Dumpling Eating Contest

KIEV (Reuters) – A 77-year-old Ukrainian man won a jar full of sour cream for coming first in a dumpling eating contest and then promptly died, local media reported on Wednesday.
Ivan Mendel ate 10 dumplings in half a minute to win first place and a one-liter jar of sour cream in the contest held in the town of Tokmak in the southeastern Zaporizhya region on September 18, Fakty I Kommentarii
newspaper said.
Shortly afterwards, Mendel became unwell and died, according to local news websites.
Dumplings, called “vareniki” in the former Soviet republic, are a staple of Ukrainian cuisine and are often stuffed with a range of fillings from mushrooms to cherries.
(Reporting By Olzhas Auyezov, editing by Paul Casciato)

The US Food and Drug Administration confirmed that it is going ahead with the ban on asthma inhalers that use chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) since it harms the environment.
The health agency had agreed to phase out such inhalers back in 2008 and has now revealed that the ban will
come into effect from next year. The decision means that the only over-the-counter asthma inhaler, Primatene Mist, will not be available from next year.

Primatene Mist, manufactured by Armstrong Pharmaceuticals, is the only such inhaler marketed in the United States and is thought to be used by more than a million asthma patients in the country.

The FDA added that all inhalers that contain the drug epinephrine will be banned starting from next year. Two other prescription inhalers that make use of the drug; Boehringer Ingelheim’s Combivent Inhalation Aerosol and Graceway Pharmaceuticals’ Maxair Autohaler., will also be phased out by the end of 2013.

Orlando Brown has been found. According to local news in Los Angeles, Brown has called into a local radio station and is said to be fine.

Orlando Brown of TV’s That’s So Raven, who worried friends and family after he disappeared Tuesday morning, has turned up, saying he simply “needed to be alone.”

In a statement, Brown, thanked fans for their support
and apologized for not informing anyone of his whereabouts for over 24 hours.

Brown, who is a musician as well as an actor, said he dropped out of sight after a problem last week involving a scheduled performance at Club Tattoo in Los Angeles. After he incident, the statement said, he “felt a little lost and needed to get away.”

“It got a bit overwhelming and I needed to be alone,” he said.

Brown’s publicist, who had earlier confirmed that he was missing, denied that the disappearance was a publicity stunt. “It was not a hoax,” the rep says.

The 20-year-old reportedly left his manager’s house around 10:20 a.m. to make a quick trip to 7-Eleven and has not been seen since. According to Brown’s publicist, Elayne Rivers, he had a full day of meetings and appointments in preparation for a photo shoot Wednesday.

Brown has several projects in the works, including a Raven spin-off show, tentatively titled The Orlando Brown Show and a second album featuring tracks with top artists Akon and Sean Kingston.

Actor Orlando Brown, of Disney’s series That’s So Raven, has reportedly been missing since early Tuesday morning.

According to an article on People.com, the 20-year-old actor left his manager’s house around 10:20 a.m. to stop at a 7-Eleven, and has not been seen since. The store was only a short walk from his manager’s house in Studio City, Calif.

Brown’s publicist, Elayne Rivers, told People that Brown had a busy schedule Tuesday, and was preparing for a photo shoot today. Rivers also said the actor’s friends and family are very
concerned, and that disappearing without any word is not normal for the young actor.

Currently, Brown is working on a number of projects, including a That’s So Raven spin-off, titled The Orlando Show and a second album.

By Tim Kenneally

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Don’t look for Morgan Freeman at any Tea Party events anytime soon. Unless he’s there to protest them.
The “Invictus” star condemns the Tea Party political movement as “a racist thing” for trying to oust Pres. Barack Obama from office on Friday’s edition of “Piers Morgan Tonight.”
“Their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term,” Freeman noted.
“What underlines that? ‘Screw the country. We’re going to whatever we can to get this black man outta here.’”Dismissing Morgan’s suggestion that the Tea Party’s motivations might be merely political, Freeman asserted, “It is a racist thing.”
The actor went on to say that the Tea Party agenda “just shows the weak, dark, underside of America … We’re supposed to be better than that.”
Asked if he was disappointed that Obama hasn’t taken a tougher stance against the right-wing, Freeman, who endorsed Obama in the 2008 presidential election, admitted: “Kind of, but I understood that he was trying to hold onto his own promise that he would be president of all the people.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Tissues were on hand but there were few tears among two dozen soap opera fans gathered to watch “All My Children” sign off from the ABC television network on Friday after more than 40 years.

That’s because the screen faded to black with a gunshot and a cliffhanger — an indication that the
story may not be dead, even if the television series is. ABC has licensed the story to a production company, Prospect Park, that is hoping to keep “All My Children” going online after the first of next year.

Carolyn Hinsey, author of “Afternoon Delight: Why Soaps Still Matter,” organized a watching party at a Manhattan sports bar as a message to television executives who apparently think soap operas don’t matter anymore.

Two of ABC’s three daytime dramas, “All My Children” and “One Life to Live,” were canceled this year. That leaves only four soaps on network television, with “General Hospital” the only one on ABC when “One Life to Live” formally leaves in a few months.

TV executives consider soaps a losing cause, more expensive to produce than talk or reality shows and with a dwindling audience as more women work away from home and their tastes change — even though the ratings for ABC’s two canceled programs have jumped in recent months.

“The soap fans are still there,” said Marie White, who drove in from Baltimore for the party. “It’s just that Nielsen doesn’t count them.”

