Rare White Kiwi Chick Born

A rare white kiwi chick, named Manukura, hatched on May 1 at New Zealand's national wildlife center. It's believed to be the first all-white kiwi chick born in captivity.

The unusual chick is not an albino, but the rare offspring of kiwi that were transferred the center, called Pukaha Mount Bruce, from Hauturu/Little Barrier Island last year.

"The kiwi population on Little Barrier Island has birds with white markings and some white kiwi, but this was still a big surprise," Pukaha Mount Bruce Board chairman, Bob Francis said in a press release.

Manukura was the thirteenth of fourteen kiwis successfully hatched at Pukaha Mount Bruce this breeding season. When it is old enough to protect itself, Mankura may be released into a wildlife sanctuary.

But wildlife officials say they will make that decision carefully since, as Department of Conservation area manager Chris Lester pointed out, "A white kiwi might really stand out making it more vulnerable."

Pukaha board member, Jason Kerehi, said tribal elders saw the white chick as a "tohu" or "sign" of new beginnings. "Every now and then something extraordinary comes along to remind you of how special life is."

A six years old young magneto in the making!!

Ivan Stoiljkovic, a six-year-old boy from a small town in norther Croatia, has been drawing media attention with his unusual gift of making large amount of metal stick to his torso.

Young Ivan may not look to be in the best likely shape for his age, but that’s never stopped him from taking off his t-shirt and attaching metal objects on his chest and belly. “We always felt he was a bit special. At 15 months-of-age he was rollerblading, he started on foot at eight months. He was less than two when he started driving a little motorcycle, and it was a bit weird,” says Ivan Surlovic, young Magneto’s grandfather.

It all started as a joke, a few months ago, when Ivan’s grandmother was watching a show about a boy with magnetic capabilities. Her grandson took his shirt off and asked if he could do something like that, so they tried putting metal things on him and they just stuck.

According to Ivan Surlovic’s family, his powers are strongest in the morning and when he is calm and focused. They say he is capable of carrying up to 25 pounds of metal on his body, with heavier objects actually sticking better than lighter ones. His upper body appears to be more magnetic.

And magnetism isn’t the only “super power” this boy has, according to his folks his wounds heal much faster than they normally should, leaving no scars, and his healing scars have been known to alleviate his grandfather’s stomach pains, and the pain of a neighbor who hurt his leg in a tractor accident.

The above story sounds pretty impressive, but after reading James Randi’s thoughts on the matter, I’m not that convinced of his magnetic powers.

Rare pink diamond fetches $10.8m in auction

A very rare translucent pink diamond fetched a price of $10.8 million (7.6 million euros) at a Sotheby's auction, the third-highest price ever paid for one of the pink stones at auction.

"Last chance: 8.5 million francs. Sold!" auctioneer David Bennett said before a throng of about 300 people gathered at a luxury hotel in Geneva, referring to the price before commission.

"It is the third-highest price for a pink diamond at auction," Bennett told press after the sale on Tuesday.

The 10.99-carat, emerald-cut stone was classed as a type IIa diamond, with the type II category making up less than two percent of gem diamonds, Sotheby's said on its website.

The pure color of the diamond, mounted in a ring, is classified as "Fancy strong Pink" by the Gemological Institute of America (GIA).

Stones in this group are the most chemically pure and often have a rare transparency. They have been found in India and in more new times in Brazil and Africa.

Valued earlier at between 8.3 and 14.8 million Swiss francs, the pink diamond had come from a private collection and had not come into view on the market for more than 30 years.

Sotheby's said it was one of the highlights of its "Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels" auction in Geneva on Tuesday.

Another was an emerald and diamond tiara dating from 1900, as well as Kashmir sapphires and Burmese rubies.

The tiara sold for $10 million, not including commission, at the top end of how it had been earlier valued.

"I do not think that the market for colored diamonds has ever been as strong as it is today," Bennett said.

A 24.78-carat Fancy Intense Pink diamond ring was sold for a record $46.16 million at a Sotheby's auction in Geneva in November.

The Facebook Like Inspires Baby Name

First there was baby "Facebook" and now this: An Israeli couple has named their kid "Like."
Let the Valley Girl jokes result.

The Israeli news source Galgalatz reports that Lior and Vardit Adler are the proud parents of a lively baby girl named after the Facebook Like button, which newly celebrated its first birthday.

