Venus Williams pulls out of US Open with illness (BLOG)

NEW YORK (AP) — Two days after playing her first match in two months, Venus Williams suddenly pulled out of the U.S. Open on Wednesday, revealing she recently was diagnosed with Sjogren's syndrome, an autoimmune disease that can cause joint pain.

The 31-year-old American has won seven Grand Slam titles, including at Flushing Meadows in 2000 and 2001.

"I enjoyed playing my first match here, and wish I could continue but right now I am unable to," Williams said in a statement released by the tournament. "I am thankful I finally have a diagnosis and am now focused on getting better and returning to the court soon."

She was supposed to face 22nd-seeded Sabine Lisicki in the second round Wednesday.

Williams cited a virus when withdrawing from hard-court tuneup tournaments since losing in the fourth round at Wimbledon in late June.

She returned to action Monday, beating Vesna Dolonts 6-4, 6-3 in the first round in New York, then said: "No one is more in one-match-at-a-time mode than me now at this tournament. It will just be one match at a time, for sure."

According to the Sjogren's Syndrome Foundation website, the disease is a chronic autoimmune illness in which people's white blood cells attack their moisture-producing glands. Common symptoms include dry eyes and dry mouth. As many as 4 million Americans have the disease.

In rare cases, it can cause arthritis and joint pain, said Dr. John Fitzgerald, director of clinical rheumatology at UCLA. Fitzgerald is not involved in treating Williams and does not know her symptoms or medical history. But, he said, if Williams has the typical symptoms, "it does not seem life-threatening or career-ending."

Williams arrived at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on Wednesday hours before her match was scheduled to begin and tried warming up by hitting balls.

When Williams left the site shortly before 5 p.m., wearing a white sweater and purple shorts, she was asked by reporters whether she would say anything. She smiled and waved and shook her head to indicate, "No," then climbed into the back of a tournament transportation car and rode away.

"All of us came with the full expectation she'd be playing today. She was geared up to play her match," said Williams' agent, Carlos Fleming.

"I just hope she's OK," Fleming added, "and I hope she's healthy and going to be fine."

Despite all of her past success, including a brief stint at No. 1 in the rankings, Williams was unseeded at the U.S. Open, because she has fallen to 36th after a year of little action. Since reaching the semifinals at last year's U.S. Open, Williams has played only 11 matches, and the WTA projects that her ranking now will slide out of the top 100.

Her younger sister, Serena, a 13-time Grand Slam champion, is scheduled to play her second-round match Thursday.

"A lot of times, they've drawn a lot of criticism. But, trust me, (in) five years, when they're gone, everyone is going to miss them. Everyone is going to realize they're going to be living legends for the rest of their lives. Two girls from Compton, dominating tennis — that's not an everyday story," said 2003 U.S. Open champion Andy Roddick, who's known the Williams sisters for about two decades.

"Venus is just the epitome of class, the way she's gone about it," he said. "I don't think she's ever even had a sniff of controversy around her. She's just done it the right way."

On Monday, Venus Williams was asked about the illness that caused her to skip tournaments this summer. She said that night that her ailment had been diagnosed, but wouldn't say what it was.

"It was just energy-sucking, and I just couldn't play pro tennis," she said Monday. "It was disappointing, because I had huge plans for this summer, of course, to improve my ranking. To miss out on all those points was definitely devastating. Just to miss so much time off tour was just disheartening. But I'm just really excited to be back."

Lisicki said she saw Venus Williams on the practice courts and in the locker room and expected to play their match — until the tournament referee passed along the news of the withdrawal.

"She's a tough girl, and I think she'll come back. You know, it would be unfortunate if she couldn't," Lisicki said. "Serena and Venus both are amazing players, and it's nice to have them in the women's sport. I hope she comes back."

Man dives into moving Jeep after driver blacks out (BLOG)

ATLANTA (AP) — A man jumped into an out-of-control Jeep as it drifted across lanes of traffic on a bustling parkway and steered the vehicle safely into a guardrail after its driver suffered a seizure, authorities said.

