WcP.StoryTeller's blog

Two Number Ones – China in Gold, U.S. in Total

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The Beijing Olympics have come to a close after 16 days of thrilling competition - with the home nation sat on top of the gold medal table.

China has spent seven years planning for this event. It must be relieved that these Olympics are being hailed as both a sporting and an operational success. Worries about air pollution, protesters and media freedom were eventually overshadowed by what went on in the sporting arenas.

At the closing ceremony the International Olympic Committee President, Jacques Rogge, said they had been "truly exceptional games".

Best of the best

Worldwide, 200 countries provided a staggering 5,000 hours of coverage through rights-holding broadcast partners. In China, 842 million people - more than twice the population of the United States - tuned in to watch some part of opening ceremony.

On the field of play, nearly 11,000 athletes from 204 nations created indelible memories with their performances, many of them smashing records.

The ceremony to mark the end of the games, held in the Bird's Nest stadium, borrowed some of the grand style of the opening ceremony. Hundreds of performers were deployed in dazzling sequences that took months of planning to execute to perfection. And this being China, there were more fireworks.

The Olympics is being seen as a success from the government all the way down to ordinary people on the streets. "The best of the best - ever," said one compere, referring to this particular Games a few minutes before the closing ceremony started.

Positive legacy

There was certainly an attempt at this last event to shape the way the world should think about the contro- versial decision to award China this year's summer Games.

Liu Qi, president of the Beijing organizing committee, said the Chinese people had honored the commit- ments it made when bidding for the games. Speaking at the closing ceremony, he said: "The Beijing Olympic Games is a testimony of the fact that the world has rested its trust upon China."

The Chinese spared no expense ($40 billion for infra- structure) and overlooked no detail, however minute, in the planning, preparation and execution of what Liu Qi called "this grand gala of humankind."

Beijing, the historic seat of power in China, set a standard for host cities in almost every way, from its efficient routing of traffic - no small feat in a city of 17.4 million - to its stunning and innovative competition venues such as the Bird's Nest and Water Cube. Some 100,000 well-trained volunteers kept the Olympic machine humming.

"We cannot be more pleased with the Chinese people's presentation of these Games," said Peter Ueberroth, chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee. "Whether it's the (Athletes') Village or the venues, they've done an incredible job."

The IOC President, Jacques Rogge, suggested this Olympics would have a positive legacy. "Through these games, the world learned more about China, and China learned more about the world," he said.

All-star cast

The closing ceremony is partly about handing over to the next host of the summer Games, which in 2012 will be London. That gave the British capital the chance to stage its own mini-show within the closing ceremony.

It began when the Olympic flag was handed to recently- elected London Mayor Boris Johnson, who seemed to fumble to unfurl the banner before holding it aloft. A red London bus than entered the stadium, out of which popped singer Leona Lewis and guitarist Jimmy Page, who together performed the rock classic "Whole Lotta Love". Britain's most recognizable footballer, David Beckham, then appeared from inside the double-decker - surely no other London bus can have carried such an all-star cast.

To huge cheers, Beckham kicked a football into the crowd of athletes who had also paraded into the stadium. As the bus left, pretend passengers clung to the sides holding up umbrellas. It was an attempt to poke fun at Britain's rainy weather and its people's preoccupation with it.

Gold medals

But the Chinese still stole the show, with some sequences that were vast in scale and ambition. China won 100 medals and led with 51 gold in an eye-opening performance. A successful Olympics, with 51 gold medals for the home country, is probably exactly what China's leaders had hoped would happen.

After the event, one closing ceremony performer, Ying Ying, said her team of cheerleaders had been practicing since last autumn. "I feel very lucky just to be here. I've been moved to see so many athletes - and China has done really well," said the 20-year-old Beijing university student.

The U.S. finished with 110 medals total, leading the overall medal standings for the fourth consecutive Olympics and setting a U.S. record for medal production in a full-participation Games.

