December 10

1846—Norbert Rillieux invents the “multiple effect pan evaporator” which revolutionizes the sugar industry and makes the work much less hazardous for the workers. Rillieux was born “quadroon libre” in New Orleans, La. His father was a wealthy French plantation owner and his mother a former slave. He was sent to Paris, France to be educated in engineering. He also researched Egyptian hieroglyphics. There is no record that he ever returned to the U.S. after the 1850’s. He died in Paris in 1894.

JOE ‘KING’ OLIVER

WASHINGTON (AP)—Oprah Winfrey has come a long way since her childhood years in a Mississippi shack and in public housing with a poster of The Beatles on her bedroom wall. Sunday, she was honored with Paul McCartney, one of the Beatles she so loved.

Stars from Hollywood, Nashville and Broadway gathered in the nation's capital to salute Winfrey, McCartney and three others—country singer Merle Haggard, Broadway composer Jerry Herman and dancer Bill T. Jones—with the Kennedy Center Honors. The president and first lady Michelle Obama sat with the honorees and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

ENTERTAINMENT ROYALTY—Recipients of the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors, Oprah Winfrey, and Paul McCartney, sing the National Anthem at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Sunday, Dec. 5. Others are Stedman Graham, back left, and Trade Representative Ron Kirk, back right. (APPhoto/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP)—Wesley Snipes must begin his three-year prison sentence for failing to pay taxes before the holidays as originally ordered, and not afterward as the actor had requested.

Snipes asked a judge if he could surrender on Jan. 6 in Pennsylvania instead of on Thursday. The motion says Snipes has four young children and the “surrender date is in the middle of the holiday season.”

WESLEY SNIPES

But a Florida judge denied his request Monday. The judge wrote that Snipes had plenty of time to prepare “for the impact that his incarceration will have upon members of his family” since he was sentenced more than two years ago.

The 48-year-old star of the “Blade” trilogy was convicted in 2008 on three misdemeanor counts of willful failure to file income tax returns.

TMZ first reported the denial.

by Anne Flaherty

WASHINGTON (AP)—When a majority of troops told the Pentagon this summer they didn’t care if gays were allowed to serve openly in the military, it was in sharp contrast to the time when America’s fighting forces voiced bitter opposition to accepting racial minorities and women in the services.

HISTORY LESSON—Thomas J. Woods, 78, holds his graduation photo from the Marine Corps in 1951 in his home in Fayetteville, Ga. The stories of Woods and other Black vets who served among the military’s first desegregated units during the Korean War offer an iconic history lesson amid the debate over whether gays should be allowed to serve openly in uniform. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

The survey, due out Nov. 30, is expected to find pockets of resistance among combat troops to ending the ban on gays. But some 70 percent of respondents were expected to say that lifting the ban would have a positive or mixed effect, or none at all, according to officials familiar with the findings.