Yankees rock Halladay to beat Phillies

June 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – The New York Yankees smashed three home runs and drove ace pitcher Roy Halladay out of the game to beat the Philadelphia Phillies 8-3 on Tuesday in a rematch of last year’s World Series.

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The Yankees, who beat the Phillies 4-2 to win the best-of-seven World Series, scored six times off Halladay and forced the Phillies to replace him after six innings in the interleague game at Yankees Stadium.

Halladay (8-5) allowed two runs in the second inning then surrendered home runs to Curtis Granderson and Nick Swisher in the third where New York took a 5-0 advantage.

“I made mistakes early on that put us in an early hole,” Halladay said. “I missed with location early on. That was the toughest part for me — I knew I was missing.

“I didn’t get away with anything.”

The Phillies (32-30) rallied with three runs in the fourth but Mark Teixeira homered in the fifth and Francisco Cervelli hit a two-run single in the seventh to help the Yankees (41-23) to the comfortable victory.

New York starter CC Sabathia struck out seven and allowed three runs to improve to 7-3 this season.

The Yankees, who were without slugger Alex Rodriguez (groin) for the fourth successive game, remained tied with the Tampa Bay Rays at the top of the American League East Division with the victory.

“We’ve got a good offense,” Sabathia said. “(Halladay) has pitched well against us a lot in the past, but guys have been swinging the bat well.

“(Rodriguez) is out, but Swisher has picked up the slack. Curtis hit a big home run. We’ve got a pretty good team.”

(Reporting by Jahmal Corner in Los Angeles; Editing by Greg Stutchbury)

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Brit woman in jail after Fatal Attraction-style attack on ex who spurned her

May 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment

London, May 10 (ANI): A jilted British woman has landed herself behind bars after she knifed her former boyfriend in the groin for rejecting her bid to bed him after their four-year romance ended.

Ricardo Morais, 31, was driving through Lincoln when Tatiana Bastos, 28, struck him with a six-inch blade that sliced through three levels of clothing and left him needing stitches to his manhood.

Bastos had jumped into his car and refused to get out after he rejected her attempt to seduce him, so he drove to the factory where he worked in Newark, Notts, hoping that security staff there would help get rid of her.

Lincoln Crown Court was told that she suddenly pulled the knife out of her handbag as he steered the motor.

Morais, who had lived with her in Lincoln before the 2008 attack but now has a home in Peterborough, said the stabbing took place two months after he got a new girlfriend.

“She said she was going to kill me and then kill herself. I didn”t believe her and kept driving with my eyes on the road ahead,” the Sun quoted him as saying.

“The next thing I felt Tatiana leaning into me and felt the blade in my groin. She did not say anything. I felt I was going to die,” he stated.

To add insult to injury, Bastos lied to the police by claiming she knifed him after he tried to rape her.

Prosecutor Caroline Bradley told the court that Bastos had grilled her ex-partner for information about his new girlfriend.

“It was almost a situation of if she could not have him, then nobody else could,” Bradley said.

Bastos, from Lincoln, admitted unlawful wounding, possessing an offensive weapon and perverting the course of justice and was jailed for 32 months by Judge Michael Heath.

“This was a wicked thing to do. When you stabbed the knife into his groin, it penetrated three levels of clothing, his jeans, his thermals and his boxer shorts,” the judge told her.

“He and you are very fortunate that no more serious injury was caused because it is no exaggeration to say you could have quite easily killed him.

“You then attempted to orchestrate a false allegation of sexual assault against him to deflect the blame away from yourself. You lied and lied for days until the truth came out,” he added. (ANI)

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‘Unfancied’ Wigan can halt Chelsea’s title charge: Ferdinand

May 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment

London, May 7 (ANI): Manchester United’s ace defender Rio Ferdinand has tried to increase pressure on table toppers Chelsea by saying that Wigan can halt the Blues’ Premier League title charge at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.

The England defender hopes to play some part against Stoke as he returns from groin and back problems.

“It’s been an exciting season. More so-called lesser teams on paper have been taking points off the top four,” The Sun quoted Ferdinand, as saying.

