseas trip as he stood outside the famed 10 Downing Street here to accept his Sunday election to British prime minister.

The Illinois senator, in England to try to shore up the white vote at home, was also elected Germany's chancellor and Israel's prime minister as part of his week-long, overseas whistle-stop tour to demonstrate his allure worldwide. Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republican candidate for U.S. president, chided Obama "for once again being a flip flopper."

"He's now waffling on what country he wants to lead," McCain told reporters in Arizona. "Whose interests does he really represent?"

Speaking at his new official residence here at 10 Downing Street, the British prime minister, the Israeli prime minister and the German chancellor said McCain's inability to shore up foreign presidencies "underscores why my opponent is likely to lead America, if he's elected, down a perilous, isolationist road to ruin."

Analysts noted that Obama traveled overseas at the beckoning of McCain, who had criticized the senator for his lack of foreign policy leadership skills. Obama sought the Jewish vote in Israel and the white vote in Germany and England.

An Obama insider who traveled with the newly elected British prime minister, German chancellor and Israeli prime minister said the campaign trip went better than anticipated.

"We were overseas looking to score points at home," the Obama insider told TheYellowDailyNews on condition of anonymity because he has not been authorized to speak publicly. "Christ, judging by the hordes of crowds we encountered, you would have thought he was David Hasselhoff."

Obama, who also flew to Iraq and Afghanistan, resigned the presidencies he won in those war-torn nations late Sunday, saying his power could be watered down if he assumed too many presidencies.

McCain blasted Obama for refusing those presidencies.

"It's because he doesn't have a policy for us to win the war there. The girly man wants to withdraw the troops in 16 months," McCain said. "Using Somalia, Yugoslavia, Korea and Vietnam as a our guide, withdrawal usually and eventually amounts to failure. I would never withdraw or refuse a presidency."

Latinos, noting that Obama failed to travel to Mexico, are expected to protest outside his Chicago residence Monday afternoon.

An Obama aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Obama had planned to visit Mexico City but canceled when U.S. food regulators said Mexican jalapenos were the source of some 1,000 Salmonella illness in the United States. Ten contestants at a jalapeno-eating contest are under quarantine at a local New Mexico hospital.

Photo: Lars Plougmann

Hotdog Eating Champ: Four World Records in a Day

New York -- (TYDN) The world's hotdog eating champion was declared the Guinness Book of World Records holder for winning the most Guinness Book of World Records in a single day, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

Joey Chestnut, who consumed a bowel-popping 59 hotdogs and buns during the July 4 annual Nathan's Hotdog Eating Contest on Coney Island, set world records for the number of hotdogs eaten in one sitting, for the farthest spray in both the throw-up and Hershey squirts category, and for being signed to the largest monetary contract to represent a toilet tissue manufacturer, Guinness Book of World Records officials told TheYellowDailyNews.

Guinness Book of World Records officials made the announcement Friday, three weeks after the historic annual eating contest in which Chestnut, by less than a bite, narrowly edged out his stomach-busting rival, and six-year champion Takeru Kobayashi of Japan, known in America as "Chester the Digester." Henry "The Heartattack" Bulberio came in a close third, consuming 58 hotdogs and buns before losing his meal ticket on spectators in the "spray zone."

The Guinness Book of World Records delayed announcing the results until Friday amid protests over his throw-up projectile measurement at 17 feet 9.1 inches.

Cheesecake eating champion "Nina the Inhaler" last year spewed 17 feet 9 inches, what insiders called a "Technicolor Yawn," after swallowing 12.26 pounds of cheesecake in the Jersey Shores Cheesecake Macking Contest. "Nina the Inhaler," a 125-pound UPS deliverywoman, in a letter to the Guinness Book of World Records and the National Federation of Food Eating wrote that "a review of Guinness' throw-up measurement standards should make us all puke."

A New York federal judge, however, tossed "Nina the Inhaler's" lawsuit alleging that the Guinness Book of World Records mistakenly included at the end of Chestnut's measurement "a tiny piece of an unknown substance that microscopically measured out 'Nina the Inhaler' for the throw-up projectile crown."

U.S. District Judge Felix Frankfurter ruled a forensic examination of the substance in question was inconclusive, and that the Guinness Book of World Records' bylaws was silent on how to deal with such a far-reaching and contentious issue.

"It's best not to ask how laws and hotdogs are made," Frankfurter ruled.

Chestnut, dubbed the 24-year-old "Gluttonous Gladiator" who signed a $1 million deal to represent Charmin bathroom tissue, was digesting the news and not immediately available for comment. Sources said he was sitting on a six-figure deal with Preparation-H.

The Guinness Book of World Records for the most Guinness Book of World Records at one time had belonged to Billy and Benny McCrary. They originally obtained the most Guinness Book of World Records at one time for being the first twins from North Carolina to weigh more than 600 pounds each, ride mini-bikes and suffer heart attacks all in the same day.

They claimed they should have been granted four Guinness Book of World Records in a single day. At the time, however, the Guinness Book of World Records did not recognize man-boobs as a category.

Photo:  audrey sel

Court Declares Janet Jackson Breast ‘Pretty Decent’

PHILADELPHIA -- (TYDN) A deeply fractured federal appeals court here is overturning a $550,000 indecency fine regulators levied against CBS for its 2004 Super Bowl halftime show in which singer Janet Jackson's right breast was exposed for less than a second to millions of prime time viewers.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a rebuke to the Federal Communications Commission, ruled that an "exhausting" examination of the halftime footage showed that "Jackson's breast was rather pert, well shaped and pretty decent overall."

"That the FCC felt otherwise shocks the conscience," Judge Anthony Scirica wrote for the majority in the 2-1 decision.

Kevin Martin, the FCC chairman, blasted the ruling. He said the FCC would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"I've seen way better," Martin said in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews. "I'm disappointed that the appeals court lowered the standard of decency."

Judge Marjorie Rendell, the lone dissenter on the three-judge appeals court panel, wrote that the case should be sent to the trial courts for further inquiry. "Only until we have all of the facts, like whether her breasts are real, and whether the right one is similar in geometric proportion to the left, should this court entertain the question of whether Ms. Jackson's breast was decent," Rendell wrote.

Jackson's brief, provocative dance with performer Justin Timberlake during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show triggered more than half a million formal complaints to regulators, tougher decency rules, dramatically higher maximum fines and video delays on many live programs. Timberlake pulled off part of her costume to reveal her breast at the end of their performance, in what he later dubbed a "wardrobe malfunction."

Leslie Moonves, the CBS president, welcomed a Supreme Court challenge. "We all know indecency when we see it. Her right breast was decent and it closely mirrors the left one."

At the time of the brief breast exposure, then-FCC Chairman Michael Powell called it a "classless, crass and deplorable stunt." The agency unanimously levied the maximum $27,500 fine against 20 CBS-owned stations for airing it. The uproar led Congress to increase indecency fines to $325,000 per station for each indecency incident.

Parental groups, including the Parents Television Council, decried the ruling Tuesday, saying the decision is likely to hurt children.

"You have two branches of government, the legislative and the judicial, each telling children that Janet Jackson's right breast is decent on one hand and indecent on the other," said Tim Winter, the watchdog group's president. "We owe our children more."

Photo: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Wife Flip Flop: Obama Pushes Viagra ‘Nuclear Button’

Kabul, Afghanistan -- (TYDN)  Sen. Barack Obama, searching for criticism of Sen. John McCain, pressed what analysts suggested was the "nuclear button" late Sunday when he derided his Republican and elder presidential opponent for allegedly requiring Viagra to have sex.

