rimblr.com

Kenneth W. Stull to Gerald J. Gizenski and Mary Ann Gizenski for $130,000, Larksville.
Carol A. Kokinda to Annie Lui and Peter Lei for $78,000, Wilkes-Barre Township.
Lillian C. Charters (trustee) to Ronald Mika and Evelyn Mika for $122,500, Bear Creek Township.
Susquehanna River Shores LLC to Martin Pleban and Gloria Pleban for $175,000, West Pittston.
Randall Hurst and Jessica Hurst to Jeffrey L. Zavrotny and Kimberly A. Zavrotny for $82,000, Wilkes-Barre.
Allison M. Sudol and Jeffrey Sudol to Joseph J. Antonelli and Lynn S. Antonelli for $82,000, Plains Township.
Mary Belle Lawrence to Katherine S. Murphy for $71,900, Newport Township.
Doreen Schivley and Mark Schivley to Jeffrey J. Mohn for $142,500, Laflin.
Edward A. Thompson to Jean M. Wiley for $193,000, Dallas Township.
Prudential Relocation Inc. to Joseph Phillips and Mary Lou M. Phillips for $411,000, Dallas Township.
A. Edward Siecienski and Kiev C. Matwijkow to Richard D. Gavlick and Theresa M. Cook for $170,000, Kingston Township.
Asa G. Wolfe and Doris A. Wolfe to Chester M. Wolfe for $100,000, Union Township.
Chester M. Wolfe and Kathleen Wolfe to Michael A. Larocca for $175,000, Union Township.
Rolling Meadows Development Corp. to James W. Galasso and Meredeth S. Galasso for $83,000, Jackson Township.
Gerald P. Stefanoski and Dorothy J. Stefanoski to Wadia Al-Daoud for $140,000, Hanover Township.
Pine Ridge Estates LLC (per agent) and Kimberly Popple (agent) to Mirko H. Widenhorn for $194,000, Wilkes-Barre.
James C. Smith (administrator) and Eleanor G. Hiller (estate) to Nicholas Mrak and Nancy Mrak for $87,900, Kingston Township.
Pittston Lumber & Manufacturing Co. to Roger L. Dirlam for $500,000, Pittston.
Crystal Properties Inc. to Institute for Human Resources and Services Inc. for $119,900, Hanover Township.
Gerald J. Gazey and Jule A. Gazey to Kristen A. Killian for $148,000, Wilkes-Barre.
Christopher G. Black and Kimberly A. Black to Michael Sherin and Jolon Sherin for $285,000, Pittston Township.

zwire.com

Washington bureau chief David Cook recaps Wednesday’s Monitor Breakfast, featuring Gov. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
WASHINGTON - The head of presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama’s vice-presidential search committee stepped down Wednesday, amid allegations that he had received favorable loans from troubled mortgage company Countrywide Financial.
The resignation of James Johnson, former CEO of Fannie Mae Corp. and a longtime Democratic insider, ended an episode in Senator Obama’s presidential campaign that had turned into a major distraction from his message of change and an end to “politics as usual.”
At a Monitor breakfast Wednesday morning, before Mr. Johnson’s resignation, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean played down Johnson’s role in the campaign and hit back hard at the Republican Party.
“Johnson doesn’t get paid, he’s a volunteer,” Mr. Dean said. “Secondly, since it was a Republican-planted story, obviously it’s fair to say that the Republicans are hypocrites, and they are. The guy who’s running the McCain campaign is a lobbyist who’s on leave, Rick Davis. Then they take plenty of lobbyist money; the RNC [Republican National Committee] takes lobbyist money. So I mean, what is this? This is nuts.”
Obama has pledged to take no donations from lobbyists and, as de facto leader of the Democratic Party, has the Democratic National Committee on board with the same policy. The Republicans have not followed suit. But with the Johnson controversy swirling for several days, Obama’s attempt at presenting a “clean” campaign had been sullied.
Dean sought to shift the focus back to the GOP.
“The distinction is that Barack Obama does not have any lobbyists on his paid staff,” he said. “None. Zero. And John McCain does.”
Dean also portrayed Democratic unease about November as a positive. All the predictive political models portend an excellent year for the Democrats, given America’s economic woes and the Iraq war. But as polls remain close between Obama and the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator McCain, especially in battleground states, some Democrats are worried that Obama could lose.

