The Star-Democrat from Easton, Maryland • Page 3

NATION A3 THE SUNDAY STar SUNDAY, DECEMBER 31,2006 Not able to fit in your CLOTHES? Frustrated not being able to SLEEP! Is FATIGUE affecting daily functions? Tired of taking pills for PAIN and INFLAMMATION? A re Your HORMONES Affecting Your Body Shape? Call 410-604-0900 Healing Center Dr.John E.Fish,D.C.,Clinical Nutritionist Kent Island FREE WEIGHT LOSS SEMINAR 10 am Reserve your place Limited seating! This seminar is research based and will explain why you have the above problems and how they can be corrected without surgery or drugs. Listen for Dr.Fish on 96.7 FMWCEI Starting 7 am email your questions to and he will answer them on the air Call 410-819-6990 located at 31A Creamery 21601 Loans with no W-2 are available through up to $1,900 provided by Santa Barbara Bank Trust or HSBC Bank USA, N.A.subject to credit approval, terms and conditions.All fees deducted from loan proceeds.Most offices are independently owned operated.Available at participating locations. Rev. Jesse Jackson, left, singer Michael Jackson, center, and Rev. Al Sharpton stand in front of the open coffin of singer James Brown as they pay their respects during a funeral service at the James Brown arena in Augusta, on Saturday.

AP BENNETT AP PHOTO James Brown fans bid final farewell at memorial in his Ga. hometown More than 8,500 James Brown fans filled an arena bearing his name Saturday in a final, joyful farewell to the singer that seemed as fitting for a civil rights leader as for the godfather of soul. For mourner Maynard Eaton, Brown was a political figure above all. black and was the most influential black slogan of the he said, referring to the chorus of the Brown standard It body lay in front of the bandstand in a black jacket and gloves, red shirt and sequined shoes. Fans lined up in the rain before dawn to get in.

When James Brown Arena was full, they gathered on the streets outside to listen to the service over a public address system. The Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and a tearful Michael Jackson were among those who took turns at the podium overlooking the casket. come to thank God for James Brown, because only God could have made a James Brown said Sharpton, a longtime Brown confidant who also spoke at a boisterous ceremony Thursday at the famed Apollo Theater in New York and a private service Friday. Michael Jackson, whose arrival sparked a roar from the crowd, bowed before the casket and shared a hug with Sharpton just as latest backup band, the Soul Generals, started to play.

Brown is my greatest the pop star told mourners, adding that when he was a child, his mother would wake him, regardless of the hour, whenever Brown was on TV. I saw him move, I was Jackson said. knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life because of James Brown died of heart failure Dec. 25 in Atlanta while hospitalized for treatment of pneumonia. He was 73.

His hits, such as Got You (I Feel and Got A Brand New inspired generations of soul, funk, disco, rock and rap artists. A day earlier, thousands of fans poured into the Apollo in Harlem for a sometimes raucous celebration of Brown at the venue where one of his trademark high-energy concerts launched him into the international spotlight in 1956. was a God-sent person almost like an said Vickie Greene, who saw her first Brown show more than 30 years ago and attended ceremony. Brown was born in Barnwell, S.C., in 1933 and spent much of his childhood in Augusta, singing and dancing for change on street corners. At times, he committed petty crimes that landed him in reform school.

closes BellSouth deal Largest such telecommunications takeover in U.S. history DALLAS (AP) Inc. extended its dominance as the largest provider of phone, wireless and broadband Internet services by acquiring BellSouth Corp. in the largest telecommunications takeover in U.S. history.

The Federal Communications Commission unanimously approved the $86 billion buyout on Friday, a day after the company offered new concessions for consumers and competitors. Lawyers for and the two Democratic commissioners who had opposed the merger hammered out a compromise, the details of which were released Thursday night. promised to observe not to favor Internet content providers who pay the company more money and to offer $19.95 per month stand-alone digital subscriber line service. will also divest some wireless spectrum. offered the concessions after a little more than a week of marathon negotiations with lawyers for the two Democrats on the commission, Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein.

The combination of San Antonio- based and Atlanta-based BellSouth will have operations in 22 states. estimates that about 10,000 jobs will be phased out over three years. Combined, the companies generate about $117 billion in revenue and operate 68.7 million local phone lines stretching coast to coast across the southern United States and up through the Midwest. The buyout will also give complete control over Cingular Wireless, the largest wireless telecommunications provider, which it had jointly owned with BellSouth. is also trying to roll out television service to compete with cable operators.