“In previous seasons it’s been a case of the big teams beating all the others and then dropping points against each other. It’s been a weird season. Hopefully that’ll bode well for Chelsea’s game,” he said.

Ferdinand’s team-mate Edwin van der Sar said it will be strange going into the final game with their fate out of their hands after being champions for the past three years.

He knows that the mood at Old Trafford could change very quickly if they hear some positive news from Stamford Bridge on Sunday.

“It is very strange. In the last three years we have been in command. Now we have to wait. It is going to be difficult. We have lost a lot of games this year but we are still in there. Hopefully Wigan will go for it on Sunday and we will hear some positive news,” Van der Sar said. (ANI)

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Knights, Mackay won’t return for Crows

May 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Adelaide forward Chris Knights and wingman David Mackay have been ruled out of returning from injuries for Sunday’s AFL match against Richmond.

Knights (foot) and Mackay (groin) will remain sidelined for the match of the two winless clubs.

The losers will assume bottom spot of the AFL ladder, a position the Crows are not even discussing.

“That is the first time anyone has brought it up, was you mentioning it just then,” utility Scott Stevens said on Wednesday.

The Crows have tweaked their training schedule, with no sessions on match eve for the first time in Neil Craig’s six-year tenure.

“We had to look at everything we are doing,” Stevens said.

“And if we did change something, we were changing it for the right reasons, we weren’t just changing it for change’s sake.

“The game has got quicker and we think we need to train against that sort of speed of defence, and with that sort of speed of attack.

“So we shortened the sessions so we can train at that speed and still get the recovery we need to play well on the weekend.

“As a leadership group and as a playing group, we are always looking for ways we can get better and we are disappointed, upset, frustrated as anyone with the start to the season.”

Stevens said the change of routine was decided after discussions between players and coaches.

“In the end the coaches have the final decision on most things but there is good healthy discussion,” he said.

“All the decisions we make are performance decisions, how are we going to win … we’ll continue to review it and review everything we do so we can improve.”

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Townsville hospital ‘harvesting veins’

May 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The Townsville Hospital in north Queensland has become the first public hospital in Australia to perform a new vein transplant procedure.

Almost all patients who are about to undergo cardiac by-pass surgery need to have a vein ‘harvested’ from their leg to graft onto their hearts.

The procedure involves making an incision from ankle to groin to remove the vein.

But a cardio-thoracic surgeon at the Townsville Hospital has started using a much less invasive technique.

Dr Robert Tam is the first surgeon in an Australian public hospital to use ‘key hole’ surgery to remove the leg vein.

He says it only requires a two centimetre incision in the patient’s knee.

“The patient will have less pain or minimal pain and more importantly the wound infection is almost eliminated.”

Dr Tam is conducting clinical trials to compare the two types of procedures.

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Johnson missing again for Dogs

May 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Skipper Brad Johnson will be sidelined by injury again this weekend as age finally threatens to catch up with the famously durable Western Bulldogs utility.

Having played 21 games or more in each of his previous 15 full seasons with the Bulldogs, Johnson has only managed three of the first seven in 2010, with groin soreness ruling him out of Friday night’s clash with Melbourne.

The Bulldogs have taken a cautious approach with the 33-year-old Johnson, who is becoming increasingly susceptible to injuries.

“He’s a little bit tight in the groin. He could have trained, may be have been able to play but we thought, no … that’s why he didn’t train today,” Dogs coach Rodney Eade said on Wednesday.

He admitted the club’s oldest player was likely to miss more games this year with small issues.

“He’s getting little niggles. Obviously one was the Achilles and then the cart incident (when Johnson was accidentally knocked by a golf cart during training,” he said.

“That put him back a little bit but his fitness is pretty good actually, so from that aspect it’s not too bad.

“We’ve just got to obviously monitor the game time but we would think at worst it would only be the one week and he would be right for the week after.

“Experience tells you that he’s had a bit of an interrupted program, that maybe it’s a little bit on and off at times and maybe we just err on the side of caution at various stages.

“How many games (for the rest of the year) that equates to I’m not sure but we’d be pretty positive he’d probably get at least 12 of the 15 left.”

