1 Resident Evil: Extinction (2007) $24M- $24M
2 Good Luck Chuck (2007) $14M - $14M
3 The Brave One (2007) $7.42M - $25.1M
4 3:10 to Yuma (2007) $6.35M - $37.9M
5 Eastern Promises (2007) $5.75M - $6.55M
6 Sydney White (2007) $5.32M - $5.32M
7 Mr. Woodcock (2007) $4.97M - $15.7M
8 Superbad (2007) $3.1M - $116M
9 The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) $2.79M - $220M
10 D-War (2007) $2.51M - $8.5M

By MARY FOSTER
Associated Press Writer
JENA, La. (AP) — A judge on Friday denied a request to release a
teenager whose arrest in the beating of a white classmate sparked
this week’s civil rights protest in Louisiana.
Mychal Bell’s request to be freed while an appeal is being
reviewed was rejected at a juvenile court hearing, effectively
denying him any chance at immediate bail, a person familiar with
the case told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition
of anonymity because juvenile court proceedings are closed.
Earlier, Bell’s mother emerged from the hearing in tears,
refusing to comment.
Bell, 17, was convicted of aggravated second-degree battery,
which could have led to 15 years in prison. But his conviction was
thrown out by a state appeals court that said he could not be tried
on the charge as an adult because he was 16 at the time of the
beating.
“This is why we did not cancel the march,” said the Rev. Al
Sharpton, an organizer of Thursday’s rally along with the Rev.
Jesse Jackson and the NAACP. “When they overturned Mychal’s
conviction, everyone said we won.”
Jackson said in an interview Friday that federal intervention is
needed to protect Bell’s rights. Sharpton said he has scheduled
meetings in Washington with congressional leaders to discuss the
Jena Six case.
At a separate closed hearing Friday, a judge refused a request
from defense attorneys to remove Judge J.P. Mauffray Jr. from
Bell’s case, said John Jenkins, father of one of Bell’s
co-defendants.
Defense lawyers have complained that Mauffray set a high bail
for Bell — $90,000 — prior to his conviction in the Barker beating.
Mauffray had cited Bell’s criminal record, which included juvenile
arrests for battery and damage to property, in setting the bail.
On Thursday, the case drew thousands of protesters to this tiny
central Louisiana town to rally against what they see as a double
standard of justice for blacks and whites. The march was one of the
biggest civil rights demonstrations in years.
The case dates to August 2006, when a black Jena High School
student asked the principal whether blacks could sit under a shade
tree that was a frequent gathering place for whites. He was told
yes. But nooses appeared in the tree the next day.
Three white students were suspended but not criminally
prosecuted. LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters has said
he could find no state law covering the act.
The incident was followed by fights between blacks and whites
that culminated in the attack on Justin Barker, who was knocked
unconscious on school grounds. According to court testimony, his
face was swollen and bloodied, but he was able to attend a school
function that night.
Five of the teens were originally charged with attempted
second-degree murder — charges that have since been reduced for
four of them. The sixth was booked as a juvenile on sealed charges.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Fidel Castro looks healthier in first official video in 3 months
HAVANA (AP) — Fidel Castro looked alert and healthier in a
surprise video aired on state television Friday, the first images
released of the ailing 81-year-old Cuban leader in more than three
months.
Officials broke into regularly scheduled programming to announce
that an hour-long “conversation” with Castro, taped earlier in
the day, would be shown.
In the video, Castro spoke slowly and softly, and didn’t always
look the interviewer in the eye. But he appeared to be thinking
clearly.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

