Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered a biological clue to male baldness, raising the prospect of a treatment to stop or even reverse thinning hair.
In studies of bald men and laboratory mice, US scientists pinpointed a protein that triggers hair loss.
Drugs that target the pathway are already in development, they report in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
The research could lead to a cream to treat baldness.
Most men start to go bald in middle age, with about 80% of men having some hair loss by the age of 70.
The male sex hormone testosterone plays a key role, as do genetic factors. They cause the hair follicles to shrink, eventually becoming so small that they are invisible, leading to the appearance of baldness.
Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have analyzed which genes are switched on when men start to go bald.
Researchers found levels of a key protein called prostaglandin D synthase are elevated in the cells of hair follicles located in bald patches on the scalp, but not in hairy areas
Researchers found levels of a key protein called prostaglandin D synthase are elevated in the cells of hair follicles located in bald patches on the scalp, but not in hairy areas.
Mice bred to have high levels of the protein went completely bald, while transplanted human hairs stopped growing when given the protein.
Prof. George Cotsarelis, of the department of dermatology, who led the research, said: “Essentially we showed that prostaglandin protein was elevated in the bald scalp of men and that it inhibited hair growth. So we identified a target for treating male-pattern baldness.
“The next step would be to screen for compounds that affect this receptor and to also find out whether blocking that receptor would reverse balding or just prevent balding – a question that would take a while to figure out.”
The inhibition of hair growth is triggered when the protein binds to a receptor on the cells of hair follicles, said Prof. George Cotsarelis.
Several known drugs that target this pathway have already been identified, he added, including some that are in clinical trials.
The researchers say there is potential for developing a treatment that can be applied to the scalp to prevent baldness and possibly help hair regrow.
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s children are very unruly, say family insiders, who are also worried about the kids’ health and hygiene.
Sugar binges, screaming tantrums, violent fights, and more; insiders say it’s an absolute zoo with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie‘s family.
According to a new report in OK! magazine, the couples’ friends say the kids – Maddox, 10, Pax, 8, Zahara, 7, Shiloh, 5, and Knox and Vivienne, 3 – are on the verge of a meltdown.
“There’s not much any of us can do but sit and watch,” a family friend says.
“The kids are all goofed up on sugar, and after Shiloh has five cookies in a row and Maddox downs his third orange Fanta, it’s crazy hour. That’s what we call it: Crazy Hour. Toys fly. Kids melt down into tantrums. There’s fighting, it’s just a zoo.”
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s children are very unruly, say family insiders, who are also worried about the kids’ health and hygiene
Angelina Jolie has called junk food the “family weakness” in the past, but that doesn’t stop her from letting the kids eat whatever they want.
“The kids eat fast food every day, doughnuts for breakfast,” the friend reveals.
“Shiloh’s a sugar addict, screaming when she’s cut off.”
Despite all the sugar, the pal says Angelina Jolie doesn’t enforce teeth brushing.
“Angelina does not insist the kids brush every day or wash hands before meals,” the insider says.
“They bathe whenever they want, which is not often. Brad’s friends say that his kids smell like Johnny Depp.”
The kids’ safety is also a concern to friends.
“The twins are in that stage where they put everything in their mouths,” the insider reveals.
“Brad and Angie don’t always catch them and the worry is that one day they’ll get something really toxic. On top of that, it’s downright gross.”
But most troubling is the violence.
“Angelina lets the boys play with guns, rifles, though they are unloaded and some are just toys,” the friend says.
“Others are real and pricey antiques – they’re the ones the boys use to pretend-kill the staff.”
Angelina Jolie isn’t disturbed by the faux-violence.
“Apparently, Angie actually thinks it’s funny when her kids pretend to shoot people,” the friend says.
“She laughs out loud. A lot of people think she and Brad need to put a stop to it, but that’s not likely to happen.”
The reason Kim Kardashian dumped Kris Humphries after just 72 days of marriage has nothing to do with fame, Andrey Hick, an old friend of Kris’ who is currently in jail, has told Star magazine.
It turns out Kim Kardashian dumped Kris Humphries over money. The reality star, who claims to have built a multi-million dollar empire, reportedly decided Kris Humphries wasn’t rich enough for her.
“Kris told her he wouldn’t be pulling in $20 million a year and that deflated things for her,” Andrey Hick reveals.
“Kim was not going to let it fail once it reached critical mass. Once the engagement happened, she was going to have that wedding and make money from it.”
Kim Kardashian dumped Kris Humphries because he wasn't rich enough for her, claimed Andrey Hick
Andrey Hick says that Kim Kardashian was spending tons of money out of their joint bank account and using it as her own personal piggy bank.
“Whatever was earned by Kim and Kris separately was going to be theirs but any money earned together such as from the wedding would go into the account,” Andrey Hick says.
“We have Kim presenting herself as extraordinarily wealthy but she was borrowing $10,000 here and $10,000 there.”
Andrey Hick goes on to say that Kim Kardashian was worth the same amount as Kris Humphries at the time of their wedding and Kim isn’t as wealthy as she makes herself out to be.
“Her net worth is only $8 million,” Andrey Hick says.
“And $3 million of that is in furniture and clothing. This is a woman who wants at whatever cost, to support her lifestyle.”
Mohammed Merah, the Frenchman suspected of a spate of shootings in the Toulouse area, has not been arrested yet, but police have surrounded his flat and are trying to persuade him to surrender.
According to French prosecutors, Mohammed Merah planned more killings.
Anti-terror chief Francois Molins said suspect Mohammed Merah, 23, of Algerian descent, intended to kill a soldier and two police officers.
Mohammed Merah, who says he was trained by al-Qaeda, is suspected of murdering three soldiers and four Jewish people.
Police have surrounded his flat and are trying to persuade him to surrender. He is said to be heavily armed.
Earlier reports said he had been captured, but officials later rebuffed the claims.
The killings took place in and around Toulouse in three separate incidents earlier this month.
On 11 March, a soldier was shot and killed while waiting to see a man about selling his motorcycle.
Days later, two soldiers were shot and killed, and a third was wounded while waiting at a cash machine.
Then earlier this week, three children and an adult were shot and killed outside Ozar Hatorah Jewish school.
The four Jewish victims were buried in an emotional funeral in Jerusalem earlier.
French police have surrounded Mohammed Merah’s flat and are trying to persuade him to surrender
In a news conference, Francois Molins said Mohammed Merah had planned to kill a soldier later on Wednesday and also had plans to target the police.
Francois Molins said the suspect had expressed no regret for the killings, but had said he wanted to kill more people and “bring France to its knees”.
President Nicolas Sarkozy has attended a memorial at a military base in nearby Montauban for the three murdered soldiers.
Nicolas Sarkozy earlier told Jewish community leaders that the gunmen had been planning more attacks before police had surrounded his apartment block.
Police moved into Mohammed Merah’s block after two officers were shot at when they tried to get into his flat.
Officials say he is heavily armed with a Kalashnikov high-velocity rifle, a mini-Uzi 9 mm machine pistol, several handguns and possibly grenades.
The five-storey block of flats was evacuated earlier, and police were also moving residents of nearby buildings.
Elsewhere in the city, police are hunting for accomplices and have detained several members of his family.
His mother was taken to the scene in the hope that she could persuade him to surrender, but she told police that she had no influence over her son.
