Steven Hatfill has been hounded by G-men 24-7 since becoming the FBI's only known "person of interest" in the anthrax attacks. They wait for him in surveillance vans outside his girlfriend's apartment, they follow him to the store when he goes for ice cream, they snap photos when a friend hands him a bag containing homemade soup. They use all kinds of cars: Durangos, Pontiacs, Buicks, Saturns. And after midnight, they patrol the area surrounding his apartment on foot. And if he slips out the back door? Agents will be there. Jason Cherkis hangs out with Hatfill in the backseat of his friend's Plymouth as they drive around D.C. trying to shake the tail.
The epic murals on the cafeteria walls of California's San Quentin State Prison are surely one of America's best-kept art secrets. Twelve feet high and nearly 100 feet long, they chronicle California's history, from the coming of the railroads to the post-war industrial boom, and have drawn favorable comparisons to the WPA post-office murals of the 1930s. For nearly 50 years, the identity of the man who painted the murals has remained a mystery. But, as SF Weekly staff writer Ron Russell reports, the mystery has been solved -- and for the first time in history, a former San Quentin inmate is about to be honored with a "key to the prison."
UMass Boston professor Tony Van Der Meer and his many supporters say he’s been caught up in the climate of repression that’s swept the nation since September 11, 2001. Prosecutors say his pending criminal trial has nothing to do with repression; they allege that Van Der Meer assaulted a cop. The story might sound like a he-said-they-said dispute. But, according to Kristen Lombardi, it has come to epitomize the potential injustices facing those who dare speak out against the prevailing pro-war, pro-"USA" fervor.
"What should every visitor know about Los Angeles?" American Way Magazine asks Drew Barrymore. To which the 28-year-old actress and film producer responds, "Always start with the LA Weekly. It's a free newspaper you can find at certain stores or newsstands and it will tell you everything you want to know about what's going on that week." Ummm, that’s free alternative newspaper, Drew.
This is a new kind of war being played out on hundreds of thousands of computers. And the stakes are not just street cred but money and prizes and a certain kind of rabid fame inherent to a weird subculture like the one surrounding computer gaming. This is Team Forsaken, one of the Houston area’s best gaming clans, and Jennifer Mathieu watches as they humiliate their friends publicly, shake their asses in other people's faces, wear baseball caps at all times and play video games for hours on end.
Steve May, who owned Lafayette, Louisiana's highly regarded Times of Acadiana until selling it in 1998, plans to return to the market in September with a new weekly paper. May and his wife, Cherry Fisher May, last month bought a monthly lifestyle magazine and will convert it to a weekly to compete with the Times, which is now owned by Gannett, also the publisher of the Lafayette's only daily paper. "They have screwed up my newspaper so badly and I think it’s part of a plan to steadily bleed The Times of character and influence and somehow, divert it into the daily," May says.
In addition to the layoffs, editors Karen Cook and Lenora Todaro have resigned, according to a memo posted on Romenesko. Publisher Judy Miszner says the layoffs will help the paper maintain its "long-term health and sustain profitability" and are "a reflection of the difficult business climate in New York City." Miszner also says she doesn't expect New York's economy to rebound in the coming months.
Although they represented more than half of all paperback fiction sold in North America last year, romance novels have long been the object of ridicule among the East Coast publishing and critical establishments. But the "shockingly nice ladies" who attended a recent convention of the Romance Writers of America don’t care what anyone thinks about their love stories, and they will remind you that Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte were the best-selling romance novelists of their time. Alexander Zaitchik reports that the romance field has diversified in recent years -- with some subgenres like chick-lit and romantica starting to bump against the limits of the romance formula.
When a police-led quality of life initiative forced drug dealers off the streets, Philly hustlers didn't know what to do. Dealers argued over every corner, every $5, every baggie sold. Three North Philly peddlers decided to leave the narcotics trade behind and start selling T-shirts. Philadelphia Weekly's Steve Volk explores whether or not these guys are for real -- or just trying to position themselves for their next court appearance.