"He can't naturally rise to the challenge," Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, told reporters here as he was overseas trying to shore up the foreign vote. "This shows that he's a fake. And if he can't rise to the challenge at home, I think it's safe to say he'll be impotent abroad and as president."

McCain, 71, declined to respond directly to the allegations. But McCain said he was the most qualified candidate because he's had sex as many as three times more than his 46-year-old opponent, in addition to him killing hundreds in Vietnam, where he was held captive for five years.

"I was doing it every-which-way-and-that -- and then some, for years before my opponent was even born," McCain told reporters as his blushing wife, Cynthia, stood by his side. "Don't make me take this to the next level. Is he also calling me out on size?"

Obama, meanwhile, countered McCain, challenging the Arizona senator to swap wives to settle the score.

Anchors from the nation's major networks were invited to cover the changeover. "This is flip flopping at its best," Nielsen Media Research president Harold Jeffrey said in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews.

He said prime-time news ratings would skyrocket.

"The numbers would depend on what the Federal Communications Commission declares as obscenity," Jeffrey said. "We have a better chance in getting raw footage aired if the FCC declares the candidates sharks or something like that and not human beings."

Election strategists said it was the first time a presidential race's mudslinging resonated with a public tired of news about unemployment, homelessness, war, inflation, famine, falling real estate prices and a plummeting stock market. "This election to replace President Bush is getting down to basics and voters can appreciate that," said Arizona University election scholar Roman Pollarnsky.

Some analysts criticized Obama for being so cocksure. Others suggested his hard-headedness might place the nation in an awkward position if elected chief executive.

Others, however, applauded the Illinois senator.

"This is brilliant. Obama is pressing the nuclear button while at the same time accusing his opponent as being a hawk," said Fullerton State University presidential scholar Vince Buck.

Other analysts said the debate might have been avoided had the Democratic Party nominated Sen. Hillary Clinton. Others, however, weren't so sure.

Photo:  Felixe

TYDN Subpoenaed Over bin Laden Interview

WASHINGTON -- (TYDN) The Bush administration subpoenaed TheYellowDailyNews late Thursday demanding to know where TheYellowDailyNews interviewed Osama bin Laden in a story to be published as early as Monday, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

The subpoena demands the Pulitzer Prize-winning publishing concern and its editor-at-large, Thornhille Broome, divulge the whereabouts of the world's only independent media interview with bin Laden following the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States. TheYellowDailyNews has been promoting the story, with a dateline ALONG THE PAKISTAN BORDER, in which bin Laden says the country's "moral bankruptcy has now turned into its economic bankruptcy."

TheYellowDailyNews' decision not to reveal the location prompted widespread calls of treason, even from other news outlets working feverishly to discredit the authenticity of the upcoming report. Bomb threats emptied thousands of employees from the TheYellowDailyNews' offices in California, New York, the District of Columbia and elsewhere.

Hiemricht Schmendricht, the publisher of TheYellowDailyNews, in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews, said the TheYellowDailyNews promised bin Laden that TheYellowDailyNews would keep the interview's location secret.

"We understand that the Bush administration has spent billions of dollars and almost seven years searching for Mr. bin Laden," Schmendricht said. "But TheYellowDailyNews' journalist integrity demands that TheYellowDailyNews fights this subpoena so bin Laden is not successful in eroding another American liberty, the free press."

President Bush, in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews, said TheYellowDailyNews, by challenging the subpoena, "was committing the most treasonous act since the union was founded more than 200 years ago."

Broome traveled to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border last week to conduct the five-hour taped interview with bin Laden, Schmendricht said. The interview was conducted in Arabic, without translators, in a small cave in the no-man's land separating the two countries, Schmendricht said, declining to provide further details.

Schmendricht said Broome's report quotes bin Laden as saying, "The United States is a godless state because it is a nation that says it lives under God but does not behave that way."

Bin Laden, in the interview, also urged Americans to consider "that it's been seven years since I flew your airplanes into the World Trade Center, and in that space where the symbol of capitalism once stood there is nothingness, an emptiness of dirt that leads to the wonderment of what would happen if more buildings were felled."

Broome, in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews, told TheYellowDailyNews that he arranged the bin Laden interview through al-Quada's press office.

"Al-Quada had about 50 former Jerry Brown press secretaries under its employ all wondering when they were gonna get a call for an interview with bin Laden," Broome said. "It was easier to get bin Laden's audience than it was to score my interview last week with Britney Spears."

Photo: badjonni

Bush: Truth-in-Lending is ‘Communism’

WASHINGTON -- (TYDN) The Federal Reserve tightened its mortgage rules Wednesday by requiring lenders to determine a borrower's ability to repay before issuing loans and barring other practices that led to the collapse of the U.S. housing market.

The Fed Board of Governors vote requires lenders to verify a homebuyer's income or assets, and create an escrow account for property taxes and homeowners' insurance. The rules curb penalties for repaying a loan early.

President Bush immediately blasted the so-called "truth-in-lending law."

Bush, while noting that the government is rescuing home-loan institutions such as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and others, said ordering banks to issue loans to only those who can repay them "sets a dangerous precedent that there must be truth in the marketplace."

"Our economy is based on the fallacy of a free-market economy, which taxpayers will always bail out," the president said in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews here in the Oval Office. "But if everybody knew the truth about the real economy or whatever they were investing in, everybody would put their money under their mattresses. This smacks of anti-free-market communism."

Bush's comments were a rebuke to Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, who said at Wednesday's meeting of the Fed that "It seems clear that unfair or deceptive acts and practices by lenders resulted in the extension of many loans, particularly high-cost loans, that were inappropriate for or misled the borrower.''

The Fed is responding to criticism from Democrats in Congress who blame the central bank for neglecting its authority to protect consumers from unfair mortgage and credit-card lending practices. The Fed adopted the rules under authority it won 14 years ago.

U.S. foreclosure filings rose 53 percent in June from a year earlier, with one in 501 U.S. households entering the foreclosure process. Foreclosures climbed as adjustable-rate mortgages reset, and property owners were unable to keep up the payments.

Analysts, too, were unsure whether truth in the marketplace was a good idea.

"Our economic system, in truth, functions solely on hide-and-seek accounting by public corporations and hyperbole from their corporate leaders who use the press as their sounding boards," Harvard University economics scholar Horatio Greenola said in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews. "And if anything really bad goes wrong, the feds will bail everybody out at the top, claim the trickle down theory and tax the poor to pay for it."

The Fed issued the rules using authority under a 1994 law aimed at protecting consumers in mortgage lending. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, had prodded the Fed to write the new regulations.

"I want to make it clear that truth in home-loan lending should not be equated with truth in the marketplace," Dodd said in a conference call with reporters. "The only way our 'free-market economy' works is via deception and a complete government bailout process while over and again invoking free-market theories."

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Study Suggests Apple Inc. Fanatics ‘Might’ be Gay

SAN FRANCISCO -- (TYDN) Researchers, perplexed by Apple Inc. fanatics who wait days and weeks in line to purchase the company's overpriced gadgets, are concluding that such behavior is not a choice but a biological inevitable because they "might" be gay.

University of California, San Francisco scientists, in research to be published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that the Apple-ites share similar brain patterns as gays and lesbians.

"The results cannot be primarily ascribed to learned effects, and they suggest a linkage to neurobiological entities," the researchers, led by Ivanka Savic, write in a groundbreaking paper that sheds progress on studies suggesting homosexuality is largely genetic.

Scientists have long tried to determine if sexual orientation is biologically determined, and if so, how. This research has been contentious in and outside the gay community.

In the latest study, researchers were quick to point out that it was unclear whether Apple fans were actually gay. But the research nevertheless sheds some light on why they wait in the heat, rain, sleet or snow for bragging rights to say they were first in line to purchase the latest Apple gadget.