Negotiators have been talking to Mohammed Merah all morning, but officials said he appeared to have no particular demands.
The suspect has said he acted to “avenge Palestinian children”.
Mohammed Merah admitted to receiving al-Qaeda training in Pakistan’s Waziristan area, and also said he had been to Afghanistan, prosecutors said.
He had apparently spent time in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he was jailed for three years for planting bombs.
The prison director in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, Gulam Farooq, said Mohammed Merah was arrested in 2007, but escaped in a Taliban-led break-out in 2008.
Judith Tebbutt, the British woman kidnapped in Kenya, has been freed in Somalia six months after she was seized and her husband David killed.
Judith Tebbutt, 56, from Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, was flown to Nairobi after her family paid the pirates a ransom for her release.
The woman said she was “very relieved” and looking forward to seeing her “fantastic” son Oliver.
Judith Tebbutt’s husband David, 58, was shot by a gang of six men at their remote holiday resort in Kiwayu, north of Lamu island, in Kenya.
Social worker Judith Tebbutt, who is believed to be deaf and was wearing a double hearing aid, said: “I’m very relieved to have been released. Seven months is a long time. Under the circumstances, with my husband passing away, it made it harder.
“I’m just happy to be released and I’m looking forward to seeing my son who successfully secured my release. I don’t know how he did it, but he did, which is great.”
Judith Tebbutt said she was still coming to terms with her husband’s death, which she only found out through contact with her son about two weeks after she was kidnapped.
“I feel extremely sad. Very, very sad indeed. He was a good man. That was very unfortunate. Really horrible. But you’ve just got to pick up the pieces…. and move on,” she said.
Judith Tebbutt, the British woman kidnapped in Kenya, has been freed in Somalia six months after she was seized and her husband David killed
Judith Tebbutt landed in Nairobi on Wednesday where she will be looked after by officials from the British embassy before being flown back to the UK to be reunited with friends and relatives.
Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokesman confirmed the release and said the government would provide consular care in Nairobi.
He said it did not pay ransoms and did not “facilitate concessions to hostage takers”, but had met the family regularly to discuss the case.
It is understood Judith Tebbutt’s son Oliver is in the Kenyan city to greet her.
Judith Tebbutt was seized on 11 September last year from Kiwayu Safari Village, a luxury resort on a deserted stretch of Kenyan coastline, comprised of thatched cottages on the beach.
David and Judith Tebbutt had arrived only the previous day and were the only guests.
Judith Tebbutt was taken away in a speedboat by Somali pirates, after her husband had been killed.
It appears that a private security company had secured her release, not British officials.
It was unclear how much money was involved, and revealing the amount was generally discouraged to avoid copy-cat gangs.
Paying the ransom was not illegal because it was not known to be going to a terrorist organization, he added.
The ransom had been paid in the last three days.
Rick Blears of Save Our Seafarers, the global anti-Somali piracy campaign, said that “any move at government level to ban the payment of ransoms to pirates, as US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton proposes, would have a massively detrimental effect and put the lives of hostages at grave risk”.
Police in Kenya said six gunmen had burst into the Tebbutts’ room last September and officers speculated that David Tebbutt may have tried to resist the gang.
David Tebbutt worked for publisher Faber & Faber and sat on the board of the Book Trade Charity, which supports those in the book trade.
David Tebbutt worked for publisher Faber & Faber and sat on the board of the Book Trade Charity
The Kenyan government said at the time of the kidnap that it believed the al-Shabab Islamist group, which has since merged with al-Qaeda, was behind the murder and kidnap. The group denied the allegation.
In October 2011, Kenya sent troops into its neighbor in pursuit of the militants and in support of the weak interim Somali government, which controls only the capital, Mogadishu, and a few other areas.
Rachel Chandler, who was held with her husband Paul for 13 months by pirates in Somalia, said: “My feeling is one of relief and happiness for Judith Tebbutt and her family, that finally she is free.
“I hope she will have an opportunity to pick up the pieces of her life, and deal with the loss she has had.”
EU foreign policy chief Baroness Ashton said she was delighted Judith Tebbutt was finally free and would work hard to fight the “scourge” of piracy and kidnapping in the horn of Africa.
Last year, two men appeared in court in connection with the attack, with both denying the charges.
One of them, Ali Babitu Kololo, told the court he had been forced at gunpoint to lead a group of men to the hotel and had not been a willing accomplice.
El DeBarge was arrested for possession of narcotics in a Los Angeles suburb on Monday afternoon, just one month after he talked to Whitney Houston about their addiction.
According to E! Online, El DeBarge is out on $30,000 bail and awaits an April 9 court date.
It’s a big setback for the singer, who was sentenced to two years in prison in 2008 for possessing crack and drug paraphernalia and violating probation (from a previous drug bust) and had been arrested two other times since 2001.
El DeBarge scotched a comeback tour last year, checking into rehab instead.
El DeBarge was arrested for drug possession, just one month after he talked to Whitney Houston about their addiction
Last month, El DeBarge talked about meeting with his friend Whitney Houston days before her death.
“She was telling me, <<I miss you El>> and we started crying together,” El DeBarge told The Boombox at the Grammys, where he was nominated for Best R&B Album.
“She wanted to talk to me about her addiction, I could tell she did, and we just didn’t get our chance to.
“Drugs are a very strong, outside aggression.
“That’s what it is. It attacks leadership and it just attacks things and it gives you a challenge that you really don’t want to have but you have to be strong and we all have the strength.”
The new iPad, which went on sale last Friday, appears to be 5 C hotter than its predecessor when running, according to Dutch technology website Tweakers.
One disgruntled customer said he was returning his after it reached temperatures of 47 C (117 F) following only ten minutes of use.
Customers have complained that the gadget is “too hot to hold”, particularly when playing games, prompting a spokesman for the U.S. watchdog Consumer Reports to announce it was conducting its own “scientific analysis with thermal imaging”.
Consumer Reports found that the product became “significantly hotter” after playing the popular game Infinity Blade II, with temperatures of 47 C recorded on the device’s front and back.
However, tester Donna Tapellini said the gadget was “not especially uncomfortable if held for a brief period”.
One user of Apple’s official support website said: “I think we all know what we have to do – which is to return the iPad.
“They simply did not do a good enough job with this iPad, maybe next year. They also have so much money now that they are giving it away to the stock holders.
“It was reported that Apple sold over 3 million iPads over the weekend. I hope they all return their iPad forcing Apple to revise and fix this iPad sooner rather than a year from now.”
The new iPad, which went on sale last Friday, appears to be 5 C hotter than its predecessor when running, according to Dutch technology website Tweakers
A spokesman for Apple said the new iPad’s performance was “well within our thermal specifications”, adding that concerned customers should contact the company.
The launch of the iPhone 4 in 2010 was also troubled, with buyers complaining that the handset could not connect to the internet or make calls if held in a certain way.
Tweakers said: “On the left is the new iPad – with a temperature of 33.6 C in the lower right hand corner.
“The iPad 2 scored in the same place a temperature of 28.3 C, a difference of 5.3 C.”
The Dutch bloggers say that their image tallies with complaints on Apple websites.
“Forum messages noted that the location of the processor is a hot spot,” says Tweakers.
“At 33.6 C, the iPhone is not too hot to touch, although the warmer housing is very noticeable.”
