Natalie Portman married Benjamin Millepied in a nighttime ceremony at Big Sur.
Natalie Portman wed the father of her child in the grounds of a private home in the dramatic cliffside California coastal town of Big Sur.
The two exchanged vows in a Jewish ceremony under a chuppah at 8:00 p.m., according to Us Weekly.
Running alongside the Pacific Coast Highway, Big Sur, famous for its links to the Beat poets, is a sparsely populated town where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise dramatically from the Pacific Ocean.
Natalie Portman married Benjamin Millepied in a nighttime ceremony at Big Sur
Earlier this year a friend told America’s In Touch magazine: “It’s one of Natalie’s favourite places – whenever she needs a break from LA she goes there.”
Just 60 guests were invited to the ceremony as the couple wanted the event to be as laid-back as possible.
The friend added: “This wedding is for their closest friends and family. It will be a very relaxed affair. They’re not sending out invites. Natalie may not even buy a new dress!”
Natalie Portman, 31, met choreographer Benjamin Millepied, 35, on the set of Black Swan in 2009 and they got engaged in December 2010.
When Natalie Portman won the Best Actress Oscar for the film, she paid tribute to Benjamin Millepied, calling him her “beautiful love” and thanked him for giving her the “most important role of my life”.
Natalie Portman gave birth to their son Aleph in June 2011 and at this year’s Academy Awards there was speculation they had already tied the knot as they both wore bands on their wedding ring fingers.
The Curiosity rover remains perfectly on course to make its Monday (GMT) landing on the Red Planet, NASA says.
The NASA robot’s flight trajectory is so good engineers cancelled the latest course correction they had planned.
To be sure of touching down in the right place on the surface, the vehicle must hit a box at the top of the atmosphere that is just 3 km by 12 km.
“Our inbound trajectory is right down the pipe,” said Arthur Amador, Curiosity’s mission manager.
“The team is confident and thrilled to finally be arriving at Mars, and we’re reminding ourselves to breathe every so often. We’re ready to go.”
Curiosity’s power and communications systems are in excellent shape.
The one major task left for the mission team is to prime the back-up computer that will take command if the main unit fails during the entry, descent and landing (EDL) manoeuvres.
The Curiosity rover remains perfectly on course to make its Monday (GMT) landing on the Red Planet
Curiosity – also known as the Mars Science Laboratory – has spent the past eight months travelling from Earth to Mars, covering more than 560 million km.
The robot was approaching Mars at about 13,000 km/h on Saturday. By the time the spacecraft hits the top of Mars’ atmosphere, about seven minutes before touch-down, gravity will have accelerated it to about 21,000 km/h.
The vehicle is being aimed at Gale Crater, a deep depression just south of the planet’s equator.
It is equipped with the most sophisticated science payload ever sent to another world.
Its mission, when it gets on the ground, is to characterize the geology in Gale and examine its rocks for signs that ancient environments on Mars could have supported microbial life.
Touch-down is expected at 05:31 GMT (06:31 BST) Monday 6 August; 22:31 PDT, Sunday 5 August.
It is a fully automated procedure. NASA will be following the descent here at mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The rover will broadcast X-band and UHF signals on its way down to the surface.
These will be picked up by a mix of satellites at Mars and radio antennas on Earth.
The key communication route will be through the Odyssey orbiter. It alone will see the rover all the way to the ground and have the ability to relay UHF telemetry straight to Earth.
And mission team members remain hopeful that this data will also include some images that Curiosity plans to take of itself just minutes after touching the ground.
These would be low-resolution, wide-angle, black and white images of the rear wheels.
They may not be great to look at, but the pictures will give engineers important information about the exact nature of the terrain under the rover.
A lot has been made of the difficulty of getting to Mars, and historically there have been far more failures than successes (24 versus 15), but the Americans’ recent record at the Red Planet is actually very good – six successful landings versus two failures.
Even so, NASA continues to downplay expectations.
“If we’re not successful, we’re going to learn,” said Doug McCuistion, the head of the US space agency’s Mars programme.
“We’ve learned in the past, we’ve recovered from it. We’ll pick ourselves up, we’ll dust ourselves off, we’ll do something again; this will not be the end.
“The human spirit gets driven by these kinds of challenges, and these are challenges that drive us to explore our surroundings and understand what’s out there.”
The mission team warned reporters on Saturday not to jump to conclusions if there was no immediate confirmation of landing through Odyssey.
There were “credible reasons”, engineers said, why the UHF signal to Odyssey could be lost during the descent, such as a failure on the satellite or a failure of the transmitter on the rover.
Continued efforts would be made to contact Curiosity in subsequent hours as satellites passed overhead and when Gale Crater came into view of radio antennas on Earth.
“There are situations that might come up where we will not get communications all the way through [to the surface], and it doesn’t necessarily mean that something bad has happened; it just means we’ll have to wait and hear from the vehicle later,” explained Richard Cook, the deputy project manager.
This was emphasized by Allen Chen, the EDL operations lead. His is the voice from mission control that will be broadcast to the world during the descent. He will call out specific milestones on the way down. He said there would be no rush to judgement if the Odyssey link was interrupted or contained information that was “off nominal”.
“I think we proceed under any situation as though the spacecraft is there, and there for us to recover – to find out what happened,” he said.
“That’s the most sensible thing to do. There are only a few instances I think where you could know pretty quickly that we’d be in trouble.”
At least seven people, including a gunman, have died in a shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, police says.
A police officer had been shot multiple times but was expected to survive, Greenfield Police Chief Bradley Wentlandt.
He said a “civilian” was also being treated for gunshot wounds.
Police cannot confirm reports that more gunmen are inside the building.
They say the situation remains “very fluid”.
At least seven people, including a gunman, have died in a shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin
Chief Bradley Wentlandt said that multiple calls had been made to the 911 emergency services number at about 10:25 local time.
He said a police officer had been sent to the scene and had “engaged an active shooter”, during which he had been shot multiple times.
Police have corralled journalists outside the temple and urged them not to broadcast aerial footage that could compromise the operation.
