Madonna turns 50 today

Madonna turns 50 today

NEW YORK — Sure, Madonna may have scandalized the Vatican and shocked nearly every parent in America at some point during her long and provocative career full of shrewd image transformations.

But as the Material Girl hits the half-century mark today, she may be stepping into a role that even she, with all her marketing savvy, might not have dreamed up: poster child for the 50-and-fabulous set.

Many women of a certain age look at Madonna and see a wonderfully fit, stylish, vigorous woman who’s made a fortune based on smarts, talent and ambition. Her latest world tour, “Sticky & Sweet,” kicks off in Wales next Saturday.

Assassination teams being trained in Iran

WASHINGTON — Iraqi Shiite assassination teams are being trained in at least four locations in Iran by Tehran’s elite Quds force and Lebanese Hezbollah and are planning to return to Iraq in the next few months to kill specific Iraqi officials as well as U.S. and Iraqi troops, according to intelligence gleaned from captured militia fighters and other sources in Iraq.

A senior U.S. military intelligence officer in Baghdad described the information Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press.

The officer said the targets include many judges but would not otherwise identify them.

Russia warns Poland against having U.S. base

MOSCOW — Russia warned Poland on Friday that it is exposing itself to attack — even a nuclear one — by accepting a U.S. missile interceptor base on its soil, delivering Moscow’s strongest language yet against the plan.

American and Polish officials stuck firmly by their deal, signed Thursday, for Poland to host a system that Washington says is meant to block missile attacks by rogue nations like Iran.

Moscow is convinced the base is aimed at Russia’s missile force, however, and the deal comes as relations already are strained over the fighting between Russia and U.S.-allied Georgia over the separatist Georgian region of South Ossetia.

School staff to pack guns

HARROLD, Texas — A tiny Texas school district may be the first in the nation to allow teachers and staff to pack guns for protection when classes begin later this month, a newspaper reported.

Trustees at the Harrold Independent School District approved a district policy change last October so employees can carry concealed firearms to deter and protect against school shootings, provided the gun-toting teachers follow certain requirements.

In order for teachers and staff to carry a pistol, they must have a Texas license to carry a concealed handgun; must be authorized to carry by the district; must receive training in crisis management and hostile situations and have to use special ammunition.

Mayor to stand trial

DETROIT — A judge ruled Friday that there’s enough evidence for Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to stand trial on two felony assault charges stemming from a confrontation with two investigators.

The investigators testified that an angry Kilpatrick shoved one of them into the other and made racial remarks while they were trying to deliver a subpoena in the mayor’s perjury case to one of Kilpatrick’s friends last month.

District Judge Ronald Giles said there was no question Kilpatrick knew Wayne County sheriff’s Detective Brian White and county prosecutor’s investigator JoAnn Kinney were at the home where the confrontation took place on official business.

2 Georgia men claim they found body of Bigfoot

LOS ANGELES — Bigfoot has been found in the Georgia woods and is being held in a cooler at an undisclosed location.

So say two self-proclaimed Bigfoot trackers, Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, who held a news conference in Palo Alto on Friday to publicize their claim of having found the elusive Sasquatch, or at least the body of one, in the northern part of the Peach State. The exact location is being kept secret, they said, to protect other Bigfoots still wandering there.

The public was excluded from the conference, but a picture of the supposed 500-plus-pound dead biped was posted online at on www.searchingforbigfoot.com.

Seattle sells $5M toilets on eBay for $12,549

SEATTLE — City officials have finally gotten rid of five high-tech self-cleaning toilets that cost Seattle $5 million — but sold online for just $12,549.

The city installed the modernistic stand-alone toilets four years ago, hoping they would provide tourists and the homeless a place to do their business while downtown. But the automated loos became better known for drug use and prostitution than for relief.

In May, the City Council voted to sell them on eBay. One of the five toilets, which currently graces the downtown waterfront, sold for $4,899, but the average sale was just over $2,510.

A Rochester, Wash., business, Racecar Supply, won all five auctions, which ended Thursday.

Combined dispatches