Bob Marley Heirs Join US Firm To Launch Pot Brand

A mural depicting reggae music icon Bob Marley decorates a wall in the yard of Marley's Kingston home in Jamaica. 

KINGSTON, JAMAICA (AP) — A U.S. private equity firm announced Tuesday it has joined the family of late reggae star Bob Marley in hopes of building what it touts as the "world's first global cannabis brand."

Seattle-based Privateer Holdings announced Tuesday it has reached a licensing deal with Marley's heirs to offer marijuana strains, including ones famed in Jamaica, where regulations permit by late 2015. It also plans to sell weed-infused lotions, creams and various accessories.

"My dad would be so happy to see people understanding the healing power of the herb," Miami-based Cedella Marley said in a company statement. She's the eldest daughter of the music legend who died of cancer in 1981 and is Jamaica's most iconic figure.

Over the years, his estate has authorized deals for a wide range of merchandise. But the move to create "Marley Natural" has stirred grousing in Jamaica among those who share his Rastafarian faith, a spiritual movement that considers the drug divine.

Maxine Stowe of the Rastafari Millennium Council asserts that Marley was "the least of the Wailers around the issue of ganja legalization" and worries his estate's efforts to launch a cannabis brand will negatively impact Jamaican efforts to financially benefit from a legalization movement gaining traction across the globe.

The Wailers were founded by Marley, Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh. All three famously espoused smoking the "holy herb," but Stowe argues Wailer and the late Tosh were more strident activists. "The government has to stand up now for Rastafari and the Wailers' rights in their intellectual property!" Stowe wrote in a Tuesday email.

Some Rastas are also irked that Marley Natural will be based in New York. But while pot remains prohibited here, Jamaica has been rethinking its position. The government hopes to amend drug laws to pave the way for a regulated medical marijuana and research sector. Officials say this could be achieved next year.

Delano Seiveright, director of the island's Ganja Law Reform Coalition, said there are hopes that the Marley family's plans will spur Jamaica to "develop a legal and regulated cannabis industry much sooner rather than later."

Patina Miller At Premier Of 'The Hunger Games: Mockinjay 1'

Patina Miller attends the Premiere of Lionsgate's 'The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1' at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on November 17, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. Image: Jason Merritt/Getty

Charles Manson Gets Marriage License

Provided by the California Department of Corrections shows 80-year-old serial killer Charles Manson

CORCORAN, CALIF. (AP) — Mass murderer Charles Manson has gotten a license to marry a 26-year-old woman who visits him in prison.

The Kings County marriage license, viewed Monday by The Associated Press, was issued Nov. 7 for the 80-year-old Manson and Afton Elaine Burton, who left her Midwestern home nine years ago and moved to Corcoran, California — the site of the prison — to be near Manson. She maintains several websites advocating Manson's innocence.

The license does not specify a wedding date and indicates the couple has 90 days to get married or they will have to reapply. Burton, who goes by the name "Star," told the AP that she and Manson will be married next month.

"Y'all can know that it's true," she said. "It's going to happen." "I love him," she added. "I'm with him. There's all kinds of things." Burton gave an interview a year ago to Rolling Stone magazine in which she said she and Manson planned to marry. But Manson, who became notorious in 1969 as the leader of a roving "family" of young killers, was less certain about tying the knot.

"That's a bunch of garbage," Manson said in the December 2013 interview. "That's trash We're playing that for public consumption." Asked Monday about those comments, Burton said, "None of that's true," adding that they're waiting for the prison to complete their paperwork.

California Department of Corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton confirmed to the AP that the license had been transmitted to the prison. Thornton said each California prison designates an employee to be a marriage coordinator who processes paperwork for an inmate's request to be wed. In most cases, she said, the department of corrections approves of such weddings as "a tool of family reunification and social development." But Manson is a unique case.

Burton said the wedding might have happened earlier if Manson did not have "some situations" at the prison. Thornton explained that in February, Manson had three violations for possession of a weapon, threatening staff and refusal to provide a urine sample. Further details on the violations were not immediately available.