Eade also described the form of another veteran, Jason Akermanis, who has not kicked a goal this year, as “steady”.

“His tackling’s been up, which is good,” said Eade.

“He’s got some good numbers in that area but when you’re a great player obviously expectations of you are high.

“Probably the X-factor stuff that he does is what has been down so people notice that, whether it’s a mercurial goal or it’s great agility or his speed at various stages and his good kicking.

“But certainly his work rate around the ball has been okay.”

The Dogs will this week regain midfielder Matthew Boyd who’s recovered from a hand injury, while a number of other players are under consideration.

They include ruckman Will Minson, who has been overlooked in recent weeks in favour of youngster Jordan Roughead.

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Tribunal bans Welsh for four weeks

May 5, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Essendon vice-captain Andrew Welsh has put his character on trial at the AFL tribunal and lost.

His bid to halve a four-match ban for kneeing Hawthorn midfielder Xavier Ellis in the groin backfired, with the tribunal ruling that Welsh must serve the full penalty.

The Bombers midfielder testified that he would never intentionally knee an opponent in the groin and said the match-day report had caused him great embarrassment.

“It was simply a reaction to the player coming in to block,” Welsh said.

“I’m vice-captain of the football club, in the last two days I haven’t been able to look my team-mates in the eye.

“It’s one of the worst things you can do.”

Welsh pleaded guilty to the charge, but tried to have it downgraded from intentional conduct to reckless.

Had he succeeded, it would have reduced the penalty to two matches.

Welsh could also have taken the early plea and accepted a three-man suspension.

Essendon football manager Paul Hamilton said the club backed Welsh’s character, but would not appeal the tribunal decision.

“We’re disappointed, we understand the character of Andrew Welsh, a player who has never been suspended, so we’re disappointed in the finding,” Hamilton said.

“But it is the finding and we must accept it and we must unfortunately move on from there.

“Certainly the reason we’re here tonight is because he believes strongly he had no intent in making contact to the groin.

“Andrew will have no problem facing his team-mates, his team-mates will have no doubt in their minds (about) the character of the man.”

Tribunal advocate Jeff Gleeson successfully argued that Welsh had made two distinct movements, first kneeing Ellis as the Hawk tried to block him and then trying to chase opponent Brad Sewell.

The Hawks medical report on Ellis was also damning – it said Ellis was in “significant” pain post-match and was in some doubt for Saturday’s must-win game against West Coast at Subiaco.

In other tribunal news, minor facial surgery meant a one-day delay to Brisbane defender Matt Maguire facing the tribunal on a rough conduct charge.

Maguire was injured in a clash with Sydney’s Jude Bolton – the same incident that prompted the report.

Maguire is not expected to miss any matches because of the injury and will face the tribunal on Wednesday via video link.

The Lions backman is risking a two-game ban by contesting the charge.

Also on Tuesday, Melbourne captain James McDonald accepted a reprimand for striking North Melbourne’s Andrew Swallow.

Bolton took a reprimand for front-on contact against Brisbane’s Joel Patfull, while West Coast veteran Andrew Embley accepted his two-match ban for the same charge after an incident involving Fremantle onballer Rhys Palmer.

West Coast’s Matt Priddis was fined for negligent umpire contact and Fremantle newcomer Hayden Ballantyne and Eagle Adam Selwood accepted fines for wrestling each other.

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Crows vote for change to training plan

May 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Winless Adelaide players have insisted coach Neil Craig radically alter his training regime for the rest of the AFL season.

As the club grapples with final quarter fade-outs and an injury toll of 14 players, Adelaide’s leadership group has won significant reform of Craig’s methods.

Renowned for being among the league’s toughest trainers, Craig has agreed to ditch the side’s customary match-eve training for the remainder of the season.

And the club’s main training session has been split into shorter 90-minute sessions over two days, Wednesdays and Fridays, rather than the current one longer session.

“It is just a bit of variation, we sometimes fit a lot into our main session but now we have broken it up into two different training sessions per week,” Crows midfielder Brent Reilly said on Monday.

“The leadership group approached the coaching staff and they worked it out.”