On blogs, some iPad owners have even claimed that it goes into “cool down mode” and freezes until it has reached a stable temperature.
The issue seems to be confined to the bottom left hand side, though some people said that the whole left side of the device was too hot.
User Faatty began the discussion by posting: “It gets rather warm/hot after 30 minutes of usage. It has never happened on my iPad 2. Do you think it’s harmless or..?”
Rawwave added that his got “almost too warm to hold whilst malegno” said: “The heat on mine is concentrated on the bottom-left although the whole left side seems to be hotter than the right side.”
In a separate threat on the Apple website user znz212 wrote: “It begins getting warm within about 10 minutes for me, and after about 25 it’s quite hot to touch (not hot enough to burn or anything, but hotter than it feels like it should be).
“I can even feel the heat on the front – the top half of the screen is warmer than the bottom half.
“It cools down very fast (within 5 minutes) when locked or even on the home screen, so I’m not sure if the heat is normal with the new chip.”
Apple has not addressed the problem directly but customers who took their iPad to a store have written that it has been exchanged for a new one with no problems.
This is not the first time that Apple has run into teething problems with its gadgets.
The launch of the iPhone 4 was marred by reports that it would not connect to the Internet if it was held in a certain way.
Apple solved the “grip of death” issue by giving out a free silicone rubber band to put round the phone.
Among the other glitches have a software problem with iPhones and iPod touches which stopped the alarm clocks working until Apple issued an update to sort it out.
The iPad went on sale on March 16 and was widely praised for its 3.1 million pixel 9.7″ Retina display, which is the sharpest out of any tablet computer.
On the official Apple website it says the iPad should stay below 35 C for optimum “operating temperature”.
New evidence suggests that taking a low dose of aspirin every day can prevent and possibly even treat cancer, as the drug appeared not only to reduce the risk of developing many different cancers in the first place, but may also stop cancers spreading around the body.
The three new studies published by The Lancet add to mounting evidence of the drug’s anti-cancer effects.
Many people already take daily aspirin as a heart drug.
But experts warn that there is still not enough proof to recommend it to prevent cancer cases and deaths and warn that the drug can cause dangerous side effects like stomach bleeds.
Prof. Peter Rothwell, from Oxford University, and colleagues, who carried out the latest work, had already linked aspirin with a lower risk of certain cancers, particularly bowel cancer.
But their previous work suggested people needed to take the drug for about 10 years to get any protection.
Now the same experts believe the protective effect occurs much sooner – within three to five years – based on a new analysis of data from 51 trials involving more than 77,000 patients.
And aspirin appears not only to reduce the risk of developing many different cancers in the first place, but may also stop cancers spreading around the body.
The trials were designed to compare aspirin with no treatment for the prevention of heart disease.
But when Prof. Peter Rothwell’s team examined how many of the participants developed and died from cancer, they found this was also related to aspirin use.
Aspirin appears not only to reduce the risk of developing many different cancers in the first place, but may also stop cancers spreading around the body, suggests fresh evidence
Taking a low (75-300 mg) daily dose of the drug appeared to cut the total number of cancer cases by about a quarter after only three years – there were nine cancer cases per 1,000 each year in the aspirin-taking group, compared with 12 per 1,000 for those taking dummy pills.
It also reduced the risk of a cancer death by 15% within five years (and sooner if the dose was higher than 300 mg)
And if patients stayed on aspirin for longer, their cancer death risk went down even further – by 37% after five years.
Low-dose aspirin also appeared to reduce the likelihood that cancers, particularly bowel, would spread (metastasis) to other parts of the body, and by as much as half in some instances.
In absolute numbers, this could mean for every five patients treated with aspirin one metastatic cancer would be prevented, the researchers estimate.
At the same time, aspirin cut the risk of heart attacks and strokes, but it also increased the risk of a major bleed.
However this elevated bleeding risk was only seen in the first few years of aspirin therapy and decreased after that.
Critics point out that some of the doses given in the study were much higher than the 75 mg dose typically given in the UK. Also, some very large US studies looking at aspirin use were not included in the analysis. The researchers acknowledge both of these points in their published papers.
Prof. Peter Rothwell says for most fit and healthy people, the most important things they can do to reduce their lifetime cancer risk is to give up smoking, take exercise and have a healthy diet.
After that aspirin does seem to reduce the risk further – only by a small amount if there is no risk factor, but if there is a family history for something like colorectal cancer, it tips the balance in favor of aspirin, Prof. Peter Rothwell said.
Moondog Coronation Ball, the world’s first rock concert, was staged in Cleveland in 1952 by two men whose passion for music bridged the racial divide in a segregated US.
Jimmy Sutphin was playing poker and drinking beer in a hotel room with some hockey team pals when they heard the commotion outside.
Peering out of the fifth-floor window, they saw thousands of people besieging the indoor arena across the road.
The 20-year-old student and his friends abandoned their card game and piled downstairs to investigate.
It was Friday evening, 21 March 1952, in Cleveland, Ohio, and they were about to witness history being made.
The crowd was angrily demanding entry to a performance featuring a radical new music movement that was about to sweep the nation.
The world’s first ever rock concert – the Moondog Coronation Ball – was about to end in turmoil after it had barely begun.
The years seem to peel away from Jimmy Sutphin, now a 79-year-old grandfather, as he stands outside the former site of the Cleveland Arena, remembering.
“The crowd were screaming, <<let us in>>, and banging on the doors,” Jimmy Sutphin recalls.
“It was chaos.
“Turns out the place was sold out and they had closed the doors on them. And these people had tickets and were not happy.
“The doors had a glass centre panel and they ended up breaking them so they could get into the building.”
When police captain Bill Zimmerman arrived with dozens of officers, he was confronted by pandemonium.
Gatecrashers had stormed the 9,950-seat venue and it was dangerously overcrowded.
Moondog Coronation Ball, the world's first rock concert, was staged in Cleveland in 1952 by two men whose passion for music bridged the racial divide in a segregated US
The musicians, who are thought to have only performed several songs, were ordered to stop playing as police waded into the mob. A man was stabbed in the melee.
The next morning, Jimmy Sutphin remembers entering the Cleveland Arena, which his father built, to find it strewn with whisky bottles.
John Soeder, music critic for the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper – which carried a front-page story on the tumultuous event the next day – says the Moondog Coronation Ball was the “Big Bang of rock ‘n’ roll”.
But it might not have been possible without two visionaries who raided the airwaves with this pulsating, insurrectionary new sound, and in doing so brought black and white kids together to dance in post-war America.
One of them was the concert’s emcee, Alan Freed. The other was Leo Mintz, owner of a music store on the fringes of Cleveland’s black community.
Leo Mintz had noticed an increasing number of white teenagers sifting through his extensive collection of rhythm and blues tracks by African-American artists.
But the singles were often a turn-off for such buyers because the industry marketed them as “race records”.
And it wasn’t just west-side white folk who viewed these juke-joint tunes as undesirable.
Terry Stewart, president of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, says: “These songs were filled with double-entendres, lyrics like, <<she just loved my 10 inch record of the blues>>.
“Many of the church-going black families were just as upset as the white families with this music being played for their children.”
However, when Leo Mintz listened to this raucous sound – with its thumping back beat, locomotive rhythm, and infectious 12-bar blues melodies – he heard the future.
