ALABAMA FIVE-YEAR-OLD RESCUED FROM BUNKER, CAPTOR KILLED: A five-year-old boy was freed on Monday (February 4th) in rural Midland City, Alabama, when law enforcement officers stormed the underground bunker where he'd been held for nearly a week, reportedly shooting and killing his captor. Officials said they moved in after they became convinced the boy was in imminent danger from 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes,
who'd pulled him off a school bus last Tuesday after killing the driver and taken him into the tornado-shelter-style bunker. Dykes had been communicating ever since with authorities through a ventilation pipe into the shelter. The boy was reunited with his mother and appears to be okay. Dykes was a menacing figure in the area, known for his anti-government rants, for once beating a dog to death with a lead pipe, and for patrolling his property with a gun, ready to shoot trespassers.

OBAMA PROMOTES GUN PROPOSAL IN MINNEAPOLIS: President Obama promoted his proposals to reduce gun violence Monday (February 4th) in Minneapolis, his first trip outside Washington to push the gun effort. Speaking from a special police operations center with uniform-clad officers behind him, Obama contended that a national consensus is emerging for having universal background checks for gun purchases, while conceding that getting an assault weapons ban passed through Congress will be a very hard sell. Still, he stood by the full package of measures he's proposed, while saying, "We don't have to agree on everything to agree it's time to do something." The president unveiled his gun-control plans last month after the Newtown school massacre.

SENATOR MENENDEZ CALLS PROSTITUTION ALLEGATIONS 'SMEARS': Senator Robert Menendez said Monday (February 4th) that the allegations that he had sex with prostitutes in the Dominican Republic are false "smears," making his first public remarks since the allegations started spreading last Wednesday after surfacing on a conservative website. His voice rising in anger, the New Jersey Democrat said, "It's amazing to me that anonymous, nameless, faceless individuals on a website can drive that type of story into the mainstream. But that's what they've done successfully. Now nobody can find them, no one ever met them, no one can talk to them, but that's where we're at. The bottom line is all of those smears are absolutely false." The Daily Caller website reported in early November that Menendez had used a business jet owned by ophthalmologist Dr. Salomon Melgen, his biggest political donor last year, to fly to the Dominican Republican to have sex with prostitutes. None of the allegations have been substantiated. The FBI did conduct a search of Melgen's West Palm Beach offices, although it's unclear whether that raid is related to Menendez. The senator acknowledged that he flew on Melgen's private plane and failed, initially, to properly pay for trips. He told reporters he reimbursed some $58,500 from his personal funds after it,
quote, "came to my attention."

VETERAN ACCUSED OF KILLING EX-SEAL SNIPER HAD BEEN IN MENTAL HOSPITAL: Police records show that the 25-year-old Iraq War veteran who's charged with killing former Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle and another man Saturday (February 2nd) at a Texas gun range had been taken to a mental hospital twice in the past five months for threatening to kill his family and himself, and told authorities he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Local TV station WFAA also reported that the arrest warrant affidavit for Marine veteran Eddie Ray Routh said that he told his sister and brother-in-law after the shootings that he, quote, "traded his soul for a new truck." Police said Routh was driving the 38-year-old Kyle's truck at the time of his arrest. Routh is facing murder charges for the deaths of Kyle, author of the best-selling book American Sniper and the deadliest sniper in U.S. military history, and his friend 35-year-old Chad Littlefield. He is being held on suicide watch.

FIDEL CASTRO VOTES IN RARE PUBLIC APPEARANCE: Retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro made a rare public appearance on Sunday (February 3rd) in Havana, where he voted in Cuba's general election. The 86-year-old Castro, who was stooped with a white beard, spoke with Cuban reporters and well-wishers for more than an hour in his first extended public appearance since 2010. On state television, he could be heard in a weak voice praising popular participation in Sunday's election, in which Cubans had just a Communist Party-selected state of candidates to vote for, saying, "The people are truly revolutionary, they have really sacrificed. We don't have to prove it, history will. Fifty years of the blockade and they haven't given in." Castro turned over power to his brother, Raul Castro, in 2008, two years
after becoming ill. Raul is decentralizing the state-dominated economy, allowing more private initiative in agriculture and retail services and has lifted many restrictions on personal freedoms, such as travel and buying and selling homes and cars.

