February 3 – The sculpture L'Homme qui marche I by Alberto Giacometti sells in London for £65 million (US$103.7 million), setting a new world record for a work of art sold at auction.
February 12–28 – The 2010 Winter Olympics are held in Vancouver and Whistler, Canada.
February 18 – The President of Niger, Tandja Mamadou, is overthrown after a group of soldiers storms the presidential palace and form a ruling junta, the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy headed by chef d'escadron Salou Djibo.
February 27 – An 8.8-magnitude earthquake occurs in Chile, triggering a tsunami over the Pacific and killing 497. The earthquake is one of the largest in recorded history
January 1 – Spain takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from Sweden.
January 1 – A suicide bombing occurs at a volleyball game in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 95, and injuring over 100.
January 4 – The tallest man-made structure to date, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is officially opened.
January 8 – The Togo national football team is involved in an attack in Angola, and as a result withdraws from the Africa Cup of Nations.
January 12 – A 7.0-magnitude earthquake occurs in Haiti, devastating the nation's capital, Port-au-Prince. With a confirmed death toll over 230,000, it is one of the deadliest on record.
January 15 – The longest annular solar eclipse of the 3rd millennium occurs.
January 25 – Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 crashes into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after take-off from Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport, killing all 90 people on-board.
Arkansas Lottery officials say a Mega Millions ticket bought at a North Little Rock convenience store is worth $1 million.
The latest Mega Millions drawing was Tuesday night and the ticket bought at the Superstop store is one of three tickets in the nation that are worth $1 million.
The Arkansas winner bought a $1 ticket and matched the five white-ball numbers, which were 6, 18, 36, 40 and 49. The winner also bought the $1 Megaplier, which boosted the amount won from $250,000 to $1 million.
The Superstop will receive a $10,000 bonus for selling the ticket once it is cashed. The identity of the winner will not be known until the ticket is presented at a lottery claim center.
Lemon-lime soda with strawberries is a great
New Year's Eve party idea for kids.
For most adults, a New Year’s Eve party seems pretty easy to plan. But if you’ve got a pack of young ones, then New Year’s Eve party ideas for kids may be in order. Depending on how many kids you have and their ages, a kids New Year’s Eve party can be a snap.
Targeting New Year’s Eve party ideas for kids
The biggest challenge of New Year’s Eve party ideas for kids is targeting age groups. Letting kids younger than 10 stay up until midnight could be very difficult, for example. The best kids New Year’s Eve parties help the kids feel like they’re celebrating a big change, and they’re just a bit more “grown up.” If you’ve got a mixed-age group of kids, try to have different activities for the kids that stay up later.
New Year’s Eve party ideas for kids – the food
For kids parties, loading the kids up on sugar may be the first instinct. Some sugar should definitely be on the menu for your kids New Year’s Eve party, but it should be tempered with something more nutritious, such as raisins or mixed nuts. Try mixing cranberry or apple juice with lemon-lime soda to serve in plastic champagne flutes. Breakfast for dinner is also a great option for New Year’s Eve parties, and leftovers make the next morning that much easier.
New Year’s Eve party ideas for kids – the activities
If you’ve got kids that won’t be staying up until midnight, that doesn’t mean they can’t watch the ball drop. Look for a major city in a time zone three or four hours ahead of your party, and watch the ball drop there. New York is great for West Coast, and Paris is great for East Coast parties. Use film cans or chip cans to help kids create time capsules. Washable paint can be used to put hand prints on butcher paper as New Year’s growth charts to be continued each year. An award ceremony at the end of the night or beginning of the morning can also start out the new year on the right foot.
The original dancing queen of Bollywood Madhuri Dixit has been missing from the limelight for quiet some time now. However, the actress is all set to make a comeback on the small screen as the judge of a reality show.
She was last seen in YRF productions Aaja Nachle, which turned out to be a huge box office dud. This Bollywood actress will be assessing other people on their dancing abilities on the fourth season of Jhalak Dikhla Jaa, which is an Indian adaptation of Dancing with the Stars.
