March 2011 Archives

Zsa Zsa Gabor was hospitalized Wednesday for elevated blood pressure after the 94-year-old actress heard of the death of friend and former neighbor Elizabeth Taylor.

Gabor's publicist is reported as having said she was watching the television in her Los Angeles home Wednesday morning when she heard the news of Taylor's death, according to Times Live.

Prince Frederic von Anhalt told the LA Times that his wife was taken to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center when she saw pictures of Taylor on the news.

"She was very upset when she saw her picture on telelvision -- and it was all over television," von Anhalt said. "She said, 'Well, it's me now.'"

Times Live reported that Gabor's comments were in reference to the common myth that celebrity deaths come in threes.

Gabor returned home Thursday, according to the LA Times. This incident follows a string of hospitalizations including lung infection treatment and amputation of part of her right leg.

University of Minnesota football coach, Murray Warmath, who won a national championship and attended two Rose Bowls, died Wednesday. He was 98.

Warmath died of natural causes at his residence of eight years, Friendship Village, a retirement community in Bloomington.

He served as the Gophers head coach for 18 seasons (1954-71) and is the last coach in program history to win a Big Ten championship, Rose Bowl or national title, of which he won all three, according to the Minnesota Daily.

Fox 9 News reported that Warmath also had a record of 87-78-7, won the 1960 Coach of the Year award, coached four All-American players, three SEC All-Conference players and three players he coached went on to become members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

In addition to these coaching accomplishments, Warmath also served as an officer in the U.S. Navy during World War II, according to Fox 9 News.

"Murray Warmath will go down in history as recruiting African-American athletes from the south that were not given the opportunity to play in the south," M Club Director George Adzick said.

Warmath's dedication to football transcended his time at the University. Fox 9 News reported he returned to football in 1978-79 as the defensive line coach for the Minnesota Vikings under Coach Bud Grant. He then worked until the mid-1990s as a scout for the Vikings, when he retired.

Warmath's memorial service was held Monday at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Edina, Minn., at 1 p.m.

He is survived by his son Murray Warmath Jr., and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Elizabeth Taylor, an actress who entertained generations of movie-goers, died Wednesday of congestive heart failure after spending weeks in a Los Angeles hospital. She was 79.

The famed actress first appeared in film at the age of 9, according to the New York Times, and grew up in front of the audience.

"She embodied everything it is to be a movie star," said Turner Classic Movies weekend host and film expert Ben Mankiewicz. "There's such a tendency to diminish her talent while looking at her stardom. I don't think they have to be separated, they're one and the same. But you can't escape the awesome power of her stardom."

USA Today reported on her legacy: three Oscars, fragrance and jewelry lines, more than 50 films, encouraged more acceptance for gay people, call for more attention to the AIDS epidemic.

She suffered from multiple medical ailments and came close to death several times in her lifetime, according to USA Today.

Despite the media attention Taylor received throughout her life, she did not go searching for it. "She wasn't a calculating diva," said William Mann, author of How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood. "She got the media exposure because of the way she lived her life. She wasn't out there seeking it. It came to her."

USA Today reported that she was tweeting merrily on Twitter until her last moments, raising millions for charities.

"Hers was the fully lived life," said Frank Farley, a psychologist at Temple University. "To me, her life spelled passion. She lived by her heart and died by her heart."

She is survived by four children: sons Christopher and Michael Wilding and daughters Liza Todd-Tivey and Maria Burton-Carson. She also had 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

"My mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humor, and love," said Michael in a statement reported by ABC News. "Though her loss is devastating to those of us who held her so close and so dear, we will always be inspired by her enduring contribution to our world."

Results of a Haitian presidential vote will prove crucial for a nation recovering from an earthquake and political turmoil.

The second round of voting for Haiti's president occurred without violence Sunday, according to a spokeswoman for the United Nations mission in Haiti.

The candidates are a former law professor and first lady, Mirlande Manigat, and a singer, Michel Martelly, according to CNN.

However, it is the possibility of a write-in vote which could cause controversy. MSNBC reported that Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the twice-ousted former president, returned from exile in South Africa two days before the election.

CNN reported that U.S. officials expressed concern over his return. Even though his party was barred from the ballot, MSNBC reported rising concerns and anxiety over his motivations and intentions.

Aristide's lawyer is reported by CNN as saying he has no intention of returning to politics.

"If he tells his followers to boycott the election, it could disrupt the vote and add an influential voice to critics who say it lacks legitimacy," MSNBC reported when mentioning Aristide's possible links to the election.

Post election, the winner will be faced with a Senate and Chamber of Deputies controlled by the party of the outgoing president, Rene Preval. There is also a potential for a rise in cholera outbreaks once the rainy season starts as well as increasing opposition over the 800,000 people still in settlement camps after the January 2010 earthquake.

"Everybody is waiting for these elections to be done and nobody wants to make a move until they are," said Yves Colon, a journalism professor at the University of Miami and Haiti native. "Haitians are looking for someone who can take them out of this hole they're in."

A 21-year-old Blaine man was arrested on charges of murder relating to drug overdose at a houseparty.

WCCO reported one dead and ten more sent to the hospital after a mass overdose Thursday.

Though no names were mentioned, it was reported that the incident occured on the 9500 block of Monroe Street NE. Police cited the substance as a legal drug known as "2 C-E" after responding to the Blaine residence just after midnight on Thursday.

"Just because you have an assumption that it's legal and you can buy it online, in no way is it safe," Paul Sommer of the Anoka County Sheriff's Office told WCCO, "as witnessed by the events this morning. One person is dead, 10 people are hospitalized."

Timothy Richard Lamere was arrested on suspicion of providing the substance used at the party, according to the Star Tribune. The Anoka County Sheriff's Office said he could be charged with third-degree murder in the death of Trevor Robinson, 19, as soon as Monday.