The Crows have not won a final term this season, conceding 24 goals and kicking just eight in last quarters.

The training tweak acknowledges something had to give amid Adelaide’s worst start to a season, six consecutive losses.

Reilly said the abolition of match eve training sessions would freshen players’ minds and bodies.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how we go about it, but I am sure it will be good for us, to have a lighter day of training before we play … I’m looking forward to it,” Reilly said.

“It can get quite, what is the word, boring – doing the same stuff every week, so it’s good to throw in a different program, everyone looks forward to the change.”

The Crows rate wingman David Mackay (groin) and forward Chris Knights (foot) only slight chances of returning for Adelaide’s home match against the AFL’s other winless club, Richmond, on Sunday.

Utility Patrick Dangerfield (hand) and ruckman James Sellar (hamstring) remain two weeks from action while the Crows still have five players sidelined indefinitely with knee problems – Andy Otten, Brad Symes, Trent Hentschel, Brad Moran and Brodie Martin – and another four out with hamstring strains.

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Guilty Mooney misses trip west

April 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Not for the first time in his chequered career, Geelong forward Cameron Mooney left the AFL tribunal downcast and facing a weekend without football.

Serial offender Mooney was suspended for the 10th time on Wednesday night after being found guilty of rough conduct for a high hit on Hawthorn’s Rick Ladson during the Cats’ fiery Easter Monday win.

He will serve a one-match ban – ruling him out of the Cats’ clash with Fremantle at Subiaco Oval on Sunday – with the Cats saying they are unlikely to appeal the verdict.

Mooney had attempted to beat the ban, claiming he had not made forceful contact with Ladson’s head or neck and had no reasonable alternative but to bump him.

But the tribunal found otherwise, believing he did make high contact and could have attempted to smother the ball or avoid the Hawks player, who was moving lower to the ground to kick the ball as Mooney approached.

“We find it a bit hard to know what realistic alternative Cameron had,” Geelong football manager Neil Balme said after the hearing.

“We are disappointed.”

Mooney told the tribunal the umpires signalled to him his contact with Ladson constituted a fair bump.

And he argued he had not made forceful contact to the Hawk’s head or neck, saying the AFL’s preseason warnings about duty of care to other players in that situation was in his mind as he approached Ladson.

“Every player’s seen a lot of video. We know that’s there – the duty of care,” Mooney told the hearing.

“I tried not to go near the head.”

Should the Cats not appeal, Mooney will have missed his 15th career match through suspension – having the unenviable record of being suspended four times in the one season during 2006.

It leaves Geelong without two of its most experienced players going into the clash with the in-form Dockers, with defender Matthew Scarlett also banned for one week.

Scarlett made an early guilty plea to a misconduct conduct for kneeing Hawthorn’s Michael Osborne in the groin.

Earlier Hawthorn defender Liam Shiels was suspended for two matches after the tribunal found him guilty of striking Geelong’s Cameron Ling.

Shiels could have accepted a one-match ban had he pleaded guilty for a high shot on Ling.

Instead he attempted to have the contact downgraded from intentional to reckless and failed.

He will miss the Hawks’ matches against the Western Bulldogs on Sunday and Collingwood the following week.

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Watt looking forward to Gift

April 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Mitchell Watt is eager to find out just how fast he can run at this weekend’s Stawell Gift athletics meet.

On the available evidence, the answer is very fast indeed for the Queenslander, who won bronze in the long jump at last year’s world championships.

In a rare outing over 100m on the Gold Coast last year, Watt clocked a slick 10.37 seconds using a borrowed set of starting blocks and wearing long jump spikes.

That effort was enough for the Victorian Athletic League handicappers to give him a tough mark of 2.5m for his debut appearance in the 129th edition of the Stawell Gift.

“I think I can go quicker than that,” Watt said.

“I want to do some more 100s this season just to get a bit of a grasp on how much I have improved.

“And I’m just excited about racing in the Gift.

“It’s a nice change of pace from the long jump, so I’ll be a bit less nervous than usual.”

