TAMPA (CBS) Florida gambler Bill Seebeck was sure he’d hit the jackpot — literally. He says the slot machine he was playing flashed a winning sum of more than $166 million. Seebeck told CBS affiliate WFTV “I was screaming, I was like up and around screaming.”
But the casino says Seebeck’s good fortune was a mistake — a machine malfunction — and is refusing to pay.
President Obama’s arrival in China on Sunday is being eagerly awaited by many people, especially one young woman in Shanghai. Lou Jing is of mixed race, with a Chinese mother and an African-American father. She became famous nationally after her participation in an American Idol-type program sparked a spate of vitriolic online racist abuse.
For Lou, the reality television show turned out to be a lesson in brutal reality. The talent contest is called Go! Oriental Angel, and the 20-year-old made it through preliminary rounds to become one of 30 contestants.
In her two months on air, Lou was nicknamed the “Chocolate Angel” and the “Black Pearl” by the media. She wasn’t bothered by these names, she says.
But online, the poison pens were venomous. Chinese posting messages on the Web criticized her skin color as “gross” and “ugly”; they called her shameless for appearing on television. The worst insults were reserved for her mother for having had a relationship with an African-American out of wedlock. Lou and her mother are now suing one Shanghai newspaper for libel.
There were online statements of support as well, but the verbal attacks stunned Lou.
A day after the massacre at Fort Hood, Dan Ross of Lehigh Acres ordered a $59.95 bouquet of yellow roses.
They were not meant to honor the dead, but to soothe the alleged shooter.
In an e-mail order to Marvel’s Florist in Texas, the 61-year-old asked a note to be addressed to Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the suspect who remains in intensive care at an Army hospital in Texas.
The florist didn’t complete the order, but alerted the FBI. Ross said the agency visited his home.
Why would someone do such a thing?
As a Christian, Ross said he is called to love his enemies and do good to them.
And as the reincarnated Apostle Peter, Ross said, the Holy Spirit told him to send the flowers.
“He a hero to the Muslim community,” Ross said of Hasan Tuesday night.
James Gadiel of Kent, Conn., was a 23-year-old trader who died in the World Trade Center terror attacks. As a tribute to him, his father, Peter, approached local leaders to suggest placing a memorial plaque at the town hall.
Kent’s de facto mayor, First Selectman Ruth Epstein, readily agreed — until she saw the proposed wording: “James Gadiel, lifelong resident of Kent, murdered in the World Trade Center by Muslim terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001.”
The most embarrassing new tech product of the year just got more embarrassing.
Last month, we let you know about the Wi-Fi Body Scale, the first bathroom scale equipped with a wireless connection to send your weight and body fat information directly to your Web page and iPhone.
But weight, there’s more.
Today the French company behind the scale, Withings, announced it has added Twitter capability to the scale, enabling the user to automatically tweet the weight/fat info to followers.
The four passengers in the jeep must feel a whisker away from death as a lion jumps up on to their bonnet for lunch.
But that’s all part of the attraction. The jeep is a new zoo exhibit which allows visitors to get incredibly close to the lions.
The back part of the vehicle, up to where the windscreen should be, is actually on the outside of the reinforced glass cage. The bonnet is on the inside, and covered with meat to entice the big cats closer.
It makes for an exhilarating experience, according to Robyn and Davin Price, both 34, who visited the Werribee Open Range Zoo, in Melbourne, Australia, with their children Ariel, five, Eden, three, and baby Evie.
A soldier has been given leave from her duties to represent England in the Miss World competition.
L/Cpl Katrina Hodge, 21, from Tunbridge Wells, will take over from the previous Miss England who stepped down after her arrest over an alleged nightclub brawl.
Organisers of Miss England said 21-year-old Rachel Christie wanted to concentrate on clearing her name.
Miss Hodge, nicknamed Combat Barbie after being commended for bravery in Iraq, will take on beauty queen duties.