Oak Creek is a town of about 30,000 people in the south-east corner of the state.
Chief Bradley Wentlandt said police had identified four people dead inside the temple and three outside, including the gunman shot by police.
But he cautioned that he was giving the “best information we have now – it may change”.
He said security services were trying to co-ordinate the response and secure the scene, and said another briefing would be held at 15:30 local time.
Parminder Kaleka, who was waiting outside the temple, told the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel that she had phoned her brother-in-law – who she said was the priest of the temple – who was inside “at that time [the] shooting happened”.
“He told me 25 or more people got shot, at that time they don’t even know if they are dead or alive, so a lot of people got injured.”
She said she had heard her brother-in-law had also been shot, and said desperate families were gathered outside the temple waiting for news.
“This is a big tragedy for our church,” she said, saying everyone had always assumed it would be a place of safety.
Other relatives of people inside the temple at the time of the shooting said they had heard reports of children being held hostage inside the basement, but there has been no confirmation of this.
More than 20,000 Syrian troops are deployed around Aleppo, military sources say, as fighting rages for control of the country’s second city.
Fighter jets, helicopters and artillery have pounded rebel positions ahead of a feared full-scale assault within days.
Tanks are trying to push into two key rebel-held areas, the opposition says.
In Damascus, another vital battleground in the war, army sources said rebels had been pushed from a last stronghold. The rebels said they had withdrawn.
Meanwhile, Iran is seeking the release of 48 Iranians kidnapped on Saturday.
Iranian diplomats and Syrian state television blamed the abduction, which took place near the shrine of Sayyida Zainab in a suburb of Damascus, on “armed groups”.
Iran has now asked Turkey and Qatar, both of whom have good relations with the Syrian opposition, to help win the release of the Iranians who it says are pilgrims.
More than 20,000 Syrian troops are deployed around Aleppo as fighting rages for control of the country's second city
Rebels claimed on Sunday that some of those taken were members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, according to al-Arabiya television.
Separately, Syria’s first astronaut is reported to have joined the opposition and fled to Turkey, the latest in a series of high-profile defections.
Muhammed Faris met Free Syrian Army (FSA) commanders in Aleppo and gave them his support before crossing the border, the Turkish news agency Anatolia reported.
Meanwhile, a British photojournalist who was kidnapped and wounded by Islamist militants in northern Syria has said up to 15 of his captors were from the UK.
John Cantlie and Dutch photographer Jeroen Oerlemans were held at a camp for a week in July.
The Syrian military has been steadily building up its forces around Aleppo, massing large numbers of tanks and other armoured vehicles as well as troops, in preparation for a much more intense attack.
There is already fierce fighting in and around the city as troops try to push rebel forces out from southern and eastern districts.
The army is using tanks to try to break its way into the districts of Salah al-Din and Saif al-Dawla, which lie on the main road into the city, opposition sources say.
Areas where rebels are entrenched have been bombarded by government forces and clashes have been reported in several areas, including in the heart of the old city.
A spokesman for the rebels said they were continuing to push into the centre, moving towards the historic castle in the old city. Opposition sources said there was now fighting around the castle itself – but this has not been confirmed by independent sources.
The rebels, who have also increased their numbers, are well dug in and continue to try to extend the territory under their control, our correspondent says.
The biggest advantage for the government is the use of helicopters and fighter jets; but more troops will also have to fight their way into the city if they are to stand any chance of retaking it, and that will make it a much more even battle, he adds.
Abdel Jabar Oqaida, a commander of the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo, told the AFP news agency that the restive Salah al-Din district had “come under the heaviest bombardment since the battle began” on 20 July.
A senior government security official told the agency: “The battle for Aleppo has not yet begun, and what is happening now is just the appetizer… the main course will come later.”
The fight for the key strategic city has been intensifying over the last few days, with Syrian state television reporting that troops had inflicted huge losses on what it called “terrorist mercenaries” in Salah al-Din and in other nearby areas.
In the capital, government forces claimed to have pushed out rebel fighters from their final stronghold in the city, the southern neighborhood of Tadamon. Free Syrian Army forces withdrew, an opposition activist told AFP from Beirut.
State media has reported that the whole of Damascus is now in government hands, almost three weeks after opposition forces launched a series of attacks there. Such reports are impossible to verify and the situation on the ground is changing fast.
Activists say more than 20,000 people – mostly civilians – have died in 17 months of unrest.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will travel to Turkey on 11 August for talks on the conflict in Syria, the US State Department said.
Hillary Clinton is adding the stop in Turkey to her lengthy tour of Africa.
Reuters photographer Luke MacGregor’s perfectly timed snap captured the full moon forming a sixth ring in the Olympic display on London’s Tower Bridge.
The masterpiece quickly made the rounds online, with “Tower Bridge” becoming a top trending item on Twitter.
The perfectly aligned composition graced London’s skyline Friday night, on the bridge over the River Thames.
Reuters photographer Luke MacGregor’s perfectly timed snap captured the full moon forming a sixth ring in the Olympic display on London's Tower Bridge
Many praised the magnificent picture on Twitter, calling it “epic” and a “must see”.
But others couldn’t resist joking about the unsanctioned modification by nature of the logo, after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) went to painstaking efforts to prevent the unlicensed use of its brand by local retailers.
“Moon taken to court by IOC for violating Olympic brand ban,” one Twitter user quipped.
The official Twitter account for the IOC did not tweet in response to the lunar insertion into the organization’s trademarked logo.
The five interlocking rings represent the five parts of the world involved in the global games.
The symbol was designed in 1912 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games.
Danish actress and former model Brigitte Nielsen cut a lonely and worrying figure as she stumbled around an LA park yesterday, sparking fresh concerns over the state of her health.
Brigitte Nielsen, 49, looked disorientated and appeared to be drunk as she smoked cigarettes and drank from what looked like a vodka bottle in a public park in Studio City.
Dressed casually in trainers, skin-tight blue jeans with a purple sweater and a matching baseball cap covering her shock of bleached blonde hair, the star appeared haggard as she wondered around the park alone, before eventually falling asleep.