csmonitor.com

James Glover II / Star staff Kevin Ferguson, who goes by Kimbo Slice, trains with former UFC champion Bas Rutten at the Bas Rutten Elite Mixed Martial Arts Gym in Thousand Oaks. Ferguson is training for a televised fight May 31 against James “Colossus” Thompson.
Kevin Ferguson was 13 years old when he won his first brawl protecting a childhood friend from a bully.
“Other than being beaten up by my sister, that was my first fight,” recalled the 6-foot-2, 230-pound cage fighter, better known as Kimbo Slice.
“An older guy was pushing my buddy around … and I went in to protect him,” Ferguson, 34, recalled. To his surprise, “instinctively, I saw his punches … he telegraphed everything. I threw a left hook, connected, and he was done.”
A one-punch knockout became a signature move of the EliteXC heavyweight contender and former street fighter, who will be the main event on the first mixed martial arts fight card in history to premier on network television — just two years after the first ultimate fighting event was held at Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim after the state’s legalization of such contests.
The event — where Ferguson will go three, five-minute rounds against James “Colossus” Thompson — will be broadcast Saturday, May 31, on CBS. CBS EliteXC Saturday Night Fights will be broadcast live from the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.
Ferguson said he is honored to be a part of the first prime-time event showcasing mixed martial arts — America’s fastest-growing sport that evolved from several ancient combat disciplines. Typically in the setting of a caged octagon, world-class athletes engage in hand-to-hand combat incorporating judo, jiu-jitsu, karate, wrestling, kickboxing, striking and grappling, among other techniques.
“I’m glad to be a part of this,” Ferguson said.
Born the oldest son of 11 children in Nassau, Bahamas, Ferguson was raised in Miami, where he was a star defensive football player for Miami Palmetto High. He later attended the University of Miami on an academic scholarship with a major in criminal justice, but stayed for only two semesters.

venturacountystar.com

Please watch this video of L.A. radio host Kevin James being interviewed on Hardball with Chris Matthews. James is on the show to express support for George W. Bush's recent statement to the Israeli Knesset, in which Bush criticized U.S. politicians willing to meet with radical enemies of the West. Like John McCain, James explicitly connected Bush's comments to Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Adolf Hitler on the eve of the Second World War.
One problem: James is a complete blowhard who clearly has no idea who Neville Chamberlain was, or what his role was in appeasing Hitler. When Matthews begins to sense just how ignorant his guest is, he puts him on the spot and asks him to tell viewers what exactly Chamberlain did. James flounders about pathetically — blustering incoherently in hopes that the subject will drift away, so he can go back to high-decibel monosyllabic sloganeering against Barack Obama.
But Matthews won't let it go — and asks him the same question (in one form or another) no fewer than 28 times, each time eliciting a more hysterical attempt by James to deflect the issue. (The closest James gets to actually answering is, "The things that Neville Chamberlain supported energized, legitimized and made it easier for Hitler to advance in the ways that he advanced.")
Two observations — other than that Kevin James should be kept far, far away from any microphone:
(1) This is why I don't watch cable-TV talking-heads shows. Admittedly, this is an extreme example. But it captures the spirit of the genre. Jon Stewart had it right four years ago.
(2) This is (one of the reasons) why the conservative movement is in trouble in the United States — and is arguably in better shape in left-wing Canada: With their backs to the wall on the economy, income disparities, health care and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, many Bush-backers have retreated into a comic-book world of slogans. In his simple-minded practice of literally screaming idiotic aphorisms, Kevin James perfectly embodies the stereotype of American conservatism that has taken hold in blue states (as well as much of Canada).

