Peruvian association offers Obama hairless dog

LIMA (AFP) — A canine club in Peru offered a solution Tuesday to one of US president-elect Barack Obama's most pressing dilemmas: where to find a White House dog suitable for his allergic daughter.

"We sent a letter to the (Peruvian) embassy in the United States offering a Peruvian hairless dog for Obama," Claudia Galvez, president of the Association of Friends of Hairless Dogs of Peru (AFHDP), told AFP.

"Because of one of Obama's daughters has allergy problems, we had the idea to offer him this puppy," said Galvez.

Obama promised daughters Sasha, seven, and Malia, 10, a new puppy for the White House during his presidential run, and revealed at a press conference last week that Malia suffers from allergies. He stressed the need to find a hypoallergenic dog breed.

The AFHPD said the pre-Inca breed of canines they deal with are hypoallergenic, have no hair and, in fact, due to their high body temperatures are thought to cure conditions such as asthma.

According to Peruvian folklore, being close to the dog can help with other ailments, too, such as stomach upsets and arthritis.

The association even has a particular puppy in mind: four-month-old Machu Picchu, named after the ancient Inca citadel.

With over 2,000 years of Peruvian heritage, the hairless breed is a small dog with a pointed snout. Its frequent yelping and wariness of strangers make them great watchdogs.

Picchu is "playful ... and will fit in with the daughters of the US president," Galvez told AFP.

Presidential pets have long been a focus of intense interest. Every president since Calvin Coolidge, elected in 1923, has had at least one dog in the White House, according to dogsinthenews.com.

Kentucky Boy Gives ESPN Inspiration

Jeremy Schaap has covered many of the top sports stories in the nation for ESPN, but few have stirred him like the story of Adam Bender.

Bender is an 8-year-old boy from Lexington, Ky. He loves soccer, baseball and football -- and plays them all. What's so inspiring about that? Sounds like every 8-year-old in the neighborhood.

Adam Bender has one leg. Cancer forced the removal of Bender's entire left leg when he was 1.

"Adam Bender is totally fearless," Schaap said.

You can see how fearless Bender is tonight. Schaap's piece about Bender will air at 7 on ESPN's"E:60." Schaap and his producers visited Bender and his family several times this summer. They watched him play catcher on his Little League team and quarterback on his flag-football team.

Running on crutches that are attached to both arms, Bender races up and down the soccer field, drilling goals into the net.

"The important thing to take away from the story is don't allow your prejudices and your expectations of what the disabled are capable of to be the final determination of what people can do," Schaap said. "People can surprise you."

Texas tries to ban Salvia Divinorum

State Rep. Doc Anderson, R-Waco, who filed legislation Monday aimed at banning possession of the herb salvia divinorum, the leaves of which contain a compound that causes a disorienting or incapacitating high, appears Tuesday on the Dr. Phil show to talk about the effect the drug has had on young people and their families.

“The substance is dangerous, incapacitating, and serves no medical use whatsoever,” Anderson said.

“This drug is readily available, has possible dangerous health effects and is unregulated in Texas.”

For those who have never heard of the plant, Salvia Divinorum is a psychoactive herb which can induce strong dissociative effects, and is often billed as a legal alternative to Marijuana. Salvia divinorum has been used for centuries in Mexico for spiritual and healing purposes

Anderson’s bill would make possession in most cases a Class A Misdemeanor, but includes higher penalties for possession of larger amounts.

Anderson authored similar legislation during the 2007 session of the Legislature, but the bill died in subcommittee.

San Francisco's Tim Lincecum Wins NL Cy Young Award

Tim Lincecum of the San Francisco Giants won the Cy Young Award after the pitcher ranked second in the National League in victories and earned run average.

Lincecum went 18-5 last season with a 2.62 ERA and led Major League Baseball with 265 strikeouts.

``I have always taken pride in trying to strike people out,'' Lincecum said on a conference call with reporters. ``It's one of those things that get me fired up.''

The 24-year-old right-hander received 23 first-place votes and 137 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Brandon Webb of the Arizona Diamondbacks was second with 73 points and Johan Santana of the New York Mets was third with 55.

Lincecum had a quarter of his team's victories as San Francisco finished last season with a 72-90 record. He's the second Giants pitcher to win the award as the league's best pitcher, following Mike McCormick in 1967.

The Giants selected Lincecum with the 10th pick in the 2006 draft. He went 7-5 with a 4.00 ERA in 24 starts in his rookie season.

Lincecum said he threw his changeup more this season, helping him get more groundballs and strikeouts.

``This year it came up as a good pitch for me,'' he said. ``I found a grip that I am comfortable with.''

First-Place Votes

Webb and Santana each received four first-place votes with Milwaukee's CC Sabathia getting the other first-place vote.