Lead researcher Savic began studying brain patters of Apple fans who waited days, and in some cases, weeks in line to purchase the new iPhone last year and, more recently, stood in the freezing cold at the grand opening of the Manhattan Apple store. Researchers were alarmed at fans' reaction when lines bogged down for last week's debut of the new iPhone 3G.

Many fanatics uncontrollably curled on the ground, having what looked like epileptic seizures. Still, others suffered huge bouts of depression after they purchased their new iPhone. Others held out hope they would be first in line when next year's model was released.

"We began this study thinking there was some type of mental abnormality, a retardation of sorts, occurring over and again in these people," Savic said. "We started seeing similar brain scans among them. We were relieved, and at the same time, alarmed, to see that this abnormal behavior from this large cult of society was attributed to genetics and brain disposition, and not choice."

The study put gay and lesbian rights groups in a precarious position. They did not want to undermine studies showing their lifestyles were predisposed, but at the same time wished to distance their lifestyles from the Apple cult.

"Nowhere in the study does it conclude that, just because you zealously like Apple products, does that mean you're gay," said National Gay Rights Organization spokeswoman Jacky Dumars.

Still, analysts weren't so sure.

They suggested Steve Jobs, Apple's chairman, understood the causal link decades ago. The famous Apple logo, once adorned with rainbow colors, looks strikingly similar to the rainbow colored flags and stickers gays and lesbians use to announce their homosexuality.

Technology insiders said Jobs had recently altered the Apple logo to plain black, white or gray to appeal to the masses, instead of a niche group -- a move that has increased the Cupertino, Calif.-based technology company's market share in computers and has made it the leader in digital audio players, like the iPod.

Doctors Prescribing ‘the Onion’ as Sleep Aid

WASHINGTON -- (TYDN) The American Medical Association on Friday denounced the Food and Drug Administration's arrests of thousands of doctors across the United States for prescribing the once-humorous "fake news" site the Onion as a sleep aid.

At the behest of the FDA, armed federal agents stormed doctors' offices, arresting them on allegations for what is known as "off-label" prescribing. Each medical doctor faces up to 20 years behind bars if convicted and the loss of their licenses to prescribe medication.

Twenty years ago, the Onion began as a laugh-out-loud print tabloid, a tabloid now published online and originally intended to elevate the masses out of the doldrums with humor.

"These arrests demonstrate how outdated, and how far out of the mainstream the FDA approval process is," said AMA president Nancy H. Nielsen. "The Onion was initially approved as a mechanism for humor. But, over time, it has clearly lost its edge and has become a sleep-inducing vehicle. Obviously, the FDA hasn't reviewed the Onion in years."

The government often takes action against off-label prescribing; It's a practice whereby a doctor usually prescribes medication treating cardiovascular, skeletal and pulmonary conditions â.. but the medications are only FDA approved for other medical indications.

Analysts said it is the first time the FDA has initiated an arrest roundup for off-label prescribing of a sleep aid.

Still, the Bush administration defended the wide-scale arrests. "Clearly, the Onion isn't that funny any more," FDA spokesman Joseph Glowhard said. "Certainly, the Onion is boring. But whether it puts one to sleep, we haven't determined that yet."

Orenthal Cochran, an attorney for Arthur Laugher, a Malibu psychologist who was ensnared in the dragnet, defended his client for prescribing the Onion to sleep-deprived patients.

"TheYellowDailyNews is funny," he said. "But the Onion puts everybody to sleep. In fact, the Onion works so well as a sleeping pill, the FDA should have re-classified it as an anesthesia years ago."

Patients and independent analysts also weighed in on the side of the doctors.

"That the Onion's web site posts videos of scantily clad college girls underscores just how dumb and boring and what a sleep aid it has become," said Cleveland sleep-deprivation patient Jerrod Jalebatio. "If I want porn, I'll go to a real porn site. If I want to sleep at night, I'll go to the Onion.

"Before I was prescribed the Onion," Jalebatio added, "I hadn't slept since my parents, wife and children were killed in an airline disaster seven years ago. I missed the flight by a few minutes because I wanted to finish my $10 beer I just paid the airport bartender for."

The Onion editor, Dick UpRiordan, was napping and unavailable for comment.

Aliens Overstaying U.S. Visas Turn Green

LOS ANGELES -- (TYDN) University of Southern California scientists are to announce Wednesday the discovery of a novel gene therapy procedure they believe could monitor the newest wave of alien immigration to the United States, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

The therapy, developed by USC researchers and associates in Iraq's Fallujah Lab with funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, allows for the identification of immigrants who have stayed beyond their legal allowance by changing the color of their skin to an easily identifiable green after the expiration date of their Visas.

"The largest source of illegal immigrants is formerly legal immigrants," said Terrance Aviviendo, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security and a naturalized citizen told TheYellowDailyNews in an exclusive interview. "This is a safe, effective way of making sure that the people in our country are not aliens endangering our population. Illegal aliens in this country will become green, and that's how we'll know their illegal aliens."

New technologies for controlling immigration to the United States have accelerated in the aftermath of a series of calamities that have struck neighboring Mexico and Latin and South America.

Most regularly used immigrant tracking devices -- such as chip implants like those used by many American's in lieu of credit cards and plastic driver's licenses -- have proven too easy to remove. Still, watchdog groups are criticizing the invasiveness of the gene therapy procedure, and they wonder aloud why the government would chose to mutate illegal aliens into the color green.

"It just doesn't make sense why aliens would be the color green," Aliens Against Being Green Coalition spokesman Harold Green told TheYellowDailyNews in an exclusive interview. "This smacks of racism."

Still, the new procedure is administered like a vaccine with a simple synthetic virus, Pox Americana, based on the J. Craig Venter Institute's biofuel bug.

"Gene therapy is finally beginning to deliver on its considerable promise," said Jason Gobackens, the USC gene therapy researcher whose discoveries led to the immigration coloring schematic. "This is a safe, humane approach to monitoring illegal aliens, which will allow all legal residents to breathe a little easier."

While skin color might seem like a difficult thing to change, Gobackens said it's relatively easy to alter a human's most visible identity marker via genetically engineered reprogramming.

"It's just throwing a few genetic switches," he said. "Red heads with pale skin exist because of a mutation to a single gene. We're just remaking people green through the same process that nature would use."

The new advance is particularly notable because of the time-release aspect of the device. The therapy can be calibrated to begin its skin color changing at any time from one week after application until the death of the receiver.

"It all stems from the HIV treatment," said Dr. Harry Toronto, the Nobel laureate professor of virology at Harvard Medical School, and a leading researcher in the team that discovered the long-awaited cure for HIV. "When we figured out how to manipulate the mechanism that viruses use to lie dormant, it opened a lot of doors."

Immigration has become an increasingly important topic in U.S. political circles, in part due to a dramatic increase in refugees fleeing the widening war that has engulfed the continent since the United States invaded Venezuela last August. The situation at the U.S. border, and all across the Americas, has been worsened by a record 11 Category Five hurricanes that have flattened several parts of the continent.

Some analysts estimate that more than 15 million people have applied for entry into the United States in the last five months alone. About 40,000 will be granted permanent visas. Several million more will be given temporary work visas -- the reason why they will turn green when their visas expire, the government said.

Photo: Garette

Reality Alters After ‘Watermelon-is-Like Viagra’ Study

LUBBOCK, Texas -- (TYDN) A recently published study concluding watermelon contains Viagra-like components has produced a new legal strategy to defend rape charges known as the "watermelon defense," according to an investigation by TheYellowDailyNews. The report, which prompted watermelon prices to swell, has also dramatically altered the grocery store shopping experience.

