The undisputed king of the world competitive-eating circuit, Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi, retained his title on Tuesday, wolfing down a world-record 53-and-three-quarters hot dogs in just 12 minutes. The 28-year-old "gurgitator" from Nagano, Japan, won the coveted Mustard Yellow Belt for the sixth successive year.
United States mining company Phelps Dodge sealed a -billion deal last week that will create the world’s largest nickel producer and the leading publicly quoted supplier of copper. The agreement is part of a frantic scramble for mining companies as the price of commodities is driven higher by the red-hot Chinese economy and its demand for raw materials.
A tip-off from Virgin Atlantic led to the price-fixing inquiry into British Airways (BA), it has emerged, marking a return to the hostile relations that existed between the two airlines during the ”dirty tricks” campaign of the 1990s. BA was plunged into crisis after it said that the United Kingdom’s Office of Fair Trading and the Justice Department in the United States are conducting a joint investigation into allegations of price-fixing.
Bearing a message from the Russian who invented the world’s most common assault rifle, activists will press governments at a United Nations conference on small arms to ensure such weapons are not used to trample human rights. The groups and some officials at the conference advocate a fundamentally new approach for trade in the light arms that are said to kill 1 000 people a day.
While the international community has invested Sierra Leone’s recovery in trials and tribunals, Sierra Leoneans themselves have relied on family and sheer inner will to rebuild lives devastated by the country’s civil war. The award-winning documentary <i>The Refugee All Stars</i> captures this resilience of the human spirit in a Guinean refugee camp.
United States President George Bush on Monday warned Iran of "progressively stronger political and economic sanctions" if Tehran refuses to freeze sensitive nuclear activities in return for talks. "If Iran’s leaders want peace and prosperity … they should accept our offer," Bush said in a speech to the US Merchant Marine Academy.
Colin Montgomerie was the only player to pass golf’s toughest test in the red colours on Thursday, as his one-under 69 gave him the first-round lead in the 2006 US Open. Montgomerie’s was the only under-par effort on a day when a wind-blown Winged Foot humbled a host of top players, including Tiger Woods.
Billionaire basketball team owner Mark Cuban was a no-show, but the head of the United Nations Children’s Fund made it and pop star Prince rounded off the evening by throwing a guitar over his head. The occasion was the 10th annual Webby awards — the self-proclaimed Oscars of the internet — which drew a large and varied group of winners from across the cyberspace world.
British play The History Boys, Alan Bennett’s wise, witty and warmhearted dissection of education in his homeland, was named best play at the 2006 Tony Awards and received six Tonys in all — more than any other production. The other top winner on Sunday night was the fast-moving musical Jersey Boys.
”I think it’s sexy,” Donald Bradford says of the bushy growth that has adorned his upper lip for the past two months.Largely shunned since the 1980s, moustaches are enjoying something of a renaissance among young New Yorkers, following a comeback trail blazed by such hip role models as actor Nicolas Cage and the ultra-trendy fashion photographer Terry Richardson.
United States stocks dropped for the second straight session on Tuesday, with the
Dow Jones industrial average falling to its worst close since March 9. Global markets also sold off as inflation fears worsened. The Dow lost more than 110 points in midday trading before narrowing its loss later in the session.
Not far from the site of the attacks on the World Trade Centre, Mark Bingham will be remembered for his grit and his heart, and the game he loved. The Bingham Cup, a rugby tournament open to gay teams, will be held this weekend. It pays tribute to Bingham, who was gay and believed to be one of the passengers who fought hijackers on the United flight.
The top United Nations humanitarian official warned on Friday that relief efforts in Darfur could collapse within weeks unless the government makes good on a peace deal and donors fund aid work in the troubled Sudanese region. Jan Egeland, the top humanitarian aid official, told the UN Security Council that the government must lift restrictions on aid groups if they are to do their job properly.
After writing an autobiography that sold millions of copies and earned him a hefty advance, former United States president Bill Clinton has struck a deal to write another book. Alfred Knopf will publish the new work, in which Clinton will focus on public service and individual citizen activism, telling a story that he hopes will ”lift spirits” and ”touch hearts”.
<i>Rolling Stone</i>, the American music and pop culture magazine, is celebrating a milestone this month with the release of its 1Â 000th issue. For 39 years, the magazine has straddled the divide between countercultural and conventional journalism, with covers that have depicted and even created modern-day icons.