Nielsen, the television ratings company, doesn’t count White. She keeps up with her favorites online these days.

Partygoers booed loudly when ABC ran a commercial for “The Chew,” the cooking show that will replace “All My Children” next week. They saved their loudest cheer for when Erica Kane, the soap’s most memorable character, portrayed by Susan Lucci, learned she would not get married again — at least not yet.

She saved her final words on television for a promise to keep pursuing her beau even after he told her to have a nice life — without him.

The soap has been tying up loose ends for much of its final week. But the prospect that it could continue led to some last-minute script changes, Hinsey said.

The final episode ended with most of the show’s characters gathered at the Chandler house in fictional Pine Valley, Pennsylvania, for a party — celebrating engagements, a pregnancy and some miracle medical revivals. Yet the character J.R., riled because he lost his business and fortune and because his wife left to raise their baby son with a lesbian, lurked outside with a gun.

The series ended as he fired. Left unseen was who, if anyone, J.R. shot — homage, perhaps, to the famous 1980 “Dallas” cliffhanger that became known as “Who Shot J.R.?”

That may depend on business off the television screen, Hinsey said. Actors who decide not to continue with the series online may, in retrospect, wind up being victims of the gunman, she said.

Prospect Park this week announced the first deals with show cast members to continue with the online production. Cameron Mathison, who plays Ryan Lavery, and Lindsay Hartley, who portrays Dr. Cara Castillo Martin, have agreed to continue.

Lucci’s participation is still up in the air.

Asked by Hinsey, a handful of people at the Manhattan party said they rated the final episode an 8 on a scale of one to 10. Many said they had heard rumors that the ending was going to be much bloodier.

“I think it’s better than the whole town getting shot up,” said Christine Levitin-Breyette, a Manhattan woman at the party. “That wasn’t so bad.”

Some of the final episode’s dialogue felt more like actors talking to viewers, or television executives, than as part of the story. One example was when actress Debbi Morgan spoke soon after her blind character, Angie Hubbard, had her sight restored.

“One day our family and friends will be gone and they won’t be back,” she said. “They’ll be gone for good. What if that day were today?”

Source : Yahoo News

Dead satellite crash date revised

A defunct satellite poised to fall back to Earth will make its death plunge during the last week of September, NASA officials now say.

The spacecraft, an old NASA climate probe called the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), was decommissioned in 2005 and has been slowly losing altitude since. Soon, the 6 1/2-ton satellite will make a final uncontrolled plunge through Earth’s atmosphere.

A NASA update stated that the satellite is now expected to plummet back to Earth during the last week of September. Previous estimates by NASA and the US military, which is monitoring the hefty space junk, suggested the UARS satellite would fall sometime in late September or early October.

While most of UARS’ huge bulk will burn up during re-entry, some pieces are expected to survive. NASA insists these will pose little risk to civilians on the ground, although there is a chance debris could impact a populated area.

NASA officials say there is a 1-in-3200 chance that a piece of UARS satellite debris could strike and injure a person on the ground. The most likely scenario is that the satellite falls somewhere over an ocean.

“Earth is big, the satellite is small; the chance of it hitting a person is very, very small,” Victoria Samson, the Washington Office Director of the Secure World Foundation, said.

“While the idea of something coming at you from outer space is unnerving, there are a lot more realistic threats we should be concerned about. The actual impact to any person is fairly minimal.”

At this point, NASA cannot confirm the exact trajectory or time of the UARS satellite’s plunge, which depend on solar weather, variations in Earth’s gravitational field, and the orientation of the satellite. However, as UARS’ re-entry draws near NASA should be able to offer more precise predictions.

The space agency first announced the spacecraft’s impending dive last week. Since then, experts have been able to refine their tracking of the satellite, and confirmed its present orbit.
The $ US750 million UARS spacecraft was launched in 1991 aboard NASA’s space shuttle Discovery to study ozone and other chemical compounds in Earth’s atmosphere. Since that time, international standards and best practices for dealing with a spacecraft’s end of life have been put in place.
“Now, they have to save enough fuel to either put the satellite in a graveyard orbit or guide it back in” to Earth in a controlled manner, Samson told SPACE.com. “That wasn’t actually standard operating procedure back then.”
For that reason, uncontrolled re-entry of large spacecraft like UARS are rare, though not unheard of, Samson said.

Reese Witherspoon re-emerged for a pal’s party in Los Angeles on Monday — and sported a black eye and a bandaged forehead, which she sustained after getting hit by a car last Wednesday. Despite the injuries, Witherspoon cheerfuly unloaded gifts from the trunk of her car.
It’s the first time the Oscar-winning actress, 36, has been photographed since the scary accident in Santa Monica. The avid runner was jogging when an 84-year-old female driver struck her;
Witherspoon will not be pressing charges against the woman, who failed to yield at a pedestrian crosswalk.
“The whole incident really frightened her,” a source close to the actress told Us. “Now she’s just resting up.”
Fortunately, the mother of two’s minor injuries won’t hamper her upcoming film projects, including This Means War and Mud.
“The odd thing about all of this,” the source adds, “is that Reese has always been very afraid of being hit by a car. It’s been an ongoing fear of hers. She is always the first person to pull people away from the edge of the curb.”

Liverpool reserve team striker Nathan Eccleston is under investigation

Liverpool reserve team striker Nathan Eccleston is under investigation by the club for a controversial tweet about the 9/11 attacks.