Watermelon-is-like-Viagra, first reported three weeks ago by TheYellowDailyNews, was conducted by Texas A&M University's Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center. There, researchers concluded watermelons contained the ingredient citrulline that triggers the production of a compound that helps relax the body's blood vessels, similar to what happens when a man takes Viagra.

The breakthrough study, which is being challenged vigorously by Viagra maker Pfizer, has prompted federal authorities to consider banning the red-fleshed summer fruit from minors. Several states are considering making it illegal for registered sex offenders to consume. Local county fair boards across America are canceling watermelon-seed spitting contests.

An analysis by TheYellowDailyNews, the most exhaustive in the watermelon-is-like Viagra context, has prompted criminal defense attorneys to cite the so-called "watermelon defense" to assist in an onslaught of reported rapes of female grocery store cashiers and unaccompanied female grocery shoppers.

"You should have seen the way the cashier smiled at my client, my client who was buying a shopping cart of watermelon," defense attorney Orenthal Cochran told a throng of reporters outside Los Angeles County Superior Court. "The victim in this case, the alleged victim that is, happily sold him 100-plus pounds of watermelon and now she claims she didn't want him to follow her home, break down her door and make passionate love to her after he gagged her."

"When my client is acquitted of these malicious charges, we're going to sue that non victim for everything she has," Cochran added. "We also plan on suing the grocery store for giving out samples of watermelon in the produce department."

Watermelon prices jumped from about 30 cents per pound in the grocery store to more than $1 after the university researchers published their findings in Watermelon News.

Still, other researchers are to report Monday in Psychology Today that the Texas A&M study, Watermelon-is-like-Viagra, has fundamentally reshaped the grocery shopping experience. Researchers found that it took both men and women about 3.5 shopping trips to end their embarrassment when buying condoms at the grocery store, but evidence suggests that it would take as many as 10 trips for watermelon or more.

"When men or women pick up Viagra at the pharmacy, it's a clinical setting and nobody but the pharmacist knows what they're buying," said Gerald Hooliohan, a Penn State University scholar who wrote An Essay Concerning the Aftermath of the Watermelon-is-Like Viagra Study: A Real World View.

"Now, when you're at the store buying watermelon, in the parking lot putting it in your car or in your driveway bringing it into your house, everybody knows you got watermelon. And you're wondering whether they're wondering why you got watermelon," Hooliohan said in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews.

Growers, meanwhile, were scrambling to increase the amount of citrulline, the Viagra-like component, in watermelons. Paper bag manufacturers were researching bag strength to determine whether they could produce a large, grocery store brown sack to conceal the unease of watermelon ownership caused by the Watermelon-is-like-Viagra study.

Texas A&M declined comment on how the university uncovered the discovery. But university sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told TheYellowDailyNews they are expected soon to release a ground-breaking study on the sexual benefits of carrots and cucumbers.

Photo: mfrascella

Obama’s ‘Aliveness’ Underscores Black Progress

LAS VEGAS -- (TYDN) That Barack Obama, the first major party black presidential candidate, has not been assassinated underscores the progress blacks have made in America, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

Just 40 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr., who fought to end black segregation, was gunned down as he spoke against the racial tyranny in which blacks have lived under in the United States. Now, a black man is poised perhaps to lead a nation that once enslaved African Americans -- a nation that was nearly ripped asunder in a civil war waged over the injustices of slavery, according to an exhaustive historical analysis by TheYellowDailyNews.

"Think back through history -- the Abe Lincolns, the Martin Luther Kings, the Malcolm Xs -- these people supported the black cause and they were all killed for it," University of Nevada, Las Vegas historian Luke Back, who did not request anonymity, told TheYellowDailyNews in an exclusive interview. "Obama's aliveness tells us something, that blacks have come a long way since the black-only eateries, the white-only drinking fountains, the lynch mobs and having to ride in the back of the bus."

Still, political analysts suggested Obama's aliveness has less to do with black progress than it does with Hillary Clinton. Many analysts noted that blacks earn less than whites, have a higher incarceration rate and have a tougher time getting a higher education â.. all of which means Obama's aliveness is "thanks to the fact that his deadness might mean Hillary Clinton becoming president," Harvard University revisionist historian Marvel Wattengburg, who did not request anonymity, said in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews.

"At this stage, an Obama assassination would be suicide," Wattengburg added.

Because of Obama's aliveness, bookmakers here along the Las Vegas Strip have been taking a financial pounding. The casinos have paid out hundreds of millions in wagers to bettors who plopped their money on Obama's aliveness continuing at least through Independence Day. Clinton dropped out of the Democratic Party's race for the presidential nod two months ago.

And the casinos find themselves in a financial crossroads. Hundreds of millions more dollars on Obama's aliveness have been wagered leading up to the November election.

"We thought this was a no-brainer at first, that his aliveness would have expired months ago," said Caesar's Palace oddsmaker Harold Boilmerker. "We shouldn't have strayed from our bread-and-butter of sports bookmaking."

Still, Boilmerker and other Vegas oddsmakers have been consulting with political scientists on whether they should open wagering on Obama's aliveness if he beats Republican Sen. John McCain in the November election.

"If he becomes president, and Hilary is out of the equation, I wouldn't bet on his aliveness," Obama aliveness scholar Jason Toad told TheYellowDailyNews in an exclusive interview.

Toad, who has studied Obama aliveness affairs for months and did no request anonymity, suggested Obama would ensure his aliveness "by having Clinton as his running mate."

"Nobody would want Obama's deadness if his absence of aliveness would mean Clinton would assume the presidency," Toad said.

Other Obama aliveness scholars, who requested anonymity, suggested Toad's thinking was shortsighted. They told TheYellowDailyNews in exclusive interviews that having Clinton as Obama's vice president perhaps would ensure Obama's and Clinton's deadness.

Photo: jurvetson

Candidates Compete in Pledge of Allegiance Utterances

WASHINGTON -- (TYDN) Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has uttered the Pledge of Allegiance thousands of times more than rival Democrat, Sen. Barack Obama, according to a two-month investigation by TheYellowDailyNews.

The investigation, the most exhaustive in the Pledge of Allegiance utterance sphere, concluded that McCain, the Arizona senator, uttered the pledge 25,915 times compared to Obama, the Illinois senator who the probe concluded uttered it only 16,425 times.

The analysis, with a margin of error of 9 percentage points, is expected to be key fodder in the patriotism debate engulfing the campaign as each candidate jockeys to shore up the patriotism vote ahead of the November election.

Republicans seized on the far-reaching analysis, saying the numbers proved McCain is more patriotic than Obama. They said the report demonstrates McCain is the better choice to lead the nation in the war in Iraq, and to fix an economy in recession while undoing record oil prices and home foreclosures.

"We applaud TheYellowDailyNews for disclosing this untold story. This investigation tells Americans about Obama's lack of commitment to America and highlights his lack of leadership skills," said Jefferson Davis, a spokesman for Americans for America Who Are For The American Way, a splinter group of Americans for America Who Are For The American Way But If You Don't Love America Leave America Right This Minute.

Obama spokesman Dexter Mulligan blasted the survey, saying TheYellowDailyNews should "do it over and do its homework."

"Mr. Obama has been uttering the pledge in a whisper almost nonstop for months, which should boost his numbers by the thousands," Mulligan said. "This is the yellowiest form of journalism I've ever seen."

Fox News' Bill O'Reilly suggested that Obama, in a bid to run up his pledge utterance numbers, often would gloss over words like "under God."

In an exclusive interview, Obama denied the allegations, which were first reported late Tuesday on TheYellowDailyNews' website. "I admit that I was trying to increase my Pledge of Allegiance utterances output," Obama said in a telephone interview. "I love God just as much as Mr. McCain. "Jesus Christ, I swear I said 'under God.'"

