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By Stephen Brown

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Pope was due on Sunday to make his first public appearance since Muslim fury erupted over remarks he made about Islam, with pressure growing for a personal apology.

The Vatican issued a statement on Saturday saying the Pope was sorry Muslims had been offended by a speech whose meaning had been misconstrued; but Muslim countries and religious groups continued to express anger at remarks they felt portrayed Islam as a religion tainted with violence.

Morocco withdrew its ambassador to the Vatican, calling the Pope’s remarks “offensive”, while Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood said the Vatican statement was not enough.

“We feel he has committed a grave error against us and that this mistake will only be removed through a personal apology,” said the Brotherhood’s deputy leader, Mohammed Habib.

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(CNN) — Pope Benedict XVI has said he is “very upset” that his speech on Islam offended Muslims and expressed his respect for their faith, according to the Vatican.

Vatican spokesman Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said in a statement on Saturday the pope’s position on Islam was unmistakably in line with Vatican teaching that the Church “esteems Muslims, who adore the only God.”

The pope is “very upset that some parts of his speech could have sounded offensive to the sensibility of the Muslim faithful and were interpreted in a way that does not correspond at all to his intentions,” Bertone added.

The worst crisis since Benedict was elected in April 2005 was sparked by a speech in Germany Tuesday that appeared to endorse a Christian view, contested by most Muslims, that early Muslims spread their religion by violence.

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Reclusive movie star Sean Penn has agreed to a sit down interview with CNN talk show host Larry King to talk frankly about his brother Chris’ death. Actor Chris Penn died under mysterious circumstances, and was later diagnosed with an enlarged heart in January, leaving many to suggest the Reservoir Dogs star had been dabbling with drugs. But, keen to clear up the rumors, Penn spoke about his brother’s passing on a taped segment for Larry King Live. The Oscar winner says, “The problem was weight… He’d certainly been a fantastically self-abusing guy over periods of his life but that wasn’t the case it the end. It was a natural death.” The rare Sean Penn interview, in which he also chats about working with Sir Anthony Hopkins in new film All The Kings Men, will air in the US later today.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) — A new film about John Lennon’s peace campaign and the U.S. government’s efforts to silence him presents the former Beatle as a Superman figure battling evil, but no saint, according to his widow Yoko Ono.

“The U.S. vs John Lennon,” which will be released in New York and Los Angeles on Friday, is a documentary pieced together from old newsreels and rarely seen home movies.

It documents FBI surveillance of Lennon and his battle with immigration authorities who tried to deport him in the 1970s in what the film says was an effort to stifle his anti-Vietnam War activism.

Some critics said the film effectively presents Lennon and Ono as united throughout even though they were separated and he was living with another woman for more than a year at the time.

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Ford Motor Co. will offer its 75,000 hourly workers packages of incentives to leave the company, cut one-third of its white-collar jobs and sell or shut down its parts-making plants as part of a turnaround plan intended to slash annual operating costs by $5 billion. Ford’s stock plunged in the wake of this morning’s announcement, as analysts grew cautious about the future performance of the company, the country’s No. 2 automaker. Shares had dropped $1.28, more than 14 percent, to $7.81, by 11:30 a.m. Merrill Lynch changed its recommendation on Ford shares — which until today had gained 18 percent this year, after a 48 percent decline in 2005 — to “sell” from “neutral,” the Associated Press reported. Stock values fell for other U.S. auto makers as well. Ford officials said the changes they are announcing will allow the company’s North American operations to become profitable again in 2009. In the meantime, however, the board of directors plans to suspend payment of quarterly dividends on its common and Class B stock beginning in the fourth quarter of this year. The company reported losses of $1.44 billion in the first half of this year.

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CNN) — Pope Benedict XVI came under a hail of criticism from the Islamic world Friday for comments he made earlier in the week regarding the Prophet Mohammed and the Muslim faith, in some cities provoking street protests.

A growing chorus of Muslim leaders have called on the pope to apologize for the remarks he made in a speech in Germany on Tuesday when he used the terms “jihad” and “holy war.”

Pakistan’s National Assembly, parliament’s lower house, unanimously passed a resolution on Friday condemning the pope’s comments.

Muslim protesters shouted slogans against the pontiff at a rally in Jammu, India. And in Cairo, about 100 demonstrators gathered in an anti-Vatican protest outside the capital’s al-Azhar mosque.

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WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 — Consumers should avoid eating fresh bagged spinach after an outbreak of E. coli in eight states killed one person and sickened at least 49, federal health officials announced Thursday night.

The outbreak involves a virulent strain of E. coli known as 0157:H7, which produces a toxin that can lead to bloody diarrhea, kidney failure and, in rare cases, death.

State and federal health officials have used genetic screening tools to confirm that all 50 people sickened by the disease suffered from the same bacteria, said Dr. David Acheson of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at the F.D.A.

