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How Not to Look Old

It’s a question surely as old as vanity itself: How can you look young forever? A forthcoming study in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery offers one surprising idea: as you age, don’t be afraid to put on a few pounds. Fat, it turns out, can significantly smooth out wrinkles and give you a younger-looking face.

The authors of the new study, a team led by Dr. Bahman Guyuron of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, are plastic surgeons who study faces for a living. They analyzed photographs of the faces of 186 pairs of identical twins taken at the Twins Days Festival, a sort of twin-pride event held every summer in Twinsburg, Ohio. Because the pairs had identical genetic material, differences in how old they looked could be attributed entirely to their behavioral choices and environment. Guyuron’s team had the twins fill out extensive questionnaires about their lives — everything from how many times they had married to whether they regularly used sunscreen. Then a panel of four judges independently estimated the twins’ ages by looking at photos taken in Twinsburg.

The Guyuron team’s most interesting findings had to do with weight. Many of the twin pairs were of similar weight, but differences in how old they looked began to appear when one had a body mass index at least four points higher than the twin sibling. For twin pairs under 40, the heavier one looked significantly older. But surprisingly, after 40, that same four-point difference in BMI made the heavier twin look significantly younger.

The study’s authors theorize that “volume replacement” — that is, fat filling in wrinkles — accounts for the rejuvenated appearance of the over-40 twins. This theory was supported even more dramatically among twins older than 55. For them, having as much as an eight-point-higher BMI than their twin was associated with a younger appearance in the face.

Guyuron doesn’t recommend that people gain weight just to look younger, and one limitation of his study is that the Twinsburg photos included only faces. If they had shown the whole body, the judges may have knocked a couple of years off the age estimates of those who had kept a youthful figure — and added a couple of years for those who were well fed in the middle.

The paper also makes clear that, weight aside, healthy living is crucial for keeping a youthful face. The siblings who smoked and didn’t wear sunscreen looked significantly older than those who avoided cigarettes and tanning. Those twins who had been divorced also looked older than the twins who had not.

Finally — and this was the cruelest finding — those who had taken antidepressants also looked older than their twins who hadn’t. In other words, if the misery of your divorce doesn’t age you, your attempt to treat it with Prozac might. Guyuron and his colleagues believe this unjust fact has something to do with the drooping relaxation of facial muscles that antidepressants can cause.

The bottom line is that if you care mostly about a young-looking face, don’t smoke, don’t spend time in the sun without protection, and try not to get into a bad relationship that will make you depressed. Instead, this summer at the beach, stay inside and have an ice cream. Make it a double scoop.See pictures of the world’s most celebrated senior citizens. Read “The Year in Medicine 2008: From A to Z.”

Facebook: 25 Things I Didn’t Want to Know About You

A girl I knew in high school has memorized all of Janet Jackson’s dance routines. A college acquaintance is afraid of train whistles. Five separate people harbor lifelong desires to visit New Zealand. How do I know these things? Because they won’t stop writing about them on Facebook!

Facebook’s “25 Things About Me” meme seems harmless enough; people write 25 facts about themselves and post them on their Facebook pages, just as they do with videos, status updates and photos of last weekend’s party. An estimated 5 million of these notes — that’s 125 million facts — have appeared on the website within the past week. Assuming it takes someone 10 minutes to come up with their list, this recent bout of viral narcissism has sent roughly 800,000 hours of worktime productivity down the drain.

But it’s just so stupid. Most people aren’t funny, they aren’t insightful, and they share way too much. Facebook is a loose social network; a “friend” on Facebook might translate to someone you’d barely recognize in real life. I don’t care that my college roommate’s sister is anemic or that my stepcousin’s boyfriend gets nervous around old people .

Below are 25 facts I wish people hadn’t told me about themselves. They come from friends, friends-of-friends, friends-of-friends-of-friends and coworkers. They are all real, though I wish some of them were not.