It seems that, the parents were looking to call their daughter something sole. The moniker is not meant to be a trick, and they say that they're not shilling for Facebook. They just like (pun intended) the sense behind the name.

The Adlers are hardly the first people to lumber their kid with a suspect name.

One man offered to name his son Batman if he could get 500,000 people to become fans of his Facebook Page, and another couple named their child Facebook in honor of the role the social network played in the revolution in Egypt.

Granted, naming your child something strange is not relegated to the realm of social media -- apparently "Brooklyn" is an extremely popular name -- but the name choice surely is out there.

What do you think? Would you "Like" the name Like?

Giant Guitar With 7,000 Trees Made By A Farmer

Pedro Martin Ureta, a 70-year old Argentine farmer from General Levalle, has used 7,000 cypress and eucalyptus trees to make a giant guitar in memory of his late wife, Graciela, who expired in 1977, when she was only 25. He discussed with a number of landscapers, but none of them were interested in such a daring try, so the farmer just had to do it himself.

Planting the tree guitar required a family effort. His kids would stand in a row, three meters apart, and the farm hands would plant trees in those exact spots, after which they re-formed the line in another position and more trees were planted. Most of the guitar, including the body and star-shaped hole were designed using cypress trees, as for the strings the bluish tones of eucalyptus trees were used.

World’s Largest Ice-cream Cake - Canada

Yesterday, Canadian company Dairy Queen has placed a new world record by making the world’s largest ice-cream cake in Yonge and Dundas Square, Toronto.













It took 100 people over a year to plan the occasion, but after 30 years and 52 million ice-cream cakes sold, this was the ideal way to celebrate, according to Denise Hutton, vice-president of marketing at Dairy Queen Canada. Dozens of chefs worked around the clock using over 9,000 kg of ice-cream, 91 kg of sponge cake, around 136 kg of icing and Oreo crumbles, to beat the former world record, a nearly 8,000 kg ice-cream cake made by China, in 2006.

After the cake was finished and approved by the Guinness Book of Records, pieces of it were served to the crowd met in Yonge and Dundas Square, with 100% of suggested donations going to Children’s Miracle Network. “When else can eating ice cream cake help to fund medical care, research and educational programs so that Canadian kids have access to world-class care? It’s the best of all worlds – a delicious treat and a great cause.” said the charity’s Paul Lethbridge.

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First Successful Full Face Transplantation - United States

Dallas Wiens, the first person in the United States to undergo a full face transplant, has came into view publicly for the first time.

The construction worker suffered horrific burns in an accident in the United States more than two years ago, which left him blind and with no a nose or lips.

He underwent a 15-hour procedure in March, in which a team of 30 doctors at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, transplanted an whole new face from an nameless donor.

Mr Wiens, 26, wearing dark sunglasses, said: "To me the face feels natural, as it if has turn out to be my own. I can never express what has been done, what I have been given.

"The ability to breathe through my nose normally, that in itself was a major gift."
He said his three-year-old daughter Scarlett liked his new face, adding: "She actually said 'Daddy, you're so handsome'."

New proof - Caffeine Is a Healthful Antioxidant in Coffee

Scientists are reporting an in-depth analysis of how the caffeine in coffee, tea, and other foods appears to defend against conditions such as Alzheimer's disease and heart disease on the most basic levels.
The report, which describes the chemistry behind caffeine's antioxidant belongings, appears in ACS' The Journal of Physical Chemistry B.

Annia Galano and Jorge Rafael León-Carmona describe evidence suggestive of that coffee is one of the richest sources of healthful antioxidants in the average person's diet. Some of the latest investigate points to caffeine (also present in tea, cocoa, and other foods) as the source of powerful antioxidant effects that may help defend people from Alzheimer's and other diseases. However, scientists know little about exactly how caffeine works in scavenging the so-called free radicals that have damaging effects in the body. And those few studies sometimes have reached contradictory conclusions.

In an effort to bolster scientific knowledge about caffeine, they present detailed theoretical calculations on caffeine's interactions with free radicals. Their theoretical conclusions show "excellent" consistency with the results that other scientists have report from animal and other experiments, bolstering the likelihood that caffeine is, indeed, a source of healthful antioxidant activity in coffee.

Talented Man creates detailed artwork with his mouth and right foot

Now you must shut your mouth if you say this 41-year-old Huang Guofu, is disabled. Because he does more than what an able person can do. This great man is from Chongqing, China, has learned to master the paintbrush with his mouth and right foot, after he lost both his hands in a childhood accident.

