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Kavya Shivashankar is the Winner of the 2009 Spelling Bee Contest

Kavya Shivashankar is the 2009 Spelling Bee Champion. She won the competition by correctly spelling the word “Laodicean“.

You must be wondering what does “Laodicean” really means?

Laodicean means? “Indifferent or lukewarm especially in matters of religion.”

Kavya Shivashankar, 13 and from Kansas wrote out every word on her palm and outlasted 11 other finalists in 16 rounds! What’s even more amazing is that Kavya has bagged $40,000 in cash and other prizes along with a huge trophy and worldwide recognition. What more can a 13 year old teen want?

One interesting thing to note about Kavya Shivashankar is that this was the 4th time she took part in the Spelling Bee Contest and the previous 3 times she finished in the top 10. And this time, she became the Winner of the 2009 Spelling Bee Contest.

Is it true, that if you try hard enough you eventually get it! It should be a lot of work to prepare so many obscure words but the pride that comes after winning is well worth it.

Her friends and parents must be so proud of her!

Mike Tyson’s 4 year old daughter,?Exodus Tyson has died in an bizarre accident. Exodus Tyson died in the hospital on Tuesday a day after her neck got caught in a dangling cord ?from a treadmill. The incident took place ?in Phoenix.

The Police said that Exodus either slipped or put her neck in the loop of the cord and died due to suffocation. This is indeed a very tragegic chapter in the life of the already troubled Boxing star.

In a statement to the public the Tyson family said, “There are no words to describe the tragic loss of our beloved Exodus. We ask you now to please respect our need at this very difficult time for privacy to grieve and try to help each other heal. ”

When the accident took place Mike was in Las Vegas and he flew down to Phoenix on Monday to visit the hospital.

During the height of his career Mike lived a very lavish lifestyle and spent millions of dollars on homes and other luxuries. But the house where the accident occured was a rather modest house as Mike filed bankruptcy in 2003.

Mike has been promoting a documentary film based on his life and says that he has left alcohol and drugs for more than a year and a quarter.

?I don?t know who I am. That might sound stupid. I really have no idea. All my life I?ve been drinking and drugging and partying, and all of a sudden this comes to a stop.? said Mike to the NYT.

Mike Tyson has been a rollercoaster ride of ups and down – well mainly downs due to his rugged behaviour.

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Mike Tyson’s Timeline

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1986 – Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion when he knocked out Trevor Berbick when he was just 20!

1990 – Tyson was defeated by James “Buster” Douglas – one of the biggest upsets in boxing history

Mike Tyson was also convicted of raping a beauty pageant contestant in Indianapolis and was sentenced for 3 years, Mike still denies the charges.

Tyson also served 3 months in prison for beating up 2 women in a minor car crash in suburban Washington.

Tyson also became notoriously known for biting off Evander Holyfied’s ear during a boxing match.?

He also threatened to eat Lennox Lewis’s children.

Mike tyson also spent 24 hours in jail due to possession of cocaine and Driving Under Influence (DUI).

Our condolences are really with the Tyson family’s baby on the tragic death of the innocent, little girl.

Let me ask you a question – How many times have you missed your school this month? I am sure to get a multitude of answers and not one among us can say ZERO. And I am talking about only 30 days!

Now here’s an 18 year old who has never, ever in her academic life missed a day. Her name is Stefanie Zaner.

A cheerful girl from Northwest High School will complete 2340th day of her senior school on Friday – the last day of her senior school.

We all demand holidays either for genuine reasons like – falling ill, catching flu, breaking a bone, travelling or some religious ceremony or some (more) ungenuine reasons! But Stefanie has never missed a day of her school since she was a child – this is itself is an accomplishment.

And while not-missing-a-day of school won’t get you a lot of laurels, Stefanie has maintained her grades and is a straight A grade student.

Stefanie showed up despite moving twice and changing school three times. She says that they had a ” No TV” rule where they’d just sit and read in a room.

Stefanie will be attending the University of Maryland in its honors program. Zaner wants to be a doctor.

According to Stephanie’s mentors, parents and friends she is a perfectionist and an over-achiever. And I thought I achieved a feat when I’d have minimum attendance

Schools need to reward students on their performance as it surely encourages students to perform well.

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Sonia Sotomayor rose to the apex of fame when President Obama appointed her to become the nation’s first Hispanic woman Supreme Court justice. She’d replace retiring justice David Souter.

Obama also praised her saying that she was an “inspiring woman” with both the intellect and compassion to interpret the Consitution wisely.

Obama said that Sonia Sotomayor has more experience than other current member of the high court when she was nominated making her the clear choice for the position.

Sotomayor was born to Puerto Rican parents and was raised in Bronx. Her father wasn’t much educated and died when she was 9. Her mother raised Sonia and her younger brother Juan who is now a doctor.

Sonia says that it was her mother who was her life’s inspiration. Sotomayor completed her Undergraduation from Princeton University and her J.D from Yale Law School. she got married in 1976 while still studying at Princeton and got divorced in 1983.

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Abortion

In?Center for Reproductive Law and Policy v. Bush,??Sotomayor upheld the Bush administration’s implementation of the “Mexico City Policy” which requires foreign organizations receiving U.S. funds to “neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations”. Sotomayor held that the policy did not constitute a violation of?equal protection, as the government “is free to favor the anti-abortion position over the pro-choice position, and can do so with public funds”.

Employment Discrimination

Sotomayor was a member of the Second Circuit panel in a high-profile case that held that the City of New Haven could throw out its promotional test for firefighters and start over with a new test, because the City believed the test had a “disparate impact” on minority firefighters and it might therefore be subject to a lawsuit from minority firefighters if it certified the test results, because none of the high scorers was a minority. Instead, white firefighters sued the City, claiming that their rights were violated because the test was thrown out.??The case was recently heard by the U.S. Supreme Court as?Ricci v. DeStefano,?and a ruling has not yet been issued.

Today, Nokia unveiled its mobile app store -?Ovi. Apple surpassed a staggering 1 billion app downloads recently and this has been a very obvious reason for Nokia to launch its own Nokia apps store.

The leader in mobile phones, Nokia beleieves that?Ovi store?is set to spark a rapid evolution in the way we use our mobile devices. ?This is actually true because majority of the mobile handsets all over the world are Nokia.?

And Nokia is already the strongest contender having close to?40% market share?which is far more than its nearest competitor, Samsung at 15%!

If Nokia takes Ovi seriously, which according to me it will then there is no stopping the giant from gaining an even larger piece of the mobile market pie.

It hasn’t been 24 hours since Ovi launched and there is already a plethora of Free and Paid apps.

There is a lot of content that you can get your hands on – games, videos, social networking and a lots more. You’ve got to check it out for yourself to see what apps you really find cool.

Nokia said that about 50 devices are compatible with Ovi from day one and support for more devices will be rolled out over time. Nokia estimates that around 50 million people can reap the benefits of the service right now and this number is sure to grow as support for more phones are added ?and the popularity of the Ovi store gains traction.

Here?s what Tero Ojanper?, Executive Vice President, Nokia Services, had to say about Ovi Store going live today:

?Ovi Store is open for business and we?ve stocked the shelves with both local and global content for a broad range of Nokia devices. Ovi Store makes shopping for content and applications easy and fun for feature phone and smartphone owners alike.?

At the time of writing the Ovi store website is slow and doesn’t seem to load at times but keep refreshing and you’ll be fine. Can we really blame them when they’re already getting so much press and the site is being pounded upon by millions of people?

Here is Ovi store screenshot in case the site doesn’t load -

Nokia Ovi Store Homepage (click to enlarge)

This is the Ovi store homepage, not really what Nokia could’ve made from the resources they have!?

One more thing I’d like to add is that majority of Nokia uses aren’t that savvy to fully?utilize?the offerings of Ovi. Nokia has a vry wide range of handsets and making them compatible is in itself a Herculean?task.

Susan Boyle's 2nd performance - Memory

Susan Boyle 2nd Performance -Susan Boyle performed her 2nd performance at “Britain’s Got Talent” on the 23rd of May. As she had before she completely stunned audiences all over the world with her melodious voice.

Not used to so much attention, Susan Boyle becomes nervous on stage and it can be easily judged. Also considering the fact that Susan is from a little town called Blackburn in Scotland.

During her 2nd performance, Susan Boyle sang the song “Memory” which you can watch in the Youtube video below ?-

What do you think of Susan’s performance? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?image credit:?blumpi

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Anyone who has listened to music on Pandora.com knows that it is the best Internet radio service out there. What more can you ask for a service which has been running successfully for almost a year (and is free!)?

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Pandora had a premium version for sometime – and it only removed advertising from the site. But recently Pandora announced Pandora One a premium service that costs $36/year or $3/month.

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The premium version offers removal of ads from the site as well as the audio. But this time Pandora is giving you more than just removal of ads and the features are just going to make your head roll in joy!

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High-Quality streaming music : Starting 19th May, all Pandora One subscribers will get high-quality 192 Kbps streaming music. To give you an idea – it is the HIGHEST quality music on the Internet. More bits means better quality music! If you don’t want to burden your internet connection then you can revert back to normal quality.

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Desktop App : Pandora One subscribers can now download a desktop application. Pandora calls it a “simple,efficient,pure” experience. I’ve always preferred desktop apps for listening to music rather than on a web browser. And Pandora easily fills this need by introducing the new app! You can either download the app in Adobe Air of Adobe Flash.

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Personalize Pandora : You can now customize Pandora as you like by choosing one of the “skins” available. Personalize the site just like you personalize the music!

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Extended Interaction timeout : Pandora now offers music upto 5 hours without the need to interact. Everytime you interact with Pandora, the timeout is again reset to 5 hours!

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Mini player: Theres no need to open that big browser window anymore, the Mini player’s here!

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