The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider throwing out the death sentence for a mentally impaired Alabama man who killed his former lover.
Holly Wood was convicted in the shooting death of his former girlfriend, Ruby Lois Gosha, in 1993. She was killed by a shotgun blast to her head as she slept in her home in Troy, Ala.
A federal judge tossed out the death sentence on the basis of the poor performance of Wood's lawyer in the sentencing phase of his trial. The lawyer, …
KABUL Fierce street battles erupted here Sunday between rivalmujaheddin guerrillas in an escalating struggle to win control of theAfghan capital.
Dozens of guerrillas and civilians were killed or wounded asforces loyal to rebel commander Ahmed Shah Masood battled downtownnear the presidential palace and in the slums of the city center inan effort to drive forces loyal to radical Muslim leader GulbuddinHekmatyar out of Kabul.
The Afghan capital fell Saturday to a swarm of divided rebelfactions. Masood's forces appeared to have the upper hand, pushingthose of Hekmatyar out of the presidential palace, forcing them backfrom a key downtown fort and battling them to …
ATLANTA (AP) — An 18-year-old woman has been charged with breaking into the Atlanta home of filmmaker Tyler Perry.
Police said Perry's bodyguard caught Chloe Ware early Thursday morning, but two others escaped. A phone listing for Ware could not be found. It was …
Andre Berto withdrew Monday from his Jan. 30 fight with Shane Mosley, saying the strain of dealing with the earthquake that struck Haiti left him unable to fight.
Berto, who represented Haiti in the Athens Olympics, said he could not train properly for what was to be the biggest fight of his career.
"As a result of this disaster, I am mentally and physically exhausted and therefore I have no choice but to withdraw from my bout," Berto said in a statement.
The move could open up a much bigger fight matching Mosley against Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Promoter Richard Schaefer said Monday he was already working on trying to make a …
Here's the second installment in our roundup of upcoming networkand cable holiday specials. Whether you're a purist seeking out thatone-time-only airing of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" or a fanaticwho'll be feasting on "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" lateChristmas Eve, you're sure to find something that will make yourspirits bright.
Times and dates change, so be sure to check TV Prevue forupdated information. TODAY
9:30 a.m.: "Christmas at Eureeka's Castle" (NICK) Eureeka andher friends prepare for a Christmas celebration, but they run intotrouble.
11: "The Small One" (Disney) Animated. Told by his father thathe must give up his old donkey, a boy …
NEW YORK (AP) — A wannabe taxi driver admitted Monday he stalked Caroline Kennedy's daughter by deluging the college student and her parents with unwanted flowers, chocolates and romantic emails.
Naeem Ahmed, 41, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor harassment and stalking charges in a deal that got him out of jail after about four months there. He was sentenced to 60 days he had already served.
"I am not a bad person," Ahmed said during a series of rambling remarks about his interest in Tatiana Schlossberg and her famous family. "I did it for respect. I did it for their love. I still respect them. I still love them unconditionally."
Representatives for Schlossberg's family weren't in court and didn't immediately return a telephone call about the developments, which spare the family the prospect of a trial.
Ahmed was accused of sending more than 40 messages to Schlossberg and her parents: Caroline Kennedy, the only surviving child of President John F. Kennedy, and Edwin Schlossberg, who designs museum exhibits and other public spaces.
Over two years starting in October 2008, Ahmed sent Tatiana Schlossberg flowers, balloons and emails professing his love, sometimes addressing her as "hunny bunny" and signing off as her "hubby," prosecutors said in court documents. One electronic card featured such intimate images as bare skin and a rose-petal-strewn bed and bore an inscription that began, "I know you, I know the feeling of you," according to court documents.
Schlossberg, a Yale University student, was 18 when the messages started.
Her parents also got electronic cards, flowers, chocolates and messages, including an email asking them not to "involve anyone else" in "our very personal family matter," prosecutors said.
After Ahmed tried to visit the Schlossbergs at their New York City home in November 2009, their security firm told him to leave them alone, but the messages continued, according to court documents.
The Pakistani-born Ahmed, who was unemployed and studying for a taxi driver's license, was arrested in December. A psychiatric examination found him fit for trial.
Ahmed could have faced up to two years in prison had he been convicted. He pleaded guilty Monday after a judge told him the offer was an "unbelievable" deal. But first, Ahmed spent several hours conferring with his lawyer, consulting a friend and launching into disquisitions about his respect for the Constitution and the legal system, his fondness for the Schlossbergs and his concern for his future and the details of his three-year probation.
"I'm not emotional. I'm not crazy," he said. "I want to get out of this situation."
If he stays out of trouble for a year, he may be able to substitute a guilty plea to a noncriminal violation.
Ahmed said as he left court that he didn't believe he'd committed a crime but pleaded guilty because he believed it would please the Schlossbergs, whom he said he admired for their "family traditions" and "human values." He said he'd honor court orders to stay away from them but still believed he someday would be in their good graces.
"It's a matter of time," he said.
