Disturbing story/verdict aside – this sounds like a terrifying precedent:

From AP
A 19-year-old East Texas man faces a life prison sentence for causing his teenage girlfriend to miscarry twins, even though she wanted to end the pregnancy.
Gerardo Flores was accused of causing the miscarriage by stepping on his girlfriend’s stomach. He was prosecuted under the state’s new fetal protection law.
Erica Basoria acknowledged asking Flores to help end her pregnancy. But the 17-year-old can’t be prosecuted because of her legal right to abortion.
The defense contended that Basoria punched herself while Flores was stepping on her, making it impossible to tell who killed the twins.
The jury reached a verdict after deliberating four hours. Because prosecutors declined to seek the death penalty in the case, Flores received the automatic life sentence.

Tuesday, June 7 at 7:00pm
at Galapagos Artspace (70 North 6th Street in Williamsburg)
No cover. Free book give-aways. And yours truly (Robert Lanham) will be reading.
On Tuesday, June 7, editor Kevin Smokler and New York-based contributors to Bookmark Now will read from their contributions to the book, which features young writers on the state of the art—and the art of the hustle—in the age of information overload.
Bookmark Now contains 25 original essays written by authors who came of age professionally in the last decade. Raised by television, video games, and the internet, they still decided to become writers and readers, producers and consumers of literature at the most media-saturated time in history, a time when books have more competition from flashier distractions than ever before. How? Why? What does this say about the place of books in our hypermedia world? BOOKMARK NOW attempts to answer these questions. As book lovers, we are familiar with the gloom and doom attitude of these “Unreaderly Times.” But, there are still smart people everywhere who love books and are excited for the possibilities the future will bring for connecting books and readers. BOOKMARK NOW argues and celebrates that that future is already here.
Smokler will introduce readings by Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Robert Lanham, Benjamin Nugent, and Elizabeth Spiers of Gawker/Media Bistro fame. Sponsored by FreeWilliamsburg.com, the event also features audience giveaways of Bookmark Now and Lanham’s Food Court Druids, Cherohonkees, and Other Creatures Unique to the Republic, both of which will be raffled off in-between readers.

Interview by Monte Holman

New York’s The Cloud Room delivered their highly anticipated, self-titled album (on Gigantic Music) back in April. The record immediately faced the task of living up to the success of its first single, this summer’s anthem, “Hey Now Now.” The band serves up some throbbing beats and dark instrumentation that can be as Ziggy as Bowie and a joyless as Ian Curtis, all in the same measure. And all kinds of people are taking notice-The Cloud Room is hitting charts and airwaves all over the country, and they’re about to head across the pond with hopes of seeing the same success there.
The band’s lead singer, J, made us rethink the old adage about never trusting a man who goes by a letter or symbol. He was kind enough to speak with us about the band and the fallen virtue of Amy Grant.
The Cloud Room are Jason Pharr (drums), J (guitar, vocals), Benjamin Nugent (keyboards), and John Petro (bass).
MP3′s: Hey Now Now | Blackout
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FREEwilliamsburg: What’s your reaction to all the great press about your hit single, “Hey Now Now”?
J: It’s exciting. I wrote the song about a year ago, and I remember playing around on the guitar and coming up with this stupidly simple melody, and I thought, “Oh my god, that is so stupidly simple-am I allowed to do this?” (laughs) I just kind of went with it, and it became that song. I knew it was the most accessible thing I’d written up until then, but I didn’t know how the world would perceive it. Since we’re so new, that song has kind of preceded us in a lot of ways. I feel like it has overshadowed the rest of the record. The band thought the last song on the record was our best song.
FREEwilliamsburg: “We Sleep in the Ocean”?
J: Yeah, that’s my favorite song, but “Hey Now Now” is the most generally accessible song on the album.
FREEwilliamsburg: Has the expectation been daunting?

