Kate Upton
Courtesy of Sports Illustrated
For the second year in a row, model Kate Upton appears on the cover of Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue, which goes on sale Tuesday.
The magazine shared the news – and that steamy photo – via Twitter on Friday night, writing, "POLAR BARE: @KateUpton in Antarctica is your 2013 SI Swimsuit Cover Model!"
And unlike last year, this time around Upton, 20, is slightly more covered up – OK, not really – in her Antarctica-themed shoot. The cover finds the model posing in a white jacket, unzipped, with a fur hood and bikini bottom on a boat.
The issue also promises photos of models from all seven continents.
According to the magazine, Upton is expected to appear on The Late Show with David Letterman on Monday night – along with nine other swimsuit models – to promote the issue.
Not since Tyra Banks in 1996 and 1997 has a model graced two back-to-back Swimsuit Issue covers.
Deep-fried foods may be causing trouble in the Deep South. People whose diets are heavy on them and sugary drinks like sweet tea and soda were more likely to suffer a stroke, a new study finds.
It's the first big look at diet and strokes, and researchers say it might help explain why blacks in the Southeast — the nation's "stroke belt" — suffer more of them.
Blacks were five times more likely than whites to have the Southern dietary pattern linked with the highest stroke risk. And blacks and whites who live in the South were more likely to eat this way than people in other parts of the country were. Diet might explain as much as two-thirds of the excess stroke risk seen in blacks versus whites, researchers concluded.
"We're talking about fried foods, french fries, hamburgers, processed meats, hot dogs," bacon, ham, liver, gizzards and sugary drinks, said the study's leader, Suzanne Judd of the University of Alabama in Birmingham.
People who ate about six meals a week featuring these sorts of foods had a 41 percent higher stroke risk than people who ate that way about once a month, researchers found.
In contrast, people whose diets were high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish had a 29 percent lower stroke risk.
"It's a very big difference," Judd said. "The message for people in the middle is there's a graded risk" — the likelihood of suffering a stroke rises in proportion to each Southern meal in a week.
Results were reported Thursday at an American Stroke Association conference in Honolulu.
The federally funded study was launched in 2002 to explore regional variations in stroke risks and reasons for them. More than 20,000 people 45 or older — half of them black — from all 48 mainland states filled out food surveys and were sorted into one of five diet styles:
—Southern: Fried foods, processed meats (lunchmeat, jerky), red meat, eggs, sweet drinks and whole milk.
—Convenience: Mexican and Chinese food, pizza, pasta.
—Plant-based: Fruits, vegetables, juice, cereal, fish, poultry, yogurt, nuts and whole-grain bread.
—Sweets: Added fats, breads, chocolate, desserts, sweet breakfast foods.
—Alcohol: Beer, wine, liquor, green leafy vegetables, salad dressings, nuts and seeds, coffee.
"They're not mutually exclusive" — for example, hamburgers fall into both convenience and Southern diets, Judd said. Each person got a score for each diet, depending on how many meals leaned that way.
Over more than five years of follow-up, nearly 500 strokes occurred. Researchers saw clear patterns with the Southern and plant-based diets; the other three didn't seem to affect stroke risk.
There were 138 strokes among the 4,977 who ate the most Southern food, compared to 109 strokes among the 5,156 people eating the least of it.
There were 122 strokes among the 5,076 who ate the most plant-based meals, compared to 135 strokes among the 5,056 people who seldom ate that way.
The trends held up after researchers took into account other factors such as age, income, smoking, education, exercise and total calories consumed.
Fried foods tend to be eaten with lots of salt, which raises blood pressure — a known stroke risk factor, Judd said. And sweet drinks can contribute to diabetes, the disease that celebrity chef Paula Deen — the queen of Southern cuisine — revealed she had a year ago.
The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, drugmaker Amgen Inc. and General Mills Inc. funded the study.
"This study does strongly suggest that food does have an influence and people should be trying to avoid these kinds of fatty foods and high sugar content," said an independent expert, Dr. Brian Silver, a Brown University neurologist and stroke center director at Rhode Island Hospital.
"I don't mean to sound like an ogre. I know when I'm in New Orleans I certainly enjoy the food there. But you don't have to make a regular habit of eating all this stuff."
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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks opened slightly higher on Friday after a trio of positive economic data points, and further gains were expected to be modest with the benchmark S&P index near five-year highs.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 18.97 points, or 0.14 percent, at 13,963.02. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 3.05 points, or 0.20 percent, at 1,512.44. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 13.59 points, or 0.43 percent, at 3,178.72.
(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
TUNIS (Reuters) - Police and mourners clashed at the mass funeral on Friday of secular opposition leader Chokri Belaid, whose assassination has plunged Tunisia deeper into political crisis.
Braving chilly rain, at least 50,000 people turned out to honor Belaid in his home district of Jebel al-Jaloud in the capital, chanting anti-Islamist and anti-government slogans.
It was Tunisia's biggest funeral since the death of Habib Bourguiba, independence leader and first president, in 2000.
Violence erupted near the cemetery as police fired teargas at demonstrators who threw stones and set cars ablaze. Police also used teargas against protesters near the Interior Ministry, a frequent flashpoint for clashes in the Tunisian capital.