Brigitte Nielsen looked disorientated and appeared to be drunk as she smoked cigarettes and drank from what looked like a vodka bottle in a public park in Studio City
The mother-of-four appeared lost in thought as she stared into space, and puffed on numerous cigarettes.
Brigitte Nielsen was previously thought to have beaten her well-documented battle with alcohol after she entered rehab in 2007, so these latest pictures must be worrying for her four sons and husband, Mattia Dessi, who is 16 years her junior.
After taking a nap on the grass, Brigitte Nielsen is thought to have walked back to her home in Hollywood Hills.
The leggy 6’1″ actress found fame in the 80s as bombshell, Karla Fry in Beverly Hills Cop II. She then went on to have a high-profile relationship with Sylvester Stallone but they split just two years later in a very public divorce.
Lollapalooza music festival was halted on Saturday as Chicago was hit by a powerful thunderstorm.
Tens of thousands of concert-goers took shelter in parking garages that had been designated evacuation centres for the sold-out three-day event.
Crowds were let back into the Chicago lakefront venue three hours later after the worst of the storm had passed.
An extended curfew allowed Red Hot Chili Peppers, Saturday’s headline act, to perform as scheduled.
Australian band the Temper Trap and US rock group Alabama Shakes were among the acts whose sets were cancelled due to the interruption.
Lollapalooza music festival was halted on Saturday as Chicago was hit by a powerful thunderstorm
According to a statement on the Lollapalooza website, organizers “made the decision to evacuate Grant Park [at 15:30 CST] in response to warnings from the National Weather Service”.
“In all, more than 60,000 festival-goers and nearly 3,000 staff, artists and vendors were safely evacuated in 38 minutes.”
“We want to thank the tens of thousands of festival-goers, staff and artists who calmly and safely exited,” said a spokesperson for Lollapalooza promoter C3 Presents.
Jack White, Sweden’s Miike Snow and Britain’s Florence and the Machine are among the acts scheduled to perform on Sunday as this year’s festival draws to a close.
Organizers announced on Saturday that a Lollapalooza festival would be held in Tel Aviv, Israel in August 2013.
Versions of the event will also take place next year in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in March and Santiago, Chile, in April.
It appears that all US presidents, excepting Martin Van Buren, are cousins and descendants of medieval King John of England.
The remarkable discovery was made by 12-year-old BridgeAnne d’Avignon, of Salinas, California, who created a ground-breaking family tree that connected 42 of 43 U.S. presidents to one common, and rather unexpected, ancestor: King John of England.
“They all have the trait of wanting power,” BridgeAnne d’Avignon told the station WFMY.
King John, also known as John “Lackland”, is renowned for signing the Magna Carta in 1215, which limited the monarch’s power and helped form the British Parliament.
King John’s other claim to fame, or infamy, is that he was depicted as the villain in the Robin Hood tales.
It appears that all US presidents, excepting Martin Van Buren, are cousins and descendants of medieval King John of England
BridgeAnne d’Avignon, a seventh-grader at Monte Vista Christian School in Watsonville, started the project in hopes of tracing back her own bloodline in France, but somewhere along the way she decided to take her genealogical quest to the highest level.
In order to create the family tree, the 12-year-old spent months scouring through over 500,000 names in search of the “presidential Adam”.
Her 80-year-old grandfather, who has been tracing roots for nearly six decades, helped her make the presidential links.
BridgeAnne d’Avignon started with the first U.S. president, George Washington, she traced both the male and female family lines to make the connection.
Prior to her discovery, genealogists were only able to link 22 families of presidents, likely because they only focused on male bloodlines.
The only former US president not linked to King John is the eighth president, Martin Van Buren, who had Dutch roots.
The teen also found out that she is the 18th cousin of President Barack Obama. She even wrote to her new-found relative a letter to share her findings with him.
So far, however, BridgeAnne d’Avignon said she received only a generic response from the White House.
BridgeAnne d’Avignon created a poster of the presidential family tree and is selling signed copies of it in hopes of raising enough money to make a trip to Washington DC. The middle-school student says her goal is to hand-deliver a replica of her family tree to the president.
“I think we just all go back somewhere; it’s just a matter of proving it,” she said.
At least 19 people have died in southeast Turkey after Kurdish rebels launched an attack on a Turkish border post, according to local media.
Rebels fired rocket launchers on an army post in Hakkari province just after midnight, NTV in Turkey said.
Turkish military jets are pursuing them and bombing their escape routes, NTV said.
Several thousand Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels are believed to be based in hideouts in northern Iraq.
At least 19 people have died in southeast Turkey after Kurdish rebels launched an attack on a Turkish border post
According to the governor for Hakkari province, Orhan Alimoglu, six soldiers, two village guards and 11 Kurdish rebels were killed in the attack near the village of Gecimili.
He said 15 soldiers were injured in the incident.
The number of clashes between the PKK and the Turkish armed forces has risen in southeast Turkey over the past year.
A series of clashes in June left dozens dead.
The PKK is classified as a terrorist organization by the EU and the US.
It launched a guerrilla campaign in 1984 for an ethnic homeland in the Kurdish heartland in the south-east of Turkey.
It has now dropped its claim to an independent Kurdish state, but says it is fighting for autonomy and the cultural rights of the Kurdish people.
Stella McCartney designed the Team GB Olympics kit so it’s no surprise to see the fashion designer at the London Games.
Stella McCartney enjoyed a family day out at Olympic Park with her father Sir Paul, his wife Nancy Shevell and her husband Alasdhair Willis.
The foursome showed their support for the cycling in the velodrome and saw Laura Trott, Joanna Rowsell and Dani King scoop gold in the women’s team pursuit event.
Paul McCartney, 70, was seen with his arm around Nancy Shevell and as the British team pedalled to victory the singer was seen punching his arm in the air.
Stella McCartney enjoyed a family day out at Olympic Park with her father Sir Paul, his wife Nancy Shevell and her husband Alasdhair Willis
After the girls flew across the finish line Paul McCartney leaned over to kiss his daughter in celebration which made for a touching scene.