1. I eat tacos with a fork.

2. I was fat in middle school. The wake of that horror has yet to subside.

3. I keep forgetting that Barack Obama is our President.

4. I have been pooped on by a monkey.

5. I am addicted to the ass-slap dance move. Sometimes I don’t even notice I’m doing it.

6. When I finally told my now fiancé that I liked him , I drunkenly gave him the Anchorman line, “I want to be on you.” He had only seen the movie once and had no idea what it was from.

7. Just because I realize that Asian women are smarter, more attractive, and have about themselves a generally superior level of class does not mean I have a fetish. Just that I’m racist.

8. I eat gummy bears by tearing them limb from limb and eating their heads last.

9. I can’t grow hair on my arms.

10. Two of my best friends are under five feet tall and I have an intense fear of midgets.

11. I think yoga is incredibly spiritual. I know the Lord is with me in my downward dog.

12. I was born with jaundice.

13. I was born pigeon-toed.

14. I was born with an extra kidney. I wish I could have sold it on the black market and made some money, but it was underdeveloped and did nothing but cause me to wet the bed until the third grade.

15. I like to tape my thumbs to my hands to see what it would be like to be a dinosaur.

16. A horse once fell over while I was riding it.

17. I don’t believe in democracy.

18. I cried when Spock died in Star Trek II.

19. I drink two glasses of wine every night before bed. Wait, did I just admit to alcoholism

20. If you asked me to tell you my favorite movie, I would have a hard time not saying Titanic.

21. I once sent a teacher into early retirement by pretending to be a cheetah and swiping at her from under a desk.

22. I once ran into New Kids On the Block’s Joey McIntyre in the lobby of an off-Broadway show. I told him he was the first boy I ever loved. He laughed and kind of smiled. This was the most gratifying moment of my life.

23. My friends say that when they shave my back, I purr like a walrus.

24. I don’t understand what people see in the Godfather trilogy.

25. Sometimes I think pee smells like Cheerios.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’ve finally found something more stupid than Twitter.
Read 25 MORE things I didn’t want to know about you.

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Competence: Is Your Boss Faking It?

Bosses may be an overbearing breed, but more often than not, you’ve got to admire their business chops. Wouldn’t you love to have that same sense of competence and confidence, that ability to assess tough problems and reach smart solutions on the fly? Guess what? So would they. If you have ever suspected that your boss isn’t actually good enough at what he or she does to deserve the job in the first place, a new study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that you might be right.

Social psychologists know that one way to be viewed as a leader in any group is simply to act like one. Speak up, speak well and offer lots of ideas, and before long, people will begin doing what you say. This works well when leaders know what they’re talking about, but what if they don’t If someone acts like a boss but thinks like a boob, is that still enough to stay on top

To determine just how easily an all-hat-no-cattle leader can take control of employees, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, devised a pair of tests. Cameron Anderson, an associate professor of organizational behavior and industrial relations, along with doctoral candidate Gavin Kilduff, recruited a group of 68 graduate students and divided them into four-person teams. To eliminate the wild card of gender, the teams were either all-male or all-female. Each group was given the task of organizing an imaginary nonprofit environmental organization; the group that did best — as determined by the researchers — would win a $400 prize. While the prize was real, the purported goal wasn’t. What Anderson and Kilduff really wanted to see was how the alpha group members would emerge.

After the teams performed their work for a fixed amount of time, the members of each group rated one another on both their level of influence on the group and, more important, their level of competence. The work sessions were videotaped, and a group of independent observers performed the same evaluations, as did Anderson and Kilduff. All three sets of judges reached the same conclusions. Consistently, the group members who spoke up the most were rated the highest for such qualities as “general intelligence” and “dependable and self-disciplined.” The ones who didn’t speak as much tended to score higher for less desirable traits, including “conventional and uncreative.”

“More-dominant individuals achieved influence in their groups in part because they were seen as more competent by fellow group members,” Anderson and Kilduff write.

But so what Maybe they were more competent. Isn’t it possible that people who talk more do so because they simply have more to contribute To test that, Anderson and Kilduff ran a second study with a new team of volunteers in which the skill being tested was a lot more quantifiable than forming a nonprofit green group. This time it was math.

