WebProNews

Author: Lacy Langley

  • Listeria Outbreak: Produce Industry Has to Raise Bar

    The listeria epidemic, in which the deadly illness to spread to 28 states and was later traced to Jensen Farms, in Colorado, was the nation’s deadliest outbreak of foodborne illness in 25 years. The FDA concluded the melons likely were contaminated in the Jensen Farms’ packing house, and that dirty equipment and standing water were to blame. They found that the melons were also not adequately washed.

    The investigation into the often fatal outbreak of 2011 continues to this day. Colorado farmers Eric and Ryan Jensen appeared in a Denver federal court this week. The brothers pleaded “not guilty” to misdemeanor charges of introducing the contaminated melons into interstate commerce, according to AP. The trial is scheduled to start December 1st. The brothers could possibly spend six years in prison and could owe $1.5 million in fines each, should they be convicted.

    In order to bump it to a felony charge, the prosecution would have to prove that the contamination was intentional, as it was in the 2009 peanut contamination case.

    Michael Doyle, director of University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety Criminal said that while charges are rare in food-borne illnesses, the FDA has been more aggressive in pursuing farmers and food processors for alleged lapses.

    “I think the FDA is sending a strong message that the produce industry is going to have to raise the bar to ensure the safety of the, basically, ready-to-consume foods,” he said.

    Methods to upgrade and repair the means to meet the highest standards of food safety would be very expensive, but feasible for most. However, many would argue that because of the recent history of illness and even death from a preventable cause, the bar must be raised so that no one else should die from contaminated produce.

    Image via youtube

  • Thornwood High School Guard Autopsy “Inconclusive”

    Investigations into the death of Thornwood High School security guard Richard Cowser, who died while trying to break up a fight on Thursday, are still ongoing. An autopsy on Friday determined that the cause the 54-year-old’s death was inconclusive. Police responded to the suburban Chicago school shortly after the incident and found Cowser unconscious in the hallway.

    According to ABC, Witnesses said he and another security guard were trying to break up a fight between two girls, when he fell into a nearby locker and began having trouble breathing. Witnesses are unclear if he was thrown by one of the girls or if he simply lost his balance. He lost consciousness before paramedics could respond and was declared dead shortly after being taken to a nearby hospital.

    On Thursday the school released a statement offering condolences to Cowser’s family and said counselors were made available for Thornwood students. Police were interviewing witnesses to piece together what happened and are also reviewing security cameras that may have footage of the incident.

    The family of Richard Cowser are surprised at his sudden death, as they the security guard was a body builder that was in amazing shape, and was very healthy. In fact, students at Thornwood High School knew him as “Hulk”, including student Tyshon Boyd, who took a cell phone video of the incident. He said Cowser turned purple after he hit the ground.

    “The security guards run over there, trying to break the fight up. He jumped in front of the girls and he just slowly passed out. He leaned over into the locker and passed out,” Boyd said.

    Image via youtube

  • Gordon Ramsay is Ratted out By 9-year-old

    Gordon Ramsay is known for his rants against hopefuls on his cooking shows “MasterChef” and “Hell’s Kitchen” and his restaurant makeover series “Kitchen Nightmares”. His meltdowns are legendary and highly anticipated when things don’t come up roses for the angry Brit.

    So, the logical step would be to get him to host a junior version of “MasterChef,” where the contestants range in age from 8 to 13. The big question was how Ramsay will be able to contain his Hulk-rage around the little darlings.

    Turns out, he couldn’t. According to Today, When Ramsay tried to weasel out of a question about whether he had slipped on the show, he babbled, “My wife is an ex-school teacher. I think, like any sport, any situation under pressure, when some bad words come out, they get bleeped. I don’t think I swore once across ‘MasterChef Junior.’ ”

    Sarah, the 9-year-old sassy little chef who seems able to go fork to fork with Ramsay, proceeded to totally rat him out. When asked if he was engaged in an anger management therapy, Ramsay tried, unwisely, to pass the question to Sarah.

    “Seriously?” the little girl said, looking at her mentor. “Really? Answer your question!” Later, she approached TODAY and offered to dish on the famous chef, saying, “Well, I’ll tell you off the record. Turn off your recorder …”

    She dished that he slipped not once, but twice, and had to contribute to the set’s “Swear Jar”.

    “I have seen almost all of Gordon Ramsay’s shows,” she said. “But I wasn’t really frightened about it because he can’t be really mean because, like, we’re kids.”

    Sarah may not be afraid of Gordon Ramsay, but her fellow hopefuls might feel, oh, maybe a little threatened by her. In the preview clips, the cutie screams at a teammate during a challenge, “Whip IT! Whip it like a MAN!”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE5RVZ_Bk8Q

    I think I may be a little afraid of her!

    What’s clear is that “MasterChef Junior” won’t be a trophy-for-every-kid kind of competition. The winner gets $100,000, and the losers get shown the door.

    “I think being firm and fair is something that we cannot be short of in any country, and (we need to be) brutally honest”, Ramsay told TODAY.

    Better sit down for this, America. There will actually come a point that these children have to be told they just aren’t good enough to continue on in the competition. (Gasp) Oh, No! What about their fragile self-images?

    Ramsay, who has three daughters and a son ranging in age from 11 to 15, claims he spoke to the young chefs as if they were his own and pointed out that it’s important to let kids know not everyone can win at everything.

    “MasterChef Junior” airs Fridays at 8 p.m on FOX.