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Photos courtesy of Jeff Gross/Getty Images, Shaun Botterill/Getty Images, Stu Forster/Getty Images, Phil Walter/Getty Images, Clive Rose/Getty Images

Original Source: BBC News and Kansas City Star

Image Gallery: Pictures of 2008 Olympics Closing Ceremony

Related Articles: Beijing Wrap-Up: The 25 Most Marketable Olympians and Top 50 moments of Beijing 2008

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Desperate attempts are underway to save a baby humpback whale which is trying to bond with yachts in Sydney harbour, after mistaking the boats for its mother. The two week old calf, which has been separated from its real mother, was spotted nuzzling up to a whale-sized boat in the picturesque Pittwater waterway just north of Sydney on Monday.

Rescuers from the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service towed the yacht out to sea hoping to entice the calf to find other whales who would adopt it. Eventually the calf detached itself from the boat, although it remained swimming close to it. However today the baby whale had returned to the Pittwater basin, where spotted swimming “rather energetically” around other yachts in the area.

The race is now on to save it, but wildlife experts are pessimistic about their chances. The calf, which needs urgently to find a mother to suckle to, is in “grim danger” if it does not find a substitute, said John Dengate, a spokesman for the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service. The only option is for the calf to find another pod of whales with a mother who can adopt it. “We’ve wracked our brains to think of some kind of captive approach we can do, by taking it in and rearing it ourselves, but it seems to be impossible in Australia, and possibly around the world,” Mr Dengate said.

Baby whales suckle for 11 months on vast amounts of high fat milk and put on approximately 2 pounds a day. To raise this calf by hand, someone would have to take it in and feed it a special formula of whale milk substitute. They would also have to have the capacity to house it until it is grown to its full adult size of 40–50 ft (12-16m), with a weight of approximately 79,000 pounds (36,000 kg). “It is pretty much an impossible ask,” Mr Dengate said. “It’s just heartbreaking, the only thing we can do is monitor the little fella and hope he finds a new mum.”

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Photos courtesy of AP Photo/Channel Nine and AFP

Original Source: Times Online

Video: Baby Whale Lost in Australia

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ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Cinderella, Snow White, Tinkerbell and other fictional fixtures of modern-day childhood were handcuffed, frisked and loaded into police vans Thursday at the culmination of a labor protest that brought a touch of reality to the Happiest Place on Earth.

The arrest of the 32 protesters, many of whom wore costumes representing famous Disney characters, came at the end of an hour-long march to Disneyland's gates from one of three Disney-owned hotels at the center of a labor dispute.

Those who were arrested sat in a circle on a busy intersection outside the park holding hands until they were placed in plastic handcuffs and led to two police vans while hundreds of hotel workers cheered and chanted. The protesters were arrested on a misdemeanor count of failure to obey a police officer and two traffic infractions, said Sgt. Rick Martinez of the Anaheim police. They were cited and released, Sgt. Chris Schneider said.

Bewildered tourists in Disney T-shirts and caps, some pushing strollers, filed past the commotion and gawked at the costumed picketers getting hauled away. The protest shut down a major thoroughfare outside Disneyland and California Adventure for nearly an hour. Before the arrests, the picketers marched and chanted outside Paradise Pier, holding signs that read, "Disney is unfaithful," and "Mickey, shame on you." They were joined by community activists and religious leaders from local churches.

The dispute involves about 2,300 maids, bell hops, cooks and dishwashers at three Disney- owned hotels: the Paradise Pier, the Grand Californian and the Disneyland Hotel. The workers' contract expired in February and their union says Disney's latest proposal makes health care unaffordable for hundreds of employees and creates an unfair two-tier wage system. The union also says Disney wants to create a new category of part-time employees who would receive greatly reduced benefits. Disney spokeswoman Lisa Haines said Disney and the union are in negotiations and nothing has been finalized. She said workers have protested 14 times but sat down to negotiate only 11 times in the past six months.

Luz Vasquez, who works in the bakery at Disneyland Hotel, said she can't afford to lose many of her benefits. She said it's already hard to care for her three grandchildren and aging mother while earning $14.32 an hour. Co-worker Diane Dominguez, 50, said she was worried about losing health care because of the heavy labor involved in lifting mattresses, moving furniture and making dozens of beds a day. She also said rising prices and the cost of gas were eating into her salary of $11.11 an hour.

