Adam Scott wins Masters, the first for Australia

Carrying the weight of a continent on his back and hauling around the burden of expectation for years hasn't been easy at times for Adam Scott.

Since his days as a dashing amateur in Australia he has been a beacon of hope for a proud sporting nation yearning for the next Greg Norman.

Although Scott notched wins across the globe and captured huge tournaments such as The Players Championship, the Tour Championship and the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational, the 32-year-old had come up short in the majors, the most coveted of all golf events.

He also was known for a crushing defeat — he failed to hold a four-shot lead with four holes to play in last year's British Open at Royal Lytham and lost to Ernie Els by one shot. Doubt started to percolate that perhaps Scott just didn't have it in him to win a major and that he has underachieved.

But he never lost his cool — nor his nerve. Turns out he is as resilient as he is talented. And on a gloomy Sunday that tempered the beauty of Augusta National's grounds, with bouts of rain from above perplexing players on the putting surfaces below, Adam Scott silenced his doubters and left with a green jacket.

With a final-round 3-under-par 69, highlighted by a birdie from 25 feet on the 72nd hole and a great break on the 13th hole when his ball didn't roll into Rae's Creek and he walked away with a fortunate birdie, Scott finally won a major championship by taking the Masters with a birdie from 12 feet on the second playoff hole to beat Angel Cabrera.

Source: usatoday

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Kobe Bryant Has Successful Surgery to Repair Achilles’ Tendon

KobeBryant’s surgery to repair a torn Achilles’ tendon was successful, however the Los Angeles Lakers star will be sidelined for at least six to nine months as he recuperates, the team and doctors said today.

Bryant, 34, tore his left Achilles’ tendon in the closing minutes of Friday night’s game against the Golden State Warriors.

The All-Star shooting guard, who has carried the Lakers all season, hobbled to the free throw line after the injury to take his two free throws for being fouled. He hit them both, tying the game 108-108, before going to the locker room. The Lakers went on to win the game.

Bryant, who was averaging 27.3 points, 5.6 rebounds and 6.0 assists,was operated on by Dr. Neal ElAttrache and Dr. Stephen Lombardo of the Kerlan Jobe Orthopaedic Group.

Bryant, the NBA’s fourth all-time leading scorer, has dealt with injuries in the past, but never one as serious and potentially career-ending as this one.

“You need your Achilles’ tendon, muscle, tendon here, to allow you to walk,” said Dr. Robert Klapper, chief of orthopedic surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Group.

With the athlete’s discipline and determination, though, Klatter said, it’s possible he could make a comeback.

Bryant took to Facebook on Saturday to vent his frustration at the injury that ended his season.

“All the training and sacrifice just flew out the window with one step that I’ve done millions of times! The frustration is unbearable. The anger is rage. Why the hell did this happen?!? Makes no damn sense,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

Nevertheless, the basketball star vowed to return to the court.

“One day, the beginning of a new career journey will commence,” he wrote.  ”Today is NOT that day.”

Source: abcnews

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Aurora Borealis tonight? Dazzling northern lights forecast

Seattle, NewYork, Pittsburgh, and Washington might see a display of the northern lights after sunset. At least that's what some forecasting models are saying.

Thanks to a big solar flare that left the Sun Thursday,Accuweather.com is generating some buzz online by predicting a "dazzling" light show tonight:

"The flare is also expected to cause vibrant northern lights from the Arctic as far south as New York, the Dakotas, Washington and Michigan, with a smaller possibility of it going into Pennsylvania and Iowa, evenKansas. The lights are currently estimated for 8 p.m. EDT Saturday arrival, with a possible deviation of up to seven hours. If the radiation hits much after dark settles on the East Coast the lights may be missed and will instead only be visible for the West."

They've also provided a pretty cool map (see above) that may or may not prove accurate.

Solar flares are waves of charged plasma that come streaming toward our planet at about four million miles per hour. When they hit the Earth's upper atmosphere they release visible light and are channeled toward the Earth's poles by the planet's magnetic field. The norther aurora borealis is called the northern lights. The displays over the southern pole are called the southern lights or aurora australis. 

