The lawsuit claims the song’s use was an infringement of his copyright and will lead people to conclude he endorses McCain. The suit says Browne is a lifelong liberal who is as well-known for his music as for being “an advocate for social and environmental justice.”

The advertisement mocks Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s contention that if U.S. drivers got regular tuneups and drove on properly inflated tires, they could save the same amount of oil that would be gained by offshore drilling. According to the suit, “Running on Empty” plays in the background of the ad criticizing the remarks.

Robert Bennett, chairman of the Ohio party, said the ad was pulled when Browne objected. He called the lawsuit a “big to-do about nothing.”

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers disavowed the ad, saying it wasn’t a product of the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign.

Browne’s lawsuit contends the Ohio Republican party released the ad on behalf of McCain and the RNC. The RNC did not return a phone call seeking comment.

The suit notes that other musicians, including ABBA and John Cougar Mellencamp, have asked McCain to stop using their work.

Browne’s attorney, Lawrence Iser, called the ad’s use of the song “reprehensible.”

The 59-year-old singer claims his reputation has already been damaged and is seeking more than $75,000 in damages.

Browne released “Running on Empty” - the song and an album by the same name - in 1977. According to the lawsuit, the album has sold more than 7 million copies.

Browne’s financial success has aided Democratic candidates over the years. Campaign finance records show he contributed $2,300 to Obama’s presidential campaign last year and $2,000 to the Illinois senator’s campaign coffers in 2004.

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The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., helps clarify a murky area of the law concerning how much control programmers can exert over their intellectual property once it’s been released for free into the so-called “open source” software community.

People are free to use that material in their own products, but they must credit the original authors of the programming code and release their modifications into the wild as well, a cycle that’s critical for free software to continue improving.

Because the code was given away for free, thorny questions emerge when a violation has been discovered and someone is found to have shoved the code into their own for-profit products without giving anything back, in the form of attribution and disclosure of the alterations they made.

In the latest case, which involved a computer application that model-train enthusiasts use to program the chips that control their trains, the U.S. District Court in San Francisco ruled that the plaintiff could sue for breach of contract but not copyright infringement.

The distinction is important because it’s easier to recover monetary damages in a copyright-infringement case.

Robert Jacobsen, who manages an open source software group that created an application he claims was infringed, sought an injunction against KAM Industries, which makes a competing product. The lower court denied Jacobsen’s motion. The appeals court vacated that ruling Wednesday and returned the case to the district court.

“Traditionally, copyright owners sold their copyrighted material in exchange for money,” the court said. “The lack of money changing hands in open source licensing should not be presumed to mean that there is no economic consideration, however.”

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The Federal Reserve reported Friday that industrial production edged up 0.2 percent last month. That was half the pace of the 0.4 percent gain in June, but it did surpass analysts’ expectations for flat production in July.

The increase reflected a 0.4 percent gain in output at manufacturing plants. Motor vehicles and parts showed the biggest increase in manufacturing, advancing for a third straight month.

These gains were not seen as signaling a sustained rebound, however, given the problems facing the auto industry this year. Instead, the rebound in auto activity was viewed as a temporary improvement because a strike ended at parts supplier American Axle.

Even with the recent gains, production at auto plants remained 10.4 percent below where it was a year ago.

The increase in manufacturing helped to offset a big 1.9 percent drop in output at utilities, a decline which followed a 2.3 percent surge the previous month. Both changes were seen as weather-related.

The big June jump came from hotter-than-normal weather requiring increased electricity production. The decline in July reflected a return to more normal weather which meant a drop in utility output compared to the previous month.

Output in the mining sector rose a strong 0.9 percent, matching the increase of the previous month. The gains in this sector have been paced by strong activity in oil and natural gas production.

With all the changes, the nation’s factories, mines and utilities operated at 79.9 percent of capacity in July, up slightly from June when the operating rate was 79.8 percent of capacity. That level remained below the average operating rate of 81 percent seen over the last 25 years.

Industry is having to struggle this year with a steep slump in housing, which has hurt producers of building supplies and furniture, and the continuing problems in the auto industry, which saw sales drop to the lowest level in 16 years in July.

A boom in U.S. export sales because of the weak dollar has helped offset this slump There is concern that the export boom may not last given spreading weakness in major overseas markets in Europe and Japan.