CHECK IT OUT:

BILL CLINTON TALKS VIAGRA IN EX-NYC MAYOR KOCH'S EULOGY: Former President Bill Clinton was among those offering a eulogy on Monday (February 4th) at the funeral of iconic former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, who died Friday at age 88. Clinton's words were both moving and funny, as he praised Koch as someone who, quote, "had a big brain but an even bigger heart," and spoke about how he and the ex-mayor had exchanged many letters
over the years. In one slightly surreal moment, considering that it was Clinton speaking, he humorously recalled one letter Koch sent him when he was president that urged him to link impotence to smoking in an effort to prevent kids from picking up and keeping the cigarette
habit. Clinton said Koch told him, "This Viagra's a big deal. Now, politicians don't like to talk about this, especially among young people, but young people are way more sophisticated than older people and they get this, and it doesn't work to tell people that they get cancer or
respiratory diseases. Go after the virility argument."

WATCHING TOO MUCH TV LINKED TO LOWER SPERM COUNT: Guys, here's a real good reason to stop being a couch potato and get up and get moving -- a new study has linked
logging too much time watching TV to lower sperm counts. The study found that among a group of nearly 200 healthy, 18- to 22-year-old men, those who watched the most TV, 20 or more hours a week, had sperm counts that were 44 percent lower than those who didn't watch television. The researchers said that men who watch a lot of TV may have a more sedentary lifestyle, which in turn may affect sperm count. Backing up that speculation, the men in the study who exercised the most, 15 hours a week or more, had sperm counts that were higher than those of guys who exercised less than five hours a week.

LATE SENATOR STROM THURMOND'S BI-RACIAL DAUGHTER DEAD AT 87: Essie Mae Washington-Williams, who revealed nearly 10 years ago that she was the biracial daughter of former segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, died Monday (February 4th) of natural causes. She was 87. Washington-Williams was born in 1925 to a black teenage
girl who worked as a maid in Thurmond's parents' home when the future senator was 22. She became a teacher, working in Los Angeles for three decades, married, and raised four children, all the while maintaining a low-key relationship with her father, who paid for her college and gave her other financial support. After Thurmond's death in 2003 at age 100, Washington-Williams announced that she was his daughter, and the late senator's family confirmed her claim. She wrote a 2006 memoir in which she detailed their relationship, including the letters they wrote each other and the kindness he showed her, which she said she struggled to reconcile with his opposition to civil rights and his defense of racial
segregation.

SUPERDOME OFFICIALS HAD WORRIED ABOUT POWER OUTAGE; CAUSE STILL UNCLEAR: The cause of the 34-minute Super Bowl power outage is still being investigated, but AP reports that public records released Monday (February 4th) show that Superdome officials were worried about a possible power outage several months ago. An October 15th memo from the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District, which oversees the Superdome, said tests on the electrical feeders showed they had, quote, "some decay and a chance of failure." Additionally, power company Entergy New Orleans and the Superdome's engineering staff had concerns about the reliability of the service from Entergy's connection point to the stadium. Upgrades were done in December to the equipment connecting the stadium to Entergy, but an attorney for the board that oversees the Superdome said the outage didn't seem to be related to that.

Some things have been ruled out as the cause of the power outage, one of them Beyonce's
half-time performance, since she had her own generator, and the other too high
of a demand for power, since meters showed the stadium was drawing no more electricity than it does during a typical New Orleans Saints game. What is known is that the problem is believed to have happened around the spot where a line that feeds power from Entergy connects with the Superdome's electrical system, however it will likely take days to figure out exactly what happened.

HUNDREDS OF SOCCER MATCHES FIXED IN GLOBAL BETTING SCAM: Police said Monday (February 4th) that hundreds of soccer matches have been fixed in a global betting scam run from Singapore, including qualifying games for the World Cup and European Championships, and the Champions League for top European club sides. The investigators from European police forces, the European anti-crime agency Europol, and national prosecutors say the matches were played between 2008 and 2011, about 380 of them in Europe, and another 300 in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Corruption linked to Asian betting
syndicates and organized crime has long been seen as a threat to the game, which is the most popular sport in the world.

