According to Paul Bedard of US News & World Report, former Department of Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge has come clean about certain activities in the Bush White House. Ridge is deciding to spill some of the beans in his forthcoming tell-all ‘The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege…and How We Can Be Safe…

From the NY Times: ANTHONY DICKEY’S much anticipated salon, Hair Rules New York — an earthy-industrial space with high ceilings and oversize windows — opened last month in Hell’s Kitchen. The salon, which Mr. Dickey operates with his business partner, Kara Young Georgiopoulos, specializes in curly, frizzy and otherwise texture-challenged hair. It is the kind…

From Al Jazeera: Pro-government forces in Somalia have recaptured the southwestern town of Luq, which had been controlled by al-Shabab, officials say. The town, claimed on Wednesday, is the second taken by government troops as Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, Somalia’s president, seeks to crush opposition fighters. Colonel Mohamed Osman Weli told the AFP news agency that…

From the AP: NEW YORK — Former New York Giant Plaxico Burress pleaded guilty to a weapons charge and agreed to a two-year prison term for accidentally shooting himself at a Manhattan nightclub. The ex-wide receiver pleaded guilty Thursday morning to one count of attempted criminal possession of a weapon, a lesser charge than he…

From CNN: Convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi is to be released and allowed to return to Libya on compassionate grounds, Scotland’s justice minister said Thursday. Al Megrahi, 57, is suffering from terminal prostate cancer. He was serving a life sentence for bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over the town of Lockerbie, Scotland,…

From CNN: Television pioneer and longtime CBS executive Don Hewitt, the creator of “60 Minutes,” has died, the network said Wednesday. He was 86. Hewitt, who had been battling pancreatic cancer, died at his home in Bridgehampton, New York, surrounded by his family, CBS said. The winner of eight Emmy and two Peabody awards, Hewitt…

From NewsOne: Members of the nation’s oldest black sorority are alleging more financial misdeeds by their president, who is already accused of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of the group’s money on questionable expenses, including a wax statue of herself. Eight members of Alpha Kappa Alpha filed a lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court in…

From the AP: BALTIMORE — Three white men shouting racial slurs beat a 76-year-old black man while he was fishing in a river early Tuesday, said Baltimore police, who were investigating the attack as a hate crime. The assailants also stole the man’s sport-utility vehicle, said Anthony Guglielmi, a police spokesman. Police caught up with…