ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 30, 1996 TAG: 9612300122
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
Rap record company investigated
LOS ANGELES - Federal investigators are trying to build a racketeering case against Death Row Records by looking for links to gangs, drug traffickers and organized crime, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.
The investigation of the rap music recording company includes phone taps and work by the FBI, Internal Revenue Service and federal drug investigators, the Times reported, citing unidentified law enforcement sources.
Justice Department officials have refused to confirm whether the company is under scrutiny.
Death Row has had $300 million in sales since it was founded in 1992.
One of its stars, Tupac Shakur, was shot to death in September in Las Vegas. Death Row founder and owner Marion ``Suge'' Knight was slightly wounded in the still-unsolved attack.
Knight, 31, has eight convictions, mainly for assault and weapons charges. His probation in a 1992 assault case has been revoked for his role in a brawl hours before Shakur was shot; he could be sentenced to prison in February.
- Los Angeles Times
Tutu baptizes U.S. granddaughter
WORCESTER, Mass. - The end of South African apartheid was a victory for everyone, retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu said in a sermon of thanks Sunday before baptizing his baby granddaughter.
``The miracle of South Africa would have been totally impossible without your love and prayers,'' Tutu told about 500 people who filled the pews of 100-year-old All Saints Episcopal Church. ``The victory over injustice is also your victory.''
Tutu's granddaughter, Nyaniso Lindiwe Burris, whose name means ``truth awaited'' in the Xhosa language of South Africa, was born Dec. 12. She is his fifth grandchild.
Her mother, Mpho Tutu, runs an after-school program at All Saints and directs the South African Children's Advancement Fund Ltd., an organization that helps create day-care centers in South Africa. The baby's father, Joseph Burris, is a sports reporter for The Boston Globe.
- Associated Press
James Earl Ray's condition upgraded
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - James Earl Ray, convicted of assassinating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., was upgraded Sunday from serious to fair condition at the hospital where he was in a coma last week.
``He's continuing to stabilize,'' said Cheryl Goforth, chief operating officer at Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital. He is suffering from liver and kidney damage.
Ray, 68, had been upgraded from critical to serious condition Thursday, when he regained consciousness and joked about alcohol and women after several days in a coma. He was transferred to the hospital Dec. 21, and it was unclear when he will be returned to prison.
- Associated Press
Star of '96 stamps was James Dean
WASHINGTON - James Dean proved again the continuing popularity of movie stars for philatelists, who put more postage stamps bearing his brooding face into their collections this year than any other stamp.
Thirty-one million James Dean stamps were collected in 1996, the most popular single stamp of the year.
Stamps honoring the Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta recorded 38.1 million collected, but that was a set of 20 different stamps.
Last year's best-seller was Marilyn Monroe at 46.3 million stamps, but the all-time king continues to be Elvis Presley's 124 million in 1993.
The Postal Service gauges the popularity of its stamps by surveying collectors and others who buy them to save rather than to use on letters and cards.
The top collected stamps of 1996:
Centennial Olympic games, 38.1 million; James Dean, 31 million; comic strip classics, 20 million; winter garden flowers, 17.8 million; American Indian dances, 16.9 million; big band leaders, 16.3 million; folk heroes, 15 million; antique autos, 12.8 million; riverboats, 12.8 million; and prehistoric animals, 12.2 million.
- Associated Press
LENGTH: Medium: 81 linesby CNB