Friday, April 8, 2011

The highest speed limit in America

A proposed Texas state law raises safety concerns about highway driving.

Texas Speed Limit Raised: Is it Safe?

Ben Roethlisberger reveals his fiancée

The Steelers QB speaks publicly for the first time about his upcoming wedding plans.

Roethlisberger isn’t living with fiancee because of religious beliefs

By Chris Chase

We knew Ben Roethlisberger(notes) was getting married. Now we know the particulars.
The Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback spoke for the first time this week about his upcoming nuptials. In an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Roethlisberger confirmed that he's engaged to 26-year-old Ashley Harlan, whom he met during training camp in 2005.
"We were kind of on and off for five years -- almost six years now -- so I've known her for a while," Roethlisberger told the newspaper. "It's not like a random new person. We dated awhile ago; we have been friends ever since."

Years after William Perry sells his Super Bowl ring, a 10-year-old buys it and gives it back.

Boy, 10, buys The Fridge’s Super Bowl ring, then returns it

A Pittsburgh-area 10-year-old took $8,500 out of his college savings account to buy William "The Refrigerator" Perry's Super Bowl XX ring. And then he gave it right back to its original owner.
With the help of his mother and a hefty college fund, Cliff Forrest Jr. purchased the ring after seeing it at Mickey Mantle's Restaurant in New York. Cliff's father, Cliff Forrest Sr. (above, left), said he wouldn't have approved his son's spending, "but his mother is a little more soft-hearted," he said.
Perry, a former Chicago Bears defensive lineman, had put his ring up for auction in 2007 for reasons unknown.

A Vancouver Canucks fan takes a hockey tradition to a new, slimy level with his antics.

Video: Fan throws salmon at Canucks game, creeps out ref

Throwing sea creatures on the ice is a storied tradition in the NHL. We've had octopi in Detroit for decades. We've had a shark eating an octopus in San Jose. Nashville Predators fans have thrown catfish on the ice now and again for the last few seasons.
During Thursday night's Vancouver Canucks home game against the Minnesota Wild, the tradition continued, as someone felt it necessary to throw a large salmon onto the rink:

That's referee Frederick L'Ecuyer getting all creeped out by the dead fish, prompting this instant-classic line from the Wild booth:

Critics pounce after Meredith Vieira's interview with the GOP contender takes an uncomfortable turn.

Trump brings media blitz to NBC, ‘steamrolls’ Meredith Vieira on birther issue

As reports that Meredith Vieira is planning an exit from NBC's "Today Show" swirl, the anchor has sparked controversy over her failure to question a number of unsubstantiated challenges to the U.S. citizenship of President Barack Obama that Donald Trump floated in an interview with Vieira this morning.
Trump--the billionaire real estate tycoon and reality TV figure who is flirting with a 2012 presidential run--again sought to suggest that Obama was not born in the United States. "Birther" activists on the right have circulated the unsubstantiated claim in an effort to depict Obama's presidency as the outgrowth of a shadowy, constitutionally illegitimate conspiracy.
The birther position has been thoroughly debunked, and it hasn't gained traction within the journalistic mainstream. But Trump has nonetheless been on a media blitz in recent weeks promoting it.
When the issue came up on "Today"--which airs on the same network as Trump's "Celebrity Apprentice"--Vieira didn't exactly hold his feet to the fire.
"His grandmother in Kenya said he was born in Kenya and she was there and witnessed the birth," said Trump, reiterating a claim that has been proven false, as Vieira sat by silently. (You can watch the exchange in the clip above.)
Critics took note.

Aaron Baddeley's first shot at the Masters comes to rest in an odd spot after it sails into the crowd.

Aaron Baddeley puts his first Masters shot right in a woman’s lap

By Jay Busbee

It didn't take long for the Masters to give us its first moment that'll get us banned from Augusta National forever if we don't play it correctly.
Aaron Baddeley teed off at 8:51 a.m., part of a pairing that included Vijay Singh and Tim Clark. Baddeley's tee shot lofted up, up, drifted left ... and ended up landing in a woman's lap. Yes, really.
According to Golfweek's Sean Martin, the woman remained seated with the ball in her lap until Baddeley arrived. He then marked the ball's spot underneath her chair with a tee. She stood up, the ball dropped to the ground, and Baddeley then placed it at the tee to set up for his second shot. Talk about an awkward moment.

A WWII plane hailed as one of the biggest "finds of the century" yields new surprises.

Nazi warplane lying off UK coast is intact

Reuters/Port of London/handout

A World War II era German bomber is seen using high-tech sonar equipment on the sea floor off southeast England. More photos »

LONDON (Reuters) – A rare World War Two German bomber, shot down over the English Channel in 1940 and hidden for years by shifting sands at the bottom of the sea, is so well preserved a British museum wants to raise it.
The Dornier 17 -- thought to be world's last known example -- was hit as it took part in the Battle of Britain.
It ditched in the sea just off the Kent coast, southeast England, in an area known as the Goodwin Sands.
The plane came to rest upside-down in 50 feet of water and has become partially visible from time to time as the sands retreated before being buried again.
Now a high-tech sonar survey undertaken by the Port of London Authority (PLA) has revealed the aircraft to be in a startling state of preservation.
Ian Thirsk, from the RAF Museum at Hendon in London, told the BBC he was "incredulous" when he first heard of its existence and potential preservation.
"This aircraft is a unique aeroplane and it's linked to an iconic event in British history, so its importance cannot be over-emphasized, nationally and internationally," he said.
"It's one of the most significant aeronautical finds of the century."
Known as "the flying pencil," the Dornier 17 was designed as a passenger plane in 1934 and was later converted for military use as a fast bomber, difficult to hit and theoretically able to outpace enemy fighter aircraft.

Click image to see photos of World War II German bomber

Reuters/Royal Air Force Museum London/handout

In all, some 1,700 were produced but they struggled in the war with a limited range and bomb load capability and many were scrapped afterwards.

A fight over Planned Parenthood funding has lawmakers on both sides of the aisle pointing fingers.

Abortion becomes flashpoint in shutdown battle

Thanks to the House GOP's decision to add a policy "rider" defunding women's health services provider Planned Parenthood to the budget and Democrats' pushback, abortion has taken center stage in this week's government shutdown battle.
Democrats say a rider to "defund" Planned Parenthood--a national health care provider that also offers abortion services--is a prominent reason why Democrats and Republicans have failed to reach an agreement on how to fund the government past Friday's midnight deadline.
"Now the tea party--among others, but they're the biggest push--is trying to move its extreme social agenda, issues that have nothing to do with funding the government," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Friday on the Senate floor. "They're willing, it appears--clearly, to throw women under the bus even if it means they'll shut down the government. Because that's where we are. That's the one issue that was remaining last night."

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