Free Republic

BEIJING (Reuters) - Mars Wrigley, maker of the Snickers candy bar, apologised on Friday for a Snickers product launch which Chinese social media users said suggested that Taiwan was a country. Videos and pictures showing a Snickers website promoting a limited edition Snickers bar and saying the product was only available in the "countries" of South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan triggered an outpour of anger on Chinese microblogging platform Weibo on Friday. Mars Wrigley later published an apology on its Snickers China Weibo account and said the relevant content had been amended. "Mars Wrigley respects China's national sovereignty and territorial...

Snickers bigwigs just went nuts. On Thursday in Waco, Texas, confectioner Mars, Inc. unveiled the largest Snickers bar ever created. Tipping the scales at a gargantuan 4,700 pounds and measuring two feet high and 26 inches wide, the Guinness Book of World Records declared it a world champ. “This is incredibly impressive,” Guinesses judge Michael Empiric told Waco TV station KWKT. “Some of my favorite record categories are big food because it has to be edible and it is also an engineering feat, so to get a 5,000-pound bar of chocolate to stay together is really challenging.”

Broderick's work builds on earlier research by two teams that studied the galactic center of the Milky Way in near-infrared. This included the work of Reinhard Genzel, an astronomer from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, as well as researchers Andrea Ghez and Mark Morris of University of California, Los Angeles. At the time, their work revealed that the center of the Milky Way wasn't steady, but instead would drastically brighten about once a day for about 30 or 40 minutes, Broderick said. Researchers think supermassive black holes exist at the center of most, if not...

They came for your laptops. And for your liquids, and your shoes. Now, the Transportation Security Administration is coming for your snacks. Passengers at airports around the country — including all three of the Washington region’s major airports — are reporting that, increasingly, TSA agents are instructing them to remove their snacks and other food items from their carry-ons and place them in those ubiquitous plastic bins for separate screening. It’s not part of agency’s standard policy, according to TSA spokesman Mike England. It’s simply a recommendation issued by the agency last year to help speed the bag-check process. Screening...

The price of candy has shot way up for Jacobia Grimes. A career shoplifter, Grimes faces a possible 20 years to life in prison after he allegedly stuffed $31 worth of candy bars into his pockets [...] on a December afternoon. Grimes has five prior theft convictions, making him a “quad” offender under the state’s habitual-offender law, and facing 20 years to life behind bars. In 2010, [Orleans Parish District Attorney] Cannizzaro’s office secured a conviction against Grimes as a double offender, sending him away on a four-year prison stint. The latest charge upped the stakes further. Grimes appeared Thursday...

Fifteen tons of Snickers chocolate bars have met a sticky end in Gaza. Islamic Hamas authorities hurled boxes of the peanut chocolate candy bar into a bomb crater Thursday, dousing them with diesel and lighting them in a crackling bonfire following a company recall.

GLEN ROSE, TX (WCMH)- Last August, Snickers the dog saved her family by waking them up when the RV they were sleeping in caught fire. Now she needs someone to save her. According to CBS DFW, Snickers, a 1-year-old shar pei mix was credited with saving her family that night, but that same family recently moved and couldn’t take her with them. She was placed in the Glen Rose Animal Shelter in Texas.

Viral videos ruin lives. That’s the claim being made by David Golson, a 30-year-old Bronx man seen by more than a million people across the Internet getting violently restrained and having his clothes torn off in a convenience store. The clip, taken in a Brooklyn 7-Eleven near Barclays Center last year — and subsequently posted to WorldStarHipHop, YouTube, and countless blogs — shows the store’s clerks manhandling Golson, who resists, for allegedly shoplifting. "This is ridiculous! For some damn Snickers?" says the man behind the camera. And now Golson is suing. “The employees intentionally, brutally and violently assaulted [Golson] in...

Will drop any portion exceeding 250 calories Updated: Friday, 17 Feb 2012, 6:41 AM EST Published : Thursday, 16 Feb 2012, 7:29 PM EST Jacque Wilson (CNN) - Have you ever stood near the checkout of a grocery store and stared at the rack of chocolate bars, debating whether anyone would judge you for buying the king-size? You know the regular size is enough to satisfy your craving, but the bigger candy bar is only 40 cents more and it just... Looks. So. Good. Worry no more - Mars, Inc. is going taking that decision out of your hands. The...

