Beau Biden suffers apparent stroke, doctors say

By the CNN Wire Staff

Washington (CNN) -- Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden -- the son of Vice President Joe Biden -- has suffered what doctors believe to be a mild stroke, according to the hospital.

"He is in good spirits and talking with his family at the hospital. He is fully alert, in stable condition and has full motor and speech skills. We expect him to make a complete recovery," said Dr. Timothy Gardner, Medical Director of the Center for Heart and Vascular Surgery at Christiana Care Health System in Delaware.

Biden, 41, was elected as Delaware's attorney general in 2006. He recently served in Iraq for one year as a captain with the Delaware Army National Guard. He was considered a front-runner to fill his father's former U.S. Senate seat this November, but in January he announced he had decided against a run for higher office.

Biden served as a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from 1997 to 2002.

CNN

France's Pompidou opens offshoot in Metz

President Nicolas Sarkozy inaugurated the Pompidou Centre’s regional offshoot in Metz (pictured) Tuesday. Local authorities are hoping the regional hub of the world famous museum will act as a boost to the struggling region

By News Wires

William Edwards

AFP - A sparkling new branch of one of the world's top modern art museums, Paris's Pompidou Centre, opens in northern France on Wednesday with hundreds of rarely seen treasures on its walls.

On a former waste land in Metz, the undulating white teflon roof houses space to free up some of the 65,000 works trapped in storage at the Paris museum -- and to breath new life into a city seen as a forgotten gem.

Planting the huge new venue in Metz, a town of 130,000 people in what was once part of Germany, its creators aim to shift the gravity of France's national art collections, which critics say is narrowly centred on Paris.

"This is a great moment for culture in this country, because it is the first time a great cultural institution has decentralised," said Alain Seban, director of the Paris Pompidou Centre, in Metz on Monday.

The new museum's 5,000 square metres (107,000 square feet) of gallery space offer high ceilings to accommodate monumental works such as Sonia Delaunay's bright seven-foot canvas "Portugal".

It also aims to put the northeastern Lorraine region on the map by drawing in visitors from across the nearby borders of Germany and Belgium, and tourists from Paris, an 80-minute high-speed train ride away.

"We want to open it to the widest possible public, the European and international public," said Jean-Luc Bohl, president of the Metz area council, one of several bodies that funded the 72.5-million-euro (93 million dollar) project.

The museum is to be inaugurated on Tuesday by President Nicolas Sarkozy and opens to the public from Wednesday.

Its inaugural show: "Chefs-d'Oeuvre?", an exhausting array of 780 artworks that questions what constitutes a "masterpiece" while acquainting the viewer with monumental works by some of the giants of modern art.

The long galleries teem with numerous art forms: Henri Cartier-Bresson's photography, sculptures by Constantin Brancusi, paintings by Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, plus architectural plans, videos and even furniture.

"It introduces to the widest possible audience the most contemporary forms of art and creativity to make them think about ideas of taste and aesthetics," said Laurent Le Bon, director of the new museum.

Designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban and France's Jean de Gastines, the teflon-draped wooden roof sits above a ground floor facade of glass shutters that open in warm weather to draw in visitors.

In between lie three elevated oblong galleries, the window of the top one framing a view of Metz's cathedral.

"I wanted to find something contextual," Ban told AFP. "I wanted to connect the art museum to the city".

Elsewhere in northern France, the former mining town of Lens is preparing to receive its own outlet of world-class art when the Louvre -- Paris's most visited museum -- opens a sister branch there in 2012.

The so-called "antenna" museums aim to regenerate the surrounding regions as the Guggenheim did in Bilbao, an industrial city in northern Spain, which opened in 1997 with an avant-garde design by US-based architect Frank Gehry.

Similarly in Britain, London's Tate museum opened regional galleries in Liverpool in 1988 and Saint Ive's in 1993.

For some, the planting of offshoots in France's old industrial lands is a symptom of broader changes under way in the country's economy.

"Cultural programmes have become an indispensable factor in developing towns and regions," said Antoine Fonte, a Metz official in charge of arts projects.

"Lorraine is undergoing a full-on transformation and the Pompidou Centre Metz will strengthen the shift towards the tertiary and service industries".