NEWS ATTACK! _ The NFL hasn't decided whether or not there will be a Super Bowl Halftime Show next year because for the first time the game will be played in a cold climate -- New Jersey. [You mean people would be sitting in the cold, AND in the dark with no power, AND no entertainment, AND in New Jersey?

$30 MILLION FUN PARK PLANNED FOR BIN LADEN'S OLD TOWN _ Pakistan has announced a $30 million amusement park in Abbottabad, best known as the site of Osama bin Laden's assassination.  Officials say, "This project has nothing to do with Osama bin Laden. We are working to promote tourism and amusement facilities in the whole province and this project is one of those facilities."

VOLBEAT UNVEILS ALBUM RELEASE DATE, NEW GUITARIST: Denmark's Volbeat has revealed that its new album, Outlaw Gentlemen And Shady Ladies, will be released on April 9th. The band has also announced that its new guitarist is former Anthrax
member Rob Caggiano, who has also acted as a producer on the new disc. Caggiano, who played with Anthrax from 2001 to 2005 and again from 2007 until last month, replaces guitarist Thomas Bredahl, who was given his walking papers in November 2011.

Frontman Michael Poulsen said, "The band is very proud and happy to announce that (Caggiano) will also be the new guitar player in Volbeat. The collaboration with Rob in the studio was so inspiring and in good spirit that we the decided to keep him. Basically we went
into the studio as a three piece and came out as a whole band!"

  • Caggiano added, "After weeks of collaboration between Michael and I it became quite clear that we had an amazing creative chemistry together and a huge mutual respect for one another . . . When the guys asked me if I was interested in joining Volbeat the other day, my jaw just about hit the floor!"
  • Poulsen said that half the new album will take listeners "into the world of outlaw gunslinger stories sometime in the 1800s . . . The listener will hear inspiration from old classic spaghetti western movies which gives you a clue to the album title and
         cover artwork."

DAVE GROHL FILLING IN AS GUEST HOST THIE WEEK FOR CHELSEA HANDLER: Foo Fighters frontman and documentary filmmaker Dave Grohl is taking a week out of his busy schedule to be the guest host on Chelsea Handler's E! talk show Chelsea Lately. According to Loudwire, Grohl was set to begin his run on Monday night (February 4th) and fill Handler's shoes for the rest of this week, ending his stint on Friday (February 8th). Grohl's guest list for the week was scheduled to include Rick Springfield, Elton John and Tenacious D.

  • This isn't Grohl's first time sitting in for Handler. He was the guest host last December 6th and proved himself a natural in front of the camera, at ease with the audience, the guest panel and interview subject Ray Romano.  He has also been a guest on the show himself in the past.
  • Last week Grohl announced the "first and only ever" New York City show by his Sound City Players, set for February 13th at Manhattan's Hammerstein Ballroom.
  • Tickets go on sale Tuesday (February 5th) at 4:00 p.m. ET for the concert, which will feature appearances from Sound City Players regulars Stevie Nicks,
         John Fogerty, Rick Springfield, Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen, Rage Against The Machine's Brad Wilk, Queens Of The Stone Age's Alain Johannes plus members of Nirvana and Foo Fighters.
  • Grohl's documentary, Sound City, is now showing in limited theaters and on VOD and is available to order on DVD.

MAYNARD JAMES KEENAN: NO TOOL ALBUM THIS YEAR.  You can stop holding your breath now: singer Maynard James Keenan has said that Tool will not be releasing a new album in 2013. According to Loudwire, Keenan told Chile's Radio Futuro when asked about the
prospects for the band's first new CD in seven years, "No new disc. Not this year . . . I have not written any songs. So no, there is nothing."

Keenan told us a while back that he's always hesitant to talk about a new album until
it's actually going forward: "We normally don't say anything about anything until it's actually happening, because there's a lot of people online that apparently can't read very well. I
put an April Fool's notice up there for the album release, and it was 2011, I said, 'New Tool album, such-and-such a date, 2009, and everybody ran around like, 'Oh, really, the new Tool --?' God, you guys are dumb. I swear to God. You've got to read."

