Actions of six end life of one

The co-Bellends of the Month for December 2012 are Ram Singh, Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta, Raju, and Akshay Thakur. They are the six men who are being tried in connection with a recent gang rape that took place in Delhi. The victims, a 23-year-old female physiotherapy intern and her male friend, were on their way home after watching Life of Pi (which opens in cinemas in New Zealand tomorrow) at a cinema in Saket in South Delhi. They boarded a bus that was being driven by joyriders at about 9:30 pm. The man became suspicious when the bus deviated from its normal route and its doors were shut. When he objected, the group of six men already on board taunted the couple, asking what they were doing alone at such a late hour. When he tried to intervene, he was beaten, gagged, and knocked unconscious with an iron rod. The men dragged the woman to the rear of the bus, beating her with the rod and raping her while the bus driver continued to drive. Medical reports later suggested that the woman suffered serious injuries to her abdomen, intestines, and genitals due to the assault, and doctors say that the damage indicates that a blunt object (suspected to be the iron rod) may have been used for penetration. That rod was later described by police as being a rusted, L-shaped implement of the type used with a wheel jack. After the beatings and rape ended, the gang threw the two from the moving bus, which was impounded the following day. The woman died at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore on Saturday. My advice would be to carry a loaded firearm on public transport (especially in big cities like Delhi) just in case something suspicious is afoot. A gun would've also been of help at the movies if someone tried to open the fire exits.

Reds bag the Baggies

Manchester United were made to work all the way for three points this morning at Old Trafford; final scoreline was 2-0 against West Bromwich Albion in the Reds' final match of 2012. The goal-scorers were Gareth McAuley (own goal) and Robin van Persie. Antonio Valencia was the only player to get a yellow card.

Tobacco Madness!

A series of hard-hitting government adverts featuring people smoking cigarettes with a tumour growing from the end (example pictured) is being launched in England. The ads will tell smokers that just 15 cigarettes can cause a mutation that leads to cancerous tumours in what marks a return to shock campaigning. I'm sure the ads will greatly reduce the number of Britons who engage in this filthy habit. But now for another cancer I'm glad I don't have: Veronica Lario. She's former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's ex-wife, and reports say he has agreed to pay her 36 million euros a year as part of a divorce deal reportedly filed on Christmas Day. But unfortunately for poor Silvio, the only way out of this curse is if one of the two parties dies. To sum it up, the rich shouldn't marry just in case things turn to custard. And speaking of custard, Topeka-area eatery Freddy's Frozen Custard held a fundraiser yesterday (Central Standard Time) to show support for Corporal David Gogian and Officer Jeff Atherly, two Topeka police officers who were fatally shot on the 16th. "We've done a fundraiser before, nothing as significant as this. So, I felt like if we will do them for softball teams, we should definitely do it for the officers and their families," said General Manager of Freddy's Frozen Custard, Jason Nolte. Ten percent of yesterday's sales will be donated to the officers' Memorial Funds. The turn out was tremendous. Even people who didn't personally know the officers say they can relate to the situation.

United takes down United

Manchester United snatched a staggering last-gasp victory over Newcastle United at Old Trafford yesterday morning, coming from behind three times before Chicharito slid home an injury-time winner to cap an unforgettable Boxing Day encounter. Man United's other goals were scored by Jonny Evans, Patrice Evra, and Robin van Persie. Newcastle United's goals were scored by James Perch and Papiss Cisse, with an own goal by Jonny Evans to bring the away side's goal count to three. Six yellow cards were shown.

Tea boss gets burnt

Hundreds of tea plantation workers have set alight their boss's bungalow in north-east India, burning to death the owner and his wife, officials say. Angry workers surrounded the bungalow at Kunapathar in Assam state yesterday, following a two-week long dispute with the management. Elsewhere in Asia, in what could be one of the highest-level defections yet from the Syrian government, the country's military police chief has reportedly left Bashar al-Assad's forces to join "the people's revolution." In a video posted online this week, a man identified as Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Jassim al-Shallal announced that he was joining the popular uprising." The Syrian military has strayed from its core mission in protecting the homeland to become nothing but armed gangs that kill and destroy the cities and the villages, carrying out massacres against our innocent civilian population that came out demanding freedom and dignity," he said. Good on him. Turning his back on that bellend was the right thing to do. I just hope more of al-Assad's cronies have the sense to do the same.