In response, Pope Benedict XVI, in a communique issued from the Vatican and obtained by TheYellowDailyNews, urged the nation's Catholics to shun Obama. "He thinks it's OK to say the Lord's name in vain," the pontiff wrote.

Some statisticians decried the survey for it failing to note that McCain, at age 71, is 25 years older than the 46-year-old Obama, giving him a huge time advantage to rack up his Pledge of Allegiance utterance numbers.

Linguists were also analyzing the study's methodology. They were concerned the report may have misinterpreted the number of Pledge of Allegiance utterances McCain's Vietnam captors reported to researchers.

"We're reviewing the interviews the researchers had with McCain's captors and are concerned that they may have mistaken what they thought were repeated utterances of the Pledge Allegiance," said Dick Lingolo, a Harvard University professor of English. "Our preliminary analysis suggests McCain was muttering to his captors something like, 'If I survive, I pledge to shove a Napalm bomb up you and your gook family's derrieres.'"

Photo: blmurch

Analysis: Gun Ruling Bodes Well for 1st Amendment

WASHINGTON -- (TYDN) The U.S. Supreme Court's decision affirming an individual's right to bear arms under the Second Amendment is likely to bolster First Amendment free-speech protections, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

The justices' 5-4 Thursday decision, split along party lines, is expected to embolden Americans wanting to express themselves who had remained silent because they were unarmed. Under the high court's decision, which said individuals had an almost absolute right to carry weapons unrelated to service in a state-run militia, persons with views outside the mainstream now will more likely utter their speech.

"The ability to carry weapons, like at the beach, at a sports stadium and even at the local Parents Teachers Association meeting will energize the national discussion," American Civil Liberties Union director Anthony Romero said. "Throughout history, people have been sheepish in standing up for what they believed. Now they have the Constitution, perhaps in the form of a concealed handgun, on their side backing up their opinion."

It was the first time in the nation's history that the Supreme Court has ruled that individuals have a right to weapons. The Second Amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The National Rifle Association, which won the ruling after challenging a handgun ban in the District of Columbia, said the decision protects the weak by empowering the meagerly minded to have their voices heard. A side benefit to the far-reaching decision, according to the NRA, would be a safer, yet more talkative, America.

"A lot of people are going to say what's on their minds now because the justices said it's OK to have a Smith & Wesson in their toddler's diaper bag," said NRA lobbyist Christopher Cox. "But these gun enthusiasts are less likely to draw that Smith & Wesson knowing that the person they're speaking their mind to has got perhaps an even larger Smith & Wesson."

Groups representing the mentally ill derided the decision because it left intact federal and state rules prohibiting their clients from weapons ownership -- an infringement on their First Amendment right to free speech.

"This ruling basically stands for the proposition that nobody wants to hear from the mentally disabled," Disability Rights Advocates attorney Sid Wolinsky said in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews. "Once again, the voices of the disabled have been pistol whipped by the courts."

Advocates for Convicted Felons spokesman Jack Derringer said the ruling vindicates a large swath of the group's constituents who had been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for "what now seems like the absurd crime of possessing or discharging firearms to back up their First Amendment rights."

The First Amendment says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Photo: Mike Licht

McCain Backs Condom ‘Sin’ Tax

WASHINGTON -- (TYDN) Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain is set to propose what campaign aides describe as "the truest sin tax ever," a $5 surcharge on every condom, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

The Arizona senator is expected to announce the far-reaching plan at a news conference here Friday, campaign operatives said late Thursday. Some insiders said the controversial proposal was less about revenue generation than it was to deter Americans from having sex for purposes other than reproduction.

The sources also likened the move as a form of so-called social Darwinism, by which the tax would likely spawn a new generation of impoverished Americans who would acquiesce to being reared with "any sense of a realistic expectation that they would live better than their parents, and not to expect it anymore."

"Obviously, this will impact the poor, who will likely forgo condoms and reproduce a newer, low-wage population that will have no expectations of being better off than the previous generation, and this is what the Republican Party, and, frankly, the Democratic Party are capitalizing on," a McCain insider, requesting anonymity because she has not been authorized to disclose the philosophy behind the tax, told TheYellowDailyNews in an exclusive interview.

"Alcohol and tobacco is what we usually associate with as sin taxes," the source said. "This tax is the truest sin tax ever."

Still, there's a rift among the McCain campaign over the proposal.

Other McCain insiders suggested the idea was among the most advanced in history to reduce global warning while being mindful not to associate the tax with China's one-person-per-family rule or Hitler's Nazi Germany. They suggested that the tax would put condoms outside the reach of many Americans, who would forego intercourse and slow population growth -- all of which would purify the environment.

"This tax is a win-win, and we're openly using the term tax," another McCain insider told TheYellowDailyNews, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "How many candidates can say 'tax' with a straight face?"

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democrats' candidate for president, is considering a smaller "surcharge" for each condom, perhaps at the $4 level, Obama aides said. One aide said, however, that Obama operatives are having a difficult time getting the Illinois senator to commit.

"He sees everything as black or white," said the aide, in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews. "Sometimes it's black and sometimes it's white. It's hard for him to go middle of the road."

Pope Benedict XVI criticized the plan, saying it would have little effect on the Church's unmarried followers because they already practice abstinence. "And our ordained members, the priests," the pontiff added, "have sex with under-aged boys incapable of being impregnated."

Photo: TheGirlsNY

Bush Backs SEC Changes to Credit Rating Industry

WASHINGTON -- (TYDN) The Bush administration is backing Securities and Exchange Commission proposals that may diminish the longstanding importance of credit ratings across various markets, including the $3.4 trillion money-market industry, in the latest blow to the rating business stemming from the credit crunch, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

The most significant portion of the rules -- which only insiders can profit from because nobody else understands them -- would make it possible for U.S. money-market funds to invest in short-term debt without regard to ratings put on those securities by firms such as Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's, sources requesting anonymity because they have not been authorized to publicly disclose how the rich get richer told TheYellowDailyNews late Wednesday.

Currently, SEC rules generally require that money-market funds purchase only short-term debt with high investment-grade ratings. The new rules would put more discretion in the hands of money managers to determine whether the debt is investment grade, according to administration sources.

President Bush applauded the proposal in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews in the Oval Office early Thursday.

"We need to ensure that when investors invest, they are investing in what investors would want to invest in, and that it's a high-grade investment," the president said. "I have always invested myself to ensure investors invest in what is a good investment, in what is investable, in what the market would want to invest in."

Sources suggested the SEC rule changes would diminish the importance of credit ratings in determining the amount of capital that investment banks are required to hold. In all, the proposal would put about a dozen changes on the table that would touch on the role of credit ratings for investors and banks, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

Lehman Sachs analyst Din Ero said the changeover would have a far-reaching benefit to the economy. "Ratings agencies that invest in the stocks they rate, would no longer have a say in the ratings of stocks that others invest in," Ero said. "This means, for the better, that traders would be more invested in their investment brokers who advise them to buy the stocks they are advising and invested in."

Other analysts were more optimistic.

"The SEC's proposal means I can invest wantonly, even if that means driving up the price of oil, gasoline, baby food, housing and shelter, and the government would bail me out if it all tanks," Sid Barringer, a Los Angeles bankruptcy attorney and day trader, said in an exclusive interview. "This proposal should make the next welfare mother, the scourge of society, think twice before considering having another baby."

The renewed banking effort is part of a wide-ranging regulatory push in the United States and Europe amid the credit crunch that has devastated many banks and investors. Major ratings services -- Moody's Corp.'s Moody's Investors Service, McGraw-Hill Cos.' Standard & Poor's and Fimalac SA's Fitch Ratings-- have been blamed by some for underestimating the risk of default on hundreds of billions of dollars on mortgage debt.