When asked Madhuri about this she says, “Dance has always been my passion and this show is also associated with that and this is the only reason I decided to be a judge on it. It took me a while to say yes. After I went back to LA and saw Dancing with the Stars, I was convinced to take this offer.”
Our very own Dhak Dhak girl will have the company of Remo D’Souza in the panel of judges. The name of the third judge has not been reveled yet, but there are rumors that Saroj Khan may join the panel. “I have no clue who the third judge is and it will be the decision of Sony. But it will be good for me if Sarojji is the third judge. I am keeping my fingers crossed,” says Madhuri.
As a judge for the dance show, she will be concentrating on the participants poise, grace and the attitude, rest of the details will be left for the other judges. Madhuri says, “The participants on this show are well-known in their own fields. They are people who are very ambitious and will put in their best for winning this challenge. I will be looking at how they project themselves and bring their personalities in the performance.”
Just Go With It trailer with Jennifer Aniston and Brooklyn decker
Could this be – a Jennifer Aniston movie that’s actually funny? Let’s call it a Christmas miracle, because the trailer for “Just Go With It” looks pretty good. Considering Aniston’s last few movies (“The Switch,” “Bounty Hunter,” “He’s Just Not That Into You”) have been both colossal flops and not funny, this is exciting news. “Just Go With It” co-stars Adam Sandler as a single guy who wears a wedding ring to pick up girls at bars. Click on to see the “Just Go With It” trailer.
Sandler finds a woman who could be his soulmate in Brooklyn Decker (in a bikini), but when she finds the wedding ring in his pocket, it leads to an elaborate ruse in which Aniston pretends to be his ex-wife, and he has to pretend to be her kids’ dad, too.
What do you think – will Aniston finally have a hit?
Indian Cinematography Act of 1952 may soon come on the way of smooth journey of ‘Munni Badnam Hui’ and ‘Sheila Ki Jawani’, which have been craze throughout the country. However, ‘Munni’ and ‘Sheila’ have now reached court premises.Thanks to a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Nutan Thakur, who is an IPS officer’s wife.
She has filed the PIL on Thursday at Allahabad High Court’s Lucknow bench. In this PIL, Mrs. Thakur alleged that Dabangg and Tees Maar Khan have shown obscenity through these two item numbers. Hence she has asked for deleting these two popular songs from the movies.
The PIL has sought action against Dabangg director, producer and co-producers. So, Arbaaz Khan, Malaika Arora Khan and Dhillin Mehta will have to face the ire. In case of Tees Maar Khan, the PIL has mentioned the names of director Farah Khan, producers Ronnie Screwvala and Twinkle Khanna. The petitioner has mentioned that they have violated some provisions of ‘Indian Cinematography Act of 1952’.
According to the petition, the Salman Khan starrer Dabangg, Akshay Kumar’s Tees Maar Khan has many immoral, indecent and vulgar songs, visual representations and dialogues. The petitioner has requested the court to direct the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and censor board to ask TV channels, cassette companies and filmmakers not to air the songs of these films.
The matter will heard in the court on January 3. In the meantime, Tees Maar Khan is releasing across the country to make ‘Shiela Ki Jawani’ more popular.
Skype was recovering on Thursday from a major outage that left millions of people unable to use the popular internet communication service.
Skype chief executive Tony Bates said in a blog post and video that at 17:00 GMT, some 16.5 million people were online on Skype around the world, about 80% of normal traffic.
Bates "apologized profusely" for the technical problems that began on Wednesday and "took almost every user offline".
"This has been a very tough 24 hours for many of our users," he said. "Our priority has been to stabilise the problem, and then to begin to restore access to Skype."
Bates said engineers had "stabilised Skype's core functionality - IM (instant messaging), audio and video - but it will take longer for us to restore offline IM and group video calling."
He said the company was planning to offer Skype credit vouchers to paying customers inconvenienced by the outage.