Once again, the volunteers were divided into fours in competition for a $400 prize, but now their assigned task was to work as teams to solve computational problems from previous versions of the Graduate Management Aptitude Test . Before the work began, the participants informed the researchers — but not their team members — of their real-world scores on the math portion of the SAT. When the work was finished, the people who spoke up more were again likelier to be described by peers as leaders and likelier to be rated as math whizzes. What’s more, any speaking up at all seemed to do. Participants earned recognition for being the first to call out an answer, but also for being the second or third — even if all they did was agree with what someone else had said. Merely providing some scrap of information relevant to solving the problem counted too, as long as they did so often enough and confidently enough.

Stimulus bill snag worked out, sources say

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to iron out a snag in the bill.
Negotiators have worked out a disagreement between the Senate and House over education funding that threatened to throw a last-minute roadblock in front of the economic stimulus bill, Democratic leadership sources said Wednesday evening.

Details on how they settled it were not immediately available. But a Democratic source said leaders have come up with an agreement that House Democrats and moderate Senate Republicans can live with. Word that the final snag was being untangled came after back-and-forth reports Wednesday on the massive relief package’s status. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had announced a compromise bill around midafternoon. But about 90 minutes later, aides to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that, while Pelosi had known Reid was planning the announcement, the two were meeting again to iron out differences over a provision on education spending. Senators had cut a plan to provide direct funding for school construction — a priority for some Democrats — and instead set aside money for governors to use on school modernization and rehabilitation. House Democrats did not believe that money would ultimately be targeted enough to school districts in need. In the version announced by Reid, $10 billion had been added to the $44 billion previously allocated toward “state stabilization” to help school infrastructure. Using that state stabilization vehicle, the money is given to governors to parcel out. But aides say House members would rather this $10 billion go through Title I, which would allocate the money based on need. Nadeam Elshami, a Pelosi spokesman, said a meeting in the speaker’s office to find yet another compromise included House Democratic leadership, Senate representatives and White House representatives. After the late disagreement had been cleared, President Barack Obama issued a statement saying: “I want to thank the Democrats and Republicans in Congress who came together around a hard-fought compromise that will save or create more than 3.5 million jobs and get our economy back on track.” After Reid announced the first compromise, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, said it could be taken up by the two houses as early as Friday, meeting Obama’s timetable of having the bill on his desk by Monday. “The bills were really quite similar, and I’m pleased to announce that we’ve been able to bridge those differences,” Reid said. “Like any negotiation, this involved give and take, and if you don’t mind my saying so, that’s an understatement.” He praised the three “brave” GOP senators who broke ranks to support the bill: Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Watch Reid and Collins describe the deal » Of the 219 Republicans in Congress, they were the only three to back the bill. “Today we have shown that, working together, we can address the enormous economic crisis facing our country,” Collins said. She said the compromise bill has a price of $789 billion, less than both the House and Senate versions. Reid said this middle ground creates more jobs than the original Senate bill, and spends less than the original House bill. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Nebraska, summed it up as a “jobs bill.” “Today you might call us the ‘jobs squad,’ ” said Nelson, one of the key negotiators on the compromise. “Because that’s what we’re attempting to do: to make sure that people will have the opportunity to hang on to their jobs that they have today, and they’ll be able to get jobs if they lose their jobs.” Collins on Wednesday provided details of some of the measures she expects to be in the final bill: The homeowner tax credit has been kept but significantly reduced. The Senate version proposed a $15,000 credit, double that of the House bill. A tax credit for people who buy a car in 2009 has been reduced. Funding to patch the Alternative Minimum Tax is included. The tax was intended to target the wealthy but now hits many middle-class families. $90 billion of increased Medicaid match to states. $150 billion for infrastructure, including $49.6 for transportation infrastructure. Nelson confirmed that tax breaks for workers that had been set at $1,000 per family or $500 per individual would be scaled back to $800 per family and $400 per individual. Multiple Democratic sources said 35 percent of the bill deals with tax cuts, 65 percent with spending. Democrats in the Senate must hold on to at least two Republican votes to get the 60 votes needed to keep GOP opponents from blocking the bill. Not a single Republican voted in support of the House version of the bill, but the House Democrats had enough votes to pass it, despite 11 Democrats voting against it. iReport.com: Share your thoughts on the stimulus package Noting those numbers, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, said the agreement is hardly bipartisan. “You couldn’t pick up one Republican in the House, and you lost 11 Democrats. You’ve lost more Democrats than you’ve picked up Republicans. That’s not bipartisanship,” he said Wednesday on CNN’s “The Situation Room.” The three Republican senators who voted in favor of the package indicated Wednesday that they were pleased with the agreement. “As I said, unless the bill remained virtually intact from what the agreement was last Friday, my support would be conditional on that, and we got there,” said Specter. “I think it is an important component of putting America back on its feet.” Watch Specter say,”We hung tough” » Specter, who is up for re-election in 2010, said earlier Wednesday he’s aware of the political danger he’s putting himself in, but action is needed to pump up the ailing economy.