Burton said the prison holds marriages on the first Saturday of each month. She expects to be married in an inmate visiting room at the prison. Thornton confirmed that Manson can have a wedding at the prison and invite an officiate from outside the prison to perform the ceremony.

He and his prospective spouse also would be allowed to invite 10 guests who are not inmates. However, as a life prisoner with no parole date, he is not entitled to family visits, a euphemism for conjugal visits.

Why marry Manson under those conditions? Burton said she was interested in working on his case and helping him obtain possible release. Marrying him would allow her to get information not available to non-relatives, she said without elaborating.

"There's certain things next of kin can do," she said. She said she believes Manson is innocent and will get a new trial. He and two women followers, Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel, remain imprisoned. Another follower, Susan Atkins, died of cancer behind bars.

They were convicted in the gruesome killings of actress Sharon Tate and four others at her estate on Aug. 9, 1969, and grocers Leno and Rosemary LaBianca who were killed the following night. Manson would not be eligible for parole until 2027. He has been a habitual criminal and spent most of his life in prison.

Pope Francis Coming To America

In this image by Perfil, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, he always served the church in Buenos Aires and was Archbishop of the city until the historic announcement at the Vatican made him the first South American pope. The child of Italian immigrants, he was ordained to the priesthood in 1969, at the age of 32. Speaking at the World Meeting of Families at the Vatican Monday, November 17, 2014, Pope Francis confirmed that he will make his first papal visit to the United States with a trip to Philadelphia in September for the World Meeting of Families, a conference held every three years in a different city to celebrate the importance of family. Vatican officials toured the city in May and President Barack Obama, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Congress have extended invitations. Just last week, more than 10,000 Philadelphia Catholic schoolchildren sent handwritten notes encouraging the 77-year-old Francis to make the visit.

Lagos Jungle Blues, 1984

A party all around the city and we had partied hard
We walked through the army barracks, the signals
It had been all guarded by the juntas
Guns can be seen all around their shoulders
Waiting for orders and the last command
It breezed in when we all had gone to sleep
We had expected the president's new year message
It never came,
Martial music had filled the air waves
Up and in much anticipation, we had guessed
The possibilities of the military juntas
Wrestling power from the people, again
Civilians had begun to celebrate and,
Chants welcoming the juntas filled the air;
The president and the 2nd Republic
Had been toppled

The mood was one full of uncertainties
The juntas only wanted to make the people blue
The khaki boys announced why they took power
A widespread scandals of bribery and corruption
And a nation overwhelmed by disobedient
And reckless, bloody civilians
A one-star general had announced on the radio
Proclaiming dictatorship and absolute power
A new head of the juntas popped up
With chopped up measures and decrees
Which destroyed all aspects of civil liberties
And had become the order of the day and time
I was not really worried of Totalitarianism
Because I had not played any part in either
Of the military and civilian administration
To be charged for any wrongdoing

It was business as usual with no prohibition
Life was very normal and didn't make any difference
Only what I witnesed could differ
I saw a killing by firing squad for drug peddling
I saw an artist slammed for carrying alien money
I saw journalists ripped off their pants and caned
I saw people of the media sent to the gulag
And I had seen a slammed for the juntas' leaks
The decrees had been disturbing as
The juntas never stopped harassing the people
People started to disappear inexplicably
Which had made the place spooky
Without changes or any improvements
We could only see a change of hands
Between the military juntas,
And the thieving civilian politicians

They locked up all their subjects
And charged them with all sorts of crimes
Asserting the country had been ruined
By we they called 'bloody civilians'
Making all of us nervous as we panicked
While they duped the people
And raped the treasury empty, and
Institutionalized corruption
With a series of tricks and games
Pushed and shoved it in our face
As we carried the nation's burden
Which they tarnished while we looked bad
Bribery and corruption had continued apace
Even though the juntas said,
They came to set the priorities right
It was all a gimmick, in the long run


---------------------Ambrose Ehirim

PHOTO-OP: Somalian Super Model Iman

Somalian super model and entrepreneur posing with Lucas Samaras' Sculpture Stiff Box at the Patrick Lannan Foundation, Palm Beach, Florida. Image: Norman Parkinson (1982).