Financial insiders said the proposed rules unveil a dirty secret of some bond investors who simply bought securities with the highest yield for a given rating, which is why they snapped up complicated securities tied to subprime mortgages. Those securities often got high ratings but yielded more than standard securities with the same rating, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

TYDN wire services contributed to this report.

Arctic Scientists Embracing Winter Darkness

MCMURDO STATION, Antarctica -- (TYDN) The absence of sunlight has engulfed this American scientific outpost here, where the first sunrise won't be visible for two months, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

The last supplies to this scientific research hub have just arrived from Wellington, New Zealand, about 2,200 miles to the north. The remaining 125 scientists and staff, who will endure subfreezing temperatures for months, will have to make do with what the U.S. Antarctic Program has delivered.

It's a rag-tag team of patriotic male and female volunteers who stay on as a skeleton staff through one of the harshest winters on Earth. The U.S. government has sent 16,500 condoms, 150 kegs of beer, various crates of snack chips and vodka, a truckload of toilet paper, 16,500 doses of Viagra, scientific equipment and massive amounts of aspirin.

Bill Henriksen, the manager of the McMurdo base station, said he only ordered a fraction of supplies compared to past winters. "It's constantly dark here. You can't go outside and there's not that much to do," he said. "This year, we're foregoing shipments of tanning lotion, sun glasses, swim trunks, lawn mowers, the ice-making machines, ice cream and sprinkler systems."

Members of the skeleton crew said working here in the winter is not as glamorous as it might seem, according to Chuck Upton, a 34-year-old anthropologist from Southern California who studies sheep migration.

"Our beer rations aren't available each day until after noon. And do you know how embarrassing it is to ask the pharmacist for another dozen rubbers and for more hits of Viagra?" Upton asked. "Everybody knows everybody. And everybody knows that I haven't done it with anyone of them out here."

Ina Neednit, a climatologist from Chicago, said it will be her third winter here. She does not share Upton's grim view. "I just feel so beautiful, so wanted," the 300-pound Neednit said. "I just seem to glow in the absence of light."

CBS is planning a reality TV show in which it will secretly bring the skeleton crew's spouses to this remote camp, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

Sources told TheYellowDailyNews that CBS was experimenting with a new breed of reality television, where a series is concocted not knowing its ultimate theme. One CBS executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was not clear "whether the show will devolve into another '70s swinger show or a horror film."

In the summer, the base is home to some 1,000 researchers and staff. Sunlight is not forecast until Aug. 20.

Photo: elisfanclub

Book Deal for (Alleged) Killer Busted by Alert Officer

ALBERMARLE, N.C. -- (TYDN) Betty Neumar, the 76-year-old grandma jailed here and suspected of murdering five husbands over three decades, has signed a deal to publish her memoir "If I killed My Husbands (and I Didn't) Here's How I Would Have Done It," TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

A Penguin Books spokeswoman confirmed the $1 million deal, first reported on the TheYellowDailyNews' website late Thursday.

Neumar, a housewife through five husbands in this blue-collar town in North Carolina, says in the book that, if she would have killed her husbands, she would have had them "shot in the back in what was a staged home-invasion robbery," according to excerpts, obtained by TheYellowDailyNews.

Neumar, jailed on suspicion of hiring a hit man to off her fifth husband, writes, "If I wanted to have my husbands killed, I would have paid somebody, go out of town, come home and look kinda shocked when I saw them lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen."

According to police reports, her fifth husband, John Neumar, was "shot in the back in what was a staged home-invasion robbery while his wife was out of town."

The woman's attorney, Charles Krauthehiemer, said there was no relationship between the fictions "Ms. Neumar was writing in her book and what happened to her husband, John, or to her four other husbands."

Sources said the woman earned $5 million in life insurance payouts, all from Mutual of Omaha, which never questioned the five claims.

Albemarle police are crediting a veteran detective with solving the mystery.

"She looked kinda shocked when she saw John Neumar lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen when I responded to her house where she's lived for 40 years," Det. Jason Keeneye said in an exclusive interview. "She had proof she was out of town."

"Then it started to add up. I remembered that the same thing happened a few years before in the same house, and some time before that and some time before that and so on -- all in the same house and they were all shot in the back, on a pool of blood," added Keeneye, who was handed the Detective of the Year Award from the city of Albemarle. "I started getting suspicious after the fourth husband was killed the same way, in the same place, in the kitchen. The fifth time just pushed me over the cliff."

In an exclusive jailhouse interview with TheYellowDailyNews, Betty Neumar, her balding gray hair draping her orange jail jumpsuit, said she was innocent. She added that she was engaged to marry a sixth husband, but the wedding was called off after she discovered him "lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen after I returned home from being out of town."

"He was a victim of a home-invasion robbery," she said.

First CA Married Lesbian Couple Divorcing

SAN FRANCISCO -- (TYDN) San Francisco lesbians Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon made unprecedented history on both Monday and Tuesday, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

On Monday, the partners of 55 years were the first to marry under a California Supreme Court decision overturning state law allowing only opposite-sex couples to tie the knot. Thousands of other same-sex couples across the Golden State also wedded.

But hours after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom officiated the historic Martin-Lyon wedding, the self-declared "spouses for life" filed for divorce on Tuesday, thus becoming California's first same-sex marriage couple seeking to dissolve their nuptials.

The marriage was 18 hours old.

"It wasn't long until after she said, 'I do,' that she turned into a raving bitch," Lyon, 83, told TheYellowDailyNews in an exclusive interview here. "And then that arm fat, her arm fat looked like it grew inches during the ceremony."

For her part, Martin, 87, who now uses a wheelchair, said she suspected her new wife married her for her money.

"Jesus Christ, I barely kissed the bride and suddenly she started ringing up my credit card like money grew on trees," Martin said. "What really pissed me off was the plywood coffin she ordered for me on overnight delivery."

The divorce filing came hours after the San Francisco Police Department responded to a domestic dispute call at the divorcing couple's Pacific Heights neighborhood apartment that they've shared for four decades, SFPD sources said.

"One of them wanted to move the couch and re-arrange some furniture, I can't remember who, and the other just broke down, saying she couldn't live under these conditions anymore, that she wanted to see other people," an officer who responded to the scene, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, told TheYellowDailyNews.

"They just started throwing stuff, and screaming, 'I'm sick of you. Get out and I hate your parents,'" the officer said.

The divorce papers, obtained by TheYellowDailyNews, cited "irreconcilable differences" as grounds for the divorce.

After Massachusetts, California became the nation's second state to allow same-sex marriage. California's same-sex nuptials, which were sanctioned to begin at 5:01 p.m. on Monday, were a result of Lyon and Martin suing, claiming they should be treated the same as opposite-sex couples.

Photo: bilericoproject

Schwarzenegger, Meteorologists Face Treason Charges

SACRAMENTO -- (TYDN) California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was arrested here late Thursday and charged with treason for declaring a statewide drought after two years of below-average rainfall -- dryness the governor said was causing extreme fire danger across the Golden State.

Federal agents stormed Schwarzenegger's office at the statehouse here about 11 p.m. on Thursday.

The agents accused him of treason against the United States. He was whisked away to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and will likely be executed along with as many as 600 other enemy combatants rounded up in Afghanistan and Iraq for plotting against the United States.

Schwarzenegger was the first arrested in DroughtGate, in what was followed by dozens of other arrests of California meteorologists. They, too, are accused of treason, of alerting al-Qaida via their news broadcasts that the state was suffering from one of its worst droughts, and informing the public that fire conditions were dangerously high.