network.nationalpost.com

FIVE hours before John Lennon was shot dead in 1980, Annie Leibovitz photographed him naked. His arms and legs were wrapped lovingly, needily, around the fully clothed body of his wife, Yoko Ono. His lips pressed to her cheek, his eyes shut in bliss.
But that wasn’t Leibovitz’s original idea for the Rolling Stone cover. She had wanted him on his own, but Lennon insisted that his wife appear too. So Leibovitz suggested that the two pose together nude. Lennon obligingly began to strip, but Ono refused to take off her trousers. Without thinking about it much, Leibovitz recalled, she told Ono to keep all her clothes on.
“Then he curled up next to her and it was very, very strong. We took one Polaroid,” said Leibovitz, “and the three of us knew it was profound right away.” Lennon reportedly told her: “You’ve captured our relationship exactly. Promise me it’ll be on the cover.” It was, but not as planned: it appeared on the memorial issue for the murdered Beatle.
But what had Leibovitz captured? “You couldn’t help but feel that she was cold and he looked like he was clinging on to her.” Which seems unfair: I can see Lennon’s clinginess, but not Ono’s chilliness.
The story of Lennon’s last photo shoot undoes some of the mystique of how Leibovitz gets her subjects to disport themselves in daft, degrading, mildly titillating or otherwise compelling poses: sometimes at least, she has responded on the hoof to her celebrity subjects’ annoying demands. She doesn’t create a moment but is responsive to it, realising that the thing she’s after is right there. But most professional snappers would say they could realise that too if they only had the same access to exhibitionist celebs as Leibovitz has had in the past 40 years. They, too, could have got the Queen to look wistful in a crown.

theage.com.au

Hendersonville, N.C. — A Chapel Hill man was killed over the weekend when he slipped and fell along a waterfall in western North Carolina, authorities said.
James Karpinos, 22, a senior sociology major at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, was hiking with a friend along the Horsepasture River in Transylvania County when he fell, authorities said.
Karpinos was well-known on campus as an experienced outdoorsman and as a trip leader for UNC-A’s Outdoors Program, authorities said.
Copyright 2008 by WRAL.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

wral.com

The Primary Players Children’s Theater Group will present “James and the Giant Peach,” at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and at 2 p.m. Sunday at Maryville High School auditorium. Tickets are $5 for adults; children 13 and under are admitted free.
When 136 children showed up to audition for the Primary Players’ first production over two years ago, it spoke volumes to founder Nikki Andrews.
It was confirmation that more performing arts outlets were needed for children in Blount County. And once she saw the talent that could be tapped into, the project grew into a real passion.
This weekend, Friday through Sunday, the community can be witness to the talents of Blount County’s youth when the Primary Players Children’s Theater Group presents “James and the Giant Peach.” Tickets are only $5 for adults, with children 13 and under admitted free. The shows take place in the theater at Maryville High School.
“James and the Giant Peach” is a children’s book written by Ronald Dahl. It is the story of James Henry Trotter and his adventures when a giant peach grows in the garden and takes off across country with James and some new-found friends inside.
Andrews’ mother, the late Hayes Centebar, had a lifelong love of theater and acted in groups in and around this community. Andrews, a teacher for 25 years at Sam Houston Elementary, said there just aren’t enough opportunities for children to get involved in the arts because time in the classroom has to be mostly devoted to the traditional subjects.
One of the first people Andrews met when putting together this theater company was John Cherry. He learned of an organizational meeting and attended, wanting to lend his expertise.
“I went up to Nikki at the end of the meeting and said ‘I have a degree in theater. Here’s my phone number. Call me if you can use my help.’ I ended up directing the first play.”