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However, a spokesman for Musharraf denied he was about to step down.

Political opponents of the president have suggested he could resign within days before an impeachment process that could begin as early as next week. But Musharraf’s office said an impeachment could drag on for months because the procedure is not laid out in the constitution and there is no precedent in Pakistan’s turbulent 61-year history.

Former army chief Musharraf dominated Pakistan for years after seizing power in a 1999 military coup, gaining favor from the United States after supporting it in the war on terror. But his rivals won February parliamentary elections and formed a coalition that has already largely sidelined him and is now seeking to push him out of office.

Both allies and rivals of Musharraf confirm that there are discussions in progress that could lead to the president’s resignation.

“There are a lot of background talks going on, whereby a way is trying to be found so that there is no impeachment,” Sen. Tariq Azim, a top official in the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Q party, said Friday.

He said resignation along with legal protections such as immunity was one option and another was stripping the presidency down to a figurehead role. However, coalition officials rejected the idea of reducing his powers, insisting he must go.

Asked if Musharraf had decided to quit, Azim told The Associated Press he was still weighing his options.

“There are people who are advising him to avoid confrontation, but I don’t think he has made up his mind.”

Azim said all sides agreed an impeachment battle would strain the country at a time when it already faces critical challenges, such as a faltering economy and an emboldened Islamic militant movement.

“It is at the moment that Pakistan cannot afford confrontation,” Azim said. “And it’s obvious that the present government and President Musharraf cannot get along. So it is in the best interest of Pakistan that some way is found whereby this mode of confrontation can be changed or can be more conciliatory.”

However, Musharraf’s spokesman Rashid Qureshi denied he was about to resign or was seeking legal immunity in order to do so.

“These unsubstantiated spate of reports are totally baseless and malicious,” Qureshi said. He claimed such talk was having a “negative impact” on the country’s economy.

Musharraf, who gave up his dual role as army chief late last year, has grown increasingly unpopular through his tenure. Many Pakistanis blame rising violence in their country on his partnership with the United States. His popularity hit new lows in 2007 when he ousted dozens of judges and imposed emergency rule in bids to avoid challenges to his rule.

In recent days, the pressure on Musharraf to resign has grown. On Friday, the Baluchistan provincial assembly unanimously passed a resolution calling on Musharraf to either seek a vote of confidence from parliament or step down. Now all four of Pakistan’s provinces have passed such resolutions.

Ruling coalition officials have said an impeachment motion could reach parliament as early as next week and could be wrapped up by the end of the month. But officials in the presidency say it could take months as even the procedure for it is not laid out in the constitution.

The constitution says that the grounds for impeachment are violation of the constitution or gross misconduct. And no president has ever been impeached in Pakistani history.

“Once they issue impeachment proceedings against him and issue a charge sheet, then it will become almost inevitable that he will want to answer those charges,” said Azim. “He feels very strongly that a lot of that is being said is not correct.”

Pakistan’s Defense Minister Ahmad Mukhtar said the ruling coalition was in touch with Musharraf’s aides.

“We have conveyed to them that the coalition is determined for impeachment, and if he wants to save himself, the best way is for him to quit,” Mukhtar said.

The ruling coalition has not voiced a united position on whether it would be willing to grant Musharraf legal immunity.

Mukhtar indicated Friday he would not oppose that.

“If a person moves to the side, we are not in the habit of bothering him. This would not be a good attitude, if someone is lying on the ground and we go aggressively against him.”

But on Thursday, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who leads the second biggest party in the ruling coalition, said he opposed granting legal immunity to Musharraf. Sharif’s party has previously said Musharraf should be tried for treason.

Sharif, whom Musharraf pushed out of power in his coup, alleged the president had violated the constitution and compromised the nation’s sovereignty, a reference to Musharraf’s alliance with the U.S. in the war on terror.

As president, Musharraf still retains the power to dissolve parliament, but such a step would be enormously controversial, and even his allies have advised him against it.

Such a move also would require the support of the army, which has indicated it wants to stay out of politics. There have been no public signs that the army is coming to rescue its former chief - a significant factor in a country that has spent more than half of its 61 years under military rule.
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“Anyone who voted for me or caucused for me has so much more in common with Sen. Obama than Sen. McCain,” Clinton told her cheering audience in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson. “Remember who we were fighting for in my campaign.”

