Rutgers Accepts Imus's Apology

Rutgers team: We accept Imus' apology By DAVID PORTER, Associated Press Writer
48 minutes ago



NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. - Rutgers women's basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer said Friday the team had accepted radio host Don Imus' apology. She said he deserves a chance to move on but hopes the furor his racist and sexist insult caused will be a catalyst for change.

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"We, the Rutgers University Scarlet Knight basketball team, accept — accept — Mr. Imus' apology, and we are in the process of forgiving," Stringer read from a team statement a day after the women met personally with Imus and his wife.

"We still find his statements to be unacceptable, and this is an experience that we will never forget," she said.

The team had just played for the NCAA national championship last week and lost when Imus, on his nationally syndicated radio show, called the players "nappy-headed hos." The statement outraged listeners and set off a national debate about taste and tolerance. It also led to his firing by CBS on Thursday.

"These comments are indicative of greater ills in our culture," Stringer said. "It is not just Mr. Imus, and we hope that this will be and serve as a catalyst for change. Let us continue to work hard together to make this world a better place."

Imus was in the middle of a two-day radio fundraiser for children's charities when he was dropped by CBS. On Friday, his wife took over the show and also talked about the meeting with the Rutgers players.

"They gave us the opportunity to listen to what they had to say and why they're hurting and how awful this is," author Deirdre Imus said.

"He feels awful," she said of her husband. "He asked them, 'I want to know the pain I caused, and I want to know how to fix this and change this.'"

Deirdre Imus also said that the Rutgers players have been receiving hate e-mail, and she demanded that it stop. She told listeners "if you must send e-mail, send it to my husband," not the team.

"I have to say that these women are unbelievably courageous and beautiful women," she said.

Stringer declined to discuss the hate mail Friday. Rutgers team spokeswoman Stacey Brann said the team had received "two or three e-mails" but had also received "over 600 wonderful e-mails."

The team's goal was never to get Imus fired, Stringer said. "It's sad for anyone to lose their job," she said.

The cantankerous Imus, once named one of the 25 Most Influential People in America by Time magazine and a member of the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame, was one of radio's original shock jocks.

His career took flight in the 1970s and with a cocaine- and vodka-fueled outrageous humor. After sobering up, he settled into a mix of highbrow talk about politics and culture, with locker room humor sprinkled in.

Critics have said his remark about the Rutgers women was just the latest in a line of objectionable statements by the ringmaster of a show that mixed high-minded talk about politics and culture with crude, locker-room humor.

Imus apologized on the air late last week and also tried to explain himself before the Rev. Al Sharpton's radio audience, appearing alternately contrite and combative. But many of his advertisers still bailed in disgust, particularly after the Rutgers women spoke publicly of their hurt.

On Wednesday, a week after the remark, MSNBC said it would no longer televise the show. CBS fired Imus Thursday from the radio show that he has hosted for nearly 30 years.

"He has flourished in a culture that permits a certain level of objectionable expression that hurts and demeans a wide range of people," CBS Corp. chief executive Leslie Moonves said in a memo to his staff.

Sharpton praised Moonves' decision Friday and said it was time to change the culture of publicly degrading other people."I think we've got to really used this to really stop this across the board," he told CBS's "The Early Show."

Some Imus fans, however, considered the radio host's punishment too harsh.

Mike Francesa, whose WFAN sports show with partner Chris Russo is considered a possible successor to "Imus in the Morning," said he was embarrassed by the company. "I'm embarrassed by their decision. It shows, really, the worst lack of taste I've ever seen," he said.

Losing Imus will be a financial hit to CBS Radio, which also suffered when Howard Stern left for satellite radio. The program earns about $15 million in annual revenue for CBS, which owns Imus' home radio station WFAN-AM and manages Westwood One, the company that syndicates the show nationally WFAN.

The show's charity fundraiser had raised more than $1.3 million Thursday before Imus learned he had lost his job. The total had grown Friday to more than $2.3 million for Tomorrows Children's Fund, CJ Foundation for SIDS and the Imus Ranch, Deirdre Imus said. The annual event has raised more than $40 million since 1990.

Imus' troubles have also affected his wife, the founder of a medical center that studies links between cancers and environmental hazards whose book "Green This!" came out this week. Her promotional tour was called off "because of the enormous pressure that Deirdre and her family are under," said Simon & Schuster publicist Victoria Meyer.

The Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology in Hackensack, N.J., works to identify and control exposures to environmental hazards that may cause adult and childhood cancers. Imus Ranch in New Mexico invites children who have been ill to spend time on a working cattle ranch.

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Associated Press writers Rebecca Santana, Karen Matthews, Warren Levinson, Seth Sutel, Tara Burghart, Colleen Long and Hillel Italie contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

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Asia's Richest Women Dies in Mystery

Asia's richest woman, Nina Wang, dies By Donny Kwok
Wed Apr 4, 7:07 AM ET



HONG KONG (Reuters) - Asia's richest woman, Nina Wang, has died of an unspecified illness after reports she had been battling cancer, leaving unanswered questions over her estimated $4.2 billion (2.1 billion pound) fortune.