Faced with opposition from conservative groups and some pornography websites, the internet’s key oversight agency voted to reject a proposal to create a red-light district on the internet. The decision on Wednesday from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers reverses its preliminary approval last June to create a ”.xxx” domain name for voluntary use by the adult entertainment industry.
AM Rosenthal, a brilliant, demanding editor who lifted The New York Times from economic doldrums in the 1970s and moulded it into a journalistic juggernaut known for distinguished reporting of national and world affairs, died on Wednesday at age 84.
Escalating an already heated national debate, a first-of-its-kind TV channel premieres on Thursday designed specifically for babies — an age group that the American Academy of Paediatrics says should be kept away from television altogether.
Western powers will wait a ”couple of weeks” before pressing tough United Nations action against Iran and offer new incentives for it to renounce its controversial nuclear activities, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday. Rice spoke after two days of intensive consultations on an approach to Tehran’s suspected effort to build a nuclear bomb.
An Andy Warhol canvas portraying a can of Campbell’s Soup was auctioned off here for nearly ,8-million, Christie’s auction house reported late on Tuesday. The sale of Small Torn Campbell’s Soup Can (Pepper Pot), a 1962 canvas, set a record for work from the artist’s Campbell’s Soup series.
Foreign ministers from world powers held intensive discussions on Iran’s controversial nuclear programme on Monday, but there was no sign whether they made any progress on a unified position. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hosted talks and a dinner for her counterparts from Russia, China, France, Britain, Germany and the European Union.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Friday welcomed the landmark deal signed between the Khartoum government and the main rebel faction in Sudan’s Darfur region but urged the two other insurgent groups to sign as well. ”I welcomed the agreement and urged the other two parties to seize this historic moment and sign the agreement that will bring this tragic chapter in the history of Sudan to an end,” he told reporters.
Non-diet sodas will be yanked from United States schools, and other drinks will be downsized under a deal announced by former president Bill Clinton and the nation’s largest beverage distributors. ”This is a truly bold step forward in the struggle to help 35-million young people lead healthier lives,” said Clinton.
God has finally come to United States reality television — and against all guesses the oddball match has delighted the Roman Catholic Church. God or the Girl pits four aspiring young Catholic priests against their libidos during the final four weeks before their decisions to take the church’s Holy Orders, with the vow of chastity.
Having starved himself and been frozen in ice, United States magician David Blaine now plans to spend seven days submerged in a water-filled container in New York. The latest stunt by the renowned illusionist will seem him enter a 2.,m high acrylic sphere on May 1 and remain submerged for a week.
The crackdown on leaks at the Central Intelligence Agency that led to the dismissal of a veteran employee last week included an unusual lie detector test for CIA Inspector General John Helgerson, The New York Times reported on Monday.
Crude oil futures closed above a barrel in New York for the first time on Friday, amid increasing concerns about the Iranian nuclear crisis and a United States gasoline-supply crunch. The June contract for light sweet crude closed at ,17 a barrel after rising as high as ,35.
A five-cent slot machine in Atlantic City disgorged a -million windfall for an 84-year-old United States grandmother who promptly received four marriage proposals, according to reports on Thursday. Josephine Crawford had lost in the machine and was down to the last of her modest stake-money when she hit the jackpot on Tuesday evening at Harrah’s casino in the New Jersey gambling hotspot.
Rock icon Neil Young has joined the ranks of musicians ranged against the current United States administration with a new anti-war protest album that includes a track called Impeach the President. The veteran singer-songwriter said the substance of the album Living with War harked back to the protest music of the 1960s.
A restaurateur who admitted he exposed himself to a woman in a subway car, an act the woman captured with her cellphone camera, was sentenced on Tuesday to two years probation and ordered to undergo counselling. Daniel Hoyt (43), of New York, was sentenced in Manhattan Criminal Court on his guilty plea to public lewdness, a misdemeanour.
Israel warned that a new ”axis of terror” — Iran, Syria and the Hamas-run Palestinian government — is sowing the seeds of the first world war of the 21st century. But the Palestinians accused Israel of an escalating and indiscriminate military campaign that targets civilians and entrenches its occupation.
The United Nations Security Council demanded that the Sudanese government and rebels reach agreement by April 30 to end the conflict in Darfur and reaffirmed its determination to hold accountable those blocking peace and violating human rights.