Glow in the dark costumes, check. Glitter and larger-than-life hairdos, double check. “Grannies” from Russia?

The rest is here:
Sweden wins Eurovision Song Contest

“Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion,” forecasters warn has Hurricane Bud nears Mexico's Pacific coast.

Read the rest here:
Bud nears Mexico, now a tropical storm

Thursday night’s Howard Theatre concert — one of only six stops on a mini-tour of the United States — was a rare stateside performance by Babasonicos. The Argentine rock band, which co-headlined Puerto Rico’s Indie Fest with psychedelic rockers MGMT last month, is accustomed to playing huge, sold-out venues in Latin America, and the audience of about 200 was treated to a (relatively) intimate show. Read full article > >

Link:
Argentine rock band Babasonicos plays to small, energized crowd

When Rick Nielsen talks about his home town in northern Illinois, you might expect him to riff on one of his rock band’s hits. Maybe “I want you to want Rockford.” Or “Surrender, surrender . . . to Rockford.” The Cheap Trick guitarist and songwriter could even economize and simply invoke the group’s 2006 album, “ Rockford .” Read full article > >

Read the original:
Their Town: Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen rocks Rockford, Ill.

“ Chernobyl Diaries ” is old wine in a new bottle. Not that you can’t catch a buzz off old wine. Set in an abandoned Ukrainian town next to the infamous Chernobyl nuclear power plant, site of the catastrophic 1986 explosion, the horror film is moderately spooky, visually stylish and tinged with mystery. What — or who — is haunting Pripyat, the former home to thousands of Chernobyl workers who fled after the disaster? Read full article > >

Here is the original post:
‘Chernobyl Diaries’: Spooky, but overly familiar, monster movie

We’ve been hiking a narrow canyon for nearly half an hour, hemmed in by huge sunset-colored cliffs, and the suspense is killing me. Where’s Petra?  “It’s becoming clear why it was lost for so long,” quips one of my fellow travelers to the ancient Middle Eastern city. Read full article > >

Go here to read the rest:
Petra, Jordan’s famous city of stone, faces a preservation struggle

We’ve been hiking a narrow canyon for nearly half an hour, hemmed in by huge sunset-colored cliffs, and the suspense is killing me. Where’s Petra?  “It’s becoming clear why it was lost for so long,” quips one of my fellow travelers to the ancient Middle Eastern city. Read full article > >

See the article here:
Petra, Jordan’s famous city of stone, faces a preservation struggle

It’s tough to play favorites when it comes to the members of One Direction. There’s Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson — also known as the cute one, the cute one, the cute one, the cute one and the cute one. Read full article > >

Read more here:
One Direction whips Patriot Center into a G-rated frenzy

For this small group of fit folks with sunglasses, beach season begins as it always does, a week before Memorial Day in a small bathroom at the 10th Street Medical Center. One by one, a woman in a floral blouse and blue latex gloves calls them in and hands them a sterile cup. Read full article > >

Go here to read the rest:
For Ocean City’s lifeguards, summer starts with beach boot camp

Cannes, France —Whether it’s the weather, the traffic or the movies, perhaps the best word to describe the Cannes Film Festival this year is “stuck.” From the outset, when organizers announced the directors competing for the festival’s top honor, Cannes seemed stalled in a past era: Of the 22 films competing for the Palme d’Or this week, not one is directed by a woman, a nod to the mythical image of the heroic auteur that Cannes is famous for championing in its 66-year history. Read full article > >

See the rest here:
Cannes Film Festival 2012: Stalled in the past, with few surprises

About the daters … Danny  Watch a drama-free guy get dragged into one drama-laden situation after another. Will he play along? Laurie  Quirky brunette goes through a date a week on her quest to settle down. Her misadventures and odd luck don’t get her down. NOTE: There is a strong possibility that this could be turned into a musical. Read full article > >

See the original post here:
Date Lab: Will this methodical man catch her blue-handed?

During the 17th and 18th centuries in England, people’s attitudes toward sexual behavior — and, of course, sexual misbehavior — changed dramatically. To a large degree, this revolution pivoted on the dynamic between private actions and public, civic and religious ideals. How much, or in what way, should society police the erotic life of individuals? Was adultery a crime? Were prostitutes the devil’s snare, or were they the pathetic victims of male callousness and exploitation? Should both sexes be held to the same moral standards? And exactly what standards should those be? Read full article > >

Continued here:
Book World: ‘The Origins of Sex,’ an early awakening

Egyptians began a historic vote for president on Wednesday. “I am here to vote for the first time in my life,” said one 70-year-old. “I want everything to change.”

View post:
‘Finally, Egypt is born’

A serial rapist is given a lifelong restriction order for attacking women across Scotland over a 15-year period.

See the original post:
Lifelong order for serial rapist

A small clue to Bernice Bennett’s past leapt out at her from the computer screen, on a scanned ledger filled with addresses entered with the precision penmanship that is a lost art. It was 72 years ago that census workers fanned out across the country, visiting houses to personally count the 132 million people living in the United States in 1940. And now the National Archives has opened up the once-confidential details of daily life in a nation living in the vise of economic collapse and impending war. Read full article > >

Read more:
1940 census draws historians and genealogists