    Image via youtube

  • Chocolate is Good for You (Kinda)! Eat Up, People!

    Chocolate lovers, rejoice! Researchers found a reason to rationalize that binge. Turns out, chocolate may help older people keep their brains healthy and their thinking sharp, according to an August study published in the journal Neurology.

    Study participants who drank two cups of cocoa daily for 30 days showed an 8.3 percent increase in blood flow to the brain, and they improved their scores on memory and thinking tests. Yay!

    However, there’s no need to base your rationalization on this one study. There are plenty of excuses provided by science, such as the finding that daily chocolate consumption may reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke in some high-risk patients, according to a 2012 study in the journal BMJ.

    There’s also the research into how chocolate can actually be slimming, so if you’ve always thought of chocolate as a fat-inducing food, you may want to rethink your stance on this tasty treat. One study found that people who eat chocolate regularly are more likely to be thinner than those who don’t. People in the study who admitted to eating chocolate five times per week or more had a lower BMI (Body Mass Index) than those who ate chocolate less frequently, according to the 2012 study published by the JAMA network. Chocolate makes you skinny. In your face, Jillian Michaels!

    I also hear that chocolate is excellent appetite control! Chocolate contains fiber, which we all know, is a natural appetite suppressant. So, if you give in to that chocolate craving, you could end up eating fewer calories than if you tried to avoid chocolate. That’s right. Fiber, baby.

    Here’s some vintage fun to get you in the mood:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP1_746b6ZM

    Ok, so maybe not ALL chocolate is good for you, and yes, we’ve all heard that the darker the chocolate, the better it is for your health. So, here are some ideas for consumption of healthier chocolate, inspired by Live Science!

    Enjoy a little hot chocolate as the weather cools off! To boost healthiness of your hot cocoa, buy unsweetened powdered chocolate, and add your own sweetener, perhaps a natural one like Stevia or Xylitol. Also, keep it as dark as you can drink it. If you’re feeling especially responsible, I guess you should skip the marshmallows…

    If for some reason, you don’t like eating dark chocolate or drinking it as a delicious hot winter beverage, you could sprinkle some in your oatmeal, cold cereal, or even in your morning (or evening) coffee!

    You’re welcome, World.

    image via wikipedia

  • Marijuana to be Grown at Old Hershey Factory

    The old Hershey factory in in Smith Falls, Ontario, about 250 miles from Toronto, which churned out Hershey chocolate bars for decades, has been sold to a start-up called Tweed, Inc., which plans to use about a third of the 470,000 square foot plant to grow medical marijuana.

    Tweed, Inc. hopes that this will be an opportunity for a turnaround in the local economy that has been hurting since the landmark Hershey plant shut down in 2008, reports Reuters.

    “In the last five or six years, we’ve lost 1,700 jobs,” said Dennis Staples, mayor of the town of 9,000 people. He implied that there’s hope that Tweed’s investment could trigger other jobs. He added: “This announcement by Tweed, Inc. is welcome news for us.”

    Most of those jobs losses were at the Hershey plant, but the closure of a few other local businesses and a provincial facility also cut jobs.

    “It’s an exciting opportunity,” said Mark Zekulin, Tweed’s vice president of community engagement. “There is a demand and there’s good opportunity in this market.” Tweed, Inc. has applied to Health Canada for a permit to grow medical marijuana at the factory. It will distribute its product to patients, who have a prescription for the controversial therapy, across Canada.

    Canada legalized medical marijuana in 2001. Only 500 people were given the “ok” to grow and smoke the drug. That number has since risen to about 30,000. This incredible rise caused serious issues for those who regulate and police marijuana use. The government responded, earlier this year, with a plan to take legal production of medical marijuana out of private homes and to license private companies to produce medical marijuana for authorized patients.

    Therefore, Tweed, Inc. launched efforts to get into the legal growing and distribution game. The company, which expects to hear back from regulators soon, plans to spend about C$1.5 million ($1.45 million) retrofitting the old chocolate factory. Once up and running, the plant will employ about 100 people, which wouldn’t replace all 1,700 lost jobs, would be music to the struggling town’s ears.

    Image via youtube

  • George Zimmerman Accused of Stealing Furniture

    Lake Mary Police say that they were called by George Zimmerman’s mother-in-law to the home George and Shellie Zimmerman rented from Shellie’s parents, Machelle and David Dean on Thursday. Machelle reportedly accused George of stealing furniture from, and damaging, the home. Shellie Zimmerman was out of town Thursday when the alleged furniture theft took place.

    Police spokesman Zach Hudson said George Zimmerman was supposed to vacate the house by Thursday, and when the Deans came by to inspect it, they found furniture and a television missing and unknown damage. “We have a complaint that there are some items missing from 300 Sprucewood,” said Hudson. “There was some damage to the house. Who committed that damage, I don’t know. Was it there before hand, I don’t know. We’re trying to figure out exactly what we have here.”

    George Zimmerman has not been a stranger to run-ins with the law since his acquittal in the controversial trial in which he was accused of murdering unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin.

    Twice since the end of the trial, Zimmerman has been pulled over for speeding.