Mega-supernodes needed
In a blog post, Skype explained that the outage was caused by a lack of computers known as "supernodes" and that engineers had created new "mega-supernodes" in a bid to get the service up and running again.
Skype, which was founded in 2003, bypasses the standard telephone network by channelling voice, video and text conversations over the internet.
The company announced plans in August to raise up to $100m in shares by listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
Technology blogger Om Malik, writing on his blog GigaOm.com, said the outage was a serious issue for a company that is "starting to ask larger corporations for their business".
"If I am a big business, I would be extremely cautious about adopting Skype for business, especially in the light of this current outage," Malik said.
"(Skype) needs to ensure that it doesn't go down. Even for a few minutes."
“Up On The Housetop” is a Christmas classic that children and adults alike have enjoyed listening to for years! What better way to kick off the Happy Holidays season than by singing along to “Up On The Housetop?” Gather your kids, get into the Christmas spirit, and watch the video clip from YouTube below to hear “Up On The Housetop” and learn the lyrics.
“Up On The Housetop” tells the story of Santa and his reindeer landing on the roof to deliver toys to all of the good girls and boys in the world on Christmas Eve.
Lyrics
“Up On The Housetop”:
Up on the housetop, reindeer pause
Out jumps good ol’ Santa Claus
Down through the chimney with lots of toys
All for the little ones, Christmas joys
Ho, Ho, Ho! Who wouldn’t go?
Ho, Ho, Ho! Who wouldn’t go?
Up on the housetop, click, click, click
Down through the chimney with good Saint Nick!
First comes the stocking of little Nell
Oh, dear Santa, fill it well
Give her a dolly that laughs and cries
One that will open and shut her eyes
Ho, Ho, Ho! Who wouldn’t go?
Ho, Ho, Ho! Who wouldn’t go?
Up on the housetop, click, click, click
Down through the chimney with good Saint Nick!
Next comes the stocking of little Will
Oh, just see what a glorious fill
Here is a hammer and lots of tacks
Also a ball and a whip that cracks
Ho, Ho, Ho! Who wouldn’t go?
Ho, Ho, Ho! Who wouldn’t go?
Up on the housetop, click, click, click
Down through the chimney with good Saint Nick!
Merry Christmas!
Jets star Darrell Revis told Jenny Vrentas of the Newark Star-Ledger that Rex Ryan addressed the "foot fetish" report in a team meeting.
"He basically came in there and said, 'You guys might know about the situation; some of you guys might not know,'" Revis said. "'You'll find out later on today. Right now, I feel embarrassed, but it's something personal with me. We need to focus on Chicago.'"
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. -- New York Jets coach Rex Ryan says it's a "personal matter" and declined to talk about a "foot-fetish" report posted by the sports website Deadspin that show four videos of a woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Ryan's wife, Michelle.
The videos show a woman displaying her toes to an off-screen cameraman who sounds a lot like the coach. The two are having an intimate chat about her feet.
Asked about it during a conference call Wednesday, Ryan said he is "not really going to discuss it."
This isn't the first time the Jets have turned up on Deadspin this season.
In October, the site reported that Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre sent racy text messages and photos to a former game hostess while he was the Jets' quarterback in 2008.
One of Top Gear's presenters was hospitalised after suffering severe concussion during filming recently.
The Sun reports that James May fell and hit his head on a rock while trying to pull a car out of a ditch for the Christmas special of the popular BBC car show.
May told the newspaper "I stood in the line of where the tow rope went taut. I told the driver to move off and became part of a giant catapult." Fellow presenter Jeremy Clarkson said the incident was "very worrying" and that there was a "lot of blood".
May had stitches and was put on a drip at a local hospital in Syria where the filming was taking place.
He said "They gave me a brain scan but to be honest I think the Syrians were just excited to be able to use their new scanner."
The Top Gear special in which the 46-year-old was injured can be see on December 26th on BBC2.