The Sandy Hook Rises

Conspiracy theorists have latched on to another strange coincidence involving the Newtown shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School: the words “Sandy Hook” appear in the film The Dark Knight Rises, which itself is connected to a horrific shooting rampage. Apparently “Sandy Hook” shows up almost two hours into the film, and several different videos have been uploaded to the internet that isolates the scene in question. According to many of the conspiracy theories, the purpose of the Sandy Hook reference was to generate subliminal messaging by the scene in Christopher Nolan’s final Batman movie. However, it's probably all just a coincidence. But that's about it for the coincidences today because New Zealanders are already unloading their unwanted Christmas presents on Trade Me, in hopes of profiting from gifts gone awry. The Boxing Day ritual of re-gifting unwanted presents is well underway, with more than 20,000 items listed on the auction site since lunchtime on Christmas Day. Among the listings are hundreds of pieces of jewellery and clothing, a range of kids toys, perfume, photo frames, and electronic items like new cellphones, Xboxes, TVs, and cameras. One Trade Me user has listed an unwanted gift of four bottles of barbecue sauce, while one user was clearly unimpressed by All Black Sonny Bill Williams' abs - listing a copy of his biography for just NZ$1. So if you're from New Zealand, and have the money for whatever you may want from the flood of unwanted pressies, click here to join the fun.

WEEKLY GROSS-OUT: Swansea (the team, not the city)

Manchester United remain top of the Barclays Premier League but the gap has been cut to four points following the Reds’ 1-1 draw against Swansea at Liberty Stadium yesterday morning. Patrice Evra scored for Man U, and Michu scored for Swansea City. Six yellow cards were shown.

It takes tall to tango

The world's tallest teenage girl walks hands in hands with her boyfriend, the picture of young love despite a staggering height difference. 17-year-old Elisany da Cruz Silva (pictured with her lover and again with her family) measures an unbelievable two metres tall and has to bend down to plant a kiss on her lover Francinaldo da Silva Carvalho (who is 5 years her senior but 40 cm shorter). The youngster, from Salinopolis in Brazil, has a form of gigantism because of a tumour on her pituitary gland, which regulates growth. Doctors have since removed the tumour. But what won't be removed is police in schools in a town in New Jersey. In fact, Marlboro Township is getting ready to station a full-time armed police officer in each of its nine schools come January 2. And speaking of come (excuse the pun), 55-year-old Raymond Favero, a geneticist from Braidwood in Illinois, must pay US$30,000 and serve three years of probation for illegally obtaining valuable semen from whitetail deer in East Texas. Investigators say that in 2007, Favero acquired whitetail deer semen from a buck in Cherokee County that he knew was illegally transported from an out-of-state source. The semen was worth US$92,000. Investigators also say that the following year, he acquired more whitetail deer semen from another buck in a similar case.

Fall causes boat's return

A cruise ship headed to the Bahamas had to return to port in central Florida after a young child was injured in a fall aboard ship. Royal Caribbean officials say the 14-month-old from India fell aboard the Monarch of the Seas on Friday. The ship left Port Canaveral that day for a Bahamas cruise. Cruise line officials say the child initially received medical treatment on board the ship but needed to be hospitalised. The ship turned around and returned to Florida, where the child was taken to a hospital. This is why you need to watch your children at all times especially at 14 months. But at the same time, it would have been faster, cheaper, and safer to just fly a helicopter out to the ship (or just have one on board ready and waiting) so as not to punish everyone for one parent not managing their children appropriately. The parents should be made to reimburse everyone on board for the lost days of the cruise. In other news, an Adelaide United supporter guilty of racially abusing Wellington Phoenix star Paul Ifill during an A-League match has been banned from Football Federation Australia (FFA) controlled matches for two years. The FFA released a statement today saying the unnamed man breached the organisation's Spectator Code of Behaviour by racially abusing the England-born former Barbados international when the Phoenix played Adelaide at Hindmarsh Stadium last Sunday.