The Beatles singer was in such a jubilant mood he even decided to lead the crowd in a spot of singing and was seen enthusiastically belting out a tune.
Nancy Shevell was seen showing her support for Team GB and Stella McCartney’s designs in a grey 2012 T-shirt while Alasdhair Willis had a jacket in the kit’s colors.
Stella McCartney opted for a houndstooth jacket over a plain white T-shirt while Paul opted for a crisp white shirt and a pair of jeans.
Sir Paul MCartney was certainly getting into the spirit of the arena and waved a flag with gusto as well as taking part in a Mexican wave with plenty of passion.
His daughter has been supporting Team GB throughout the Games and is more than familiar with the Olympic park having visited every day.
But Stella McCartney will no doubt have enjoyed spending time with her father and Nancy Shevell, who unlike Paul’s previous wife Heather Mills, she gets on well with.
Kris Jenner was out with daughter Khloe Kardashian and her friend of 18 years, Nicole Richie, last night.
The group was at a Mexican restaurant and they were clearly in good spirits as they donned festive sombrero hats.
At what appeared to be the beginning of the night, the trio had chips and dip at their table plus a huge cocktail glass accompanied the snacks.
While Nicole Richie and Khloe Kardashian displayed large grins on their faces, 56-year-old Kris Jenner‘s relaxed facial expressed seemed to indicate she was getting a little worse for wear.
In one shot posted afterwards, Kris Jenner flaunted her ample chest for her over two million Twitter followers.
Kris Jenner flaunted her ample chest for her over two million Twitter followers
Opening up her black blazer and low-cut top she posted the caption on Twitter, via her Instagram account: “TWITTER OR TITTER??”
While some fans found the stunt funny and other issued insults Kris Jenner hit back: “Obviously hacked!!!!!!!!! Duh!!!!!”
But her daughter quashed her get-out clause and replied: “How are you hacked when you are posing for your own pictures???? LOL @KrisJenner drunkie.”
In other images the mother-of-six children could be seen screaming at the camera and gesturing the peace sign with a smile on her face.
As the designated driver for the night, a sober Khloe appeared to be having fun through her tipsy parent, judging by her series of tweets.
Last night she shared on the micro-blogging website: “Is it wrong to take advantage of your drunk mother???? Hummmmm.”
This morning Khloe Kardashian added: “I wonder if my mom has a hangover today?”
It seems Kris Jenner isn’t so coy after all despite suggesting she can’t watch her behavior back on showing of her E! show.
Kris Jenner admitted her own marital dust-ups with husband Bruce Jenner have made it particularly hard for her to watch this season of Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
The Kardashian matriarch told Us Weekly: “I watch it back and I’m like, <<Oh my God, I can’t watch>>. It’s so crazy painful that I can’t watch it.”
“Bruce and I are okay and that’s all that matters,” Kris Jenner said.
“The kids understand. It’s just hard to watch. I just can’t wait until Season 8!”
The periods of eating very little or nothing may be the key to controlling chemicals produced by the body linked to the development of disease and the ageing process.
This backs up recent studies on animals fed very low-calorie diets which found the thinnest (without being medically underweight or malnourished) are the healthiest and live the longest.
The key, say researchers at the University of Southern California’s Longevity Institute, is the hormone Insulin-Like Growth Factor 1 (IGF-1).
IGF-1 and other growth factors keep our cells constantly active. It’s like driving with your foot on the accelerator pedal, which is fine when your body is shiny and new, but keep doing this all the time and it will break down.
According to Professor Valter Longo, director of the Longevity Institute, one way to take the foot off the accelerator, and reduce IGF-1 levels dramatically – as well as cholesterol, and blood pressure – is by fasting.
“You need adequate levels of IGF-1 and other growth factors when you are growing, but high levels later in life appear to lead to accelerated ageing,” he says.
“The evidence comes from animals such as the Laron mice we have bred which have been genetically engineered so they don’t respond to IGF-1. They are small but extraordinarily long-lived.”
The periods of eating very little or nothing may be the key to controlling chemicals produced by the body linked to the development of disease and the ageing process
The average mouse has a life span of two years – but the Laron typically live 40% longer. The oldest has lived to the human equivalent of 160. They are immune to heart disease and cancer and when they die, as Prof. Valter Longo puts it: “They simply drop dead.”
Trying various fasts, for three days straight, and for two days a week, for six weeks, you can see dramatic results. Not only weight loss, but your cholesterol levels and blood pressure improve. These findings chime with recent reports that reaching a “healthy” Body Mass Index (BMI) may not be enough – we need to be as slim as possible to reduce our risk of illness.
The reason experts haven’t emphasized this is that they don’t want to trigger eating disorders or demotivate the overweight trying to get into the healthy weight range. There is only so long, however, we can shy away from this because the evidence keeps mounting.
Matthew Piper, of the Institute of Healthy Ageing, University College London, says: “Studies on monkeys show if we restrict the diet there is a delay in the onset of cancer, coronary heart disease and diabetes in later life as well as staving off dementia.”
Reducing our food intake over months or years could boost lifespan by 15 to 30%, experts believe.
Although the Scarsdale Medical Diet was a hit for the Seventies audience relatively new to slimming, it is brutal physically and mentally. But Dr. Rachel Thompson, of the World Cancer Research Fund, says: “Whatever your BMI, if it goes up so does your cancer risk. It’s better to be at the lower end of the healthy BMI range if possible.”
For every two points you jump up the scale, your risk of postmenopausal breast cancer goes up 3%.
The Scarsdale Diet is a high-protein, low-carbohydrate mix with a fixation on grapefruit.
Unlike other high-protein diets that allow you to stuff yourself with fatty bacon and cheese, this diet imposes strict limits.
Breakfast is always half a grapefruit and a piece of toast with no butter or jam. Lunch on day one is cold cuts of meat with all fat removed and a tomato.
Supper is fish with salad and a piece of bread followed by more grapefruit. You must also drink lots of water and, thankfully, black tea and coffee are allowed.
The first days are a blur of dry toast, fruit and sliced tomatoes and meat.
More than 30 people have been killed in Yemen after a suspected suicide bomber has struck a village in the southern province of Abyan.