Though she has endorsed her former rival, the speech was Clinton’s first appearance at a rally for Obama since the two appeared together in Unity, N.H., in June.

In another sign of growing detente between the House of Clinton and the House of Obama, Democrats said Bill Clinton would speak on the third night of this month’s national convention in Denver.

The Clintons’ efforts on Obama’s behalf may ease worries within the party that bad feelings from the long primary battle might erupt at the convention.

She said Friday that “we may have started on two separate paths, but we are on one journey now.” She said her long primary campaign against the Illinois senator showed her “his passion, his determination, his grace and his grit.”

The crowd let her know they still held her in high regard. They cheered Obama’s name and waved his campaign signs, but no mention of him won as loud a roar as Clinton’s introduction.

Still, she kept her focus on making his case, mentioning key Democratic issues where Obama and McCain would differ - U.S. Supreme Court nominations and health care reform, for example.

She noted Democrats have had difficultly reaching the White House recently and said Obama would need a surge in turnout - and registration - to win in November.

“Which is why Sen. Obama needs all of us, he needs us working for him,” she said.

Some of her backers have complained loudly about the way the only female candidate was treated during the primaries. And Clinton supporters have succeeded in getting language into the draft of the Democratic Party platform that says, “We believe that standing up for our country means standing up against sexism and all intolerance. Demeaning portrayals of women cheapen our debates, dampen the dreams of our daughters and deny us the contributions of too many. Responsibility lies with us all.”

The platform committee will be reviewing the draft Saturday in Pittsburgh.

After weeks of private talks about exactly what the Clintons will do at the national convention, no decision has been reached on whether delegates will actually hold a roll call vote that includes her candidacy.

Such a move could disrupt or distract from the point of the convention - showing a unified party raring to return a Democrat to the White House.

On the other hand, she has suggested that letting her supporters whoop and holler for her might provide a catharsis and help the party move on.

“It’s as old as, you know, Greek drama,” Sen. Clinton told supporters in a recent speech to a private gathering, which was later posted on the Web.

In this particular drama, the Clintons insist they are doing everything they can to get her supporters on board with Obama. Any reluctance, she says, is not hers, but comes from those who committed to her historic bid and are still unhappy that she did not prevail.

Clinton did not mention any convention disputes in her remarks Friday. She later told reporters the two campaigns were still in negotiations.

“We’re going to have a very clear message about how the campaign will cooperate and how the convention will be conducted when it’s appropriate to make that announcement,” she said.

Clinton and Obama may be on the same team, but in the past week they seemed to be running in different directions.

In political terms, one candidate’s catharsis is another’s car wreck. Conventions at which the party appears divided can prove disastrous to the nominee’s chances in the general election.

Obama told reporters Thursday he thought the negotiations with Clinton aides had gone “seamlessly,” but he also rejected the notion that there might be a need for emotional release on the part of some Democrats.

“I don’t think we’re looking for catharsis,” said Obama. “I think what we’re looking for is energy and excitement.”

Giving both Clintons big speeches at the convention may help generate excitement, but it also gives them a lot of attention at a gathering that’s supposed to be about the nominee, Obama.

And Bill Clinton in particular has at times seemed grudging in his praise of the man who stopped his wife’s able ascent.

Asked earlier this week if Obama was ready to be president, Clinton gave a philosophical, not political answer.

“You could argue that no one’s ever ready to be president. I mean, I certainly learned a lot about the job in the first year. You could argue that even if you’ve been vice president for eight years that no one can ever be fully ready for the pressures of the office and that everyone learns something, and something different. You could argue that,” Clinton said.

The Clintons argued through much of the primary that she, a former first lady, was ready to be president on “Day One,” suggesting Obama was not.

The Obama campaign is pretty tired of that argument, particularly since it has become a key refrain of Republican John McCain.

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The Air Force is moving to demolish Building 55 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base because it cannot find a use for it, doesn’t have the money to maintain it and needs to remove contaminated soil under it.

But the Ohio Historic Preservation Office feels the building is worth listing in the National Register of Historic Places.

It’s the latest squabble in what have become periodic duels between preservationists and those seeking to demolish buildings that made military history in Dayton.

“These aren’t the most important buildings in Ohio, by any means. But collectively, the Wright Field Historic District is very important, and these buildings are part of that,” said Justin Cook, history reviews manager for the preservation office.