Gangnam has ten digit style

Nostradamus once predicted that "from the calm morning, the end will come when of the dancing horse the number of circles shall be nine." That's all bollocks because the one thing the prediction hasn't delivered on is an apocalypse. But Gangnam Style has become the first video to clock up more than one billion views on YouTube. The South Korean dance track was posted online in July, propelling pop star Psy to worldwide fame. It has inspired hundreds of parody clips, including but not limited to videos from members of the British army, Thai navy, and Minecraft gamers. YouTube's owner, Google, said the video had been watched seven million to 10 million times a day on average. It overtook the previous record holder - Justin Bieber's music video Baby - on 24 November. The graph at the top of this post will clearly illustrate that PSY is the better musician. And speaking of music, a British diplomat is having to face the music over his country's Antarctic claim. The UK ambassador to Argentina has been summoned to explain to officials in Buenos Aires why part of Antarctica has been renamed in honour of the Queen. John Freeman was handed a formal protest note "strongly rejecting" the UK's claim to a piece of land known as the British Antarctic Territory. The southern section was named Queen Elizabeth Land by Foreign Secretary William Hague on Tuesday. The note claimed the area was part of the Argentine Antarctic sector. It stated that the Argentine government "strongly rejected" Britain's right to rename the area.

Looks like the Mayans were wrong about the apocalypse

The world might not be ending today, but today is the 75th anniversary of the first ever film adaptation of the fairy tale of Snow White. And speaking of Snow White, it's almost the end of a year in which not one but two film adaptations of said story were released. But enough about that because the Queen has recorded her Christmas Day broadcast to the UK and Commonwealth in 3D for the first time. Her use of the technology comes 80 years after her grandfather King George V first broadcast a Christmas speech on the radio and started the December 25 tradition. A spokesman said the Queen has watched the 3D message, produced by Sky News, and thought it "absolutely lovely". The broadcast on Tuesday at 3pm GMT will also be shown in standard and high definition. I look forward to seeing how it turns out on air.

Second Cold War brewing

Russian lawmakers could move to ban Americans from adopting children from the country - which is one of the top sources of international adoptions to the United States. A bill to block adoption to the United States passed the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, on its first reading last week and it had a crucial second reading yesterday, according to Russia's RIA Novosti news agency. This could affect hundreds of American families, who might have to circumvent the proposed ban by lying about their nationality if they want a little borscht-eater of their own.

The text of the offending clause is as follows: "It is prohibited to transfer children who are citizens of the Russian Federation, for adoption to the citizens of the United States, and to conduct in the Russian Federation activities of organizations for the purpose of selection and placement of children who are citizens of the Russian Federation, for adoption to the citizens of the United States of America wishing to adopt these children." Legislation like that could pave the way for a second Cold War, which may well be the huge cataclysm the Mayans had predicted for the coming weekend. Or it could just be Gangnam Style reaching a billion views (at the time of writing, said video was almost 99% of the way there).

From Instagram to Instagroan

When it comes to policy changes, Instagram could have used a filter of its own. Its usually devoted users threatened to delete their accounts en masse yesterday if the popular photo-sharing app did not roll back new terms of service that appeared to give the company ownership of their images. Instagram users — about 100 million now — snap the photos on their smartphones, apply digital filters to enhance the photos, and then instantly share them with friends. But Instagram's new terms of service, which were announced on Monday, included a clause stating that Instagram had the right to turn images into advertisements without any approval from or compensation for users starting January 16 — proof that the world's not ending on Friday, and part of Facebook's drive to make money from the service it bought this year for US$715 million in cash and stock. And yes, Instagram are in on the whole conspiracy. Founder Kevin Systrom tried to calm the uproar and reassure users in a blog post yesterday afternoon. "Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos," he wrote. "We respect that your photos are your photos. Period." I don't buy that one bit. So if you're on Instagram, then I advise you to get out before it's too late.