The 20-year-old wrote on Twitter: “I ain’t going to say attack don’t let the media make u believe that was terrorist that did it,” before subsequently deleting the post.

Liverpool, owned by America’s Fenway Sports Group, are looking into the matter. 

“The club takes this extremely seriously and senior club officials have informed Nathan Eccleston that we are undertaking an investigation into the circumstances surrounding these postings and will decide on an appropriate course of action,” a spokesman told the Liverpool Echo. 

Brian Handwerk

for National Geographic News

With daylight saving time (also called daylight savings) about to begin again, clock confusion is once again ticking away: When exactly does daylight saving time end? Why do we spring forward? Does it really save energy? Is it bad for your health? Get expert answers below.

When Does Daylight Savings Begin in 2011?

For most Americans, daylight saving time 2011 starts at 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 13, when most states spring forward an hour. Time will fall back to standard time again on Sunday, November 6, 2011, when daylight saving time ends.

The federal government doesn’t require U.S. states or territories to observe daylight saving time, which is why residents of Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Marianas Islands won’t need to change their clocks this weekend.

Where it is observed, daylight savings has been known to cause some problems.

National surveys by Rasmussen Reports, for example, show that 83 percent of respondents knew when to move their clocks ahead in spring 2010. Twenty-seven percent, though, admitted they’d been an hour early or late at least once in their lives because they hadn’t changed their clocks correctly.

It’s enough to make you wonder—why do we do use daylight saving time in the first place?

How and When Did Daylight Saving Time Start?

Ben Franklin—of “early to bed and early to rise” fame—was apparently the first person to suggest the concept of daylight savings, according to computer scientist David Prerau, author of the book Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time.

While serving as U.S. ambassador to France in Paris, Franklin wrote of being awakened at 6 a.m. and realizing, to his surprise, that the sun would rise far earlier than he usually did. Imagine the resources that might be saved if he and others rose before noon and burned less midnight oil, Franklin, tongue half in cheek, wrote to a newspaper.

“Franklin seriously realized it would be beneficial to make better use of daylight but he didn’t really know how to implement it,” Prerau said.

It wasn’t until World War I that daylight savings were realized on a grand scale. Germany was the first state to adopt the time changes, to reduce artificial lighting and thereby save coal for the war effort. Friends and foes soon followed suit.

In the U.S. a federal law standardized the yearly start and end of daylight saving time in 1918—for the states that chose to observe it.

During World War II the U.S. made daylight saving time mandatory for the whole country, as a way to save wartime resources. Between February 9, 1942, and September 30, 1945, the government took it a step further. During this period daylight saving time was observed year-round, essentially making it the new standard time, if only for a few years.

Since the end of World War II, though, daylight saving time has always been optional for U.S. states. But its beginning and end have shifted—and occasionally disappeared.

During the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo, the U.S. once again extended daylight saving time through the winter, resulting in a one percent decrease in the country’s electrical load, according to federal studies cited by Prerau.

Thirty years later the Energy Policy Act of 2005 was enacted, mandating a controversial monthlong extension of daylight saving time, starting in 2007.

But does daylight saving time really save any energy?

Daylight Saving Time: Energy Saver or Just Time Suck?

In recent years several studies have suggested that daylight saving time doesn’t actually save energy—and might even result in a net loss.

Environmental economist Hendrik Wolff, of the University of Washington, co-authored a paper that studied Australian power-use data when parts of the country extended daylight saving time for the 2000 Sydney Olympics and others did not. The researchers found that the practice reduced lighting and electricity consumption in the evening but increased energy use in the now dark mornings—wiping out the evening gains.
Likewise, Matthew Kotchen, an economist at the University of California, saw in Indiana a situation ripe for study.
Prior to 2006 only 15 of the state’s 92 counties observed daylight saving time. So when the whole state adopted daylight saving time, it became possible to compare before-and-after energy use. While use of artificial lights dropped, increased air-conditioning use more than offset any energy gains, according to the daylight saving time research Kotchen led for the National Bureau of Economic Research [PDF] in 2008.

That’s because the extra hour that daylight saving time adds in the evening is a hotter hour. “So if people get home an hour earlier in a warmer house, they turn on their air conditioning,” the University of Washington’s Wolff said.

In fact, Hoosier consumers paid more on their electric bills than before they made the annual switch to daylight saving time, the study found.

But other studies do show energy gains.

In an October 2008 daylight saving time report to Congress (PDF), mandated by the same 2005 energy act that extended daylight saving time, the U.S. Department of Energy asserted that springing forward does save energy.

Extended daylight saving time—still in practice in 2011—saved 1.3 terawatt hours of electricity. That figure suggests that daylight saving time reduces annual U.S. electricity consumption by 0.03 percent and overall energy consumption by 0.02 percent.

While those percentages seem small, they could represent significant savings because of the nation’s enormous total energy use.

What’s more, savings in some regions are apparently greater than in others.

California, for instance, appears to benefit most from daylight saving time—perhaps because its relatively mild weather encourages people to stay outdoors later. The Energy Department report found that daylight saving time resulted in an energy savings of one percent daily in the state.

But Wolff, one of many scholars who contributed to the federal report, suggested that the numbers were subject to statistical variability and shouldn’t be taken as hard facts.

And daylight savings’ energy gains in the U.S. largely depend on your location in relation to the Mason-Dixon Line, Wolff said.

“The North might be a slight winner, because the North doesn’t have as much air conditioning,” he said. “But the South is a definite loser in terms of energy consumption. The South has more energy consumption under daylight saving.”