The sonic fabric neckties are a limited-edition project made in collaboration with my designer friend julio cesar. sonic fabric is woven from 50% recorded audio cassette tape and 50% colored thread the fabric is actually audible if you run a tape head over it!
A Tupelo quadriplegic is wrangling with East Central University officials over whether he can live in the campus dorms.
Joshua Jackson, 35, an East Central University junior, was notified Oct. 21 he could not live in the dorms unless he hires an assistant to stay overnight. He must move out by Dec. 12 if he doesn’t have one. Campus officials say the decision is a matter of safety. Jackson says the $11,000 a year it would cost to pay for an assistant is not within his means.
Lisa Long was driving through Cass County farm country last week when somebody — maybe a mile or more away — pulled the trigger on a high-powered rifle.
The bullet zipped over fields and pasture from the south as Long’s car traveled west from her aunt’s house. The two would meet at the same point at precisely the same instant.
Not only that, Long’s driver-side window was down six inches or so and the bullet was at the perfect trajectory to enter the opening as she drove past that point at 40 mph.
The slug tore through her cheek, exited her mouth, then plopped onto the floorboard of the 1998 Ford Taurus.
What are the odds? Moving car, moving bullet.
If she had washed one more dish, left her aunt’s house a second earlier– or later — or if she had been driving a mile an hour slower — or faster — that bullet would have landed harmlessly in a field to perhaps be found by an archaeologist 1,000 years from now.
BOSTON – The Orange Line driver who stopped her train within inches of a woman on the tracks over the weekend will be honored today by the MBTA’s Board of Directors.
It was a frightening scene for MBTA riders Friday night after a passenger waiting on the Orange Line platform at North Station fell onto the tracks.
Dozens of people desperately tried to alert the driver of an oncoming train.
“The train stopped. The front end of the train was actually over her,” said Sgt. Paul Carroll of the Transit Police.
The former Cubs slugger, recently photographed during an appearance at Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vega, is drawing attention for his severely lightened complexion.
In addition, he appears to be wearing green contact lenses — a change from his natural brown.
The above photo shows Sosa on the left at a May 2009 People Magazine event. The right is Sosa, who retired in 2007 with 609 career homers, earlier this week in Las Vegas for the Latin Grammys.
For 27 months, Ian Fisher, his parents and friends, and the U.S. Army allowed Denver Post reporters and a photographer to watch and chronicle his recruitment, induction, training, deployment, and, finally, his return from combat. A selection of photos from Ian’s journey are posted below.
The story was written by Kevin Simpson with Michael Riley, Bruce Finley and Craig F. Walker. It was reported by Riley in Colorado and at Fort Benning, Ga., Finley at Fort Carson and in Iraq, and photographer Craig F. Walker throughout.
LOS ANGELES — For decades, the Walt Disney Company has largely kept Mickey Mouse frozen under glass, fearful that even the tiniest tinkering might tarnish the brand and upend his $5 billion or so in annual merchandise sales. One false move and Disney could have New Coke on its hands.
Now, however, concerned that Mickey has become more of a corporate symbol than a beloved character for recent generations of young people, Disney is taking the risky step of re-imagining him for the future.
The first glimmer of this will be the introduction next year of a new video game, Epic Mickey, in which the formerly squeaky clean character can be cantankerous and cunning, as well as heroic, as he traverses a forbidding wasteland.
And at the same time, in a parallel but separate effort, Disney has quietly embarked on an even larger project to rethink the character’s personality, from the way Mickey walks and talks to the way he appears on the Disney Channel and how children interact with him on the Web — even what his house looks like at Disney World.
President Obama’s arrival in China on Sunday is being eagerly awaited by many people, especially one young woman in Shanghai. Lou Jing is of mixed race, with a Chinese mother and an African-American father. She became famous nationally after her participation in an American Idol-type program sparked a spate of vitriolic online racist abuse.
A day after the massacre at Fort Hood, Dan Ross of Lehigh Acres ordered a $59.95 bouquet of yellow roses.
A soldier has been given leave from her duties to represent England in the Miss World competition.