WEEKLY GROSS-OUT: Tax cheats

Today may be the 25th birthday of the Final Fantasy video game franchise, the 100th anniversary of the discovery of Piltdown Man, and the 120th anniversary of the first performance of The Nutcracker (which, according to Peter Griffin, wrote "a huge cheque those queers on stage refused to cash"). But this doesn't mean that I'm going to go easy on tonight's target, French actor Gerard Depardieu. He is handing back his French passport after Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault criticised him for moving to Belgium to avoid taxes. In a letter to a newspaper he lambasted the French government for punishing "success, creation, and talent". Last week, the 63-year-old actor announced he was moving to the small Belgian town of Nechin just over the French border. While such a move is technically legal, he's still a freeloader. I myself would probably move to a tax haven like Liechtenstein if I was in a similar situation, but I would feel like a jerk for doing so. Those who can afford to contribute more, should contribute more (but obviously no more than what one would consider to be a "fair share").

A casual not-so-vacancy at 9 and 3/4

Today is not only the 23rd anniversary of the first episode of The Simpsons, but it is also the second anniversary of the self-immolation of Tunisian produce vendor Mohamed Bouazizi, whose suicide helped to spark the Arab Spring. Today is also the 25th birthday of both Bo Guagua (son of disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai) and Bradley Manning (an American soldier who leaked information to WikiLeaks). But enough about all that because Platform 9¾, the spot at King's Cross station where young witches and wizards catch the Hogwarts Express, used to be marked only by a sign (and perhaps some light staining where Muggles tried to run through the wall). But as of the not-long-finished weekend, a Harry Potter shop sits between Platforms Nine and Ten. The 9¾ shop lets Potter fans enjoy a small taste of Hogsmeade while they await their trains, perusing Hogwarts house gear and neatly stacked boxes of wands. Sadly, it isn't accompanied by a fire whisky bar. But you don't need fire whisky to celebrate when Gangnam Style gets to one billion views. So click here and join the revolution!

Reds continue golden run

Sunderland didn't win at Old Trafford this morning, and haven't done so since the final day of the 1967/68 season. Despite creating chances in the second half, Sunderland never truly looked like ending that run as Man United’s first-half purpose and swagger – albeit lacking a ruthlessness in front of goal – ensured a win for the Reds. Robin van Persie, Tom Cleverley, and Wayne Rooney scored Man U’s goals. Fraizer Campbell scored Sunderland's only goal, and nobody from either team got booked or sent off.

Hide under a rock, DJ

The repercussions from last week’s suicide of the nurse who answered a prank telephone call at the hospital treating the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge were felt again yesterday with reports that the D.J.’s who made the call had received so many threats that they had been forced into hiding. Quoting an unnamed person at 2DayFM, the Australian radio station where the two D.J.’s work, The Daily Mail said that they were under the protection of security guards and “could be in hiding for months due to ongoing fears for their safety.” And while they're in hiding, they should probably write a diary. But a diary wouldn't have been much help yesterday morning (Eastern Standard Time) in Connecticut, where a gunman shot his mother, drove to a school where she volunteered, killed 26 people, and then turned the gun on himself. That man must have had some rather unconquerable demons in his life if he were to end it all like that.

Bashar nearly bashed out

The head of NATO says he thinks the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is nearing collapse, and has condemned the use by Assad's forces of Scud missiles to attack rebels. "I think the regime in Damascus is approaching collapse," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters after a meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte at NATO headquarters. "I think now it is only a question of time." That's right, two years after a produce vendor set himself on fire in Tunisia, another evil empire is set to go under. But what will not go under anytime soon is Gangnam Style. In a few days, Gangnam Style will reach 1,000,000,000 views on Youtube, and if that number is reached on the 21st, you can be sure the Mayans planned this. But what they didn't plan is Sir Paul McCartney turning grunge rocker this week as he fronted a reunited Nirvana with drummer Dave Grohl and bassist Krist Novoselic during the finale at the epic 12-12-12 Concert for Sandy Relief gig in New York.