Leo Mintz convinced Alan Freed – a friend and onetime radio broadcaster from orchestral dances in Akron, Ohio – that the obscure tracks deserved some airtime.
His son, Stuart Mintz, says his father told Alan Freed the “kids are rocking and rolling in the aisles to these records, but they won’t buy them”.
Leo Mintz helped Alan Freed, then a humble sportscaster, secure a new show on the city’s WJW radio in 1951, devoted to playing this underground music.
Alan Freed would coin the term rock ‘n’ roll – an old blues euphemism for sex – to describe the tracks.
Using the on-air alias King of the Moondoggers, he would ring a cow bell, drink beer and howl in tribute as he played the records, while pounding out the beat with his fist on a phone book.
The flamboyant Alan Freed’s late-night show caused a sensation with black and white listeners alike.
Leo Mintz and Alan Freed’s logical next step was to stage a live concert featuring the edgy new acts.
Headlining the Moondog Coronation Ball that night 60 years ago was Paul Williams and his Hucklebuckers, supported by Tiny Grimes and his Rockin’ Highlanders, the Dominoes, Varetta Dillard and Danny Cobb. Tickets were $1.50.
One of the few photos from the event shows the men in flannel suits, saddle shoes and fedora hats, while the immaculately coiffed women wear dresses with pinched-in waists and high heels.
It is all a far cry from the ripped jeans, merchandise t-shirts and untamed hairstyles sported by rock fans of later years.
Terry Stewart says that when Alan Freed appeared on stage that night there was uproar.
The predominantly black audience apparently could not believe the exuberant radio personality whose show they had been tuning in to for nine months was white.
The delighted crowd “went nuts”, says Terry Stewart.
He adds: “The fact that this many people would show up for an all-black rhythm and blues event, based solely on advertising on a late-night radio show, and tear the doors off an arena to get inside, made promoters and record labels say, <<wait a minute, something’s happening here>>.”
Less well known is the reason why the Moondog Coronation Ball ended in disaster: a minor printing error.
The mistake was caused by someone forgetting to add the date to tickets issued for a follow-up ball, which Leo Mintz had set about organizing immediately after the initial one sold out.
As a result, an estimated 20,000 people showed up on the same night for the first concert – at a venue which could hold half that number.
Leo Mintz was on holiday that Friday in Florida when he was informed by an afternoon phone call of the ticket foul-up.
Stuart Mintz says: “My dad was told, <<there’s an emergency, you’d better come home right now>>, and he took a plane.
“By the time he arrived [at the Cleveland Arena] there was already a full-blown riot.
“The fire department opened up hoses on the crowd. He just tapped the cab driver on the shoulder and said, <<find me a bar>>.”
The concert that was billed on a promotional poster as “the most terrible ball of them all” had certainly lived up to the pre-show hype.
Freed narrowly escaped criminal charges, although the event’s notoriety helped propel him to stardom.
Younger generations raised on rap videos might well be perplexed at the idea that rock ‘n’ roll could have once made the authorities squirm with unease.
But this was a dozen years before the Civil Rights Act. J Edgar Hoover’s FBI would place Freed under surveillance because the records he played were deemed such a threat.
As broadcast historian Mike Olszewski says: “Back then, it seemed, the United States was always looking for new enemies.
“It was the beginning of the Red Scare. In 1948, you had Roswell and the UFO scare.
“People were always looking for a devil and rock ‘n’ roll was a devil that came right into their homes.”
Alan Freed’s downfall would be just as sudden as his meteoric rise to fame.
In 1957, the trailblazing DJ’s nationally televised rock ‘n’ roll show on the ABC network was cancelled after a black performer danced with a white girl on stage, outraging Southern affiliates.
Alan Freed’s career was finished by the payola scandal, a then-widespread practice of disc jockeys accepting gifts from promoters to play their records.
Convicted of commercial bribery in 1962, Alan Freed died of complications from alcoholism three years later, aged 43.
Though Alan Freed had been silenced, the rock ‘n’ roll genie was well and truly out of the bottle. The Moondog Coronation Ball laid the foundations for every rock gig that followed, from Woodstock to Glastonbury.
The Cleveland Arena was demolished in 1977 and an American Red Cross office block stands today at the spot where a new era of live entertainment was born.
Recalling how he came to be a bystander to the dawning of a new era on Euclid Avenue six decades ago, Jimmy Sutphin says: “Who would have thought it would be such a memorable event?”
French police hunting an Algerian-origin gunman suspected of killing seven people in southern France in two separate attacks, including Ozar Hatorah Jewish school, have surrounded his flat in Toulouse.
The 24-year-old Frenchman from Toulouse has said he belongs to al-Qaeda and acted to “avenge Palestinian children”.
Police are now negotiating with the man, who is still said to be heavily armed but has indicated he may give himself up in the afternoon.
Two police officers were injured in exchanges of fire during the raid and there are reports of a fresh blast.
The suspect’s brother is under arrest.
The suspect’s mother, who is Algerian, has been brought to the scene, but Interior Minister Claude Gueant, who is in attendance, said she had refused to become involved as “she had little influence on him”.
The minister said the suspect had made several visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“He claims to be a mujahideen and to belong to al-Qaeda,” Claude Gueant said.
“He wanted revenge for the Palestinian children and he also wanted to take revenge on the French army because of its foreign interventions.”
The man shot at the door after police arrived, Claude Gueant said, injuring one officer in the knee and “lightly injuring” another.
The man has thrown one gun, a Colt 45, from a window, Claude Gueant said, but it is believed he has other weapons.
The minister said: “Our main concern is to catch him and to catch him under such conditions that he can be brought to justice.”
French police hunting an Algerian-origin gunman suspected of killing seven people in southern France in two separate attacks, including Ozar Hatorah Jewish school, have surrounded his flat in Toulouse
One official told Agence France-Presse news agency the suspect had been “in the sights” of France’s intelligence agency after the first two attacks, after which police had brought in more “crucial evidence”.
French media have linked the suspect to a group called Forsane Alizza (Knights of Pride) that was banned by Claude Gueant in January.
They also say the suspect had earlier been arrested in Kandahar, Afghanistan, for unspecified, but not terrorist-related, criminal acts and also has a criminal record in France.
Investigators report the suspect’s first name as Mohamed and that he was identified because of an e-mail message sent to his first victim about buying a scooter.
The message, sent from the suspect’s brother’s account, set up an appointment at which the soldier was killed, sources told AFP.
The man had also sought out a garage in Toulouse to have his Yamaha scooter repainted after the first two attacks. A scooter was used in all the attacks.
The house in Toulouse is a five-storey block of flats and the man is on the ground or first floor.
Police wearing helmets and flak jackets have cordoned off the area and prosecutors say other operations are under way to track down possible accomplices.
The brother was reportedly arrested in another part of Toulouse and a second brother has attended a police station, French media say.
A huge manhunt had been launched after Monday’s shooting at a Jewish school that left four people dead, and the killing of three soldiers in two incidents last week.
The funerals of the rabbi and three children killed on Monday are under way in Jerusalem.
Israeli police said they expected thousands of people to attend.
The attacker gunned down Jonathan Sandler, a 30-year-old rabbi and teacher of religion, his two young sons Arieh and Gabriel and then – at point blank range – the head teacher’s daughter, 7-year-old Myriam Monsonego, in Monday’s attack at a Jewish school in Toulouse.