Huang Guofu lost his arms in dreadful electric shock accident, at the tender age of four, but that didn’t stop him from following his dreams, and at age 12 he began painting with his feet. The gifted artist remembers that in the start, his artworks didn’t look at all like what he future to paint, but as the years went by his skills improved significantly. Huang quit his studies when he was 18, as his father was very ill and he needed to make money for his treatments. He started travelling to other Chinese cities, creating stunning paintings on the side of streets and selling them to passers-by.

It was during his art actions that he began using his mouth to paint, after hearing some comments that painting with one’s leg isn’t very stylish. He put a brush in his mouth and started painting. During a trip to a city in China’s Sichuan Province, Huang Guofu met Hu Guoui, a woman who quickly fell in love with his strong will and artistic talents, and the two got married in 2000. Since then, she has become his helper, carrying his canvas and tools, whenever he needs to paint a scene on location.

Huang Guofu has been named vice-curator of the newly established Chongqing Talents Museum, for his artistic attainments and powerful spirit. Since then, many more mouth-and-foot painters have joined the museum. The artist believes that “when life closes one door to you, it must have opened another at the same time” and says publicly he is happy and content with what God has given him.

Paul Gauguin statue sells for record price

A wooden bust by Paul Gauguin has sold for $11.3m (£6.8m) at Sotheby's in New York, a record price for a statue by the 19th Century French artist.

Jeune tahitienne (Young Tahitian) was last seen in public in 1961.

The work had been predictable to sell for between $10m (£6m) and $15m (£9m), the sale house said.
The current record for a Gauguin work is held by L'homme a la hache (The Man with an Axe), which sold for $40.3m (£24.4m) in 2006.

The latest auction agrees with a Gauguin exhibition taking place at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

It is the first main exhibit of the artist's career in the United States in approximately 20 years.

This week's sale contrasts with an earlier auction in London in February when a rare Gauguin picture failed to sell.

Nature Morte A L'Esperance (Still Life with Sunflowers) had been probable to fetch up to £10 million at the Christie's event.

World Population to reach 10 billion by 2100 if Fertility in all Countries Converges to Replacement Level

The current world population of close to 7 billion is projected to reach 10.1 billion in the next ninety years, reaching 9.3 billion by the middle of this century, according to the medium variant of the 2010 Revision of World Population Prospects, the official United Nations population projections prepared by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which is being launched today. Much of this increase is projected to come from the high-fertility countries, which comprise 39 countries in Africa, nine in Asia, six in Oceania and four in Latin America.

Small variations in fertility can produce major differences in the size of populations over the long run. The high projection variant, whose fertility is just half a child above that in the medium variant, produces a world population of 10.6 billion in 2050 and 15.8 billion in 2100. The low variant, whose fertility remains half a child below that of the medium, produces a population that reaches 8.1 billion in 2050 and declines towards the second half of this century to reach 6.2 billion in 2100. For long-term trends the medium variant is taken as reference.

The medium-variant projection for 2050 is more certain than for 2100 because people who will be 40 years and older in 2050 are already born. According to the medium variant, it will take 13 years to add the eighth billion, 18 years to add the ninth billion and
40 years to reach the tenth billion. According to the high variant, an additional billion would be added every 10 or 11 years for the rest of this century.

Current fertility levels vary markedly among countries. Today, 42 per cent of the world’s population lives in low-fertility countries, that is, countries where women are not having enough children to ensure that, on average, each woman is replaced by a daughter who survives to the age of procreation. Another 40 per cent lives in intermediate-fertility countries where each woman is having, on average, between 1 and 1.5 daughters, and the remaining 18 per cent lives in high-fertility countries where the average woman has more than 1.5 daughters (see map).

High-fertility countries are mostly concentrated in Africa (39 out of the 55 countries in the continent have high fertility), but there are also nine in Asia, six in Oceania and four in Latin America. Low-fertility countries include all countries in Europe except Iceland and Ireland, 19 out of the 51 in Asia, 14 out of the 39 in the Americas, two in Africa
(Mauritius and Tunisia) and one in Oceania (Australia).

Population for countries grouped by fertility level, medium variant, 1950-
2100

Total fertility for countries grouped by fertility level, medium variant, selected periods

Small differences in fertility levels sustained over long periods have a major impact on the future population.