At the heart of the issue is a free health care plan that has been provided to Disney hotel workers through a trust fund that Disney and other unionized hotels in the area pay into. Briceno said that in exchange for the free medical plan, union members agreed in previous contracts to a lower wage for hotel workers in the first three years of their employment. But Disney now wants to eliminate the free health plan for new hires and wants to create a new class of workers who put in less than 30 hours a week, said Briceno. Those part-time workers would receive no sick or vacation pay and not be given holidays, she said. The company also wants to increase the number of hours full-time employees must work before qualifying for the health plan, she said.

Haines said the majority of other employees at Disneyland pay for a share of their health plan, even though the resort shoulders about 75 percent of the overall cost. She said it's important to negotiate a contract that's fair to those other unions, too. "We do remain hopeful that we can reach an agreement that's both fair and equitable, providing that union leadership is reasonable and realistic in its approach," Haines said.

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Here’s hoping for a happy ending.

Photos courtesy of AP Photo/Carlos Delgado, The Sun (UK)

Original Source: AP

Slideshow: You're Micked

Related Article: Snow White, Mickey & Minnie Mouse And Tinkerbell Among Those Arrested At Disneyland (with video)

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China launched the 29th summer Olympics on Friday with a glittering opening ceremony combining 5,000 years of its history with a modern firecracker of a show.

The 91,000-strong crowd in the National Stadium, and more than a billion television viewers, earlier saw the hoisting of the Chinese flag which was carried into the stadium by children from China's 56 ethnic groups after 2,008 drummers had started the show.

Around 11,000 athletes from a record 204 nations will compete in 28 sports for 302 gold medals at the first Olympics in China and third in Asia, following Tokyo in 1964 and Seoul in 1988.

The Opening Ceremony is a cavalcade of athletes that could include everyone from 41-year-old swimmin' women to bone-thin young men from underfed lands. It will be an Olympics of table-tennis players and Wimbledon winners, of Israeli sailors and Iraqi rowers, of the Queen of Britain's granddaughter (who rides a horse) to "King" LeBron James (who shoots hoops).

You could catch a glimpse of American superjocks ranging from aquaman Michael Phelps to the flash Tyson Gay, from basketball's Sue Bird to softball's Jennie Finch (both aptly named to be in a Bird's Nest), from king of the court Kobe Bryant to queens Venus and Serena Williams.

There is a U.S. taekwondo team with practically everybody on it from Sugar Land, Texas, with the name of Lopez. There is a Ping-Pong team for the United States made up almost exclusively of Asians. There is a U.S. woman named Becky Hammon playing basketball for the Russians even though she has about as many Russian genes as Tom Sawyer.

There is a Japanese baseball pitcher named Yu Darvish whose name you might try to remember because a number of big-league scouts believe Yu someday could become a name in the American game every bit as popular as Ichiro or Fukudome or Dice-K.

There is a synchronized diver, a springboard diver, a backstroker and a butterflyer from that hotbed of swimming, Illinois.

There are 173 athletes on the U.S. team from California, 44 from Texas, 25 from New York and 10 from Indiana, including an very independent young Indy woman named Amber who throws a hammer.

There is a 23-year-old man named Lopez Lomong, born in Sudan on a New Year's Day, who now lives in Flagstaff, Ariz., and will carry the U.S. flag and staff into the arena as the honorary leader of the team.

There is a middle-aged swimmer, Dara Torres, who has made a name for herself in a swimming pool while others in their 40s go soak their tired limbs in hydrotherapy.

There is a swimmer, Amanda Beard, who has made a name for herself in and out of bathing suits.

There is a diver, Christina Loukas, whose dad runs the Cubby Bear lounge on the corner opposite Wrigley Field, and a 250-pound wrestler, Larry Langowski, who runs an ice-cream parlor in Logan Square but is in Beijing to wrestle for Mexico.

There is a 39-year-old Michigan woman who weighs all of 117 pounds, Sheila Taormina, who might be the best athlete you never heard of.

Taormina has come to these Olympics—her fourth Olympics, by the way—to compete in modern pentathlon—her third Olympic sport, by the way, having competed previously in swimming and triathlon.

