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NEWBURY, Vt., - The owner of a farm in Newbury, Vt., says drenching rains washed as many as 100,000 pumpkins into the Connecticut River. Margaret Gladstone of Newmont Farm told WMUR-TV, Manchester, N.H., at least two people who plucked pumpkins from the river have sent her money for them. She said other farmers have offered to help her fill orders. The pumpkins had been picked and were waiting to be shipped when storms hit the area during the weekend. Gladstone estimated the total loss at 100,000 pumpkins. About 4,000 made it at least 25 miles downstream, where they washed up...

LOS ANGELES — Ilene Woods, the voice of Cinderella in Disney’s animated classic, has died. She was 81. Ms. Woods died Thursday of causes related to Alzheimer’s disease at a nursing home, her husband, Ed Shaughnessy, told the Los Angeles Times. Ms. Woods was an 18-year-old radio singer in 1948 when she recorded a demo for an upcoming Disney feature. Two days later, Walt Disney auditioned her, and she went on to voice the title character’s speaking and singing parts for 1950’s “Cinderella,’’ about a mistreated stepdaughter who finds her Prince Charming.

he date of May 21st, 2008, was the worst day of Steven Curtis Chapman's life, for it was then that Chapman's five-year-old daughter, Maria Sue Chapman, was killed in an accident. It occurred ten days after Maria's birthday when Maria was accidentally hit by her older brother Will while he was driving a Toyota Land Cruiser pulling into the driveway of their home in Franklin, Tennessee. Maria, the youngest in the family, was one of three daughters whom Steven and his wife Mary Beth had adopted from China, and she was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital. Maria died...

SMH Can't be posted due to copyright issues. Heard on Fox news.

Natalia Vodianova: the Cinderella of the Volga 16:30 | 08/ 03/ 2007 MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti commentator Anatoly Korolev) – Natalia Vodianova, one of the world’s top ten models, currently lives in New York City. She is married to Justin Trevor Berkeley Portman, half-brother of the 10th Viscount Portman, a lord born and bred, and a millionaire to boot. Therefore, her children—her son Lucas and baby daughter Neva—indisputably belong to the British aristocracy. Unbelievably, this glamorous Russian lady was a provincial vegetable vendor a mere seven years ago. Her unmarried mother had a hard time raising three daughters, one of whom...

Gutsy Boise State Steals BCS Spotlight By ANDREW BAGNATO Friday, January 05, 2007 Oklahoma players Rufus Alexander (42) and Carl Pendleton (68) react as Boise State's Ian Johnson (41) scores the game-winning two point conversion during the overtime of the Fiesta Bowl college football game, Monday, Jan. 1, 2007, in Glendale, Ariz.. Boise State won, 43-42. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin) SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - The Boise State Broncos left their resort hotel Tuesday to make room for the Florida Gators, who arrived to prepare for next week's BCS title game against Ohio State. But the ninth-ranked Broncos remained the talk of...

Monday, August 21, 2006 Any concert tour called 20 Years of Rock And Roll promises an enthusiastic celebration of the music of yesterday. In the case of the Poison/Cinderella double bill that played its laser show-loving heart out at Sound Advice Amphitheatre on Sunday night, that meant plenty of loudly shredding guitars, hair that was sprayed to the heavens and all manner of questionable but era-appropriate mesh. But there was, in the crowd of 30 and 40-somethings reliving their late '80s rock dreams in this Gap khaki age, at least one symbol that proved there was still a genuine mood...

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An opera company has been banned from performing Sergei Prokofiev's Cinderella after setting the classic children's story in a brothel. The Latvian National Opera performed its Cinderella ballet only twice, after complaints from Prokofiev's estate. "There was a huge gap between the original music and the new story," said Noelle Mann, curator of the Sergei Prokofiev Archive. But the opera company said it was "a very beautiful and sincere story". Based on the classic fairytale, Prokofiev wrote the ballet Cinderella in the 1940s. The new Latvian National Opera (LNO) adaptation was performed in Riga before being cancelled. It set the...

In a rare marketing ploy, the No. 2 U.S. movie theater chain, AMC Entertainment, is offering a money-back guarantee for boxing picture "Cinderella Man," hoping to boost interest in the struggling film amid a record box-office slump. Advertisements offering on-the-spot refunds to AMC patrons unhappy with the film began running June 24 in newspapers and on the exhibitor's Web site (www.amctheatres.com), AMC spokeswoman Pam Blase said Tuesday. The ads, welcomed by the film's distributor, Universal Pictures, say in part: "AMC believes Cinderella Man is one of the finest motion pictures of the year!" Blase said AMC provides occasional rebates to...

He's the Bulldog of Bergen, the Pride of New Jersey, the Hope of the Irish: James J. Braddock, has-been, might-have-been, and struggling breadwinner. As Russell Crowe portrays this real-life figure from the Depression era in Cinderella Man, he lopes down the sidewalk with his eyebrows tented in mild surprise and his mouth hanging slightly ajar. This Cinderella still has dust behind his ears. Braddock is no ball of fire. He's not motivated by a passion for boxing, like Maggie in last fall's hit, Million Dollar Baby. He doesn't even have the horsy competitiveness of Seabiscuit, subject of Hollywood's last inspirational-underdog-of-the-Depression...

Fairy tales such as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty give children the harmful impression that "it pays to be pretty", say American social scientists. The stories contain so many damaging stereotypes that they are as harmful as the lurid sexual images contained in many popular music videos, they claim. Parents should not "throw the books away" but discuss the plots and characters with their children and consider whether they are telling their daughters to seek beauty at the expense of their education and careers. The researchers congratulate the makers of the film Shrek, in which a beautiful maiden lives happily ever...