At first, Weiner vehemently denied that a photo of an underwear-clad erection, sent via Twitter to a 21-year-old woman, had come from him, insisting he’d been hacked.

But conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart and his website, BigGovernment.com, rolled out a series of new pictures Monday, including a shirtless shot that appears to depict Weiner flexing and photographing himself.

Breitbart also claimed to have X-rated pictures of Weiner, and other outlets, including Radar Online and ABC News, reported having more damaging information from women Weiner had purportedly communicated with.

“I am deeply ashamed of my terrible actions,” a tearful Weiner told reporters at a remarkable press conference in New York.

“I came here to accept the full responsibility for what I’ve done,” he said, apologizing to his wife of one year, Huma Abedin, and reporters and others he lied to about the initial reports. He even said he was sorry to Breibart, who had commandeered the podium for his own impromptu press event before Weiner spoke.

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Under rules of the current collective bargaining agreement, which is set to expire at 11:59 p.m. Thursday, a player with the franchise tag is paid what the top five players at his position averaged the year before. In Vick’s case, that means a financial windfall for 2011.

Vick, who made $5.25 million last year, will be paid an estimated $16 million—more than triple his old salary—in ’11. Not bad for a guy who just a couple of years ago was sitting in prison, not knowing whether he even had a future in football.

Vick had the best season of his NFL career in 2010, even though he missed three games with injuries. After Kevin Kolb was injured in the first half of the season opener, Vick came on and eventually led the Eagles to a 10-6 record and the NFC East title. He set career highs in passing yards (3,018), touchdowns passing (21), touchdowns rushing (nine) and completion percentage (62.6). He made the Pro Bowl and was voted the Associated Press Comeback player of the Year.

Under terms of the “exclusive” franchise tag, Vick is prohibited from talking to other teams once free agency begins.

People magazine reports that the 29-year-old had been spotted frequently at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles throughout the past several days.

Williams’ rep, Nicole Chabot, told People magazine that Williams underwent emergency treatment at Cedars-Sinai for a hematoma suffered as a result of treatment for a more critical situation.

Although the condition can be deadly if oxygen to the lungs is cut off, prompt treatment using blood thinners cuts the risk of death considerably.

“This is probably related to a lot of air travel and injury to the leg,” Dr. William Lewis, chief of clinical cardiology in the Heart and Vascular Center at The MetroHealth System in Cleveland, told AOL Health. “When you’re flying or sitting for an extended period of time, you need to get up out of the seat every hour, move around and stay hydrated.”

Lewis says the future of Williams’ tennis career will depend on the size of the embolism. The larger the embolism, or clot in the lung, the bigger the potential impact on the athlete’s career.

“The highest risk of this problem is within the first hour, and then it starts to decline after 72 hours,” explains Lewis.

He says blood clots often occur in people who are inactive or in those who have suffered an injury that limits mobility. “She is an elite athlete,” says Lewis. “This condition is pretty rare for athletes.” According to Lewis, long-time air travel could lead to development of pulmonary embolism, especially if one is dehydrated.

Pulmonary embolism is a condition that occurs in the lungs when one or more arteries are blocked. In most cases, this condition is caused by blood clots that originate in other parts of the body, most commonly in the legs, and travel to the lungs where the mass blocks arteries.

Other substances such as fat from within the marrow of a broken bone, part of a tumor or air bubbles can also form blockages within the vessels in the lungs. Usually pulmonary embolism is caused by multiple clots. A solitary pulmonary embolism, which involves only one clot, is very rare.

The condition can occur in otherwise healthy people. Most commonly symptoms include sudden or unexplained shortness of breath, chest pain, and a cough accompanied by blood spotting, although symptoms can vary from person to person.

Williams isn’t the first athlete to suffer an embolism. Last May, NASCAR driver Brian Vickers suffered blood clots in his lungs and left leg and missed the remainder of the season. He was treated with the blood thinner Coumadin and returned to the race track last month.

More tragically, NBC News reporter David Bloom died in Iraq in 2003 after suffering a pulmonary embolism. Bloom, the father of three daughters, had been “embedded” with the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division and many speculated that spending time in cramped quarters, as well as frequent flying, may have caused the clot that killed the veteran reporter.

AOL Health contacted Cedar-Sinai Medical Center, but media specialist Sandy Van said the hospital was unable to comment on Williams’ case.