This is what she was wearing

By RODRIQUE NGOWI
Associated Press Writer
BOSTON (AP) — Star Simpson, a 19-year-old with a mane of
bleached-blond hair, walked in wearing a black hooded sweatshirt
with a white circuit board attached to her chest, wires protruding
and LED lights flashing. On the back of the sweatshirt were two
phrases that looked hand-drawn — “Socket to me” and “Course
VI.”
The MIT engineering student may have gotten the response she
wanted Thursday at the school’s career day, where employers were
looking for creative minds and participants knew what “Course VI”
meant.
Her outfit made an entirely different impression Friday morning
at Logan International Airport, where two of the jets hijacked in
the Sept. 11 attacks had taken off six years earlier.
“She’s lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue,” said
State Police Maj. Scott Pare, the airport’s commanding officer.
Security officials sent in members of the bomb squad and state
troopers to arrest Simpson at gunpoint, not satisfied with her
explanation that the device was harmless artwork intended to help
the sophomore stand out at the career fair.
Simpson, of Kihei, Hawaii, was charged with possessing a hoax
device. Her attorney, Ross Schreiber, described the charge as
“offbase” and almost “paranoid,” arguing at a court hearing
Friday that she did not act in a suspicious manner and had told an
airport worker that the device was artwork.
She has expertise in electronics and even received a
Congressional citation for her work in robotics, Ross Schreiber
said.
Officials said they were amazed that someone would wear such a
device at the airport, given the 2001 attacks and the uproar
created eight months ago by men by dozens of harmless but
mysterious electronic devices found around Boston.
Simpson showed “a total disregard to understand the context of
the situation she is in, which is an airport of post-9/11,”
prosecutor Wayne Margolis said at a hearing where a not guilty plea
was entered for Simpson and she was released on $750 bail. Margolis
had asked for $5,000 bail.
“I’m shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of
device to an airport,” Pare told reporters on Friday.
Simpson was arrested about 8 a.m. outside Terminal C, home to
United Airlines, Jet Blue and other carriers.
A Massachusetts Port Authority staffer manning an information
booth in the terminal became suspicious when Simpson — wearing the
device and holding some Play-Doh — approached to ask about an
incoming flight, Pare said. Simpson then walked outside, and the
staffer notified a nearby trooper.
The trooper, joined by others with submachine guns, confronted
her at a traffic island in front of the terminal.
“She was immediately told to stop, to raise her hands and not
to make any movement, so we could observe all her movements to see
if she was trying to trip any type of device,” Pare said. “Had
she not followed the protocol, we might have used deadly force.”
The terminal was not evacuated and flights were not affected,
airport officials said.
Simpson said the device “was a piece of art and she wanted to
stand out on career day,” Pare said. “She claims that it was just
art, and that she was proud of the art and she wanted to display
it.”
The term “Course VI” on her sweatshirt appears to refer to
MIT’s major of electrical engineering and computer science.
Pare said Simpson had taken a subway to the airport, but he was
not sure if she had the device on at that time.
Schreiber said his client was not a risk to flee, cooperated
with authorities and was a good student with no prior convictions.
He said they would fight the charges.
“I would characterize it as almost being paranoid at this
point,” he said of authorities’ response.
He said she had gone to the airport to meet her boyfriend. “She
was there for legitimate purposes,” Schreiber said.
During the hearing, Simpson smiled as she entered wearing a
T-shirt and sandals. After she posted bail, she left in a taxi with
a man who identified himself as her boyfriend, but neither would
answer more questions from reporters.
Boston was the focus of a security scare Jan. 31 when dozens of
battery-powered devices that featured characters making an obscene
gesture were discovered in various locations. Bomb squads were
deployed and some transportation links were closed temporarily.
They turned out to be a promotion for the Cartoon Network. Two men
were charged in that incident, but prosecutors dropped the charges
after they apologized and performed community service.
Simpson was a member of MIT’s swimming and diving team in 2006,
according to the team’s Web site. She is the secretary of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Electrical Research
Society, her lawyer said. She is a graduate of the Hawaii
Preparatory Academy, a private boarding school, has won school
prizes for chemistry and leadership and had received a
Congressional citation for her work in robotics, Schreiber said.
MIT issued a statement saying the school is cooperating with
authorities. The statement said: “As reported to us by
authorities, Ms. Simpson’s actions were reckless and understandably
created alarm at the airport.”
Pare praised the booth attendant and said the incident is a
reminder of the terrorism threat confronting the civil aviation
system.
“In this day and age, the threat continues to be there,” he
said.

Associated Press writers Mark Jewell and Glen Johnson
contributed to this report.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