Daylight Saving Time: Healthy or Harmful?

For decades advocates of daylight savings have argued that, energy savings or no, daylight saving time boosts health by encouraging active lifestyles—a claim Wolff and colleagues are currently putting to the test.

“In a nationwide American time-use study, we’re clearly seeing that, at the time of daylight saving time extension in the spring, television watching is substantially reduced and outdoor behaviors like jogging, walking, or going to the park are substantially increased,” Wolff said. “That’s remarkable, because of course the total amount of daylight in a given day is the same.”

But others warn of ill effects.

Till Roenneberg, a chronobiologist at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany, said his studies show that our circadian body clocks—set by light and darkness—never adjust to gaining an “extra” hour of sunlight to the end of the day during daylight saving time.

“The consequence of that is that the majority of the population has drastically decreased productivity, decreased quality of life, increasing susceptibility to illness, and is just plain tired,” Roenneberg said.

One reason so many people in the developed world are chronically overtired, he said, is that they suffer from “social jet lag.” In other words, their optimal circadian sleep periods are out of whack with their actual sleep schedules.

Shifting daylight from morning to evening only increases this lag, he said.

“Light doesn’t do the same things to the body in the morning and the evening. More light in the morning would advance the body clock, and that would be good. But more light in the evening would even further delay the body clock.”

Other research hints at even more serious health risks.

A 2008 study in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that, at least in Sweden, heart attack risks go up in the days just after the spring time change. “The most likely explanation to our findings are disturbed sleep and disruption of biological rhythms,” lead author Imre Janszky, of the Karolinska Institute’s Department of Public Health Sciences in Stockholm, told National Geographic News via email.

Daylight Savings Lovers, Haters

With verdicts on the benefits, or costs, of daylight savings so split, it may be no surprise that the yearly time changes inspire polarized reactions.

In the U.K., for instance, the Lighter Later movement—part of 10:10, a group advocating cutting carbon emissions—argues for a sort of extreme daylight savings. First, they say, move standard time forward an hour, then keep observing daylight saving time as usual—adding two hours of evening daylight to what we currently consider standard time.

The folks behind Standardtime.com, on the other hand, want to abolish daylight saving time altogether. Calling energy-efficiency claims “unproven,” they write: “If we are saving energy let’s go year round with Daylight Saving Time. If we are not saving energy let’s drop Daylight Saving Time!”

But don’t most people enjoy that extra evening sun every summer? Even that remains in doubt.

National telephone surveys by Rasmussen Reports from spring 2010 and fall 2009 deliver the same answer. Most people just “don’t think the time change is worth the hassle.” Forty-seven percent agreed with that statement, while only 40 percent disagreed.

But Seize the Daylight author David Prerau said his research on daylight saving time suggests most people are fond of it.

“I think the first day of daylight saving time is really like the first day of spring for a lot of people,” Prerau said. “It’s the first time that they have some time after work to make use of the springtime weather.

“I think if you ask most people if they enjoy having an extra hour of daylight in the evening eight months a year, the response would be pretty positive.”

Source : National Geographic News

Rafa Nadal had everybody worried at the U.S. Open when he collapsed during a post-match press conference. The Spaniard was fine and blamed it on cramp in his leg.
The world number two was speaking to Spanish media as he slumped from his chair in obvious agony and slid down, disappearing from view, onto the floor.
Moments afterwards the lights were turned off in the press conference and he was treated swiftly.
Around 10 minutes later Nadal re-appeared visibly better and stated that severe cramp in his lower leg was the reason behind the incident.
Earlier in the day Nadal had beaten Argentina’s David Nalbandian 7-6 6-1 7-5 on a very warm day at Flushing Meadows.
Speaking about the collapse, Nadal said: “I just have cramping in my leg, in front, in back. It was so painful, that’s all.”
“I will train normally on Monday. It was just a normal cramp that could have happened anywhere, but it happened in the press room. Anywhere else, nobody would have noticed.”
Nadal will play Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller next.

New uniforms against Boise State 

 Georgia fans, like all college football fans, value tradition above almost anything else. So I’m guessing there were a few deep breaths and some quiet gnashing of teeth and maybe even a garment or two rended this morning when they woke up to this: Courtesy of the Almighty Swoosh, the Bulldogs are inverting their traditional red helmets and silver britches for the Sept. 3 opener against Boise State in favor of an all-red motif accented by a silver lid. On the bright side, at least the jerseys aren’t black.

The helmet still has a significant amount of red, too, courtesy of a wide red stripe that extends all the way down the front of an otherwise black facemask. The only other time the Bulldogs have forsaken the red helmets since Vince Dooley began his 24-year reign as head coach in 1964 was on Halloween 2009, when they came out in black helmets with red facemasks for a little inspiration against then-No. 1 Florida. (It didn’t work.) In fact, though, silver was the de facto choice for Georgia headgear for most of the pre-Dooley era, gracing such distinguished skulls as Frank Sinkwich and Charley Trippi. And Dooley himself almost went with white helmets in ’64 instead of red.
Of course, the one thing all fans value even more than any tradition is winning. So if the new getup helps the Bulldogs get out of the gate with a win against a legitimate national championship contender in one of the most critical games of the season, they may never want to change them again.

