The Montreal police's organized-crime division urges local papers to reconsider running escort agency ads or face charges for solicitation, the Globe and Mail reports. In Canada, prostitution itself is not illegal, but solicitation for sex is. AAN member NOW Magazine in Toronto has been through this kind of crackdown before, the newspaper reports. In 1990, 14 counts of "communicating for the purpose of prostitution" were brought against it, but the Crown later dropped the case.
Camille Dodero interviews a flu-stricken Joan Didion in a Boston hotel room and mines the author's opus for the structural framework of the writer's life. She's struck by the dissonance between Didion's literary stature and her "miniature" real person. "Barely five feet tall, she doesn’t even fill a chair ... she looks like she could slip between the seat cushions at any moment," Dodero writes. And the legendary writer giggles, girlishly.
Chicago's new weekday tabloids RedEye and Red Streak are pulling the same display advertisers as AAN members Chicago Reader and Chicago Newcity, Jeremy Mullman reports in Crain's Chicago Business. "This will have some short-term impact on the Reader," newspaper consultant Scott Stawski tells Mullman. "I believe it'll put Newcity out."
Breaking down the whys and wherefores behind the Bay Area's breast cancer rates, among the highest in the world, is a fearsome feat. For North Bay Bohemian writer Allie Gottlieb, it's personal -- she's got all the Bay Area risk factors -- her mother died at 48 of the disease, she's white, educated and affluent. No one knows why breast cancer rates are higher among such women. And treatment? "I think it's a crapshoot whether you make it or not," one expert tells Gottlieb.
Faced with a challenge from the ACLU, the City of Colorado Springs cancels a hearing on its request for an injunction against the Colorado Springs Independent and drops all charges against the paper. The city was trying to block the paper from publishing any information from Detective Jeffrey Huddleston's personnel file. By mistake, the detective's entire file was given to Editor Cara Degette and reporter John Dicker, who were working on an investigative piece. When the mistake was discovered, the City demanded that Dicker turn over the notes he'd been taking.
The bizarre morphing of Sen. Paul Wellstone's memorial into a political rally tilted Minnesota, and maybe other states, into the Republican column Tuesday, Steve Perry concludes in a City Pages (Twin Cities) story. Perry doesn't hold out much hope the Democrats will rise from the ashes of this defeat. He speculates centrist Dems will "broker the candidacies of another wave of pale Republican wanna-be's," part of a trend that had turned even the fiery Wellstone " into a love slave of the party."
Chicago Media Examiner spoofs the Chicago Tribune's new "alternative" weekday tabloid, RedEye. Chicago Red Face has a cool Top Ten Reasons to Read This Web Site list, a whining sports column, lots of blocks of type and pix and a paean to its readers: "You, dear reader, rule the Earth!!! You are most definitely the most coolest person ever ... We love you. We want to perform oral homage on you. We just can't put into words how amazingly incredible you are and how honored we are by your existence. Keep up the good work! "