"Sometimes people think Metz has lost its spirit," said Dominique Gros, the mayor of Metz, which was long a garrison town but has seen thousands of military jobs cut. "For us the Pompidou Centre is a fresh start".

France24

Miss USA pageant embraces naked ambition

NEW YORK — If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then this year's Miss USA contestants are giving the world an eyeful thanks to a controversial lingerie photo shoot.

Critics say the publicity photos ahead of the pageant in Las Vegas this Sunday are a tawdry attempt to publicize the event. Organizers say they are making the show, which previously frowned on overt sexuality, more modern.

"All the contestants really pushed their envelope," Paula Shugart, president of the Miss Universe Organization, said on MSNBC television. "We've always been the cutting-edge pageant".

The pictures on the website www.missuniverse.com show contestants, such as Miss South Dakota, Emily Anne Miller, in fishnet stockings, garter belts and often not much else beyond a lot of make-up.

The more traditional headshots, swimsuit photo and ball gown follow.

Penny Nance, at Concerned Women for America, said the project smacked of "tawdriness".

"It's certainly a concern for American moms," she said.

Previous contestants have run afoul of the pageant's blurry policies on what is acceptable. Although contestants strut on stage in tiny bikinis, they have been expected to project a wholesome image.

Last year, the blonde Miss California, Carrie Prejean, got into trouble when topless fashion pictures of her emerged on the Internet.

AFP

UN 'blows whistle' in media campaign against hunger

ROME — The UN food agency launched a worldwide media campaign Tuesday to "blow the whistle" on hunger, a scourge that affects nearly one billion people.

"I'm mad as hell and I hope you are too, so let's go out there and blow the whistle on hunger together," said Olympic gold medallist Carl Lewis, among a galaxy of sporting and film stars lending their voices to the campaign.

"I've broken a lot of records in my career but the record we want to break now means much more," Lewis said.

The campaign centres on an on-line petition urging governments to make the elimination of hunger their top priority, with the slogan "I'm Mad as Hell" and a yellow whistle icon.

Its website, www.1billionhungry.org, features a clip in which British film star Jeremy Irons says: "People around the world suffer hunger, chronic hunger. One billion people, one billion of us. Now that's bad, worse than bad, that's crazy!"

Getting angrier by the second in the takeoff of a famous scene from the film "Network" starring Peter Finch, Irons says: "We've got to get mad. I want you to get mad. I want you to get up right now, stick your head out outta the window and yell: 'I'm mad as hell... and I'm not gonna let one billion people go hungry.' You tell 'em!"

The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation hopes the petition will spread through social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

FAO Director General Jacques Diouf, addressing the event by video link from Brasilia where he was stranded by the Icelandic ash cloud, said: "I have a feeling of revolt. I exhort you to express this feeling of revolt... in both developed and developing countries".

If the world continues at the current pace of hunger reduction, the Millennium Development Goal of halving the percentage of hungry people by 2015 will not be met, the FAO warns.

The UN agency estimates that global agricultural production needs to grow by 70 percent if the estimated nine billion people that will inhabit the planet in 2050 are to be fed.

AFP

Violent tornadoes tear through Okla., killing 5

By TIM TALLEY (AP)

SEMINOLE, Okla. — Families picked through broken furniture and dented appliances outside their toppled homes on Tuesday as garbage trucks scooped up soaking mattresses and other debris left over from violent storms that tore through the southern Plains, killing five people and injuring dozens.

Several tornadoes were reported in Oklahoma and Kansas as Monday's storms moved through the area, dumping hail as big as softballs, splintering homes and downing hundreds of power lines.

Oklahoma City Deputy Fire Chief Cecil Clay refused to rule out the possibility of finding more dead but said conditions were tough for rescue workers Tuesday.

"We have heavy fog (and) power lines down making it difficult to see all the hazards out there," he said.

The line of storms swept through Kansas and into Oklahoma Monday evening, leveling houses and flipping cars. Forecasters using advanced technology, fueled by supercomputers crunching atmospheric data, began predicting the severe weather last week.

Two people were killed in Oklahoma City — including a young boy hit by debris in his home and a man whose recreational vehicle flipped over on top of him — and three in Cleveland County, south of the city, officials said. At least 58 others were injured — two of them critically.

