Minnesota: Gov. Ventura bids farewell to media

Gov. Jesse Ventura’s final tangle with the Minnesota media ended with a veiled threat that his next pursuit would bring vindication.

“As of Monday, you will fear me,” he warned reporters during his final news conference as Minnesota governor.

Six months after announcing he would leave after one term, Ventura refused to say what he would do after handing the office over to Republican Tim Pawlenty next week. The former professional wrestler and actor is rumored to be considering a national talk show.

The parting shot was characteristic of his stormy relationship with the reporters he branded jackals long ago. During the last four years, he accused the media of focusing on the sensational aspects of his life rather than covering him as a traditional head of state.

Florida: Reporter suspended for racist e-mail

The Tallahassee Democrat has suspended a reporter for an e-mail he sent to a reader referring to Arabs squatting “around a camel-dung fire” and putting “their bottoms in the air five times a day” in prayer.

Bill Cotterell, a political writer and columnist, was replying to an e-mail from a reader angry over a political cartoon that asked, “What would Mohammed Drive?” and depicted a Middle Eastern-looking man driving a Ryder truck with a nuclear bomb in the back.

The e-mail exchange evolved into a discussion of Israel. Cotterell wrote that Arab nations have had 54 years to accept Israel. “They choose not to. OK, they can squat around the camel-dung fire and grumble about it, or they can put their bottoms in the air five times a day and pray for deliverance; that’s their business.”

Democrat Executive Editor John Winn Miller suspended Cotterell starting Friday for one week without pay following complaints about the e-mail from a Washington-based Islamic advocacy group.

The Democrat has received about 9,000 e-mail complaints about the cartoon.

North Carolina: Elizabeth Dole’s mother hospitalized

The 101-year-old mother of Sen.-elect Elizabeth Dole was hospitalized Friday after falling ill at home.

Mary Hanford was rushed Thursday to Rowan Regional Medical Center in Salisbury. She was in fair condition Friday and undergoing tests in the hospital’s heart unit, said hospital spokeswoman Zandra Spencer.

Dole, who was moving into her Senate office Friday, said she expected her mother to remain hospitalized through Sunday but added, “It looks like it’s not anything to worry about.”

Doctors said Hanford, who has had heart problems in the past, had not suffered a stroke as the family initially feared, said her son, John Hanford.

Dole, who is to be sworn in Tuesday as senator, initially planned to stay in Washington but later changed her mind, spokeswoman Mary Brown Brewer said.