Lebanese Singer Sued For Racist Lyrics • Crowd Boos Sarah Palin At Book Signing

• Haifa Wehbe, a famous Lebanese pop singer, has come under fire for singing a song with racist lyrics. The song is from a children's album, and includes the line: "Where is my teddy bear and my Nubian monkey?" •

Nubian representatives say that the line compares black Egyptians to monkeys, and are suing the singer, her record label, and the songwriter. • The man charged with the kidnapping of Shaniya Davis has also been accused of raping and asphyxiating the 5-year-old South Carolina girl. Mario McNeill is being charged with first-degree murder and rape of a child. • Amanda Knox broke down in tears today in court as the prosecution closed their case against her, saying she "harboured hatred" for Meredith Kercher and "killed her to take revenge." • Amanda Knox's parents are so confident she'll be acquitted that they've already bought her a plane ticket home to Seattle. •  The British man charged with strangling his own wife on a camping trip was found not guilty on account of a rare disorder, which caused him to murder Christine Thomas in his sleep. "You are a decent man and a devoted husband. I strongly suspect that, not withstanding the circumstances here, you may well be feeling a sense of guilt about what happened that night. In the eyes of the law, you bear no responsibility," said the judge. •  Reporter Michael Crowley sat down in a restaurant the other night and found himself sitting two tables away from Sonia Sotomayor. Naturally, he sent out a Tweet, which read: "She left her purse on a chair; stern-faced security guys came back for it about 30 min later." •  Soldiers in Sweden are fighting for flame-retardant underwear. The Swedish Conscription Council claims that the female soldiers were promised appropriate bras and panties years ago, but the armed forces has failed to deliver. • Selma Aliye Kavaf, Turkey's minister for women's affairs, says, "The mentality change regarding women's participation in business or political life would take time. Legislation or laws are not enough for women to become active in business life." • A dad from Minnesota claims that during the first three years of his son's life, he spoke to him only in Klingon. The dad says it was part of an experiment, to see whether his kid would pick up the fictional language. He says he stopped when it became clear his son, now 15, preferred English. •  Warning: This story is disgusting and highly disturbing. Short version: a gang in Peru has been accused of murdering people in order to collect their fat, which is then sold on the black market for cosmetics. • The highest court in New York has rejected an attempt to throw out two government orders to recognize the rights of same-sex couples married in other states. While this is good news, the ruling was based on a technicality, and did not address the broader human rights issue at stake. • A team of researchers have made headway in understanding how the body metabolizes date rape drugs. They hope that the breakthrough "may provide new clues on how to counteract the drug's effects, or to enhance its metabolism and decrease toxicity for chronic abusers or victims of sexual assault." • A study from the Harvard School of Public Health found a woman's risk of developing multiple sclerosis during her lifetime is doubled if she was obese at age 18. This is the first time MS risk has been linked to obesity. The research was based on the Nurses' Health study, but doctors say "There's no reason to believe that the biological mechanisms would be different." • Ohio State University researchers found that alcoholics over the age of 60 have more than 40 alcoholic drinks a week on average, compared to between 25 and 35 drinks a week on average for younger alcoholics. The findings suggest older alcoholics have developed a tolerance and need to drink even more to get drunk. • A North Carolina doctor could lose his medical license for allegedly poking a patient's thigh and calling her fat and irresponsible for being unemployed and using taxpayer's money to pay for another pregnancy. The doctor admitted he told her that her fat thighs and diabetes could make her go blind. • Could "real" America's love affair with Sarah Palin be coming to a close? In this video an angry mob boos her and calls her a quitter after left a an event in Noblesville, Indiana without signing the books of about 300 families who had been waiting for more than three hours. • A few Indian travel agents are pushing "divorce tourism," package deals designed to help couples salvage their relationship. Viresh Hirjee, chief executive of a Mumbai travel agency, has been sending customers of vacation along with marriage counselors. "We are trying our best to bring the couple together," he said, but warned, "We are not destiny changers." • School officials in Orange County, California warned kids that if they skip school today to see New Moon they'll be marked truant. • The business information analysis firm IBISWorld says that the growing popularity of online dating sites is responsible for Australia's sex industry losing $67.6 million in the past year. "The rapid growth in online services means it has never been easier for like-minded individuals to organize casual liaisons for little or no cost," said IBISWorld analyst Edward Butler. • Barbara Ann Radnofsky, Democratic candidate for attorney general in Texas, says a clause in a 2005 constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages accidentally banned all marriages in the state. The clause reads: "This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage." Backers of the ban say she's reading too much into the clause for political reasons. • The city of Auckland, New Zealand paid $74,000 to give a 66-foot fiberglass Santa statue a facelift. One of his mechanical eyes had been drooping and people were worried it would scare children. His face has been bandaged and the repairs will be unveiled on Sunday. •

Send an email to Katy Kelleher, the author of this post, at katy@jezebel.com.

publish on Facebook

Upload an image | Add an image URL ×

Image URL: ×

Youtube URL: ×

Choose a file to upload:

×

Dsmvwl  Admin  Promote to frontpage Approve user Ban user ×

Loading comments ...

Earlier discussions | Other discussions | Show all discussions | Show featured discussions only | Expand all threads Collapse all threads
Start a new discussion