"The pool's awesome!" Torres raved. "I've never seen such a great facility!"

"The Olympic Village is phenomenal!" U.S. gymnast Rav Bhavsar said. "Even the cafeteria."

There is excitement in the air.

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Photos courtesy of NBC

Original Source: Chicago Tribune and Deutsche Welle

Image Galleries at: nbcolympics.com

Among those featured in Time special issue "100 Olympic Athletes To Watch":

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Dara Torres (United States) - 41, nine-time Olympic medallist in swimming and mother of a two-year old who has qualified for her fifth Olympic Games, something no other swimmer has ever done. The time in the 100m freestyle that got her a ticket to Beijing was 2.47 seconds faster than her Olympic effort in 1988, at age 21 - a lifetime in such a short race.

Liu Xiang (China) – 25. When Liu Xiang claimed victory in the 110-m hurdles in Athens, delivering China its first ever sprint gold, you could almost sense the alarm in the announcers' voices. Few had heard of this mystery athlete, much less knew how to pronounce his given name. What a difference four years make. In Beijing, Liu, 25, along with basketball star Yao Ming, will be the poster boy for China's mighty Olympic squad. His name (pronounced Sheeahng) means "to soar" in Chinese.

Usain Bolt (Jamaica) – 21, the world's fastest man, nicknamed "The Lightning Bolt." This tall (6ft. 5in.), precocious Jamaican sprinter is a ray of hope for a sport whose unrelenting doping scandals have won it the same derision heaped on baseball and cycling. On May 31, at a meet in New York City, Bolt barreled to a100m world record of 9.72 seconds. Bolt is untainted by doping suspicion and has even sworn off legal partying (he loves to dance at his Aunt Lilly's reggae bar near his hometown, Trelawny) to prepare for Beijing.

Sheila Taormina (United States) – 39, the first woman to qualify for the Olympics in three sports, has struggled with depression as she wondered why she was still chasing the Olympics in her late 30s. She's had to fend off a stalker, who went to prison for five years but was released earlier this year (he has steered clear). And she fought, and won, a spot on the modern pentathlon team, even though she had never fired a gun, picked up an épee, or ridden more horse than a kiddie-ride pony before starting the sport three years ago (modern pentathlon combines swimming, running, fencing, shooting, and equestrian).

Yao Ming (China) – 27. When the NBA's Houston Rockets first sought permission from China's sports authorities to sign Yao Ming, 7-ft. 6-in, to play in the NBA, there was one term that was nonnegotiable: Yao would play for China's Olympic team, no matter what. He would lead the national team in Beijing in 2008. On Aug. 10, Yao will lead Team China in its first game — against the U.S.

Marta Vieira da Silva (Brazil) – 22, or just Marta, a single moniker being the mark of Brazil's great footballers. She is also known as Pelé in a skirt. The daughter of a poor family from the scrublands of Brazil's northeast, Marta had to force her brothers and his friends to even let her play the game. Once she made their team, the quick-footed striker was never off it. She signed with Swedish club Umea IK in 2004 and was soon helping Brazil challenge the U.S. and Germany's dominance in women's soccer. FIFA Player of the Year in 2006 and 2007, Marta has a lot to prove in Beijing.

Nader al Masri (Palestine) – 28. Nader al Masri learned the hard way how to pour on the speed: living in the embattled Palestinian enclave of Gaza, he's used to sprinting away from whizzing bullets and Israeli missiles. For 10 years, al Masri has trained for the 5,000m race in the Olympics. Every morning, he would lace up his tattered running shoes and lope off along bomb-cratered roads as kids shouted "Run, Nader, Run!"

Ryoko Tani (Japan) – 27, won consecutive Olympic golds in Sydney and in Athens, a first for a judo wrestler, and she's looking to take her third as a new mom. Nicknamed "Yawara-chan" after the character in a well-known judo manga. A judoka with seven world titles, Tani nearly missed qualifying for the Beijing team having given birth just a few months before national qualifiers.