    A few days after Shellie filed for divorce, he was arrested and briefly taken into custody after she told police Zimmerman punched her father in the nose and smashed her iPad. She also said that he threatened her while putting his hand on his gun. All this allegedly took place at the same home that police were called to Thursday. Despite police saying they never saw or confiscated a gun at the scene, she stands by that story, she told Matt Lauer on the Today Show.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N861ENiMcWg

    “I did not see a gun, but I saw — I know my husband. I saw him in a stance and a look in his eyes that I have never seen before,” she said. “His shirt was halfway unbuttoned and he was putting his hand in his shirt and saying, ‘Please step closer, please step closer,’ so I think that logically I assumed he had a gun on him.”

    Shellie hopes to move on with her life after the divorce is final. Her attorney, Kelly Sims, who appeared with her on TODAY Thursday, said the divorce papers have been filed, but George has not been served with them because they don’t know where he is.

    “(I’m) just focusing on myself,” she said. “I’ve lost 40 pounds since the trial. I’m really taking care of myself and moving forward with my life.”

    Image via youtube

  • Katy Perry Kicked by Barbara Walters While Down

    They say hindsight is 20/20, and Katy Perry reveals to Billboard, in a new interview, that she learned that to be a fact concerning the interview she gave to Barbara Walters during the last ebbing weeks of her marriage to Russel Brand.

    “I shouldn’t have done the interview,” Perry admitted about Walters’ Most Fascinating People of 2011 special, which aired that December. “I was playing Madison Square Garden that same night, and I knew that the end of my marriage was coming. I was just exhausted and stressed.”

    The “Part of Me” star claims that the Queen of Media kicked her a little while she was already down, but notes that it wasn’t intentional on Barbara’s part.

    “I’d prepped everyone that I was running late, but Barbara showed up at the original time anyway,” the “Roar” singer continued. “When I got there, I apologized immediately, but then she said to me, ‘You know, I’ve only ever waited for one other person this long, and you know who that person was? Judy Garland. You know how she turned out, right?’ I was like, ‘Oh, snap! Yes, bitch!’”

    But Perry harbors no ill will to Barbara, in fact she still greatly admires her, “I think it’s the coolest thing that Barbara Walters shaded me,” Perry added. “I just couldn’t tell her as we were sitting down for a mega-interview, ‘Hey, my marriage is falling apart. Give me a break.’”

    Walters of course brought up Perry’s husband and his troubled past in the interview, and asked if it was “a good marriage, a happy marriage?”

    After a pause, a pink-haired Perry, managed to squeak out, “I think it’s lovely, so far.”

    Russel Brand informed Perry he was leaving via text message, and filed for divorce from the star just weeks after her interview aired.

    Walters went on to ask more questions about Perry’s whirlwind marriage to Brand. When Walters asked the “Roar” singer if Brand’s heroine addiction, that he was battling when they met, bothered her, she replied, “Um, it didn’t actually, because I knew about my father’s past [battling substance abuse]. “I knew that there is a capacity for change in anyone, I really believe that. I saw that Russell’s changed as well, so I believe that people can really…uh…turn out for the best.”

    But when Walters asked if there was anything she wanted to reveal right then and there, she said, “No, let’s just talk about right here.”

    Her interview with Billboard wasn’t only about a past interview, however. The Grammy winning star also talked to Billboard about how some of her songs from “Prism” take influence from Brand, such as the upcoming “Ghost,” in which she sings, “You sent a text, it’s like the wind changed your mind,” in reference to the devastating text message.

    And the song “By the Grace of God,” she said, “is evident of how tough it really was at a certain point. I asked myself, ‘Do I want to endure? Should I continue living?’

    “All the songs are real-life moments. I can only write autobiographically. I put all the evidence in the music. I tell my fans if they want to know the real truth about stuff, just listen to the songs.”

    image via youtube

  • Rosie the Riveter Still Riveting at 93

    Elinor Otto, 93, was one of the original “Rosie the Riveter” girls, celebrated in the popular song and poster of the same name. She first joined the workforce as a single mom in 1942, piecing together planes at Rohr Aircraft Corporation in Chula Vista to support the war effort. “Rosies” were women, left behind, who supported the war effort by filling tens of thousands of jobs because able-bodied men had joined the fighting overseas. They did what they had to do to support the boys fighting overseas, and they still had families to feed, after all.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of0L3VktjTI

    NBC reports that Elinor gets up at 4 a.m. each morning and drives to the Boeing plant in Long Beach, California, and after her coffee and newspaper, begins at 6. She spends her days inserting rivets into the wing sections of C-17 cargo planes. It’s a job she’s been doing at various aircraft assembly plants.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55NCElsbjeQ

    Jobs were hard to find in wartime, and didn’t pay very well. Otto’s first job paid 65 cents an hour, about $38 less than she makes now. On top of that, she had to pay $20 a month for her son’s childcare. She soon discovered that she enjoyed the work and she was earning enough to support herself and her son. She says she loved the routine, the camaraderie, and going to the dance hall on the weekends to meet her friends from work.

    “It was ballroom dancing,” she remembered, her blue eyes shining at the memory. “I liked that.”

    “We were part of this big thing,” Otto said. “We hoped we’d win the war. We worked hard as women, and were proud to have that job.”

    But, when the war ended, the “Rosies” disappeared also, and when the boys came back, it left some women, like Otto, with no job and bills to pay. She got out there and tried new things, but office jobs didn’t appeal to her, and she spent a short time as a carhop, until she was informed that she would have to wear roller skates.

    Then, luckily, Southern California came out of the war with a booming aircraft industry and Otto’s skill with a rivet gun brought her back into the game, and she’s been there ever since.

    “I’m a working person, I guess. I like to work. I like to be around people that work. I like to get up, get out of the house, get something accomplished during the day,” she said.

