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The United Kingdom’s entry Eurovision entrant, Andy Abrahams, will perform second at this year song contest, it’s been announced.
Abrahams won a public vote earlier this year to represent the country at the prestigious singing competition.
On Thursday, a further 10 countries were put into the final, with Portugal returning to the competition for the first time in five years.
As previously reported, Ireland, who were represented by a singing puppet, failed to make it into the final after being knocked out of Tuesday’s first semi-final.
This year’s Eurovision Song contest will take place live from Belgrade tomorrow (May 24th).
Stay tuned to Gigwise for all the latest information from the competition.
You can see a selection of entrants to this years contest below…

gigwise.com

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Investment group buys biodiesel plant DANVILLE — An investment group has bought a stalled eastern Illinois biodiesel plant and plans to begin production by early next year. Blackhawk Biofuels said it bought the plant in Danville from Biofuels Company of America, whose owners included agribusiness giant Bunge. The sale price wasn’t immediately available. Blackhawk is based in Freeport, about 30 miles west of Rockford. Blackhawk’s Quentin Davis said work previously stopped on the plant with construction almost completed. He wasn’t sure why. The state of Illinois provided $4.8 million of the more than $30 million in construction costs and is backing part of Blackhawk’s financing. Davis said the plant will produce up to 45 million gallons of biodiesel a year and employ 15 people. R. Kelly jury chosen as sides argue over race CHICAGO — Jury selection was completed at R. Kelly’s child pornography trial Thursday, despite contentious exchanges when prosecutors and defense attorneys accused each other of trying to stack the panel along racial lines. Sixteen jurors, …[viewing 1079 of 4551 characters]

thonline.com

Hyderabad, May 15: Andhra Pradesh School Education Minister Damodar Rajanarsimha today released the results of the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examination, in which girls secured 75.84 pass per cent, as against 75.14 per cent secured by boys.
Around 75.47 per cent of the regular students passed the examinations while only 42.42 per cent of private candidates passed. Altogether, 1,453 schools secured cent per cent pass while eight schools secured zero per cent pass, according to a release here.
Out of 9.70 lakh registered regular students for the exam, 9.56 lakh appeared for the examination while 3.08 lakh of the 3.12 lakh private students appeared for the examination. Nizamabad District secured the highest pass per centage of 58.67.

siasat.com

An athlete known for his cycling prowess, Torbjorn Sindballe made headlines with his breakthrough third place at Kona in 2007, with perhaps the most scientific strategy of any athlete out there. Xtri recently had the chance to chat with the Dane to discuss what that day was like and what’s ahead for him this year…
1. Tell us a bit about yourself! Where did you grow up, what was your family life like? Were you athletic as a kid?
I grew up here in DK and had a great childhood. I have a little brother Jakob and little sister Nina. My mother and father divorced when we were 8, 5 and 3, so we lived with our mother from then on, visiting my dad on weekends. There was tons of love, support and freedom, but also a strong sense of responsibility and a good work ethic, which is a significant part of who I am today.
We all did a ton of different sports after school as kids and I have done everything from basketball and soccer to judo or badminton, before taking up competitive swimming at age 12.
2. How did you get involved with triathlon?
I started swimming pretty late, so after trying triathlon in school and through the inspiration from one of my swim coaches, I took up triathlon in the local club at age 15.
There were not that many youngsters in the sport at that time, but everyone in the club was super supportive and gave me a good introduction to the sport. I quickly found other young athletes, some of whom are my best friends today, at federation youth camps and spent most summers all over Denmark and sometimes in Europe for races and camps.
The first 6-7 years of my career I was not at all among the best and often just barely made the top 5 at Danish junior champs. This was a great learning path for me and I think that things not coming to me easily has taught me the perseverance that is crucial to making it on the pro scene.

