VIAREGGIO, Italy--(FOX NEWS) A freight train derailed in the middle of the night in northern Italy, setting off an explosion and a fire that killed at least 13 people and sent 50 others to the hospital, many with severe burns, officials said Tuesday.
Flames engulf the area where a freight train derailed and exploded outside a station of Viareggio, in northern Italy.
The 14-car train was traveling from the northern city of La Spezia to Pisa when a rear car plowed into a residential neighborhood beside the train station in the Tuscan seaside town of Viareggio just before midnight Monday.
A train car filled with liquefied natural gas exploded, collapsing at least two buildings and setting fire to a vast area. Homes collapsed or burned, killing residents as they slept.
Videos uploaded on YouTube showed a huge plume of fire and smoke towering above Viareggio's low houses. An inferno raged through the night, consuming buildings and cars, while the sound of sirens and explosions pierced the air.
The death toll stood at 13 by Tuesday morning, said Gennaro Tornatore, a spokesman for the firefighters. But he said the number of victims might rise as 300 firefighters and other rescue teams searched through the rubble.
SAN'A, Yemen--(FOX NEWS) A passenger jet from Yemen with 153 people on board crashed in the Indian Ocean early Tuesday as it tried to land during heavy wind on the island nation of Comoros, a Yemeni aviation official said.
Relatives of passengers from the Yemenia Air flight arrive at Marseille Marignane airport, southern France.
A Comoros police official said one toddler has been rescued alive from the sea. Bodies were spotted floating in the ocean and the police official said three had been recovered so far.
Yemeni civil aviation deputy chief Mohammed Abdul Qader said there were 142 passengers and a crew of 11 Yemenis on board when the plane, which had set off from the Yemeni capital of San'a, went down before landing in Moroni, on the main island of Grand Comore.
France's transport minister says French aviation inspectors found a "number of faults" during a 2007 inspection of a plane that has crashed in the Indian Ocean.
MTV's roots can be traced back to 1977, when Warner Amex Cable (a joint venture between Warner Communications and American Express) launched the first two-way interactivecable TV system, Qube, in Columbus, Ohio. The Qube system offered many specialized channels, including a children's channel called Pinwheel which would later become Nickelodeon. One of these specialized channels was Sight On Sound, a music channel that featured concert footage and music oriented TV programs; with the interactiveQube service, viewers could vote for their favorite songs and artists. The popularity of the channel prompted Warner Amex to market the channel nationally to other cable services. At midnight on August 1, 1981, the format was changed to music video (using a concept originally devised and sold to Warner Amex by Michael Nesmith, previously a member of the hit pop band The Monkees) and the name was changed to "MTV Music Television"
Appropriately, the first music video shown on MTV was "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles (with similar tongue-in-cheek humor, the first video shown on MTV Europe was "Money for Nothing," by Dire Straits, which starts with repetition of the line "I want my MTV," voiced by Sting).
The early format of the network was modeled after Top 40 radio. Fresh-faced young men and women were hired to host the show's programming, and to introduce videos that were being played. The term VJ (video jockey) was coined, a play on the term DJ (disc jockey.) Many VJs eventually became celebrities in their own right. The early music videos that made up the bulk of the network's programming in the '80s were often crude promotional or concert clips from whatever sources could be found; as the popularity of the network rose, and record companies recognized the potential of the medium as a tool to gain recognition and publicity, they began to create increasingly elaborate clips specifically for the network. Several noted film directors got their start creating music videos.
The original MTV veejays (from left to right): Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood, J.J. Jackson, Martha Quinn, and Alan Hunter.
A large number of rock stars of the 1980s and 1990s were made into household names by MTV. 1980s bands immediately identifiable with MTV include Duran Duran and Bon Jovi. Michael Jackson launched the second wave of his career as an MTV staple. Madonna rose to fame on MTV in the 1980s, and to this day continues to use the network to promote her music.
In 1984 the network produced its first MTV Video Music Awards show. Seen as a fit of self-indulgence by a fledgling network at the time, the "VMAs" developed into a music-industry showcase marketed as a hip antidote to the Grammy awards. In 1992, the network would add a movie award show with similar success.
After MTV's programming shifted towards heavy metal and rap music, MTV Networks launched a second network, Video Hits 1 (VH1), in 1985. VH1 featured more popular music than MTV. Today, MTV Networks also owns Nickelodeon, a cable channel airing children's and family programming.
MTV started off showing music videos nearly full-time, but as time passed they introduced a variety of other shows, including animated cartoons such as Beavis and Butt-head and Daria; "reality" shows such as The Real World and Road Rules; prank/comedic shows such as The Tom Green Show, Jackass, and Punk'd; and soap operas such as Undressed. By the second half of the 1990s, MTV programming consisted primarily of non-music programming. In 2000, MTV's Fear became the first 'scary' reality show where contestants filmed themselves. The show ran for three seasons and spawned numerous imitations, including the currently running Fear Factor on NBC. In 2002, MTV aired the first episode of another reality show, The Osbournes, based on the everyday life of former, Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne, his wife Sharon, and two of their children, Jack and Kelly. The show went on to become one of the network's biggest ever success stories and kick-started a musical career for Kelly Osbourne, while Sharon Osbourne went on to host a talk show on U.S. television. In 2003, Newlyweds, another popular reality TV show that follows the lives of Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey, a music celebrity couple, began. It has run for three seasons. The success of Newlyweds was followed in June 2004 by The Ashlee Simpson Show, which documented the beginnings of the music career of Ashlee Simpson, Jessica Simpson's younger sister. In the fall of 2004, Ozzy Osbourne's reality show Battle for Ozzfest aired.