Plane Carrying South African Dead Arrives Home

In this hand photo supplied by the government's Department's of Communications (DoC) one of four Forensic Pathology Services truck carrying the remains of some of the victims of the Nigeria building collapse, exits a chartered plane on it's arrival from Nigeria, in Pretoria, South Africa, at the Waterkloof Air Force base Sunday, Nov. 16, 2014. The remains of 74 South Africans who died in he building collapse on Sept. 12, 2014 arrived back in South Africa ahead of a ceremony at which the names of the dead were read to mourners.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A plane carrying the remains of 74 South Africans who died in a building collapse in Nigeria on Sept. 12 arrived on Sunday in South Africa.

The plane landed at Waterkloof air force base near Pretoria, the South African capital, ahead of a ceremony at which the names of the dead were read to mourners, including family members and government officials. Some relatives wept during the somber event.

The "gruesome nature" of the accident had made it difficult to identify victims and DNA tests had to be conducted, the government said in a statement. South Africa said 81 South Africans were among a total of 116 people who died in the building collapse.

The fallen multistory building served as a shopping mall and guesthouse at the sprawling complex of televangelist T.B. Joshua's Synagogue, Church of All Nations, on the outskirts of Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital.

Nigerian officials had attributed the cause of the accident to shoddy construction. The church tried to implicate Islamic militants, releasing a video that purported to show a mysterious aircraft flying low over the building before it fell.

Zimbabwe's Vice President Linked To Plot

Ing the story of the Vice President being linked to a presidential assassination plot. Zimbabwe's vice president Joice Mujuru, once seen as a possible successor to president Robert Mugabe, has been linked to an alleged plot to assassinate the 90-year-old leader, the state-run newspaper reported.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Zimbabwe's vice president, once seen as a possible successor to President Robert Mugabe, has been linked to an alleged plot to assassinate the 90-year-old leader, a state-run newspaper reported Sunday.

An ally of Vice President Joice Mujuru who was recently ousted from his post as ruling party spokesman said the allegations that he conspired against Mugabe are false. Rugare Gumbo, the ousted spokesman, was identified in The Sunday Mail as a plotter against Mugabe, who has been in power since independence in 1980.

The Sunday Mail cited a voice recording and reported comments as evidence of the alleged plot but it did not attribute the information to security officials or other sources. Political factions are maneuvering for influence ahead of the annual ruling party congress next month. Mujuru has come under repeated verbal attacks from the president's wife, Grace.

Grace Mugabe has assumed an increasingly political role, angering some party insiders who believe she does not have leadership credentials in a country struggling with high unemployment and other social problems.

Gumbo said Robert Mugabe lambasted him during a meeting of senior leaders of the ruling ZANU-PF party on Thursday night. "We were accused of attempting to overthrow the president and it was the president himself who led the charges," Zimbabwe's Daily News quoted Gumbo as saying. "He says 'we have done wrong and should leave the party,' but this is just a smear campaign to eliminate people who are standing by the vice president."

Another alleged conspirator named by The Sunday Mail is Didymus Mutasa, a high-ranking official in the ruling party. Without citing sources, the newspaper said another alleged plotter had met "potential hitmen" in South Africa and Israel.

Mugabe has often accused foreign powers, particularly Britain and the United States, of trying to undermine him. Western leaders have criticized Mugabe's human rights record.

Nigerian Army Says It Has Regained Town Of Chibok

(AP) Map locates liberated Nigerian town of Chibok and other towns under the control of Boko Haram. 2c x 4 inches; staff; ETA 11:15 a.m. ; 1c x 4 inches; 46.5 mm x 101 mm;

MAIDUGURI, NIGERIA (AP) — The Nigerian army has regained control of Chibok, the northeastern town where more than 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped by Islamic extremists more than six months ago, said army officials.

The army wrested back control of Chibok on Saturday, about 48 hours after it had been captured by the Islamic militants of Boko Haram, Nigerian army spokesman Brigadier General Olajide Olaleye told the Associated Press.