“Inmates cheered as a muscular young skinhead knocked him to the ground, punching and kicking him to a bloody pulp and inflicting injuries so severe he secretly spent nearly three weeks in the infirmary before he recovered.”

While the Nevada Department of Corrections is denying that any such incident took place, I know enough about corrections departments to know that their words have as much credibility as Sarah Palin at a Mensa convention.

The Georgia Department of Corrections (DOC) effectively denied that the largest prison strike in U.S. history ever took place and the DOC in other states run along similar paradigms with very little accountability to anyone.

It is not out of the question that the man who has had an “X” on his back for the past 16 years would be targeted by white supremacist prison inmates. The Department of Corrections is believed to be working to keep Simpson’s beating a secret, according to the report.

Simpson is currently serving a sentence, totaling 33 years, for charges ranging from kidnapping to armed robbery. He is eligible for parole after serving nine years, but it’s not clear if he is going to be released early or not. Given that he was sent to prison in 2008, he will be older than the age of 70 before having the opportunity to be a free man again.

The O.J. Simpson trials (both 1995 and 2008) were bellwethers of public perceptions on race and justice. The fact that whites and blacks viewed the original O.J. Simpson trial so differently is a ringing indictment of our nation’s remaining hurdles on the road to racial equality.

Both of Simpson’s cases were met with tremendous outrage from members of the public, who never would have cared about the case if O.J. had been accused of murdering a black woman. In fact, they probably wouldn’t have cared much more if Nicole Brown Simpson‘s alleged killer had been white.

Simpson, who was born in 1947, turns 64 years old this year. He has changed from the strapping young superstar he was back in the 1970s and 1980s to the tired old man who probably lives in fear of those who are incarcerated alongside him.

Simpson spent 15 years after his original murder trial being treated like a guilty man, only to see a broad smirk on the collective face of the American public upon his most recent incarceration.

America’s anger toward O.J. Simpson has been nothing less than an embarrassment, revealing a troubling lack of class of this country’s citizens.

Our nation failed the test of the much-touted post-racial America that Republicans once talked about after the election of President Barack Obama (notice they aren’t talking about that anymore after seeing the Tea Party in action).

Whether you believe Simpson to be guilty or not, the reality is that the lynch mobs that have served to taunt him are not entirely disconnected from the same mobs that threaten the lives of the first black family in the White House.

I don’t have much respect for O.J. Simpson as a man.

His denial of the black community for so many years, combined with his extensive drug use, always bothered me. I also don’t consider it out of the question that he did indeed kill his ex-wife.

In spite of my own belief that Simpson may have done something wrong, the fact that Americans have ignored the justice system or any sense of fairness to chase down a black man for allegedly killing a white woman reminds me of the so-called “Christians” of the past who once hung black men from trees. Black History Month, of all times, should be the period during which we most readily recognize this troubling historical relationship. The present was created by the past, and OJ Simpson’s ordeal is a way for American to look into its social mirror.

“When you win an Academy Award, that’s part of what you’ve done, your legacy. I will always be Academy Award winner Whoopi Goldberg,” she said during her lengthy rant, referring to her best supporting actress win for ‘Ghost.’ “This is not hidden information. And to these two critics, the head critics of The New York Times. It’s hard to not take it personally.”

The article, titled ‘Hollywood’s Whiteout,’ apparently riled Goldberg up because it seemed to list all of the black Americans who have won an Oscar. A closer look, however, proved otherwise. The authors write that nine years ago, when Denzel Washington and Halle Berry won their historic Oscars:

“Real change seemed to have come to movies or at least the Academy, which had given statuettes to a total of seven black actors in the previous 73 years.”

The article then notes that after Washington and Berry came a string of Oscar wins for Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker, Morgan Freeman, Jennifer Hudson and Mo’Nique.

It was presumably this passage, along with mentions of Sidney Poitier and Hattie McDaniel, that caused Goldberg to believe she had been forgotten. “People in Somalia know. People in China know,” she said on ‘The View.’ “I know it’s hard to believe, but I’m a worldwide person who’s known.”

But if a correction is what she desires, Goldberg will be waiting a very, very long time. PopEater reached out to the Times, and a source at the newspaper clarified that Goldberg won her Oscar for 1990′s ‘Ghost,’ more than a decade before the time period that the authors were focusing on. In the article, Dargis and Scott were discussing race and the cinematic representation of people of color since 2002, when Berry and Washington were triumphant.

