Latest News (41-60)

American television is no place for fat people. US audiences tend only to glimpse the overweight when they're being barked at by fitness instructors on The Biggest Loser or forced to shake their over-sized booty on the incredibly named Dance Your Ass Off.

Eight years ago, I interviewed the actress Susan Penhaligon, ostensibly about a new play she was in, although of course the reason I was so familiar with her name, and what I really wanted to talk to her about, was the steamy 1976 adaptation of Andrea Newman's novel A Bouquet of Barbed Wire, in which she played Prue Sorenson. I told her that it had sent my 14-year-old hormones haywire. She told me, bitterly, that it had done something similar to her emotional equilibrium, the avalanche of public interest having landed squarely on her 26-year-old head.

Charles Saatchi's pledge to donate his gallery and modern art collection to the public is in jeopardy after talks with the Arts Council broke down.

Outside it may be an all-too autumnal September night in the capital, but in the basement of the Slaughtered Lamb for the duration of 23-year-old country pioneer Caitlin Rose's set, we might as well be in downtown Nashville.

Nude photos of the Hollywood actress Anna Mayhew are spread across the floor. They have cost the psychopathic Vincent Perec $2,000, and he is luxuriating in the erotic pleasure of stepping on them barefoot. But his next action is not what the reader anticipates: Vincent reaches for his father's straight razor, draws the blade across his forearm (already a mass of tiny, puckered scars from earlier cuts), and sprinkles drops of blood across the pornographic images. Displacement, but we get the idea.

Let's begin by indulging in a strange exercise in reverse chronology. There is a room in the Victoria and Albert Museum, a fairly narrow, nave-like, barrel-vaulted space, called the Raphael Gallery. That is where seven of the Cartoons that Raphael created for a great cycle of tapestries called The Acts of the Apostles have hung for the past half century. Those tapestries were commissioned from Raphael by the Medici Pope Leo X, in 1515, and they were destined to be displayed in the recently refashioned and refurbished Sistine Chapel beneath Michelangelo's great ceiling frescoes.

A motorist has been hijacked, robbed and stripped to his underwear, say Gauteng police.

The rate at which rhino are being poached in South Africa is heading for a point where the number killed will exceed the number born.

"Dicing" between two VW Golfs in Johannesburg has led to eight people being injured, Gauteng paramedics say.

Public sector trade unions say they will accept government’s current pay offer if two issues are addressed.

Rugby World Cup winning former Springbok coach Jake White believes that the warning lights are flickering for Bok rugby.

A 14-year-old Pretoria girl has died after breaking her neck when she jumped out of the moving bakkie of a man who had kidnapped her and her friend.

AP - Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank's retort was an Internet sensation.

PC World - Only two days left until Apple releases the first major upgrade to the iOS 4 mobile operating system on Wednesday, September 8. Apple lists a number of enhancements and features that will be added with iOS 4.1, but the things that make iOS 4.1 a critical update are buried in the Apple fine print.

Appolicious - The free WordPress for Android app was upgraded thanks to feedback from faithful users. Updates include fixes to numerous, annoying bugs like unexpected app crashes, log-in issues and more.Most notable in the recent upgrade is a new comment feature, which displays comments in real time as comments arrive in your Droid notification bar.

Mashable - Ad Age has obtained an internal Google document that highlights some of the biggest AdWords buyers for the month of June 2010, offering insight into how big brands are using Google and how much they are spending.

Mashable - YouTube has just launched an official gallery showing off some of the 80,000 submissions it received as part of its Life in a Day project.

Digital Trends - Internet giant Google has proposed paying some $8.5 million to settle a lawsuit over privacy violations that occurred when it launched its Buzz social networking service earlier this year. Some 30 percent of the proposed settlement money would go towards legal fees associated with the case, $2,500 each would go to the seven Gmail users who brought the suit, and the remainder would be split amongst organizations that promote online privacy and privacy education. Google admits no wrongdoing in the settlement, which still must be approved by a judge.

PC World - The European Commission is considering opening a second enquiry to investigate if China is illegally subsidizing tech companies that produce wireless modems.

Macworld.com - Mac users of personal finance software tend to fall into two categories—those who use Quicken, and those who hate Quicken with the red-hot passion of a thousand suns. No finance management alternative has yet captured the mindshare of the Mac market, but LittleFin Software steps up to the plate with the release of Chronicle 3.4. (Note: this Mac application is no relation to the Chronicle for iPad journal app.)