chicago, illinois (ap) -- ears with two, three, even five piercings are ancient history. studs in tongues and navels are, for many, no big deal. and who doesn't have a tattoo? these days, the attention-grabbing look is tongue-splitting: cutting the tongue to make it forked.

those who've had their tongues split call it a body modification, and see it as an enhancement.

a few do it for shock value. others describe the experience as spiritual. and many say they simply like how it looks and feels.

"when i first saw it, i thought tongue-splitting was the most beautiful thing i've seen in my life," says james keen, a 19-year-old from scottsville, kentucky, who got his tongue cut by a local body piercer in december after a surgeon declined to do it.

keen, who now speaks with a slight lisp, says most people don't know he's had it done unless he shows them.

when he does, he demonstrates how both forks of his tongue can move independently. and it's a plus, he says, when it comes to kissing.

"people are very curious about how it feels," says keen, whose parents gave him their blessing -- and the $500 it took to do it.

this hubble space telescope image, released yesterday, shows two galaxies roaring toward one another at more than 6 million mph (9.7 million kilometers per hour). ... behind this spiral is a giant and obvious elliptical galaxy, seen face on (as though looking directly down at the dinner plate). it has a faint spiral structure at its center. the elliptical galaxy is called ngc 1275. it is about 235 million light-years away in the constellation perseus. the collision, in progress, causes gas and dust to swirl toward the center of ngc 1275, which likely harbors a supermassive black hole at its center.

a make-a-wish foundation chapter has become the target of a nationwide e-mail protest organized by a family values organization that claims the comic book convention where the chapter holds an annual fund-raiser is a "celebration of pornography, witchcraft, demonology and the occult."

make-a-wish has received more than 16,800 e-mails in just over a week from people opposed to the fund-raiser at comicon, a pittsburgh-area comic book convention, said judith stone, president and chief executive director of make-a-wish foundation of western pennsylvania & southern west virginia.

"we know that comicon features pornographic magazines and that they bring in people who sell their body to profit themselves and that make-a-wish, this chapter, doesn't have a problem with that," said randy sharp, a spokesman for the american family association, based in tupelo, miss., which organized the protest.

the make-a-wish foundation does a thorough review of all fund-raiser locations and has found nothing offensive at the festival, stone said.

the foundation holds an all-ages casino night and an auction in a hotel adjacent to the convention to raise money for children with terminal or life-threatening conditions... the foundation raised $27,000 during the event last year, using the money to grant the wishes of 38 children, including a trip to disney world, new bedroom furniture and repairs to a pool that had fallen into disrepair.

by sharon theimer, associated press writer

washington - the u.s. chamber of commerce, one of the nation's most powerful political lobbies, has concluded that a court ruling on the new campaign finance law allows it to run ads targeting members of congress.

the business lobby isn't entirely pleased with the overall federal ruling's 1,600-plus pages and plans to appeal to the supreme court, but it does not plan to ask a court to block the decision from taking effect in the meantime, attorney jan baran said.

one group still considering whether to seek a stay of the court's ruling, the club for growth, also believes the friday decision lets it run ads mentioning lawmakers.

it plans to start airing a second batch of ads thursday pressing two reluctant republican senators, olympia snowe of maine and ohio's george voinovich, to support president bush's tax-cut package if congressional negotiations over the proposal do not succeed before their vote is needed.

"we think a reasonable reading (of the ruling) is that they're not covered by this new language and also that it's so far away from the election � as far as far as i know voinovich doesn't have an opponent � so it would be hard to make the case that we're trying to influence an election when no one's running against him," club executive director david keating said. the group ran its first ads before the court ruled.

now that his divorce from abe pollin and the wizards is final, michael jordan has some time on his hands. paul farhi of the post offers mike some career guidance as he ponders his next move.

• leverage recent experience working for arrogant, obstinate team owner: see if dan snyder is hiring.
  
• start new airline -- air jordan, of course -- that flies only where it wants to, when it wants to, and mostly to chicago.
  
• president, baseball operations, washington baseball club (revenge is sweet).
  
• buy naming rights to mci center. rename it "the jordanaire." or maybe "abe's house of losers."
  
• take over management of another outfit that hasn't had a winning season in years: the democratic party.
  
• interim president, iraq.
  
• autograph self. put up for auction on ebay.
  
• spend days brooding, spend nights sulking. when this gets old, switch.
  