Map troubles are over

Google has released a native version of its Maps app for the iPhone. It follows Apple's switch to its own map software, which was widely criticised after numerous mistakes were found in Apple Maps's search results. But one needn't worry about that anymore because Google's new iPhone app introduces some functionality previously restricted to Android devices. One analyst said it would prove popular, but added that Nokia still posed a challenge: they recently launched their own free maps app for the iPhone. So whether you use Google's app or Nokia's app is up to you. In other news, a worker laid off by a US beef processing company has sued celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, a food blogger, and ABC News. Bruce Smith, who was one of about 750 people fired by Beef Products Inc, says the defendants' use of the term "pink slime" helped him lose his job. He is seeking US$70,000 in damages, saying Beef Products Inc and their workers were "maligned" by the "unfair" phrase.

A dictionary with dictation

The Australian National Dictionary Centre recently made ranga its word of the month and added it to the Oxford Australia Dictionary. The story of how it came to prominence is an interesting one – not hard when Jonah Takalua plays a role. Ranga is an abbreviation of orang-utan (a primate with reddish-brown hair native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia). The first written evidence for the term as applied to red-haired people appears in Australian newspapers in the early 2000s. There is earlier US evidence for the use of ranga as a general term of abuse (equating to calling someone a monkey) but the specific application to red-haired people is Australian. The word ranga first received wide exposure in 2007 when it was used in the first episode of Summer Heights High. But enough about that crap because once again, North Korea has blatantly defied United Nations Security Council resolutions and ignored international appeals not to proceed with a rocket launch. North Korea successfully launched said rocket today at 10am local time (2pm NZ time), boosting the "credentials" of its new leader and stepping up the threat the isolated and impoverished state poses to its opponents. The rocket - which North Korea says put a weather satellite into orbit - has been labelled by the United States, South Korea, and Japan as a test of technology that could one day deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting targets as far as the continental United States, who should themselves be using said technology back. North Korea have already messed up one rocket launch this year, and it cost them a lot of money. And speaking of money, the radio station at the centre of a hoax call that tragically backfired has pledged money - in other words, all advertising profits for the remainder of 2012 - to the family of a London nurse who took her own life. Jacintha Saldanha answered a hoax call from presenters Mel Greig and Michael Christian of Sydney station 2Day FM, who impersonated the Queen and Prince Charles as they sought information about the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge's condition. Ms Saldanha passed the call to a duty nurse who gave the presenters confidential information about the Duchess. The 46-year-old mother of two was found dead in London on Friday in an apparent suicide.

WEEKLY GROSS-OUT: Apple Maps

Today is the 40th anniversary of Apollo 17 landing on the Moon. And I hope our Jewish readers are having a happy Hanukkah. Now that that's all out of the way, I never thought an Apple product would get a bad mention here. But police in the Australian town of Mildura say they have rescued a half-dozen motorists in recent weeks who were using Apple Maps to navigate to the city only to find themselves stranded in the wilderness of a national park. Apple recognized a few months ago that its iOS map app was so inefficient that it encouraged use of competing apps. Now police in Australia are suggesting that such a move might save the lives of motorists Down Under. So just do it already and don't switch back until they get it right.

Margin doubles in Manchester

Man United won another classic Manchester derby 3-2 at Etihad Stadium this morning, even after City had fought back from two goals down. Man United's first two goals both came from Wayne Rooney, and the other one was scored by Robin van Persie, who had the final say in injury time to end City's proud run and inflict their first league defeat since last April. Man City's goals were scored by Yaya Toure and Pabo Zabaleta. Five players received yellow cards.