The Wright Field Historic District, which includes Building 55, is a collection of 83 buildings at the base. It includes such structures as a building that was used to glean strategic information from captured German documents during World War II.

The district is expected to be nominated by the National Park Service as a National Historic Landmark. Such landmarks are considered the most historically significant sites in the nation and often attract grants to keep them maintained, said Ann Honious, historian for the park service in Dayton.

“They’re sort of the cream of the crop,” she said.

Built in 1942, Building 55 housed a centrifuge that was used to test the effects of acceleration on pilots. The research lead to the development of antigravity - or G-suits - which have compartments that fill with air or fluid to prevent pilots from blacking out. The suits kept a pilot’s blood from pooling in the lower body during rapid acceleration and sharp turns.

Research at the building also helped lead to the development of early NASA spacesuits.

The building sits at the fringe of the historic district and has been vacant for nearly seven years, said Raymond Baker, cultural resources manager at Wright-Patterson.

In addition, he said, soil under Building 55 is contaminated from the use of dry-cleaning machines in the structure.

“The only way to clean up the contamination, which is under the slab of the building, is to take the building down and dig out the contamination,” he said.

Baker said activities that took place in the building have been documented, with photographs and engineering drawings placed in the Library of Congress.

He said the Air Force will receive comments from the state preservation office, the public and any other interested parties before proceeding to demolition. However, he said, the plan is to sign a contract by the end of September to have Building 55 demolished.

Cook said military officials often target older buildings - those more likely to have historic significance - for the wrecking ball.

“From a mission standpoint, you can’t really fault them,” he said. “As a preservationist, it gives us heartburn.”

In January, the University of Dayton tore down a building that housed a top-secret code-breaking laboratory used during World War II, rejecting appeals from preservationists in a dispute that went on for months. The school salvaged some of the original bricks and other parts of the building to commemorate the site.

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Federal investigators were to trying to pinpoint what caused the bus to smash into a guardrail and skid off a highway north of Dallas, crushing one side of the vehicle and injuring dozens.

The bus was unlicensed, and authorities said a front tire that blew out had been illegally retreaded.

One of the survivors, Leha Nguyen, said she had started to doze off when she was awakened by a horrible noise, followed by screaming.

“I think I’m the luckiest one out of most people,” said Nguyen, 45.

Twelve people died at the scene early Friday.

Three others died later, and the fourth, one of three people taken to Methodist Dallas Medical Center, died Friday evening, hospital spokeswoman Kathleen Beathard said Saturday. The hospital’s other two victims, both men, remain in critical condition.

The vehicle was carrying 55 people from Houston to Carthage, Mo., for an annual festival honoring the Virgin Mary. Most of the passengers were from the Vietnamese Martyrs Church and two other mostly Vietnamese congregations in Houston.

The Marian Days pilgrimage, which started in the late 1970s, attracts thousands of Catholics of Vietnamese descent and includes a large outdoor Mass each day, entertainment and camping at night.

The vehicle’s right front tire, which blew out, had been retreaded in violation of safety standards, said Debbie Hersman, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board. The tread had separated from the tire itself in a process called delamination.

“If there is a loss of pressure or the tire becomes delaminated, it’s much more difficult to control the vehicle,” she said.

It is legal to retread such tires but they may not be used on the wheels that steer a bus, Hersman said.

The 52-year-old driver had a commercial license but his medical certification had expired, she said. The driver was reported in stable condition at a hospital.

The bus operator, Iguala BusMex Inc. of Houston, had applied in June for a federal license to operate as a charter but was still awaiting approval, according to online records.

The company recently filed incorporation papers, listing the same owner and address as Angel Tours Inc., which was forced by federal regulators to take its vehicles out of interstate service June 23 after an unsatisfactory review, records show.

The review cited the company for problems in three areas: using a driver before receiving a pre-employment result, failing to require a driver to prepare a vehicle inspection report and using a driver who wasn’t medically re-examined every two years.

Neither company is authorized to operate as a carrier in interstate commerce, said John H. Hill, administrator for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

At a Houston building with a weathered Angel Tours plywood sign, a man declined to identify himself Friday or comment to The Associated Press about the wreck. An outgoing phone message at Angel Tours late Friday said the voicemail box was full.