Korean Girl Removes Make-up after 24 Months

Doctors advise women remove their make-up every night before they go to sleep, in order to prevent harm to their skin, but a young South-Korean girl preferred to wear her make-up mask full-time, for the last two years.

20-year-old Bae Dal-mi first exposed make-up when she was just 14. You could say it was love at first brush, and ever as then, the young Koream urbanized her make-up talents to the point where she became so needy on it that she didn’t want to remove it anymore. As she kept applying ever-thicker layers of make-up on her face, the mirror became the most significant item in Bae’s life and she declares “I wanted to look perfect at all time, I even slept with the make-up on.” Shae wasn’t happy with her appearance, and said she wanted to have plastic surgery in 10 different places.

For the last two years, the young girl never used make-up removers, so her mother, infuriated by Bae’s behaviour, contacted a TV station and told them Bae’s unbelievable story. During a variety show, dermatologists managed to talk into Bae Dal-mi to finally remove the layers of make-up, and after a particular check-up they found her skin was two times older than her actual age. All because of an mania with beauty…

The world's smelliest flower

The titan arum is a giant among plants, with a massive flowering structure that rises some three metres above the ground. Its flowering is rare and unpredictable, and always grabs the headlines! The titan arum or Amorphophallus titanum is a flowering plant with the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world. Due to its odor, which is reminiscent of the smell of a decomposing mammal.

The Titan Arum plant, nicknamed the Corpse flower because of its pungent smell of putrid flesh, is in full blossom after 75 years at the University of Basel in Switzerland. The eight foot plant, indigenous to Indonesia's rainforests, has the chief unbranched shoot in the world. On average, they bloom once in a decade. Titan Arum is coveted by collectors and plant enthusiasts around the world because of its strange blooming patterns.

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Southern storms death toll nears 300

Dazed Southerners on Thursday reassured one another and began the procedure of rebuilding after a barrage of storms maintained nearly 300 lives and reduced once-familiar neighborhoods to piles of bricks and lumber.

The grim death toll from the 24-hour storm period sustained to rise, with 294 counted in six states. Among them were two university students in Alabama. Nearly 1 million customers were without electricity.

The vast majority of fatalities occurred in Alabama, where at least 207 people rotten, according to state and local officials. Gov. Robert Bentley and other officials stood Thursday afternoon in the bright sunshine in Tuscaloosa, the epicenter of the state's misery, to detail the damage and recovery effort.

"People's lives have just been turned upside down," Bentley said. "It affects me expressively. When I fly over this, it is hard."

The South endured the second deadliest tornado outbreak in the nation's history since 1950. Weather experts said humidity, cooler temperatures and vertical wind shear made for a deadly concoction.

The death toll in the hard-hit city of Tuscaloosa, in west-central Alabama, was at 38 as of Thursday, said Mayor Walter Maddox. Infrastructure losses are ache revival efforts, he said.

The storms are being compared to the "super outbreak" of tornadoes April 3 and 4, 1974, Craig Fugate, the FEMA administrator, said Thursday. In that period, 148 tornadoes were reported in 13 states, and 330 people died. States affected were Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

New Retinal Implant allows Blind People to See Shapes and Objects

One blind person was even able to recognize and find objects placed on a table in face of him, as well as walking around a room separately and future people, reading a clock face and differentiating seven shades of grey. The device, which has been developed by the corporation Retinal Implant AG together with the Institute for Ophthalmic Research at the University of Tuebingen, represents an unprecedented advance in electronic visual prostheses and could eventually revolutionize the lives of up 200,000 people worldwide who suffer from blindness as a result of retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease.

In this disease light receptors in the eye cease to purpose. Writing in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Prof. Dr. Eberhart Zrenner (founding Director of Retinal Implant AG and Director and Chairman of the University of Tuebingen Eye Hospital) states that "The results of this pilot study provide strong evidence that the visual functions of patients blinded by a hereditary retinal dystrophy can, in principle, be restored to a degree enough for use in daily life."

The device -- known as a subretinal implant -- sits underneath the retina, directly replacing light receptors lost in retinal deterioration. As such, it uses the eyes' natural image processing capabilities beyond the light discovery stage to produce a visual perception in the patient that is stable and follows their eye movements. Other types of retinal implants known as epiretinal implants -- sit outside the retina and because they bypass the intact light-sensitive structures in the eyes they require the user to wear an external camera and processor unit.