    She is there because she is still good at what she does said her boss, Don Pitcher. “When I think to myself, ‘Why am I slowing up? Why am I home?’ I think that ‘Elinor is at work. And Elinor is 93!’”

    Otto was recently honored when Rosie the Riveter Park, next to the site of the former Douglas Aircraft Co. plant, was opened. The plant is where many women worked during World War II, according to LA Times.

    It celebrates not only the Rosie the Riveter era, but the later women’s empowerment movement propelled by the slogan attached to the iconic Rosie wartime poster, ‘We Can Do It!’.

    “She says, ‘We can do it!’ and I’m doing it!” Otto said, flexing her thin arm and laughing, mimicking the iconic poster.

    If she were younger, she jokes, she would look at herself now and wonder, “What’s that old bag still doing here?”. She says she will be working as long as she can, but it will probably only be until sometime next year when Boeing finishes off its last contract for those C-17 cargo planes.

    “I’ll be the one that closes the door,” Otto said. “I’ll be the last one there.”

    Image via youtube

  • Sandra Bullock Applauds Fight Against Paparazzi

    It’s really hard to pick up a tabloid these days that doesn’t feature a photo of Sandra Bullock with her adopted 3-year-old son, Louis Bardot. Now, Bullock is praising the fight against harrassment and is speaking out in support of a new law that increases penalties for paparazzi that terrorize the children of celebrities.

    California Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed the bill, which increases the penalties for intentional harassment of a child because of their parents’ employment, according to CNN.

    According to a release from the governor’s office, the new law “increases the maximum jail time for harassment of a child or ward because of the person’s employment from six months in the county jail to a year in the county jail.” It also imposes some pretty stiff fines: For a first violation, a fine not to exceed $10,000. For a second violation, it’s $20,000. For a third violation, it’s $30,000.

    “We are fair game, I get it,” Bullock told CNN at her handprint and footprint ceremony outside the TCL Chinese Theatre on Wednesday. “Children should be allowed to be children and not be sold. You’re taking a picture of a child and selling it!”

    The effort gained a ton of momentum after Hollywood heavyweights Halle Berry and Jennifer Garner testified before the California Assembly Judiciary Committee in August to support the bill. The pair opened up about the conditions suffered by their children as a result of the aggressive paparazzi.

    “I love my kids,” Jennifer Garner says. “They’re beautiful and sweet and innocent, and I don’t want a gang of shouting, arguing, law-breaking photographers who camp out everywhere we are, all day, every day to continue traumatizing my kids.”

    “We aren’t just whiny celebrities,” Halle Berry says. “We’re moms here, who are just trying to protect our children.”

    “I think it’s brilliant,” Sandra Bullock said about the fight that Berry and Garner are posing. She explains,”The girls worked so hard, the attorney worked so hard, and I think it’s a good sign.”

    Image via wikimedia commons

  • Tina Fey Pokes Fun of Nip-Slip for SNL Promos

    The best way to get over an embarassing situation is to laugh at yourself, and suffering an embarrassing moment in front of millions of TV viewers isn’t going to stop Tina Fey from poking fun at the accidental exposure. The popular “30 Rock” actress apparently suffered a nip slip as she accepted the Best Comedy Writing award alongside Tracey Wigfield at Sunday night’s Emmys. Her blue, cleavage-bearing Narciso Rodriguez gown briefly flashed her nipple to viewers, but it was nothing a quick adjustment couldn’t fix.

    Tina Fey is now doing what only Tina Fey can do. As the time nears for her to host the Season 39 premiere of Saturday Night Live, the queen of comedy has decided to spin her now-famous nip slip into a number of hilarious promotions for the upcoming show. In a the Saturday Night Live promos with one of the show’s stars Kenan Thompson, Fey promises viewers she won’t have another malfunction when she hosts the show’s upcoming season 39 premiere.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLmgguaekeE

    “Hi, I’m Tina Fey,” she announced in one promo, “And I’m hosting the season premiere of ‘Saturday Night Live’ this weekend with musical guest Arcade Fire.”, she begins.

    As the wardrobe malfunction is discussed (and as Kenan Thompson begins to suggest that another one would be funny), she insists,”It’s under control.”, as she raises her arms, revealing her blurred-out bare chest beneath her blazer.

    “Forgot my shirt.” she adds, as Thompson looks on wide-eyed.

    Tina is returning to her old stomping grounds to host for the third time. She was the show’s first female head writer and co-anchored “Weekend Update” with Jimmy Fallon and later, fellow success story, Amy Poehler.

    According to the LA Times, she left “SNL” in 2006 to develop the Emmy-winning NBC comedy “30 Rock,” which was highly successful. It wrapped its seventh season in last year, but she has made guest appearances on Saturday Night Live repeatedly, most famously to perform her impersonation of 2008 vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin.

    The season premiere of “SNL” airs Sept. 28 on NBC, with Fey as host. Arcade Fire will serve as the night’s musical guest.

    Image via youtube

  • James Caan is “Back in the Game” with New Comedy

    James Caan’s new role as Terry “The Cannon” Gannon involves him playing an overbearing dad and former baseball player who has way too much to say about how the local Little League ought to be run, according to UPI.