Tunisia, cradle of the Arab uprisings, is riven by tensions between dominant Islamists and their secular opponents, and by frustration at the lack of social and economic progress since President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was ousted in January 2011.
Belaid's assassination has shocked a country which had hitherto experienced a relatively peaceful political transition.
"The people want a new revolution," shouted mourners in Tunis, who also sang the national anthem.
Crowds surged around an open army truck carrying Belaid's coffin, draped in a red and white Tunisian flag, from a cultural center in Jebel al-Jaloud towards the leafy Jallaz cemetery, as a security forces helicopter flew overhead.
"Belaid, rest in peace, we will continue the struggle," mourners chanted, holding portraits of the politician killed near his home on Wednesday by a gunman who fled on a motorcycle.
Some demonstrators denounced Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of the ruling Islamist Ennahda party. "Ghannouchi, assassin, criminal," they chanted. "Tunisia is free, terrorism out."
Police fired teargas to disperse anti-government protesters throwing stones and petrol bombs in the southern mining town of Gafsa, a stronghold of support for Belaid, witnesses said.
Crowds there had chanted "The people want the fall of the regime", a slogan first used against Ben Ali.
CRADLE OF REVOLT
In Sidi Bouzid, the southern town where the revolt against the ousted strongman began, about 10,000 marched to mourn Belaid and shout slogans against Ennahda and the government.
Banks, factories and some shops were closed in Tunis and other cities in response to a strike called by unions in protest at Belaid's killing, but buses were running normally.
Tunis Air suspended all its flights because of the strikes, a spokesman for the national airline said. Airport sources in Cairo said EgyptAir had canceled two flights to Tunisia after staff at Tunis airport joined the general strike.
After Belaid's assassination, Prime Minister Hamdi Jebali, an Islamist, said he would dissolve the government and form a cabinet of technocrats to rule until elections could be held.
But his own Ennahda party and its secular coalition partners complained they had not been consulted, casting doubt over the status of the government and compounding political uncertainty.
No one has claimed responsibility for the killing of Belaid, a lawyer and secular opposition figure.
His family have blamed Ennahda but the party has denied any hand in the shooting. Crowds have attacked several Ennahda party offices in Tunis and other cities in the past two days.
"Hope still exists in Tunisia," Fatma Saidan, a noted Tunisian actor, told Reuters at Belaid's funeral. "We will continue to struggle against extremism and political violence."
She called for national unity, saying: "We are ready to accept Islamists, but they don't accept us."
SECULAR SYMBOL
While Belaid had only a modest political following, his criticism of Ennahda policies spoke for many Tunisians who fear religious radicals are bent on snuffing out freedoms won in the first of the revolts that rippled through the Arab world.
Secular groups have accused the Islamist-led government of a lax response to attacks by ultra-orthodox Salafi Islamists on cinemas, theatres and bars in recent months.
The economic effect of political uncertainty and street unrest could be serious in a country which has yet to draft a new constitution and which relies heavily on the tourist trade.
Mohamed Ali Toumi, president of the Tunisian Federation of Travel Agencies, described the week's events as a catastrophe that would have a negative impact on tourism, but he told the national news agency TAP no cancellations had been reported yet.
France, which had already announced the closure of its schools in Tunis on Friday and Saturday, urged its nationals to stay clear of potential flashpoints in the capital.
The cost of insuring Tunisian government bonds against default rose to its highest level in more than four years on Thursday and ratings agency Fitch said it could further downgrade Tunisia if political instability continues or worsens.
(For an interactive look at Tunisia please click on http://link.reuters.com/tub85t)
(Additional reporting by Alexander Dziadosz in Cairo and Brian Love in Paris; Editing by Jon Boyle)
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There are already smartphones powered by Android, iOS, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Bada and Tizen, and soon Ubuntu will be added to that long list. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mark Shuttleworth, the founder and CEO of Canonical, said that smartphones running the company’s Linux-based Ubuntu operating system will be available to customers starting in October 2013. He also said that application developers will be granted early access to a version of the operating system that has been optimized for the Galaxy Nexus later this month.
[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 browser smokes iOS 6 and Windows Phone 8 in comparison test [video]]
One of the smartphone’s unique features will allow it to be docked to a larger display for use with a keyboard and mouse. The operating system can also support Windows-based applications streamed to devices from corporate servers, giving business users access to all corporate data through a single device.
[More from BGR: Microsoft Surface Pro review]
Shuttleworth said that Ubuntu devices will be available in two large geographic markets later this year. The executive failed to give specific details, however he said that North America is “absolutely a key market for Ubuntu,” and that the operating system has even drawn interest from certain carriers.
This article was originally published on BGR.com
Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News
02/08/2013 at 09:00 AM ET
Courtesy Gisele Bündchen
Meet Vivian Lake Brady!
Gisele Bündchen introduces her and Tom Brady‘s 9-week-old daughter in a Facebook post Friday, sharing a photo as the family vacations in Hawaii.
“Love is everything!!!” the model, 32, writes. “Happy Friday, much love to all.”