Dozens more were wounded in the attack on a funeral service in the city of Jaar, Yemeni officials said.
Military officials told Associated Press the funeral was for a man linked to militias which had helped the army in their fight against al-Qaeda.
They said five suspected al-Qaeda militants had been killed earlier in the day.
The men were killed in a suspected US drone strike on their vehicle in Hadramawt province.
More than 30 people have been killed in Yemen after a suspected suicide bomber has struck a village in the southern province of Abyan
Local governor Jamal al-Aqal said in a statement that an investigation had been opened into the “criminal and cowardly” attack on the funeral service.
A witness told the AFP news agency that “the suicide bomber belonged to the al-Qaeda network”.
The Yemeni army carried out a major offensive against Islamist militants in Abyan earlier this year, taking control of the region in June with the help of civilian militias comprised of local tribesmen.
Separatist unrest and al-Qaeda-linked militants such as Ansar al-Sharia have plagued the south for years.
An era of unprecedented sporting domination came to an end at the London Olympics today, with a stunning victory for Michael Phelps in his last competitive race.
Swimming the butterfly leg of the 4X100 medley relay, Michael Phelps, 27, displayed his characteristic power to close down the leading Japanese team and claim a record 18th gold medal and pull clear as the most successful Olympian of all time.
Cheered on by an appreciative crowd at the London Olympic Park Acquatic Centre, the U.S team romped home and Michael Phelps punched the sky with delight as he pulled down the curtain on his stunning career competing in the pool.
It was almost unthinkable for the Phelps era to end with anything less than a performance that puts him atop the podium one last time, with yet another gold medal around his neck, his 22 in all.
An era of unprecedented sporting domination came to an end at the London Olympics today, with a stunning victory for Michael Phelps in his last competitive race
Michael Phelps picked up his 17th gold on Friday in his final individual race, the 100-meter butterfly, making the turn in seventh but rallying for a victory that was actually much more comfortable than his margin in the last two Olympics – a combined five-hundredths of a second.
He slammed the wall in 51.21 seconds for payback against the guy who edged him in the 200 fly, Chad le Clos of South Africa. No gliding into this finish, the move that cost Michael Phelps the gold in their first meeting.
“Once I’m done, I think there’s going to be a lot more emotion that really comes out.”
Don’t fret about American swimming after he’s gone. Led by a pair of high schoolers, the post-Phelps era will be in very good hands.
In what amounted to a symbolic changing of the guard, Michael Phelps’ victory in the 100 fly was sandwiched between 17-year-old Missy Franklin breaking a world record in the backstroke and 15-year-old Katie Ledecky taking down a hallowed American mark that was set nearly eight years before she was born.
“This has sort of turned into the youth Olympics,” Missy Franklin said.
“There’s so many members of the team that are coming up this year that are going to carry on this incredible generation.”
No one is more incredible than Michael Phelps.
It always takes him a while to get up to speed, but he brought it home like a champion. That, in a sense, sums up his Olympics farewell.
He got off to a sluggish start but has three victories in the past four days, giving him 21 medals overall.
“He has made a world of difference for swimming,” said Missy Franklin, who captured her third gold of the London Games.
“It’s helped people rethink the impossible.”
In Michael Phelps’ victory, Chad le Clos tied with Russia’s Evgeny Korotyshkin for the silver in 51.44. Milorad Cavic, who lost to Phelps by one-hundredth of a second in Beijing, tied for fourth in 51.81, not even close in their final meeting.
“I cannot be compared to Michael Phelps,” said Milorad Cavic, who also plans to retire after the London Games.
Drake has made no secret of his persistent respect for the late singer Aaliyah and he revealed a second tattoo that he has had done in honour of the Grammy nominated artist.
Drake’s new ink, which sits on his rib cage, is also a homage to his home town area of Toronto, Canada, too.
The picture shows a large 416, which is the area code of his home city, down his side but it is only partially shaded in so that the four also looks like a one.
Aaliyah’s birthday is January 16th or 1-16, which the tattoo clearly shows.
Drake revealed a second tattoo that he has had done in honour of Aaliyah
It is the second permanent ink tribute that Drake has on his body after he had the singers face plastered on his back.
The black and white photo came shortly after Drake announced that he is planning to release a posthumous album with Aaliyah.
As well as performing some duets on the album he will also be the executive producer behind it.
The surprising move has not been well received by Missy Elliot and Timbaland, who have publicly said that they should be approached if he intends to go ahead with the project.
Timbaland told Power 105.1: “I know they’re trying to drop some Aaliyah records, but if he do it, it should be with me and him and Missy.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but the proper to do that would be for me, him and Missy to be all on the record. I produce it.
”But to put it on his album or to put it on his record or whatever, however it be, it would just not be right.”
President Barack Obama celebrated his 51st birthday today with a round of golf and plans for a weekend away at Camp David, taking a break from campaigning three months before Election Day.
Barack Obama played golf with a group of friends and aides at Andrews Air Force Base before heading to the presidential getaway in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains.
But, before Barack Obama escaped to begin any celebrations, Republicans acknowledged his birthday by delivering him a tongue-in-cheek cake.
The Republican National Committee delivered a cake to their counterparts at the Democratic National Committee on Friday featuring a picture of a smiling Barack Obama next to the words: “You didn’t bake this.”
The inscription was a reference to a line from an Obama speech last month in which he said: “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.”
Barack Obama escaped to begin any celebrations, Republicans acknowledged his birthday by delivering him a tongue-in-cheek cake
His opponents leaped on the gaffe with Mitt Romney seizing the quote to question Barack Obama’s commitment to small business while the President and Democrats have said the quote was taken out of context.
DNC officials promptly sent the cake back to RNC headquarters, along with a copy of a recent report by the Tax Policy Center that found that Mitt Romney’s tax proposal would give millionaires a broad tax cut at the expense of tax breaks enjoyed by many middle-class families.
However, Mitt Romney’s team has disputed the study, saying his tax plan would benefit all Americans.
Barack Obama returns to campaign mode next week, with fundraisers in Connecticut on Monday and campaign rallies in Colorado on Wednesday and Thursday.
