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‘Original King’ comic actor Bernie Mac dies

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) — Bernie Mac, the actor and comedian who teamed up in the casino heist caper Ocean’s Eleven and gained a prestigious Peabody Award for his sitcom The Bernie Mac Show, died Saturday at age 50.

Actor/comedian Bernie Mac passed away this morning from complications due to pneumonia in a Chicago area hospital, his publicist, Danica Smith, said in a statement from Los Angeles.

The comedian suffered from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the body’s organs, but had said the condition went into remission in 2005. He recently was hospitalized and treated for pneumonia, which his publicist said was not related to the disease.

Mac’s brand of comedy caught flak when he was heckled during a surprise appearance at a July fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate and fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama.

Toward the end of a 10-minute standup routine, Mac joked about menopause, sexual infidelity and promiscuity, and used occasional crude language. The performance earned him a rebuke from Obama’s campaign. Watch how Steve Harvey remembers Bernie Mac

But despite controversy or difficulties, in his words, Mac was always a performer.

Wherever I am, I have to play, he said in 2002. I have to put on a good show.

Mac worked his way to Hollywood success from an impoverished upbringing on Chicago’s South Side. He began doing standup as a child, and his film career started with a small role as a club doorman in the Damon Wayans comedy Mo’ Money in 1992. In 1996, he appeared in the Spike Lee drama Get on the Bus.

He was one of The Original Kings of Comedy in the 2000 documentary of that title that brought a new generation of black standup comedy stars to a wider audience.

The majority of his core fan base will remember that when they paid their money to see Bernie Mac … he gave them their money’s worth, Steve Harvey, one of his co-stars in Original Kings, said Saturday.

Mac went on to star in the hugely popular Ocean’s Eleven franchise with Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

Comedian Carl Reiner, who also appeared in Ocean’s Eleven and its two sequels, said Saturday that he was in utter shock, because he thought Mac was improving. He was just so alive. I can’t believe he’s gone, he said. iReport.com: Share your appreciation for Bernie Mac

Reiner told KNX-AM in Los Angeles that other comics had talked to the audience as Mac did on The Bernie Mac Show, but he took it to a new level.

It was such a popular show because of his bigger-than-life persona, Reiner said.

His turn with Ashton Kutcher in 2005’s Guess Who topped the box office. It was a comedy remake of the classic Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn drama Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? with Mac as the black dad who’s shocked that his daughter is marrying a white man.

Mac also had starring roles in Bad Santa, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle and Transformers.

The comedian drew critical and popular acclaim with his Fox television series The Bernie Mac Show, which aired more than 100 episodes from 2001 to 2006.

The series about a man’s adventures raising his sister’s three children won a Peabody Award in 2002. At the time, judges wrote they chose the sitcom for transcending race and class while lifting viewers with laughter, compassion — and cool.

In real life, he was very much like his character on that series, his daughter, Je’niece Childress, told The Associated Press on Saturday.

He was the king of his household, Childress said in Chicago, describing Mac as a loving grandfather to her daughter, his only grandchild.

The Bernie Mac Show garnered Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for Mac.

But television handcuffs you, man, he said in 2001. Now everyone telling me what I CAN’T do, what I CAN say, what I SHOULD do, and asking, ‘Are blacks gonna be mad at you? Are whites gonna accept you?’

He also was nominated for a Grammy award for best comedy album in 2001 along with his The Original Kings of Comedy co-stars, Harvey, D.L. Hughley and Cedric the Entertainer.

Chicago music producer Carolyn Albritton said she was Bernie Mac’s first manager, having met him in 1991 at Chicago’s Cotton Club, where she hosted an open-mike night.

From very early on, I thought he was destined for success, Albritton said Saturday. He never lost track of where he came from, and he’d often use real life experiences, his family, his friends, in his routine. After he made it, he stayed a very humble man. His family was the most important thing in the world to him.

In 2007, Mac told David Letterman on CBS’ Late Show that he planned to retire soon.

I’m going to still do my producing, my films, but I want to enjoy my life a little bit, Mac told Letterman. I missed a lot of things, you know. I was a street performer for two years. I went into clubs in 1977.