Christmas or Christmas Day is celebrated on December 25 to commemorate the birth of Jesus, the central figure of Christianity.
Christmas is central to the Christmas and holiday season, and in Christianity marks the beginning of the larger season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days.
Although nominally a Christian holiday, Christmas is also celebrated by an increasing number of non-Christians worldwide and many of its popular celebratory customs have pre-Christian or secular themes and origins. Popular modern customs of the holiday include gift-giving, music, an exchange of greeting cards, church celebrations, a special meal, and the display of various decorations; including Christmas trees, lights, garlands, mistletoe, nativity scenes, and holly. In addition, several figures, known as Saint Nicholas and certain mythological figures such as Father Christmas and Santa Claus among other names, are associated with bringing gifts to children during the Christmas season.
Following are Christmas Scraps, Merry Christmas Greeting Cards, Christmas Sms/ Messages/ Wishes:
Joy was on Christ,
Love was on mas,
so let all of this found u anywhere u are this lovely season.
merry x mas and happy new year
************************************
No Greeting Card To Give..
No Sweet Flowers To Send..
No Cute Graphics To Forward..
Just
A LOVING HEART
Saying
“HAPPY X’MAS”
*************************************
Christmas waves a magic wand over this world,
and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.
*************************************
May the good times and treasures of the present become the golden memories of tomorrow.Wish you lots of love, joy and happiness. MARRY CHRISTMAS.
The upcoming movie of the month “Tees Maar khan” will be release on December 24, 2010. This movie starring Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif is just a day away from striking the screen. This is certainly the most awaited film of the season.
Tees Maar Khan character is intended after all time great hero Robinhood and it is also related with tinsel town. Farah Khan’s preceding films Main Hoon Na and Om Shanti Om weren’t officially re-made into Telugu although most of the scenes from those films were lifted.
Tees Maar Khan movie is concerning a great criminal born who is fearless and shameless. He is the blue moon and is recognized as Tees Maar Khan.
He takes frauds and cheats all with such alarming audacity that even indignity shies away from him. He and his mob include of Dollar, Soda and Burger has handle to keep the police, world over on their toes.
Then one fine day international historic smugglers, the Johri Brothers, assign Tees Maar Khan the biggest scam job in life. He must rob antiques worth 500 crore rupees from a greatly guarded moving train. Don’t miss catch the movie of the month hit on December 24, 2010 at theatre.
The Skype service is used by millions of users around the world as a way to connect. Usually Skype clocks in around 20 to 21 million users a day. Currently, Skype has about 12 million users, and social networks are abuzz with reports of Skype being down.
Skype down for some, not others
Skype users are flooding Twitter with reports of Skype
service being down. Image: Flickr / philwolff / CC-BY-SA
The Skype service has been reported as down for many users on Wednesday morning. Though spot-tests are showing that, for the most part, Skype is working, it isn’t working all the time. Some users aren’t able to log in, others are having problems with crashing apps. The Skype team has said only one thing about it: Some of you may have problems signing in to Skype – we’re investigating, and we’re sorry for the disruption to your conversations.
The meteoric growth of Skype
The reports that Skype is down are raising memories of the 2007 Skype outage. In 2007, the service went down for around 24 hours. Despite these hiccups, the company has continued to grow. Skype currently reports about 25 million users. These 25 million users tend to use Skype on a regular basis for everything from personal conversations to on-camera interviews for news. Skype has run into problems because of the high amount of bandwidth it requires, and has been banned by many organizations because of this bandwidth hog tendencies.
Skype downtime may last hours
The fact that Skype is down may encourage some people to move to other Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services. About one hour after the original report of Skype being down, the Skype team posted to their Twitter: Our engineers and site operations team are working non-stop to get things back to normal – thanks for your continued patience.
Are you a Skype user? Is Skype down for you? What problems are you encountering?
Chocolate could provide the key to tackling a persistent cough.
Researchers are carrying out the final stages of clinical trials on a drug that contains theobromine, an ingredient in cocoa and chocolate.