    Terry Gannon Jr., played by Maggie Lawson, who we all know and love from “Psych”, is a lovely and newly single mother who has just moved back in with her father. He did make his daughter into an all-star college ballplayer but, the Cannon, also apparently a single parent, was less than perfect. This funnification of, well, child abandonment is, oddly enough, “Back in the Game’s” biggest strength, reports the LA Times. Take this scene for example, Her: “You moved me to Mexico and left me with the team mascot.” Him: “I told you, I was in jail.”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf3ttSBq09g

    Caan owns the screen in this show with beer guzzling charm like nobody’s business.

    The show opens with Terry Jr. escorting her son Danny, played by Griffin Gluck, who won this season’s Most Appealing Child Actor award, to try out for the local baseball league, which is hovered over by a bunch of Dads led by Dick (Ben Koldyke), whose name is used often as a cheap joke. They are unfortunately living vicariously through their sons. Despite his athletic heritage, Danny is a terrible ballplayer. He doesn’t care about baseball, he just wants to impress a girl.

    Terry, Jr. is befriended by Lulu Lovette, played by “Being Human”‘s Lenora Crichlow, who turns out to be the show’s second biggest strength. Lulu is a flask-swigging, wealthy widow. When neither of their sons makes the league, Lulu offers to finance a new team and Terry. Jr. soon finds herself coaching an assortment of misfit players. It’s really better than it sounds.

    Interestingly enought, this role isn’t too far of a stretch from everyday life for James Caan. Caan’s real-life son, Scott, who was somewhat like his on-screen daughter Terry Jr., played All-American softball in college. “My son Scott, he was really good. I coached kids for six years, and I thought I had front-row seats at Yankee Stadium because he had scholarships. But he decided to become a … thespian.”

    Caan shared some “Cannon”-like moments in an interview. “I was not quite The Cannon, but I was enthusiastic,” he said. “I got thrown out three times. I chased two of the umpires over a fence with a baseball bat!” But Caan swears the reason he got tossed was completely unfair. “They told me I said, ‘Well, why was he out?’” he recalled. “He said, ‘I don’t like your attitude.’ ‘Tell me why he was out.’ He says, ‘Hey, I don’t like your attitude.’ That was it.”

    Caan says that baseball is really just the facade for the show. “Back in the Game” is really about family, fun, and hilarity. “No. 1, it’s funny,” Caan said. “The writers and creators are all guys that belong in a home. They’re that ridiculously funny.”

    “Baseball literally is the background, but it’s about this family that was brought together by baseball and separated by baseball, and then trying to be brought together again through baseball through the daughter, the father and the grandson,” he said. “I play this horrifying coach, and she plays my beautiful daughter who still has a little of my blood in her, and I’m teaching the kid how to be me so eventually she’ll have two of us to deal with.”

    “Back in the Game” airs Wednesdays at 8:30 on ABC.

    Image via Twitter

  • Acne Treatment Awareness is Goal of Scholarship

    Acne may have met its match! Valeant Pharmaceuticals North America LLC’s division, Medicis, announced today the winners of the first annual I Acanya®Succeed scholarship program. The program is an education-based initiative that provides scholarships to college students who have taken an active role in managing their acne. They submitted a compelling video essay depicting how their personal struggles with acne were helped by the care of a dermatologist. Students were also required to include two letters of recommendation and information about their school and community activities.

    Three winners who represented the three regions of the country, were selected to receive up to $48,000 each to use for college tuition. The three winners are recent high school graduates who will attend the following universities in the fall of 2013; Duke, New York University (NYU), and University of Wisconsin.

    “Medicis salutes the winners of the first annual I Acanya Succeed scholarship program, which demonstrates our commitment to improving the lives of young people through education,” said Ryan Weldon, President, Medicis. “It is our goal to inform and help guide patients who may be needlessly suffering from acne, a highly treatable condition when managed by a medical professional.”

    Each year, an estimated 40 to 50 million Americans are affected by acne vulgaris, a condition that affects over 85% of teenagers and often continues into their 20’s and 30’s. Fortunately, acne is a treatable condition, one that often does not require complex treatment regimens, and companies like Meidicis is trying to get that word out.

    “The video essays submitted by this year’s I Acanya Succeed scholarship winners underscore the impact of acne among teens, while highlighting that the condition remains under-treated, as effective solutions for acne can be elusive for people trying to self-treat without a physician’s counsel,” said Tage Ramakrishna, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of Valeant Pharmaceuticals. “As the winners’ videos show, it is important to raise awareness among teens and young adults that effective therapies are available, and that an individualized treatment plan can be very effective.”

    Medicis markets Acanya (clindamycin phosphate and benzoyl peroxide) Gel, 1.2%/2.5% for the topical treatment of acne vulgaris in patients 12 years of age and older. They created the I Acanya Succeed Scholarship program to educate students about the need to work with a dermatologist to manage acne. It was also created to empower students by providing some financial assistance to obtain a college education.

    Image via wikipedia

  • Daryl Hannah Opens Up About Autism Struggle

    Daryl Hannah recently revealed to People her childhood autism diagnosis and the hardship she experienced as a result of the disorder. Although it’s hard to imagine such a huge star having issues with shyness, she says that was the main problem. Now that she’s older and learned to deal with the issues that come along with autism, she feels free to speak out.

    Autism is a disorder that affects people in a way that makes social interaction and verbal communication and non-verbal communication incredibly hard, and in some cases, very restricted. Usually children are diagnosed with autism around the age of three.

