NFL Standings

All Times EST

AMERICAN CONFERENCE

East

W L T Pct PF PA

N.Y. Jets 7 3 0 .700 289 221

Miami 6 4 0 .600 209 197

New England 6 4 0 .600 219 194

Buffalo 5 4 0 .556 192 189

South

W L T Pct PF PA

Tennessee 10 0 0 1.000 244 131

Indianapolis 6 4 0 …

A lesser charge of affray is admitted

A Street woman who faced charges of blackmail and robbery haswalked from Taunton Crown Court after the charges were dropped bythe Crown Prosecution Service.

Gillian Seddon, 54, of Farm Road, pleaded guilty with ColinHealey, 53, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, to a lesser joint charge of affray- using or threatening unlawful violence to Trevor Morgan …

U.S. Beats Sweden 2-0 on Wambach Goals

CHENGDU, China - Playing with a sore toe and 11 stitches in her head doesn't seem to bother Abby Wambach.

The top U.S. striker scored both goals Friday in a 2-0 victory over Sweden in the women's World Cup. She now has three in two games, and the win puts the No. 1-ranked Americans in good position to make the quarterfinals.

Wambach converted a penalty in the 34th, and scored a textbook goal in the 58th, settling a long ball on her chest from Kristine Lilly and then driving a 15-yard, left-footed shot past Sweden keeper Hedvig Lindahl.

Wambach has scored 80 goals in 98 games for the U.S. national team, which is seeking its third World Cup to go with titles in '91 …

11 police killed in land mine explosion in India

Suspected Maoist rebels blew up a police van in India's restive east on Wednesday, killing at least 11 police, an official said.

The attackers detonated a land mine targeting a police patrol in West Singhbhum district, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand state, senior police official V.D. Ram said.

Six other police officials were critically injured in the attack, Ram said.

About 30 people were in the police van at the time, Ram added, but no details about the others were immediately …

Umm Kulthum (c. 1904–1975)

Umm Kulthum
(c. 1904–1975)

Umm Kulthum (also Om Kultum, Oum Kalsoum, Umm Kaltum, Um Kultum) Ibrahim al-Baltaji was one of the most famous singers of the Arabic-speaking world in the twentieth century. Her eventual role as a cultural icon made her arguably the most important Arab musician of her time.

PERSONAL HISTORY

Umm Kulthum was born in Tammay al-Zuhayra, a village in the Egyptian delta, probably in 1904. Her father, Ibrahim al-Baltaji, was the imam or prayer leader of the local mosque; her mother, Fatima al-Maliji, was a housewife. She had an older brother, Khalid, and sister, Sayyida. The family was poor and its lifestyle not different from most of her Egyptian contemporaries. To make extra money, Umm Kulthum's father sang religious songs for social occasions such as weddings or saints' days and trained his son to accompany him. Umm Kulthum learned these songs by virtue of proximity and surprised her family with her strong voice. Eventually, dressed as a boy, she joined her father's group and performed regularly in the eastern delta. Despite efforts to disguise her gender, she soon was known as the little girl with the powerful voice and became a local curiosity that attracted attention to the family troupe.

She also joined her brother in Qur'an school, or kuttab, small local schools designed to teach children to recite the Qur'an properly, to read, write, and sometimes to do some arithmetic. (During Umm Kulthum's childhood, British colonial authorities did not encourage further education for Egyptians.) Although attendance at kuttab was more routine for boys than girls, there were other girls in Umm Kulthum's class and, in fact, the lessons of the kuttab formed a common fund of knowledge for most Egyptian Muslims of Umm Kulthum's generation. Despite the predictable variability in teaching at these schools, the children tended to absorb a respect for careful pronunciation of Arabic and a sense of the beauty and elegance of the language that remained with many of them throughout their lives. These widely shared sensibilities informed Umm Kulthum's later aesthetic choices and helps explain the strong connections many of her compatriots felt for her art.

The then-new sound recordings—78 rpm gramophone records that circulated all over Egypt in the early years of the twentieth century—provided another means for Umm Kulthum and her family to learn the art of singing and new songs. Because record players often appeared in public spaces—coffeehouses, for example—even people who could not afford the equipment could hear the recordings. The father of one of Umm Kulthum's childhood friends also owned a record player and invited villagers to listen to records in his home. From these, Umm Kulthum learned to love the religious poetry (Arabic: qasa'id, singular: qasida) performed by al-Shaykh Abu'l-Ila Muhammad who later became her teacher in Cairo.

Following years of traveling the delta, Umm Kulthum came to the attention of musicians from Cairo, themselves traveling to perform at events often sponsored by local wealthy families. They encouraged her father to move the family to Cairo, where increased income and opportunities would be available. After some consideration, the family decided to join the large numbers of villagers migrating to the city in search of work. …

Lead with your tongue

OUTSIDE THE BOX

Each of us is possessed with great influence and a great influencer our tongues. The words we say matter very much. Even further, identifying those who should have influence over us is founded on whether their words are truly from heaven. Are they truly wise? How do we know? We know because those who have golden tongues are those whose speaking matches God's speech and whose speaking matches their God-shaped living.

The bishop of Constantinople (present day Istanbul) in the early days of official Christendom was John Chrysostom. In the late 300s A.D., Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman Empire. With this rise to prominence, the church …

IRS Announces Rebate Schedule

If you want to be the first on your block to get your $600 economic stimulus payment, the IRS has a tip: Sign up to get your 2007 tax refund via direct deposit.

Among those receiving rebate checks, people with Social Security numbers whose last two digits are low _ say, 06 _ will get their checks first, the agency announced Monday.

Taxpayers who receive their refunds _ or make payments _ through direct deposit will begin receiving payments by May 2, with all such deposits expected to be made within two weeks.

Then, starting by May 16, the rest of the 130 million stimulus payments will start going out as checks sent through the mail. Stimulus …