White Hat

He fell in love with his first wife because she was sincere and eager to please. His second wife, a cousin, was irresistible because she did everything he wished and nothing he didn't. "That alone made me love her. " His third wife won him because she submitted to his every request. "I saw her, I liked her. I went to her parents and asked for her hand in marriage. " Wife No. 4 was very obedient. So was wife No. 5. Wife No. 6, the same. As were wives 7 and 8 and 9 and … Well, by then — it was the late 1980s — things had taken off for Bello Maasaba, an Islamic faith healer in this city in Niger state.

? Do you have to be bad to be a good TV talent show judge? Up until now, that's been the thinking behind "American Idol," home of the original mean judge, Simon Cowell. Over the last nine seasons, the smug and acerbic Brit with the snug V-necks has become famous for comparing one contestant's singing to "a cat being thrown off a skyscraper," telling another, "Don't mean to be rude, but you look like the Hulk's wife," reducing dozens of hopefuls to their worst ugly cry ? and propelling the show to the No. 1 spot in the ratings.

A booby-trapped package spewed noxious gas at the Southeastern regional headquarters of the NAACP today, sending at least 12 people to hospitals. Earl Shinhoster, executive director of the NAACP's regional headquarters, said the incident occurred about 12:30 p.m. when he and his secretary opened the package, a white hat box that had been part of the day's mail delivered an hour earlier.

One of Mexico's top drug lords, a fugitive for years, has given a clandestine interview to a Mexican magazine in which he says he would contemplate suicide rather than be taken alive. Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada says he lives "in panic" of being imprisoned but that if he were eliminated, there would be little impact on the flourishing narcotics trade. The report appears in Sunday's edition of Proceso, Mexico's leading news weekly, and was excerpted on the magazine's website. The author is Julio Scherer Garcia, the magazine's founder and first editor, who is also known for a series of books on drug traffickers.

It's hard to remember that the 1990 western "Dances With Wolves," Kevin Costner's maiden voyage as a director, was derisively dubbed "Kevin's Gate" because of filming difficulties before earning him an Oscar for directing, one of the movie's seven golden men, including best picture. To mark its 20th anniversary, MGM Home Entertainment this month released a newly restored version on Blu-ray for the first time. At the end of "Dances With Wolves," your character, Lt. Dunbar, leaves his home with the Sioux to meet the U.S. Army, which wants to hang him as a traitor.

Police were searching for an armed man who robbed a bank teller Friday and escaped with an undisclosed amount of cash. The holdup occurred about 3:20 p.m. at the Bank of America at 801 N. Main St. Santa Ana Police Lt. Earl Porter said the robber showed the teller a handgun tucked into the waistband of his pants, took the cash and ran out the front door. No injuries were reported. The bandit was last seen wearing square-framed glasses, a brown plaid shirt and a white hat, Porter said.

Clayton Moore says playing the Lone Ranger on the long-running television series fulfilled a childhood dream. "When I was a kid, I wanted to be a policeman or a cowboy and I got the white hat," Moore said Saturday night as he was inducted into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame's Hall of Great Western Performers. "I will always wear it because I believe in the good guys." Moore also paid tribute to the late Jay Silverheels, who played Tonto on "Lone Ranger." "I had help along the way.

What happens to a white hat when you put it in the Red Sea? It gets wet. (Joshua Monifi, 10, Encino, Roscomare Road School) * What did Winnie the Pooh say to his agent? "Show me the honey." (Leroy A. Duran Jr., 12, Downey, South Middle School) * What's left when a church burns down? Holy smoke. (Felicitas Galanta, 10, Hollywood, Immaculate Heart of Mary School) * SEND US A LINE: Kids, got a joke?

Spoiler alert! "Scandal" is the most cynical show on television. No seriously, don't read any further if you care about what happened on Thursday night's finale but disobeyed the directive to watch it in real time. Because for weeks now, creator Shonda Rhimes has been warning her "gladiator" fans that if they missed watching the final five minutes in "real time," they'd be kicking themselves all summer. One assumes she is referring to the big "What's Up Doc?" rip-off of a final scene in which Olivia (Kerry Washington)