This particular blast of plasma may also put on a light show over parts of Europe and Russia too. Accuweather says the British Isles, and as far south as the northern parts of Germany, Poland,Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia and Estonia may see the northern lights.

Accuweather's Hunter Outten has been updating this latest aurora borealis watch on the company's Facebook page. At 3:35 p.m., he wrote:

"Still have not seen any key signs yet of the CME close to hitting the planet. Looks like the time is shaping up right on schedule for anywhere from 5-9PM EDT."

CME refers to the Coronal Mass Ejection, the burst of plasma released from the Sun. Mr. Outten shares how he's tracking the arrival of the plasma burst via the compression of the magnet field with this NOAA chart..

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has its own forecasting model, including a chart, which is a lot harder to parse. You can check out the Ovation Auroral Forecast there.

The opportunity to see the northern lights at many of these latitudes is a rare treat, but the usual caveats for celestial events still apply. A successful sighting will be dependent on a variety of local factors, such as cloud cover, full moon, and urban light pollution.

And if you happen to be in Fairbanks or Yellowknife tonight, the University of Alaska Geophysical Institute says the prospects are also good for viewing  the aurora borealis.

Source: csmonitor

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National Sibling Day: A Tribute to Brothers & Sisters!

SiblingsDay Foundation is a public non-profit charity devoted to establishing Siblings Day for the benefit of our families, our communities and our nation. Siblings Day has been so well accepted over the last decade that it was granted a "Service Mark" in 2007 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Our goal is to make this a federally recognized day, like Mother's and Father's Days. We need your continued support by celebrating Siblings Day on April 10th. You can celebrate by sending your siblings a card, gift, or phone call; making a dinner invitation; performing a good deed, favor, errand orchore; and in cases of deceased siblings, consciously holding them in our memory.

Source: Siblingsday

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Is Miranda Kerr Still a Lingerie Model?

Pixie-faced Victoria's Secret model Miranda Kerr would seem to be very popular, right? I mean, we know her name, she's married to Orlando Bloom, and she's all over your little brother's walls. And yet, Us Weekly is claiming that Kerr has not had her VS contract renewed, because she "has a difficult reputation" and "was not a big seller." Which, hm, how do they measure that? Which model sells, I mean. Seems complicated.

 Maybe that's Victoria's secret. Anyway, the important distinction to make here is that we're really talking about whether or not Miranda Kerr is still a Victoria's Secret Angel, meaning one of the top ambassadors of the brand. Her $1 million contract for that was supposedly not renewed, but VS could still use her for the catalogues or have her stand outside one of the stores in some shopping mall somewhere trying to lure people in. So she's not necessarily done with the brand forever, it's just that she's not an Angel anymore. So says Us Weekly, anyway. Vogue is reporting that no such thing has happened. 

They spoke to VS's chief marketing officer, as if he would know anything, who said, "Miranda Kerr is one of the best models in the history of the business — and easily one of the most popular." He continued, "While her international commitments have kept her away from us more than we'd like over the past few years, she will always be an Angel to me." OK, but what about actually being an Angel?? We need to know! He explained: "We have no plans to stop working with her. In fact, I've already invited her to walk the runway in this year's fashion show and, happily, she's agreed." Huh. OK. So she'll walk in this year's show, I guess as an Angel, but he didn't really that she will be an Angel in the future. 

So it's possible, in a weird way, that both UsWeekly and Vogue are right. Gray areas exist in complicated matters like this one. I mean, this is a big deal. Who's an Angel, who's not an Angel? Who's wearing what underpants at what televised underpants show? Can you imagine anything more important? I certainly can't. Your little brother certainly doesn't want to. This is about as big as it gets, Miranda Kerr's underpants contract and the status of her glitzy Angel wings.[NYT, oh wait, no, sorry, UsWeekly & Vogue]

In some sort of survey of creeps and weirdos, Jennifer Lawrence was named the top celebrity that people want to see in a sex tape. Out of every celebrity, all the celebrities, these people have the "most interest in watching or buying" a J.Laws sex video. You know who came in second? Anne Hathaway. Yup. Anne Hathaway. What is America anymore, huh? Look, I get why a Jennifer Lawrence sex tape would be "hot" or whatever, but come on. 

