When people get into the social-networking thing, they typically set up a Facebook page, get a Twitter account and start blasting out inane status updates. Not Kanye West. Instead of just logging onto the popular websites to promote his projects virally, ‘Ye has gone behind the scenes with a couple of in-office performances for the staff at two of the world’s social-networking juggernauts. On the heels of rocking Facebook’s headquarters, Yeezy spit lyrics from his upcoming album for the folks at Twitter on Wednesday (July 28).  Read more...

A federal judge on Friday, weighing in a clash between the federal government and a state over immigration policy, blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona’s immigration enforcement law from going into effect.
In a ruling on a law that has rocked politics coast to coast and thrown a spotlight on a border state’s fierce debate over immigration, Judge Susan Bolton of Federal District Court here said that some aspects of the law can go into effect as scheduled on Thursday.  Read more...

Anne Milton said the the term fat was more likely to motivate people into losing weight, adding it was important people took ”personal responsibility” for their lifestyles.

Stressing she was speaking in a personal capacity, she told the BBC: ”If I look in the mirror and think I am obese I think I am less worried than if I think I am fat.”

Too many staff working in the NHS were worried about using the term, Ms Milton said, but suggested it could help encourage ”personal responsibility”.  Read more...

Charlene Cotton will talk to anyone about sex. Several days a week she stands behind a table decorated with a bowl of flavored condoms and safer sex pamphlets, calling to women passing on the street, “Come check out my table. Don’t be scared.”

She asks: “Have you heard of the female condom?” Then, to show how it works, she picks up her demonstration kit — a condom and anatomical models.

It’s a seemingly awkward conversation to have on a city street, but Cotton isn’t embarrassed. She’s part of a citywide effort to promote female condoms in the hope they can help stop the spread of HIV in Washington, which has one of the highest infection rates in the country.  Read more...

 

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Closing a key chapter in one of the most controversial police shootings in recent memory, New York City agreed on Tuesday to pay more than $7 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed by the family and two friends of Sean Bell, a 23-year-old black man who was fatally shot by the police in 2006 on what would have been his wedding day.
 
The decision by the city came after two days of intense negotiations in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. The children whom Mr. Bell had with his fiancée, Nicole Paultre Bell, will receive $3.25 million, and two friends of Mr. Bell’s who were injured in the episode will also receive payments, with Joseph Guzman getting $3 million, and Trent Benefield $900,000.  Read more...