Ted Turner compares Fox News to Nazis

By: KEN RITTER - Associated Press | Wednesday, January 26, 2005 9:55 PM PST ∞

LAS VEGAS -- Cable news pioneer Ted Turner used an appearance before a group of television executives to criticize the Fox network as a "propaganda voice" of the Bush administration and to compare Fox News Channel's popularity to Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany before World War II.

Turner, 66, in a speech Tuesday before about 1,000 people at the National Association of Television Programming Executives targeted "gigantic companies whose agenda goes beyond broadcasting" for timidity in challenging the Bush White House.

"There's one network, Fox, that's a propaganda voice for them," Turner said. "It's certainly legal. But it does pose problems for our democracy when the news is 'dumbed-down."'

Fox News in New York issued a statement Tuesday saying, "Ted is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network and now his mind -- we wish him well."

Turner stepped down as vice chairman of AOL Time Warner in May 2003.

During a wide-ranging hour-long question-and-answer session moderated by former CNN anchorman Bernard Shaw, Turner called it "not necessarily a bad thing" that Fox ratings top CNN and other cable news networks.

"Adolf Hitler was more popular in Germany in the early 30s than ... people that were running against him," Turner said in remarks videotaped by conference administrators. "So, just because you're bigger doesn't mean you're right."

Convention spokeswoman Michelle Mikoljak said the association had no comment about Turner's comments and that Turner was no longer in Las Vegas at the conference that continued Wednesday at the Mandalay Bay Event Center.

Turner heads an Atlanta-based philanthropic and business empire that includes restaurants serving buffalo steaks and other American dishes.

He wrote an article published last summer in the Washington Monthly magazine titled "My Beef With Big Media" in which he focused on what he called a loss of quality, localism and democratic debate.

North Carolina man incorrectly declared dead after traffic accident

Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. -- A medical examiner studying a body in a morgue was startled when the man took a shallow breath.

Emergency medical technicians had declared 29-year-old Larry D. Green dead almost two hours earlier, after he was hit by a car.

Medical examiner J.B. Perdue was called to the accident scene Monday but did not examine Green then. Later, he was documenting Green's injuries when he noticed the man was breathing.

"I had to look twice myself just to make sure it was there, that's how subtle it was," Perdue said.

Green, 29, was taken to Duke University Medical Center in Durham, where he was in critical condition Wednesday.

Several members of the Franklin County emergency medical service have been suspended pending an investigation, said Darnell Batton, the county attorney.

New Hampshire judge suspended for groping five women quits

Associated Press

CONCORD, N.H. -- A New Hampshire judge who was suspended for groping five women at a conference on sexual assault and domestic violence resigned on Wednesday, the same day a committee recommended he not get his job back.

"I wish to again express my apologies to those who have been impacted by my inappropriate conduct," Judge Franklin Jones wrote in a two-page letter to Gov. John Lynch.

A Judicial Conduct Committee concluded that Jones' groping of five victim's advocates of his court "demeaned his judicial office and cast reasonable doubt in the eyes of the public on his continuing capacity to act in an impartial manner."

Jones, 56, was suspended in May. In September, he pleaded no contest to simple assault, reduced from sexual assault charges. He spent a week receiving alcohol abuse treatment.

Joan Sergio, the only one of Jones' accusers who has not quit, said she was relieved by the committee's decision. "I certainly don't want to nail Mr. Jones to the wall, but I think they're doing the right thing," Sergio said.

A call to Jones' lawyer Wednesday was not immediately returned.

Late-night partying at the conference also led to Attorney General Peter W. Heeds resignation after an investigation was launched into whether he inappropriately touched a woman on the dance floor.

Court nullifies ruling giving original copy of Bill of Rights to North Carolina

Associated Press

RICHMOND, Va. -- A federal appeals court Wednesday nullified a ruling that awarded an original copy of the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights to the state of North Carolina, sending the case back to court to determine the rightful owner.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a lower-court judge has not yet heard the claims of a Connecticut businessman who says he owns 50 percent of the document, which disappeared from North Carolina after the Civil War and could be worth as much as $40 million.

The parchment document, one of 14 original copies of the 1789 draft, was seized by the FBI in 2003 from a broker selling it on behalf of Connecticut antiques dealer Wayne Pratt. Pratt and his business partner, Robert Matthews, had paid two Connecticut women $200,000 for it in 2000.

Last year, U.S. District Judge Terrence W. Boyle ruled that the document belonged to North Carolina but told U.S. marshals to hold onto it, pending further appeals. The federal government gave up its claim to the document when Pratt signed over his ownership rights to North Carolina.

But Matthews said he became part owner of the document when he paid Pratt $100,000 to help purchase it. Pratt maintains the money was a loan, not an investment.

The appellate court found that because the federal government dismissed its claim before ownership was properly determined, "we agree that Matthews has had no opportunity even to be heard on his claims, whatever their merit." The case now goes back to the U.S. District Court in Raleigh.