Later on Monday, the Times released a statement that tweaks Goldberg without naming her:

“The error lies with those who are reading the story incorrectly. The point of the piece was not to name every black actor or actress who has been awarded an Oscar, it was to draw a comparison between the number who won prior to 2002 (the year Halle Berry and Denzel Washington won) and those who have won since. And the story states very clearly that in 73 years, prior to 2002, only seven black actors/actresses won Oscars.”

Also not mentioned in the article were Louis Gossett, Jr. (1982) and Cuba Gooding, Jr. (1996).

This year’s Oscars have raised ire because there are no persons of color nominated in the acting categories.

Goldberg has not responded to requests to clarify her comments on ‘The View,’ which included some pretty pointed attacks on the journalists and the newspaper.

“I don’t know what to say about what you’ve done. It’s just, well, I can say, is that you’re sloppy in your work and you’re supposed to be better than this,” she said. “This is The New York Times, not some bozo newspaper from Hoochi-Coochie land. This is The New York Times. I just, you know, it hurts.”

Four Wal-Mart employees have been fired after management said they violated company policy by disarming an alleged shoplifter who had pulled a gun inside the store.

Lori Poulsen, Justin Richins, Shawn Ray and Gabriel Stewart were all longtime workers at Wal-Mart’s Layton, Utah, store. Poulsen was an asset protection coordinator, Richins and Ray were asset protection associates, and Stewart was an assistant manager.

On Jan. 13, employees allegedly witnessed a man identified as Trent Allen Longton take a netbook computer out of the package and stuff it under his shirt. When Longton attempted to leave the store, he was confronted by Poulsen, who escorted him to a nearby office. The two were joined there by Ray, Richins and Stewart, Salt Lake City’s Deseret News reported.

Inside the office, Longton allegedly pulled out a loaded handgun and ran toward the office door, which was blocked by Ray, Richins and Stewart. Longton then allegedly grabbed Stewart and shoved the gun into his back. Concerned for their safety, the workers reacted forcefully and disarmed Longton.

In the police incident report, the investigating officer noted that the Wal-Mart employees acted in the “best interest and safety” of those around them. Longton, as it turned out, was a convicted felon who was prohibited from possessing a firearm.

Wal-Mart managers, however, disagreed. The following week, the four workers were fired for violating the company’s “Investigation and Detention of Shoplifters Policy.” The policy instructs employees to retreat if an individual brandishes a weapon.

“If during an approach or investigation, it becomes apparent that the suspect has a weapon or brandishes or threatens use of a weapon; all associates must disengage from the situation, withdraw to a safe position, and contact law enforcement,” reads a copy of the policy available online. “If at any point the suspect or any other involved person becomes violent, disengage from the confrontation, withdraw to a safe position and contact law enforcement.”

The next paragraph instructs employees to “put people first,” stating that protecting the physical well-being of “suspects, customers and Wal-Mart associates is your first priority.”

Speaking with the Deseret News last week, the dismissed employees said they had nowhere to go and were forced to subdue the suspect when he charged them. They also said they were not comfortable allowing an armed man into the store area where shoppers could be at risk.

In a previously released statement obtained by The Deseret News, managers defended their actions, saying the four put their safety “and potentially the safety of our customers and other associates in jeopardy.”

Stewart, who had been with Wal-Mart for 12 years, told the newspaper he is still trying to understand the company’s decision.

“I honestly felt worse than when I had the gun to my back,” he said. “I honestly felt betrayed.”

After missing two seasons while serving a federal sentence for dogfighting, then spending most of the previous year as a seldom-used backup in Philadelphia, Vick was back at his best in 2010. Taking over as starter in Week 2 after Kevin Kolb sustained a concussion, Vick ran and passed the Eagles to the NFC East title and a 10-6 record.

Vick also displayed the kind of reformation away from the game that impressed a nationwide panel of 50 media members who regularly cover the league. Vick received 29½ votes for the award, easily beating Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Mike Williams, who got eight.

“It’s unbelievable,” Vick said Saturday on NFL Network’s “NFL Total Access,” which exclusively revealed the award, in conjunction with The AP. “I have to give all glory to God and thank my coaches and my teammates. They put me in this position, they got me better as an NFL player, as a quarterback. They took advantage of my talents.”