    Hannah admitted that, though she was very successful in her teenage years, she hid her disease from producers. “I’ve never been comfortable being the center of attention,” Hannah said, describing the “debilitating shyness” and insecurity she felt about her diagnosis. She also said she refused to do public appearances in those early years, “not because I was above it, but because I was terrified. I’m a grown up now. I’ve learned a couple of things that really would’ve made my life easier if I’d known them 20 years ago,” she said.

    The pressures of Hollywood are overwhelming enough without dealing with autism. Despite that fact, she lit up Hollywood in movies like “Splash”, “Steel Magnolias”, “Blade Runner” and “Wall Street”, but none would suspect she was hiding such a secret. She used to rock incessantly, and still does, but has learned to control it, reports the Daily Mail.

    Although now Daryl Hannah isn’t in the limelight or starring in lead roles, the actress has said that she is happy where she is in her life, and she hopes her struggles will open more eyes to autism.

    The issue of People with this interview hits stands today.

    Image via youtube

  • Phoebe Tonkin and Paul Wesley Dating?

    Phoebe Tonkin and Paul Wesley Dating?

    Phoebe Tonkin and Paul Wesley were spotted out at Soho house in Manhattan on Saturday on what appeared to be a double date. Wesley, who confirmed his split from wife Torrey DeVitto in July, was getting mighty comfy with his new squeeze, reports Us Weekly.

    “It looked like Paul and Phoebe might have set up Ben and Shelley,” said an eyewitness, referring to Tonkin and Wesley’s friends, actors Ben McKenzie from the show “Southland”, and Shelley Hennig of “The Secret Circle”. It definitely “seemed like a first date.”

    “Paul and Phoebe were 100 percent romantic — they were across the table from Ben all cozied up on the couch kissing each other,” the source added. “She had her head on his chest.”

    Wesley, 31, had already called it quits with wife Torrey DeVitto before he began dating Tonkin. “Their split was not yet public,” the source says of the former spouses, who tied the knot in April 2011 and announced their breakup in July 2013 . According to E!, DeVitto is a former Vampire Diaries guest star. She is best known for her TV roles on Army Wives, Pretty Little Liars and One Tree Hill.

    DeVitto has been busy working on a documentary , “The Road to Hope”. It’s focus is on child caregivers who have been orphaned by the AIDS epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa.

    Image via Twitter

  • Dumb and Dumber To Begins Filming in Atlanta

    Jeff Daniels has been suggesting for a while that Harry Dunn and Lloyd Christmas could, finally, after two decades, be returning. Behold, the movie gods are finally granting us a bushel of new hilarious antics! Our favorite heros of humor are on their way back! Harry and Lloyd just started filming Dumb and Dumber To!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMXwrJV3W98

    Today, Jeff Daniels provided the proof on Twitter.

    He went backstage to chat up the media after he picked up a surprise Emmy Sunday night, according to USA Today. The statue is for his role as news anchor Will McAvoy in HBO’s drama The Newsroom. What did he plan to do next?

    “We’re going to party until dawn and then I’m going to hop on a plane to Atlanta and start shooting Dumb and Dumber To,” he said.

    In order to please fans of the original, directors Bobby and Peter Farrelly are going to have to take things a bit farther than they did the first time around.
    When Hollywood Life asked about the sequel and if there was something truly horrific to be expected, Daniels said,

    “The scariest thing? There are some things that’s we’re going to do in Dumb and Dumber 2 that make the toilet scene [in the original] seem lame. Pales in comparison and I can’t divulge what, but just that they’ve topped it,” he explained. I can’t even imagine…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwcVJMvVWDA

    “They best thing about it? I get to work with a comedic genius,” Jeff said about costar Jim Carrey.

    The original “Dumb & Dumber” premiered in 1994, and “Dumb and Dumber To” will most likely come out in 2014 which will make a great twenty year anniversary gift for us fans!

    Image via Twitter

  • Francesca Pascale, 28, to Marry Berlusconi, 77

    28-year-old Francesca Pascale confirmed that she plans to marry the disgraced former Italian Prime Minister,77, according to the Boston Herald.

    Silvio Berlusconi once described Francesca Pascale as “27 years old, with very solid values, beautiful on the outside and even more beautiful on the inside.” He said Francesca Pascale is “very close to” him and that she appreciates his daughter Marina and “loves her very much, too.”

    Francesca Pascale actually became engaged to Silvio Berlusconi late last year but he was still technically married to his wife, so he legally couldn’t marry Francesca Pascale quite yet. Berlusconi is divorcing his second wife Veronica Lario, whom he married in 1990 and had three children with. Reuters reports that Lario filed for divorce in 2009. In the divorce documents, she accused Berlusconi of having an affair with a 17-year-old girl, which he denied. He is disputing a settlement with Lario that would cost him about 100,000 euros ($135,000) per day if confirmed by a court.

    The media magnet is in the process of an appeal against a June conviction. He is accused of abuse of office and paying for sex with a minor. That innocent minor would be nightclub dancer Karima El Mahroug, better known under her stage name “Ruby the Heartstealer”. She has insisted under oath that she never had sex with Berlusconi. Both he and Francesca Pascale deny this sex ever took place, with her saying, “My president isn’t a saint, but he is absolutely unable to treat women like objects.”

    In an interview, Pascale said she did not attend the so-called “bunga-bunga” parties where El Mahroug was present because “women threw themselves at him” and she could not have tolerated it .