xtri.com

PHOENIX - Republican John McCain was forced to clarify his comments Friday suggesting the Iraq war involved U.S. reliance on foreign oil. He said he was talking about the first gulf war and not the current conflict.
At issue was a comment he made at a town hall-style meeting Friday morning in Denver.
“My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East,” McCain said.
The expected GOP nominee sought to clarify his comments later, after his campaign plane landed in Phoenix. He said he didn’t mean the U.S. went to war in Iraq five years ago over oil.
“No, no, I was talking about that we had fought the gulf war for several reasons,” McCain told reporters.
One reason was Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, he said. “But also we didn’t want him to have control over the oil, and that part of the world is critical to us because of our dependency on foreign oil, and it’s more important than any other part of the world,” he said.
“If the word ‘again’ was misconstrued, I want us to remove our dependency on foreign oil for national security reasons, and that’s all I mean,” McCain said.
“The Congressional Record is very clear: I said we went to war in Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction,” he said.
It was the second time in as many days that McCain had to clarify his comments. On Thursday, he backed off his assertion that pork-barrel spending led to last year’s deadly bridge collapse in Minneapolis.
LONG-DISTANCE BATTLE: Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama pitched improved health care and economic opportunity as they courted Guam voters from afar for the territory’s Democratic presidential caucuses today.

newsobserver.com

A Bahamas jury ruled yesterday that Anna Nicole Smith’s son died from an accidental drug overdose, just like his mother.
The seven-member jury, which deliberated for fewer than two hours, recommended no criminal charges in the September 2006 death of 20-year-old Daniel Smith.
The son of the former Playboy playmate died after going to the Bahamas to meet his new baby sister on Sept. 10, 2006. His mother died early the next year in Florida from an accidental drug overdose at age 39.
Magistrate William Campbell said the jury’s decision ended the case as far the courts in the Bahamas were concerned.
Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Hospital will be back in prime-time this summer on ABC.
As a sequel to the critically acclaimed documentary, Hopkins 24/7, ABC News returns to the medical center for a new six-part series titled Hopkins.
Filmed during four months in 2007, the series will debut at 10 p.m. June 26.
When the Women’s Murder Club returns to ABC April 29, it will be to a new, cushy spot in the lineup: It will follow the Dancing with the Stars results show at 10 p.m. Tuesdays.
The show, based on James Patterson’s novels, stars Angie Harmon, Laura Harris, Aubrey Dollar and Paula Newsome as a detective, prosecutor, reporter and medical examiner, respectively.
This touches off a domino effect: Boston Legal slides to Wednesday nights at 10 starting April 30; bumping Men in Trees from the schedule until it returns May 28 for the final three episodes of its season.

baltimoresun.com

Law Prof. Vikramaditya Khanna is the youngest University professor with full tenure. Khanna, who began teaching at the University in 2004, is 36 years old. (SAID ALSALAH/Daily)
The next time you’re at office hours, try starting a conversation with your professor about the latest American Idol reject or your favorite 50 Cent song.
For Law School students taking a class with Professor Vikramaditya Khanna, this type of exchange is commonplace. Khanna, the soft-spoken corporate and security relations law professor who considers himself a pop-culture junkie, is the University’s youngest full-time professor.
At 36, Khanna has already accomplished what many academics dream of. He and his family moved to the U.S. from India when he was 4 and then relocated to New Zealand when he was 14. After moving there, Khanna tested out of three grades, but only skipped two because his parents were uneasy about him adjusting socially with older students.
Khanna began his college career at Victoria University of Wellington at age 16, finishing with bachelor-level law and business degrees by age 21.
He then attended Harvard University, where he earned a graduate law degree at 25. After finishing at Harvard, Khanna took his first teaching position at Boston University’s School of Law, where he would stay for six years.
The University of Michigan Law School offered Khanna a full-tenure position in 2004, when he was just 32.
Khanna said he doesn’t think about his age in relation to other faculty that often and it doesn’t deter him from socializing.
Khanna said when he first began teaching at 25, many of his students were his age or older. He said he didn’t mind the experience of being the same age or younger as many students because it “helps keep me constantly plugged in and stimulated.”
Like many students, Khanna’s favorite show to watch is Law & Order. Like many teenagers, the professor criticizes MTV for not playing enough music. He said the Indiana Jones and the Blade Trilogy movies were among his favorites.