“I understand the peril, but I didn’t run for the United States Senate to further my own political interests,” he said on CNN’s “American Morning.” Asked about the possible political backlash from his vote supporting the bill, Specter said, “It’s a good plan. Not a perfect plan, but a good plan and I’ll take my chances.”

Why you’re likely to marry your parent

Dad Mike Chorley and husband Mike Wobschall agree on everything, according to Alison Wobschall.
When Lynn Houston was 27, she met an affectionate young man during a business trip to Virginia. Although she lived in Arizona, the two began dating; they married six months later. But after she joined him in Virginia, he became distant and had angry flare-ups, Houston says.

He barely resembled the man she’d married, but he did remind her of another man she knew well: her father. “They were both very emotionally unavailable and prone to outbursts of rage,” says Houston, now 44 and a business consultant in Phoenix. After six years of attempting to rescue the union through therapy, Houston filed for divorce. Alison Wobschall also married a man like her father, but with much better results. “I have a great relationship with my dad, so I suppose I looked for a partner who shares some of his good qualities,” says Wobschall, 22, head of marketing and public relations for a Minneapolis nonprofit. Both men are “really interested in politics and the stock market, and they agree on everything,” she says. “Also, when I’m upset about something, they’ll always help me put it in perspective.” Both share the name Mike, and they even look alike. And Alison bears a striking resemblance to her mother-in-law, in appearance as well as personality. “We always laugh at the same things, even if nobody else is laughing,” she says. Although Houston’s and Wobschall’s marriages couldn’t have been more different, both women chose partners who resembled a parent. And, say experts, their experiences aren’t that unusual. Comfort in familiarity Berkeley, California, psychotherapist Elayne Savage says familiarity is a big reason people may choose someone like Mom or Dad as a partner. “When you grow up familiar with a certain type of person, you’re attracted to that same type of person because it feels comfortable, whether you like it or not,” says Savage, author of “Breathing Room: Creating Space to Be a Couple.” “That’s what people mean when they meet a potential partner and say, ‘It ‘feels like I’ve known him my whole life.'” Anecdotal evidence also suggests that a parent’s physical or intellectual traits may have some influence. A Hungarian researcher studied the facial features of 52 families and found a significant correlation between the appearance of men and their fathers-in-law and those of women and their mothers-in-law. And in a survey of approximately 2,700 “high-achieving” men — those in the top 10 percent of their age income bracket and/or with an advanced degree — a University of Iowa researcher found they are likely to marry women with education levels and careers that mirror those of their moms. Miami resident Aaron Gordon, 27, wouldn’t argue. Gordon’s wife, Rebecca, 27, has the same career as his mom — teaching gifted elementary-schoolers — and the women share a love of cooking and talking on the phone. “When I met Rebecca, she was pursuing a career in advertising, and it wasn’t until well after we started dating that she decided she didn’t like advertising and opted instead to get her master’s in education,” says Aaron. “Although I definitely wanted to marry an educated woman, I wouldn’t say that it was critical that she match my mom’s level of schooling — though in the end, they both earned master’s degrees.” Rebecca says Aaron is just like her dad. “The longer I’m with Aaron, the more I notice idiosyncratic things, like the fact that they both love politics, and