Carol Falkowski, a drug abuse strategy office with the state Department of Human Services, is reported as having said the combination of the 2 C-E substance with another, such as alcohol, could prove fatal.

According to WCCO, other party-goers fled the location and suffered the effects of the drug at various locations. The Star Tribune confirmed this and reported that after police questioning, 11 total victims were found and received medical attention.

Master's degree students in architecture are taking place in a workshop to redesign the mall.

"Though it should be the core of the city, it has never developed beyond that," Professor Lance Lavine told the Minnesota Daily. "It has never been more than a street with buses on it. It's grim. It's a grim center of the city. It has little or no real identity."

Students are participating in a wee-long program which allows architecture graduate students to do something different, reported the Minnesota Daily. "Redesigning the Mall" is the title of their "catalyst."

The students are doing their work the Crystal Court of the IDS Center, the Star Tribune reported.

The workshop's goal was to utilize Nicollet Mall as a public space in downtown Minneapolis for people to gather, reported the Star Tribune.

"The city wanted to see the results first so we have invited different people from the city to the event and they are going to be coming by over the next few days," Dean Thomas Fisher of the College of Design told the Minnesota Daily. "After that point we will see if we can't present it to the whole council."

An Edina girl will be representing Minnesota in Washington, D.C. for the third year in a row at the national spelling bee.

Anja Beth Swoap won the seven-county metro-area regional spelling bee Saturday after correctly spelling "triforium" after 16 rounds of competition, according to the Star Tribune.

Swoap, 14, an eighth-grader at Valley View Middle School, tied for 20th place in the Scripps National Spelling Bee last year, reported the Pioneer Press.

The Pioneer Press also said Swoap is fluent in french, plays the flute and loves to read.

55 other magnet and home-school students competed against Swoap, said the Star Tribune.

Runner-up was Jasmine Lim of Burnsville, an eighth-grader at Nicollet Junior High School. Paul DiFuccia, who attends Holy Family Home Educators, finished third. DiFuccia took a written test with three other spellers, which the Pioneer Press reports as a first in the event's history.

Both news sources confirm that Minneapolis law firm Lockridge Grindal, who sponsored the event, will pay for Swoap and one of her parents to attend the national competition.

Other representatives from Minnesota to the national competition have yet to be determined with other bees taking place around the state, the Star Tribune said.

The legend of Atlantis has been the object of explorers since first described by Plato in 360 B.C.

The Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, and Antarctica were the locations for searches for the city thus far, the Hartford Courant reported.

A U.S.-led research team may have located the long-sought city in a vast marsh in Southern Spain.

"It is just so hard to understand that [tsunamis] can wipe out 60 miles inland," head researcher Richard Freund said. "And that's pretty much what we're talking about."

Reuters reported that the team used a satellite photo of a suspected submerged city to find the marshlands of the Dona Ana Park just north of Cadiz, Spain.

A combination of deep-ground radar, digital mapping, and underwater technology provided the tools necessary for archaeologists and geologists to survey the site in 2009 and 2010.

"It's the best possible candidate that's ever been discovered with the most amount of evidence," Freund said in an interview reported by the Hartford Courant.

Freund and his team said they believe the lost city was destroyed in a tsunami and its refugees fled inland, building seemingly memorial cities in Atlantis' image as they moved. These memorial cities gave researchers further proof and confidence to believe the discovery was, indeed, Atlantis, Reuters reported.

"It's never like finding the Titanic," Freund said, according to the Hartford Courant. "It's never like finding Tutankhamen's tomb. That's the way, in the best of all circumstances, that you find something intact."

Further excavations are planned at the site and at the mysterious memorial cities in central Spain to more closely study geological formations and to date artifacts.

"We found something that no one else has ever seen before," Freund said. "Which gives it a layer of credibility, especially for archeology, that makes a lot more sense."

The threat of flooding forced hundreds of people from their homes Saturday, but forecasters warned that the worst may be yet to come.

USA Today reported that the region's melting snow combined with heavy rain is causing waterways in some areas to overflow.

New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania appeared to suffer the only major problems. Those areas are set to get a chance to dry out after the flood waters recede. According to the National Weather Service, no major rains were expected there for several days.

Threats of flooding have made people like Jessica Dontona of Greenburgh, N.Y. think about moving. "You know, living high on a hill is starting to look really good," she said.

Major concerns that rising waters could break up river ice, creating ice jams that cause flooding faced New England. The Coast Guard told MSNBC that it started its springtime ice-breaking ritual Saturday and will continue through Tuesday to reduce the risk of property damage.

Much of the East Coast saw the water levels recede, but New Jersey residents still face possible evacuations, according to MSNBC.

"You cannot pump the river," Mel Sivri, a Woodland Park, N.J. resident, said. "You just have to wait for it to go down."

A nuclear power plant explosion gave Japanese authorities an urgent complication amid rescue efforts a day after Friday's earthquake and tsunami.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told the Associated Press early Sunday that the cooling system malfunctioned at Unit 3 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.

BBC reported that Tokyo Electric Power said four of its workers had been injured in Saturday's power plant blast, which took place nearly 150 miles north of Tokyo, but that "their injuries were not life-threatening."

The explosion occurred following an earthquake, which the U.S. Geological Survey measured as having a magnitude of 8.9, shook the region.

Japan's nuclear agency told BBC that radioactive caesium and iodine had been detected near the reactor. This could indicate that containers of uranium fuel inside the reactor may have begun melting, according to the agency.

According to the BBC, nearly 200,000 people have been evacuated from the area surrounding the nuclear power plant after a state of emergency was declared.

Local government officials were quoted as saying that tests showed "at least three patients evacuated from a hospital near the plant had been exposed to radiation."