'Jackass' star Dunn dies

 "Jackass" star Ryan Dunn, who along with his cast mates made Americans cringe and snicker through vulgar stunts in their multimillion-dollar TV and movie franchise, was killed early Monday in a fiery car crash. He was 34.

Dunn, a daredevil who gained notoriety for diving into a sewage tank and performing other unsavoury stunts, was driving his 2007 Porsche in suburban Philadelphia when it careered off the road, flipped over a guardrail and crashed into the woods before bursting into flames. A passenger was also killed, and speed may have been a factor in the crash, West Goshen Township police said.

The force of impact shattered the vehicle into several twisted and blackened pieces, leaving the Porsche 911 GT3 unrecognizable except for a door that was thrown from the crash and not incinerated. A 100-foot-long tire skid marked where the car left the roadway.

Both Dunn and his passenger were severely burned. Police said they were able to identify Dunn through his tattoos and hair, but the identity of his passenger was still unknown.

Dunn appeared on MTV shows "Jackass" and "Viva La Bam" and the three "Jackass" big-screen adaptations. He also was the star of his own MTV show, "Homewrecker," and just began hosting the new show "Proving Ground" on the G4 cable network.

G4 spokesman Dave Welch said "Proving Ground," which premiered June 11 with the second episode slated to air Tuesday, was being pulled for now until the network can discuss the show's future.

 "Jackass" star Ryan Dunn, who along with his cast mates made Americans cringe and snicker through vulgar stunts in their multimillion-dollar TV and movie franchise, was killed early Monday in a fiery car crash. He was 34.

Dunn, a daredevil who gained notoriety for diving into a sewage tank and performing other unsavoury stunts, was driving his 2007 Porsche in suburban Philadelphia when it careered off the road, flipped over a guardrail and crashed into the woods before bursting into flames. A passenger was also killed, and speed may have been a factor in the crash, West Goshen Township police said.

The force of impact shattered the vehicle into several twisted and blackened pieces, leaving the Porsche 911 GT3 unrecognizable except for a door that was thrown from the crash and not incinerated. A 100-foot-long tire skid marked where the car left the roadway.

Both Dunn and his passenger were severely burned. Police said they were able to identify Dunn through his tattoos and hair, but the identity of his passenger was still unknown.

Dunn appeared on MTV shows "Jackass" and "Viva La Bam" and the three "Jackass" big-screen adaptations. He also was the star of his own MTV show, "Homewrecker," and just began hosting the new show "Proving Ground" on the G4 cable network.

G4 spokesman Dave Welch said "Proving Ground," which premiered June 11 with the second episode slated to air Tuesday, was being pulled for now until the network can discuss the show's future.

Car bomb near women's college kills 2 in southwestern Pakistan

QUETTA, Pakistan - Police say a car bomb exploded near a women's college in southwestern Pakistan, killing two people and wounding 12 others.

Police officer Hamid Shakil says the bomb appears to have been detonated Monday by a timing device. The car was parked near a women's college in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province.

Shakil did not say who is suspected of carrying out the attack or indicate the target.

Baluchistan has experienced frequent attacks by nationalists who demand a greater share of the province's natural resource wealth but car bomb attacks are rare.

The province, which borders Afghanistan, is also widely believed to be home for many Afghan Taliban militants, including the group's leader, Mullah Omar.

Downtown Vancouver ablaze after rioters run amok following Canuck Cup loss

The misery for the Vancouver Canucks and their fans continued with another near miss in their 40th season.

Moments after the 4-0 loss to the Boston Bruins in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, the frustration and disappointment turned to anger and violence. Only a few blocks from Rogers Arena, cars were overturned, several fires were set, store windows were smashed and people clashed with police as a riot ensued in downtown Vancouver on Monday evening.

What was supposed to be a party in Vancouver turned into violent behaviour after the Canucks came up with another clunker in the seventh and deciding game. They were unable to continue the trend of the home team winning each game.

From the Bruins fourth line to their magnificent goalie, Conn Smythe-winner Tim Thomas, head coach Claude Julien had the better team on this night as Boston celebrated its first championship since 1972.

Thomas made 37 saves for his second shutout of the series and fourth of the postseason. He set a record for the most saves made in a playoffs at 798 and most shots faced at 849 for a .940 save percentage. In the seven-game final, the 37-year-old Thomas recorded a .967 save percentage. Not bad for a ninth-round pick who took almost a decade after he was drafted to make his first appearance in an NHL game.

"I know the game, and I know the way that it is," Thomas said. "Winning the Stanley Cup is huge. It's the biggest accomplishment of my career thus far. But everybody knows in this game that you have to continuously prove yourself.

"I'm sure if I were to, for example, start out the season bad next year that I probably, with the Cup, would have bought myself a little bit of leeway, but it won't last forever unless I turn my game around."

A stunned capacity crowd of 18,860 at Rogers Arena and hundreds of thousands more in the downtown streets watched their Presidents' Trophy-winning team slump offensively with only eight goals in seven games. The Canucks weren't going to become the first Canadian-based team since the 1992-93 Montreal Canadiens to win the Stanley Cup with such little production.

Racial hoax causes PR headache for McDonald’s

An online hoax that falsely suggests McDonald's discriminates against African-American customers is causing a PR headache for the Golden Arches.

Over the weekend, the photograph above circulated widely on the internet. The image shows what looks like an official McDonald's notice in the window of a restaurant, telling customers that blacks will be charged $1.50 extra "as an insurance measure due in part to a recent string of robberies."