are both bad drivers, and both love going to supermarket for like two hours and buying too much stuff,” she laughs. Righting old wrongs Sometimes, people choose mates who resemble their parents not because of fond memories, but to make amends for an unhappy childhood. “This is most common if you felt rejected or abandoned by a parent and still haven’t worked through it,” says Stephen Treat, director of the Council for Relationships, a Philadelphia nonprofit. “Your psyche wants to go back to the scene of the crime, so to speak, and resolve that parental relationship in a marriage.” Women who felt abandoned by their fathers are likely to choose emotionally unavailable husbands, for example, and men raised by hypercritical moms will be drawn to wives who pick on them, he says. It’s not a good idea. “You think you’ll be able to heal this way, but you’re probably no more equipped to deal with the situation than you were as a child, and the parental dynamic gets repeated in your marriage, usually with bad consequences,” he says. Reclaiming personal history Does that mean it’s a mistake to marry somebody like Mom or Dad Casey Clark Ney, 30, hopes not. She and her dad, who is now deceased, lived in different states after her parents divorced when she was a child. Although they had a warm phone relationship, Ney only saw him once or twice a year, and he wasn’t very physically affectionate. Her husband, James, 31, resembles her dad and has a similar “hard-working, calm, kind” quality. But James, too, isn’t very affectionate. “He grew up in a family who didn’t do a lot of hugs and kisses and ‘I love you’s, and that does bother me,” says Ney, a freelance journalist in Boise, Idaho. “I think there could be some truth in the idea that I’m working through my history in my marriage.” Breaking the chain Despite evidence that suggests some of us are attracted to mates who resemble our parents, it’s not a foregone conclusion, says therapist Barbara Swenson, director of the Couple Center in Sherman Oaks, California. “If you want very badly to have a different and better relationship than the ones you grew up with, you can accomplish that if you go about it very consciously.” Swenson offers these pointers: • Don’t jump in. “Ideally you should date for a couple of years before engagement — and not just long distance,” she says. “You need to be together on those days when your car won’t start … to see how you and your partner support each other.” • Don’t be afraid to disagree. “Assert yourself and see what your partner does with that,” she says. “Can they put their needs aside and follow your lead once in a while Make sure your relationship has room for give and take.” • Talk about life issues. Some questions to discuss sooner rather than later: If we have kids, will one of us stay home Who will manage our money “Premarital counseling can get these questions out on the table in a civilized way, and prevent problems down the road,” says Swenson.

U.S. Navy arrests pirate suspects in Gulf of Aden

Seven men suspected of trying to pirate a tanker raise their hands before their arrest in the Gulf of Aden.
The U.S. Navy has captured seven suspected pirates in the Gulf of Aden, the first arrests by a U.S.-led task force set up to curb rampant piracy off the Horn of Africa, a Navy spokesman said Wednesday.

Sailors from the cruiser USS Vella Gulf arrested the men Wednesday in the western Gulf of Aden — a waterway between Africa and the Middle East — after a distress call from the 420-foot (128-meter) tanker Polaris. The tanker reported that men aboard a small skiff were attempting to board the ship using ladders, but its crew removed them before the would-be hijackers could get aboard, the Navy said. The Vella Gulf found and boarded the skiff, and the tanker’s crew identified the men aboard the skiff as their would-be hijackers.