Near Seminole, about 60 miles east of Oklahoma City, at least two homes were leveled after a tornado tore through the area, Emergency Management Director Ernie Willis said. The town's airport suffered extensive damage and several planes were destroyed, he said.

On Tuesday, uprooted trees lay cracked in half, and the faint smell of cedar drifted through the air. Utility poles were down, lining parts of Oklahoma 99, and pickup trucks carted away damaged mattresses and other items. The Varnum School District near Seminole also said it would be closed for the rest of the week — and possibly the rest of the school year — after the tornado destroyed a pre-kindergarten building and damaged other parts of the campus, Superintended John Sheridan said.

Siblings Maria and Alejandro Martinez sifted through debris Tuesday at the site where their mobile home had stood. The storm had blown it off of its foundation and threw it 50 feet away, scattering their furniture, appliances and other household items around the yard.

Alejandro, 14, said the family was inside their home when it started moving Monday evening. They were thrown from the home and suffered cuts and bruises. Their father, who also was at home, had a broken arm, they said.

"It started shaking and the lights went out," Maria, 12, said.

Nearby, Yolanda Suarez and her relatives tried to salvage what they could from the wreckage. Appliances — including a washer, dryer and refrigerator — sat exposed on one of her mobile home after the storm tore off its roof and knocked down walls.

The only part of the home left standing was the bedroom Suarez hid in.

"She just ran into the room. She didn't want to leave. She thought it was more dangerous to leave than to stay inside," said her relative Victor Rodriguez.

Authorities urged residents to stay off the roads in affected areas to allow rescue workers to search for survivors among the wreckage of their homes. They said they didn't immediately know of anyone who was unaccounted for.

"I haven't heard of anybody in particular. They're just trying to make sure there's not anybody trapped or stuck in there," said Dan Cary, the emergency management director for Cleveland County.

In Norman — Cleveland County's largest city with about 106,000 residents — Tim Tegeler checked out the damage to his windows, air conditioner and fence at his home. Tegeler, his wife, their daughters and their pet fish had taken shelter in their laundry room until the storms passed.

"We saw it coming, but the best thing is my family's fine," Tegeler said.

More thunderstorms were expected Tuesday, but they were not predicted to be as severe, said meteorologist Ty Judd with the National Weather Service.

"We're not looking at what we saw yesterday," Judd said. He said a preliminary estimate counted 10 tornado touchdowns in Oklahoma Monday.

Gov. Brad Henry on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in 56 Oklahoma counties. He and U.S. Reps. Tom Cole and Mary Fallin were scheduled to tour damaged areas in central Oklahoma.

In Kansas, the most serious damage was reported in Belmont, west of Wichita, where several homes were hit and there were widespread power outages. But no injuries were reported.

In Alfalfa County, Sheriff Charlie Tucker said baseball-sized hail broke the windshields of numerous cars and damaged homes.

"I came home once to look at my own personal vehicle and the windshield was all bashed out. The grandchildren's swing set was up and now it's gone, so there was straight-line winds that came through," Tucker said.

Associated Press Writer Ken Miller in Oklahoma City contributed to this report

Associated Press

Attorney General moves to stop Fashola's probe

By Segun Balogun

The letter written by the Attorney General of Lagos State, Supo Sasore, advising all ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) in the state not to appear today before the 7-man ad hoc committee investigating financial allegations made against the executive government of Lagos State met the fury of the lawmakers yesterday.

This has prompted the House to summon Mr. Sasore to appear before it today.

The probe committee is expecting the MDAs to present requested documents relevant to its assignment today but the attorney general, in his letter that was read at the plenary session of the House yesterday, advised the MDAs "that they are under a legal duty not to acquiesce in actions that may undermine the process of the Court of Appeal".

The continued sitting of the probe panel amounts to contempt of the court to the fact that there is an appeal suit and a pending motion for injunction on the investigation saga, as explained in the letter, which was written on the advice of Bamidele Aturu, a lawyer, to the attorney general.

Mr. Aturu in a letter written to the attorney general on May 6 asked the attorney general "to use your good offices to prevail upon the defendant (House of Assembly), if need be, by using your constitutional power, to ensure that [the defendant] does not do anything to frustrate the appeal and motion for injunction pending before the Court of Appeal".