Next weekend, Barack Obama will hold several birthday-themed fundraisers in Chicago, including one at his family’s South Side home.
Barack Obama’s campaign used the event to drum up small-dollar donations before the end of the July fundraising deadline, offering two lucky winners the chance to attend the fundraiser at Obama’s red brick home.
In an email to supporters, Barack Obama warned that his birthday “could be the last one I celebrate as president of the United States, but that’s not up to me – it’s up to you”.
Barack Obama’s team has warned that he could be outspent by Republicans and GOP candidate Mitt Romney.
Barack Obama got some early birthday wishes on Thursday during a rally in Florida, when supporters serenaded him with “Happy Birthday”.
The president joked that his birthday wishes “probably would have to do with electoral votes. Winning Florida wouldn’t be a bad birthday present”.
US champion Serena Williams couldn’t hide her glee after storming to Olympic victory against Russia’s Maria Sharapova and celebrated with a crip walk.
After routing Maria Sharapova 6-0, 6-1, Serena Williams showed off some impressive dancing skills on Wimbledon’s grass centre court.
“I don’t think I’ve ever danced like that,” Serena Williams said.
“I don’t even know where the dance came from.”
However, Serena Williams certainly had plenty to dance about – today’s medal was her first Olympic gold in a singles match and means she has achieved a career Golden Slam.
Serena Williams defeated Maria Sharapova easily and finished off the match by serving two aces. She jumped for joy before performing her little victory dance as her sister, Venus Williams, watched on grinning.
“I didn’t think it could get better than winning Wimbledon,” Serena Williams said as she came off the court.
Serena Williams wins first singles Olympic gold after beating Maria Sharapova
In an incredible display of prowess, Serena Williams served three aces in the opening game, broke Maria Sharapova’s serve in the second game before racing on to win the match.
Serena Williams, the fourth seed, beat the third-seeded Russian on the same Centre Court where she took home her fifth Wimbledon championship last month.
Since losing to a 17-year-old Maria Sharapova at the 2004 Wimbledon final, 30-year-old Serena Williams has now beaten Sharapova eight consecutive times.
Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova have won all four Grand Slam titles during their careers but both were going for their first Olympic gold in singles today.
Serena Williams is scheduled to play a doubles semifinal match with her sister Venus on Saturday. The two won Olympic doubles gold in 2000 and 2008.
“Whether I win or lose, that’s not the big deal,” Serena Williams said before today’s game. She defeated world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus 6-1, 6-2 on Friday.
“The big deal for me, USA is guaranteed another medal. I’m guaranteed to just go out there tomorrow and have fun. That’s all I can do.”
Roger Federer, who has won 17 majors, also has a chance at a career Golden Slam when he plays for the gold against Andy Murray on Sunday. He beat Juan Martin del Potro in the longest best-of-three set match of the Open era, at 4 hours, 26 minutes, while Murray ousted Novak Djokovic.
“Roger, me and Maria. The odds are good,” Serena Williams said about the opportunities to get a career Golden Slam. Andre Agassi and Rafael Nadal, who withdrew from the London Olympics because of a knee injury, won all four Grand Slam titles as well as Olympic gold in different years.
Forty eight Iranian pilgrims have been kidnapped from a bus in the vicinity of a shrine near the Syrian capital Damascus, reports say.
Iranian diplomats blamed the abduction, from close to the Shia shrine of Sayyida Zainab, on “armed groups”.
Syrian state television later gave the same account of the incident.
Meanwhile, fresh fighting has been reported around Damascus, and in the northern city of Aleppo, where rebels are trying to secure their positions.
The Iranian consul in Damascus said the whereabouts of the abducted pilgrims was known.
Syrian state-run news agency Sana said the Iranians had been kidnapped by “armed terrorist groups” and that Syrian authorities were “working to handle the situation”.
Thousands of Iranians travel each year to Syria to visit the pilgrimage site in the mostly Shia district of Sayyida Zainab, which has seen heavy fighting in recent weeks.
There have been several other reports of groups of Iranian pilgrims being kidnapped in Syria in recent months, with most later being freed.
In May, 11 Lebanese Shia pilgrims were abducted in Syria while returning from Iran.
They were released after being held for three days, but the incident sparked violence across Lebanon, where the crisis in Syria has heightened sectarian tensions.
Forty eight Iranian pilgrims have been kidnapped from a bus in the vicinity of a shrine near the Syrian capital Damascus
Meanwhile, fresh fighting was reported in Syria’s two biggest cities on Saturday.
Most areas of Aleppo where rebels are entrenched have been bombarded by government forces and clashes have been reported in several districts.
Video footage posted by activists showed a military jet flying over what they said was the rebel-held quarter of Salah al-Din followed by a loud explosion.
Activists reported clashes in several areas too, including around the officers’ club and a political security headquarters.
Government forces seem to now be pushing harder in the crucial battle for Aleppo.
Syrian state television reported that troops had inflicted huge losses on what it called “terrorist mercenaries” in Salah al-Din and in other nearby areas too, our correspondent adds.
There have been skirmishes in which rebels have done rather well, he says, seizing three police stations and retaking a fourth on Friday, and rebels are “incrementally” increasing the size of the area they hold.
The rebels have “remarkable” defence capability in Salah al-Din where government tanks had been trying to enter, but as an area full of narrow twisting lanes, it is perfect for guerrilla warfare, he adds.
However, the full thrust of the armour and the artillery from the regime side has not been seen yet, he adds.
The focus of the fighting is also on the southern edge of Damascus where shelling and gunfire were reported from the Tadamon quarter, despite it having been earlier stormed by government forces.
Shooting and explosions were also being heard in some central parts of the capital, and activists reported clashes too on the western side of the city, in and around Dumar.
Earlier, Russia and China condemned a UN General Assembly resolution passed on Friday which criticized the Security Council for failing to halt the violence in Syria.
Moscow’s UN envoy, Vitaly Churkin, told reporters the resolution was one-sided and supported the armed opposition.
Western nations praised the resolution, which passed by 133 votes to 12 with 31 abstentions.