Chaz Bono has said that the considerable backlash against him joining Dancing With the Stars this season only motivates him to work harder.
Apparently so. He’s lost five pounds just six days of rehearsals.
People reports that Bono is being whipped into shape by his partner, 23-year-old former So You Think You Can Dance finalist Lacey Schwimmer.
Bono’s weight loss is a result of adding dancing
into his regular routine, and is not a result of any dietary changes – but he still diets ardently.

Bono has reportedly been adamant that some of the junk food on the show’s rehearsal sets – courtesy of producers – could be thwarting his diet.
Chips, candy, granola and protein bars? Not gonna cut it. He has already made some very specific food requests in an effort to get into top shape.
He may not have the dance background (according to mom Cher) but it sounds like Bono is determined to put every ounce of effort into this.

Actress Scarlett Johansson proved to us previously that she can kind of sing. But she also proved to us, with mixed reviews for her 2008 debut album ‘Anywhere I Lay My Head,’ that she should probably stick to her day job.
Now Ms. Johansson has decided to do it again. Appearing sporadically on duets and other collaborations since 2008, the latest one to hit our radar is a duet cover with Lucien ‘Lulu’ Gainsbourg.
Scar-Jo has tackled the cover of “Bonnie and Clyde” in tribute to Lulu’s father, Serge Gainsbourg, who passed away in 1991. Serge famously sang
the original with Brigette Bardot in 1968. No points for guessing which part Scar-Jo is covering. Lulu sings his parts in French, while Scar-Jo sings in English.
While the video snippet appears to be of Scarlett frolicking with champagne on location in France, it also happens to be the same champagne brand for whom she happens to also be a poster girl. It makes us a little suspect that someone may have just done a cut and paste job on a ‘Moet & Chandon’ ad, slapping the cover song over the top.
The other thing to note would be Scarlett’s singing voice. Not since Paris Hilton’s ‘Stars Are Blind’ song has someone sounding effortless been an insult. Sure, her voice is pretty and has an air of the eclectic about it, but it’s actually somewhat bland overall.
Anyway, you can listen to it above (head to the 1 min 46 second mark if you don’t want to know about Beyonce’s 30th birthday celebrations or the Royals re-gifting a Range Rover) and be the judge for yourself.
Let us know – should Scarlett keep acting or make the move to full time singer?

Source : Yahoo

Yeti the dog already had a litter of pups to care for when the piglets adopted her as a second mom.

Ever since then, the Cuban farm dog has been pulling double-duty, nursing not just her own young but also the 14 swine.

Farmer Mannorkys Santamaria said the piglets also take milk from their mothers, but when they see Yeti, they run to her for a meal. On a recent day the young porkers followed her around the farm as if she were their real mother.

“No one imposed this on the dog,” Santamaria said. “The piglets discovered this on their own and began nursing with her when they turned 15 days old.”

Santamaria, 35, and his wife Eida Fernandes, 40, raise pigs, chickens, doves and turkeys on their small farm in the eastern province of Camaguey. There are also several mixed-breed dogs who have showed up on the property over the years and stayed.

So far, Yeti is the only one to become an adopted mother to pigs. Fernandes said she doesn’t seem to mind. All but one of Yeti’s biological offspring have been given away, and the one pup remaining nurses alongside the swine.

“When the piglets ventured outside their pen, it seems they smelled the dog’s milk and began screaming at her,” Fernandes said. “In the beginning we didn’t think the dog would let them suckle, but they insisted so much they ended up nursing with her.”

Source: Yahoo

BUFFALO, N.Y. – The Black Widow of eating contests has scarfed down 183 chicken wings in 12 minutes to break her own world record set last year in Buffalo, New York.
Sonya Thomas took home first place Sunday at the 10th annual National Buffalo Wings Festival. She beat eating marvel Joey “Jaws” Chestnut, who came in second with 174 wings.

The two won titles at the July Fourth hot dog eating contest on Coney Island.
The 100-pound (45.36-kilogram) Thomas of Alexandria, Virginia, is the reigning wing-eating champion. She downed 181 wings to win the 2010 contest. Chestnut of San Jose, California, settled for second with 169 wings.
The winner gets $ 1,500. The runner-up wins $ 750, and third place gets $ 300.
Thomas is called the Black Widow becomes she often beats male competitors in eating contests.

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi will be the grand marshal in this year’s gay pride parade, he confirmed on Monday.
“Yeah, you know, I marched in it last year because I really believe as mayor you’re mayor of all Calgarians,” he said. “And, you know, I’m happy to go to all kinds of cultural festivals and other things for different groups.”
The parade starts at 12:00 p.m. on Sept. 4 at Olympic Plaza. The procession will travel west along Eighth Avenue, winding up at Shaw Millennium Park for a street festival.
Pride week runs from Sept. 1 to 11.

Toronto mayor Rob Ford faced criticism for not taking part in any of that city’s gay pride events.
He said he had long-standing plans to spend that time at his family cottage instead.
But Nenshi defended Ford’s decision, saying he understands how hard it is for public figures to hang on to their family time.

Something to sing about!

Country music singer Randy Houser and his singer-songwriter love, Jessa Lee Yantz, are engaged! A source confirms to Us Weekly that Houser, 34, popped the question to Yantz, and the two are hoping to marry in the fall.

On Thursday, the “Anything Goes” singer’s fiance tweeted about her successful search for the right dress:
“Went wedding dress shopping today… First dress I tried on was ‘the one!’ Perfection about sums it up!”

Earlier this week, Houser’s future bride also tweeted: “I’m a good-hearted woman loving a good-hearted man. Now THAT’S a match made in heaven. Lucky in love.”