Their bodies were carried out of Ozar Hatorah school on Tuesday in two black hearses and taken to a nearby airport.
A military jet then flew them to Paris, from where they were placed on a commercial flight to Tel Aviv.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has accompanied the relatives of the dead to the funerals in Jerusalem.
Also on Wednesday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is to attend a memorial service for the three soldiers killed in the two attacks last week.
All three were of North African descent. Another soldier from the French overseas region of Guadeloupe was left critically ill.
Socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande and Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right Front National, will attend the memorial service in Montauban.
After Wednesday’s raid took place, Marine Le Pen said the “fundamentalist threat has been underestimated” in France.
John Henry Browne, the lawyer representing Staff Sgt. Robert Bales accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians in their homes has said there is little proof of his client’s guilt.
John Henry Browne said there were “no forensic evidence” against his client and “no confession”.
He also dismissed reports suggesting Robert Bales was having financial troubles as irrelevant to the case.
Robert Bales, 38 is being held a military detention centre awaiting charges, which are expected this week.
The killings have undermined US relations with Kabul and led to calls for NATO to speed up their planned withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
After meeting with Sgt. Robert Bales at a US army base in Kansas, John Henry Browne told reporters: “We’ve all heard the allegations. I don’t know that the government has proved much.”
Robert Bales is the only known suspect in the killings – despite repeated Afghan assertions that more than one American was involved.
There is no evidence in Afghan massacre suspect Sgt. Robert Bales case, says his lawyer John Henry Browne
John Henry Browne said he now plans to travel to Afghanistan to gather his own evidence.
The lawyer also responded to questions about Robert Bales’ financial history.
Robert Bales and his wife had reportedly struggled to make the payments on two properties they had bought.
It has now also emerged that – along with another man and his company – Robert Bales owed a reported $1.5 million from an arbitration ruling nearly a decade ago which found him guilty of securities fraud while he was working as a stockbroker.
John Henry Browne told Associated Press “that doesn’t mean anything”.
“Sure, there are financial problems. I have financial problems. Ninety-nine percent of America has financial problems,” John Henry Browne said.
“You don’t go kill women and children because you have financial problems.”
Robert Bales’ wife, Karilyn, has issued a statement expressing her condolences to the victims and their families and saying what reportedly took place is “completely out of character of the man I know and admire”.
John Henry Browne first met his client at Fort Leavenworth on Monday to begin preparing his defense.
The Pentagon has previously said that Sgt. Robert Bales could face charges that carry a possible death penalty.
Such a trial could take years, contrasting with Afghan demands for swift and decisive justice.
A large earthquake with a magnitude of 7.4 struck near Acapulco on Mexico’s Pacific coast on Tuesday, sending terrified workers and residents running into the streets and damaging an estimated 800 homes.
According to United States Geological Survey (USGS), the quake had a magnitude of 7.4 and put the epicentre at 15 miles (25 km) east of Ometepec, in Guerrero state.
Witnesses in the capital, Mexico City, said the tremor sent office workers rushing out onto the streets.
An estimated of 800 houses were damaged in Guerrero and Oaxaca states.
Guerrero’s governer Angel Aguirre told Milenio television that so far there were no casualties in Guerrero state or nearby Oaxaca state, adding that authorities were checking schools and public buildings near Ometepec.
The director of the country’s seismological service, Carlos Valdes Gonzalez, said that there had already been some six aftershocks and further ones could be expected in the next 24 hours.
Carlos Valdes Gonzalez said one of the aftershocks had already registered a magnitude of 5.3.
A large earthquake with a magnitude of 7.4 struck near Acapulco on Mexico's Pacific coast on Tuesday
A pedestrian bridge reportedly collapsed and crushed a microbus in Mexico City, but there were still no reports of deaths.
Office workers and residents were sent running into the streets in wealthy districts and poor neighborhoods alike.
Samantha Rodriguez, a 37-year old environmental consultant, was evacuated from the 11th floor of an office block.
“I thought it was going to pass rapidly but the walls began to thunder and we decided to get out,” she said.
Sirens could be heard across the city, and police helicopters are crisscrossing the skies.
“I swear I never felt one so strong, I thought the building was going to collapse,” said Sebastian Herrera, 42, a businessman from a neighborhood hit hard in Mexico’s devastating 1985 earthquake, which killed thousands.
Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard’s Twitter account said the water system and other “strategic services” were not experiencing problems and no damage was reported in the central or northern areas of the city.
Mobile phone networks have been affected, our correspondent says, and people have had trouble contacting their loved ones.
Gabino Cue, the governor of Oaxaca state, next to Guerrero state, said via Twitter that the quake had caused cracks in school buildings and damaged roofs in one part of the state.
The USGS said the epicentre was 11 miles (18 km) underground.
The US president’s daughter, 13-year-old Malia Obama, was on a school trip in Oaxaca, south-western Mexico. A White House official said she was safe and had never been in danger.
Australian beer brewer XXXX Gold has created an island paradise just for men on Pumpkin Island in Queensland.
XXXX Gold has negotiated a three-year lease on a 6 ha island on the southern Great Barrier Reef, with the aim of turning it into a blokes’ paradise called “XXXX Island”.
From October, the beer company plans to send groups of four mates, selected through promotional events, to the island currently known as Pumpkin Island to have their run of the place.
Both XXXX Gold and the island’s owners declined to discuss the value of the lease, citing a confidentiality agreement.
The island belongs to John and Sonja Rumble, a South African-born couple who bought the island in 2003 for $1.3 million through their business, Sojourn Properties Pty Ltd.
They then gave Pumpkin Island to their son, Wayne, for his 27th birthday, which he now runs with his partner, Laureth Craggy, according to Capricorn enterprise CEO Mary Carroll.
“His dad actually said, <<Make it work>>, so this campaign is certainly a way for him (to) make it work,” Mary Carroll said.
Now, 31-year-old Wayne Rumble was recently made director of Sojourn Properties, and told news.com.au that the plan will “support the local community by involving the region’s businesses in the island’s development”.
Wayne Rumble added: “We believe this is a great opportunity for the island that will not only bring more people to the area, but will provide additional jobs and support the local community over the coming months and beyond.”
Australian beer brewer XXXX Gold has created an island paradise just for men on Pumpkin Island in Queensland
Tourism Queensland CEO Anthony Hayes said the move was a considerable “coup” for Queensland.
“It’s a wonderful free kick after all that’s happened in the past 12 months,” Anthony Hayes said.
“It sends a great message to all of the Queensland tourism industry that things are picking up again.”
A XXXX Gold spokeswoman said it was a great way to encourage “mates time”, and ideas for activities on the island already include an “ingenious beer delivery system” and “one-hole golf course”.
The beer company will send groups of four friends to the island, which has five “self-contained, eco-friendly beach cottages”, in holidays won through promotions.
Before it officially opens in October, the team behind XXXX Island will be asking Australians to share their thoughts via the website on what would truly make the island the ultimate destination for those who love the good life.
Those Australians with the best ideas will be in the running to earn a trip for them and three mates to the island valued at $10,000.
According to the company’s website, current activities on the island include dolphins, turtles and whale-spotting, fishing the rich waters, snorkelling or experiencing the coral reefs from a glass bottom kayak, harvesting your own oysters off the rocks or simply wandering the secluded beaches.
