Rapper T.I. Receives Prison Sentence

On Friday, the rapper T.I. was sentenced to one year and a day in prison on federal weapons charges. He has 30 to 60 days to start his sentence and has completed nearly 1,000 hours of community service while warning children about the negative effects of drugs, guns, and violence. He still needs to complete 470 more hours. He pleaded guilty in court last March after he was arrested in October of 2007 for trying to buy unregistered machine guns and silencers before his scheduled appearance at the BET Hip-Hop Awards in Atlanta.

Heart Doctor Pioneer Michael DeBakey Dies

Dr. Michael DeBakey, the famous cardiovascular surgeon that pioneered the bypass surgery and inventor of many devices to help people with heart problems, has died at the age of 99 from natural causes at the Methodist Hospital in Houston, TX. In 1932, while he was still in medical school, he invented the roller pump, which later became the most important part of the heart-lung machine. The machine takes over the responsibilities of the heart and lungs during surgery. He was also the pioneer in the development of artificial hearts and heart pumps to help people waiting for transplants. He had helped to create more than 70 surgical instruments in his lifetime.

In the 1950s, DeBakey was the first person to perform the replacement of arterial aneurysms and obstructive lesions. He had developed bypass pumps and connections to replace parts of diseased arteries.

He had performed more than 60,000 heart surgeries in his career that lasted 70 years. His patients had included the Duke of Windsor, the Shah of Iran, King Hussein of Jordan, Turkish President Turgut Ozal, Nicaraguan leader Violetta Chamorro, President Kennedy, President Johnson, and President Nixon. He was a consultant when Russian President Boris Yeltsin had surgery.

He served as the chairman of the President’s Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer, and Stroke during President Johnson’s administration. He had helped to establish the National Library of Medicine and was the author of more than 1,000 medical reports, papers, chapters, and books on surgery, medicine, and similar topics.

In 1953, he performed the first Dacron graft to be able to replace part of occluded arteries. In the 1960s he started coronary artery bypasses. In 1966, he was the first person to successfully use a partial artificial heart. In the 1990s, he helped to create the Michael E. DeBakey Heart Instititute at Hays Medical Center.

Rapper T.I. Pleads Guilty to Charges

The rapper T.I. has pleaded guilty to federal weapons possessions charges and he will receive a sentence that will include prison time after he does community service. While he is waiting on sentencing, he will have to complete at least 1,000 out of 1,500 hours of community service, which would involve talking to youth groups about the dangers of guns, gangs, and drugs. He will have to serve about 12 months in prison after finishing the community service.

T.I. pleaded guilty to possession of unregistered machine guns and silencers, unlawful possession of machine guns, and possession of firearms by a convicted felon. His prison sentence could be increased or reduced, depending whether he fulfills the terms of the deal and good behavior.

ATM Gives Out Too Much Money

It is reported that an ATM at a Louisiana truck stop gave out $20 bills instead of $5 bills but authorities know who used it and plan to get back the extra $7,000 that it gave out.

The supervisor at the truck stop unplugged the machine after she heard that it was giving out too much money but the next morning she found that someone had plugged it back in. She says that she thinks someone who didn't work at the truck stop had rigged the machine to give out too much money but the ATM keeps track of who uses it. Charges could be brought against the people who got excess money from the machine.