Many internet users retweeted the photo, using the words "Seriously McDonald's," to express their disapproval of the burger chain.

In response, McDonald's sent a tweet of its own on Saturday: "That pic is a senseless & ignorant hoax McD's values ALL our customers. Diversity runs deep in our culture on both sides of the counter."

But that clearly wasn't enough to clear things up, because Twitter users continued to send out the picture, with that same message of condemnation: "Seriously McDonald's." Indeed, so many people sent "Seriously McDonald's" Tweets that the phrase became a leading entry on Twitter's trend list.

That led to a second, blunter McTweet, on Sunday: "That Seriously McDonalds picture is a hoax."

The latest pushback effort seems to have helped keep the photo from spreading too much further--but there's no telling how many people out there still think the photo is for real.

This is hardly the only recent barrage of negative publicity for the burger behemoth--some of it more justified. McDonalds CEO Jim Skinner recently was forced to defend the company's renewed use of the Ronald McDonald mascot to appeal to children, after critics said the restaurant's fat-laden burgers and fries endanger kids' health.

But there's no doubt it's fake. As some Twitter users have pointed out, the toll-free number given at the bottom of the sign is actually the number for ... Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Man dies while raping elderly Texas woman

REFUGIO, Texas - Investigators say a man has died while in the act of raping an elderly South Texas woman.

The Refugio County Sheriff's Office identifies the man as 53-year-old Isabel Chavelo Gutierrez. Sheriff's Sgt. Gary Wright says the incident happened June 2 after he rode two miles by bicycle from his home to that of his 77-year-old victim in the tiny coastal community of Tivoli.

He says the man, weighing between 230 and 250 pounds, sneaked into the woman's house and raped her at knifepoint. During the attack, he said he wasn't feeling well, rolled over and died. His body was sent to the Nueces County medical examiner in Corpus Christi for autopsy.

Gutierrez was a registered sexual offender on parole from a sentence for aggravated sexual assault and indecency with a child.

Suspected Ontario E. coli case linked to Germany

An Ontario man who consumed local produce on a trip to Germany earlier this spring has Canada's first suspected case of E. coli linked to the deadly outbreak in Europe.

Initial testing has confirmed the presence of the toxin compatible with the E. coli outbreak overseas, but it will take a few more days for further lab tests to confirm the case of the super strain, Ontario's chief medical officer of health said Monday.

"This is an adult male who recently returned from Germany and who was clearly exposed to this infection while there," Dr. Arlene King said in an interview. "He's doing well, and the followup is continuing with him."

The man, who is from Peel Region west of Toronto, has been released from hospital, King said. She did not provide his age or any other details about him, citing privacy concerns.

King said the risk to the public is low and stressed that people should practise good hygiene, particularly after using the bathroom, handling animals and before preparing food or eating.

The European outbreak was initially attributed to Spanish cucumbers but officials later ruled them out. Suspicion was then cast on sprouts from Germany, but authorities backtracked again

Monday, though they stopped short of giving sprouts a clean bill of health.

The strain that is responsible for the German outbreak has never been detected before by researchers and has various characteristics that make it more virulent and toxin-producing.

The bug has killed 22 people and sickened some 2,330 others in Europe. More than 630 of the victims are hospitalized with a rare, serious complication that can lead to kidney failure, but there's no evidence the Canadian man suffered kidney damage, said King.

A Public Health Agency of Canada spokesperson said no other E. coli cases have been reported elsewhere in the country. The U.S. has reported four suspected case linked to the European outbreak.

King expected more cases could surface in Canada.

1 man's success revives hope of curing AIDS, 30 years after first cases appeared in the US

Sunday marks 30 years since the first AIDS cases were reported in the United States. And this anniversary brings fresh hope for something many had come to think was impossible: finding a cure.

The example is Timothy Ray Brown of San Francisco, the first person in the world apparently cured of AIDS. His treatment isn't practical for wide use, but there are encouraging signs that other approaches might someday lead to a cure, or at least allow some people to control HIV without needing medication every day.

"I want to pull out all the stops to go for it," though cure is still a very difficult goal, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

For now, the focus remains on preventing new infections. With recent progress on novel ways to do that and a partially effective vaccine, "we're starting to get the feel that we can really get our arms around this pandemic," Fauci said.

Nearly 30 million people have died of AIDS since the first five cases were recognized in Los Angeles in 1981.

About 34 million people have HIV now, including more than 1 million in the United States.

About 2 million people die of the disease each year, mostly in poor countries that lack treatment. In the U.S. though, newly diagnosed patients have a life expectancy only a few months shorter than people without HIV. Modern drugs are much easier to take, and many patients get by on a single pill a day.

But it wasn't that way in 1995, when Brown, an American working as a translator in Berlin, learned he had HIV. He went on and off medicines because of side effects but was holding his own until 2006, when he was diagnosed with leukemia, a problem unrelated to HIV. Chemotherapy left him so sick he had to be put into a coma to allow his body to recover.

"They didn't know if I'd survive that," Brown said.

Now 45, Brown needs no medicines, and his only health problems are from the mugging he suffered two years ago as he returned home one night in Berlin. Brown was knocked unconscious, required brain surgery and therapy to walk and talk again, and doesn't have full use of one arm. He moved back to the United States in December.

"He's now four years off his antiretroviral therapy and we have no evidence of HIV in any tissue or blood that we have tested," even places where the virus can lie dormant for many years, Huetter said.