"What Mr. Schwarzenegger did, and what those pawns in the media echoed, was a message to the terrorists, to the people that hate us, that all they have to do is toss a lit cigarette into the brush and they can conflate massive chaos," President Bush said in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews. "Once again, you're either with the fight against terror, or you're complicit with terror. Clearly, Schwarzenegger and all of his media acolytes are for terror."

Moments after Bush's exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews in the Oval Office, his spokeswoman, Dana Perino, immediately clarified that the Republican president had misspoken.

"The president in no way made an overture that the tobacco industry, with the millions of deaths that they have caused to men, woman and children globally, in no way did he mean to say the tobacco industry was affiliated with terrorism," Perino said. "The president meant to say that terrorists could toss a lit match into the brush, not a cigarette."

Civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, immediately defended the president.

The ACLU noted that treasonous speech was indefensible and carried no First Amendment protections, just like child pornography. "How many people will now die, will be endangered because of Mr. Schwarzenegger's reprehensible speech?" asked Anthony Romero, the ACLU's executive director.

Schwarzenegger spokesman, Aaron McLear, said the governor was sorry for endangering the nation, for sullying the good name of California, which produces the world's sixth largest economy.

"Since he was Mr. Universe, he's gotten pretty flabby. We hope this time in Gitmo, he'll take the opportunity to shed a few pounds and pump some iron," McLear said. "Then he'll be ready for the next 'Terminator' movie or, in the alternative, look good for his execution."

The Justice Department said as many as 56 meteorologists for the news media was also rounded up and hauled to Guantanamo Bay. Representatives for the media denied any wrongdoing but apologized for what they conceded was "egregious acts of treason," which is likely to carry a death sentence for Schwarzenegger and the weathermen and weatherwomen.

"We were in the process of abandoning our weather coverage on our news stations and moving toward focusing exclusively on hyping our reality TV shows," CBS President Leslie Moonves said in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews.

"Our next show is a combination of professional eating while forbidding the players from going to the bathroom," Moonves said.

Executives for ABC immediately countered, saying they would offer a similar show, but demand the participants sleep with their opponents' wives, a show ABC News President David Westin described as a "tinder box minus the treason."

Photo:  woodleywonderworks

McCain Won't Tap VP Running Mate

HANOI, Vietnam -- (TYDN) Sen. John McCain will accept the Republican Party nomination for U.S. president and will go on the ticket absent a vice-presidential running mate, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

Four McCain campaign operatives, speaking on condition of anonymity because they have not been authorized to publicize the strategy, said the Arizona senator is expected to announce in Hanoi, Vietnam, that he is going solo perhaps as early as Wednesday.

"It's more than just the senator knowing that nobody believes in God as much as he does," one McCain operative told TheYellowDailyNews late Tuesday. "He doesn't think anybody else has killed as many people, as many enemies of the United States as he has. He doesn't want to be seen as coddling to the weak."

Revisionist historians said it was the first time in the republic's history that a presidential candidate has declined a vice president to appear alongside on the ballot. While some historians suggested the approach verged on despotism, others said it was a natural evolutionary flow following President Bush's two terms in office.

"There's nobody there to bring McCain the candidate down in this election," USC historian Farquadia Marumama said in an exclusive interview. "For eight years, Bush lived under the shadow of what's his name, Dick Cheney, the vice president, that dead guy behind the curtain that nobody has seen alive for years, but a guy many thought was pulling the strings."

Another McCain operative, speaking on condition of anonymity, said McCain would deliver the news in a makeshift bamboo cage outside Hanoi here, where he was held captive during the Vietnam War for five years. The candidate, the operative said, is expected to tell a news conference that any potential running mate "could never live up to my love for country, the thirst to kill for that country and my love for Jesus."

Strategists said the move has pushed into a corner McCain's rival, Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee for president. The Illinois senator, who just defeated New York Sen. Hillary Clinton in the primary, has not made up his mind whether he, too, would go solo during the November election.

Several Obama strategists, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the country's first black man on a major presidential party ticket was mulling a female running mate. But the strategists and Obama are unsure whether Clinton is the right choice, although many strategists suggest she would solidify the ticket.

"We're considering a white woman, a lesbian, somebody with broad appeal who gave birth to a black child after divorcing a Muslim man who beat her, didn't allow her to drive and beat her again after she drove to church and later converted to Judaism," one Obama operative said. "She must have dabbled in pornography, been victimized in a nunnery, practiced criminal defense and later quit the bar to adopt Chinese children while working at a convenience store in Middle America who shot at least two armed robbers with an unregistered handgun she carried in her overalls."

Photo: ZekeSaysSo

J.Lo Hospitalized After Buttocks Catch Fire

SOUTH BEACH, Miami -- (TYDN) Singer, actress and model Jennifer Lopez was rushed to a local hospital here after her buttocks caught fire at a night club party, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

The actress, who Playboy magazine rated as having the "hottest" buttocks in Hollywood, was dancing at Café Polozonoblo when her buttocks suddenly turned into a raging conflagration late Sunday, witnesses said.

"I was having a beer and staring at her buttocks while she was swirling around on the dance floor and I was thinking, 'I definitely want a piece of that,' and suddenly her buttocks ignited," partygoer James Wilson said. "Her buttocks were so smoking hot; they just started flaming right there before my eyes."

Other witnesses said dozens of partygoers were trampled when J.Lo's entourage rushed the Latin sensation from the club. Internet chat sites were filled with discussions on whether the flames marked an end of an era.

Investigators from Barclays Insurance Group PLC, which has insured Lopez' buttocks for $1 billion, immediately dispatched to the scene as many as 20 investigators from its Assets Department. One South Beach police official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he has not been authorized to publicize the investigation, said dozens of South Beach Fire Department investigators are scrutinizing the blaze.

"A lot of the guys immediately stepped up to probe this," the police official said. "They hope to get to the bottom soon."

A spokesman for the Our Lady the Mercy Hospital in South Beach said Lopez's husband, Latin music sensation Marc Anthony, was at the 38-year-old star's bedside. The actress, popularly nicknamed J.Lo, "is recovering from severe burns on her buttocks," said hospital spokeswoman Nila Forlorn.

Forlorn declined to provide details about the severity of the burns and whether both cheeks fell victim. J.Lo spokesman Haklan Roswellio also declined to give details, but said there was some discord with the medical staff on how to treat Lopez.

"They've been butting heads and calling each other's treatment plans asinine," Roswellio said.

The National Inquirer posted on its website a picture of what appeared to capture the moment Lopez's buttocks became engulfed in flames. Paparazzi photographer Burt Bunseyedo, in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews, said it was a picture of a lifetime.

"My lens has been trained on her buttocks for years," Bunseyedo said. "Her buttocks literally combusted. I think many of us knew this would happen."

Photo: Chris1002x

Gas Station Sign Changers Suffering, Unionizing

LOS ANGELES -- (TYDN) Thousands of gas station workers are suffering from what health experts are labeling "repetitive marquee sign stress syndrome," a condition linked to changing signage at gas stations dozens of times daily to reflect the ever-increasing price of petroleum.

The AFL-CIO is haggling with the nation's largest oil concerns in a bid to unionize these workers, who battle frigid temperatures, snow, rain, fog, wind and the boiling heat to keep motorists informed of the always changing price of gasoline -- all for meager wages of about $6.25 hourly.

Some marquee sign changers must climb shaky ladders while braving extreme heights. All the while, they succumb to the screams from their supervisors and they are also victims of constant threats from angry motorists when these sign changers meticulously rearrange the plastic numbers to reflect skyrocketing gas prices that are eroding the American Dream.