With Australia’s leading 100m sprinters Patrick Johnson, Aaron Rouge-Serret and Matt Davies all absent, much of the interest in Stawell will be on the performances of Watt and world and Olympic pole vault champion Steve Hooker.

The pair were room-mates at the world indoor championships a couple of weeks ago in Doha and have been indulging in some good-natured ribbing ahead of their Gift debuts.

“We’ve been having a go at each other ever since,” Watt said.

“Steve called me the other day and tried to tell me he wasn’t feeling all that good.

“But it’ll be fun and I hope we both make it to the final.”

Hooker will race off a mark of 5.5m, with Bola Lawal the backmarker off 0.5m in the 120m handicap event.

Watt has had to scale back his training in the last six weeks because of a groin complaint, but has been assured by his doctor and physio that it will not affect his sprinting.

Coach Gary Bourne said the 22-year-old Watt was looking forward to having a crack at the specialist sprinters.

“I’ve done some hand-timing of Mitch in training, but often you’re standing at the end of the track in the evening,” said Bourne.

“I’m not prepared to say if those times I’m getting are spot on.

“But he looks pretty good.”

Retired Australian long jumper David Culbert – himself a former Gift semi-finalist – said Watt’s run of 10.37 last year made him Australia’s fastest-ever long jumper, surpassing Olympic silver medallists Gary Honey and Jai Taurima.

Despite spending most of his life in Queensland, Watt was born in Ballarat – about an hour down the highway from Stawell.

And he still has a lot of relatives living in the area, meaning he will enjoy plenty of support at Central Park.

The heats of the Gift are on Saturday, with the semi-finals and final on Easter Monday.

- AAP

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Man shot in hunting mishap

March 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

A 39-year-old man remains in a serious condition in hospital after a weekend shooting accident in Western Australia’s wheatbelt.

The man was out hunting with two friends at a property south-west of Moora when he accidentally discharged the 0.223 calibre rifle on Saturday afternoon.

Moora police Sergeant Harry Arnott says the bullet went through the man’s groin, before exiting through his lower back.

He says the man’s two mates rushed him to Moora District Hospital before he was later flown to Perth for treatment.

“The RAC Rescue chopper came through and collected him and took him through to Royal Perth Hospital,” he said.

“He’s got some internal damage to his bowel and intestine but he should be okay. It is a timely warning to everybody not to become complacent when dealing with firearms.”

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Jackie Chan gives up death-defying stunts

March 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Melbourne, March 25 (ANI): Jackie Chan has confessed he would not continue with his signature death-defying stunts in future films.

The 55-year-old Hong Kong actor, known for his martial arts, said he was getting too old for the kung fu kicks and suffered constant pain.

“A lot. My shoulder, my arms . . .” He points at his groin: “Here. All the joints really hurt . . . you don”t know! My back!”, the Herald Sun reported.

Chan further revealed falling the wrong way during the making of Police Story was his most painful stunt ever.

He recalled: “I thought ”I”m dying” . . . I thought my backbone had gone through my heart. There was all this blood coming out. That hurt but I wasn”t dying.” (ANI)

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Storm prepared to wait on Cronk

March 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Melbourne half-back Cooper Cronk could make his return in next week’s NRL clash at Penrith, but the Storm see no need to rush him back with Cameron Smith finding his feet as a makeshift number seven.

Cronk had surgery on his groin after last year’s Four Nations tournament and is on track to return at CUA Stadium, but Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy says after wins in the World Club Challenge and the opening two rounds of the NRL, the premiers can afford to wait another week.

“He’s back into full training at the moment but because of the length of time he’s had out and doing just rehab, the medical staff are slowly building his workload up,” Bellamy said.

“I think it’s more likely that he’ll play the week after but he’s certainly a chance of playing next week.

“He’s missed our World Club Challenge game and these two games and we’ve won all them so there’s no need to rush him back if he’s not quite ready so we’re not going to take any chances with him.”

Captain Smith had an impressive game at half-back in Saturday night’s 20-14 come-from-behind win over Newcastle after attracting criticism in the previous week’s uninspiring win over Cronulla.

“I said to the coaches after the (Cronulla) game last week that I thought I needed to be more involved as a seven,” he said.