Activist Cyndi Lauper is set to open a safe haven in New York for gay teenagers suffering tough times.

The singer is preparing to launch the True Colors Residence in Manhattan on September 1st for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youngsters who have found themselves homeless. Lauper promises the residents will be offered affordable rent options and given career guidance.

She says, “In New York City, a very disproportionate number (up to 40 per cent) of homeless youth identify as LGBT. Even more disturbing are reports that these young people often face discrimination and at times physical assault in some of the very places they have for help. This is shocking and inexcusable!
“We’ll be building from the ground up so our residents will have a brand new, modern building with studio apartments for each resident and both indoor and outdoor community space to socialise or attend education and recreation programmes.

“Each resident will be responsible for paying affordable rent based on their income and will receive ongoing assistance in obtaining employment best suited to their individual interests and skills.”

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Sarah Palin soon will end the will-she-or-won’t-she presidential speculation that has trailed her for two years — and that she has fueled with abandon, perhaps to the detriment of her potential candidacy.

“America is waiting for the president to make good on this promise,” the former Alaska governor recently posted on Twitter, linking to a video of President Barack Obama pledging to run a transparent government. She set up Saturday’s scheduled visit to Iowa with, “I’ll be talking about this and more.”

It was the “and more” part that got many supporters all atwitter. And it’s what prompted another round of buzz over whether the GOP’s 2008 vice presidential nominee will

seek the top spot on ballot this time.

Her upcoming weekend appearances at tea party events in Iowa and New Hampshire are causing rumblings, too. But she has said she probably won’t announce her plans until later in September, ensuring one more month of tea-leaf reading — and teasing — in a year filled with it.

Palin’s consideration period has been as unconventional as her presidential campaign seemingly would be.

She would stay quiet for weeks, only to pop up just when an official Republican candidate was going to own the spotlight. Over Memorial Day weekend she launched an East Coast bus tour that included New Hampshire — on the same day and in the same state that Mitt Romney announced his candidacy.

She visited Iowa a day before the statewide straw poll and Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s entrance into the race. A week later, she rolled out a campaign-style web video showcasing that visit and promising Iowans she’d see them again in a few weeks.

Her approach has allowed her to stay in the conversation without exposing herself to the rigors of the campaign trail or the scrutiny befitting a full-fledged presidential candidate. And if she doesn’t run, she has managed to boost her profile while building a lucrative multimedia platform that includes being a paid analyst on Fox News, writing best-selling books and being a sought-after speaker.

Should she run, however, she may have hurt herself by playing the wait-and-see game for so long. Two candidates with strong tea party support — Perry and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann — have blossomed in recent months, raising questions about whether the cat-and-mouse game Palin has played has done irreparable damage by turning off potential supporters.

“We are coming to the end of the line for Sarah Palin’s ability to string the Republican primary voters along,” wrote conservative blogger Erick Erickson of RedState last week. “They are trying to settle on a candidate now, they’ve held out hope of her entry and are now ready for her to put up or shut up. Many of them have already moved on.”

Erickson also suggested she’s damaged her chances, saying: “Palin could get back a number of voters should she get into the race, people who gave up on her running and moved on to someone else. But, I do not think it would put her in a strong enough position to get into first or second place.”
Indeed, polling over the past year shows a sharp drop-off in support for Palin among non-tea-party Republicans: 39 percent have a positive view of her while 52 percent view her negatively in the latest Associated Press-GfK poll. That’s compared with last November, when 62 percent viewed her favorably and 32 percent viewed her unfavorably.
“After a while you get a little tired of the tease,” South Carolina Republican strategist Chip Felkel said, comparing Palin to a girl who doesn’t want to date you but doesn’t want you to date anyone else either. “And in this case, I think the voters have found another girlfriend.”
He may be correct.
A recent Pew poll showed 41 percent of Republicans saying there’s “no chance” they would ever vote for Palin, and recent Gallup survey showed her tied for third with Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 11 percent nationally even though she’s not in the race.
Still, Palin’s approach doesn’t seem to be wearing thin among her hardcore backers.
“It’s a big decision to make, and I wouldn’t want her to go into it if she doesn’t feel prepared,” said Tracey Porreca, who lives east of Delta Junction, Alaska, and is with Alaskans4Palin.com. “I’ll support her whatever her decision is.”
Equally enthusiastic Palin backers swamped her at the Iowa State Fair and when she visited Washington, D.C., as part of her bus tour. And they still seem to be flocking to draft-Palin web sites, pressing her to run. “What can we do to convince a free spirited, snow machine ridin’, caribou huntin’ wife and mother to give us her servant’s heart for the eight years necessary to restore our nation to greatness?” a supporter posted on organize4palin.com earlier this month.
Palin also remains quite popular among her base — Republicans who consider themselves members of the tea party — with 83 percent viewing her favorably and just 16 percent viewing her unfavorably in a recent AP-GfK poll.
Publically, there are few signs that Palin is laying the groundwork for a presidential campaign, at least a traditional one where candidates build organizations in key early voting states and personally chat up voters at local venues. Privately, even close aides say they don’t know whether she plans to run.
The only thing certain is that the clock is ticking. Deadlines to get on primary ballots in key states come this fall and the three candidates running strongest in polls — Romney, Perry and Bachmann — have been campaigning for weeks, if not months.
“Is the window closed? No, but it’s getting closed,” said David Roederer, who ran John McCain’s Iowa campaign in 2008. “It would take some effort to get through the window at this point.”
____
Associated Press Deputy Polling Director Jennifer Agiesta and writer Philip Elliott in Washington contributed to this report.