Manny not so handy now

Juan Manuel Marquez threw a "perfect punch" to knock out Manny Pacquiao in the sixth round of their non-title welterweight bout, earning his first win over the Filipino in four attempts. The 39-year-old Mexican, who had lost twice and drawn once in their three previous meetings, sent Pacquiao crashing to the canvas with a stinging right hand with one second left in a bruising round at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Well done, Marquez, but we have another knockout to share with everyone: Gangnam Style is now over 100 million views ahead of Baby by Justin Bieber, who should just pick one and stick with it already: be with Selena Gomez or not be with her?

Buffalo soldier in the heart of Washington

Washington (the state, not the city) has made history as the first in the US to legalise marijuana for adult recreational use, an occasion celebrated by dozens of users near Seattle's famed Space Needle amid blaring reggae music and a haze of pot smoke. The pre-dawn public gathering defied a key provision of the state's landmark marijuana law, which allows possession of small amounts of marijuana but forbids users from lighting up outside the privacy of their homes. The Washington law does however legalise possession of up to 16 ounces (0.45 kg) of solid cannabis-infused goods - like space cakes (i.e. brownies or cookies with weed in them) - and up to 72 ounces (2.4 kg) of weed in liquid form. OK so this new measure will mean more pot-heads in the area, but it will also mean that a new source of tax has been opened up to the state government, reggae music will become more popular, and Rastafarians can practise this important part of their religion without finding themselves behind bars.

Nine hundred million for the dancing horse

That's right, Gangnam Style has hit 900,000,000 views. Now that the good news is out of the way, here's some bad news: Rupert Murdoch's awards-season soiree for Ang Lee's Life of Pi has been canceled because of the death of his mother on Tuesday. But now for some more good news: New Zealand's reputation for clean government continues to sparkle, as the country again comes out best in Transparency International's global corruption perceptions index. This makes us first equal with Denmark and Finland. This also makes eight consecutive years that New Zealand has been first or first equal on the CPI. On the same index, North Korea and Somalia are last equal again, this time with Afghanistan.

Looks like the Mayans were only partly right

Well-known New Zealanders have banded together in a new video to show solidarity for the proposed Marriage Amendment Bill. Former Governor General Dame Cath Tizard, Olympian Danyon Loader, supermodel Rachel Hunter, and psychologist Nigel Latta are among the more than 20 Kiwi icons who took part in filming the video in Auckland. The Definition of Marriage Amendment Bill, sponsored by Labour MP Louisa Wall, passed its first reading in Parliament in August by a convincing 80 votes to 40. Meanwhile, over the Tasman, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has delivered a chilling message confirming what many people around the world feared: the Mayans were right. Julia Gillard's 50-second message addresses her "dear remaining fellow Australians". She steps in ahead of CSIRO scientists to foreshadow the world's impending doom. For those who aren't even aware of the potentially overblown hype, according to the Mayan calendar, the world will meet its fiery end on the 21st. Ms Gillard lists the likely doomsday bringers to be flesh-eating zombies, demonic hell-beasts, or K-Pop. And speaking of K-Pop, as "Gangnam Style" gallops toward 1 billion views on YouTube, the first Asian pop artist to capture a massive global audience has gotten richer click by click. So too has his agent and his grandmother. But the money from music sales isn't flowing in from the rapper's homeland South Korea or elsewhere in Asia. With one song, 34-year-old Park Jae-sang (better known as PSY) is set to become a millionaire from YouTube ads and iTunes downloads, underlining a shift in how money is being made in the music business. An even bigger dollop of cash will come from TV commercials. From just those sources, PSY and his camp will rake in at least US$8.1 million this year, according to an analysis by The Associated Press of publicly available information and industry estimates. But he'll earn less than US$60,000 from online music sales in South Korea.