“It’s not my usual position but I knew I had to do a lot more… I needed to do a normal half-back’s role.

“So I knew early on I needed to get he ball in my hand and have a run and take the ball to the line with all the boys.”

The Storm got out of jail against the Knights after going down 14-0 in the first half and having their line hammered for much of the second.

With Cronk and big name forwards Brett White, Ryan Hoffman (both shoulder) and Sika Manu (leg) all sidelined, Smith issued an early-season warning from the premiers, who are attempting to become the first side to win an NRL title on top of the World Club Challenge.

“We’re always confident in our own side that no matter where we are on the field or the scoreline we can always win,” he said.

Bellamy said he was not worrying himself with who was on the sidelines.

“Hopefully it won’t be too long and White will be back, hopefully it won’t be too long and Hoffman’s back,” he said.

“If we start sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves that ain’t going to help us.

“We’ve just got to make sure that the other guys are aware of what their responsibilities are and go out there and give their best and that’s all we can ask.

“It will be nice when those guys are back but the other guys are doing a good job for us at the moment.”

- AAP

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Indian cricket team leaves for South Africa

September 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Mumbai, Sept 18 (ANI): The Indian cricket team left for South Africa from here on Friday to participate in the Champions Trophy.

South Africa has been a happing hunting ground for India who was runners-up in the one-day World Cup in 2003 and Twenty20 World Cup champions four years later.

India has received a boost before their Champions Trophy campaign when in-form opener Gautam Gambhir was passed fit to return after injury.

The left-hander has recovered from a groin strain and will travel with the team to South Africa, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) said in a statement on Thursday.

India, already without the explosive Virender Sehwag, were sweating on Gambhir’s fitness after the Delhi batsman missed this month’s tri-series in Sri Lanka.

India won the Colombo tournament, also involving New Zealand and the hosts, and went into the prestigious eight-team event as one of the favourites after not having lost a one-day series in the past year.

India has been grouped with defending and world champions Australia, Twenty20 champions Pakistan and former champions West Indies in the preliminary phase.

A young Indian batting unit struggled against short-pitched bowling in this year’s Twenty20 World Cup in England.

Ishant Sharma will spearhead the five-man pace attack in the absence of experienced left-arm pacer Zaheer Khan, who has been ruled out until the end of the year after undergoing surgery on an injured shoulder. (ANI)

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Flintoff set to quit Test cricket after Ashes

July 15, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, July 15 (ANI): England all rounder Andrew Flintoff is ready to quit Test cricket at the end of this Ashes series.

Flintoff, who has been afflicted with constant injuries, wants to quit five-day matches to prolong his career for England as an ODI and Twenty20 player.

The all-rounder, 31, fears his body will no longer take playing all forms of the game. Flintoff’s displays have dipped since his 2005 Ashes heroics, after a string of injuries and operations.

He will today bowl in the nets to try to prove his fitness in order to play in the second Test against Australia at Lord’s tomorrow.

Flintoff’s inclusion is doubtful after aggravating the right knee on which he had surgery in April, The Sun reports.

Flintoff has undergone four ankle operations as well as suffering back, hip, shoulder and groin problems. And he knows his days as England’s star in Test cricket are numbered because of the physical strain of bowling.

Flintoff, a father of three, also does not want to leave his family for months on end. In the past, he has taken wife Rachael and his kids on tour, but that has become tough as they have reached school age.

He plans to play in ODIs and T20 games, as well as keep his lucrative contract with Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League. (ANI)

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‘Ridiculously drunk’ mom knees daughter’s school principal in the groin

June 27, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Melbourne, Jun 25 (ANI): A woman, who was in a very inebriated state, could not recall punching, spitting and kneeing her daughter’s school principal in the groin.

Karen Lee Pommer, 47, attacked Jeff Munce when she went to pick up her eight-year-old daughter from Warrigal Road State School in the Brisbane suburb of Eight Mile Plains on October 31 last year.

The Brisbane District Court was told on June 25 that Pommer entered the school grounds screaming obscenities while the students waited to be collected at the end of the day.