"Chibok is firmly in the hands of the Nigerian army." Olaleye told the AP. "Chibok is free. Secured." He encouraged Chibok residents to return to their homes. The town of about 60,000 in Nigeria's northeastern Borno state had been captured by Boko Haram insurgents on Thursday night. Thousands of residents fled when the rebels entered the town shooting from pickup trucks and motorcycles.

Two days later Chibok was recaptured by troops of the Nigerian Army's 7 Division, said Colonel Sani Usman, a deputy director of army public relations. Villagers around Chibok said they saw a large deployment of soldiers moving toward the town on Saturday morning.

Chibok is an enclave of mainly Christian families, some involved in translating the Bible into local languages, in the mainly Muslim north of Nigeria. Although the army has regained control of Chibok, Boko Haram still holds several towns and cities in an area covering an estimated 20,000 square kilometers (7,700 square miles) where they have declared an Islamic caliphate, along the lines of the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. The extremists fly the black and white flag of al-Qaida and have established a strict version of Shariah law, publicly amputating the hands of alleged looters and whipping people for infractions such as smoking cigarettes.

The army claimed on Oct. 17 that it had established a cease-fire with Boko Haram and it was negotiating for the release of the kidnapped schoolgirls. But Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, in a video released last month, denied there was any truce and said the girls had all converted to Islam and been married off to his fighters.

Mali On High Alert With New Ebola Cluster

A health worker sprays disinfectant near a mosque, after the body of a man suspected of dying from the Ebola virus was washed inside before being berried in Bamako, Mali. It all started with a sick nurse, whose positive test results for Ebola came only after death. In a busy clinic that treats Bamako’s elite as well as wounded U.N. peacekeepers, who was the patient who had transmitted the virus? Soon hospital officials were taking a second look at the case of a 70-year-old man brought to the capital late at night from Guinea suffering from kidney failure. On Friday, Malian health authorities went to disinfect the mosque where the 70-year-old’s body was prepared for burial - nearly three weeks ago. Already some are criticizing the government for being too slow to react when health authorities had announced his death as a suspected Ebola case earlier in the week.

BAMAKO, MALI (AP) — It all started with a sick nurse, whose positive test for Ebola came only after her death. In a busy clinic that treats Mali's elite as well as wounded U.N. peacekeepers, what patient transmitted the virus?

Soon hospital officials were taking a second look at the case of a 70-year-old man who died after being brought to the capital late at night from Guinea suffering from kidney failure. A friend who visited him later died under suspicious circumstances, too.

It wasn't renal disease, they then realized. The 70-year-old man had Ebola and all three of the relatives who brought him to the clinic that night had all since been admitted to an Ebola treatment center back home in Guinea.

On Friday, Malian health authorities went to disinfect the mosque where the 70-year-old's body was prepared for burial — nearly three weeks ago. Already some are criticizing the Malian government for being too slow to react when health authorities had announced his death as a suspected Ebola case earlier in the week.

"It's been 18 days since the Guinean man sick with Ebola died here. It's just too late," said Koumou Keita, his face full of worry. For nearly a year, Mali had been spared the virus now blamed for killing more than 5,000 people across West Africa despite the fact the country shared a porous land border with Guinea, the country where the epidemic first erupted.

Now there are least three confirmed Ebola deaths, and two others suspected deaths in Mali's capital, Bamako. Residents here who have seen the horrific death tolls from Ebola in neighboring Guinea now fear the worst.

"I feel uneasy because I have the impression that our authorities are not giving us the whole truth," said Ibrahim Traore, who works at a supermarket in the capital. "There are a lot of things not being said about how the Ebola virus came to Bamako."

Health officials now must try to track down not only family and friends who visited the 70-year-old man at his hospital bed, but also the scores of people who prepared his body for burial and attended his funeral. Teams of investigators are also headed to the border community where authorities believe the Patient Zero in the Bamako cluster — the 70-year-old man — first fell ill.