    Pascale grew up near the city of Naples. She met Berlusconi when she was only 21 because she had co-founded a club called “Silvio We Miss You” after he lost the prime minister’s office to Romano Prodi in 2006. “I immediately asked him if I could give him my phone number and I asked for his,” she said. “He told me: ‘You’re unscrupulous’.”

    Francesca Pascale’s dreams of marriage to Silvio Berlusconi apparently started when she was less than 18 years old. Pascale met Silvio Berlusconi back in 2006 but he “completely rejected her” at the time, saying, “Don’t even talk about it, you’re too young, I can’t give you the future you deserve.” However, she won out in an “unending courtship” as she calls it:

    “I was a minor when I set my sights on him. I sought him out, I courted him, I made him fall in love and then I became his girlfriend. I practically did and do everything: All he has to do is say ‘yes’.”

    Image via youtube

  • Birdie Africa, Survivor of MOVE Bombing Dies, at 41

    Michael Ward, one of only two survivors of the MOVE bombing in Philadelphia, died on Friday. Ward, 41, was found unconscious in a hot tub aboard a cruise ship in the Caribbean on Friday

    Mr. Ward’s father, Andino, said Wednesday that he and his son were vacationing with relatives. “It was a family cruise,” Ward said. “It was my 30th wedding anniversary and his sister’s 10th anniversary, and her in-laws’ 50th anniversary. So all of the kids treated us to an anniversary cruise.”

    The Brevard County, Florida, Medical Examiner’s told WHYY that initial signs, “indicated an accidental drowning, but the office will await the return of toxicology tests before determining a cause of death.”

    Ward, who was known as “Birdie Africa,” became an icon of the disaster. According to NPR, it happened on May 13, 1985. On that fateful day, police had an armed confrontation with the radical group MOVE, who were known for their confrontations with police. Police were trying to remove the members from their fortified compound by force. As the day wore on, after thousands of rounds of ammunition were fired, police dropped a bomb from a helicopter on the group’s house in West Philadelphia.

    The explosives started a fire that destroyed 61 row houses and killed 11 people, including five children. Ward, 13 at the time, gained national prominence when he ran naked out of the burning compound, His body covered in second- and third-degree burns. The bombing left Ward with lifelong burn scars on his abdomen, arms and face, and Philadelphia with a reputation as the city that bombed its own people.

    “I didn’t like being there,” Ward told the Philidelphia Enquirer about the MOVE compound. “They said it was a family, but a family isn’t something where you are forced to stay when you don’t want to. And none of us wanted to stay, none of the kids. We were always planning ways to run away, but we were too little. We didn’t know how to get away. And we were scared.”

    He said his only regret was that he was hurt and his mother died in the incident. “I feel bad for the people who died, but I don’t have any anger toward anybody,” he told the paper. “See, I got out.”

    Image via wikipedia

  • Richard Gere and Carey Lowell Split Confirmed

    Richard Gere and his wife of 11 years, Carey Lowell, who haven’t been photographed together since a Hamptons screening of his Wall Street thriller “Arbitrage” last year, have separated and are planning to file for divorce, according to the New York Post’s Page Six.

    Gere, 64, and model/actress Lowell, 52, have “been spending time apart for quite some time.” said one source close to the couple. The source added that it’s unclear when the couple will file for divorce.

    The couple, married for 11 years, have been living apart for some time, with Gere staying at their property in Bedford, N.Y., and Lowell, at their historic mansion in North Haven, N.Y.

    Another source added that the two have drifted into different lifestyles as the Buddhist actor craves privacy and Lowell, a former Bond girl, likes socializing with other bigwigs. “They have a place in Bedford [NY], and he likes it because it’s quiet and he likes the solitude. She likes being in North Haven in the limelight.”

    The insider added, “They live next door to Jimmy Buffett and his family, and they’re good friends.”

    Gere and Lowell have a son, Homer. A friend of the couple tells People, “They’ll do everything possible to keep things amicable and put their child first.”

    According to Hello!, after their marriage in 2002, Gere stated that “We are adults who have been through marriage before and do not take it lightly. I felt married from the moment I met her, to tell the truth.”

    Richard Gere was named PEOPLE’s Sexiest Man Alive in 1999. He was previously married to supermodel Cindy Crawford. Lowell has two previous marriages. She was married to fashion photographer John Stember and to actor-director Griffin Dunne, with whom she has a 23-year-old daughter, Hannah.

    Image via wikipedia commons

  • Marta Heflin, Star of Stage and Screen, Dead at 68

    Actress Marta Heflin has died at the age of 68.

    The stage and screen star passed away on September 18 after a long illness, according to The New York Times. Heflin is best known for her roles in Hollywood movies “A Perfect Couple” and “Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean”, a play in which she starred opposite Karen Black, Cher and Kathy Bates.

    She also racked up Broadway credits in productions including “Fiddler On The Roof” and “Hair” in the 1960s and in “Jesus Christ Superstar” in the 1970s. On television, she starred in The Doctors, Playing For Time, and Gentleman Bandit.

    Marta was also a favorite on the New York cabaret stage at Reno Sweeneys, Elaine’s and other venues.

    Heflin came from a long line of entertainers. Her mom was theater producer/journalist Julia Heflin, and she was the niece of actress Frances Heflin and Oscar-winning actor Van Heflin.

    She was present is so many different forms of entertainment. She will be greatly missed by her family, friends, and fans alike.