Christopher Sanders said he blacked out on his way home from work Thursday in Columbus, a west Georgia city. Police later told him his Jeep Cherokee was weaving through fast-moving traffic and had slowed dangerously on a busy parkway before the good Samaritan came to the rescue.

"It's a blessing that he was actually there and did what he did," Sanders told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "The situation could have gone dozens of different ways, but it went the best possible way."

With other cars whizzing past at around 65 mph, the Jeep had slowed to between 10 and 15 mph when help came, according to the account.

Police said 26-year-old Michael Perry had parked his own vehicle and began running after Sanders' Jeep, yanked open the passenger door, climbed in and then guided it into the guardrail.

"He risked his own life in the process," Sanders said in a telephone interview. "He didn't have to do what he did."

Sanders, 27, said he began having seizures about 10 years ago, but never experienced one while driving. He said he's been able to keep them in check, but Thursday's seizure was a violent one. He said doctors aren't certain of the cause, but he says he was shot in the neck during a robbery years ago and thinks that may have helped trigger the seizures.

Sanders said Perry banged up his leg after it got caught between the Jeep and the guardrail, but neither man was seriously harmed.

Columbus police say Perry's actions averted a potential disaster on the busy road and might have saved Sanders' life.

"It could have gone very, very badly," Sgt. Mark Graydon told the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. "It was unbelievable. Everything worked right, and it was pretty miraculous."

Sanders and Perry are both from Phenix City, just across the state line in Alabama.

Victor Ortiz takes on the media, then Mayweather!‏

WBC Welterweight Champion Victor Ortiz addressed the media today via international conference call along with his manager Rolando Arellano, and President of Golden Boy Promotions, Oscar De La Hoya.

Curiously, Ortiz came out gunning for the media very early on in the call saying, "I've learned how to not care about the media. They sit around all day long feeling sorry for themselves, and they are always so negative. That's not my fault you don't have a life."

When asked if he watched the now infamous first episode of HBO's 24/7: Mayweather vs Ortiz series, Ortiz said, "I didn't watch it, I didn't really feel like listening to some kid running his mouth."

Of course, Ortiz is likely referring to Floyd Mayweather and the ugly tirade that took place on 24/7 between he and father Floyd Sr. What's ironic is that Floyd is 34 and Victor is the "kid" at 24. Age aside, they both seem to enjoy running their respective mouths.

Regarding Mayweather Jr himself and the upcoming fight, Ortiz said he wants to fight the best Floyd Mayweather possible come fight night but sounded confident no matter which version shows up, "He's overdue to lose. He's not great to me, and I'm not impressed. I don't care how good he thinks he is or how good the boxing media thinks he is. Floyd fights the same in every fight. Analysts are just too blind to see it. I'm not gonna hold any kinda respect. He's done, and he can't adjust to me."

Asked to make a prediction on the fight, Victor Ortiz reminded everyone on the conference call of one undeniable truth.

"I'm not Muhammad Ali."



Hear more of what Victor Ortiz had to say about his upcoming September 17th HBO PPV fight against Floyd Mayweather by hitting play below to hear the call in it's entirety.

Even with low prices, T-Mobile customers flee (BLOG)

NEW YORK (AP) — The Justice Department's move to block AT&T Inc. from buying T-Mobile USA is motivated by the desire to keep a low-priced competitor in the game. But that's a game T-Mobile is losing.

Despite low prices and a peppy pitchwoman in a polka-dot dress, T-Mobile customers have been fleeing to other carriers in the last year and a half.

T-Mobile's 33.6 million customers may be relieved that the federal government is trying to block the merger, so they can keep their wireless service plans. But in the long run, T-Mobile is in an unsustainable position. Analysts say the company's past decisions have painted it into a corner.

