Standing in their uniform miniskirts and stilettos, three young women bend over ironing boards, pressing men's shirts before a live studio audience. They're competing to be schedine, young women who dance a little, wear little and say little on Quelli Che ... Il Calcio , a popular Sunday afternoon show on Italian state TV. "Schedine have to be beautiful, but they've also got to be practical," grins the show's presenter. "Let's see how they do!" An ex-footballer descends to ...

The home of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh, sits down a tree-lined street in an affluent corner of the capital, Dhaka. Tourists and locals file into the compound daily to view its insides and his personal belongings — a dressing gown, old books, his favorite pipe. But they also come to see signs of his death. On Aug. 15, 1975, soldiers rushed into the house at dawn, shooting indiscriminately, killing Mujib — as he is known — and 19 others. Traces of ...

Days after a government advisory panel rolled back its recommendations on mammography screening for breast cancer, another influential group issued revised guidelines on the use of Pap smears to detect cervical cancer, recommending that young women delay getting their first test. In its new guidelines issued Friday, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommended that adolescent girls wait until age 21 to get their first Pap smear. The College also recommended less frequent screening for older ...

Psychology Professor Anita Blanchard has a pretty sweet deal with her employer. Even if the 40-something mother of three leaves her job at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the state of North Carolina guarantees her premium-free health insurance that will cover 80% of her health care costs for life. But's there's a hitch: she can't gain too much weight or start smoking. If she does, she could be on the hook for an additional 10% of her ...

If you want to understand the disconnect between watching cooking shows and wanting to cook, get this: Schwan's Home Service is offering Top Chef--branded frozen meals. The idea that hard-core fans who study contestants' knife skills every week would choose to order from a giant company that's been delivering frozen food to rural America for 57 years doesn't surprise Harry Balzer, who tracks food trends for the market-research firm NPD Group. "You're going to eat four to five times ...

Jesus may have taught his disciples to turn the other cheek, but these days some churches are hiring armed security teams--just in case that whole forgiveness thing doesn't work out. A flurry of violent crimes in churches has shaken the image of houses of worship as safe havens. In October a priest in New Jersey died after being stabbed 32 times in his parish rectory. In May an abortion provider was shot in the head inside a Kansas ...

Brunch has always been something of a social meal, one reserved for lazy weekends — something to do when you have extra time and, more importantly, extra cash. So why at a time when the number of dinners that Americans are eating out is at an all-time low, and the economy has more and more people turning to their kitchens to cook for themselves, is this niche meal on the rise? Brunch traffic was up 8% during the ...

If he holds his handy lead in the polls, Porfirio Lobo will be the next President of Honduras. Problem is, the last man elected to that office, Manuel Zelaya, was ousted last summer in a military coup. That makes it unlikely that any nation — except maybe the U.S. — will recognize Lobo if he wins the Nov. 29 election. But as he relaxes in his opulent house near Honduras' capital Tegucigalpa after a day of campaigning, Lobo ...

Friday night it was Jimmy Kimmel's turn to host the young stars of The Twilight Saga: New Moon: Kristen Stewart , Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson The Kimmel audience must have been among the few Twilight Saga fans who didn't give the shirts off their backs to see the second installment in the planned quartet of movies based on the Stephenie Meyer novels about a teen girl's love with the proper vampire. With its $72.7 million Friday ...

When times are good in financial markets, we're willing to convince ourselves that they're good for a reason. The fundamentals are great, the experts tell us. Innovation is creating new opportunities and new wealth. We've gotten better at managing risk. After a few years of market trouble, though, the tone changes. "When the trend is sideways to down, they think the machine is broken," says Robert Prechter. "Jeez, it can't be us." Wanna bet Prechter does. He has ...