Quadriplegic woman to sail around Britain using only her breath A quadriplegic woman is embarking on a record-breaking attempt to sail solo around Britain using just her breath to navigate a 20ft sailing boat. Hilary Lister, 36, who is only able to move her head, eyes and mouth, will spend the next three months sailing round the British Isles in a specially adapted boat she controls using a 'sip-and-puff' system of straws. She suffers from a rare disorder known as reflex sympathetic dystrophy, an agonising muscle-wasting condition which has left her with no movement below the neck. At home in Canterbury, Kent, she can only do the simplest of tasks by using her forehead to push levers on a machine which changes the channel on the television or answers the telephone. But thanks to high-tech adaptations to her Artemis 20 boat, she has become the first quadriplegic to sail across the English Channel and the first female quadriplegic to solo circumnavigate the Isle of Wight. Her previous record-breaking achievements will pale in comparison to the latest challenge, which will see her encounter some of the trickiest sailing conditions in the world. Mrs Lister had been due to set out on the voyage last week, but the trip was postponed because of technical difficulties with the system which converts the pressure of her breath into electronic signals that control the tiller, sails and GPS navigation system. Mrs Lister was a sporty child who captained her school's hockey swimming and netball team, but by the time she was 15 she was confined to a wheelchair. She has tried to lead as active a life as possible and graduated from Oxford University with a high 2.1 in biochemistry despite having to dictate papers while lying flat on her back with epidural painkillers being pumped into her spine. Her outlook on life changed dramatically when she discovered sailing, and realised she did not have to sit staring out of the window, but could experience the exhilaration of riding the crest of a wave. "It is the ultimate freedom for me," she said. "I get out on to the water and suddenly my physical inabilities no longer matter. "It's amazing, I use my breath through three straws and they control the sails and the tiller. "I have a support boat that follows me from half a mile away, and even that feels too close." Through her challenge, Mrs Lister hopes to raise money for her charity, Hilary's Dream Trust, which aims to help other people with disabilities achieve their dreams of sailing. Mrs Lister's progress will be posted on her website . Telegraph.co.uk

Jun 15, 8:44 AM EDT San Diego drivers appreciate Mexico's cheap gas SAN DIEGO (AP) -- If there's pain at the pump in the U.S., Mexico may just have a remedy. A gallon of regular unleaded gasoline in San Diego retails for an average price of $4.61 a gallon. A few miles south, in Tijuana, it's about $2.54 - even less if you pay in pesos. More and more people appear to be taking advantage of the lower price. "I used to buy exclusively in the U.S. before gas started really going up," said Patrick Garcia, a drama teacher at an elementary school in San Diego who lives in Tijuana. "Since then, I've been buying all my gas in Tijuana." The lower prices mean a U.S. motorist could save almost $54 filling up a two-year-old Ford F150 pickup with a 26-gallon fuel tank in Mexico. The differential in diesel is even greater, selling at $5.04 a gallon in San Diego County and $2.20 in Tijuana. Paul Covarrubias, 26, who lives in Chula Vista and works in construction in San Diego, crosses the border each week just to refuel his dual-cab Ford F-250 pickup. "I fill it up with diesel in Tijuana for $60," he said. "It would be almost twice that in San Diego." Gas is cheaper in Mexico because of a government subsidy intended to keep inflationary forces in check. Still, international gas-buying trips don't make sense for everyone. The wait getting back into the U.S. at the border in Tijuana frequently takes longer than two hours and cars can burn about a gallon of gas for each hour they idle. The Associated Press.

Review: Troubling passages in texts at Va. school McLEAN, Va. (AP) — Textbooks at a private Islamic school in northern Virginia teach students that it is permissible for Muslims to kill adulterers and converts from Islam, according to a federal investigation released Wednesday. Other passages in the school's textbooks state that "the Jews conspired against Islam and its people" and that Muslims are permitted to take the lives and property of those deemed "polytheists." The passages were found in selected textbooks used during the 2007-08 school year by the Islamic Saudi Academy, which teaches 900 students in grades K-12 at two campuses in Alexandria and Fairfax and receives much of its funding from the Saudi government. The academy has come under scrutiny from critics who allege that it fosters an intolerant brand of Islam similar to that taught in the conservative Saudi kingdom. In the review, the panel recommended that the school make all of its textbooks available to the State Department so changes can be made before the next school year. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a panel formed by Congress, last year recommended that the school be closed amid concerns that it promotes violence and too closely mimics the conservative Saudi educational system.

