In brief: Rahm Emanuel struck from ballot

Chicago – Just days ago, Rahm Emanuel seemed to be steamrolling the entire field of candidates for Chicago mayor. He had millions in the bank and a huge lead in the polls.

But on Monday, the former White House chief of staff was waging a desperate bid to keep his campaign alive after an Illinois appeals court kicked him off the ballot for not meeting a residency requirement. The decision threw the race into disarray with less than a month to go.

Emanuel’s lawyers quickly sought help from the Illinois Supreme Court, asking the justices to stop the appellate ruling and to hear an appeal as soon as possible. But time was running short, since the Chicago Board of Elections planned to begin printing ballots without Emanuel’s name within days.

Ex-Marine blames Lejeune for cancer

Washington – A man who served at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune for nearly two years in the 1950s has sued the federal government for $16 million, saying poisonous water at the North Carolina base caused his cancer.

Joel P. Shriberg of Pinehurst, N.C., was diagnosed in 2004 with male breast cancer and had a radical mastectomy on his left breast. The cancer has since metastasized to his lung, according to the suit he filed last week in the U.S. District Court’s Eastern District of North Carolina.

Shriberg is one of more than 65 men across the United States who has been diagnosed with male breast cancer after serving at Lejeune.

According to his lawsuit, he was a clerk with the 155th Howitzer Division from September 1957 through April 1959.

That was when, according to federal and state documents, poisons that included tetrachloroethylene, trichloroethylene and benzene contaminated Camp Lejeune’s water system.