michigandaily.com

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LEH), which haven’t been wounded by the credit crunch like some of their brethren, showed they remained ahead of the pack with fiscal first-quarter results that topped expectations and didn’t include any unexpected bad news.
Still, the results were well below prior-year levels as both investment banks booked roughly $2 billion in credit-related losses.
Investors applauded the results, sending the shares higher in premarket activity and recouping some recent losses. Lehman was up 19% to $37.80 while Goldman climbed 9.2% to $164.97. Both companies also saw strong trading action during the quarter, which ended Feb. 29, with Lehman calling its clients’ activity a "record."
Goldman’s net income dropped 53% to $1.51 billion, or $3.23 a share, interrupting 10 quarters in a row of higher year-over year earnings. Year-earlier net income was $3.2 billion, or $6.67 a share.
The latest results included $1 billion in losses on residential mortgage loans and securities, and nearly $1 billion in losses on credit products and investment losses, including $135 million on Industrial & Commercial Bank of China.
Revenue decreased 35% to $8.34 billion.
The mean estimates of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial were for earnings of $2.58 a share on revenue of $7.47 billion.
"Market conditions are clearly very difficult," said Chairman and Chief Executive Lloyd C. Blankfein. "But we saw strong customer activity across many of our franchise businesses in the first quarter. Although market conditions present many challenges at the moment, they also offer considerable opportunities."
The trading and principal investments segment saw revenue decrease 46% amid the credit and investment losses. Investment-banking revenue dropped 32% on a decline in debt underwriting, while the asset-management unit recorded a 23% increase on higher fees.
As for Lehman, its net income fell 57% to $489 million, or 81 cents a share, from $1.15 billion, or $1.96 a share, a year earlier. Net revenue fell 31% to $3.51 billion. Analysts’ mean estimates were for earnings of 72 cents a share on $3.35 billion in revenue.

wiadomosci.onet.pl

LOS ANGELES - Blogs were buzzing Monday with discussion of why Brad Renfro was left out of the Academy Awards tribute to Hollywood figures who died in the past year.
The troubled 25-year-old actor died Jan. 15 of a heroin and morphine overdose. Heath Ledger, killed by an overdose of prescription drugs one week later, appeared in a scene from “Brokeback Mountain” at the conclusion of the three-minute video tribute at Sunday night’s Oscar ceremony.
“Unfortunately we cannot include everyone,” said Leslie Unger, spokeswoman for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. “Our goal is to honour individuals who worked in the many professions and trades of the motion picture industry, not just actors.”
Hilary Swank introduced the Oscar segment, which featured 43 people including makeup artists, a stuntman and several Hollywood agents. Unger said it was not required that those honoured be members of the Academy or past Oscar nominees.
USA Today blogger Whitney Matheson headlined a post Monday, “Why was Brad snubbed last night?” and Perez Hilton posted a mug shot of Renfro with the words “Oscar Snub.”
TMZ speculated Renfro was not “feel-good enough” for Oscar, but public comments left on the site also pointed out that in contrast to Ledger, “Renfro wasn’t a big enough star.”
Unger shook off the suggestion that Renfro wasn’t included because of his history with drugs. “I can’t speak to what other people are going to think,” Unger said. “We can’t include everybody.”
Renfro was most well-known for his title role in 1993’s “The Client,” and had his last major roles more than a decade ago. He had appeared in smaller parts in recent years.
Oscar-nominated “Jaws” star Roy Scheider also was not included. His death on Feb. 10 fell outside the time frame of the tribute video, which covered Feb. 1, 2007 to Jan. 31, 2008.

canadianpress.google.com