  • Keenan's comments will probably disappoint fans after a recent update by Tool's webmaster stated that the other members of the band were "halfway" done with writing new music for the album.
  • However, an unidentified member of the band recently was injured in a scooter crash, pushing back the writing and rehearsal sessions.
  • Tool hasn't released a new album since 2006's 10,000 Days, although the group has toured intermittently since then.
  • Keenan and his side act Puscifer will release their new EP, Donkey Punch The Night,
         on February 19th, with some touring to follow.

Lamb Of God frontman Randy Blythe was in a Prague courtroom in the Czech Republic on Monday (February 4th) for the start of his trial on manslaughter charges stemming from a 2010 incident in which a fan named Daniel Nosek died weeks after attending the band's concert in Prague and allegedly being thrown off the stage by the singer. According to a local TV news report, Blythe read a statement to the three presiding judges, telling them he had returned to face the charges like he promised, adding, "But I do not wish to be punished and suffer the consequences of an act I did not commit . . . I never saw Daniel and I never
came in contact with him." The trial is expected to last until the end of the week. If convicted, Blythe could face a long-term jail sentence. (Blabbermouth)

A new trailer has surfaced for The Lords Of Salem, the fifth live-action feature film
written and directed by Rob Zombie. The movie follows a radio station DJ in Salem, Massachusetts -- played by Sheri Moon Zombie, Rob's wife -- who accidentally awakens a 300-year-old coven of witches who seek revenge on the town. The movie's release date has been moved forward one week from April 26th to April 19th. (Slashfilm)

CHECK IT OUT: Watch the new trailer for The Lords Of Salem:





 

BEER TO HELP POWER BREWERY: The Alaskan Brewing Company has installed a system that will allow them to turn waste from the brewing process into energy to power the
majority of their operation. The $1.8 million furnace concerts the company's spent grain into steam. The company is expecting to offset the brewery's annual energy costs by 70 percent when the furnace is fully operational -- sometime in the next month. Company officials joke that they are making "beer-powered beer." (FOX News)

YOUR SICK COWORKERS' GERMS ARE EVERYWHERE:
According to scientists at the University of Arizona, your sick co-workers' germs may be
unavoidable. Their research shows that half of the most commonly touched surfaces in the office - like the coffee pot handle, tabletops, doorknobs and phones - can become infected with a sick person's germs before lunchtime. The study was conducted by placing a droplet of water laced with fake cold, flu and stomach flu viruses on one of the 80 office workers involved with the test.  Four hours later, more than half of the office surfaces had traces of the fake viruses and by the end of the day 70% of the tested surfaces had traces of the
fake stomach flu viruses. Researchers said that the risk of getting sick from one of these fake viruses was between 40 and 90 percent. A second study showed that in an environment where free tissues, hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes were offered to employees ,the risk of becoming infected with one of the fake viruses went down to 10 perfect. (Huffington Post)

VEGETARIANS ARE LESS LIKELY TO DEVELOP HEART DISEASE: A British study has found that vegetarians are 32% less likely than meat-eaters to develop heart disease.  Researchers at the University of Oxford studied nearly 45,000 people over the last 20-years and 34% of them were identified as vegetarians. On average, they consumed more cheese,
fruits, vegetables and whole grains but less milk than the non-vegetarians. In addition to a lower risk of both fatal and non-fatal heart disease, they also had lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, lower BMIs and fewer cases of diabetes. (The Atlantic)

WATCHING PORN BOOSTS SUPPORT FOR SAME-SEX MARRIAGE: Exposure to
pornography can make heterosexual men more accepting of same-sex marriage. A study co-authored by researchers at Indiana University and The University of Arizona and found
that pornography caused straight men to become more open-minded to non-traditional sexual situations like gay sex. This resulted in heterosexual men - particularly less educated ones - to become more supportive of same-sex marriage. (Washington Examiner)