If the trials are successful, the drug could be on the market within two years. Millions worldwide suffer from a persistent cough, one that lasts for more than two weeks.
Some have asthma-like symptoms while others suffer from heartburn, reports the Daily Mail.
But most widely available cough products soothe the symptoms rather than deal with the cause, and have been criticised for side effects such as drowsiness.
There are safety concerns about side effects from other products that are codeine-based, which use a chemical called an opioid.
Previous research by London’s National Heart and Lung Institute found that theobromine is 33 percent more effective than codeine at stopping coughing. It works directly on the vagus nerve, which is responsible for persistent coughing.
Research in South Korea has shown that theobromine has none of the side effects associated with standard drug treatments for persistent cough.
Professor Alyn Morice, who heads the Hull Cough Clinic, said: “Due to the drawbacks of current opioid drugs such as codeine, we are in desperate need of a non-opioid treatment with a drastically improved side effect profile for patients.”
Bayer Aspirin Aspirin is an anticoagulant, which means it can reduce blood clotting. It also has a pain relief effect similar to acetaminophen, which makes it a valuable resource. Brands that Bayer aspirin is widely available in pharmacists.When administered to patients with suspected heart attack, aspirin has been shown to reduce the risk of a maximum of 23%, and when taken for 30 days after a heart attack can minimize the possibility of new attacks.
1982 English scientist, Professor Sir John Vane and two Swedish colleagues, Sune Bergstrom and Bengt Samuelsson gain self-esteem Nobel find the effect of aspirin in the arrest of U.S. researchers prostaglandin production.1989 Gross research report which suggests that aspirin may see the conflict of madness madness 1994 – Professor Henk Wallenburg Rotterdam CS shows that aspirin helps in the treatment of preeclampsia among women deep.
It could be argued that the questions are easy, not easy and people do not always go through life knowing useless information. The question tonight that really puzzled the couple was number 4, which has lost most of their money.Bayer aspirin a day reduces cancer mortality: Thousands of people around the world are taking daily low-dose aspirin from Bayer with To protect your heart. This simple gesture could be further reduced mortality of several types of cancer, has ratified a large study published in the journal The Lancet.
Heidi Jones, a meteorologist for WABC/Channel 7, told police and colleagues that a man attempted to rape her in Central Park. Her coworkers at the channel believed her -- but the police didn't.
Now that it has been revealed Jones, a beautiful forecaster and accomplished marathon runner, completely fabricated the attempted assault, those who worked with her are dismayed, the New York Post reports.
"All this trust we had is shattered. We're like a family. We feel betrayed," the source said, adding that it had become "common knowledge" around the newsroom that Jones claimed to have been attacked in late September.
"To the point that security guards would offer to escort her home," the source said.
Jones had alleged that a Hispanic man grabbed her while jogging in Central Park, pulled her into nearby bushes and attempted to rape her. After a police investigation found inconsistencies in her story, Jones admitted that she had lied to police about the incident, claiming that personal problems were a catalyst for the invented story. Now the city is mulling whether or not to charge Jones for filing a false report, which would be tantamount to a misdemeanor.
Jones' lawyer released this statement to the press: "Miss Jones has had a distinguished career as a broadcast journalist and urges all concerned to refrain from jumping to conclusions about the unproven charges against her being discussed in the press."
Officials from the station say that Jones has been suspended pending an investigation.
GREENVILLE, S.C. -- The Bi-Lo Center in Greenville was filled with cheers and fierce competition on Saturday.
High school cheerleading teams spent the day trying to outmaneuver each other to win a state championship.
Thirty-nine teams, including 24 teams from the Upstate, competed in different divisions. Each team had a few minutes to wow the judges.
Liberty High School took the 2a title, and Palmetto High School was the runner up.
Chapin High School took the 3a title, and Greenville High School was the runner up.
Mauldin High School took the 4a title, and Dutch Fork High School was the runner up.