Marianne Vos (Netherlands) – 21, has won virtually all the Dutch, European and world prizes available to road, cross and track cyclists — except an Olympic medal. A prodigy who started racing at five years old, she would later cycle 24km each way to school as her daily warm-up before training. In her first season as a senior racer, at age 18, Vos became the youngest ever world cyclo-cross champion, adding the world road title shortly after. Effectively self-coached, the unassuming 21-year-old is still studying biomedical science and says she sees cycling as "a big hobby."

Mark, Diana, and Steven Lopez (United States) - 26, 24, 29. Three siblings from suburban Houston who tried out taekwondo because their father was a fan of kung-fu movies, the second set of three sibling to make the Summer Games in the same sport — and the first since 1904, when three American brothers competed in gymnastics. Steven, already a gold medalist in the last two Olympics, is the straight arrow; middle child Mark, surprise, is the hyperactive one who likes attention. "I feel like a superstar," he recently said. Kid sis Diana is relatively shy. Their coach is older brother Jean. Just three years ago, they each won world titles.

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Photos courtesy of Justin Stephens, Goh Chai Hin/AFP/Getty, Adrees Latif/AFP/Getty, Roger Celestin/AFP/Getty, Shaun Boterill/Getty, Paulo Fridman/Corbis, Mohammed Salem/Reuters/Landov, Dirk Waem/AFP/Getty, Matthew Stockman/Getty, Joel Saget/AFP/Getty

Original Source: Time

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(Fortune Magazine) -- The billionaire co-founder of Microsoft has always been something of a utopian. In his mind, even the world's knottiest problems can be solved if you apply enough IQ. Accordingly, Gates, who has been spotted on Seattle freeways reading a book while driving himself to the office, covets knowledge. It's as if he's still trying to make up for dropping out of Harvard, as he spends just about any spare waking minute reading, studying science texts, or watching university courses on DVD. Some say his wealth and famous opportunism are reminiscent of the robber barons of yore. Yet here is a man who has set a goal to eradicate malaria. Rich as he is - his net worth is an estimated $50 billion - you can't call the man greedy when he has pledged to give back to humanity all but a tiny fraction of 1% of that fortune.

These traits only begin to explain why Gates, at 52, has chosen to redirect his efforts toward more altruistic pursuits. On July 1 he stepped away from an operating role at Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) to devote more time to philanthropy and other interests. The shift has been on his mind for nearly a decade, and it reflects some important experiences over his lifetime. Like that seminal time back in 1968 when his mother, Mary, spearheaded an effort to install a used Teletype terminal in his school so that her already autodidactic junior high schooler could teach himself how to program a mainframe. There was his epiphany when he first met fellow billionaire Warren Buffett in 1991 - and realized that it quite literally pays to follow your curiosity beyond your own area of expertise. And there's the poignant letter his mother wrote in 1993 to his fiancée, Melinda French, cluing her in to the Gates family credo: "From those to whom much has been given, much is expected." (Mary Gates would die the next year.) That letter, in turn, led to the self-conscious irony in the slogan he and his wife hit upon for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: All lives have equal value.

Bill Gates 2.0 will have three offices: one at Microsoft in Redmond, a second about 15 miles away at the Gates Foundation in downtown Seattle, and a third almost exactly equidistant between the other two (and much closer to home). In typical hyper-systematic fashion, Gates has allocated blocks of time to each location: a day in Redmond, two at the foundation, and two at the personal office, which he suspects will be his real "center of gravity." There will be a lot of overlap among his three roles. That's because the guy's greatest pleasure seems to be in finding connections among things he's interested in.

Gates' official title at his foundation, which he shares with his wife and father, is co-chair, but his real role will be as the organization's chief strategic thinker. And Gates is teeming with ideas, especially about things scientific. Unlike most benefactors, he doesn't merely want to eradicate malaria and AIDS; he wants to understand the nuances of immunology. He wants to learn about what happens on a molecular scale when a plant's genes are altered to improve hardiness. He insists on knowing the precise legal reasons women in developing countries are robbed of their estates when they become widowed. "Here's how Bill thinks," explains Nathan Myhrvold, the former head of Microsoft's R&D labs. "He is always interested in looking at big systems in the world and understanding them at every level that he can. As an example, I got this e-mail from him today as part of this whole discussion on corn prices and crop yields and shortages resulting from ethanol production, and at the end Bill says, 'I really need to understand phosphates more.'"