Source : Yahoo News

Rihanna has filed a lawsuit over the purchase of her $ 6.9 million Beverly Hills home.

The 23-year-old Barbadian singer is claiming that the two-story home she bought in 2009 had multiple defects that the seller did not make her aware of at the time of purchase.

TMZ are reporting that when Rihanna paid millions of dollars for the home she believed she was buying a property in good condition.

But the singer is claiming that the woman who sold her the house lied and knew that there were a lot of problems with the house.

The home is said to have numerous waterproofing defects, evidence of water intrusion and other construction defects.

The Umbrella star’s house was hit by a ‘moderate rainstorm’ in January 2010 according to the court documents and because of the defects, water leaked into many of the rooms and caused a tremendous amount of damage.

‘The actual value of the property at the time of purchase, taking into consideration the extensive construction defects. was millions of dollars less,’ she claims.

Rihanna is not only suing the former owner of the property but the inspector, real estate agents involved in the sale and the engineers who worked on the home.

Looks Like Apple Lost Another Prototype iPhone in a Bar

Uh oh, looks like Apple might have another iPhone leak on its hands. CNET is reporting that an Apple employee may have lost a prototype iPhone 5 at a bar. “The errant iPhone, which went missing in San Francisco’s Mission district in late July, sparked a scramble by Apple security to recover the device over the next few days, according to a source familiar with the investigation.” A source apparently told CNET that the phone sold for $ 200 on Craigslist.

If the reports are true, Apple is experiencing iPhone leak deja vu. Last year Gizmodo purchased a lost (also in a bar) iPhone 4, leaking coveted information about the new phone’s specs. Since last year’s incident, after which the tech company tried and failed to press charges against Gizmodo, Apple has upped its security. Reading CNET’s report, however, it looks like Apple still hasn’t been careful enough.

The 38-year-old actress and her husband, Hollywood agent David Bugliari, welcomed their first child into the world this morning (31.08.11).
The tot weighed 7lb and the overjoyed couple have named their new arrival Milo Thomas Bugliari.
The ‘Charmed’ star’s representative said: “Alyssa and her husband David proudly announce the birth of their son, Milo Thomas Bugliari. Milo Thomas was born on August 31 at 9.27am weighing 7 pounds and was 19 inches long.”
Alyssa, 38, took to her twitter account to share her joyous news and also thanked her followers for their congratulatory messages.

She wrote: “Thank you for all the well wishes for my son Milo. My heart has tripled in size. I love him more than all the leaves on all the trees.”
Alyssa – who married David in August 2009 – knew she was having a son throughout the later stages of her pregnancy but was refusing to pick a name for her baby until she met him.
She previously said: “We have three names. You hear so many stories about people who picked a name out and then the baby didn’t look like the name. So we’re narrowing it down until we see the child. However, we will go with a slightly Italian name, so that it goes with Bugliari.”

Krispy Kreme to launch three new coffee bars

Krispy Kreme UK, the premium doughnut retailer, is to launch three new coffee bars in the next few months as part of its UK growth strategy.

The first coffee bar will open at Westfield Stratford City on 13 September, with the second launching in Bath later that month, followed by Meadowhall, Sheffield in October. The three openings follow Krispy Kreme’s June announcement that it aims to double its UK stores by 2016.
Krispy Kreme currently operates 43 stores in the UK, and earlier this year launched coffee bars in Liverpool and Cardiff and a Hotlight store –producing and delivering fresh doughnuts to outlets across the region – in Leeds.

Darren Pearce, centre director at Meadowhall, saids: “The Krispy Kreme coffee bar will add to our extensive food and drink offering at Meadowhall and is a brand that customers love. We’re really looking forward to the grand opening in October– and we’re confident that our shoppers are going to be just as excited!”

Rob Hunt, joint managing director at Krispy Kreme, said: “We’re committed to a growth strategy that will see us build a significantly greater presence both on the high street and out of town over the next four years. We offer a unique treat for our customers, and that’s reflected in the response we receive – at our recent Leeds opening we were amazed to see over 20 people camping overnight to be there for opening day.

“Sheffield, Stratford and Bath represent a broad geographical spread, meaning we’ll be able to reach more people across the UK than ever before.”

In addition to its UK stores, Krispy Kreme has a presence in over 200 Tesco outlets across the country.

Krispy Kreme entered the UK market in October 2003 in London and has since opened Hotlight stores & Coffee Bars in other key cities including Manchester, Portsmouth, Birmingham, Cardiff and Leeds.

Teens, young men way over limit on sugary drinks

CHICAGO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – About half of the population drinks a sugar-sweetened beverage on any given day, with teens and young men consuming way more than recommended limits for staying healthy, according to new government data.

The survey results from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show how far consumer habits must change to help fight the nation’s obesity epidemic, with nearly two-thirds of Americans either overweight or obese.

Coinciding with the data, city health departments from Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, San Antonio and Seattle announced plans for a new campaign to encourage cutting down on sugary beverage consumption.

“We’re concerned about sugary drinks because they are the only foods and beverages that have directly been linked to obesity … Reducing their consumption is the perfect place to start to reduce the epidemic,” said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) that is spearheading the campaign.

The CSPI is working with city officials on the new campaign, along with the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association.

CDC researchers interviewed 17,000 Americans about their diets. The average male in the survey consumed 175 calories in a day from drinks containing added sugar, while the typical female consumed 94 calories from such drinks.