    Image via listal.com

  • Cherokee Child Returned to Her Adoptive Parents

    Baby Veronica, who is the 4-year-old Cherokee girl at the center of a cross-country custody dispute, returned to her adoptive South Carolina parents Monday night at tribal headquarters in Oklahoma, representatives of her father and the Cherokee Nation told NBC News.

    Dusten Brown, the biological father, said goodbye to Veronica at Jack Brown House, the tribal headquarters where they have been living in Tahlequah, and returned her to Matt and Melanie Capobianco, who had custody of Veronica for over the first two years of her life, the representatives said

    A Cherokee County sheriff’s deputy and a Cherokee Nation marshal led Veronica to the nearby marshal’s building, where the handover took place as Brown and his wife, Robin, watched on from a nearby window. Both the Browns and the Capobiancos remain under a gag order, but friends and allies representing the two families confirmed the exchange.

    Cherokee County Undersheriff Jason Chennault told NBC station KJRH of Tulsa, Okla., that the Capobiancos had already left the county. They were expected to head home to Charleston, S.C. Brown gave up custody Monday after the Oklahoma Supreme Court lifted a ruling keeping Veronica in the state while he tried to win permanent custody.

    “She’s safely in her parents’ arms,” Jessica Munday, a friend who has served as a spokeswoman for the Capobiancos, said Monday night.

    A spokeswoman for the Cherokee Nation, Amanda Clinton, told NBC News that the exchange was highly emotional. Brown’s father, who would be Veronica’s grandfather, went into “medical distress” and was taken to a hospital to determine whether he had had a heart attack, Clinton said.

    The story of how this came to be is a little complicated. In 2009, Brown, a member of the Army National Guard, signed paperwork to relinquish his parental rights because he was scheduled to deploy to Iraq. He believed his signature gave full custodial rights to Veronica’s mother, Christy Maldonado, from whom he had separated.

    Instead, Maldonado, who isn’t Cherokee, put Veronica up for adoption, and the Capobiancos adopted her and raised her for 27 months. A South Carolina court eventually returned Veronica to Brown, her biological father, under the Indian Child Welfare Act. The act was established in 1978 in response to high rates of adoption of American Indian children by non-native families.

    The dispute was fought for a long time in the court system, eventually reaching the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in June that the act didn’t apply in Brown’s case.The state order keeping Veronica in Oklahoma was lifted after the latest round of custody negotiations broke down Monday.

    Todd Hembree, the attorney general of the Cherokee Nation, said Brown “willfully cooperated with today’s order.” He called the transfer “peaceful and dignified.”

    “Although this is not something any parent should ever have to do, we could not be more proud of the dignity and courage with which he carried himself,” Hembree said in a statement.

    That doesn’t mean the fight is over, Hembree told The Tulsa World. The Cherokee Nation was prepared to litigate its contention that the dispute should be heard in tribal court, however, Brown decided it was in Veronica’s best interests to proceed with a “peaceful and respectful transfer,” he said. “We will assess our legal options in the morning. Is this over? I would say not.”

    Image via Facebook

  • Elif Yavuz, Pregnant Humanitarian, Killed in Kenya

    Former President Bill Clinton and his family have expressed their heartfelt sorrow over the death of Elif Yavuz in the Kenya mall terrorist attack. Elif Yavuz was a Harvard-educated woman, who worked for the family’s Clinton Foundation. She was expecting a baby in just two weeks with her partner, Australian architect Ross Langdon.

    The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Bill, Hillary and Chelsea said in a statement that Ms. Yavuz had devoted her life to helping others, “particularly people in developing countries suffering from malaria and HIV/AIDS”.

    Faculty and students at Harvard’s School of Public Health have also paid tribute to Ms. Yavuz, who was a recent doctural graduate who completed her dissertation research on malaria in eastern Africa. Dr Julio Frenk, the dean of the faculty at Harvard School of Public Health [HSPH], sent a letter to staff and students remembering her as a passionate and committed person who was determined to make a difference in the world.

    “As one of her colleagues here at HSPH said: ‘Elif brought laugher and love wherever she went. She lightened the lives of her HSPH colleagues and of the children she lived with in Uganda during her thesis work’,” Dr Frenk wrote. “Elif committed her career and her life to helping those in need. Her compassion was an inspiration to everyone she touched at HSPH and the broader global community in which she lived and worked. She will be deeply missed by all who knew her.”

    Elif Yavuz worked for the Clinton Foundation in Kenya, and in that role had been visited last month by former US president Bill Clinton. “She had originally worked with our Health Access Initiative during her doctoral studies, and we were so pleased that she had recently rejoined us as a senior vaccines researcher based in Tanzania,” the statement said. “On behalf of the entire Clinton Foundation, we send our heartfelt condolences and prayers to Elif’s family and her many friends throughout the world.”

    Mr Langdon, 32, founder of the prize-winning architecture firm Regional Associates and committed conservationist, has offices in Melbourne, London and Uganda, where he and his partner first met. He led all the firm’s projects in East Africa, and was completing an HIV-AIDS clinic in Uganda, which he designed without charge. He was about to start on a $35 million museum telling the story of the earliest fossil record of walking humanoids in Kenya

    In a statement, Regional Associates said: “We are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of our friend and colleague Ross Langdon and his partner Elif Yavuz. Profoundly talented and full of life, Ross enriched the lives of all those around him. Ross’s leadership on projects throughout East Africa was inspirational, and he will be will be very, very sorely missed by us all. Our deepest condolences and thoughts are with Ross and Elif’s families at this very difficult time.”

    image via youtube