When Munce approached her she punched his head repeatedly, then kneed him in the groin and spat in his face.

She also slapped and spat at another mother who tried to intervene.

The court was told Pommer – who was infected with hepatitis C – then spat at and bit three police officers who arrived to arrest her.

None of her victims contracted the highly infectious disease.

When she was hauled into the police vehicle, she then wriggled free from her handcuffs and smashed one of the windows.

Defence barrister Jann Taylor said Pommer, a chronic alcoholic, had been suffering an “alcohol-induced blackout”‘ when she went to the school.

“She was ridiculously drunk to the point of no recollection,” News.com.au quoted Taylor as saying.

Pommer pleaded guilty to 10 offences including three counts of serious assault and two of common assault.

Judge Leanne Clare sentenced her to two years’ jail but released her on parole immediately. (ANI)

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Ten steps to extended massive orgasm

June 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, June 23 (ANI): While majority of couples wish to have extended massive orgasm (EMO), not everybody comes down to experiencing these repeated orgasmic waves.

Lovers experiencing one of these massive orgasms have reported enjoying more of life’s joys in general, becoming nicer and more generous in their relationship.

An EMO can last minutes or hours, offering up blissful sensations at increasing intensities, reports Fox News.

And here are the tricks of this tantalizing trade:

1. Truly recognize your pleasure

You want to immediately approve of your present sensations. This starts before you even get in the sack by overcoming anxieties you have about sex. This may require identifying limitations you’ve been taught about sex, like how you’re supposed to respond (or not respond). You need to then challenge any social conditioning that impedes upon your response.

Ridding yourself of the uninvited “others” in your bed will enable you to solely focus on the orgasmic sensations, including ones that come from simply anticipating action.

2. Learn to relax

Lovers have the tendency to tense up during sexual excitement, which is not conducive to extended orgasm. You need to be able to surrender your nervous system during genital stimulation. It’s this letting go of tension that allows you to embrace your pleasure.

3. Get in the know

The more we know about our bodies, sex, and sexual response, the better we can recognize sensations, the more we can lose ourselves in them. Become knowledgeable about sexual response, sexual anatomy, and erotic techniques.

4. Give yourselves time for pleasuring

Lovers may stimulate each other by fantasizing out loud, taking your time getting to the genitals and hot spots. Teasing allows for greater energy awareness and arousal, and these are what make the experience ultimately so mind-blowing.

5. Touch for pleasure

You can show your partner that you are into the moment by informing them about what you are going to do so he or she can surrender more easily. Highlighting a lover’s physical responses further enables them to tune into the sensations.

6. Learn to channel your energy

You want to get out of your head, directing your energy to your groin. This will make for more explosive results, plus help you to further tune into your sexual response.

7. Become an effective communicator

To amplify things up, you may need to request changes that will intensify your pleasure if you’re the receiver. As the giver, you may need to ask for feedback or direction. In either case, asking for more will help you to feel more. Giving approval can do wonders for a lover’s ego.

8. Develop your pelvic floor muscles

Exercising your pubbococcygeus (PC) muscle will put you more in tune with your sexual response. It’s also what makes for more powerful orgasms.

9. Have plenty of lubricant handy

As you will be loving for the long-haul, make sure you avoid the friction, pain, and discomfort that can result from working each other raw by using lube.

10. Do away with any drive-thru mentality

Having an EMO isn’t like going for fast food. One can’t go into it thinking instant gratification. Instead, approach it as though training for a sport. (ANI)

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Minimally invasive stroke treatment effective than traditional surgery

May 30, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 30 (ANI): Minimally invasive coil treatment for stroke has been found to have better outcomes than traditional surgical treatments, says researchers.

However, the procedure is drastically expensive.

Coiling is a technique that involves placing a small catheter into the aneurysm and filling it with platinum coils. The catheter is introduced through a blood vessel in the groin and advanced under X-ray all the way into the brain blood vessels.

The researchers from Zeenat Qureshi Stroke Research Center at University of Minnesota Medical School looked at the treatment response of more than 2,000 patients, half of whom underwent minimally invasive endovascular coiling for brain aneurysms, and found that the procedure has better patient outcomes – including qualify of life.