"The idea is to put everybody where they were immediately before this whole thing got started," said Joel Faxon, attorney for Matthews. "You can't just turn the thing over to the state of North Carolina."

Noelle Talley, spokeswoman for North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, expressed disappointment in the ruling, but said "we're confident that the trial court will move quickly to resolve the remaining issues so that North Carolina's copy of the Bill of Rights will come home to the people of our state."

The document disappeared from North Carolina during the Union occupation following the Civil War. A Union soldier supposedly snatched it from the state Capitol and brought it to Tippecanoe, Ohio.

The federal government said the document was purchased in 1866 for $5 by Charles Shotwell, who lived in Indianapolis. It remained in the family until the 2000 sale.

Facing a grand jury investigation and possible criminal charges, Pratt signed over his ownership rights to North Carolina. He and Matthews, who was not threatened with prosecution in the case, also had been embroiled in a high-profile corruption scandal involving former Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland.

Each of the 13 original states received an original copy of the Bill of Rights, and one went to the federal government.

Associated Press writer Matt Apuzzo in New Haven, Conn., contributed to this report.

Researchers use laser scans on George Washington's teeth to take a bite out of his stiff image

Associated Press

BALTIMORE -- Researchers hoping to dispel George Washington's image as a stiff-jawed, boring old man are taking a bite out of history through a high-tech study of his famous false teeth.

The researchers were in Baltimore on Tuesday to perform laser scans on a set of Washington's dentures at the National Museum of Dentistry -- dentures, they say, that were not made of wood as commonly believed.

Scientists and historians plan to use the information to help create new, expressive, life-sized figures of plaster and wax to show aspects of the 6-foot-3 Washington's personality they consider underappreciated.

"People know that Washington was great, but many people think he was boring and nothing could be further from the truth," said James C. Rees, executive director of the Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens, Washington's home in northern Virginia.

"Of all the founding fathers, he was the most athletic, the most adventurous and clearly a man of action," Rees said.

Washington, contrary to his grim-faced portrait on the dollar bill, was a great dancer and horseman. He started losing his teeth in his 20s.

Mount Vernon plans to create three life-size figures for an exhibit due to open late next year in a new museum and education center. A 19-year-old Washington will be portrayed as a surveyor in a forest with his equipment. A 45-year-old Washington will be seen on a horse at Valley Forge. At age 57, he will be shown being sworn in for his first term as president.

A forensic anthropologist from the University of Pittsburgh came to the dental museum, which is affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, to supervise laser scans on one of the four known sets of Washington's dentures. The dentures are made from gold, ivory, lead, human and animal teeth (horse and donkey teeth were common components).

The dentures had springs to help them open and bolts to hold them together.

"The portrait on the dollar bill is not the complete Washington," said anthropologist Jeffrey Schwartz. "I'm trying to get at the whole person."

Work on the project began in July when Schwartz and other researchers began making digital scans of a number of items at Mount Vernon, including Washington's spectacles, another pair of dentures and a bust of the former president created by the French artist Jean Antoine Houdon when Washington was 53.

Wisconsin fires back over summer homework lawsuit

Associated Press

MILWAUKEE -- Wisconsin's attorney general responded Wednesday to a student's lawsuit to end mandatory summer homework, arguing the state cannot set rules for local school boards.

The response from Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager, mailed Wednesday to Milwaukee County Circuit Court and obtained by The Associated Press, asks for dismissal of the suit and demands lawyers' fees for what it called an "unmeritorious complaint."

Limiting homework is beyond the authority of the state superintendent of public instruction, Lautenschlager said.

"It is the local school boards which determine the curriculum and course requirements," she said.

She added that the rule requiring 180 days of school every year for high school students "sets a minimum, not a maximum."

Peer Larson, a 17-year-old junior at Whitnall High School in suburban Hales Corners, and his father, Bruce, filed suit two weeks ago demanding that students be able to decide whether to complete summer homework.

They contended the tasks created an unfair workload and unnecessary stress.

They took the matter to court after the younger Larson was required to complete three pre-calculus assignments for his honors math class last summer, even though he was working at a demanding job as a camp counselor.

Bruce Larson said Wednesday that he had not yet received a copy of the state's response and would not comment.

Passengers help detain unruly man on flight to Florida

Associated Press

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Passengers jumped in to help restrain an unruly traveler on a flight from Philadelphia to West Palm Beach before the plane landed, authorities said.

A flight attendant on Southwest flight 2161 asked passenger Christopher Egyed, 37, to quiet down because he was disturbing other passengers, said Palm Beach County Sheriff's spokesman Paul Miller.

The man later made threats and headed toward the pilot's cabin, and after a flight attendant tried to stop him in the aisle, a group of passengers helped detain him, Miller said.

Sheriff's deputies took Egyed into custody after the plane landed at Palm Beach International Airport Tuesday night. The FBI later arrested him on a federal charge of interfering with the operation of a flight crew.

No one was hurt during the incident.

Information on whether Egyed, of Philadelphia, had retained an attorney was unavailable late Wednesday.

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