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Cancer Scamster Stilley
MOUNT HOLLY, N.J. (AP) — Authorities say a New Jersey woman scammed relatives and others out of cash, meals and even a wedding by falsely claiming she had bladder cancer.
Officials say in February 2011, Stilley told those close to her and posted on Facebook that she had been diagnosed with cancer. In April, she said her condition had worsened.
Authorities say supporters raised more than $10,000.
Supporters became suspicious in November 2011 when she posted that she was feeling better and believed a miracle was coming.
Her lawyer, Adam Malamut, tells the Burlington County Times that authorities have not presented him with any evidence that Stilley did anything wrong.
The Taliban published a video which purportedly shows insurgents preparing for the brazen attack on Camp Bastion, a major NATO base, on September 14th. The AP can not independently verify the content. (Sept. 24)
More than 33,000 people are fleeing a sudden volcano eruption in Guatemala City.
Guatemalan emergency officials say the evacuees are leaving 17 villages around the Volcano of Fire, which sits 10 miles (16 km) from the city of Antigua.
The volcano is almost always active at a low level and smoke can often be seen billowing from its crater. But larger eruptions are generally rare.
Seismologists say a series of explosions have also been seen coming from the 12,346-ft-high (3,763-metre-high) volcano and lava has spewed 2,000ft (600 metres) down its slopes.
Thick clouds of ash can be seen billowing nearly 2 miles (3km) into the sky and rumblings were heard for several miles around.
The Associated Press reported over the weekend that the “breastaurant” segment of the food service industry is booming. What’s a “breastaurant”? Well, loosely speaking, it’s like Hooters. Except the news AP reported was actually that Hooters is losing ground to competitors: “The nation’s top three ‘breastaurant’ chains behind Hooters each had sales growth of 30 percent or more last year, according to Technomic, a food industry research firm.”
Hooters itself seems to be struggling, so we don’t really know how the segment as a whole is doing.
What we do know is that the industry structure is shifting to one less dominated by a single firm. And, as ever, that kind of shift has implications for vendors and other complementary firms. For example, there turns out to be such a thing as BreastaurantUniforms.com, which wants to supply your restaurant’s staff with attire. In a marketplace monopolized by Hooters, there obviously isn’t much of a market for this sort of service. You’re basically just talking about commodity apparel makers negotiating with a centralized purchasing office. But smaller firms are much more likely to be willing to pay a modest premium to a firm that specializes in providing services to the niche.
UPDATE: Frustratingly, the AP didn’t say what the three chains were, and the Technomic report is proprietary. As best I can tell, Twin Peaks and Tilted Kilt are the other market leaders in this category, but I don’t know what the third is or exactly how Technomic defines the segment.
The Pope’s right hand man has blamed the ‘devil and the media’ for the latest Vatican documents scandal.
Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone has made the accusations in response to a scandal over leaked Vatican documents in the Italian media.
Cardinal Bertone told an Italian Catholic weekly that journalists reporting on the leaks scandal are ‘pretending to be Dan Brown, inventing stories and replaying legends’.
Brown is the best selling author of ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and ‘Angels and Demons’.
The Associated Press reports that Vatican has been on the defensive ever since sensitive documents alleging corruption and exposing power struggles began appearing in the Italian media in January.
A recently published book contained dozens of documents from Pope Benedict XVI’s own desk and is seen as part of a plot to undermine Bertone’s authority.
Pope Benedict XVI has also complained about media reports that: “Went well beyond the facts, offering an image of the Holy See that doesn’t correspond to reality.”
Now Cardinal Bertone’s interview with Famiglia Cristiana has taken the complaints to a new level.
He blasted the ‘vehemence’ of some Italian newspapers in seeking to create divisions between the pope and his collaborators where there weren’t any.
“The truth is that there’s a will to create division that comes from the devil,” said Cardinal Bertone.
“The Holy See isn’t perfect and none of us wants to hide the church’s shadows and defects.
“But the Italian media in particular has gone too far, violating the privacy rights of both the pope and the people who correspond with him by publishing leaked documents.”
He also said that, contrary to media reports depicting factions opposed to him within the Vatican bureaucracy, he enjoys ‘an extraordinary climate of communion’ with his colleagues. Bertone added: “Personally, I don’t sense any sign of cardinals or church personalities being involved in any conquest of some phantom power.”
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