thedailytimes.com

St. James and St. Brendan’s parish investing $500,000 into historic property
One of downtown Port Colborne’s most historic buildings is about to undergo a complete renovation.
The congregation of St. James and St. Brendan’s Anglican Church has embarked on a plan to invest about $500,000 into the Guild Hall to completely renovate the 100-year-old building.
Interior and exterior renovations are being done by Shoalts Brothers Construction and will begin May 5. Renovations are expected to take three months and the building will be closed for the summer. There are plans to open after Labour Day.
To put things in perspective, the original building on the corner of Charlotte and Catherine streets cost $4,110 to build at the turn of the century. An expansion project in 1927 cost another $27,000.
“The fundraising is going remarkably well,” parish rector Rob Hurkmans said. “We’re hoping to pay for the hall in three years and that goal is well within reach.”
Hurkmans said there are a number of grants available both municipally and provincially, as well as through the diocese.
Most of the work, however, will have to be paid for by the parish.
When asked the extent of renovations, Hurkmans said it is basically “everything.”
The building needs, among other things, new gutters, stucco, wood, floors, new handicapped-accessible washrooms, work done in the kitchen, ramps and decks, a new air conditioner and a heating system.
“We have said from the start these renovations are not to just fix the bricks and mortar and then go back to operating things the way we have in the past.”
The congregation sees the hall’s rebirth as an opportunity to do more community outreach and to partner with other groups to create new programs – many of which are still on the drawing board.
There are plans, for instance, to create a drop-in centre for youth in the front section of the building that many people know as the former nursery. The new space will have a “cafe” feel to it and offer youth and children in Port Colborne a safe place to go.

wellandtribune.ca

Mar 22 2008 by Gavin Allen, South Wales Echo
“I DON’T think James Blunt gives a damn,” said David Gray, having considered the bitter backlash against Blunt’s vast commercial success.
Blunt’s massive record sales have made him an artistic outcast and he is roundly derided with vitriol when he is guilty of little but being over-exposed.
“It’s exactly what happened to me and you just have to learn to not take it all to heart,” sighed fellow million-seller Gray.
The current saturation of singer/songwriters like Blunt in the charts is due in part Gray’s astonishing success with his fourth album, White Ladder, in 1998.
“It’s not rocket science,” he says.
“When something is successful the record companies just get in there and flood the charts with as many similar things as they can.
“Whatever it is that comes along, whether it be ska or hip-hop, the record companies milk it until people get bored of it and then they move on.
“Most of what they put out there is flimsy but the things that have real value will stand up on their own.”
Gray’s career stood up because he was the real thing, because before fame struck he had already made three albums.
However, White Ladder made Gray an overnight sensation in the public mind and singles such as This Year’s Love and Babylon shifted units in their thousands.
However, such was his success that those same songs soon became unavoidable – radio wallpaper – and the Blunt-like backlash began.
“There was a reaction to me, and some of it was very vindictive, hurtful,” says Gray, who was born in Manchester but raised in Solva, West Wales.
“People suddenly seemed to see me as some kind of corporate creation rather than someone who had been doing it himself for years.
“But the thing is that opportunity doesn’t last forever so you’d best get in there and do it all while you can.”

icwales.icnetwork.co.uk

High price of gold ruining your Valentine’s Day gift plans? Or has your old gold jewelry become a gold mine as prices skyrocket? Either way, we want to hear from you. Please contact Jennifer Davies or call 619-293-1373.
It was supposed to be the season of the power babe, the year that all those “Grey's Anatomy” fans and “Sex and the City” fiends would find a feast of female-centric TV fare spread out before them like an all-you-can-eat brunch. Comfort carbs for everybody!
Too bad most of the shows were stale on arrival.
Of all the “chick-clique” dramas and comedies rolled out since last fall, only “Private Practice” and “Samantha Who” are guaranteed to see another season. The tedious “Bionic Woman” was canceled. The relatively decent “Women's Murder Club” is on the fence, the murky “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” is on the bubble, and the derivative “Lipstick Jungle” and “Cashmere Mafia” are languishing.
Now we have “The Return of Jezebel James” and “Canterbury's Law,” two new female-driven shows from Fox that aren't going much of anywhere, either. Which is further proof that a trend is only as good as the shows it rides in on.
Debuting Friday at 8 p.m., “The Return of Jezebel James” is a comedy with a seriously impressive pedigree. It was created by Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino of “Gilmore Girls” fame, and it stars indie-film favorite Parker Posey and “Six Feet Under” star Lauren Ambrose as a hard-driving children's-book editor and her underachieving younger sister.

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