Another big part of his new job will be to make more public appearances and do more arm-twisting of governments and corporations to do more for the world's poor. "I'm uniquely able to reach out to the big companies, to ask them not just to write checks but to offer more of their innovative power," Gates says. "There's a big category of my time for talking to drug companies, cellphone companies, banks, and technology companies, as well as talking with other people who are lucky enough to have superbig fortunes about how they want to give those back to society." That does not translate to fundraising - on the contrary, the foundation plans to exhaust its $100 billion endowment by the end of the century. Gates is talking about setting an example for the plutocracy. Jeff Raikes, the former Microsoft executive who was just appointed CEO of the foundation, thinks that effort could have as much impact on the world as the works of the foundation itself: "He has an incredible opportunity to help shape the thinking of other multibillionaires by getting them to think about the process, the structure, the best practices."

In his younger years, Gates' gimlet-eyed idealism manifested itself in stubbornness and self-righteousness, an unusual boldness, and a tendency not to suffer fools. Most people who have worked closely with him can recall more than one instance in which he reacted to a comment or idea by standing up and hissing, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life." He hasn't lost that inclination toward intellectual arrogance. But in his philanthropic work, the shoe is sometimes on the other foot. He's not, after all, a microbiologist or a geneticist. Moreover, with age and maturity, Gates has become much better able to acknowledge what he doesn't know or when he's wrong.

For many years, as he built Microsoft, his field of vision was of necessity rather narrow. One of the most important experiences that jostled him out of his single-mindedness was his first meeting with Buffett, on July 5, 1991. As Gates tells the story: My mom called me at the office to come out to Hood Canal for a Fourth of July barbecue because she wanted me to meet Warren Buffett. And I said, "Mom, I'm working." But she insisted. So I took a helicopter so I could spend my couple of hours there and then get back quickly and work on software. Then I met Warren, and I thought, "Oh, wow, this guy isn't just about buying and selling stocks and businesses. He is thinking about how the world works." And he asked me questions that I always wanted somebody to ask me, about why hadn't IBM (IBM, Fortune 500) been able to do what we had done, and how software gets priced, and why does one company have a defensible position. He wanted to understand the dynamics of the industry. To me it was way far away from, "What is your company worth?"

Then he explained to me about how Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) had not only changed things in its business, but how it had an effect on newspapers because they thought of their advertising differently than individual local stores had. And he talked about how banking really worked in terms of credit risk. The whole time all I could think was, "Hey, I'll be smarter about running Microsoft after I talk to this guy." And so I stayed the whole day. Ever since then, Gates has tried to make more time to broaden his knowledge, and his capacity to absorb ideas has served Microsoft and the foundation well. But now reading, learning, and blue-sky brainstorming will be considered an integral part of his job description, and no doubt they will yield something.

Buffett, who knows him as well as anyone, says the notoriously competitive Gates will have to find new ways to judge his accomplishments rather than by market share or in dollars. "He'll be competing with his own standards," Buffett says. "In the end, he is going to want people to look at the Gates Foundation 100 years from now and say, 'This guy did it the way it should have been done.'" With all he did at Microsoft, Gates has a tough act to follow. "Bringing personal computing to billions has totally changed the world, and it's changed it, net-net, way for the better," says Myhrvold. "So even before you look at what his foundation has done for Africa or for the poor, he's already done more for the good of the world than essentially anyone else in our lifetimes."

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Photos courtesy of Microsoft Archives, Fortune, and Robert Maxwell

Original Source (with slideshow and video): Fortune

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NICE, France (AP) - Brad Pitt was emotional but calm, Angelina Jolie laughed and chatted. The world's most famous celebrity couple were joined in emotion during the birth of their twins - a boy and a girl - and all "are doing marvelously well," the doctor who delivered the babies in a seaside hospital on the French Riviera said Sunday.

The Mayor of Nice, France, has personally welcomed Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s newborn twins, Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline, signing off on their birth certificates and offering his congratulations to the superstar couple. Jolie's obstetrician, Dr. Michel Sussmann, said he believed the baby girl's middle name was chosen in honor of Jolie's mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, who died in January 2007 after a 7 1/2-year battle with cancer.

