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Be decent or pay
A 379-35 House vote on the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act sends the bill to President Bush for his signature.
By SHARON FINK
Published June 8, 2006
Congress gave notice to broadcasters Wednesday that they will pay dearly for crossing the line with offensive material like Janet Jackson's 2004 Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction," passing legislation that would multiply indecency fines by 10. The 379-35 House vote on the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act sends the bill to President Bush for his signature. The bill, which previously passed the Senate, increases the top indecency fine the Federal Communications Commission can levy from $32,500 to $325,000 per incident. Bush is expected to sign it. Book rails 9/11 widows After their husbands were killed on Sept. 11, 2001, four New Jersey widows tried to find out why, and now conservative pundit Ann Coulter is calling them "witches." "I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much," Coulter writes in her new book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism. Her words were challenged on NBC's Today on Tuesday by host Matt Lauer and by the widows she derides as self-absorbed, limelight-seeking "harpies." "She sounds like a very disturbed, unraveled person," widow Kristen Breitweiser said. "I don't know how any person could say such things." In her book, Coulter writes that the widows, who pushed to create the 9/11 Commission, have no right to criticize President Bush or any failure that could have led to the terror attacks. "If you lose a husband, you no longer have the right to have a political point of view?" Lauer asked. As the exchange grew tense, Coulter said, "Look, you're getting testy with me." 'Nutty' idea: a musical Jerry Lewis, who starred in The Nutty Professor in 1963, will stage the film as a Broadway musical. The first show is planned for January at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, where the 80-year-old has a houseboat, he said. Lewis will direct the show, which he aims to have on Broadway by October 2008. The show will be produced by the Michael Andrew Co. Andrew, a 41-year-old crooner and comedian who fronts the Atomic Big Band, is set to play the lead. A surprise Nicollette duet Desperate Housewives star Nicollette Sheridan surprised fiance Michael Bolton by doing a duet with him on his new album, Bolton Swings Sinatra. "I didn't think she was going to have the courage to step up to the microphone and record, and she did," Bolton said. Bolton, 53, and Sheridan, 42, dated for several years in the early 1990s and reconnected last year. The couple sing The Second Time Around on Bolton's album, which was released last month. He called Sheridan's voice "breathy" and said it was difficult to match their tones.
[Last modified June 8, 2006, 09:50:53]
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Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
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