Webb, the 2006 Cy Young winner, was 22-7 and led the National League in victories. The right-hander's 3.30 ERA ranked 10th in the league.

Santana, a two-time Cy Young winner in the American League, led the NL in ERA at 2.53. He finished his first season in New York with a 16-7 record.

Sabathia went 11-2 with a NL-high seven complete games and three shutouts in his three months with the Milwaukee Brewers. He compiled a 1.65 ERA in 17 starts for Milwaukee after arriving from Cleveland in a July 7 trade. The left-hander won last year's AL Cy Young Award.

The AL Cy Young Award winner will be announced on Nov. 13.

To contact the reporter on this story: Danielle Sessa in New York at dsessa@bloomberg.net

Obama, Duckworth Lay Veterans Day Wreath

In what is expected to be his only public appearance of the day, President-elect Barack Obama joined Illinois Veterans Affairs Director Tammy Duckworth in laying a wreath to honor veterans at the bronze Soldiers Memorial near Soldier Field Tuesday morning.

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama and Gulf War veteran Tammy Duckworth bow their heads after placing a wreath to honor America's veterans at the Bronze Soldiers Memorial at Soldier Field.

Obama and the injured veteran shared a moment of silence at the memorial at about 11 a.m.

His staff made certain that the press would not read anything into his visit with Duckworth. She is said to be on the short list of those who might replace the senator in Congress.

There was no access to reporters allowed at the wreath laying and, therefore, no questions asked.

In a statement, Obama promised that America will serve veterans as well as they have served their country. And he promised t that -- as commander in chief -- he'll work every day to keep the "sacred trust with all who have served."

After days of meetings and a trip to Washington to meet with President Bush on Monday, Obama plans to spend the rest of the week in Chicago.

After days of meetings and a trip to Washington to meet with on Monday, Obama plans to spend the rest of the week in Chicago.

Serial killer Arthur Shawcross, imprisoned for 11 murders in upstate NY, dies at 63

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) _ Serial killer Arthur Shawcross, who was serving life in prison for strangling 11 women in the Rochester area, has died at 63.

Shawcross died late Monday at an Albany hospital, where he had been taken after complaining of leg pain earlier in the day at the Sullivan Correctional Facility, Corrections Department spokesman Erik Kriss said Tuesday. The cause of death was still under investigation, he said.

Shawcross' 13-week trial for 10 of the killings included graphic testimony about mutilation and cannibalism

Shawcross' victims, most of them prostitutes, were killed in the period from March 1988 to January 1990. At the time, he was on parole after serving 15 years in prison for killing two children in northern New York's Watertown in 1972.

Shawcross was arrested in January 1990, a day after state police spotted him near the frozen body of one of his victims.

He was convicted of killing 10 of the women in December 1990 after jurors deliberated only 6½ hours. Jurors rejected defense arguments that he was legally insane at the time of the killings because of brain damage, abuse during childhood and his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam.

Three months later, Shawcross pleaded guilty to strangling a woman whose body was found Nov. 27, 1989, in woods in neighboring Wayne County.

He did not testify during his trial, but jurors were shown videotapes of him being interviewed under hypnosis by a defense psychiatrist, Dr. Dorothy Lewis. He switched in and out of a high-pitched woman's voice and told Lewis he had once been a cannibal in medieval England. He also described childhood incestuous relations with a sister and wartime atrocities and cannibalism in Vietnam.

He told Lewis his mother's voice told him to kill his victims, and that she "helped him" strangle and mutilate one of the women.

But in videotaped interviews with a prosecution psychiatrist, Dr. Park Dietz, Shawcross said he never heard voices or had different personalities. Dietz argued that Shawcross was faking mental illness to avoid prison.

In 2002, protests over Shawcross profiting from his prison artwork prompted the state Corrections Department to discontinue its annual inmate art show and ban the sale of art produced in prisons.

By BEN DOBBIN

Inmates bought their own art supplies and kept half the proceeds from their sales, with the other half going to the state Crime Victims Board. A portrait of the late Princess Diana was among 10 sketches and paintings by Shawcross that sold for as much as $540 each in 2001.

'Leave It to Beaver' actor to show at the Louvre

LOS ANGELES – Eat your heart out, Eddie Haskell.

Tony Dow, best known as the actor who portrayed The Beav's big brother, Wally, in the '50s TV series "Leave It to Beaver," will have one of his abstract sculptures on display at the Louvre. Several sculptors from the Karen Lynne Gallery — including Dow — will have their works shown at the historic art museum in Paris as part of the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts exhibition.

"Having something shown at the Louvre is about as good as you can get," said Dow, who lives in Los Angeles, "especially when it's a juried show like this where there's a panel of judges who pick the pieces to be in the exhibition. I'm a little humbled by the whole thing but grateful nonetheless."

Dow, who has also worked as a director and visual effects producer on several TV shows, has been painting and sculpting since he was a teenager. The 63-year-old artist's sculpture that will be shown at the Louvre from Dec. 11 to Dec. 14 is titled "Unarmed Warrior," and is a bronze figure of a woman holding a shield.

"Of course, I'm really proud of 'Leave It to Beaver' and my directing career in television," said Dow. "Those are great accomplishments. I'm really proud of them, but this is interesting because I don't think they know anything about that at the Louvre."

Bush honors veterans at aircraft carrier Intrepid

NEW YORK – President Bush thanked veterans Tuesday for serving their country, noting wistfully that he'll "miss being commander in chief of such a fabulous group."

Bush marked his last Veterans Day as president with a visit to a New York pier that is home to the World War II aircraft carrier Intrepid, appearing before a crowd of thousands bundled on a pier against the windy November chill for the rededication ceremony of the USS Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.

The president praised veterans in the crowd, including those who served aboard the Intrepid in its long history of military action.

"Thank you for your courage, thank you for your sacrifice, and thank you for standing up when your nation needed you must," Bush said.

The president spoke in the shadow of the Intrepid and near the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan, where sailors and marines peered down on the ceremony from the ship's deck. After his speech, astronauts Scott Carpenter and Buzz Aldrin helped the president toss a wreath into the Hudson River as a bugler played "Taps."

Finally, it was time for the ceremonial breaking of a champagne bottle against the hull — only the bottle didn't break.

Before the speech, Bush told reporters that one veteran in particular — his father, a World War II pilot — had inspired him.

"I was raised by a veteran. I appreciate the commitment to our country that the veterans have made," he said. "Our nation is blessed because our liberties have been defended by brave men and women in the past and we are blessed to have brave men and women defend our liberties today."

The Intrepid returned last month to the pier where it has served for 24 years as a military and space museum, a perennially popular tourist site in New York City. In late 2006, the carrier was moved for extensive repairs and improvements costing nearly $120 million.

Launched in 1943 as one of the Navy's then-new Essex-class attack carriers, the USS Intrepid figured in six major Pacific theater campaigns including Leyte Gulf, the war's greatest naval battle. It survived five Japanese kamikaze planes and a torpedo but lost 270 crew members in combat.

After World War II, the Intrepid saw service in the Korean and Vietnam wars and was twice a recovery ship for NASA astronauts before it was decommissioned and mothballed in a Philadelphia shipyard and slated for demolition until rescued by New York real estate developer and philanthropist Zachary Fisher.

By DEVLIN BARRETT

WWII photo nurse' leads parade

A 90-year-old who says she is the nurse being kissed in Times Square in one of World War II's most famous photos is to lead the New York Veterans Day Parade.

Edith Shain, from Los Angeles, will return to the scene of the kiss at the head of a group of WWII veterans.

The photo of an American sailor kissing a nurse in 1945 as people marked the surrender of Japan and the end of World War II became an iconic image.

Over the years, several people have claimed to be depicted in the picture.

Ms Shain said it was thrilling to be back in New York and "see the street where we had been when World War II was over, when that marvellous feeling was flooding the nation".

She added: "The end of the war was a wonderful experience, and that photo represents all those feelings."

'I didn't mind'

Recalling the famous kiss, she said she could not identify the man.

"I went from hospital to Times Square that day because the war was over, and where else does a New Yorker go?

"And this guy grabbed me and we kissed, and then I turned one way and he turned the other. There was no way to know who he was, but I didn't mind because he was someone who had fought for me."

Twenty years later, when Life Magazine ran an appeal to find out who the photograph's subjects were, Ms Shain wrote a letter identifying herself as the woman in the nurse's uniform.

However, magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, who died in 1995, said he was never sure who the woman in the picture was.

Bobbi Baker Burrows, an editor at Life, explained: "We received claims from a few nurses and dozens of sailors, but we could never prove that any of them were the actual people, and Eisenstaedt himself just said he didn't know."

However Ms Shain, who left nursing to become a nursery teacher for 30 years, remains a popular choice.

Veteran’s Day 2008

Today is Veteran’s Day.

It began as Armistice Day, noting the the end of the first world war, November 11, 1918.

In the 1950s, it was expanded to become a day to honor all U. S. veterans.

This country has been honored by the service of many, many men and women over the years, serving in the uniforms of our country.

We should honor them, remembering all those that served, especially those that gave their lives in that service.

As a veteran, I’m honored to have worn my country’s uniform.

As a citizen, I want to honor those that are wearing that uniform today.