By RANDALL CHASE
Associated Press Writer
DOVER, Del. (AP) — Two students were shot and wounded, one
seriously, at Delaware State University early Friday, prompting
administrators mindful of the massacre at Virginia Tech to order a
swift shutdown of the campus while police searched for the gunman.
Police identified two students as “persons of interest,”
questioning both of them, while students remained locked in their
dorms and officers lowered gates to keep anyone from coming onto
the campus of the 3,690-student historically black university.
“The biggest lesson learned from that whole situation at
Virginia Tech is don’t wait. Once you have an incident, start
notifying the community,” said university spokesman Carlos Holmes.
The shooting, reported to police at 12:54 a.m., happened as a
group of students were returning from an on-campus cafe. A
17-year-old male student was in stable condition; a female student,
also 17, was shot in the abdomen and in serious condition.
The two students were shot on the Campus Mall, between the
Memorial Hall gymnasium and Richard S. Grossley Hall, an
administrative building. Investigators believed the shootings may
have been preceded by an argument at the cafe, and Holmes said it
did not appear to be random.
The male student, who was wounded in the ankle, refused to
answer questions by police about the shootings, raising the
likelihood that he knew his attacker, according to a federal law
enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because
the investigation was ongoing.
Campus officials acted much more swiftly than officials at
Virginia Tech did five months ago, when administrators delayed
notifying students nearly two hours after gunman Seung-Hui Cho
killed his first two victims. By then, he had already started
shooting 30 other people in a classroom building across campus.
A report by a panel appointed by Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine
concluded that lives could have been saved if alerts had been sent
out earlier and classes canceled after Cho killed his first two
victims.
At Delaware State, officials didn’t wait. Within about 20
minutes of the shooting being reported to police, even as the
victims were being taken to hospitals, campus police and residence
hall advisers were telling students to stay in their dorm rooms,
although not all were told there had been a shooting.
By 2:11 a.m., campus police Chief James Overton was meeting with
another university official to discuss the school’s response.
Notices were posted in dormitories and the school Web site by about
2:40 a.m., and the decision to cancel classes was made shortly
after 5 a.m., well before the school day started.
The shootings happened under different circumstances. The
Virginia Tech rampage began at 7 a.m. as students thronged the
campus and headed to morning classes; at Delaware State, it
happened in the middle of the night, when many students were in
their dorm rooms.
The panel that investigated the response to the Virginia Tech
shootings noted that it would have been tough to shut down the
2,600-acre Tech campus; Delaware State is only about 400 acres. But
it appears Delaware State responded to the crisis well, said Gerald
Massengill, who led the group.
“I think just like post-9/11, there’s a post-April 16
mentality,” he said.
Alex Bishoff, 20, a freshman from Washington, D.C., said he
heard five gunshots and looked out his dormitory window to see
people scattering. He said he immediately thought of the Virginia
Tech shootings last April.
Students were warned within about 15 minutes, Bishoff said. “I
think they handled it pretty well,” he said.
Timmara Gooden, 20, of Philadelphia, said in a phone interview
from her dorm room that she and her suite mates kept each other
calm and were making sure that their parents understand that
they’re OK.
Students weren’t even going into their dorm hallways. “We don’t
want to walk out there, because we don’t know what’s going on,”
Gooden said.
Students were still being advised Friday afternoon to remain in
their dorms, but were being escorted to the cafeteria for meals.
Officials also made arrangements for students who wanted to leave
campus for the weekend, during which hordes of race fans and
recreational vehicles converge on the town for NASCAR action across
the street at Dover Downs Speedway.
University president Allen Sessoms emphasized the shooting was
not random.
“This is an internal problem,” said Sessoms. “There are no
externalities … this is just kids who did very, very stupid
things.”
At the start of the semester, the campus held a memorial service
for three students and an incoming student who were shot
execution-style Aug. 4 as they hung out at an elementary school in
their hometown of Newark, N.J. Natasha Aeriel, 19; her brother,
Terrance Aeriel, 18, and Dashon Harvey, 20, were students. Iofemi
Hightower, 20, had planned to attend Delaware State this fall.
Natasha Aeriel, the only survivor, helped police identify six
suspects who have been arrested.
Holmes said there was no indication that Friday’s shooting was
related in any way to the Newark, N.J., killings. Both of the
victims in Friday’s shootings were from the Washington, D.C., area,
officials said.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — It looks like it’s time to say bye bye
Barry.
Barry Bonds says on his Web site that the San Francisco Giants
are not going to bring him back for the 2008 season.
Bonds says that Giants owner Peter Magowan broke the bad news to
him yesterday.
Bonds has spent the past 15 seasons of his 22-year big league
career with the Giants. And this season he broke Hank Aaron’s
33-year-old record with his 756th home run.
Bonds holds the major league record for most home runs in a
season with 73. He’s also 13 time All Star and a 7-time National
League MVP.
This year the Giants remain mired in last place.
Bonds says he plans on continuing his career and that his quest
for a World Series ring continues.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)