It was the nation’s deadliest bus crash since 2004, when 15 people were killed in a wreck in Arkansas on their way to Mississippi’s casinos. In 2005, 23 people were killed near Dallas when a bus carrying nursing home residents away from Hurricane Rita caught fire in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

About 900 people gathered Friday night at Vietnamese Martyrs Church for a Mass attended by Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo.

“We are here with them to pray for those who are lost and for God’s consolation in this time of grief and loss,” DiNardo said. “The Vietnamese Catholic culture is very strong. A lot of those who have come here have been through a great deal just to get to this country. They’ve always preserved their Catholic faith. This is a trial. This is a challenge.”

DiNardo said the losses, which include church leaders, are “incomprehensible.”

One of the victims was identified as Hoangy Thi Dung, 71, of Houston, who was pronounced dead by a Grayson County justice of the peace. Sherman Police Lt. Bob Fair declined to release the names of the dead because some family members have not been notified.

Organizers of the festival in Missouri said the victims would be remembered at Mass and at various conferences during the gathering.
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Georgia, a staunch U.S. ally, launched a major offensive Friday to retake control of breakaway South Ossetia. Russia, which has close ties to the province and posts peacekeepers there, responded by sending in armed convoys and military combat aircraft.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Moscow that some 1,500 people have been killed, with the death toll rising Saturday.

The figure could not be independently confirmed, but witnesses who fled the fighting said hundreds of civilians had probably died. They said most of the provincial capital, Tskhinvali, was in ruins, with bodies lying everywhere.

The air and artillery bombardment left the provincial capital without water, food, electricity and gas. Horrified civilians crawled out of the basements into the streets as fighting eased, looking for supplies.

Russian Gen. Vladimir Boldyrev claimed in televised comments Saturday that Russian troops had driven Georgian forces out of the provincial capital. Witnesses confirmed that there was no sign of Georgian soldiers in the streets.

Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili proposed a cease-fire Saturday. As part of his proposal, Georgian troops were pulled out of Tskhinvali and had been ordered to stop responding to Russian shelling, said Alexander Lomaia, secretary of his Security Council.

Russia did not immediately respond to Saakashvili’s proposal. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had said earlier that Moscow sent troops into South Ossetia to force Georgia into a cease-fire.

Lomaia said there had been direct fighting between Russian and Georgian soldiers on the streets of Tskhinvali. He estimated that Russia sent 2,500 troops into Georgia. The Russian military has not said how many of its troops were deployed.

Russian military aircraft also bombed the Georgian town of Gori on Saturday. An Associated Press reporter who visited Gori shortly afterward saw several apartment buildings in ruins, some still on fire, and scores of dead bodies and bloodied civilians. The elderly, women and children were among the victims.

“Georgia is facing Russia’s military aggression,” Saakashvili said, noting that Russian forces were attacking areas outside South Ossetia. “Georgian authorities support a cease-fire and separation of the warring parties.”

It is the worst outbreak of hostilities since the province won de facto independence in a war against Georgia that ended in 1992.

The fighting threatens to ignite a wider war between Russia and Georgia, which accused Russia of bombing its towns, ports and air bases. Georgia, a former Soviet republic with ambitions of joining NATO, has asked the international community to help end what it called Russian aggression.

It also likely will increase tensions between Moscow and Washington, which Lavrov said should bear part of the blame for arming and training Georgian soldiers.

Moscow has said it needs to protect its peacekeepers and civilians in South Ossetia, most of whom have been given Russian passports. Ethnic Ossetians live in the breakaway Georgian province and in the neighboring Russian province of North Ossetia.

Overnight, Russian warplanes bombed the Vaziani military base on the outskirts of the Georgian capital and near the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said. He also said two other military bases were hit, and that warplanes bombed the Black Sea port city of Poti, which has a sizable oil shipment facility.

Georgia, meanwhile, said it has shot down 10 Russian planes, including four brought down Saturday, according to Kakha Lomaya, head of Georgia’s Security Council.

The first Russian confirmation that its planes had been shot down came Saturday from Russian Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the General Staff, who said two Russian planes were downed. He did not say where or when.

Russian military commanders said 15 peacekeepers have been killed and about 150 wounded. Russian troops went in as peacekeepers but Georgia alleges they now back the separatists.