The subretinal implant described in this paper achieves unprecedented clarity because it has a great deal more light receptors than other similar devices. As Prof. Dr. Zrenner states, "The present study...presents proof-of-concept that such devices can restore useful vision in blind human subjects, even though the ultimate goal of broad clinical application will take time to develop."

How the First Earth Day Came About

What was the purpose of Earth Day? How did it start? These are the questions I am most frequently asked.

Actually, the idea for Earth Day evolved over a period of seven years starting in 1962. For several years, it had been troubling me that the state of our environment was simply a non-issue in the politics of the country. Finally, in November 1962, an idea occurred to me that was, I thought, a virtual cinch to put the environment into the political "limelight" once and for all. The idea was to persuade President Kennedy to give visibility to this issue by going on a national conservation tour. I flew to Washington to discuss the proposal with Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who liked the idea. So did the President. The President began his five-day, eleven-state conservation tour in September 1963. For many reasons the tour did not succeed in putting the issue onto the national political agenda. However, it was the germ of the idea that ultimately flowered into Earth Day.

I continued to speak on environmental issues to a variety of audiences in some twenty-five states. All across the country, evidence of environmental degradation was appearing everywhere, and everyone noticed except the political establishment. The environmental issue simply was not to be found on the nation's political agenda. The people were concerned, but the politicians were not.

After President Kennedy's tour, I still hoped for some idea that would thrust the environment into the political mainstream. Six years would pass before the idea that became Earth Day occurred to me while on a conservation speaking tour out West in the summer of 1969. At the time, anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, called "teach-ins," had spread to college campuses all across the nation. Suddenly, the idea occurred to me - why not organize a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to our environment?

I was satisfied that if we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force this issue onto the political agenda. It was a big gamble, but worth a try.

At a conference in Seattle in September 1969, I announced that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment and invited everyone to participate. The wire services carried the story from coast to coast. The response was electric. It took off like gangbusters. Telegrams, letters, and telephone inquiries poured in from all across the country. The American people finally had a forum to express its concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air - and they did so with spectacular exuberance. For the next four months, two members of my Senate staff, Linda Billings and John Heritage, managed Earth Day affairs out of my Senate office.

Five months before Earth Day, on Sunday, November 30, 1969, The New York Times carried a lengthy article by Gladwin Hill reporting on the astonishing proliferation of environmental events:

"Rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation's campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam...a national day of observance of environmental problems...is being planned for next spring...when a nationwide environmental 'teach-in'...coordinated from the office of Senator Gaylord Nelson is planned...."

It was obvious that we were headed for a spectacular success on Earth Day. It was also obvious that grassroots activities had ballooned beyond the capacity of my U.S. Senate office staff to keep up with the telephone calls, paper work, inquiries, etc. In mid-January, three months before Earth Day, John Gardner, Founder of Common Cause, provided temporary space for a Washington, D.C. headquarters. I staffed the office with college students and selected Denis Hayes as coordinator of activities.

Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.

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Largest Fossil Spider Established in Volcanic Ash

The largest fossil spider exposed to date once ensnared prey back in the age of dinosaurs, scientists find.

The spider, named Nephila jurassica, was discovered buried in ancient volcanic ash in Inner Mongolia, China.

Tufts of hairlike fibers seen on its legs showed this 165-million-year-old arachnid to be the oldest known species of the largest web-weaving spiders living today — the golden orb-weavers, or Nephila, which are big sufficient to catch birds and bats, and use silk that excels like gold in the sunlight.

The fossil was about as large as its contemporary relatives, with a body one inch (2.5 centimeters) wide and legs that reach up to 2.5 inches (6.3 cm) long. Golden orb-weavers nowadays are mainly tropical being, so the ancient environment of Nephila jurassica probably was similarly lush.

"It would have lived, like today's Nephila, in its orb web of golden silk in a payment in a forest, or more likely at the rim of a forest close to the lake," researcher Paul Selden, director of the Paleontological Institute at the University of Kansas, told LiveScience. "There would have been volcanoes nearby producing the ash that forms the lake residue it is entombed within."

Spiders are the most many predators on land today, and help keep insect numbers in check. So these findings help us "understand the development of the insect-spider predator-prey relationship," Selden said, suggestive of that golden orb-weavers have been ensnaring insects and influencing their evolution since the Jurassic Period

"There were many large or medium-sized flying insects around at that time on which it would have fed arbitrarily," Selden said.

