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American Idol Update: From 20 to 16

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Four more contestants were eliminated as American Idol revealed the names of the hopefuls with the lowest number of votes for their Top20 performances. The theme for this week’s shows were music from the 70s. Thursday’s results show saw former Making The Band semifinalist Jason Yeager and Robbie Carrico leave the competition from the boys’ side while a somewhat shocker of an elimination had Alaina Whitaker and Alexandrea Lushington leave the  girls’ side. Interestingly, all four received minimal airtime prior to the semifinals week so they all came into the public voting round at a very big  disadvantage. Contestants who had a solid voting base due to the spin of the audition footage already have one foot in as far as reaching the final 12 – six guys and six girls— was concerned.

Jason Yeager sang the Doobie Brothers classic the ‘Long Train Running’ to luke warm reviews from both the judges and apparently, viewers and voters. Robbie Carrico from Florida didn’t do much better. His rendition of Foreigner’s ‘Hot Blooded’ wasn’t enough to save him for next week’s 80’s show.

Douglasville, Georgia’s Alexandrea Lushington languished with her performance of Chicago’s ‘If You Leave Me Now’ and finished with the least number of votes among the girls. Lushington competed alongside heavy favorite David  Archuleta way back in Star Search but unlike  the 17 year-old contestant from Utah, Alexandrea wasn’t given ample TV time to be able to share her backstory to America.

Alaina Whitaker of Tulsa, Oklahoma was eliminated after singing ‘Hopelessly Devoted To You’ by Olivia Newton-John. Whitaker broke down in the middle of her swan song and had to be consoled by the other contestants who survived the results show.

Next week, the remaining 16  contestants will sing songs from the 80s. The bottom two guys and bottom two girls will again be cut from the competition and the twelve who survive the cut will be this season’s finalist.

Still in the running are David Archuleta, David Cook, David Hernandez, Danny Noriega, Chikezie Eze, Michael Johns, Luke Menard and  Jason Castro for the guys. For the girls, Syesha Mercado, Ramiele Malubay, Carly Smithson, Brooke White, Amanda Overmyer, Asia’h Epperson, Kristy Lee Cook and Carly Smith still have a shot of becoming the American Idol.

Prince Harry Gets Pulled Out

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Just mere hours after news of his secret deployment leaked the mainstream media, Prince Harry – the second son of the late Princess Diana and Prince Charles — was pulled out of his military detachment amid concerns for his safety. Though only being all of 23 years, the British royal has been serving in the front lines at the province of Helmand for the past 10 months. The deployment was supposedly subject to a news blackout but for some reason or another, foreign media chose to breach that agreement. Since the Prince’s presence would have given the Taleban extra motivation to hunt down British troops, the United Kingdom’s military has decided to pull out the Prince.

Prince Harry is the third in line to the crown after his father and his older brother, Prince William. According to the report from the military, the Prince was supposed to come back from service in a few weeks’ time, but due to the leak – something that was described as ‘regrettable’ — the tour of duty had to cut short. The report also added that such a contingency plan has always been in place in case of such incidents.

The Prince has never really had a good relationship with the media. Photographers have caught him in various states of drunkenness numerous times in the pas

American Idol Update: The First Cut

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After two nights of performances featuring from the 1960s, American  Idol saw the elimination of the first four contestant off its roster of 24 semi-finalists. After millions of votes from all across America, Garret Haley and Colton Berry were eliminated on the guys’ side while Amy Davis and Joanne Borgella were eliminated from the girls’ side.

Seventeen year-old Garret Haley from Elida, Ohio failed to wow judges  with his performance of Neil Sedaka’s ‘Breaking Up His Hard To Do’. Haley has drawn comparisons to Leif Garret and Peter Frampton due to his shaggy blond hair. Not faring much better is another celebrity look-alike. Colton Berry has more than a passing resemblance  to talk show host Ellen de Generes, but that link to fame was not able to help him sale through the  next round. After not doing much justice to Elvis Presley’s ‘Suspicious Minds’, the theater enthusiast was eliminated by virtue of ending up eleventh in the voting.

Amy Davis was  not able bank on her experience  in talent shows  to go far on Idol. Davis was previously a contestant on Nashville Star – a country music singing competition — but her performance of Connie Francis’ ‘Where The Boys Are’ made her seem  like a new comer. Plus-sized model Joanne Borgella finished eleventh after singing Dione Warwick’s ‘I Say A Little Prayer’.

Edwards Is Quitting

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John Edwards was clearly an also-ran in this presidential campaign. With the Democratic base revitalized on the tails of two groundbreaking and charismatic candidates. The potential to elect the nation’s first woman president in Hillary Clinton has always been intriguing while the incessant rockstar-worship that Barack Obama has been getting has definitely ignited a fire under the idealist youth who support the Democratic Party. This sort of fanfare leaves John Edwards, a former senator from the State of North Carolina and John Kerry’s running and losing mate during the last general elections a stale commodity being sold next to fresh, exciting and more appealing products.

Edwards never had the privilege of being the front runner in this tight race. In the opinion polls, media spins and debates, people have always felt that it has been largely a battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Edwards was often just an afterthought and an under card to the main event type of clash that the senators from New York and Illinois had to offer.

It is why it’s not surprising that Edwards has decided to quit the race to White House after losing in the first four states holding caucuses and primaries. Edwards had a strong showing in Iowa, but when the results from New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina came in, it was clear that it was going to be a very hard uphill climb to win in the so-called Super Tuesday states. Taking his party’s sake into consideration, Edwards chose to withdraw his bid and said that he will endorse a candidate at a later time.

Now that Edwards is gone, this sets up the race between Hillary and Obama. Hillary leads Obama  in virtually all the Super Tuesday states as of now, but if Obama can connect to the orphaned Edwards supporters, we may be in for a really super duper Tuesday.

Order In The Animal World!

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Yup, order is in fact needed in the realm of animals for a new peculiar creature has recently been added to the growing list of animals. The mountains of Tanzania was the fitting venue for the discovery as scientists from California Academy of Sciences documented the existence of a previously unknown species of giant elephant shrew or sengi.

The newest member of Class Mammalia – Rhynochocyon udzungwensis – is the size of a cat and curiously looks like a cross between a small antelope and a small anteater. The animal has delicate thin legs and a flexible snout, thus the drawing the comparisons from the aforementioned larger animals. Unlike other small animals that commonly camouflage their way into the background, the elephant shrew are strikingly flashy with their fur. While most shrews would come in hues of grey and brown, the sengi seemingly breaks all conventions about blending in and keeping a low profile by showing a very rich shade of orange and amber.

The country  of Tanzania has long been ground zero as far as the discovery of new species is concerned. New species  of partridges, shrews and even primates have been documented in the Udzungwa Mountains making it the favored location for naturalists and zoologists for further enhancing the animal inventory.

Considering the wealth of information and  unknown species that  lie hidden in the untouched reaches of the jungles, it’s important that we all do our part to protect these areas. Once these areas open up, it’s possible that there will be little that we can find out from the yet-to-be-discovered species.