Light snow will spread across parts of North Carolina by daybreak Thursday morning. The precipitation will be light, but with a very cold ground, any frozen precipitation that falls will stick to the ground and pavement surfaces. Here are some thoughts about the forecast for Thursday morning broken down by region...
Triangle
-Light snow begins around daybreak and the morning rush hour.
-A dusting to 1" of accumulation possible with slightly higher accumulation possible north of Raleigh near the Virginia border.
-The light snow will mix with and change to sleet and freezing rain through the morning. That will create a light glazing on top of any accumulated snow.
-The wintry mix should change to just a chilly light rain around midday or early afternoon.
-Slick spots possible on area roadways from the morning commute through the lunch hour.
Sandhills
-Light snow begins around daybreak, give or take a couple hours.
-A dusting of snow possible.
-The light snow will mix with and change to light sleet and freezing rain in the morning creating a glazing on top of the dusting of snow.
-Any wintry precipitation should change to just a chilly light rain by late morning.
-Slick spots possible on area roadways through the morning commute.
Coastal areas
-Light precipitation will arrive at the coast around daybreak to a couple hours after sunrise.
-Some locations just inland from the coast may see a brief period of snow mixed with rain before a quick change over to chilly light rain.
-A chilly light rain or drizzle will fall for most of the day after that brief period of a mix in some inland areas.
As with any winter weather event in North Carolina, forecasting the exact location and the exact amount of snow, sleet, and freezing rain is very tricky. Be sure to check in with News 14 Carolina Thursday morning for the latest weather and traffic conditions.
We also continue to monitor the forecast for the weekend. Another area of low pressure will develop near the Gulf coast late Friday and track toward the Carolinas. That will spread rain across the state for the daytime hours Saturday. There is still a lot of uncertainty for Saturday night. Computer forecast models are still not consistent with various scenarios that could play out. There is the possibility that Saturday's rain will change to snow in parts of North Carolina. It is much too early to make any calls on what locations will see that snow and how much will be possible. We should have a better idea on this system by Friday.
Nicole Scherzinger: Lord have mercy. Shawn Stockman: I think the Animals meant for the song to sound like that. It was soul-stirring. Ben Folds: Very visual. It was beautiful.
Here you go, see the video on YOUTUBE:
Jerry Lawson & Talk of The Town – Oakland, California
Jerry Lawson, a member of The Persuasions for 40 years was joined together with Talk of The Town when they were both hired to perform at a wedding in 2001. The group has since performed with Rod Stewart on the Katrina Benefit, Nickelodeon’s Noggin Network on “Jack’s Big Music Show” and they continue performing at private parties in-between all of their other musical projects.
Gen. David Petraeus is Barbara Walters' pick for the Most Fascinating Person of 2010. Walters called the top commander in Afghanistan "an American hero."
"In life, it seems, there are people who break things and people who fix them. This man is a fixer," she said on the ABC special, "10 Most Fascinating People of 2010." "A lot depends on General Petraeus and his combination of humanity and strength."
In June, Petraeus was appointed by President Barack Obama to replace former Gen. Stanley McChrystal as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Petraeus had previously served as the commander of the Multi-National Force-Iraq in 2006, where he was seen as the one who turned the tide of violence in that nation and could do the same in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan -- a country which has defeated every foreign army that ever entered it -- may be the ultimate test. After nine years of war, the Afghans' support of U.S. presence in their country has dwindled, according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll. Since last year, Afghans' confidence that U.S. and NATO forces can provide security and stability in their area has also dropped.
But Petraeus is a different kind of general, fighting a different kind of war. The counterinsurgency strategy largely authored and being implemented now by Petraeus is based on the idea that wars cannot be won with bullets alone, but instead through the hearts and the minds of the local population. Human terrain is the decisive terrain.
To Petraeus, this means gaining the trust of the local population, opening schools, teaching farmers new techniques, helping businesses grow, bolstering the government to provide basic services to citizens, and ultimately, keeping the peace to keep it from becoming a launching pad for terrorists.