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The skiff’s men were taken aboard the Vella Gulf, the flagship of the task force now patrolling the western Gulf of Aden, and eventually will be transferred to Kenya for trial, said Lt. Nate Christensen, a spokesman for the U.S. 5th Fleet. Piracy has become a chronic problem off the Horn of Africa in recent years, with some pirates operating from largely lawless Somalia. Pirates attacked nearly 100 vessels and hijacked as many as 40 in the waters off the coast of Somalia in 2008, according to the International Maritime Bureau. The task force led by the Vella Gulf was set up in January in an effort to clamp down on the attacks in the region, the southern approach to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.

Girl, 5, likely taken from Florida home, police say

Haleigh Cummings, 5, went missing Monday night from her home near Orlando, police said.
A missing 5-year-old Florida girl was most likely abducted from her home in rural Florida, police said Wednesday.

Haleigh Cummings has been missing since 3 a.m. Tuesday, when her father’s girlfriend called 911 to say the child had vanished from her Putnam County home. “There’s no longer any reason to believe that the child simply wandered outside,” said Putnam County Sheriff’s Office Maj. Gary Bowling. The police must “assume abduction,” he said. “All the answers to why you’d want to take a 5-year-old are ugly,” Bowling said. Police have no official suspects, but are treating everyone they interview as one. “All the world’s a suspect” now, Bowling said. Hear the frantic 911 call » A nationwide Amber Alert says the girl was last seen wearing a pink shirt and underwear. Police plan to use infrared aviation technology after dark tonight in their search. “She’s a 5-year-old child, and she’s afraid of the dark,” Bowling said. On Monday night, Ronald Cummings’ girlfriend, 17-year-old Misty Croslin, was watching Haleigh and her 4-year-old brother, police said. Croslin put Haleigh to bed at 8 p.m. and then went to bed herself at 10 p.m., they said. Croslin told police she woke up at 3 a.m. and discovered Haleigh missing. Croslin then called 911 and told a dispatcher that she found a brick on the floor of the family’s double-wide trailer, according to CNN affiliate WJXT-TV. The station’s Web site printed the text of the 911 call, which included this exchange: Dispatch: OK. All right, you said your back door was wide open Caller: Yes, with a brick. Like, there was a brick on the floor. Like, when I went to sleep the door was not like that.

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The brick was actually holding open the door to the trailer, Putnam County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Johnny Greenwood told CNN. Croslin is staying with relatives as the investigation continues, said Bowling, describing the girlfriend as a “child herself.” Earlier Wednesday, Cummings pleaded for his daughter’s safe return. “All I want is my child … please … all I want is my child,” he said, his voice breaking. On Wednesday, Haleigh’s maternal grandmother, Marie Griffis, told reporters that she feared the worst. “She’s out there somewhere, I can feel her. I can feel her presence,” Griffis told CNN affiliate WFTV-TV. “She’s screaming.” Watch grandparents plead for girl’s return » Haleigh’s mother, Crystal Sheffield, wept as she stood in front of reporters. “I just want whoever’s got her to bring her home,” the girl’s mother said. “That’s all I want, is my baby home.” Watch mother’s tearful plea » Griffis said that her daughter and Ronald Cummings had a “rocky relationship” and that the two took turns spending weekends with their daughter. Sheffield lives near the Florida-Georgia line and has been interviewed by law enforcement, according to police. Investigators are looking into various angles of the case, including finding out the location of 44 registered sexual offenders who live within a five-mile radius of the Cummings home, Greenwood said. Though that number may sound high, it includes both Putnam and Palatka counties, which are separated by the St. Johns River, the law enforcement spokesman told CNN.

Police are offering but not requiring all those interviewed in the case to take polygraph tests. Anyone with any information is encouraged to call the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office at 386-329-0800 or the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Missing Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse at 888-FL-MISSING.

Spain beat England as Beckham equals record

David Villa (far right) scores the opening goal in Spain's 2-0 victory over England in Seville.
David Villa and Fernando Llorente scored the goals as European champions Spain extended their amazing unbeaten run to 29 games with a 2-0 victory over an England side for whom David Beckham equalled the Three Lions record of 108 caps for an outfield player.