Launched this week, the marketing campaign will begin by asking consumers to pitch ideas on what should be built or featured on the island to provide the “ultimate mate’s getaway”.
“We are looking to create experiences,” regional sales director for Lion beer, spirits and wine, Bill Webb said.
Given the island’s size, some of those ideas might have to be downsized – think the ultimate one-hole golf course – but Bill Webb said the idea was to provide a unique space for friends to get together and get away from it all.
“We’ve done some research and blokes don’t get away as much as they used to, as much as they should,” he said, adding that the women in men’s lives agreed.
The idea was to provide all expenses paid weekend getaways to the island for groups of four mates who were chosen through promotional events.
If it seems a testosterone-fuelled marketing concept, that’s because it is.
“It is primarily a male product, XXXX is mainly drunk by men, but not exclusively,” Bill Webb said.
Female Gold drinkers will not be banned.
It took a year to develop the campaign, according to Bill Webb who remarked the hardest part was finding the “perfect” island.
The island was eventually chosen for its availability, location and size.
“It’s big enough that we could build something, but still feels intimate enough,” Bill Webb said.
Makena, a two-year-old girl from Canada, puts her heart and soul into a beautiful rendition of the Adele’s first number one hit Someone Like You and caused a sensation on YouTube.
The track from Adele’s second album, 21, cemented her status as a superstar, and it looks set to do the same for her young fan.
Over 1,700,000 people have watched Makena singing along to the song since the video was uploaded by her mother Heather Fedorick two weeks ago.
One user from the Czech Republic wrote: “She is so cute, when I watch her singing, I think that life is beautiful.”
Another added: “I think 20 terrorists put down their weapons and bombs after watching this video.”
Makena, a two-year-old girl from Canada, puts her heart and soul into a beautiful rendition of the Adele's first number one hit Someone Like You and caused a sensation on YouTube
Makena shows an impressive grasp of the lyrics to the hit about the end of 23-year-old Adele’s relationship with an unnamed ex-boyfriend.
It is, however, doubtful that at this stage she fully understands the meaning of the heartbreaking song, whose chorus runs: “Never mind I’ll find/ Someone like you / I wish nothing but the best for you, too / Don’t forget me, I begged, I remember you said / Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead.”
In Makena’s hands, the soulful song takes on a different aspect, and the tragic words become charmingly funny sung in the toddler’s childish lisp.
Makena’s mother can be heard providing a little help when her daughter falters, but the toddler still shows skill beyond her years as she belts out the track.
With her talent for mumbling the words when she gets a little stuck, the blonde-haired toddler could compete with some of the biggest stars in the business.
Makena’s new fans will be hoping this is not the last we see of the brilliant young starlet.
Huug Bosse is a Dutch man who had hip surgery two years ago and he hasn’t stopped laughing since.
Huug Bosse’s wife finds it annoying, his brother and daughter have become exasperated, but all he can do in response is slap his knee and laugh uncontrollably.
The cause for Huug Bosse’s condition isn’t exactly clear, but it’s probably due to the anesthesia he was placed under, during the operation. In spite of all the mirth, there still is one thing that can move Huug Bosse to tears. He calls it the most beautiful song – the Dutch national anthem. Perhaps they should have it playing in the background whenever they want to get a serious word out of the man.
Huug Bosse had hip surgery two years ago and he hasn’t stopped laughing since
Huug Bosse’s wife says he was a normal man before he had his hip-replacement surgery, in 2010. Apparently the anesthesia he was under during the operation is to blame for his uncontrollable laughter. Although his daughter and brother don’t even visit him anymore because of his constant chuckling, Huug Bosse himself doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with him. He considers it normal for a person to have a change of personality, and says his clients think he’s the sweetest person in the world.
Huug Bosse’s wife says he’s always had a sense of humor, but over the last two years he has been laughing all day long.
The man who killed four people at Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse had a camera around his neck and may have filmed the scene, France’s Interior Minister Claude Gueant says.
Claude Gueant said the camera was one clue helping police build a profile, as the manhunt intensifies with the area on the highest level of terror alert.
Police have linked the attack to two shootings last week in which three soldiers of North African descent died.
The same gun and the same scooter were used in all the attacks.
French schools held a minute’s silence on Tuesday.
It is the first time in the country’s history that “scarlet alert” has been declared.
The measure enables the authorities to disrupt daily life and implement sweeping security measures. These include mixed police-military patrols and powers to suspend public transport and close schools.
About 250 investigators are pursuing two main lines of inquiry – an Islamist motive or the far right.
Three soldiers expelled from the army in 2008 for neo-Nazi activities have now been cleared of any involvement in the shootings. The three were members of the same parachute regiment in Montauban as the soldiers killed in the attacks on 11 and 15 March.
Earlier, Claurde Gueant said inquiries had taken place “regarding soldiers who were kicked out of the army and who might want to seek revenge”.
Referring to the reported camera, Claude Gueant said: “This is indeed a clue that we have been told about. It’s a video camera worn in a harness on the chest and indeed he was seen, a witness said so, with this device.”
He added he did not know if the man had filmed everything.
The camera “records wide-angle footage that can then be watched on a computer. I feel that that will reinforce the killer’s psychological profile,” the minister said.
He went on to describe the killer as “someone who is very cold, very determined, very in control of himself, very cruel”.
But there was no sign police were near making an arrest.
The shootings took place as parents were taking their children to Ozar Hatorah school on Monday.
A teacher and three children were shot dead, and a teenage boy was seriously injured.
The man who killed four people at Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse had a camera around his neck and may have filmed the scene
The man got off a black Yamaha scooter stolen in Toulouse on 6 March and “shot at everybody who was near him, children or adults”, according to local prosecutor Michel Valet.
The dead were Jonathan Sandler, a 30-year-old rabbi and teacher of religion originally from Jerusalem, and his two sons, aged four and five.
The fourth person killed was a seven-year-old girl, Myriam Monsonego, daughter of the head teacher. She died in her father’s arms.
All the dead were dual French-Israeli nationals and will be buried in Israel on Wednesday. The bodies, which had been lying at the school for an overnight vigil, have now been taken to Toulouse airport for repatriation to Israel, via Paris.
Initially, the killer used a 9 mm gun, but when it jammed, he switched to a .45 calibre pistol.
Police say the .45 was the same gun used to kill three soldiers in two separate shootings in Toulouse and nearby Montauban last week. All three were of North African or Caribbean origin.
The mother of a girl at the Toulouse school said she was angry with the authorities, who she said had not taken last week’s incidents seriously enough and had “lost time to look for this man”.
All the candidates in the French presidential election have suspended campaigning.
Toulouse city Mayor Pierre Cohen said the killings in Toulouse and Montauban were “racist, anti-Semitic acts”.
“We can’t say for certain whether this is linked to the presidential election campaign,” Pierre Cohen said.
“As to whether today the electoral climate is a factor, or whether it’s a vendetta or someone with mental problems, we can’t say definitively and we shouldn’t sully the campaign, especially as all the candidates have suspended their campaigns.”
Still Life With Meadow Flowers and Roses, a painting once thought to be by Vincent van Gogh but later dismissed has now been confirmed as an authentic work by the Dutch master.
The painting, originally considered a Van Gogh, has belonged to a Dutch museum since 1974.