Oregon to allow beer and wine deliveries to homes 01:33 PM PDT on Friday, June 13, 2008 Associated Press SALEM, Ore. -- The Oregon Liquor Control Commission will let grocers make same-day home deliveries of unlimited amounts of beer and wine. The orders must be placed by 9 a.m. and delivered by 9 p.m. The rule takes effect June 29. It replaces a temporary rule that has allowed grocers to make limited amounts of same-day beer and wine deliveries since January. Before 2008, grocers were only allowed to deliver beer and wine ordered the previous day. The rule change does not apply to hard liquor, which must be bought in state-operated liquor stores. Thursday's 5-0 vote drew immediate criticism from Oregon Partnership, a nonprofit that promotes drug and alcohol awareness. The group's president, Judy Cushing, said the change provides Oregon teens with another avenue to get alcohol. "If our underage drinking wasn't at the level it is, maybe we wouldn't be so concerned," she said. Tom Erwin, the commission's government affairs director, said safety is an important part of the OLCC's mission: "We certainly don't want to create an environment where (more underage drinking) occurs." Dan Floyd, a lobbyist for Safeway, which pushed for the rule change, said the chain has been making home deliveries of beer and wine for seven years without any problems. Safeway drivers are told to take down the driver's license number of the buyer, he said, and the chain does not sell to people who are younger than 21 or visibly intoxicated. Although the commission has been considering the rule change for months, OLCC officials said it wasn't until Wednesday that Safeway lobbyist Gary Oxley and attorney Mark Whitlow proposed adding the idea of allowing unlimited beer and wine deliveries. "It is really odd that they allowed this change to unlimited amounts at the last minute," Cushing said

RAF Top Guns Have Blown Up The World’s Biggest Drug Haul Thu, Jun 12, 2008 12:46 pm Source: thesun.co.uk Harrier jets dropped three 1,000lb bombs on almost 237 tons of cannabis unearthed by Britain’s Special Boat Service and local commandos. The haul – weighing more than 30 double-decker buses and spread over a site the size of two football fields – had a street value of at least £225million. Last night a delighted Whitehall source said: “It was unbelievable – truly staggering.” The drugs – often smoked in bongs to make them even more potent – were stuffed into grain sacks and stacked in six trenches. These appear to have been dug by machine, then covered with sand and the entrances concealed. Officials believe the site – close to a major border crossing linking Kandahar with the Taliban stronghold of Quetta in Pakistan – was turning dried cannabis leaves into resin. After the attack from Kandahar Airfield, troops set fire to the remains with petrol. Five tons of opium, worth £2million, was also found and destroyed. Three people were seized. The previous record haul was 80 tons of cocaine in Colombia in 1998.

Marilyn and Bruce, If They Had Lived to See Old Age Czech artist Andrzej Dragan (who also happens to be a quantum physicist!) did a fantastic photoshop job on imagining how Marilyn Monroe and Bruce Lee would look like had they lived to see old age.

Armpit sniffer jailed June 13, 2008 10:25am A SINGAPOREAN man with an armpit-sniffing fetish has been sentenced to 14 years in prison and 18 strokes of the cane. Mohammed Ismail Ariffin, 36, was convicted of molesting 23 females ranging in age from nine to their 50s, The Straits Times reported today . Community Court Judge James Leong imposed preventive detention, a jail term for prisoners with no chance of parole. The court was earlier told Mohammed Ismail stalked his victims and followed them into lifts, staircase landings or their homes. In some cases, he restrained them. He was also was guilty of fondling a 13-year-old and exposing himself to a 53-year- old cleaner, the court was told. Following a report from a housewife that a man had smelled her armpit on January 3, police took a semen swab at the scene which led them to Mohammed Ismail. News.com.au

