Minnesota State University Reporter

Issue date: 2/14/08 Section: News Bits

MSU

• Actress and model Camille Cooper will discuss "The Truth about Beauty" Feb. 26 as the anchor event for Eating Disorders Awareness Week and Women's History Month at Minnesota State.

Her presentation, free and open to students, faculty, staff and the public will be at 7 p.m. in the Centennial Student Union Ostrander Auditorium. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

Camille Cooper has worked professionally in film and television for 10 years, starring in five motion pictures and more than 10 television series, including "General Hospital" and "Knots Landing." She has been featured in numerous commercials and print ads (Coke, Milky Way, Campbell's Soup and others) and has lectured across the country encouraging young women to define themselves by their abilities, not looks.

National

• The official New York City condom has a different look and a sexy new slogan: New Yorkers are being encouraged to "get some" on Valentine's Day.

Street teams will be handing out the free condoms at busy hubs around the city on Thursday, including Times Square, Wall Street and near City Hall.

And an ad campaign on television, radio and subways and buses will soon begin, featuring the catch phrase.

"We want to give away as many condoms as people will use because we're trying to make New York City an even safer place to have sex, and this is a powerful way to do it," said Monica Sweeney, the Health Department's assistant commissioner for HIV prevention and control.

The free condom initiative is part of the city's effort to reduce rates of sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies. About 100,000 of New York's 8.2 million residents have HIV or AIDS, and many more are diagnosed each year.

• Yahoo Inc. hopes media conglomerate News Corp. can rescue it from a Microsoft Corp. takeover - or at least prove the slumping Internet pioneer is worth more money than its unsolicited suitor wants to pay.

A News Corp. partnership could provide Yahoo with the escape hatch that the Sunnyvale-based company has been seeking since Microsoft pounced with its takeover bid two weeks ago.

If nothing else, the possibility of Yahoo joining forces with one of the world's largest media empires could prompt Microsoft to sweeten its bid, which was originally valued at $44.6 billion, or $31 per share.

Yahoo is believed to want at least $40 per share, or about $56 billion.

World

• A deal has been reached with kidnappers for the release of two CBS journalists, radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's office in Basra said Wednesday.

Harith al-Edhari, a director of al-Sadr's office in the southern Iraqi city, said negotiations had persuaded the kidnappers to release the British journalist and his Iraqi interpreter later Wednesday.

"We reached an agreement with kidnappers to hand over the Iraqi interpreter to the police command in Basra and the British journalist will be handed over to al-Sadr's office in Basra this afternoon," al-Edhari told The Associated Press. He did not give a specific time.

Iraqi police and witnesses said the two were seized Sunday from a hotel in Basra.

CBS News said Monday that two journalists working for it were missing in Basra, but it did not identify them.

Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, has seen fierce fighting between rival Shiite militias as part of a power struggle in the oil-rich south.


From Associated Press and MSU press releases

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools