Free Republic

A Muslim part-time model will become the first woman to be caned in Malaysia after pleading guilty to drinking beer, a prosecutor said today. An Islamic court ordered that Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, 32, be lashed six times with a rattan cane after she was caught drinking alcohol in a raid on a hotel night club in eastern Pahang state last year. Prosecutor Saiful Idham Sahimi said Kartika will be the first woman to be caned under Islamic law after she chose not to appeal the sentence. He said: 'This is the first case in Malaysia. ... It is a...

A new mathematical model reveals the tactics that a small number of interlopers can use to seize power. How is it possible for a small number of newcomers to displace a well-established group of leaders? That's not just a question for military organizations wanting to overthrow governments; it's a question for political parties controlling national debates, new products displacing well-established market leaders, and flocking birds following leaders to new food sources. Social scientists have studied the nature of effective leadership for centuries with limited success. Physicists, on the other hand, are new to the party, which gives them a chance...

Miami plastic surgeon has bragging rights to remaking a Maxim beauty's breasts, but it could cost him more than a half-million dollars. Former Miss Norway and Maxim, Esquire and Stuff magazines topless model Monica Hansen has won a default judgment for $564,555 in her lawsuit against Dr. Leonard Hochstein for using pictures of her on his Web site, allegedly without her permission. He flatly denied the charge.

Shaykh Ali mejbel Al-ghreer (left), the Rabee packing shed owner, Tracy Atwood (center), Inma Chief of Party, and Glen Keiser (right), the embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team III leader, participate in the cutting of the ribbon at the grand opening ceremony of the Rabee packing shed in Adhamiyah, June 14. Photo by Pfc. Bailey A. Jester, 1st Cavalry Division. BAGHDAD — Members of embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team III (ePRT) attended the grand opening of the Rabee fruit and vegetable packing facility in Adhamiyah, June 14, the first modern fruit and vegetable packing facility in Iraq. "It [the packing facility] will allow...

With a naked photoshoot coming up Indian model Padma Lakshmi could have been forgiven for putting herself on a strict diet. But the 38-year-old, who is author Salman Rushdie's ex, had no such concerns. 'I think I look better when I have a little bit of weight on - my breasts are fuller, and I’m curvier than when I’m at my thinnest,' she tells this month's edition of U.S. magazine Allure.

The cause of death of a murdered ex-model from Tennessee was ruled to be a bullet wound to her head, according to the medical examiner. Lisa Renee Davis, 29, died from a single shot from a .22 caliber gun belonging to her killer — an acquaintance named Austin Agee who committed suicide and confessed to the crime in a note that told police where to find the woman's body. -snip-

And you thought the onscreen catfights on America's Next Top Model were good... New York police arrested three people following a massive stampede that erupted during a casting call for the new season of the Tyra Banks-powered reality contest—a melee that involved hundreds of people outside a Central Park hotel. At least six people were injured, two of whom were hospitalized, in a scene that left the surrounding vicinity looking like Fashion Week meets Thunderdome and shut down the auditions. Police said they did not immediately know what triggered the crush of bodies, but according to the New York Daily...

Now, here's a model of biblical proportions. A retired farmer has spent more than 30 years building an enormous scale model of Herod's temple - and it is still not finished [Photos at link]

It might be easier to work up a proper sense of dread at a scary new “climate change model” if the group doing the scaring didn’t use a roulette wheel for illustration. And “The Greenhouse Gamble” graphics only make the Washington Post’s one-sided report on the model more laughable. On the Feb. 23 “Capital Weather Gang” Web site, the Post’s Andrew Freedman reported that MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change revised its predictions about just how hot the Earth will become in this century. Not surprisingly, the MIT group said that if governments don’t institute...

(photo) The 23-year-old Israeli-born model Bar Refaeli was allegedly slated for last year’s cover, but was dropped and replaced by Marisa Miller when Bar couldn’t keep the good news to herself. As Page Six reports: “It’s very secretive, and the magazine likes to keep people guessing.” Boyfriend and overpaid actor Leonardo DiCaprio has been pushing hard to get his squeeze on the cover. But judging from the photos and video, his effort was unnecessary. Obama’s stimulus plan has been criticized for not taking effect fast enough. After the obligatory research the IHTM staff must rigorously and dutifully perform, we can...

A model displays a creation, bearing the image of U.S. President Barack Obama, during Italian fashion house Gattinoni's Rome Fashion Week Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2009 show February 1, 2009.

Bash Compactor: Getting Laid Off Is Still Getting Laid The Fashion Meets Finance Party By Matt Harvey Broke bankers and struggling models mobbed the rooftop of the Empire Hotel last night for the latest installment of Fashion Meets Finance. A tipsy brunette on crutches was trying to put her Burberry coat on so she could leave, but guys wearing suits sans ties kept jostling her as they moved past. Struggling to anchor herself with the crutches she told me her deal. “I was running to work to get there on time when I fell. It’s not funny!” As the tiny...

We may consider her very pretty, but the British hold her in much less regard. Model Agyness Deyn has been voted as the most annoying person of 2008, according to BBC Three’s Most Annoying People of 2008 list. Deyn heads the top of the list and towers over other contenders Peaches Geldof, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and former pop singer Kerry Katona.

One of the shabbiest, least satisfying public policy debates in modern California political history is expected to wrap up today in Sacramento with the California Air Resources Board adopting its “Scoping Plan” for the implementation of AB 32. That's the landmark 2006 state law requiring a sharp increase in the use of cleaner but more costly sources of energy to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions contributing to global warming. It is inevitable that the law will have negative economic consequences, given that California businesses will have higher costs than rival firms in other states and nations without such an edict,...

The earth will warm about 2.4 degrees C (4.3 degrees F) above pre-industrial levels even under extremely conservative greenhouse-gas emission scenarios and under the assumption that efforts to clean up particulate pollution continue to be successful, according to a new analysis by a pair of researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. That amount of warming falls within what the world's leading climate change authority recently set as the threshold range of temperature increase that would lead to widespread loss of biodiversity, deglaciation and other adverse consequences in nature. The researchers, writing in the online edition of...

Naomi Campbell last night blamed racism for her outburst on a British Airways jet, claiming she had been called 'a golliwog supermodel'. In an interview with Sky News, Miss Campbell said she was not going to apologise to BA as they were "disgusting." 'I was called a golliwog supermodel, I don’t think that’s really fair do you?' The supermodel did not say exactly who had called her the name only that it was not one of the passengers. When asked who called her the name, she replied: 'Someone on the flight, not the passenger.' She added:'Would you like it if...

Gay people in Holland have been shocked by a public attack on a gay man in Amsterdam. Model Mike Du Pree was taking part in a fashion show to promote tolerance towards gay people when a gang of ten Muslim youths dragged him from the catwalk and beat him. A right wing Dutch MP has called for the youths to be deported. Mr Du Pree's nose was broken in the attack, which was motivated by homophobia. The fashion event was held on a public holiday marking the birth of Holland's late Queen Julianna. Newspaper Gay Krant reports that a bystander...

A model of 14 was banned from the catwalk in Australia yesterday amid continuing controversy over the sexualisation of young girls in the fashion industry. A photo-shoot of Monika Jagaciak by Australian Vogue was also called off after the editor said she had not realised the Polish teenager's age. Organisers of Australian Fashion week in Sydney banned all under-16s from the catwalk after furious public debate over the use of youngsters in an industry already under fire over anorexia and drug use. It follows a similar decision ahead of London Fashion Week last September and brings the Australian event into...

TAMPA — It was Dec. 23, and a Temple Terrace police officer had just pulled Rebecca Reyes over for broken taillights, and all the Playboy model wanted to do was hide her boyfriend's Christmas present before he spotted it. One problem: She got out of her truck and ignored officers' orders to get back in. Then she mouthed off when one of them took hold of her arm. She ended up bruised and facing a misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest without violence.

A teenager today admitted beating and stabbing a 17-year-old model to death in broad daylight. Marc King-Bromley attacked Danielle Johnson behind garages in Bounds Green, north London, on May 28 last year. The hair and beauty student, who studied at Waltham Forest College, died on June 8 in the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. The youngster had been mugged on numerous occasions before her death and had a BB gun held to her head by a fellow student. Her mother, Jan Johnson, claims she went to see police 20 times but was told there was no point in prosecuting the...