Is that really the point of a celebrity sex tape? I feel like it's more curiosity than anything else, isn't it? Like, don't you think an AnnetteBening/Warren Beatty sex tape would be more interesting? I don't know. What would an Ann Curry sex tape look like? I'm not saying anyone should go film those things and sell them to Vivid, but it just seems awfully boring of people to be like "I want the tape with Katniss." Ho hum. Well, whatever. To each their own. Keep dreaming of that Jennifer Lawrence sex tape all you want.

Source: theatlanticwire

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Masters Ticket Prices Highest Since Tiger Woods’ Debut

With round one of the Masters Golf Tournament underway, tickets for the famous game in Augusta, Ga., are still being sold online today. Though ABC News’ Darren Rovell reports prices on web sites like StubHub have dropped to $3,000 to $4,000 today, some badges were being sold earlier this week for as high as $10,000.

The high ticket prices, experts say, are linked to Tiger Woods, who is making his run for a fifth Masters title. Woods finished playing today with a 2 under par 70, in striking distance of the lead.

The prices people are willing to pay this year are nearly unprecedented, only seen the first time Woods made his appearance as a professional in the late 90′s, Kenneth Wisnefski a branding expert, CEO and founder of WebiMax, told ABC News.

“It’s 100 percent related to Tiger,” said Wisnefski. “When he played well years ago, it was at a different level than people have ever seen. They were able to see that level of brilliance up close and people who didn’t go thought ‘Wow, we missed the opportunity to see it up close.”

Wisnefski said people are jumping at the chance to see Woods be great again.

“That’s why it’s a huge ticket and why people are so buzzed about it,” Wisnefski said.

The high ticket prices may also be because corporate spending is returning in a better economy, Robert Tuchman, president of sportsmarketing company Goviva told ABC News.  But Woods is clearly the big draw.

“Tiger Woods is great for the business itself, from selling products on TV and even badge prices at the Masters, he has a direct link to the business itself. A lot of it has to do with people believing he can contend for another green jacket this year,” Tuchman said.

Though some tickets are going for five-figure amounts, Rick Spehn, a Minnesota resident who frequents the Masters, says he would never pay tens of thousands to watch the tournament. Spehn just returned from watching the practice rounds of the Masters.

“I was out there two years ago and Tiger was just coming out of that mess. He’s always had the highest draw, and it was that way again this year,” Spehn said. “The real star is the golf course itself. They could put 20 third graders out there, I’d go see it.”

Some don’t go just for Woods, Wisnefski says, but the loyalty to see Woods play is all in his branding.

“It’s interesting to see a sports figure rehabilitate their brand and do something even companies can’t do. When looking at a sports figure, good play will trump anything,” Wisnefski said.

Source: absnews

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White House Responds to Jay-Z's 'Open Letter' Obama Lyrics

Jay-Z's new song "Open Letter" a response to criticism over his and Beyonce's trip to Cuba, has racked up nearly 500,000 listens in just a few hours. Now we know that some of those plays came from the White House and the reporters that cover it.

During a White House press briefing earlier today, Politico reporter Donovan Slack asked White House Press Secretary Jay Carney whether PresidentObama gave Jay-Z and Beyoncé clearance for their travel, based off a lyric from the rapper's just-released song "Open Letter."

After reciting the lyric (“I turned Havana into Atlanta... Boy from the hood/ I got White House clearance... Obama said, 'Chill you gonna get me impeached/ You don’t need this shit anyway, chill with me on the beach'"), Slack asked Carney if Obama did indeed give Jay-Z clearance.

Carney brushed off the question with sarcasm: "I guess nothing rhymes with Treasury... because Treasury offers and gives licenses for travel, as you know, and the White House has nothing to do with it."

"I am absolutely saying that the White house from the President on down had nothing to do with anybody's travel to Cuba that is something that Treasury handles.," he continued.

And if Carney didn't make himself clear before, he shut down the conversation by denying White House approval straight forward.

"It's a song, Donovan. The President did not communicate with Jay-Z over this trip."

Following the presser, Slack tweeted some suggestions for words that rhyme with Treasury.

Source: billboard

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