Mac was born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough on October 5, 1957, in Chicago. He grew up on the city’s South Side, living with his mother and grandparents. His grandfather was the deacon of a Baptist church.

In his 2004 memoir, Maybe You Never Cry Again, Mac wrote about having a poor childhood — eating bologna for dinner — and a strict, no-nonsense upbringing.

I came from a place where there wasn’t a lot of joy, Mac said in 2001. I decided to try to make other people laugh when there wasn’t a lot of things to laugh about.

found here.

Czech shooter wins first gold of Olympics

BEIJING, China (AP) — The Olympics got under way on Saturday with a gold medal for the host country and news that two Beijing-bound runners tested positive for doping.

Chen Xiexia of China won gold in the women’s 48-kilogram weightlifting, while Katerina Emmons of the Czech Republic had the distinction of winning the first of 302 golds to be awarded before the games end on August 24 when she took the 10-meter air rifle.

The Greek national Olympic committee said 29-year-old Tassos Gousis, who competes in the 200 meters, tested positive for the steroid methyltrienolone on Monday. He has been sent home from a pre-games training camp in Japan after being informed of the result.

Russian steeplechase runner Roman Usov has been pulled out amid reports he failed a drug test conducted at the selection trials last month.

Meanwhile, Samuel Sanchez of Spain won the gold medal in the men’s cycling road race, emerging from a pack of six contenders who sprinted madly to the finish in the shadow of the Great Wall.

Italy’s Davide Rebellin won silver on his 37th birthday, while Switzerland’s Fabian Cancellara took the bronze after the furious 100-meter sprint to the finish.

Sanchez prevailed in the 152-mile event after enduring six hours, 23 minutes, 49 seconds in the sultry, hazy air of China’s capital city.

The Spaniards were widely tabbed as the favorites before the race, but the five Americans in the field disappointed with Levi Leipheimer the top U.S. finisher in 11th place.

Mariel Zagunis won the United States’ first gold medal, leading an American sweep in women’s saber fencing.

Zagunis, the 2004 Athens champion, triumphed with a 15-8 victory over Sada Jacobson, who took the silver. Becca Ward took the bronze.

Romania’s Alina Dumitru won the first gold medal in the Olympic judo competition, stunning Japanese double gold medalist Ryoko Tani in the 48-kilogram class semifinal and then flipping Cuba’s Yanet Bermoy to the mat in the final.

Tani, previously unbeaten in major international competition since the Atlanta Games in 1996, saw her hopes of a third straight gold evaporate when judges awarded penalties to Dumitru after both failed to show much aggression.

South Korea’s Choi Min-ho, who won bronze in Athens, threw all of his opponents to win the men’s 60-kilogram division.

Defending Olympic champion Park Sung-hyun tied an Olympic record to help South Korea dominant on the opening day of the women’s archery competition.

Park’s score of 673 in the individual ranking round equaled the record set by Lina Herasymenko of Ukraine in 1996. Park set the world record of 682 in the same round in 2004.

South Korean Yun Ok-hee, ranked No. 1 in the world, finished second with a score of 667, while teammate Joo Hyun-jung followed at 664.

Americans Jennifer Nichols finished 24th and Khatuna Lorig finished 26th to advance to the elimination round.

Later, golds were to be awarded in men’s 10-meter air pistol and the women’s individual saber in fencing, where Americans were favored to sweep the medals.

In women’s basketball, the United States began their quest for a fourth successive gold medal with a 97-57 rout of the Czech Republic.

Up next for the U.S. are hosts China, who beat Spain 67-64 in their first game.

Lauren Jackson, the WNBA’s most valuable player last year with the Seattle Storm, scored 18 points to lead Australia to an 83-64 win over Belarus.

Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser, the defending beach volleyball world champions and the overwhelming favorites to win the Olympic gold medal, lost their opening match on Saturday night to a Latvian team that was seeded 23rd in the 24-team field.

The Americans, who had won 21 straight international matches, must win their next two matches in pool play to be assured of a spot in the medal round.

Martins Plavins and Aleksandrs Samoilovs, former junior world champions who are the first Latvian team to qualify for the Olympics, won 21-19 21-18 in the best-of-three set match.