It criticizes both the UN’s own Security Council and the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for its use of violence.
The assembly debated the resolution, which was proposed by Saudi Arabia, shortly after the resignation of UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan and the failure of his six-point peace plan.
Activists say more than 20,000 people – mostly civilians – have died in 17 months of unrest.
The Afghan parliament has passed a vote of no confidence in two of its most senior ministers and demanded that they be replaced.
The interior and defence ministers were criticized for failing to prevent cross-border shelling from Pakistan and security lapses that resulted in the assassinations of senior officials.
They have also been questioned by MPs over allegations of corruption.
The vote is a blow to President Hamid Karzai’s administration, observers say.
The Afghan parliament has passed a vote of no confidence in Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak
Hamid Karzai’s office said he would make a decision on Sunday about the future of Interior Minister Besmillah Mohammadi and Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak.
The president has the power to keep them in their posts for another month. In the past, he has retained his ministers for even longer.
Speaking ahead of the vote, Rahim Wardak said he had responded to cross-border attacks by sending more troops to the north-eastern border, and had deployed long-range artillery and ammunition.
But parliament passed a measure to remove him by a vote of 146 to 72.
A separate vote of no-confidence in Besmillah Mohammadi was passed by 126 to 90.
The international community appears to have lost two key Afghan figures with whom they have been dealing the most at what is a critical time.
NATO-led forces are looking to withdraw from the country by the end of 2014.
Psychologists say actually getting angry can be the best way to solve marriage problems.
James McNulty, associate professor at the University of Tennessee, found that forgiving may actually build up resentment.
He said the “short-term discomfort of an angry but honest conversation” can benefit the health of a relationship in the long term.
“I continued to find evidence that thoughts and behaviors presumed to be associated with better wellbeing lead to worse wellbeing among some people – usually the people who need the most help achieving wellbeing.”
Psychologists say actually getting angry can be the best way to solve marriage problems
Prof. James McNulty therefore set out to examine the potential costs of positive psychology. In a set of recent studies, he found that forgiveness in marriage can have some unintended negative effects.
“We all experience a time in a relationship in which a partner transgresses against us in some way,” he said.
“For example, a partner may be financially irresponsible, unfaithful, or unsupportive.
“When these events occur, we must decide whether we should be angry and hold onto that anger, or forgive.”
His research found a variety of factors can complicate the effectiveness of forgiveness, including a partner’s level of agreeableness and the severity and frequency of the transgression.
“Believing a partner is forgiving leads agreeable people to be less likely to offend that partner and disagreeable people to be more likely to offend that partner,” he said.
Additionally, he claims, anger can serve an important role in signaling to a transgressing partner that the offensive behavior is not acceptable.
“If the partner can do something to resolve a problem that is likely to otherwise continue and negatively affect the relationship, people may experience long-term benefits by temporarily withholding forgiveness and expressing anger.”
However, Prof. James McNulty found there was no single answer to the problem.
There is no “magic bullet”, no single way to think or behave in a relationship.
“The consequences of each decision we make in our relationships depends on the circumstances that surround that decision.”
To understand how fast a human can ultimately run, we need to go beyond the record books and understand how Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt’s legs work.
In 2008, at the Beijing Olympic Games, Usain Bolt ran the 100 m in just 9.69 seconds, setting a new world record. A year later, Usain Bolt surpassed his own feat with an astonishing 9.58-second run at the 2009 Berlin World Championships. With the 2012 Olympic Games set to begin in London, the sporting world hopes Usain Bolt will overcome his recent hamstring problems and lead yet another victorious attack on the sprinting record. He is arguably the fastest man in history, but just how fast could be possibly go?
That’s a surprisingly difficult question to answer, and ploughing through the record books is of little help.
“People have played with the statistical data so much and made so many predictions. I don’t think people who work on mechanics take them very seriously,” says John Hutchinson, who studies how animals move at the Royal Veterinary College in London, UK.
The problem is that the progression of sprinting records is characterized by tortoise-like lulls and hare-like… well… sprints. People are getting faster, but in an unpredictable way. From 1991 to 2007, eight athletes chipped 0.16 seconds off the record. Bolt did the same in just over one year. Before 2008, mathematician Reza Noubary calculated that “the ultimate time for [the] 100 meter dash is 9.44 seconds.” Following Usain Bolt’s Beijing performance, he told Wired that the prediction “would probably go down a little bit”.
John Barrow from the University of Cambridge – another mathematician – has identified three ways in which Usain Bolt could improve his speed: being quicker off the mark; running with a stronger tailwind; and running at higher altitudes where thinner air would exert less drag upon him. These tricks may work, but they’re also somewhat unsatisfying. We really want to know whether flexing muscles and bending joints could send a sprinter over the finish line in 9 seconds, without relying on environmental providence.
To understand how fast a human can ultimately run, we need to go beyond the record books and understand how Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt's legs work
To answer that, we have to look at the physics of a sprinting leg. And that means running headfirst into a wall of ignorance.
“It’s tougher to get a handle on sprinting mechanics than on feats of strength or endurance,” says Peter Weyand from Southern Methodist University, who has been studying the science of running for decades.
By comparison, Peter Weyand says that we can tweak a cyclist’s weight, position and aerodynamic shape, and predict how that will affect their performance in the Tour de France.
“We know down to 1%, or maybe even smaller, what sort of performance bumps you’ll get,” he says.
“In sprinting, it’s a black hole. You don’t have those sorts of predictive relationships.”
Our ignorance is understandable. By their nature, sprints are very short, so scientists can only make measurements in a limited window of time. On top of that, the factors that govern running speed are anything but intuitive.
Peter Weyand divides each cycle of a runner’s leg into what happens when their foot is in the air, and what happens when it’s on the ground. The former is surprisingly irrelevant. Back in 2000, Peter Weyand showed that, at top speed, every runner takes around a third of a second to pick their foot up and put it down again.
“It’s the same from Usain Bolt to Grandma,” he says.
“She can’t run as fast as him but at her top speed, she’s repositioning her foot at the same speed.”
