MANILA, Philippines – “Sugar” Shane Mosley and Floyd Mayweather Jr. have reportedly agreed to terms to fight for the World Boxing Association (WBA) welterweight title, according to a report by ESPN.com.

“Shane has signed. I sat with him [Friday] and we went through every provision of the contract and he signed,” Mosley’s attorney Judd Burstein told ESPN.com. “He is excited to move forward with the bout.”

The fight is set on May 1 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Mayweather, who has yet to sign the contract, has reportedly expressed his intent to fight Mosley, according to Ellerbe.  Read more... (128 words, estimated 31 secs reading time)

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California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, along with a group of Filipino-American experts on urban planning, will visit the Philippines next week to assist in the ”heavy lifting” of the Philippine government’s reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts.

Executive Director Butch Meily of the Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation, which serves as partner of the Special National Public-Private Reconstruction Commission (SNPRC), announced the scheduled arrival of the California-based experts on reconstruction and rehabilitation along with the Hollywood action hero-turned-politician.

He said in a press briefing last Thursday that Schwarzenegger and company ”will be spending days” in Manila to share with their counterparts their practices and strategies in addressing damages brought by catastrophes.  Read more... (188 words, estimated 45 secs reading time)

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SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – – Apple chief executive Steve Jobs on Wednesday revealed the culture-changing company’s latest must-have device, a touchscreen tablet computer annointed the “iPad.”

“We want to kick off 2010 by introducing a truly magical and revolutionary product,” said Jobs, who underwent a liver transplant last year and was making just his second public appearance since September.

The long-awaited iPad has a 9.7-inch (24.6-centimeter) color screen and resembles an oversized iPhone. It is 0.5 inches (1.3 cms) thick, weighs 1.5 pounds (0.7 kgs) and comes with 16, 32, or 64 gigabytes of flash memory.  Read more... (210 words, estimated 50 secs reading time)

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NEW YORK (AFP) – – A significant Pablo Picasso painting was damaged after a woman attending art class lost her balance, fell into “The Actor” and tore it, The Metropolitan Museum of Art said.

The unusually large canvas, measuring 77.25 by 45.38 inches (196 by 115cm), sustained a vertical tear of about six inches (15cm) in the lower right-hand corner in the accident on Friday.

The museum, located on the eastern edge of New York’s Central Park, did not elaborate on why the woman fell.  Read more... (132 words, estimated 32 secs reading time)

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MANILA, Philippines – They’re selling like hotcakes and Manny Pacquiao hasn’t placed his orders yet.

Tickets to the March 13 fight between the Filipino pound-for-pound champion and challenger Josh Clottey are out, and with still 50 days left before the big day, promoters might be forced to have a few thousands more printed.

According to ESPN.com, more than 20,000 tickets were sold in the first three hours of sales Saturday. Because of the size of the venue, tickets prices were slashed more than half of what they used to be for Pacquiao fights.  Read more... (226 words, estimated 54 secs reading time)

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MANILA, Philippines – Filipino troops detailed as peacekeepers in Haiti were trapped inside a collapsed building housing the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Port-au-Prince following a massive quake that devastated the Caribbean nation yesterday morning.

Other Filipino peacekeepers rushed to the scene to dig out their comrades and other UN workers from the ruins of the seven-story building, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

Reporting to the DFA, the Philippine Mission in the United Nations said it could not determine at this point if there were any casualties among members of the Philippine military and police contingents.  Read more... (168 words, estimated 40 secs reading time)

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Freddie Roach could meet a boxer for the first time, shake his hand, peer into his eyes, and see the future.

In Manny Pacquiao, the renowned trainer saw the makings of a world champion, a glittering gem from an uncut, unpolished stone.

But something else escaped Roach’s ring clairvoyance: A crowning beyond the alphabet titles nobody foresaw.

“I didn’t see this coming,” said Roach, recalling the first time he worked the mitts with the boxing icon early in 2001 at the Wild Card gym in Los Angeles. “I never thought he’ll be this great.”  Read more... (267 words, estimated 1:04 mins reading time)

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It’s not impossible to mess with the machines that will be used in the automated elections, but the likelihood of hacking them is the same as winning the lotto five consecutive times.

Commission on Elections (Comelec) officials made the statement Tuesday following the hacking of five government websites since December 2009.

In an interview on dwIZ radio, Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal assured that the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines that will be used in the country’s first nationwide automated polls operate independently of each other and utilize 128-bit encryption —the same security strength used in banks around the world.  Read more... (210 words, estimated 50 secs reading time)

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Many may see Saturday’s celebration of the Feast of the Black Nazarene as a mark of Filipino piety, but a senior Catholic Church official lamented the display of “excess” devotion during the event.

Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales scored many followers for trying to get near the image of the Black Nazarene, even if it meant injuring their fellow devotees.

Earlier reports said at least two people died while hundreds were injured in the yearly procession of the image of the Black Nazarene, which is believed to have miraculous powers.  Read more... (155 words, estimated 37 secs reading time)

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A fourth church in Malaysia has been firebombed, stoking concern among Christians as a dispute rages over the use of the word “Allah” by non-Muslims.

The attack was the latest in a series of assaults, just days after a Kuala Lumpur court ruled non-Muslims could use Allah to refer to God in their literature.

Bishop Philip Loke said two firebombs were thrown at his Good Shepherd Lutheran Church early Saturday but missed the glass windows, hitting the building wall instead.  Read more... (182 words, estimated 44 secs reading time)

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