Lucinda Fredericks was in first place after the first two sessions of dressage on Saturday, giving Australia an early equestrian eventing lead.

Fredericks earned 30.0 penalty points on Headley Britannia in the morning session, while teammate Megan Jones earned 35.4 on Irish Jester to finish third.

The standings after Saturday’s competition showed Australia in first with 102.8 points, followed by the United States with 121.5 points and Germany with 135.3 points.

Karin Donckers of Belgium was in second with a score of 31.7 on Gazelle de la Brasserie in the last ride Saturday night. Donckers is competing as an individual, because Belgium did not send a complete team of at least three riders.

Britain’s Tracey Hallam coasted to a straight-sets win over Hong Kong’s Yip Pui Yin on Saturday in the first round of the Olympic badminton tournament.

Hallam, who is 14th in the world rankings, downed 12th-ranked Yip 21-15, 21-17 to advance to the second round to face Kristina Ludikova of the Czech Republic.

All the top-seeded players had a first-round bye.

Russia and South Korea were deadlocked 29-29 at the end of the highest-profile matchup on Saturday’s women’s handball slate.

World champions Russia led 16-13 at halftime and increased that margin to 26-18 with 16 minutes to play before the South Koreans — runners-up in 2004 — rallied to level.

found here.

Olympic standings

History, Culture, and Pyrotechnics Come Together For A Night To Remember

from inception to production, the spectacular event that was the launch ceremonial for the beijing olympics was beyond compare. i have under no circumstances seen the conceptualization of anything so brilliantly put to movement, lights, pyrotechnics and costuming. from beginning to upshot each and every interpretation of this ‘experience’ was without taint. i am in awe of the depth and degree of fixation and pep invested

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Runners fail pre-Olympics doping tests

BEIJING, China, (AP) — Greek sprinter Tassos Gousis was excluded from the Beijing Olympics on Saturday after failing a pre-games doping test in his home country, while Russian steeplechase runner Roman Usov has been pulled out amid reports he tested positive last month.

The Greek national Olympic committee said 29-year-old Gousis, who competes in the 200 meters, tested positive for the steroid methyltrienolone on Monday. He has been sent home from a pre-games training camp in Japan after being informed of the result.

The first test returned positive, Greek press officer Tasos Papachristou told The Associated Press. He’s not in the team. Now he’s traveling to Greece where I imagine he will ask for the ‘B’ sample (to be tested).

Gousis finished eighth in the 200m at last year’s world championships in Osaka, Japan. He competed in the 2004 Athens Olympics but failed to qualify for the final.

Usov, 30, placed second at the national trials in Kazan, Russia, last month and had been listed to compete in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in China.

Russian media reported that Usov had tested positive for the banned substance Carphedon, which is a stimulant.

The Russian track and field federation has made the decision that this athlete will not start in Beijing, team spokesman Gennady Shvets told The Associated Press on Saturday, a day after the opening ceremony.

Gousis’ positive test is the latest in a spate of drug cases that have tarnished Greek Olympic athletes.

In June, the International Weightlifting Federation suspended 11 Greek weightlifters for two years after they tested positive for methyltrienolone.

Top Greek swimmer Ioannis Drymonakos tested positive for the same steroid in May. An unidentified Greek boxer was also barred from the Olympic team after failing a drug test.

found here.

Edwards admits to extramarital affair

(CNN) — Former U.S. senator and Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards admitted Friday to an extramarital affair. He denied being the father of the woman’s child, as had been alleged in tabloid reports.

In 2006, I made a serious error in judgment and conducted myself in a way that was disloyal to my family and to my core beliefs, he said in a written statement. I recognized my mistake and I told my wife that I had a liaison with another woman, and I asked for her forgiveness.

In an interview on ABC’s Nightline, Edwards acknowledged the affair with 42-year-old Rielle Hunter, which began after she was hired to make documentary videos for his campaign, ABC said.

I was wrong. I was responsible, Edwards said on Nightline.

You cannot beat me up more than I have already beaten up myself. I have been stripped bare and will now work with everything I have to help my family and others who need my help, he said in the statement. Read the full statement

He said he has not taken a paternity test but that the timing of the affair rules out the possibility that he could be the father of Hunter’s 5-month-old child. Edwards said Friday night he is truly hopeful that a paternity test will be done to squelch the rumors.