Adelstein said Friday he was pleased with the agreement. got substantial concessions that are going to mitigate a lot of the harms that would otherwise have resulted from this he said. Copps said he was not fully satisfied with the deal that he and Adelstein struck with but he called the outcome modest victory for American But FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican who supported the merger from early on, and fellow Republican Deborah Taylor Tate complained that was forced to accept conditions to win approval for the deal. Martin and Taylor Tate said the conditions burdens that have nothing to do with the transaction, are discriminatory, and run contrary to commission policy and Consumer advocates had opposed the merger from the start, but they put the best face on the compromise, pointing to promise of network neutrality. Mark Cooper, research director for the Consumer Federation of America, said neutrality would protect a and open The intense negotiations between and the FCC came after one of the three Republican members, Robert McDowell, removed himself because he had been a lobbyist for Comptel, a trade group that opposed the deal.

Joey Harris, left, Iris Matchett and Angie McAlpine, right, look over a damaged section of the Vincent Personal Care Home on Saturday, near Groesbeck, Texas. An elderly resident at the home for disabled veterans was killed after a tornado swept through the area Friday. Colorado digging motorists out after latest blizzard, storm moves onto Plains DENVER (AP) National Guard troops in tracked vehicles crawled through 10-foot snowdrifts and whiteout conditions Saturday in eastern Colorado, rescuing motorists trapped by the second holiday season blizzard. The storm, which brought Denver to a standstill and hampered holiday air travel Thursday and Friday, was slowly moving east, spreading snow from New Mexico to the Dakotas and generating strong thunderstorms in the lower Mississippi Valley. Blizzard warnings were posted for eastern Colorado and western Kansas and parts of New Mexico, Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle.

The Guard pulled about 20 people out of cars stranded on rural highways from Friday night into Saturday and took them to emergency shelters, said Maj. Gen. Mason Whitney, the state adjutant general. No injuries were reported. Interstate 70 and several other major east-west highways were closed Saturday from the Rockies east across Colorado into western Kansas.

Interstate 25 heading south into New Mexico was closed near the state line. All major roads from Kansas into Colorado were closed Saturday, including Interstate 70. One traffic death was blamed on the storm in Colorado and a tornado killed one person in Texas on Friday. A possible tornado struck a rural part of south Louisiana early Saturday, damaging homes and ripping down power lines, but there were no immediate reports of injuries, Acadia Parish Sheriff Wayne Melancon said. About 500 travelers spent the night at Denver International Airport, not stranded but hoping to get an early start on ticket lines, said airport spokesman Chuck Cannon.

The fifth-busiest airport was closed for two days by the storm that struck just before Christmas, but it was only slowed by the latest storm, with the major carriers canceling about 20 percent of their scheduled flights. Airlines planned to fly full or nearly full schedules Saturday, Cannon said. Colorado Gov. Bill Owens had declared a statewide disaster emergency. The tornadoes generated by the storm system in Texas on Friday destroyed as many as 50 homes, sent at least a dozen people to hospitals and forced President Bush and his wife into an armored vehicle on his Crawford ranch.

The Bushes, and their two dogs, were driven to a tornado shelter on the ranch. They sat inside the armored vehicle until the weather cleared. Residents of an assisted living center for military veterans in Texas had little time to react Friday before a tornado struck. The center received word about 30 seconds before the tornado hit, about 60 miles east of Crawford near Waco. Homeland intelligence chief presses hard to establish agency and gain respect WASHINGTON (AP) After 47 years spent gathering and analyzing foreign intelligence at the CIA, Charles Allen is facing perhaps his biggest career challenge in developing a homeland intelligence capability.

He now must gain the respect of the U.S. intelligence community for the Homeland Security Department, where he has spent just over a year as chief intelligence officer. Allen said in an interview with The Associated Press that he already has improved the quality of intelligence coming out of the department, and has in fact expanded the definition of homeland security intelligence. While his officers attend daily meetings and participate in projects with analysts from other intelligence agencies, particularly the FBI and the National Counterterrorism Center, Allen said: are different. been given the freedom and authority to develop a strong intelligence capability, to realize what was really when Homeland Security was created.

One of innovations is to send intelligence officers to state and local created in 43 locations around the country to blend law enforcement information and intelligence analysis collected at the local level. Allen now has officers stationed in 12 of the fusion centers..