But health officials still have no idea which food manufacturer may be to blame. The first case was reported on Aug. 23 and the most recent on Sept. 3, Dr. Acheson said.

“It’s increasing by the day,” Dr. Acheson said. “We may be at the peak, we may not. We’re giving preliminary data here.”

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By JOHN ROGERS
Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Their troubles were tabloid fodder and their relationship seemed to outsiders to be a mismatch. But for 14 years, Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown publicly professed their love for one another. The couple’s tumultuous marriage appears to be coming to an end. Houston filed papers in Orange County Superior Court on Friday requesting a legal separation from Brown because of irreconcilable differences.

Houston’s publicist, Nancy Seltzer, said the Grammy-winning singer would have no comment on the action.

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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Former Gov. Ann Richards, the witty and flamboyant Democrat who went from homemaker to national political celebrity, died Wednesday night after a battle with cancer, a family spokeswoman said. She was 73.

She died at home surrounded by her family, the spokeswoman said. Richards was found to have esophageal cancer in March and underwent chemotherapy treatments.

The silver-haired, silver-tongued Richards said she entered politics to help others — especially women and minorities who were often ignored by Texas’ male-dominated establishment.

“I did not want my tombstone to read, ‘She kept a really clean house.’ I think I’d like them to remember me by saying, ‘She opened government to everyone,”‘ Richards said shortly before leaving office in January 1995.

She was governor for one term, losing her re-election bid to Republican George W. Bush.

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By TRAVIS REED
Associated Press Writer

LEESBURG, Fla. (AP) — Two weeks after telling police that her son had been snatched from his crib, Melinda Duckett found herself reeling in an interview with TV’s famously prosecutorial Nancy Grace. Before it was over, Grace was pounding her desk and loudly demanding to know: “Where were you? Why aren’t you telling us where you were that day?”

A day after the taping, Duckett, 21, shot herself to death, deepening the mystery of what happened to the boy.

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A couple accused of attacking a reporter pleaded not guilty to assault, battery and other related charges.

Assad “Sam” Suleiman and Rosa Barraza appeared in the San Diego courtroom Tuesday afternoon, in connection to the alleged attack of investigative reporter John Mattes and his cameraman one week ago.

The couple were being investigated by John Mattes as a follow-up to an alleged real estate scam that Mattes uncovered in late July. No charges have been filed related to the alleged scheme.

Deputy District Attorney Allen Brown told Judge David Szumowski that Mattes was interviewing an alleged victim of the couple on a private residence near a Suleiman construction site.

Some of the employees at the site contacted Suleiman about the reporter’s presence on the nearby site. That conversation was overheard by Barraza who allegedly drove to the scene and confronted Mattes and his cameraman.

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Lance Armstrong bristled Tuesday at a report that two former teammates admitted using performance-enhancing drugs, calling it “a hatchet job … to link me to doping through somebody else’s admission.”

Frankie Andreu and another former Armstrong teammate who requested anonymity because he still works in cycling told The New York Times they used the endurance-booster EPO to prepare for the 1999 Tour de France, when Armstrong won the first of his seven titles.

Neither rider has ever tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and both said they never saw Armstrong take any banned substances.

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Authorities in the Bahamas said Tuesday that the sudden death of Anna Nicole Smith’s son over the weekend could not be attributed to natural causes, but refused to elaborate.

Daniel Smith flew in Saturday to visit his mother and three-day-old sister at the private Doctors Hospital in Nassau. The following morning, the 20-year-old was dead.

An autopsy was performed Monday. On Tuesday, Her Majesty’s Coroner Linda P. Virgill said that based on preliminary findings, “the cause of death is not natural.” But, she said, “we wish to reserve [announcing] the cause of death at this time,” adding that a toxicology results and a full autopsy report will be released by the end of the week.

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NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) — Police investigating the death of Anna Nicole Smith’s 20-year-old son said they had no evidence that he had suffered a heart attack or that drugs were involved.

The cause of death remained under investigation Tuesday.

The Nassau Guardian, citing unidentified sources, reported Monday that Daniel Wayne Smith had died of a heart attack. On Tuesday, the newspaper reported that a preliminary investigation found that Smith had antidepressants in his system. It cited sources close to the case.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Hewlett-Packard announced a shakeup of its board Tuesday amid a widening investigation into its controversial leak probe.

HP Chairman Patricia Dunn will leave her post after the company’s Jan. 18 board meeting and will be succeeded by chief executive Mark Hurd, the computer and printer company said Tuesday. Dunn will stay on as a director and board member Richard Hackborn will serve as lead independent director starting in January.

Longtime board member George Keyworth, who was discovered to be the source of company leaks, has resigned from the board, effective immediately, the company also said.

“The invasion of my privacy and that of others was ill-conceived and inconsistent with HP’s values,” Keyworth said in a statement. He also admitted to being the source of a company leak in January of this year.

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