“The minimally invasive treatment is better tolerated in selected critically ill patients with ruptured brain aneurysms,” said Dr Alberto Maud, principal investigator of the study.

“The procedure is effective in preventing a second rupture but currently limited in terms of cost due to the need for additional follow-up procedures to treat new aneurysm growth.

“However, a new generation of devices promises to provide more permanent obliterations for aneurysms.

“It should be noted that despite additional treatments, patients treated with endovascular treatment continued have lower rates of death and disability than those treated with open surgery,” he added.

The research is published in the Journal of Neurosurgery. (ANI)

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Watson reveals how four champs helped to rebuild his career

May 24, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Sydney, May 24 (ANI): Australian all rounder Shane Watson has revealed how four legends guided him through his darkest days and instilled the self-belief to achieve his dream of an Ashes tour.

Watson said the quartet’s support and advice helped him to overcome 12 injuries in six years, the latest a groin complaint.

With the first Test 46 days away, Watson said Glenn McGrath, Steve Waugh, Shane Warne and Greg Chappell were the secret weapons that facilitated his return as Australia’s top all-rounder.

Former Test quick McGrath, who lost wife Jane to breast cancer last June, counselled Watson on handling setbacks.

Waugh worked on Watson’s mental toughness; batting great Chappell honed his technique at the Centre of Excellence and spin-king Warne pinpointed ways to enhance his bowling.

“I’ve been very lucky to have those guys around me. I’m blessed to have had some of the greats of world cricket to communicate with and support me because those guys have gone through different scenarios in their career and came out the other end to be on top of the cricket world,” the Daily Telegraph quoted Watson, as saying.

“I’m really appreciative. Their little hints and advice has helped with my frame of mind. I’m very close to Glenn McGrath, I’ve had quite a number of chats to him about the direction I want to go and what I want to do. Glenn has been amazing for me. It’s just his strength of character. There are things he’s had to go through in his life and he’s had a good talk to me about my setbacks and how I can come back from them. He’s just such a positive person and that’s rubbed off,” he added.

“I’ve had a good chat with Steve Waugh. His advice has been based on mechanisms and ways to handle situations that aren’t ideal. He’s talked to me about the power of the mind and what you can achieve when you set your mind on things,” Watson said, adding that he had gleaned just as much from Warne and Chappell, who have focused on technical shortcomings. (ANI)

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Oz squad has talent to retain Ashes without Symonds: Ponting

May 20, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Melbourne, May 20 (ANI): Australian captain Ricky Ponting has brushed aside concerns over the omission of troubled all rounder Andrew Symonds from this year’s Ashes squad.

A long-time backer of Symonds, Ponting said he believed that Australia had the talent in the squad to retain the Ashes on English soil without Symonds.

“I can’t personally be disappointed and we both know how good a player Andrew can be, but the facts are that he went out of the side for reasons last year,” Ponting said.

“Opportunities were given to others and the others that have come into those positions have played exceptionally well and played well enough to keep Andrew out of the squad. That is as simple and as difficult as it actually needs to be,” he said.

Symonds is currently plying his trade for the Deccan Chargers in the second edition of the Indian Premier League in South Africa, The Courier Mail reported.

“Look he will be disappointed but I have a squad of 16 players to take to England that I am very confident that we can play a level of cricket that is going to be good enough to win the series,” Ponting said.

“The selections have been made and I know the selectors have thought long and hard about this squad and the squad has come up without Andrew’s name in it. That is it, we move on and focus on the 16 players that we have got,” he said.

Chief selector Andrew Hilditch said Shane Watson had edged Symonds out at the selection table while allrounder Andrew McDonald maintained his place in the Test set-up.

Watson has been chosen subject to fitness after sustaining a minor groin injury in the recent limited-over series against Pakistan but Hilditch fully expected him to take his place.

The five-Test series starts at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff, from July 8, and finishes at The Oval in late August.

Australia hold the Ashes after Ponting’s side completed a 5-0 series whitewash at home in 2006-2007 to regain the urn after a 2-1 defeat in England in 2005. (ANI)

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