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WEEKLY GROSS-OUT: Murder-suicides

Jovan Belcher, an American football player for the Kansas City Chiefs, shot his girlfriend Kasandra Perkins on Saturday and then later shot himself. According to Police Captain David Lindaman, Perkins and Belcher got into an argument at their house and Belcher shot Perkins around 7:50am Central Standard Time. After shooting Perkins, Belcher headed to the Chiefs training facility where he talked to Chiefs General Manger Scott Pioli and Head Coach Romeo Crennel. Belcher thanked them for their support and then proceeded to shoot himself. He's lucky not to be facing murder charges, but still, he shouldn't have killed either his girlfriend or himself. He had so much to live for, including but not limited to Gangnam Style. But now for something entirely unrelated: Brazilian oil giant Petrobras has pulled out of New Zealand, but the Government is hoping another company will pick up from where it left off.

Implants cause unnecessary stir

EastEnders star Rita Simons (pictured in character as Roxy Mitchell) was horrifed when she was accused of child abuse for deciding her deaf daughter should undergo an operation to enable her to hear. Simons and her husband Theo Silveston have decided their six-year-old Maiya will have a cochlear implant fitted, to give her hearing in both ears. However, their decision has been met with a negative reaction by some people, including one bellend who accused her of abuse. I do not believe that giving a deaf child the ability to hear can, in any way, shape, or form, be classed as child abuse. Despite starring in a show which, apart from its catchy theme tune, is just rubbish, she is a good mother who would throw herself in front of a bus for her children, and was being judged by someone who didn't know her or understand her emotional stance at all. Of course it's not a miracle cure and Maiya's hearing won't be perfect, but in time, her brain will process what it is hearing and compensate, making sounds more familiar to her. All Rita and Theo want to do is give their daughter back what she has lost and help to expand her life. I mean, if you've got the opportunity to give a child the gift of sound, why would you not do that?

United still ahead of City

Enrique Peña has taken office as the new president of Mexico. But on the other side of the Atlantic, Manchester United established a three-point lead at the head of the Barclays Premier League table after edging a seven-goal thriller against Reading this morning (NZ time) at Madejski Stadium. All the game’s talking points were confined to a faintly ludicrous first period as Man United trailed, levelled, led, trailed, levelled, and then led decisively going into the interval. Reading's goals were scored by Hal Robson-Kanu, Adam Le Fondre, and Sean Morrison. Man United's goals were scored by Anderson, Wayne Rooney, Wayne Rooney again, and Robin van Persie. Two players were yellow-carded.

Cola with Health Benefits

The Supreme Court took no action yesterday on a pending series of appeals over the divisive issue of same-sex marriage. The justices had a closed-door conference to consider whether to accept for review several challenges to federal and state laws restricting the ability of gay and lesbian couples to legally wed. But the court, without explanation, had nothing to report on the pending appeals. It was perhaps a sign it needed more time to consider the complex legal and constitutional questions. But here's a question to ponder in the meantime: is a healthy soda an oxymoron? That is the question posed by Pepsi's latest refresher, which claims to fend off fat. Pepsi Special, the new drink distributed by Suntory Holdings Limited (Pepsi's partner in Japan), contains dextrin, a dietary fiber that dissolves in water and is found in fiber supplements such as Benefiber. Eaten appropriately, in fiber-rich foods such as vegetables and fruits, fiber helps to regulate the digestive system, lower cholesterol, and may lower the risk of heart disease. A Suntory news release claims the drink acts by suppressing the absorption of fat and can inhibit the rise in triglycerides after a meal, making it, potentially, the first "healthy" soda. But this is currently only available in Japan, and as odd as the fiber-packed cola sounds, it's not the first to debut in Japan. But I'm sure it will prove to be a hit like Gangnam Style. And speaking of Gangnam Style, a Los Angeles-area restaurant named Gangnam Chicken opened in San Mateo earlier in the week. Chicken — fried and otherwise — is obviously in the forefront. But there are also Korean dishes (with names like bibimbap and galbi) and three kinds of pizzas: sweet potato, bulgogi, and “Gangnam Style” (sweet potato pizza with fun bite size crusts filled with sweet potato mousse). They also advertise that they change the frying oil every other day. So if you're in the area, check it out.