Boys aged 12 to 19 consumed 273 calories a day from sugar-sweetened drinks, or the equivalent of about two 12-ounce cans of carbonated cola — more than any other group. Men aged 20 to 39 consumed 252 calories a day from beverages containing added sugar, the second-highest amount.

The American Heart Association recommends getting no more than 450 calories a week from sugar-sweetened beverages, or less than three cans of soda. They include sodas, fruit drinks, energy drinks, sports and sweetened bottled waters.

“This is one area that people can look to if they are trying to limit their consumption of added sugars,” study author Cynthia Ogden said in an interview.

The survey also found that non-Hispanic black children and adolescents obtained 8.5 percent of their daily calories from sugar-sweetened drinks, higher than the 7.7 percent among non-Hispanic white children and teens and 7.4 percent for Mexican-American youths.

For adults 20 and over, the percentage of daily calories obtained from sugar drinks rose to 8.6 percent for non-Hispanic blacks and 8.2 for Mexican-Americans but declined to 5.3 percent for non-Hispanic whites.

The study also found that lower-income children and adults consumed more daily calories from sugar-added drinks than those with higher incomes.

The new campaign in cities, dubbed “Life’s Sweeter with Fewer Sugary Drinks,” aims to limit consumption to about three cans a week by 2020.

Such campaigns have attracted legal attack by leading beverage makers, who have also been resisting efforts to propose taxes on sugary drinks. New York City, which has been at the forefront of public awareness campaigns on the ills of drinking too much soda, was sued in July by the American Beverage Association (ABA).

In response to the CDC’s new findings, the ABA argued that sugar-sweetened beverages are just one contributor, and at that small and declining, to Americans’ poor state of health.

“Contrary to what may be implied by the introductory statement of this (CDC) data brief that reaches back 30 years, sugar-sweetened beverages are not driving health issues like obesity and diabetes,” the ABA said in a statement, highlighting the declining of both sales of full-calorie drinks and U.S. consumption of added sugars.

Close to 26 million Americans have diabetes, and most have Type 2, the kind linked to poor diet and lack of exercise.

“If you wouldn’t eat 22 packs of sugar, why are you drinking it?” said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, public health director in Los Angeles, highlighting the question from his city’s own campaign launching next month.

(Editing by Michele Gershberg, Bernard Orr, Dave Zimmerman)

Source : Yahoo News

Study finds gene “overdose” link to being skinny

LONDON (Reuters) – People with extra copies of certain genes are much more likely to be very skinny, scientists said Wednesday in the first finding of a genetic cause for extreme thinness.

In a study in the journal Nature, researchers from Britain’s Imperial College London and the University of Lausanne in Switzerland found that a duplication of a part of chromosome 16 is associated with being underweight.

Previous research has found that people with a missing copy of these genes are 43 times more likely to be morbidly obese.

“This is the first genetic cause of extreme thinness that has been identified,” said Philippe Froguel from Imperial’s school of public health, who led the study. “It’s also the first example of a deletion and a duplication of one part of the genome having opposite effects.”

He said one reason this latest finding was important is that it shows that failure to thrive in childhood can be genetically driven. “If a child is not eating, it’s not necessarily the parents’ fault,” he said.

Normally, each person has a copy of each chromosome from each parent, giving them two copies of each gene. But sometimes sections of a chromosome can be duplicated or deleted, resulting in an abnormal “dosage” of genes, the researchers explained in their study.

But in around one in 2,000 people, part of chromosome 16 is duplicated, making men 23 times and women five times more likely to be underweight.

Being underweight is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) below 18.5 kg per meter squared.

Froguel’s team examined the DNA of more than 95,000 people for their study. They found that half of all children with the duplication in the study had previously been diagnosed with a “failure to thrive” — meaning that their rate of weight gain is significantly lower than normal.

A quarter of people with the duplication had microcephaly, a condition in which the head and brain are abnormally small and which is linked to neurological defects and shorter life expectancy.

Froguel said scientists still have much work to do to find out more about the genes in this region, but their discovery could eventually lead to new potential treatments for obesity and appetite disorders.

“We now plan to sequence these genes and find out what they do, so we can get an idea of which ones are involved in regulating appetite,” he said.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by Paul Casciato)

New York: Former U.S. Open champion Venus Williams withdrew from the last grand slam of the year on Wednesday after revealing she is suffering from an autoimmune disease.

The former world number one quit the tournament before her second round match against Germany’s Sabine Lisicki and then released a statement explaining her health problems.

“I’m really disappointed to have to withdraw from this year’s U.S. Open,” she said in the statement. “I have recently been diagnosed with Sjogren’s Syndrome, an autoimmune disease which is an ongoing medical condition that affects my energy level and causes fatigue and joint pain.”Williams, who has been battling health problems for the past year, retired from her third round match at the Australian Open with a hip problem and did not play again until June.

The 31-year-old played only a handful of matches because of what she said was an “energy-sucking” mystery illness.

She won her first round clash with Vesna Dolonts of Russia 6-4 6-3 on Monday even though there were signs she was below her best.

“I enjoyed playing my first match here and wish I could continue but right now I am unable to,” said Williams. “I am thankful I finally have a diagnosis and am now focused on getting better and returning to the court soon.”

Williams has not won a grand slam singles title since 2008.

Speculation about her future has intensified over the past few months but earlier this week she confirmed she had no intentions of retiring.