Mr. Sasore, based on Mr. Aturu's advice, asked the probe committee to "await the outcome of the appeal case and the motion for injunction before the court of appeal".

Background

A Lagos High Court presided by Justice Abiru had on March 16, in the case Richard Akinola vs Lagos House of Assembly, dissolved a 5-man committee set up by the House to investigate allegations levelled against the executive government by The True Face of Lagos group because the House did not follow due process.

In its next sitting after the judgment, the House dissolved the committee but upon another allegation made by the same group, another 7-man committee was constituted.

An appeal was however filed by Mr. Akionla, even though he won at the High Court and a yet-to-be-granted injunction to stop the new committee was sought.

Bone of contention

As explained in his letter, Mr. Aturu, who is Mr. Akionla's lawyer, said they have gone to the Appeal Court because the High Court refused to construe the provision of section 128(a) and 128(b) of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as requested.

"In other words, the court did not agree with us that the power of the defendant to conduct investigation under section 128 must be predicated on the existence of a pending bill to make a new law or correct defects in existing law relating to the subject matter of investigation," he said.

Rising to oppose Mr. Aturu's claim, Sanai Agunbiade (Ikorodu constituency), who is a member of the probe committee, said the claim is only true for Section 128(a). He said Section 128(b) empowers the House to also hold investigation in order to expose corruption.

Mr. Agunbiade also said that the ministry of works and infrastructure had already obliged the probe panel the requested documents.

"I don't think there is anything in law or common sense that will stop the House from investigating allegations of corruption," said Adeyemi Ikuforiji, the Speaker of the House.

"The attorney general, who I have a lot of respect for as a complete gentleman, got it all wrong. He should be brought to this House [Tuesday] to explain what we don't already know".

Next

Govt Confirms Hijacking of Bulgarian Tanker by Somali Pirates

Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry has confirmed the news about the hijacking of a Bulgarian ship, MV Panega, by Somali pirates.

The news was initially broken by EU Navfor Somalia, which reported that the 15 Bulgarian sailors on board are reported to be kidnapped.

According to the Sea Administration Agency of the Bulgarian government, the chemical tanker MV Panega was heading to Pakistan. EU Navfor reported at first that the ship was headed to India.

The Panega (built 1986, 5,848 dwt) is a single-skin hulled product tanker operated by Navigation Maritime Bulgare Ltd (NAVIBULGAR), Bulgaria.

The naval forces of the EU in the Gulf of Aden are trying to get in contact with the Bulgarian ship.

Bulgaria’s Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Transport, and Defense have immediately formed an inter-institutional working group to tackle the situation.

MV Panega is the first ship sailing under Bulgarian flag to be hijacked by Somali pirates.

Together with its 15-member crew, the total number of Bulgarian sailors held in captivity by Somali pirates has risen to 28 – including 5 sailors from the Asian Glory, and 8 from St. James Park.

Novinite

Libeskind extension for Berlin Jewish Museum unveiled

Berlin's Jewish Museum on Tuesday unveiled an extension to its striking building by Star US architect Daniel Libeskind, which will be used in its growing role in teaching people about the Holocaust.

Since opening in 2001 in central Berlin, the museum has attracted more than six million people from all over the world, with 750,000 visiting in 2009 alone.

In the same period the number of education projects organised by the museum has more than doubled, with thousands of school groups visiting every year in addition to hundreds of educational events taking place.

Together with its growing archive and library holdings, this has resulted in an "acute" lack of space, the museum said.

The extension, opposite the current site on Lindenstrasse, will be "one of the most important research and education centres on the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry," it said.

The Jewish Museum at present consists of two buildings, the Kollegienhaus, a former Baroque Prussian courthouse, and a striking, zigzag metal construction designed by Libeskind, connected by underground passageways.

For the €10-million ($12.7-million) extension, the 63-year-old will convert a large warehouse currently housing a flower market, adding three cubes, one for the entrance, one for a library and a third for an auditorium.

The museum tells the story of 2,000 years of Jewish history in Germany, with special focus on the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis, including through the poignant use of empty space.

The new extension is due to open in late 2011.

AFP

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