The No. 4 wireless carrier is being squeezed by competitors from two directions. At the high end of the market, it can't compete with Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc., the market leader and no. 2, respectively. At the low end, T-Mobile is struggling against competitors like Sprint Nextel Corp., which sells government-subsidized "lifeline" service, and MetroPCS Holdings Corp., which targets urban, working class consumers with cheap "unlimited" plans.

Essentially, T-Mobile is seen as a cheap brand by those who can afford better, and as an expensive one by those who pinch every penny.

"We're stuck in the middle from a brand point of view," T-Mobile CEO Philipp Humm said in January.

The most valuable customers, the ones who buy smartphones and sign up for two-year contracts with lucrative data plans, are leaving T-Mobile the fastest.

It's not because T-Mobile's customers are particularly dissatisfied with the service — they like their provider better than AT&T customers theirs, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

Instead, the lure of the iPhone and wider network coverage is what draws high-paying customers to AT&T and Verizon.

So, even though T-Mobile is profitable, its revenue is shrinking fast — in the latest quarter, it was down to the level of 2007.

Customer flight could speed up even more this fall, if Sprint gets to start selling the iPhone, as The Wall Street Journal reported recently. That would make T-Mobile the only one of the four national wireless carriers that doesn't sell Apple Inc.'s coveted phone.

In about two years, T-Mobile will face another problem: limited wireless spectrum, or space on the airwaves. While other carriers have been bulking up their spectrum holdings in the last five years, T-Mobile stayed mostly on the sidelines. That means growing smartphone data use could fill up T-Mobile's airwaves in a few years, according to the company's own estimates.

Even before AT&T's $39 billion deal to buy T-Mobile was announced in March, T-Mobile's corporate parent, Deutsche Telekom AG of Germany, said it's not interested in investing more in its U.S. subsidiary. It gave CEO Humm a mission to stop customer flight and start growing revenue, but he'll have to do it with the U.S. subsidiary's own resources.

Recon Analytics analyst Roger Entner traces T-Mobile's current troubles in part to Deutsche Telekom's unwillingness to invest in T-Mobile's spectrum and network in the last few years. It waited until 2009 to start building out a wireless broadband network, several years behind Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint Nextel Corp.

Entner said Sprint, the industry's No. 3, is a good example of a carrier that has overcome a lot of adversity. It has slowed subscriber flight in the last few years through improvements in customer service.

"The US market is competitive and companies can come back from near death when they do things right. The problem is that T-Mobile USA's parent Deutsche Telekom is not committed to the US market the same way its competitors are," Entner said.

When the AT&T deal was announced in March, it came as a surprise. Industry rumors, instead, hinted at a linkup between T-Mobile and Sprint. If AT&T fails its appeal, that buzz could reemerge. But T-Mobile and Sprint use different network technologies, which would make any merger difficult.

Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett also thinks the Justice Department's reasoning in the AT&T case would preclude a Sprint-T-Mobile merger.

There would be a silver lining for T-Mobile if the deal falls through. AT&T would have to pay T-Mobile $3 billion in cash and transfer to it some unused spectrum. In addition, T-Mobile would get a renegotiated roaming agreement with AT&T. None of those are likely to change Deutsche Telekom's reluctance to invest in T-Mobile.

Cheeba.com, The 'Marijuana-Based Search Engine'? (BLOG)

While medical marijuana is legal in California and several other sites, those online trying to advertise medicinal sticky-icky are "treated like outlaws" to quote L.A. Weekly.

Google isn't very weed friendly, so how does a supporter of legal marijuana make money online with their website? Through a "marijuana-based search engine" called Cheeba.com.

"While ad networks like Google AdSense seem to flat out ban companies from reaching out the cannabis community, Cheeba is stepping in to give the green light for 420-friendly online advertising," the company said in a statement to LAWeeky.com.

The company hopes to supply ads that other places won't ... like Google Adsense for example, who was questioned by one webmaster about their practices in serving marijuana related ads, but not allowing a marijuana-related website to serve them.