A tight match between two in-form sides in Seville came to life in the 36th minute when Xabi Alonso’s pass found Villa in the area — and the Valencia striker twisted defender Phil Jagielka one way then another before slotting the ball into the corner of the net. Beckham — who has been told by Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber that a Friday deadline has been set for AC Milan to agree a deal to sign the midfielder from the Los Angeles Galaxy — came on as a second-half substitute to draw level with World Cup-winning captain Bobby Moore in the England all-time appearanced list. England started brightly and could have taken a sixth minute lead when Gareth Barry crossed from the left for his Aston Villa team-mate Gabriel Agbonlahor to swivel and fire just wide. John Terry flashed a header just wide four minutes later, but that was as good as it got for the visitors as Spain began to dominate proceedings. Marcos Senna had a long-range drive saved by goalkeeper David James while Villa had the ball in the net five minutes late but was ruled offside. Just two minutes later, Spain could have doubled their lead but Sergio Ramos’ dipping drive flashed inches over the crossbar with James rooted to his line. Then Villa, who was proved a handful for Everton center-half Jagielka in his first full appearance for England, had a shot blocked before Alonso fired the rebound just wide.

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A host of second-half substitutions broke play up in the second-half, but Spain were always in control and doubled their advantage eight minutes from time when Athletic Bilbao striker Llorente headed home his second international goal from Xavi’s pin-point free-kick. England could have scored a late consolation goal when debutant striker Carlton Cole had his shot clear off the line after being superbly found by Beckham.

Ex-girlfriend files suit, says Alomar exposed her to AIDS

Roberto Alomar's ex-girlfriend says he had unprotected sex with her while infected with HIV.
A lawsuit filed January 30 by baseball great Roberto Alomar’s ex-girlfriend alleges he engaged in unprotected sex with her while suffering from HIV/AIDS.

Ilya Dall, who is asking for $15 million for “personal injuries” suffered due to Alomar’s negligence, lived with the former New York Met slugger and her two children for three years. She alleges that he started exhibiting signs of HIV as early as 2005, but twice refused recommendations for an HIV test by his doctor, claiming that earlier tests for the disease had come back negative, according to court papers. Dall claims in court papers that Alomar told her “I don’t have HIV.” She alleges he “lied and purposefully misrepresented his physical condition” and “that he was endangering the health and well being of [Dall] by continuing to have unprotected sexual relations with [her],” according to the lawsuit. Court papers list several physical ailments that Dall claims Alomar exhibited from early 2005 on, including white spots on his mouth and throat, extreme fatigue, back and vision problems, and shingles. In early 2006, Alomar submitted to an HIV test that, according to court papers, confirmed he was HIV positive in February 2006. Dall claims she went for an HIV test shortly afterward and that the results were negative. The couple visited a disease specialist shortly after Alomar’s diagnosis, who found a mass in Alomar’s chest and advised the couple that he was suffering from full-blown AIDS, according to the lawsuit. Dall alleges that a few days later, Alomar’s skin was turning purple and he was foaming at the mouth; a spinal tap on February 21, 2006, confirmed he had full-blown AIDS, court papers said. Dall claims in the lawsuit that Alomar’s negligence caused her severe “emotional distress” over the health of her children. Court papers say that because the couple lived with the children, they may have been exposed to Alomar’s saliva or blood in the bathroom, through things like toothbrushes and other items. Dall claims to suffer from “permanent emotional distress” even after repeatedly testing negative for HIV. The lawsuit claims her fear of contracting the disease is known as “AIDS phobia” and that she suffers from permanent Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Alomar requested Tuesday that the suit be moved to Brooklyn, New York, federal court. It was originally filed in Supreme Court in Queens, New York. An initial conference on the case is expected on April 15 in Brooklyn federal court. Alomar’s lawyer, Charles Bach, was not available for comment, but attorney Luke Pittoni, who also represents Alomar, told CNN, “We believe this is a totally frivolous lawsuit — these allegations are baseless, he’s healthy and he’d like to keep his health status private. We’ll do our talking in court.” Anthony Piancentini, who is representing Dall, told CNN that he has “no comment” at this time. Alomar is the son and brother of major leaguers — father Sandy Alomar was a second baseman with several teams between 1964 and 1978 and brother Sandy Alomar, Jr. is a former catcher who played from 1988 to 2007. Roberto Alomar retired in 2004 with a .300 lifetime batting average, 12 All-Star game selections and 10 Gold Gloves. He was the All Star Game MVP in 1998 and played on two Toronto Blue Jays World Series champion teams. Alomar, then playing for the Baltimore Orioles, is also known for an incident in 1996 during a game against the Blue Jays when he spit in the face of umpire John Hirschbeck following a heated argument over a third strike. After the incident, Alomar claimed the umpire uttered a slur to him during the argument.