June 9, 2008 BBC Buys Marijuana in LA: 'This place is like Amsterdam' BBC News Correspondent David Willis wanted to see how hard or easy it was to get a medical marijuana prescription in California. He went to a Valley clinic and the only medical condition he could think of was how he gets anxious. Soon, the doctor appeared - a softly-spoken Vietnamese man who introduced himself as Dr Do. He wore a white lab coat and scrubs and led me into a spartan room where he proceeded to take my pulse and blood pressure before asking precisely how long I had been anxious. "Several years," I told him. "Do you suffer panic attacks?" "Not really." Dr Do wrote panic attacks in his notebook. We spent a few minutes shooting the breeze about Asian cuisine and he signed a prescription for medicinal marijuana, valid for a year. And that was it. Done and dusted in less than 10 minutes. "You see, I told you," a friend waiting outside told him. "This place is like Amsterdam." Now part of the 250,000 Californians who carry a license to get high, Willis decided not to buy, but rather to frame his achievement and dress his wall with it.

A huge tornado funnel cloud touches down in Orchard, Iowa, Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 9:04 p.m. The Globe Gazette and Mitchell County Press News reported that Lori Mehmen of Orchard, took the photo from outside her front door. Mehmen said the funnel cloud came near the ground and then went back up into the clouds. Besides tree and crop damage, no human injuries were reported.

Stockholm girls come out on top Published: 15 Jun 08 10:21 CET A survey by Traveler's Digest, a US travel magazine has made a list of the cities that are home to the world's most beautiful women. Stockholm came out on top. Rejecting the notion that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder', Traveler's Digest set out to settle once and for all which of the world's cities is home to the most beautiful women. This is what it had to say about the local girls in Sweden's capital, Stockholm: "Stockholm is a city filled with the best looking women in the world, women so good looking that when you walk in to a 7-11 you will swear that you have just walked into a reality TV set, What Happens When Supermodels Work at A Convenience Store?" The women of Stockholm were given credit not only for their striking good looks but also for the fact that they are "extremely educated" and for having a clipped British accent to their English. In fact, in the view of Traveler's Digest, the women of Stockholm speak such good British English that one might actually be mistaken for thinking that they were English, if it wasn't for the fact that they are good-looking as well, of course. But if the women of Stockholm are not what you are looking for then a short train ride over to neighbouring Denmark and Copenhagen will give you the chance to observe the runners up in their natural habitat. "It's like Amsterdam, but instead of hookers, Copenhagen has porn stars," the magazine concluded. Buenos Aires flew the flag for South America, taking third place in the list. Completing the top five destinations for loveless male travellers were Varna, Bulgaria and Los Angeles, USA. The Local ………take a look at the following slides…you be the judge!!!!!

Man squeezed more than Charmin in local grocery store, police say Incidents occurred in North Stafford Shopper’s Food Warehouse, authorities say. Date published: 6/16/2008 A Stafford County man was squeezing more than Charmin Friday in a North Stafford grocery store, police said. Sheriff’s Maj. David Decatur said the suspect, 51-year-old Kenneth Lawrence Green, is accused of grabbing at least two women’s buttocks in the Shopper’s Food Warehouse in Stafford Marketplace. Green was placed in the Rappahannock Regional Jail under a $1,000 bond after being charged with assault and battery. According to Decatur, the assaults occurred about 1 p.m. The known victims were 49 and 57. One victim said she was shopping when she felt someone grab the lower part of her buttocks. She looked up and saw Green next to her, police said. A few minutes later, Decatur said, the same thing happened to the same woman and police were called. Green was still in the store when deputies arrived and was taken into custody. During the investigation, police learned there was a second victim. Several witnesses observed the improper touching, Decatur said. Fredricksburg.com

The Rods from God Rods from God will do just fine competing for the spookiest weapon, regardless of name. They are a kinetic energy device like the railgun, but instead of using electricity to achieve destructive velocities, they use gravity. The still-hypothetical system would be comprised of two satellites in orbit around the Earth. One would house the communications and targeting hardware, while the other would house the rods themselves, each up to a foot in diameter and twenty feet long. To fire, they would simply be released and allowed to fall back to Earth (with a bit of remote guidance). By the time they reached the surface, they'd be traveling at a speed of 36,000 feet per second and carry the destructive force of a nuclear warhead, only with none of the radioactive fallout.