"The future of Ebola in Mali will depend on the quality of the surveillance of these contacts. If they are rigorously followed, and any subsequent cases are quickly identified and isolated, the battle will be won. But if there are failures in the process, it will lead to further contamination and further problems," said Ibrahima-Soce Fall, Mali's WHO representative.

Among those placed under quarantine are about 20 members of the U.N. peacekeeping force who were treated for battlefield wounds at the Bamako hospital where the dead nurse had worked. The peacekeepers are based in the north of the country, where they are trying to stabilize a vast region where jihadists ruled until a French-led war in 2013.

In recent years Mali already has suffered a separatist rebel insurgency, a coup that overthrew its longtime leader and a war against jihadists. Now Ebola threatens to be another source of misery if it is not contained.

"Ebola could cause many deaths here in Mali, said Aminata Samake, who works at a bank in the capital. "We have a tradition of living closely together that could contribute to a huge contamination. Take the example of public transport — you find people crammed into a bus, one on top of the other. Large families share the same plates, even the same glasses for tea."

Follow Baba Ahmed on Twitter at at https://twitter.com/Baba_A— .

US Hospital: Surgeon With Ebola Extremely Ill

An ambulance carrying Dr. Martin Salia, a surgeon working in Sierra Leone who had been diagnosed with Ebola, drives to the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Neb., Saturday, Nov. 15, 2014. Dr. Salia is the third Ebola patient at the Omaha hospital and the 10th person with Ebola to be treated in the U.S.

OMAHA, NEBRASKA. (AP) — A surgeon who contracted Ebola while working in Sierra Leone was in extremely critical condition Sunday at a Nebraska hospital, his doctors said.

Dr. Martin Salia, who was diagnosed with Ebola on Monday, arrived in Omaha on Saturday to be treated at the Nebraska Medical Center's biocontainment unit that has successfully treated two other Ebola patients this fall.

Salia is "extremely ill," said Dr. Phil Smith, who is helping oversee Salia's treatment. The 44-year-old Salia might be more ill than the first Ebola patients successfully treated in the United States, according to the hospital.

"This is an hour-by-hour situation," Smith said Sunday, adding that a team of specialists is treating Salia's most serious issues. "We will do everything humanly possible to help him fight this disease."

Ebola has killed more than 5,000 people in West Africa, mostly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leona. Of the 10 people treated for the virus in the U.S., all but one has recovered. After Salia arrived in Omaha, his ambulance to the hospital was accompanied by a single Nebraska State Patrol cruiser and a fire department vehicle — a subdued arrival in contrast to the August delivery of Dr. Rick Sacra, whose ambulance was flanked by numerous police cars, motorcycles and fire vehicles.

Salia has been working as a general surgeon at Kissy United Methodist Hospital in the Sierra Leone capital of Freetown. It's not clear whether he was involved in the care of Ebola patients. Kissy is not an Ebola treatment unit, but Salia worked in at least three other facilities, United Methodist News said, citing health ministry sources.

Salia, a Sierra Leone citizen who lives in Maryland, first showed Ebola symptoms on Nov. 6 but tested negative for the virus. He eventually tested positive on Monday. The U.S. State Department said it helped facilitate the transfer of Salia; the U.S. Embassy in Freetown said he paid for the expensive evacuation. The travel costs and care of other Ebola patients flown to the U.S. have been covered by the groups they worked for in West Africa.

Salia's wife, Isatu Salia, said in a telephone interview that when she spoke to her husband early Friday his voice sounded weak and shaky. But he told her "I love you" in a steady voice, she said. The two prayed together, and their children, ages 12 and 20, are coping, Isatu Salia said, calling her husband "my everything."

Nebraska Medical Center spokesman Taylor Wilson said members of Salia's family were not at the hospital Saturday, but were expected to arrive "in the near future." Sierra Leone is one of the three West Africa nations hit hard by an Ebola epidemic this year. Five other doctors in Sierra Leone have contracted Ebola, and all have died.

Gresko reported from New Carrollton, Md.
Associated Press writers Clarence Roy-Macauley in Freetown, Sierra Leone; Mike Stobbe in New York; and Matthew Barakat in McLean, Va., contributed to this report.