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Known for her signature pigtails and nicknamed "little sweetie" by the local media, Wang, 69, won a court case in 2005 for her late husband's business empire in a case filled with tales of adultery, kidnapping and murder.

The Hong Kong heiress, whose maiden name was Kung, was reported by local newspapers to be suffering from cancer, but that was never officially confirmed.

"Chinachem Group's chairwoman Nina Wang Kung passed away on April 3 and the details of the funeral will be announced later," her personal assistant, Ringo Wong, told Reuters by telephone.

Wang's company, Hong Kong's largest private property developer, Chinachem Group, confirmed in a statement that she died on Tuesday.

Wang, ranked by Forbes Magazine as Asia's 35th richest person, had no children but is survived by at least one brother and reportedly other siblings.

Lawyer Wong Tak-sing said under Hong Kong law Nina Wang's brothers and sisters could apply to inherit her fortune if she did not have a will. Wang's nieces or nephews could share the wealth as well if their parents had died.

Wang successfully battled her father-in-law for a multi-billion dollar estate left by her late husband Teddy Wang, a property tycoon who vanished more than a decade ago.

KIDNAPPED

Central to the marathon probate case was a handwritten will that Wang said was penned and signed by Teddy in March 1990, a month before he was kidnapped and never seen again. Some reports at the time said Teddy was gagged and bound and thrown out to sea from a Chinese "sampan" boat.

Teddy was also kidnapped in 1983 when his car was hijacked, and only released -- left in an iron box at the side of a road -- after Nina paid an $11 million ransom.

Born in Shanghai, Wang went to Hong Kong in 1955 to rejoin Teddy, who ran a pharmaceuticals and vinyl business before starting to dabble in property. By the 1980s the couple were part of the booming city's glitterati.

Hong Kong newspapers reported late last year that Wang had ovarian cancer that had spread to her liver and other organs, and had been admitted to hospital for chemotherapy.

Two firms, in which Nina Wang held stakes, saw their stock prices fall on Wednesday. Fashion retailer ENM Holdings dropped 14 percent, while China Solar Energy Holdings Ltd. lost 2.63 percent.

Wang was also a strategic investor in CITIC 1616, which jumped 67 percent on its market debut the day she died, and was up 1.86 percent on Wednesday.


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Pre-preview Miss USA 2007

New Miss USA to be selected tonight
POSTED: 3:46 p.m. EDT, March 23, 2007
Story Highlights• Miss USA contest scheduled for Friday night
• Current Miss USA, Tara Conner, embroiled in controversy
• Conner went through rehab for alcohol problems
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LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Beauty queens from across the nation prepared to compete Friday night for the title of Miss USA in a live televised pageant expected to go beyond the traditional evening gown and swimsuit staples and touch on the issues that nearly cost the reigning titleholder her crown.

The pageant, co-owned by Donald Trump and NBC, was making its return to Hollywood after two years in Baltimore.

Contestants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia were vying to succeed Miss USA Tara Conner, who entered rehab after accounts surfaced suggesting she was boozing at New York clubs. The episode might have cost Conner, a native of Kentucky, her crown, but Trump gave her a second chance.

Other contestants whose behavior ran afoul of the pageant's standards weren't so fortunate. Miss Nevada USA Katie Rees lost her title after racy pictures of her surfaced on the Internet, and Miss New Jersey USA Ashley Harder resigned when she got pregnant. Miss USA contestants must not have ever been married or given birth.

Still, Trump's decision to spare Conner sparked a war of words between the real estate mogul and "The View" co-host Rosie O'Donnell.

Far from sweeping the scandals under the rug, however, pageant organizers were using the extra attention drawn to the pageant in recent months to spotlight at least Conner's own bouts with alcohol and the steps she has taken to get help. Conner underwent a stint in rehab in Pennsylvania for her drinking.

The contestants, who arrived in Los Angeles about two weeks ago, were not allowed to go out without a chaperone. They also had to sign a "moral contract."

The Miss USA Pageant began in 1952 as a swimwear promotion in Long Beach.

Contestants pay a fee to enter and must win a state title before competing for the Miss USA crown. The winner gets to live in a fancy New York apartment for a year, during which she'll spend most of her time traveling as she represents the Miss Universe Organization and speaks out on breast and ovarian cancer awareness. She also gets to represent the United States in the worldwide Miss Universe competition.

Like the Miss America Pageant, Miss USA was incorporating a few new wrinkles to keep viewers tuned in to the action, including more behind-the-scenes shots.

The audience was also given the opportunity to cast votes from home for Miss Photogenic.

A panel of six judges were to determine the winner: Jerry Springer, "Blow Out" star Jonathan Antin, "E! News" co-host Giuliana De Pandi, MTV's Vanessa Minnillo, Baby Phat President Kimora Lee Simmons and Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss.

Hosting the pageant: Tim Vincent and Nancy O'Dell of "Access Hollywood."

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/03/23/missusa.ap/index.html?eref=yahoo