Russian military spokesman Col. Igor Konashenkov accused Georgian troops of killing and wounded Russian peacekeepers when they seized Russian checkpoints. Konashenkov’s allegations couldn’t be independently confirmed Saturday.

Russia’s foreign minister said that Georgia brought the airstrikes upon itself by bombing civilians and Russian peacekeepers, and warned that the small Caucasus country should expect more attacks.

“Whatever side is used to bomb civilians and the positions of peacekeepers, this side is not safe and they should know this,” Lavrov said.

Asked whether Russia could bomb the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, Lavrov answered: “I don’t think the bombing is coming from Tbilisi, but whatever part of Georgia is used for this aggression is not safe.”

It was unclear what might persuade either side to stop shooting. Both claim the battle started after the other side violated a cease-fire that had been declared just hours earlier after a week of sporadic clashes.

Diplomats have issued a flurry of statements calling on both sides to halt the fighting and called for another emergency session of the U.N. Security Council, its second since early Friday morning seeking to prevent an all-out war.

President Bush said Saturday the outbreak of fighting is endangering peace throughout the volatile region, and he urged an end to the deadly outbreak of violence.

“I’m deeply concerned about the situation in Georgia,” Bush said in a statement to reporters while attending the Olympics in Beijing. “The attacks are occurring in regions of Georgia far from the zone of conflict in South Ossetia. They mark a dangerous escalation in the crisis.

“The violence is endangering regional peace, civilian lives have been lost and others are endangered. We have urged an immediate halt to the violence and a stand-down by all troops. We call for an end to the Russian bombings, and a return by the parties to the status quo of Aug. 6.”

Russia, which has granted citizenship to most of the region’s residents, appeared to lay much of the responsibility for ending the fighting on Washington.

Georgia, which borders the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia, was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the breakup of the Soviet Union. Georgia has angered Russia by seeking NATO membership - a bid Moscow regards as part of a Western effort to weaken its influence in the region.

Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili, a U.S.-educated lawyer, long has pledged to restore Tbilisi’s rule over South Ossetia and another breakaway province, Abkhazia. Both regions have run their own affairs without international recognition since splitting from Georgia in the early 1990s and have built up ties with Moscow.

Georgia has about 2,000 troops in Iraq, making it the third-largest contributor to coalition forces after the U.S. and Britain. But Saakashvili has called them home in the face of the South Ossetia fighting. The Georgian commander of the brigade in Iraq said Saturday they would leave as soon as transport can be arranged.
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“Actor/comedian Bernie Mac passed away this morning from complications due to pneumonia in a Chicago area hospital,” his publicist, Danica Smith, said in a statement from Los Angeles.

She said no other details were available and asked that his family’s privacy be respected.

The comedian suffered from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the body’s organs, but had said the condition went into remission in 2005. He recently was hospitalized and treated for pneumonia, which his publicist said was not related to the disease.

Recently, Mac’s brand of comedy caught him flack when he was heckled during a surprise appearance at a July fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate and fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama.

Toward the end of a 10-minute standup routine, Mac joked about menopause, sexual infidelity and promiscuity, and used occasional crude language. The performance earned him a rebuke from Obama’s campaign.

But despite controversy or difficulties, in his words, Mac was always a performer.

“Wherever I am, I have to play,” he said in 2002. “I have to put on a good show.”

Mac worked his way to Hollywood success from an impoverished upbringing on Chicago’s South Side. He began doing standup as a child, and his film career started with a small role as a club doorman in the Damon Wayans comedy “Mo’ Money” in 1992. In 1996, he appeared in the Spike Lee drama “Get on the Bus.”

He was one of “The Original Kings of Comedy” in the 2000 documentary of that title that brought a new generation of black standup comedy stars to a wider audience.

“The majority of his core fan base will remember that when they paid their money to see Bernie Mac … he gave them their money’s worth,” Steve Harvey, one of his costars in “Original Kings,” told CNN on Saturday.

Mac went on to star in the hugely popular “Ocean’s Eleven” franchise with Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

His turn with Ashton Kutcher in 2005’s “Guess Who” topped the box office. It was a comedy remake of the classic Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn drama “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” - with Mac as the black dad who’s shocked that his daughter is marrying a white man.

Mac also had starring roles in “Bad Santa,” “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” and “Transformers.”

In the late 1990s, he had a recurring role in “Moesha,” the UPN network comedy starring pop star Brandy.

