There was a moment when the urge to find a Miss Cleo outfit and a crystal ball came over me. ...more

January 2, 2009

On a sultry morning in Basra, Muna Saud, her face framed by a black shawl, slipped unnoticed past the thick knots of men at the provincial health ministry. She glided from office to office until she found Zahra Abdul-Zahra, a former student, and greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. ...more

December 21, 2008

"Top Chef: Finale, Part 1," 10 tonight, Bravo Now that former Clearwater Beach resident Spike Mendelsohn is out of the way - see today's Stew column on Page 2 - the four finalists head south to Puerto Rico for the first episode of a two-part finale. Now the real cooking can begin. Curiously, the previews show Lisa without her iconic head scarf. Apparently the bandana was confiscated at customs for having soaked up too much antipathy. ...more

June 4, 2008

About 125,000 Turks, mostly women, denounced the government Saturday over its plans to lift a decades-old ban on Islamic head scarves at universities in the mainly Muslim but secular nation. ...more

February 3, 2008

No charges will be filed in a case in which a Muslim girl said she was threatened at the middle school she attends, St. Petersburg police said Tuesday. ...more

November 21, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - No charges will be filed in a case in which a Muslim girl had allegedly been threatened at the middle school she attends, St. Petersburg police announced this morning. ...more

November 20, 2007

When asked Friday by an assistant principal, a sixth-grade Azalea Middle School student denied being told by a classmate that he would bring a gun and kill her, according to a St. Petersburg police report. ...more

November 14, 2007

When asked Friday by an assistant principal, a sixth-grade Azalea Middle School student denied being told by a classmate that he would bring a gun and kill her, according to a St. Petersburg Police Department report. At a news conference Monday, the 11-year-old girl, Hannah, told reporters she was afraid to go to back to school after a boy pulled off her hijab, an Islamic head scarf, and the next day threatened kill her. ...more

November 13, 2007

A Muslim civil rights organization is calling on Pinellas County school officials to investigate a threat it says was made against a sixth-grade Muslim girl at Azalea Middle School. ...more

November 13, 2007

She sits in a cafe, her laptop unfolded, while at the next table a young man in a suit discreetly reaches for the hand of his fiancee, who blushes and laughs against a window in the night. ...more

November 11, 2007