Mayor Christian Estrosi showed the waiting media the birth certificate of baby Knox, born on Saturday July 12 at 6:27pm, bearing Pitt’s full initials WBP - William Bradley Pitt. “On behalf of the inhabitants of Nice,” Estrosi declared, “I congratulate the happy parents, the most famous couple of the world, who have chosen our city for this happy event.”

"The father is having one of the happiest moments of his life, like any father, especially when they have the joy of having two children from such a wonderful wife as Angelina Jolie. The mother is doing fine. She is smiling a lot. She is as happy as the father," Estrosi said.

Nice Matin, the hometown daily in the Riviera city in the south of France, put the worth of the twins' photos at more than $11 million. It first broke news of the birth and reported Sunday that the couple have sold the rights for the first photo of their newly expanded family to a U.S. publication, which it did not name, and that the proceeds would go to charity.

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Photos courtesy of Reuters, MTV Newsroom, and Mail Online

Original Source: AP and The Celebrity Truth

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WIMBLEDON, England - No man had beaten Roger Federer at Wimbledon since 2002. But in near darkness, one of the greatest tennis matches ever played concluded in the Wimbledon final Sunday with Roger Federer hitting a short forehand into the net and with a victorious Rafael Nadal flat on his back with camera flashes illuminating his drained and delighted face.

We were watching two of the greatest players to have played this beautiful game of tennis; Roger Federer, arguably the greatest player who's lived, against arguably the best player on clay who's ever lived. By winning Sunday's final Rafael Nadal became the first person since Bjorn Bjorg to win Wimbledon and the French Open in the same year.

Nadal had come the closest to ending Federer’s streak at Wimbledon in last year’s final, pushing his friendly rival to five sets before ending up in tears in the locker room as Federer equaled Bjorn Borg’s modern men’s record with his fifth straight title.

Last year’s emotional tussle immediately took its place among the best Wimbledon finals, but this five-set classic — played on a rainy, gusty day — was better yet. At 4 hours 48 minutes, it was the longest singles final in Wimbledon’s 131-year history and did not finish until 9:16 p.m. local time.

By the end, as hard as it was to see, the top-seeded Federer and the second-seeded Nadal had produced so much brilliant tennis under pressure that it seemed the most normal thing in the world that Federer smacked yet another ace to get out of trouble or that Nadal hunted down yet another sharply angled ground stroke and ripped an off-balance passing shot for a winner.

The capacity crowd at Centre Court, which had not diminished through two rain delays, continually roared with delight or surprise and took turns chanting each combatant’s first name, which is not the way these things usually work at proper Wimbledon.

The loss kept Federer from matching the men’s record of six consecutive Wimbledon titles set by Britain’s William Renshaw in the 19th century. Federer had won 65 straight matches on grass.

It was 9:10 p.m. in London, and the light was so dim at the end of this intermittently rainy day that both players were concerned. “I almost couldn’t see who I was playing,” Federer said, shaking his head. Nadal agreed. “In the last game, I didn’t see nothing,” he said. “Was unbelievable. I thought we have to stop.” Wimbledon’s organizers have pushed their sessions to the limit this year, with other matches finishing at 9:30 p.m. Not finishing on Sunday would have forced the tournament to extend to Monday, with all the logistical challenges that would have entailed.

As soon as Federer’s forehand hit the net, Nadal dropped to the grass as if he had been hurled there, his racket flying out of his left hand. Among those standing and cheering in the front row of the Royal Box were Manuel Santana and Borg. Nadal, a 22-year-old from Majorca, joined them both on Sunday by becoming the first man to complete the grueling French Open-Wimbledon double in the same year since Borg in 1980 and also becoming the first Spanish man to win here since Santana in 1966. After four straight titles in Paris, Nadal finally had a Grand Slam title on a surface other than clay.

As is his custom, Nadal did not strike a triumphant tone in victory. He has long been deeply respectful of Federer, even as he has built a 12-6 career record against him and beaten him in the last three French Open finals.