The comedian drew critical and popular acclaim with his Fox television series “The Bernie Mac Show,” which aired more than 100 episodes from 2001 to 2006.

The series about a man’s adventures raising his sister’s three children, won a Peabody Award in 2002. At the time, judges wrote they chose the sitcom for transcending “race and class while lifting viewers with laughter, compassion - and cool.”

The show garnered Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for Mac.

“But television handcuffs you, man,” he said in a 2001 Associated Press interview. “Now everyone telling me what I CAN’T do, what I CAN say, what I SHOULD do, and asking, `Are blacks gonna be mad at you? Are whites gonna accept you?’”

He also was nominated for a Grammy award for best comedy album in 2001 along with his “The Original Kings of Comedy” co-stars, Harvey, D.L. Hughley and Cedric The Entertainer.

In 2007, Mac told David Letterman on CBS’ “Late Show” that he planned to retire soon.

“I’m going to still do my producing, my films, but I want to enjoy my life a little bit,” Mac told Letterman. “I missed a lot of things, you know. I was a street performer for two years. I went into clubs in 1977.”

Mac was born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough on Oct. 5, 1957, in Chicago. He grew up on the city’s South Side, living with his mother and grandparents. His grandfather was the deacon of a Baptist church.

In his 2004 memoir, “Maybe You Never Cry Again,” Mac wrote about having a poor childhood - eating bologna for dinner - and a strict, no-nonsense upbringing.

“I came from a place where there wasn’t a lot of joy,” Mac told the AP in 2001. “I decided to try to make other people laugh when there wasn’t a lot of things to laugh about.”

Mac’s mother died of cancer when he was 16. In his book, Mac said she was a support for him and told him he would surprise everyone when he grew up.

“Woman believed in me,” he wrote. “She believed in me long before I believed.”
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Diabetes is a long&wshyp;lasting (chronic ) state of affairs lead to by too significantly glucose (sugar) in the blood . It is too famous as diabetes mellitus.
In the UK, diabetes instigates something like 2.3 million people, and it is believed overly there are at the very least part a million a good amount of folks who own the state but are not in the know of it.
How performs diabetes occur?
Normally, the total number of sugar in the blood is controlled by a hormone referred to as insulin , that is created by the pancreas (a gland behind the stomach ). When food is digested and inserts your bloodstream, insulin moves any glucose out of the blood and to cells, at which it is broken decreased to form energy.
However, in folks in diabetes, the person is not able to break lessened glucose to energy. This is due to the fact that there is either not a sufficient amount of insulin to move the glucose , or as the insulin such a is there, performs not directed properly.
There are two sorts of diabetes - diabetes brand 1 and diabetes brand 2. This prediction ponders on sort 1 diabetes. See the ‘related articles’ section for guidelines roughly kind 2 diabetes.
What is brand 1 diabetes?
Type 1 diabetes crops up when the person produces no insulin at all. It is often referred to as insulin -dependent diabetes. It is in addition sometimes celebrated as juvenile diabetes, or the beginning of onset diabetes, when it mostly furthers before the age of 40, often in the teenage years.
Type 1 diabetes is far lessened rife as opposed to brand 2 diabetes, that takes place when there is too small amount insulin made by the person to work, or when the cells in the person do not react right to insulin . People amongst kind 1 diabetes give out up merely 5-15% of all buyers amid diabetes.
If you experience kind 1 diabetes, you plans to seek to take insulin injections for life. You are required to additionally form definite too your blood glucose market value carry on balanced by eating a fine diet and carrying out ordinary blood tests .
Diabetes in pregnancy (gestational diabetes)
During pregnancy, a little women undergo these kinds of insane numbers of glucose in the blood the current such a person cannot acquire a sufficient amount of insulin to absorb it all. This is celebrated as gestational diabetes, and it makes something like 2% of pregnant women.
Pregnancy can in addition construct pre&wshyp;existent sort 1 or kind 2 diabetes worse.
Gestational diabetes can substantiate the likelihood of vitality questions in an unborn baby, so it is crucial to remain the value of glucose in your blood beneath control.
In a multitude of cases, gestational diabetes furthers in the time side of pregnancy and disappears ensuing the baby is born. However, women who step up gestational diabetes are greater amount of perhaps to step up kind 2 diabetes then in life.