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 leaders of the Roman Catholic Church traditionally couch even the harshest disagreements in decorous, ecclesiastical language. But it didn't take a decoder ring to figure out what Rome-based Archbishop Raymond Burke meant in a late-September address when he charged Boston Cardinal Sen O'Malley with being under the influence of Satan, "the father of lies." Burke's broadside at O'Malley was inspired by the Cardinal's decision to permit and preside over a funeral Mass for the late Senator Ted ...

Were nine attractive young Turkish women duped and imprisoned in a villa by Internet soft-core porn peddlers? Or did they simply call in the police to help them break their contract with an Internet contest similar to the reality TV show "Big Brother"?

Setting a world record, Joey Chestnut won Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest on Saturday, solidifying himself to many as the greatest gustatory athlete of all time. For the third straight year, Chestnut beat out his main rival, Takeru Kobayashi. The two lived up to their ravenous reputations. They made quick work of the 17 other eaters, and set personal best scores: Chestnut ate 68 dogs to Kobayashi's 64.5. The event lasts 10 minutes and the ...

Thirteen-year-old Kavya Shivashankar of Olathe, Kansas, spelled "laodicean," Thursday night to take top honors in the 82nd annual Scripps National Spelling Bee. The eighth-grader won $40,000 in cash and prizes for nailing the final word. Pronounced lay-odd-uh-see-an, the word means lukewarm or indifferent, particularly in matters of politics or religion. This year's bee -- an event that has skyrocketed in popularity, thanks to exposure on television and in movies -- started on Tuesday in Washington with a record 293 spellers. ...

A 23-year-old Norwegian violinist, Alexander Rybak, won the Eurovision song contest with an upbeat ballad that got the most votes in the history of one of the world's most watched television shows. On Saturday night Rybak beat out contestants from 42 countries, with singers from Iceland and Azerbaijan taking distant second and third places. The boyish Rybak -- who performed a self-composed tune, "Fairytale," with some deft dance steps and a smile plastered on his face -- won with 387 ...