“He’s still the best,” Nadal said. “He’s still five-time champion here. Right now I have one, so for me, it’s a very, very important day.”

Federer, who had not dropped a set until the final, will still be ranked No. 1 on Monday. Federer came into 2008 hoping to match Pete Sampras’s record of 14 Grand Slam singles titles. He is still holding at 12, with his only tournament victories this year coming in minor tour events. Federer certainly responded like a champion to Nadal’s pressure on Sunday, and he also dispelled concerns that — after winning just four games against Nadal in last month’s lopsided French Open final — he would be unable to stay with the physically imposing Nadal on grass.

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Photos courtesy of Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse, Ryan Pierse, Clive Brunskill and Finney/Getty Images, Anja Niedringhaus/AP, and Alan Crowhurst/Bloomberg News

Original Source: BBC News and NY Times

Image Galleries: Changing of the Guard and Wimbledon - Day Nine

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Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's love for children is by no means limited to their own: The couple has donated $1 million to help kids affected by the war in Iraq, the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict announced.

The organization will distribute the donation, made through the couple's Jolie-Pitt Foundation, to four organizations working on behalf of children who have lost parents, homes and schools in Iraq. Children in the U.S. who have lost parents in the conflict will also benefit.

"These educational support programs for children of conflict are the best way to help them heal," said Jolie in a written statement from Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, which she co-chairs.

"We hope to encourage others to give to these great organizations," Pitt added in the statement.

The Jolie-Pitt Foundation has given $500,000 to three groups in the war-torn country which will provide aid for some 5,700 children, said the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict.

Money will pay for basic necessities, including books and supplies to help send Iraqi children to school. Aid will also go to refugee kids, and to school rehabilitation programs.

The foundation also gave $500,000 to help children in the United States who have a military parent killed in Iraq, or who are separated from a parent stationed in the country.

The money will be divided between the Armed Services YMCA Operation Hero Program, which provides military children with counseling and educational support; Women for Women International, which will provide books, school supplies and other basic necessities to Iraqi women and children; the International Rescue Committee, which will repair three schools and offer classes for more than 2,500 students; and NineMillion.org, which will give school uniforms and learning materials to more than 2,000 displaced Iraqi kids.

Pitt, 44, and Jolie, 33, have donated millions of dollars to charity over the years.

Jolie, star of action movie Wanted, has long been an advocate for refugees and is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Pitt has earlier advocated for relief in the Darfur region of Sudan and has backed a program to help build homes for survivors of Hurricane Katrina in the US. T

Last year, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation gave more than $300,000 to support the International Rescue Committee's relief program for Darfur refugees.

Jolie, who's expecting twins, has said the babies are due in August. She and Pitt have four children: Maddox, 6; Pax, 4; Zahara, 3; and Shiloh, 2.

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Photos courtesy of The Hollywood Gossip, Angelina Jolie Watch, Angelina Jolie Daily, The Brangelina Chronicles, Agencies

Original Source: Associated Press and ScreenIndia

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OMAHA - Call it the one-heat world record. For about two minutes, Hayley McGregory was on the top of the world. Swimming in the second-to-last heat of the preliminaries for the 100-meter backstroke at the United States Olympic Trials, the 22-year-old from Texas clocked a 59.15, breaking the world record by .06 seconds.

When McGregory made the turn at 50 meters on world-record pace, the Qwest Center crowd got firmly behind her, cheering loudly. Natalie Coughlin, whose record McGregory broke, was standing over McGregory’s lane as she finished, getting ready to race in the final heat. The plan was for Coughlin, who this year has recorded three of the five all-time fastest times in the event, to conserve her energy and deliver a nice, easy performance, maybe a second or so faster than her personal best.

When Coughlin saw McGregory’s time, she switched gears. Swimming with a sense of urgency seldom seen from a top swimmer early in the day’s heats, the 25-year-old Coughlin one-upped McGregory with a time of 59.03. McGregory will go down as the world-record holder for less than two minutes. "Not even a whole minute, really," McGregory said with a chuckle. "It’s still awesome." Looking ahead to Monday night’s semifinal, she said, "I’m really excited to race next to her."

The top 16 finishers