• lend name to a line of overhyped, overpriced sneakers made by exploited laborers in third world countries (oh, wait. never mind.)
  
• spokesman for claritin (for treating allergies to pollin).
  
• build a time machine and travel back to 1996, when you really ruled.
  
• take gm job with bob johnson's new franchise in charlotte. when team plays wizards, come out of retirement, drop 73 points. just for spite.

taipei (reuters) - villagers in southern taiwan are strapping bras to their faces to guard against the deadly sars virus due to a shortage of surgical masks.

'i went to every pharmacy in the village and it's impossible to find a proper mask,' a middle-aged man told cable television on thursday, his face partially covered by a dark red cup.

'somebody came up with this idea so i decided to give it a try,' he said at a village near the southern city of tainan.

a small bra factory is producing the make-shift masks, with workers cutting each of its colorful bras into two and sewing on extra straps to help the desperate villagers.

chimp study on human-evasion response to feces-hurling nearly complete
madison, wi�chimpanzees at the university of wisconsin's primate laboratory are nearing completion of a two-year study on human-evasion response to hurled feces, sources reported tuesday. "our research shows that homo sapiens experience extreme agitation and an urge to flee when pelted with baseball-sized lumps of primate scat," said dr. jingles, speaking from his research cage. "in 10 out of 10 cases, our test subjects retreated to the far corner of the room and screamed, 'stop! stop! aiiiigh!'" dr. jingles first made his mark in science in 1993, when he earned a nobel prize for conclusively proving the deliciousness of bananas.

star city, russia (reuters) - a u.s.-russian space crew marooned in orbit by the shuttle disaster then lost in the kazakh steppes on their return, shrugged off the ordeal on tuesday and told how they cheered as they landed.

u.s. astronauts kenneth bowersox, donald pettit and russia's nikolai budarin said it was too soon to say what disabled the automatic settings of their soyuz capsule and brought them down some 390 miles off target after a violent re-entry.

"all the way, literally up to the moment we entered the atmosphere, we were on an automatic setting, expecting a controlled re-entry," veteran budarin told a press conference at russia's cosmonaut training center outside moscow.

"then one minute before entering the atmosphere the automatic regime stopped functioning...it is not yet clear why."

the crew lost radio links with mission control minutes before landing and rescuers took two tense hours to spot the crew's tiny capsule in the steppe.

but the three men said they had been glad to be left to soak in the central asian scenery after almost six months in orbit.

...bowersox, the mission's commander, said the crew had been trained for the sharper ballistic landing and for its impact on their bodies -- almost twice as powerful as normal re-entry.

"there is a lot of pressure on your chest," he said. "it is hard to breathe and your tongue slips to the back of your head."

any hitch with the soyuz would have spelled the end for the international space station (news - web sites), dependent on russian crafts after the columbia disaster grounded the u.s. shuttles in february.

it would also have left the two american and russian astronauts currently on board the station without a lifeboat.

"for a moment, it felt like i was atlas, and i had the weight of the whole world on my shoulders," pettit said.

the american dairy association unveiled a large scale model car made out of cheese at richmond international raceway on friday in virginia. it was modeled after race car driver terry labonte's no. 5 chevrolet and carved from 3,500 pounds of yellow cheddar cheese.

the car, which measures 5 feet high, 12 feet long and 6 feet wide, was made to support the new and cheesy paint scheme on labonte's no. 5 kellogg's-"got milk?" auto.

aron ralston, 27, of aspen, colo., was in serious condition friday at a hospital in grand junction, colo., following the ordeal thursday.

ralston was climbing saturday in blue john canyon, adjacent to canyonlands national park in far southwestern utah, when a 1,000-pound boulder fell on him, pinning his right arm, authorities said.

initial reports said the boulder might have weighed 200 pounds, but rescuers who later went to the site said it weighed closer to 1,000 pounds.

sheriff�s sgt. mitch vetere told nbc�s �today� show that the team that went to the site concluded �he had no other option� but to cut off his arm because the air-based search team �wouldn�t have seen him from the air.�

ralson was able to tell rescuers that he ran out of water on tuesday, and on thursday morning decided that his survival required drastic action.

using his pocketknife, he amputated his arm below the elbow and applied a tourniquet and administered first aid. he then rigged anchors, fixed a rope and rappelled 75 feet to the canyon floor.

he hiked downstream and was spotted about 3 p.m. by a utah public safety helicopter.