Andrew Young, a former Edwards campaign aide who is married, has publicly said he fathered the child. The Washington Post reported Friday that Hunter acknowledged Young as the father.

When the tabloid the National Enquirer first reported the affair in October, Edwards flatly denied it, calling the claims false and ridiculous. Watch an interview with the National Enquirer’s editor

Contacted through a former aide by CNN on Thursday, Edwards had refused to comment on the reports. He also dodged reporters at a recent event in Washington.

In a July 24 appearance in New Orleans, Louisiana, he would not answer a reporter’s question about whether he had provided financial support to Hunter or Young. Watch Edwards says I sin every single day

I have no idea what you’re asking about, Edwards said. I have responded to, consistently, to these tabloid allegations by saying I don’t respond to these lies.

Edwards, 55, of North Carolina, told ABC that his wife, Elizabeth, and other family members have known about the affair since 2006.

Elizabeth Edwards, in a posting on the Daily Kos Web site said:

The fact that it is a mistake that many others have made before him did not make it any easier for me to hear when he told me what he had done. But he did tell me. And we began a long and painful process in 2006, a process oddly made somewhat easier with my [cancer] diagnosis in March of 2007. This was our private matter, and I frankly wanted it to be private because as painful as it was I did not want to have to play it out on a public stage as well.

Edwards, the vice presidential candidate during Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 presidential bid, had been mentioned as a potential running mate for Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee this year, and as a possible attorney general or other high-ranking appointee if Obama wins the November election.

But Don Fowler, a former Democratic Party chairman, said this week that Edwards might be forfeiting a major role at the party’s upcoming convention in Denver — or in a future Democratic administration — unless he cleared the air.

I think the longer these allegations go unanswered and unresponded to, the more difficult it is for the people producing the convention to give him a prominent spot, Fowler said.

Fowler, of South Carolina, served as Democratic chairman from 1995 to 1997 and will be a party superdelegate at the Denver convention in late August. He said he had no input into whether Edwards addresses the convention, but I would expect that he would not speak or have any role at the convention unless this is cleared up. Watch more on the Edwards controversy

Obama, in Hawaii for a weeklong vacation, told reporters he understands that Edwards does not plan to attend the convention.

This is a difficult and painful time for them, and I think they need to work through that process of healing, he said. My sense is that that’s going to be their top priority.

John Edwards was a great champion of working people during the first of this campaign. Many of his themes are ones that Democrats as a whole share; those will be amplified at the convention, Obama added.

Presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain declined to comment on a similar question.

Speaking in support of Obama in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Friday, Edwards’ former rival Sen. Hillary Clinton responded briefly to a reporter’s question about what, if any, impact the revelation of the affair would have on Democrats.

My thoughts and prayer are with the Edwards family today, she said. That’s all I have to say.

The Enquirer’s claims about the affair were revived July 22 when the tabloid reported it had confronted Edwards at a Beverly Hills, California, hotel after receiving a tip he was meeting Hunter and her child there.

On Friday, he said he was ashamed of the affair and hoped it would never become public. He said he used the fact that the Enquirer story contained many falsities to deny it.

But being 99 percent honest is no longer enough, he said in the statement.

Edwards told ABC that his wife’s widely reported cancer was in remission when the affair began.

According to federal election records, the Edwards campaign paid Hunter’s production company roughly $114,000 in 2006 and 2007 for Website/Internet services.

The former North Carolina senator announced in January that he was dropping out of the 2008 Democratic presidential race.

It is time for me to step aside so that history can blaze its path, he said in New Orleans.

With his wife and children at his side, Edwards said he couldn’t predict who will take the final steps to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but he said it would be a Democrat.

Edwards endorsed Sen. Barack Obama on May 14 during a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

He trailed Clinton and Obama in the early contests. He came in third in key races in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Edwards had campaigned on the message that he was standing up for the little guy, the people who are not traditionally given a voice in Washington, and that he would do more to fight special interests.

After dropping out of the race, Edwards asked Clinton and Obama to make poverty a central issue in the general election and a future Democratic administration, something both agreed to do.

found here.