CHILDHOOD TANTRUMS CAN INDICATE FUTURE HEART PROBLEMS: Adults,
particularly women, are more likely to have heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular disease if they were prone to emotional distress as children. A study conducted at Dartmouth showed that 7-year-old girls who become easily angered or frustrated are 31% more likely to develop cardiovascular disease as middle-aged women. Boys who demonstrated the same behavior were 17% more likely to develop cardiovascular disease as adults. (BBC)

TODAY IS NATIONAL PANCAKE DAY: IHOP will be giving away free pancakes in
Honor of National Pancake Day today. IHOP began celebrating National Pancake Day in 2006 in order to raise money for charity. This year, IHOP hopes to raise $3 million for the Children's Miracle Network by offering free short stacks to customers. (USA Today)

NOISY COUPLES HAVE MORE FUN IN THE BEDROOM: Researchers at the University of Leeds have found that couples who audibly express themselves during sex tend to have more fun. Both men and women found that having a vocal partner boosted their confidence by making them feel like their efforts were appreciated and resulted in a better encounter overall.
(Daily Mail)McDONALDS HAS A NEW HAPPY MEAL ENTRÉE: McDonald's says it is offering its first new Happy Meal entree in a decade: Fish McBites. The new Happy Meal will be available at U.S. restaurants starting this week through March, to coincide with Lent. The 7-piece Fish McBites will come with frengh fries, apple slices and a drink. The company had announced last month that the Fish McBites would be sold on the standard menu. Fish McBites, which are fried
pieces of fish, will use the same Alaska Pollock used in the fast-food chain's
Filet-O-Fish. (Fox News)

 

7 UNEXPECTED HEALTH BENEFITS YOU GET FROM SEX (Readers Digest)

1. It helps you breathe easier. Sex is reputedly a natural
antihistamine, helping to combat hay fever and asthma symptoms.

2. You'll look younger. A good sex life is a key to youthful looks,
according to a study of 3,500 people age 18 to 102 conducted by the Royal
Edinburgh Hospital in Scotland. Researchers attributed this to reductions in
stress, greater contentment and better sleep, all of which are also associated
with sexual activity.

3. It can help your body fight disease. Engaging in sex once or twice a
week produces 30 percent higher levels of immunoglobulin A, which boosts your
body's immune system. Scientists have also found that having an active sex life
may even lower your risk of developing cancer, heart disease and stroke. On top
of all that, it's a remedy for colds and flu.

4. It burns calories. Like any exercise, sexual intercourse burns fat
and calories - about 96 calories in 20 minutes for a 150-lb. person. That means
it'll burn off the calories from that extra glass of wine at dinner (which may
have been what put you in the mood in the first place!).

5. It reduces pain. Studies show that vaginal stimulation results in
increased pain tolerance, and pleasurable self-stimulation of the clitoris also
has an analgesic effect. Researchers report that this type of stimulation can
ease the pain of menstrual cramps, arthritis, migraine and other conditions.

6. It helps you live longer - if you do it often enough.

A Welsh longitudinal study examined the relationship between mortality and
frequency of sexual activity. Researchers found that the risk of dying in any
one year was 50 percent lower among men who had sex twice or more a week than
among men who had sex less than once a month. Even when controlling for such
factors as age, social class and smoking status, the study concluded that the
more sex, the better.

7. It promotes a feeling of well-bein of well-being. Sexual activity
fosters everything from sexual and reproductive health to happiness. And one U.S. study of more than 1,800 people found
that surges in oxytocin and endorphins (which have an apparent sedative effect)
occurred as a result of orgasm, explaining why sex often leads to falling
asleep.

WHY CAN'T WE SHAKE MEMORIES FROM HIGH SCHOOL?: New research by developmental psychologists shows that the reason memories of school stay disproportionately strong is all down to chemical changes in the brain during adolescence. This phenomenon, called "the reminiscence bump" may be caused by the rapid changes in the
prefrontal cortex during the teen years. This part of the brain is what allows
us to reason and control impulses and as it develops, so does a person's sense
of self. Laurence Steinberg, a leading researcher on adolescence explains,
"When your identity is in transition, you store memories more vividly than
you do in times of stability." (Daily Mail)