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Remember, there is no L service all weekend starting at midnight tonight. Rat bastards.
Friday and Saturday June 4 and 5
The Billyburg Film Festival
at Northsix in Williamsburg
66 North 6th Street
10 bucks – films start at 9pm

From Flavorpill
The folks at Rabbit in a Turtle Shell are back with a second Billyburg Short Film Festival, expanded to two nights of abbreviated cinema. The first program, Inspiration, highlights ten works that embody the organization’s definition of great short film, including pieces by Raising Victor Vargas director Peter Sollett, Interpol Short Film contest winner Greg Brunkalla, and the irreverent comic troupe Stella. The aptly named second night, Competition, is a juried screening of seven films chosen from over 130 submissions. (IB)
Note: Each night begins with Elijah B. Torn’s live laptop soundtrack and adult beverages from sponsors Brooklyn Lager and PBR. Local bands Professor Murder and Innocent Animals follow each night’s screenings, respectively.

by Dave Thomas

High Tension
Remember how I said that there would only be one good movie this month? I forgot about a movie that would be starting two days shy of the July 4th weekend. So maybe, just maybe, you’ll see two good blockbusters this month. (“Cinderella Man” doesn’t count. It’s a prestige picture. It’s supposed to be good.) And, as usual, the indie fare looks a little more promising.
June 3
SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
“Divine Teen Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood”
WILL IT SUCK?
The cheese factor is here in full force. Director Ken Kwapis’ best-reviewed film on IMDB is “Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird.” Writers Delia Ephron and Elizabeth Chandler have between them “Michael,” “Mixed Nuts,” “Someone Like You…” and “What a Girl Wants,” though, to be fair, “A Little Princess” is in there somewhere as well.

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Our friends at OneLouder are making us feel even worse about missing last night’s Kraftwerk show. Check out these great pix and their review.

From AP
WASHINGTON — New York has yet to spend some $125 million for workers injured in the Sept. 11, 2001, attack and its aftermath, and the federal government doesn’t want to wait any longer. It wants the money back.
New York lawmakers are trying to hold onto the funding ahead of a House committee meeting next week to consider re-claiming the funds as proposed by the Bush administration’s budget for fiscal year 2006.
A group of 21 New York lawmakers, including state Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer, both D-N.Y., is urging the White House to redirect the money toward health programs for ground zero workers affected with long-term lung problems that may not appear for years to come. The administration has resisted.
The dispute dates to the aftermath of the 2001 terror attack, when the government agreed to give more than $20 billion to help New York recover. The money included some $175 million for the state’s workers compensation program, but as the claims were processed the bulk of the money was unspent.

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Ari Up
“Dread More Den Dead”
(Collision)
“Dread More Den Dead” is the first, studio solo album by the legendary Ari Up, lead singer for The Slits and New Age Steppers — two pivotal bands that helped define the punky-reggae party sound coursing through the veins of the London underground in the late seventies and early eighties. Ari has since become a beacon of inspiration for women in the arts worldwide and is an active supporter of emerging artists and new music movements everywhere.
On “Dread” Ari extends her dub reggae roots into dancehall and ragga territory, transforming the heavily male-dominated — and often misogynist—style of Jamaican music into a platform for pointedly pro-family messages.
Combining her infamous operatic trill with a newfound provincial brogue adopted on the Kingston deejay circuit, the empowered punk
matriarch challenges her male counterparts to rethink their approach to sexuality and relationships on the disc’s hottest track “True Warrior”: “A bad boy to society, or lover to his family? / Bad boy to society, or lover to his baby and me? / Got to be a lover, and then you’re a fighter / Only a true lover can be a warrior.”
Having proved she can snarl as severely as any Sex Pistol and rock as hard as any member of The Clash, it should come as no surprise that Ari’s chops as a producer easily compare to the current crop of street beat and dancehall rhythm makers.
Ari’s electronic production is minimal in construction — applying just a dash of rhythm guitar and modest helpings of synthesizer — but her beats and bass are big and beefy and aggressive enough to emasculate any competition and eradicate the ignorance dividing the sexes.
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Coughs
“Fright Makes Right”
(Load)
Chicago’s Coughs are out to prove you’re never too old to throw a temper tantrum. On “Fright Makes Right,” lead vocalist Anya Davidson leads this windy-city six-piece unit of multi-instrumentalists through one hissy-fit after another, screaming Lydia Lunch-style over rollicking sheet metal rhythms and shrieking reed skronk-outs.

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This video has evidently been out for a while. We don’t know how we missed it. It’s definitely not work safe, but we don’t know what’s more offensive, the nudity, the music, or the dancing. Watch it here.

From MTVAsia
Gunther & The Sunshine Girls are set to have the biggest hit this summer with their debut single, “Ding Dong Song (You Touch My Tra-La-La).” The catchy bubblegum dance track is totally infectious…. 29-year-old Gunther is from Sweden, where “Ding Dong Song (You Touch My Tra-la-la)” is already a huge smash. The accompanying music video has also been the most requested clip on Swedish TV for weeks. Even UK indie darlings Franz Ferdinand performed an acoustic version of the “Ding Dong Song” for Dutch radio.