The Justice Department was mulling whether to declare acts of violence against gas station marquee sign changers a hate crime after a motorist got out of his car and kicked the ladder from under a sign changer, causing the sign changer to plummet 25 feet and breaking both legs at an Arkansas gas station last week. The American Civil Liberties Union was strongly lobbying against the proposal, which increases any crime's penalty up to five years if directed at a marquee sign changer.

"This legislation doesn't make a distinction to when the sign changer is on or off the job," ACLU spokeswoman Norma Mailanandra said in an exclusive interview. "Does this mean that if I rob a marquee sign changer who is working the cash register, not knowing he is a marquee sign changer, I'm going to get rung up with extra time? That's a First Amendment violation of the highest order."

When President Bush took office in 2001, the average nationwide price for a gallon of regular unleaded was $1.46 a gallon and remained steady. Today, gas nervously hovers at $4 a gallon.

Until recently, marquee sign changing was among the plumb assignments for gas station attendants, a dangerous duty usually exercised once a day and sometimes getting these brave minimum-wage soldiers out of bathroom-cleanup duty.

But that plush lifestyle is now eroding along with the American Dream as speculators and the world's petroleum companies -- fearing the apocalypse, endless war and famine -- have pushed the price of a barrel to record levels of $130, with prices endlessly fluctuating throughout the day.

Several sign changers nationwide told reporters from TheYellowDailyNews that they're now forced to recast gas prices all day long, regardless of the weather. Many are suffering unusual shoulder and hand pain from what some experts say mirrors carpal tunnel-like complications. Other sign changers are suffering the psychological toll of being verbally accosted by motorists unhappy with the cost of gas.

"There I was, for the tenth time that day, in the blistering cold and howling wind, on a 10-foot ladder changing the price when this drunken dude driving an old Ford green pickup started yelling that he was gonna kidnap my daughter and perform unspeakable acts on her," said one ExxonMobil marquee sign changer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared he could lose his job for publicizing the event that happened last week outside a South-Central gas station here.

What's more, hundreds of marquee sign changers have been fired, or demoted to bathroom-cleaning duties, after complaining about the dangerous and unhealthy conditions. The AFL-CIO is attempting to unionize the nation's estimated 22,457 marquee sign changers in a bid to get better wages and less ladder time, union sources familiar with the matter told TheYellowDailyNews.

"These marquee sign changers are the forgotten heroes in the oil wars who brave the elements, and when they complain, they're being fired in unprecedented numbers and in violation of federal law," one union source said.

One oil executive, who earns more per day than a marquee sign changer could in a lifetime, told TheYellowDailyNews that the industry opposes a marquee sign changing union. The exectutive said gas would soon reach $5 a gallon if one was approved.

"These marquee sign changers are greedy, and are the cause of the spike in gas prices," said the executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he has not been authorized to discuss the real reasons for high gas prices.

Photo: Marshall Astor - Food Pornographer

Grinning Texas Polygamists Greet Returning Kids

ELDORADO, Texas -- (TYDN) Smiling and grinning polygamists welcomed with open arms the return Tuesday of about 400 children removed weeks ago from a polygamist sect's private compound here.

The children -- from infants to teenagers --were allowed to move back to Yearning For Zion Ranch, where Texas child-welfare officials have alleged that underage girls were pushed into spiritual marriages with older men and forced to have sex with their fathers. The parents claimed there was no abuse, and the Texas Supreme Court ruled that state welfare workers went too far in removing the children amid allegations that as many as 31 of the teen-aged girls was pregnant.

The Texas high court, ruling last week that only 30 of the girls was pregnant, said the Texas Child Protective Services agency "went too far and leveled false allegations to these God-fearing and loving worshippers of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."

The Fundamentalist church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints preaches that polygamy brings glorification in heaven. It is a breakaway sect of the Mormon Church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago.

A sect elder, speaking on condition of anonymity because he has not been authorized to address the media, told TheYellowDailyNews in front of a gate at the locked compound here that many of the parents were excited to see the return of the children, who were removed three weeks ago amid the pregnancy allegations and accusations of sexual abuse.

"We're just looking forward to when little children can be in the arms of their parents," the elder said. "Until you have your children in your hands, there's no relief."

As part of the children's return, the sect's men at Yearning For Zion Ranch, many having as many as a dozen wives and untold number of children, promised not to force sex on the children and instead agreed only to have intercourse with minors who consent. The Texas high court said removal of the children also was not necessary because the young girls, about 253 of the 400 children, would be forced to wear chastity belts.

Child welfare workers, who would be charged with maintaining the keys to the chastity belts, opposed the kids' return. They argued that chastity belts would not protect against anal and oral sex.

The chief of Texas' child protective services agency, his five deputies, secretary and dog were scheduled to be executed by lethal injection as punishment for overstepping their authority when they ordered the removal of the kids last month, the Texas high court declared. Only a stay by the U.S. Supreme Court could halt their Wednesday morning scheduled executions.

TheYellowDailyNews wire services contributed to this report.

NRA Wants Concealed Weapons on Flights

WASHINGTON -- (TYDN) The Bush administration is mulling lifting the ban of concealed weapons on U.S-based passenger air flights, a move government officials say would allow fliers to defend themselves from hijackings, rapes, robberies and other crimes running rampant in the sky and at airports, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

The proposed changes, which are being pushed by the National Rifle Association, follow the Interior Department's lifting of the ban on concealed weapons in National Parks. That plan is designed to allow vacationers to protect themselves from armed bears, packs of hostile wolves, non-Christians, minorities and gays and lesbians who may have wandered aimlessly into the nation's scenic treasures.

"Imagine stumbling into an inter-racial same-sex marriage, right there on a grassy knoll in a public, national park," NRA lobbyist Chris Cox said.

Three Bush administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they have not been authorized to discuss the airline rule changes, told TheYellowDailyNews early Monday that allowing fliers to secretly arm themselves in airports and in the sky "is what the Second Amendment to the U.S Constitution stands for, and more than likely would have prevented 9-11."

"Terrorists, knowing that the person sitting next to them might be armed, would think twice before trying to dive-bomb the plane into buildings," one of the officials said.

But it was unclear whether the plan would come to fruition. While the NRA has given millions to the administration in favor of the change, the airport security lobby strongly objects to the changeover and has been funneling millions of dollars to the administration and members of Congress.

Security lobbyists, representing the makers of metal detectors, face recognition machines, stun guns, batons, medical gloves and lubrication, say lifting the ban on weapons threatens fliers' safety and could ruin the one-of-a-kind atmosphere at airports and aboard planes.

"With every traveler already thinking everybody else is a terrorist and wanting to take down the plane or blow up the airport, adding concealed weapons to that mental mix is a dangerous elixir," said Franklin Dentin, president of Dentin Airport Security Systems, a contractor who has sold millions of manuals to the government with titles like "Strip Searching Made Easy" and "The Need for Cavity Searches in the Richard Reid Aftermath."

Administration officials said they were tallying campaign contributions, kickbacks and bribes from both sides of the debate. The Federal Registrar defines concealed weapons as "any weapon that is concealed."

Bush administration officials are expected to publicize the proposal in the coming days as they finalize the plan and weigh whether to open the door to concealed weapons for every airline passenger.

Some officials favor opening it to all, even to under-aged and mentally ill fliers, a move that insiders say would send the strongest message to potential terrorists and airport rogues.

Other officials suggest that the right to carry concealed weapons on flights should be granted only to those who have donated at least $1,000 to the Republican Party or the NRA. Donations would be accepted at airport security checkpoints.

Many administration officials, however, were lining up against allowing concealed weapons for passengers with one-way tickets or those with shampoo, suntan lotion or bottled water in their carry-on bags.