"I recently spent weeks working on a site to launch..all to realize I can't put advertisements on my site," said one Google user. "When I set the site up, Adsense accepted my site and Marijuana related ads appeared on my site without a problem. After roughly a week I came upon a part in the Terms of Service saying any type of marijuana site can't contain advertisements."

The search engines allows you to search marijuana topics, videos, and images, as well as highlights some recent news regarding dispensaries, legalization, and more.

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Calif. man accused of throwing son off cruise boat (BLOG)

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A California man was arrested for investigation of throwing his crying 7-year-old son into the water from a sightseeing cruise boat during an argument that shocked other passengers, authorities said Monday.

Sloane Briles, 35, was taken into custody for child endangerment and resisting arrest, Orange County sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said.

"The father hit him several times and then threatened to throw him overboard if he didn't stop crying," Amormino said. "The crowd on the boat became very angry at the father for hitting the kid and extremely angry when he threw him overboard."

Authorities said Briles appeared to have been drinking. He was released Monday and couldn't immediately be reached at a number listed for him in Irvine.

Briles, his girlfriend and two sons from a previous marriage went on the Sunday afternoon cruise around Newport Harbor on a boat carrying 85 people. Briles began arguing with his girlfriend and his 7-year-old son, Amormino said, adding the child was not an expert swimmer.

Staff members on the tour boat said Briles told the boy he needed to toughen up then threw him into the water five feet below, said Charlie Maas, who oversees the tour company.

"Right in the middle of a sunny weekend afternoon in August there is a lot of boat traffic out there," Maas said. "That could have been fatally dangerous."

The incident happened so quickly that Maas said there was little time to react. Someone on the boat threw the boy a life ring, and he was rescued by another boater. The father also jumped in to save him.

Both the boy and his brother were returned to the care of their mother, who also could not be reached for comment. The couple was married in 2002 and separated in 2006 after having two children. They divorced in 2007.

Family court filings showed Briles lost his job in the mortgage industry in 2007 and got another job, but was injured and drew workers compensation. He successfully petitioned to get his child support obligation reduced and tried for a second reduction, which his ex-wife, Christin, opposed.

"If he truly wanted to support his boys he would find a job," she wrote in the filing. She also wrote that Briles sees the boys only on his weekends and rarely calls them during his off weeks.

Briles pleaded guilty in In February 2009 to being in contempt for not paying child support and was sentenced to three years of probation, according to court records.

The 90-minute tour on a 42-foot boat called "Queen," operated by the Fun Zone Boat Co., goes past Shirley Temple's childhood home and the homes of John Wayne and other celebrities.

Kanye West's Mentor No I.D. Leaves GOOD Music For Def Jam (BLOG)

Kanye West's musical mentor and former president of GOOD Music, No I.D. has been appointed Executive Vice President of A&R for Def Jam Recordings. Along with his new position, he brokered a deal for his record label Artium Recordings for an exclusive label partnership with Def Jam.

“No I.D. is one of the hottest and most well-respected hip-hop producers of our era," Barry Weiss, chairman and chief executive of Universal Republic and Island Def Jam Motown, said in a statement. "His years of mentoring and developing artists in the studio should serve him perfectly in his new A&R role and will surely help take Def Jam to the next level."

“I’m proud of the success I’ve had with so many of the great artists and songwriters at Def Jam,” the producer said in a statement. “The Def Jam brand is cultural and iconic, and I'm excited to be working closely with the artists, Barry, Karen [Kwak, executive vice president and head of A&R for Island Def Jam Music Group] and the team in what promises to be an incredible new phase in my career.”

No I.D has shared his music production talents across Hip Hop & R&B genres, producing "Run This Town" (Jay-Z), "So Appalled" (Kanye West), "More Than A Woman" (Toni Braxton), "I Miss That" (Lloyd) amongst other records. In his new post he will sign new artist to his label and oversee current projects on Def Jam's roster.



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