But doubts crept in due to the painting style and the unusual canvas size and it was discredited in 2003.
However, experts have now authenticated the painting as being a Van Gogh using an X-ray technique.
The painting has now been hung in the Van Gogh section of the Kroeller-Mueller museum in Otterlo for the first time.
The work is thought to have come from the period when Vincent Van Gogh’s lived with his brother Theo in Paris from 1886.
Vincent Van Gogh originally painted a canvas of two wrestlers and then painted Still Life With Meadows and Roses over it.
Vincent Van Gogh originally painted a canvas of two wrestlers and then painted Still Life With Meadows and Roses over it
Using a new X-ray technique, researchers examined the two wrestlers in more detail.
The brush strokes and pigments pointed to Vincent Van Gogh.
Researchers also discovered the large canvas was a standard format for figure paintings at the Antwerp academy where Van Gogh studied at the time.
A senior researcher at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, Louis van Tilborgh, took part in the study.
Louis van Tilborgh said the wrestlers posing half-naked in the original painting was characteristic of the Antwerp academy at the time.
Vincent Van Gogh also wrote to his brother saying that he was pleased with how the wrestler painting had turned out.
But Van Gogh later painted directly over it which experts say accounts for the “uncharacteristic exuberance” of the floral still life.
Audio recordings of a Chongqing senior officials meeting revealed that a police investigation into the family of top Chinese politician Bo Xilai led to his downfall.
The leaked recording is apparently of senior party officials being told of Bo Xilai’s anger over the investigation. He reacted by demoting Wang Lijun, police chief in Chongqing where he was party leader.
Bo Xilai, 62, was removed last week from his post as party secretary in the city.
Many had thought him in line for promotion in a leadership reshuffle.
The investigation appears to have sparked a chain of events that led to Bo Xilai’s demise, one of the most important political dramas in China in recent years.
It suggests there is a fierce battle taking place ahead of the leadership change, expected to happen at the Chinese Communist Party’s 18th congress later this year.
The audio recording, which was posted on the internet, seems to have involved senior officials in the western city of Chongqing.
They heard how the city’s police chief, Wang Lijun, told Bo Xilai in January that his family was being investigated. The politician apparently reacted angrily and demoted Wang Lijun, disregarding established practices.
Audio recordings of a Chongqing senior officials meeting revealed that a police investigation into the family of Bo Xilai led to his downfall
There have been rumors about Bo Xilai’s family for some time, many centred on his son, Bo Guagua.
Bo Guagua studied at one of Britain’s most expensive private schools, Harrow, before going on to Oxford University.
Photographs that appear to show him enjoying himself at parties have whizzed around internet sites.
Speaking at a political meeting just before he was removed from office, Bo Xilai hit back at the rumors surrounding his family.
Bo Xilai claimed that his wife and son had no assets, adding that his son’s schooling was paid for by a scholarship.
Reports that Bo Guagua drives a red Ferrari were also false, Bo Xilai said.
But the audio recording of the Chongqing meeting suggests the rumors were at least significant enough for an investigation.
Those at the gathering were told that after his demotion, Wang Lijun fled to the US consulate in Chengdu, a few hours’ drive from Chongqing, because he feared for his own safety.
Wang Lijun’s visit to the US consulate is already an established fact. This recording suggests the reason behind it.
Wang Lijun eventually came out of the consulate and was detained.
It is difficult to verify the authenticity of the recording – or how it was made and why it was released.
But Li Yuanchao, head of the communist party’s organization department, confirmed to Chongqing officials at a meeting last week that Bo Xilai had been removed because of his involvement in the Wang Lijun affair. His comments were carried on Chongqing television.
Many might wonder, though, whether this is the whole story, as this version of events is convenient for a party that likes to show it plays by the book.
This narrative suggests Bo Xilai’s demise has more to do with wrongdoing than political manoeuvring at the top.
Meanwhile, it is unclear what has now happened to Bo Xilai – and whether he is under investigation because of this alleged interference in the investigation into his family.
UN nuclear inspectors have been invited to North Korea for the first time in three years, the country’s chief nuclear negotiator Ri Yong-Ho has confirmed.
Ri Yong-Ho said the aim of the move was to implement a deal with the US.
North Korea last month agreed to suspend nuclear and long-range missile tests in return for food aid. It also agreed to allow UN inspectors in, the US said.
The invitation comes three months after Kim Jong-Un came to power following the death of his father, Kim Jong-Il.
But North Korea’s pledge to co-operate with the international community was thrown into doubt last week, when Pyongyang announced plans to launch what it called a rocket-mounted satellite.
North Korea said the launch – between 12 and 16 April – would mark the 100th birthday of its late Great Leader Kim Il-sung.
Any launch would be seen as violating UN Security Council resolutions, and the US has described the plans as “highly provocative”.
North Korea sent an invitation letter to UN nuclear watchdog three months after Kim Jong-Un came to power following the death of his father, Kim Jong-Il
The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – the UN’s nuclear watchdog – announced it had received the invitation from North Korea on Monday.
It said it would discuss the possible visit with Pyongyang and “other parties concerned”.
“Nothing has been decided yet,” IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.
The move was confirmed later by Ri Yong-Ho. Speaking in Beijing, he said: “In order to implement the agreement, we’ve sent a letter of invitation to the IAEA to send inspectors to our country.”
It is unclear how much scope for inspections the IAEA would be given.
In the past North Korea has limited access to key sites.
Pyongyang expelled IAEA inspectors 10 years ago after a deal with the US unravelled.
In 2003, the secretive Communist state withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The inspectors were allowed back several years later – but were thrown out again in 2009.
Jessica Simpson has put her extremely blooming figure down to the fact that she has a lot of amniotic fluid.
Jessica Simpson, 31, denied on several occasions that she is having twins because of her ever-increasing size.
The singer told Jimmy Kimmel last night that she had been told by doctors that the excess fluid was to blame for her larger than average baby bump.
Last week Jessica Simpson told chat show host Ellen DeGeneres that she still has a month to go, being due to give birth on April 20th.
Jessica Simpson joked: “I feel I have a bowling ball sitting on my hoo haa!”
The singer then added candidly: “Apparently I have a lot of amniotic fluid, so whenever my water breaks it will be like a fire hydrant!”
Jessica Simpson has put her extremely blooming figure down to the fact that she has a lot of amniotic fluid
Jessica Simpson also spoke about how she and fiancé Eric Johnson met, and when they are planning to tie the knot.
She said: “Eric feels like my husband already, we are just doing it a little bit backwards. We met at my house – he just came with one of my friends to my house, we were watching March madness or something.
“He came over and we sat on my stairwell and talked and I just haven’t let him leave!”
Jessica Simpson’s interview came as she was promoting her new TV show Fashion Star, and just a day after her baby shower.
Talking about the baby shower, which was attended by her sister Ashlee Simpson and famous friends including Ellen Pompeo and Jessica Alba, Jessica said: “I just had a baby shower yesterday which was unbelievable.
“It was a Charlotte’s web thing – we had a whole fair. We had fried Oreos.”
Asked by Jimmy Kimmel if she was nervous about giving birth, Jessica Simpson said: “No, I’m ready to push!”
Walt Disney expects to lose $200 million on its new movie John Carter, making it one of the biggest flops in cinema history.