A REVELLER at a fancy dress party in one of Dublin's best known gay bars attacked her ex-girlfriend in a row over a novelty wrestler's suit. Sandra Talbot (32) assaulted her ex-partner with a bottle she had hidden under her costume in a fit of rage at the George pub, after more than a year of acrimony following their break-up. A court heard she lashed out at victim Adrienne Martin in a row that started over a novelty sumo wrestler's suit that Talbot was wearing. The row developed as the victim tried to wave at a man dressed as a...

Snickers candy bars are awesome, but I wanted to try making them at home without all the stabilizers and additives necessary for a mass-market, shelf-stable candy bar*. This recipe is super-easy, and makes a full pan of delicious homemade Snickers candy bars! Beware, they're extremely good, and as I said, the recipe makes LOTS. Be sure to have a crowd to eat these treats, or the self-control to put them in the freezer for longer-term storage! My testers report that these candy bars taste even better frozen. *Yes, I know this version still uses ingredients that contain some stabilizers and...

Cobbling together 3000 individual photographs, a physicist has made a new high-resolution panoramic image of the full night sky, with the Milky Way galaxy as its centerpiece. Axel Mellinger, a professor at Central Michigan University, describes the process of making the panorama in the November issue of Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - Candy giant Mars pulled a U.K. Snickers advertisement after it was criticized for being homophobic, according to a gay-rights group. The ad features LDS actor Kirby Heyborne, who has appeared in several LDS-themed movies, including Singles Ward, The RM, The Best Two Years, and others. In the commercial, Heyborne is seen as effeminate man who is speed walking as Mr. T approaches him in a truck while firing Snickers candy bars at him from a gun. Mr. T then berates the speed walker, calling him "a disgrace to the man race." The commercial...

(CNN) — Longtime Washington talk-show host John McLaughlin is facing fire Monday for referring to Barack Obama as an "Oreo" during a segment on his Sunday political program, "The McLaughlin Group. The veteran Washington journalist was discussing the recent comments from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was caught last week by an open microphone on Fox News saying the Illinois senator is "talking down to black people" as he campaigns for the White House. Those remarks were largely seen in reference to Obama's recent admonishment at a Chicago church of some black men who he said were not living up...

Cure for killer bug - but there's a catch KATE FOSTER IN THE annals of medical history, this could go down as one of the most effective but stomach-churning treatments ever devised. Scientists seeking a cure for a deadly superbug have successfully treated patients using human faeces. Trials in a Scottish hospital have shown patients suffering from the Clostridium difficile bug can be cured using 'donor stool' administered via a tube through the nose into their stomach. Clostridium difficile was last week at the heart of a damning report into cleaning failures at the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust...

What will become of yesterday's red hot story about 6 Islamist terrorists brought to justice ? Will the "Fort Dix Six" become "heroes" ?

Haggard also told the church oversight board that his homosexual activities had been limited to the male prostitute who went public with their liaisons. Haggard resigned as president of the influential National Association of Evangelicals after the scandal broke. Saying he was guilty of "sexual immorality", he also left his senior pastor position... "As part of New Life's efforts to help me, they sent Gayle and me to Phoenix for a three-week psychological intensive that gave us three years worth of analysis and treatment," he said. "Gayle and I... are both planning on getting our master's in psychology so we...

Congratulations to the ad agency who came up with the Snickers Superbowl commercial. You managed to offend just about everybody with your Snickers kiss commercial. This was the commercial where two auto mechanics start nibbling away on the same Snickers bar until they accidentally kiss. To counteract the kiss they both desperately pull hair from their chests. Yours Truly actually covered this commercial as it happened in this Free Republic Superbowl Commercials THREAD that I started. As you can see, the concensus was that the Snickers commercial, far from being "homophobic" was actually too gay. Anytime two guys kiss...

UPDATE: Snickers parent company Mars has pulled the anti-homosexual ads it was hosting on its website—expressing regret and saying it will never air them again. # Earlier: Snickers aired an ad during the Super Bowl that featured two men reacting in violent disgust after accidentally kissing while eating a candy bar. While the ad may be a satirical dig at homophobes, the candy company appeared to affirm an anti-gay message on its website—where there were, until a few hours ago, videos of NFL players grimacing in similar disgust at the kiss. (Message to viewers: Manly men should be disgusted by...