That third of a second in the air – the swing time – is probably close to a biological limit. Peter Weyand thinks that there is very little that people can do to improve on it, with a notable exception. Oscar Pistorius, the South African double-amputee, runs on artificial carbon-fibre legs that each weigh less than half of what a normal fleshy limb would do. With this lighter load, he can swing his legs around 20% faster than a runner with intact limbs, moving at the same speed.
For most runners though, speed is largely determined by how much force they can apply when their foot is on the ground. They have two simple options for running faster: hit the ground harder, or exert the same force over a longer period.
The second option partly explains why greyhounds and cheetahs are so fast. They maximize their time on the ground using their bendy backbones. As their front feet land, their spines bend and collapse, so their back halves spend more time in the air before they have to come down. Then, their spines decompress, giving their front halves more time in the air and their back legs more time on the ground.
Such tricks aren’t available to us two-legged humans, but technology provides alternatives. In the 1990s, speed skaters started using a new breed of “clap skates” where the blade is hinged to the front of the boot, rather than firmly fixed. As the skaters pushed back, the new design kept their blades in longer contact with the ice, allowing them to exert the same force over more time. Speed records suddenly fell.
People have tried to duplicate the same effect with running shoes, but with little success. That’s because a running leg behaves a bit like a pogo stick. As it hits the ground, it compresses. As it steps off, it gets a bit of elastic rebound. Technologies that try to alter a runner’s gait tend to interfere with this rebound, and diminish the leg’s overall performance.
“It’s hard to intervene in a similar manner to the clap-skates without buggering up the other mechanics of the limb,” says Peter Weyand. (Again, Oscar Pistorius bucks the trend because his artificial legs are springier than natural ones, and give him around 10% longer on the ground than other runners.)
For those with intact limbs, one option remains: exert more force on the ground. Put simply, fast people hit the ground more forcefully than slow people, relative to their body weight. But we know very little about what contributes to that force, and we are terrible at predicting it based on a runner’s physique or movements.
We know that champion male sprinters can hit the ground with a force that’s around 2.5 times their body weight (most people manage around two times). When Usain Bolt’s foot lands, it applies around 900 pounds (400 kg) of force for a few milliseconds, and continues pushing for around 90 more.
Peter Weyand likes to imagine a weightlifter trying to apply the same force in a one-legged squat – they would come nowhere close.
“What we know about force under static conditions under-predicts how hard sprinters hit by a factor of two,” he says.
“We just don’t have the ability to go from the movements of the body to the force on the ground.”
Even if a sprinter’s muscles were eventually boosted by gene doping techniques, we have no way of calculating how much faster their owners would run.
Studies are underway to fill in those gaps, and Peter Weyand is hoping that we’ll be able to make better predictions in five or 10 years. Just a few months ago, Marcus Pandy from the University of Melbourne used computer simulations of sprinters to show that the calf muscles, more than any others, determine the amount of force that runners apply to the ground. At top speeds, the hip muscles become increasingly important too. “Maybe if you train a sprinter, you could potentially train them to have really strong calves,” says Hutchinson.
For the moment, however, any predictions about the ceilings of human speed are still ill-informed ones. The only way to work out if Usain Bolt or some other sprinter will smash the existing record is to watch them.
South African athlete Oscar Pistorius made history at London Games 2012 by becoming the first amputee sprinter to compete at the Olympics.
Oscar, Pistorius, a four-time Paralympic champion, 25, whose legs were amputated below the knee as a baby, finished second in his 400 m heat in a time of 45.44 seconds to reach Sunday’s semi-final.
“I didn’t know if I should cry or be happy. It was such a mix of emotions,” Oscar Pistorius said.
South African athlete Oscar Pistorius made history at London Games 2012 by becoming the first amputee sprinter to compete at the Olympics
Defending champion LaShawn Merritt of the United States pulled up injured.
The 26-year-old, who failed a drugs test in 2009, appeared to be still suffering with an Achilles tendon problem that affected him earlier in the season.
He stopped running after 250m and crossed the line at walking pace.
“It’s Olympic year – I tried to go for it, and it just didn’t happen,” he said.
Oscar Pistorius was impressive in his heat, coasting over the line behind Luguelin Santos of the Dominican Republic, who won in 45.04.
“Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me. Thank you so much to my family – I saw my gran in the crowd. It was the most amazing experience.
“This crowd is amazing. I’ve run so many times in the UK and it feels like a second home to me.
“I’ve got to thank my team, they trust me, I trust them. We’ve been together for nine years.”
Oscar Pistorius ran in the individual 400 m at the 2011 World Championships but did not progress beyond the semi-finals.
He also ran in the relay but, after running in the heats, he was omitted from the team which raced in the final as South Africa went on to claim silver.
Oscar Pistorius is also due to run in the 4×400 m relay at London 2012.
The floods that hit parts of North Korea in recent weeks have killed 169 people and left 400 missing, the state news agency says, sharply revising earlier casualty figures.
The floods and heavy rain in late June and July have also made more than 212,000 people homeless, it says.
Some 65,000 hectares (160,000 acres) of cropland were affected.
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) says it is sending emergency food aid to North Korea after it asked for aid.
The floods that hit parts of North Korea in recent weeks have killed 169 people and left 400 missing
Official media had previously reported 119 deaths in the floods.
On Friday, the WFP said the initial food assistance would provide flood victims with 400 g (14 oz) of maize per day for two weeks, but it did not say when the food would arrive.
UN officials in Pyongyang who visited flood-hit parts of the country to assess damage said the need for aid was urgent.
Damage to infrastructure and farmland has affected the country’s already dire food shortage problem.
More than 8,600 houses were destroyed and another 43,770 swamped, along with some 1,400 schools, factories and healthcare facilities, according to the state news agency.
Residents in these areas need of food supplies, as well as clean water, as wells have been contaminated by sewage during the floods.
North Korea relies on food aid because it cannot grow enough food to feed its people.
Famine in the mid-1990s is believed to have killed hundreds of thousands of people.
A UN report released last month estimated that two-thirds of North Korea’s 24 million population suffer from a chronic shortage of food.