The John Carter film, about a military captain transported to Mars, could result in an $80-120 million loss for Disney’s movie business during the current quarter.
Disney shares fell 1% in after hours trading after the announcement.
The company is still likely to make a substantial quarterly profit, though, thanks to its TV businesses.
It is estimated that John Carter cost $250 million to make and it is likely that Disney spent another $100 million on marketing.
Walt Disney expects to lose $200 million on its new movie John Carter, making it one of the biggest flops in cinema history
The film’s director, Pixar’s Andrew Stanton, had previously had great success with films such as Finding Nemo and Wall-E.
The John Carter film is based on a series of books written by the author of Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs.
The series began with A Princess of Mars in 1912 and ended with John Carter of Mars, published after the author’s death in 1964.
The film has taken no more than $184 million at box offices worldwide, with cinema owners receiving about half of that total.
It is difficult to compare losses on films, as studios reveal little financial detail and allowances have to be made for inflation.
The Hollywood Reporter says that last year’s biggest flop was Mars Needs Moms, which cost $150 million to make and only took $39 million at the box office.
Disney will be hoping for success from other big budget movies due for release later this year.
The list includes The Avengers, due to be released in May, and Brave, set to be released by Disney Pixar in June.
About 9,000 of possible new ancient sites have been discovered by archaeologists using computers to scour satellite images.
Jason Ur said he had found about the potential early human settlements in north-eastern Syria.
Computers scanned the images for soil discoloration and mounds caused when mud-brick settlements collapsed.
Dr. Jason Ur said surveying the same area on the ground would have taken him a lifetime.
Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researcher said: “With these computer science techniques, however, we can immediately come up with an enormous map which is methodologically very interesting, but which also shows the staggering amount of human occupation over the last 7,000 or 8,000 years.
“What’s more, anyone who comes back to this area for any future survey would already know where to go.
“There’s no need to do this sort of initial reconnaissance to find sites. This allows you to do targeted work, so it maximizes the time we have on the ground.”
About 9,000 of possible new ancient sites have been discovered by archaeologists using computers to scour satellite images
In the past, Dr. Jason Ur used declassified spy satellite photographs and the human eye to try to identify potential sites.
But over the last three years, he has worked with computer expert Bjoern Menze, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to create a software application able to classify a huge range of terrain.
Dr. Jason Ur said this had removed subjectivity and allowed them to look at a much larger area.
In all, about 9,000 possible settlements were identified across 23,000 sq km.
Ideally, Dr. Jason Ur said, some of these would be excavated, but the volatile political situation in Syria had forced them to put any ground searches on hold.
However, Dr. Jason Ur said that he hoped to conduct further research in the Kurdish provinces of northern Iraq, and follow that up with excavations that would be “a very rigorous testing of the model”.
Archaeological work in Iraq has not been popular in the past, but Dr. Jason Ur feels the time is right to identify heritage sites of importance and ensure they are not lost as the country presses on with widespread development of its towns and cities.
France launched one of the biggest manhunts in recent country’s history after three children and one adult were shot dead at Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse.
French police have linked the attack to two shootings last week in which three soldiers of North African descent died.
The same gun and the same scooter were used in all the attacks, but the gunman has not been identified, officials say.
French schools held a minute’s silence on Tuesday. The area is on the highest level of terrorism alert.
It is the first time in the country’s history that “scarlet alert” has been declared.
The measure enables the authorities to disrupt daily life and implement sweeping security measures, including mixed police-military patrols, powers to suspend public transport and close schools.
Guards are being posted outside all faith-based schools, as well as all Jewish and Muslim religious buildings.
France launched one of the biggest manhunts in recent country’s history after three children and one adult were shot dead at Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse
About 200 investigators from Paris are pursuing two main lines of inquiry – an Islamist motive or the far right.
However, Interior Minister Claude Gueant told French radio the authorities did not know who the killer was.
“For now, we carry on working. We’re no further than that,” Claude Gueant said.
The minister said “a witness saw a small video camera around the killer’s neck” and the authorities were combing the internet for any possible footage.
Claude Gueant said this was an important clue allowing police to build a psychological profile of the killer, who he described as “clearly very cold, determined and master of his actions”.
But there was no sign police were near making an arrest.
A teacher and three children were shot dead at the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse, and a 17-year-old boy was seriously injured.
The shootings took place as parents were taking their children to the school on Monday.
“This man alighted from his moped and, as he was outside the school, he shot at everybody who was near him, children or adults,” local prosecutor Michel Valet told journalists.
The scooter – a black Yamaha – was stolen in Toulouse five days before the first shooting. Its number plate was picked up by closed-circuit TV cameras at the school, police sources said.
The dead were Jonathan Sandler, a 30-year-old rabbi and teacher of religion originally from Jerusalem, and his two sons, aged 4 and 5.
The fourth person killed was 7-year-old girl Myriam Monsonego, daughter of the head teacher. She died in her father’s arms.
All the dead were dual French-Israeli nationals and will be buried in Israel, the Israeli foreign ministry said.
The 17-year-old boy was seriously hurt. Initially, the killer used a 9 mm gun, but when it jammed, he switched to a .45 calibre pistol.
Police say the .45 was the same gun used to kill three soldiers in two separate shootings in Toulouse and nearby Montauban last week. All three were of North African or Caribbean origin.
The mother of a girl at the Toulouse school said she was angry with the authorities who she said had not taken last week’s incidents seriously enough and had “lost time to look for this man”.
Since the early 1980s have not been lethal attacks like this in France on Jewish targets. And even then, children were never the primary victims.
All the candidates in the French presidential election have suspended campaigning.
President Nicolas Sarkozy said his campaign would remain suspended until Wednesday at the earliest, when he is due to attend the soldiers’ funerals.
As well as Nicolas Sarkozy, opposition Socialist candidate Francois Hollande visited Toulouse to offer his condolences. Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen called on the authorities to do everything to prevent another such attack.
Bobbi Kristina Brown, Whitney Houston’s daughter, sparked controversy as she and “her adoptive brother” Nick Gordon are set to wed after stepping out with a diamond ring on her wedding finger.
However, a spokesperson for Bobbi Kristina Brown said yesterday that Whitney Houston’s only daughter is not engaged and the ring is actually her late mother’s.
Bobbi Kristina’s rep said: “Bobbi Kristina is not engaged. She is simply wearing her mother’s ring.”
The denial comes four days after reports surfaced that Bobbi Kristina Brown and Nick Gordon were planning on getting married.
Over the weekend the pair was spotted stepping out together hand-in-hand in Atlanta and last Thursday Bobbi Kristina was seen first sporting the ring as she kissed Nick Gordon on a date at a pizza parlour.
As part of Whitney Houston’s will Bobbi Kristina inherited all of her jewellery collection.
A spokesperson for Bobbi Kristina Brown said yesterday that Whitney Houston's only daughter is not engaged and the ring is actually her late mother's
The denial from Bobbi Kristina’s reps come after reports that her grandmother Cissy Houston has slammed the pair’s relationship branding it “incestuous” emerged.
On Friday Bobbi Kristina, who is mourning the death of her mother, was spotted leaving an AT&T store with Nick Gordon, who Houston raised as her own for 10 years.
Bobbi Kristina and Nick Gordon looked happily in love and held hands as they entered and left the store, in their hometown.