U.N. envoy ‘motivates Somali warlords’

Friends and relatives prepare to bury Said Tahlil, a journalist killed on February 4.
A controversial comment by the top U.N. envoy to Somalia "motivates" those who have carried out recent fatal attacks against journalists in the war-torn country, the head of the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) said Wednesday.

Earlier this month, the U.N. special representative for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, compared the role of Somalia’s media with the infamous Rwandan radio station that was used to incite participation in the 1994 genocide in that country. A day after his remarks, suspected Islamist gunmen shot and killed Said Tahlil Ahmed, the director of independent HornAfrik Radio in Mogadishu, in broad daylight in the Somali capital. Ould-Abdallah’s statement “motivates the criminals and warlords who have been committing unpunished crimes against journalists to keep on their merciless war against media,” according to Omar Faruk Osman, head of the NUSOJ. It also “raises serious questions regarding the willingness of (Ould-Abdallah) to help protect Somalia’s endangered media professionals,” Faruk Osman said. He called on the U.N. official to “immediately withdraw allegations against Somali media and make (a) public apology.” “If the U.N. ambassador does not meet our demand, it only confirms a hidden and dangerous agenda by the U.N. official,” he said. Last week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on Ould-Abdallah to “immediately retract” his statement.

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In a February 3 Voice of America interview, Ould-Abdallah reacted angrily to allegations that African Union troops the day before had indiscriminately fired on Somali civilians after their convoy was struck by a roadside bomb. HRW has also called for an independent investigation into that incident, which killed at least 13 — most of them civilians. “What happened is to divert attention from what is going on here and, as usual, to use the media to repeat Radio Mille Collines, to repeat the genocide in Rwanda,” Ould-Abdallah said in the VOA broadcast. Faruk Osman said that while not all Somali journalists are perfect, “they are working in an extraordinarily difficult environment by the fault of politicians, and toothless diplomats.” “The comparison with Radio Mille Collines is insulting, ignorant and dangerous, as that radio had become a legitimate military target in Rwanda,” the NUSOJ secretary-general added. On Saturday, another Somali journalist, Hassan Bulhan Ali, was stabbed five times in the stomach and heart during a tribal reconciliation meeting in the central town of Abudwaq, according to NUSOJ. Bulhan, 38 and director of Radio Abudwaq — was critically wounded. “Somali journalists have paid an enormous price to continue reporting on the crisis in Somalia,” said Georgette Gagnon, HRW’s Africa director. “The U.N. should be making every effort to support independent Somali media and civil society at this critical time, not comparing journalists to war criminals.” Somali radio stations in Mogadishu recently agreed to take steps to avoid broadcasting any messages of incitement, according to Shabelle Media. The stations agreed not to air live sermons by Muslim clerics or live news conferences or interviews by insurgent groups in an effort to avoid promoting their political agendas, according to the Shabelle report. The statements will instead be recorded and “checked and edited,” before they are broadcast, it said. CNN regularly works with Somali journalists who are employed by Shabelle Media. The Committee to Protect Journalists lists Somalia as the seventh most deadly nation in the world for journalists, with 11 Somali journalists killed since 2007, including Said Tahlil Ahmed and another this year. Members of the news media work under duress there amid a war between a weak transitional government and insurgents, the committee said.