Caroline Kennedy has been a prominent supporter of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat whose office prosecuted the case. His office has said he recuses himself from cases only in very limited circumstances, such as those involving someone he represented while in private practice.
Caroline Kennedy, a lawyer and former chief fundraiser for New York City public schools, briefly pursued political office herself. In 2008, she announced she was interested in filling the U.S. Senate seat that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was vacating. Kennedy withdrew from consideration after little more than a month.
Keywords: aging; elders; seniors; age discrimination; ageism
So swiftly passes a year at my age. It seems only yesterday I was writing about "when I'm 64," and now, I have reached what is generally considered to be the traditional age of full retirement: 65, halfway through my seventh decade-one of those rites-of-passage birthdays, like 13 (if you are Jewish), 21 (legal adulthood), and 50 (the half-century mark), that rings with portent.
No denying it: I really am old now, although I have friends past 80 who will giggle at that statement.
I am always irritated when people say, "I don't feel 65" (or 70 or 75 and so forth). Of course they do. Since not one of us knows what it feels like to be older than we are, whatever we feel is what that age feels like. Equally irritating are recent boomer slogans such as "50 is the new 30." Anyone who can't tell the difference is a case of arrested development and a contributor to our youthcrazed, ageist culture. The downsides of becoming 65 have, so far, been minimal. I don't have the stamina and strength I once had and need to spread out chores and errands over longer periods of time. But I don't find that a burden. I like the extra walks necessary to finish shopping, and if it's harder to stay awake into the wee hours, I've known since my 20s that nothing noteworthy happens at the party past midnight. Famous and celebrated contemporaries who have defined the era in which I have lived die more frequently now: just last year, Richard Pryor, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, Prince Rainier of Monaco, Hunter Thompson, Arthur Miller, Johnny Carson, and Betty Friedan. Youngsters who know these people only historically probably can't grasp the force with which each one, at the peak, etched his or her sensibility on the public consciousness of the second half of the 20th century. But that was then, and this is now.
In recent years, the rightness of death makes more sense to me. Those scientists who spend millions researching life extension, predicting 200-year life spans one day, are selfish and wrong. Elders must make way for younger people who are unencumbered by attachments to the past and are a better match to new times, new eras, and new issues.
The upsides of getting older far outweigh the negatives. I am more patient with myself and others. Experience has alleviated the fears that plagued my 20s, 30s, and even 40s. Having learned that, aside from putting a gun to one's head, few decisions are irrevocable, they come more easily now and with less anguish. Well, maybe not all decisions. This turned out to be a significant year. Settling in New York City in 1969 was a childhood dream, and in a sense, all 28 years before were prelude. I have been extraordinarily happy living here, so much so that when I bought this cozy, little apartment 23 years ago on one of the prettiest streets in Greenwich Village, it felt so permanent that I told friends I would be taken out feetfirst-it was my last move.
We should be wary of asserting such absolutes. At about this time last year, months of fruitless searching for work forced me to rethink that pronouncement. I agonized for weeks about what I knew was inevitable, and then, in a long, sleepless weekend spent pacing, weeping, and shaking my fist at the gods and the insidious bigotry of age discrimination in the workplace, I made a hard-won decision to sell my apartment and move to a less expensive part of the country.
I had many months to make peace with that decision, as it took longer to sell my apartment than either the real estate agent or I expected. Now, with my New York home at last sold, I am eager to begin my next adventure in a new place.
Already, I have the core of a personal community in Portland, Maine. Packing cartons arrived this week. Moving day is set, with settling into a new home to begin a week or so later. And what a relief that will be. My life has been disordered and disorderly for nearly 6 years. The dot-com at which I was employed collapsed abruptly in mid-2000 owing me (still) $25,000. I was unemployed that time for 14 months, and the job I eventually found required a 4-hour daily commute, leaving no time or energy for a personal life for 2 1/2 years.
For nearly a year after I was laid off from that job, I beat my head against the wall of a bad job market and age discrimination until this decision to leave New York, and then I waited 7 months for the sale of my apartment. Some downtime and routine will be a welcome change.
We celebrate holidays to remind us of our common history or our faith. Anniversaries and birthdays mark time, allowing us to take stock of the recent past, to renew our commitments to ourselves and others, and to create new beginnings. It is hard sometimes not to believe that the universe has its reasons, and it seems to me an excellent time to let go of one life and start another on such a momentous birthday as 65.
"For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away,
The sky is filled with stars invisible by day."
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Morituri Salutamus [1875]
Dubbed the "dean of older bloggers" by AARP, Ronni Bennett writes about what it's really like to get older on her popular elderblog, Time Goes By (http://timegoesby.net). Formerly a writer and producer for such television programs as 20/20 and The Barbara Walters Specials, and the first managing editor of cbsnews. com, Ms. Bennett has found her passion in exploring what it's really like to get older and bringing that message to the much younger blogosphere at technology conferences around the United States.
[Sidebar]
The upsides of getting older far outweigh the negatives.