In modern golden orb-weaver species, females are characteristically much larger than males. This new fossil was a female, suggesting this trend stretches back at least as far as the Middle Jurassic, Selden said — that is, back previous to the first known bird, Archaeopteryx, or giant dinosaurs such as Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus.

Although this is the largest fossil spider known to date, it is not the oldest. Two species from Coseley, England, Eocteniza silvicola and Protocteniza britannica, both come from about 310 million years ago.

Selden and his colleagues are now investigating other fossil spiders from China, "as well as those from elsewhere in the world — currently Brazil, New Zealand, Australia, Italy and Korea," he said.
The scientists detail their findings online April 20 in the journal Biology Letters.

Branson charitable Caribbean island to lemurs

British billionaire Richard Branson plans to turn over one of his Caribbean islands to lemurs.

Well, perhaps not the Whole Island, but Branson wants to set up a colony of the rare primates on Moskito Island, one of two private isles he owns in the British Virgin Islands, according to news reports.

Branson, whose Virgin group covers businesses from airlines to music to casinos, told the reporters last week that illegal classification in Madgascar, which he says has increased since a coup two years ago, intimidates lemur populations on that island, the only place in the world the animals live in the wild.

"We've been helping to try and protect lemurs, and sadly in Madagascar because of the government being conquers the space for lemurs is getting less and less," the BBC quoted him as saying.

Some scientists are questioning whether a species should be introduced into territory half a world away from its homeland.

Biologist James Lazell, an knowledgeable researcher in the Virgin Islands and president of the U.S.-based Conservation Agency, called Branson's plan a "terrible idea," saying the lemurs could damage the island's ecological balance, according to the Beacon.

“They eat everything. They eat lizards. They eat fruits. They eats roots, insects, bird eggs, absolutely everything,” Lazell is quoted as saying.

Penelope Bodry-Sanders, vice-chairman of the Lemur Conservation Foundation, told The Guardian, "the jury is out on this."

Branson told The Guardian that his experts said risks were small and local species would be protected if it became evident the lemurs were posing a threat.

"We will have to play it by ear. If this works out well, we will bring in more lemur species and eventually hope to find a bigger island for them," the Guardian quotes him as saying.

Miss Maine USA to Bounce Big Pageant for Wedding

Miss Maine USA is going to sit out Donald Trump's Miss USA Pageant to be present at her big sister's wedding.

NBC moved the Miss USA Pageant from its customary slot in April to June. Emily Johnson says the new weekend is the only one in which she had other plans — plans that trump the competition.

Johnson, a Baylor University mark off and talented pianist, is allowed to keep her crown, but she's giving up the title, prizes and appearance.

Mackenzie Davis, executive director of the Miss Maine USA pageant, says she understand Johnson's reasoning, but she says Miss Maine is a serious promise and that she's let down Johnson withdrew from her duties.

The state's participant in the Miss USA Pageant will be the first runner-up, Ashley Marble, of Cumberland.

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Italian activist found dead in Gaza after kidnap

An Italian pro-Palestinian campaigner has been found dead in the Gaza Strip hours after being abduct, security sources in the Hamas-governed territory say.

Vittorio Arrigoni was detained on Thursday morning by a radical group seeking the let go of their leader, who was arrested last month.

Hamas said Arrigoni was found hanged, after police conventional a tip-off.

He was the first foreigner abducted in Gaza since BBC journalist Alan Johnston was swift in 2007.

At least one person has been under arrest, and others are being sought, a Hamas official said. Arrigoni had been dead for several hours when he was found, the official further.

Arrigoni, 36, was detained by Salafist radicals, who have often been in conflict with Hamas, the BBC's Gaza correspondent Jon Donnison says.

They consider Hamas, an Islamist movement itself, too moderate, our reporter says.

The Salafists had in danger to execute Arrigoni unless several prisoners, including their leader, Sheikh Abu Walid al-Maqdasi, were released. Sheikh Maqdasi was under arrest by Hamas police last month in Gaza City.

In the video posted on YouTube, Arrigoni come into view to have been beaten and his eyes were covered with thick black tape.

A caption on the video read: "The Italian captive entered our land only to spread corruption." The video called Italy "the infidel state".

Arrigoni was a member of the International Solidarity Movement and had been in Gaza for several years.
Hamas had been credited with eliminating the threat of kidnapping in Gaza until his abduction.