Born at home in Boston on Dec. 5, Vivian joins big brothers Benjamin, 3, and John, 5.
“We feel so lucky to have been able to experience the miracle of birth once again and are forever grateful for the opportunity to be the parents of another little angel,” Bündchen and her New England Patriots quarterback husband, 35, wrote at the time.
RELATED: Tom Brady Thrilled His Sons Have a Sister
NEW YORK (AP) — Researchers have discovered the first U.S. cases of whooping cough caused by a germ that may be resistant to the vaccine.
Health officials are looking into whether cases like the dozen found in Philadelphia might be one reason the nation just had its worst year for whooping cough in six decades. The new bug was previously reported in Japan, France and Finland.
"It's quite intriguing. It's the first time we've seen this here," said Dr. Tom Clark of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The U.S. cases are detailed in a brief report from the CDC and other researchers in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.
Whooping cough is a highly contagious disease that can strike people of any age but is most dangerous to children. It was once common, but cases in the U.S. dropped after a vaccine was introduced in the 1940s.
An increase in illnesses in recent years has been partially blamed on a version of the vaccine used since the 1990s, which doesn't last as long. Last year, the CDC received reports of 41,880 cases, according to a preliminary count. That included 18 deaths.
The new study suggests that the new whooping cough strain may be why more people have been getting sick. Experts don't think it's more deadly, but the shots may not work as well against it.
In a small, soon-to-be published study, French researchers found the vaccine seemed to lower the risk of severe disease from the new strain in infants. But it didn't prevent illness completely, said Nicole Guiso of the Pasteur Institute, one of the researchers.
The new germ was first identified in France, where more extensive testing is routinely done for whooping cough. The strain now accounts for 14 percent of cases there, Guiso said.
In the United States, doctors usually rely on a rapid test to help make a diagnosis. The extra lab work isn't done often enough to give health officials a good idea how common the new type is here, experts said.
"We definitely need some more information about this before we can draw any conclusions," the CDC's Clark said.
The U.S. cases were found in the past two years in patients at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. One of the study's researchers works for a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, which makes a version of the old whooping cough vaccine that is sold in other countries.
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JournaL: http://www.nejm.org
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks opened flat on Thursday after a trend gauge in weekly jobless claims signaled modest economic improvement and retailers posted mixed monthly sales.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 11.06 points, or 0.08 percent, at 13,975.46. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 0.67 point, or 0.04 percent, at 1,511.45. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 1.68 points, or 0.05 percent, at 3,166.80.
(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Kenneth Barry)
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's highest authority, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Thursday slapped down an offer of direct talks made by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden this week, saying they would not solve the problem between them.
"Some naive people like the idea of negotiating with America, however, negotiations will not solve the problem," Khamenei said in a speech to officials and members of Iran's air force carried on his official website.
"If some people want American rule to be established again in Iran, the nation will rise up to face them," he said.
"American policy in the Middle East has been destroyed and Americans now need to play a new card. That card is dragging Iran into negotiations."
Khamenei made his comments just days after Joe Biden said the United States was prepared to meet bilaterally with the Iranian leadership. "That offer stands but it must be real and tangible," Biden said in a speech in Munich.
With traditional fiery rhetoric, Khamenei lambasted Biden's offer, saying that since the 1979 revolution the United States had gravely insulted Iran and continued to do so with its threat of military action.
"You take up arms against the nation of Iran and say: 'negotiate or we fire'. But you should know that pressure and negotiations are not compatible and our nation will not be intimidated by these actions," he added.
Relations between Iran and the United States were severed in 1979 after the overthrow of Iran's pro-western monarchy and diplomatic meetings between officials have since been very rare.
ALL OPTIONS STILL "ON THE TABLE"
Currently U.S.-Iran contact is limited to talks between Tehran and a so-called P5+1 group of powers on Iran's disputed nuclear program which are to resume on February 26 in Kazakhstan.
Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor said he was skeptical the negotiations in Almaty could yield a result, telling Israel Radio that the United States needed to demonstrate to Iran that "all options were still on the table".
Israel, widely recognized to be the only nuclear power in the Middle East, has warned it could mount a pre-emptive strike on Iranian atomic sites. Israel sees its existence as directly threatened by the prospect of an nuclear-armed Iran, given Tehran's refusal to recognize the existence of the Jewish state.
"The final option, this is the phrasing we have used, should remain in place and be serious," said Meridor.
"The fact that the Iranians have not yet come down from the path they are on means that talks ...are liable to bring about only a stalling for time," he said.
Iran maintains its nuclear program is entirely peaceful but Western powers are concerned it is intent on developing a weapons program.
Many believe a deal on settling the nuclear issue is impossible without a U.S.-Iranian thaw. But any rapprochement would require direct talks addressing many sources of mutual mistrust that have lingered since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution and the subsequent U.S. embassy hostage crisis in Tehran.
Moreover, although his re-election last November may give President Barack Obama a freer hand to pursue direct negotiations, analysts say Iran's own presidential election in June may prove an additional obstacle to progress being made.
(Additional reporting by Dan Williams; Editing by William Maclean and Jon Boyle)
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