Winner of $57M Mega Millions has criminal record Associated Press 10:23 PM CDT, June 18, 2008 LANSING, Mich. - The winner of last week's $57 million Mega Millions lottery jackpot is a registered sex offender who also pleaded guilty to two breaking and entering charges in the 1980s. Fred Topous Jr., 45, was discharged from Michigan Department of Corrections supervision in October 2006. The Kent City man traveled to Lansing on Tuesday to claim the prize from Friday's drawing in the multistate game. Topous chose to take the prize as a $34 million lump sum payment, before taxes. Topous said he planned to buy a house, send his children to college and have some fun with his winnings. He said he and his wife work multiple jobs to make ends meet and thought they'd have to work till they died. "I want to enjoy a little bit of life," Topous told state lottery officials. "We're plain folks. We've struggled all our lives." According to the Corrections Department's offender profile, Topous pleaded guilty to assault with intent to commit sexual penetration in 1999 and pleaded guilty to breaking and entering charges in 1984 and 1988. All three offenses occurred in Grand Traverse County. Prosecutor Alan Schneider said Wednesday that he wasn't familiar with the cases. The Michigan Lottery told Grand Rapids television station WOOD that anyone can play the lottery except those under 18 and those who work for the agency. "He's had some tough breaks," friend and co-worker Jan Westcott told The Grand Rapids Press. "I know some of his secrets, and he knows some of mine. I'm not going any further." A telephone message was left with Topous on Wednesday night.

McDiet helps man drop 79 pounds - and he's lovin' it Wednesday, Jun 11, 2008 - Chris Coleson was a surfer, a hiker and a two-time most valuable player on his high school soccer team. He weighed about 185 pounds when he got married in 1998. "After the kids came, she lost her pregnancy weight, and I kept mine," said the 42-year-old New Kent County businessman. During the next decade or so, the 5-foot-8 Coleson ballooned to about 300 pounds. He gained 45 pounds from last August to November. Frustrated by a number of false starts with losing weight, he made a bold prediction to his wife, Tricia Sumner -- that he could lose weight and do it by eating only at McDonald's. He chose the fast-food chain in part because its locations are convenient for his busy schedule. "There was a level of fear after I said that," said Coleson, who has no affiliation with McDonald's other than eating almost every meal there during his diet. "At that point, I had to stick with it." He eats mostly salads, wraps and apple dippers without the caramel sauce, and he has the occasional cheeseburger without the bun. He generally eats two meals a day and tries to keep his daily intake at 1,200 to 1,400 calories. Mary-Jo Sawyer, a registered dietician at VCU Medical Center at Stony Point, praised Coleson's discipline but said an average man should be eating more calories -- 1,500 to 1,800 -- or his metabolism could slow down. She also said Coleson's diet doesn't include enough variety of nutrients and that he should be eating breakfast. Coleson dropped from 278 pounds when he started the diet Dec. 3 to 199 as of yesterday, the last time he weighed himself.

ECONOMY Feeling the Pinch Nevada's brothels hit hard times They've been banished to remote stretches of desert, some have been raided, others shut down and one even sold on E-bay. Nevada 's legal brothels have managed to survive through some tough situations. Their latest problem, however, could prove to be too much. According to George Flint , Director of the Nevada Brothel Owners' Association, revenue for the 25 businesses in his membership organization is down by as much as 45 percent. The reason: Sex for money may be recession resistant but it's not recession proof. "Business is in a lower slump than I've ever seen it before," Flint says. In Nevada, the world's oldest profession has been very lucrative. In a typical year, legal brothels generate about $50 million in total revenue and have an economic impact of about $400 million on the state. But in the last 18 months the industry's cash flow has taken a dive. Why? Like other businesses around the country, bordellos throughout the state are feeling the pinch of rising gas prices and a weak economy. Media exposure certainly helping for one establishment. Featured in the ongoing HBO reality series, Cathouse, Hof's Bunny Ranch is going strong. While others brothels saw a slump in revenues, Hof experienced a 30 percent jump in May. But he's not resting on his laurels. Last week he began offering a recession special: The first 100 customers who show up with their tax rebate checks receive twice the "services" for the price of one. "We always give our customers the most bang for the buck," he says. "You bring your $600 check in, and we give you the $1,200 George Bush party--three girls and a bottle of champagne." That's one way to stimulate the, um, economy. NEWSWEEK

Christina Milan Profession : Actress/Singer/Lyricist Birth Date: September 26, 1981