(FOX NEWS)--Here are five ways we might approach the kids-on-a-planes problem -- and what you can do to become part of the solution:
Kids-only section
"I would gladly pay an extra $20 each way to avoid the noise and headaches," says Randy Gillespie, a travel agent from Collingswood, New Jersey, adding that such an option should be built into the fare rather than offered as an optional add-on.
Kids-only sections have been tried on an informal basis in the past, but never quite caught on. Families couldn't be forced into one section of a plane any more than kids could be excluded from, say, first class. But you can still find your own "kid free" section on a plane. On domestic flights, children may not sit in exit rows, and they're unlikely to make an appearance in business- and first-class sections, where seats are super-expensive.
Ban 'em
"I don't know whether it would be practical to have child-free flights," says Bill Armstrong, an information technology consultant from Calgary. "But certainly, I am on the list of people who would pay a little extra for that." Armstrong recently endured a nine-hour flight with a child that "had developed a uniquely annoying scream" that didn't stop and could be heard even while Armstrong wore headphones.
But is getting rid of all children a viable solution? Probably not. That's not to say crewmembers shouldn't be more vigilant about looking for potentially disruptive kids during boarding and warning their parents that outbursts and other forms of unapproved behavior won't be tolerated.
If you suspect you'll have a problem with an unruly child sitting next to you -- and this is especially true if it's your own child -- then speak up before the cabin doors close. A crewmember might be able to move you to a different section. Or a different flight.
No, get rid of the annoying adults!
In fairness, I can't raise the issue of banning kids without handing the mic to angry parents who think annoying adults should be banned, too. So here it goes.
"Are there really more disruptive kids on planes than obnoxious adults?" asks Hayley Schultz, who travels with her three kids, ages 5, 7, and 9, and notes that they sit in their seats, read books and watch TV without incident. Good point.
If you want to see annoying adults, just take a red-eye flight from Las Vegas, where half the unlucky passengers are trying to drown their sorrows one mini-bottle of cheap whiskey at a time. Or board a wintertime flight from any New York airport to Palm Beach, Florida, a route known for its preponderance of irritating passengers.
Schultz represented some of the more levelheaded comments I've received from parents who thought this whole debate shouldn't be happening at all. Point taken -- but not enough to end the discussion.
Encourage responsible parenting
Many in-flight altercations are a result of negligent parenting, to hear some passengers talk about it.
A 5-year-old on a flight from Charlotte to Albany, New York, recently kicked Mauranna Sherman, an administrative assistant from Forest, Virginia, repeatedly. When she turned around, the boy's mother just shrugged. "Mom had no bag of toys or books or techie stuff" to distract her son, she remembered.
Airlines bear some responsibility in helping adults prepare for a flight with their offspring, and their Web sites could do a far better job of telling new parents what to expect on a flight. But ultimately, of course, it's the parents' job to make sure they've packed enough food and entertainment for the flight.
I've heard of childless passengers packing their own snacks, toys and games to deal with stressed-out kids they might encounter on a flight. That's not a bad idea.
Pass new seatbelt laws
"I would like to see kids more secure during flight," says Nancy Hatten, a flight attendant who lives in Farmington, Minnesota. "Parents of children under two should be required to purchase a passenger seat for the child and then keep them buckled in a child car seat during flight."
That would require parents to buy a seat for their kids, which they currently aren't required to do. But it would almost certainly make air travel safer and saner for everyone else. Toddlers strapped in a car seat usually come to terms with their circumstances quickly and know that a stroll down the aisle to visit the pilot is not possible.
Airlines can make it easier for parents to buy an extra seat by offering a discount and providing parents with special seats or child-friendly seatbelts, the same way car rental companies do.
Even though I have three children, I still can't quite bring myself to siding with many parents, who seem to feel as if their kids should be able to fly anywhere, anytime and behave in any way they want to. (They're kids, after all!)
My offspring are capable of some of the most annoying behavior ever. After all, I'm their father. So when a flight attendant tells me my kids are out of line, I'm the first to agree. I wouldn't dream of seating my children in business- or first class even if I could afford it. That's a topic for another column, though.
TUCSON, Ariz.--(FOX NEWS) Tucson police say they've made an arrest in the killing of a 30-year-old man that had gone unsolved since 1990.
Police say a civilian hired to review unsolved cases took a new look at the slaying of Angel Pena in September. Detectives then reopened the investigation, did follow-up interviews and analyzed additional evidence.
After receiving results from DNA tests, the new evidence and witness statements were presented to a grand jury, which returned an indictment against 57-year-old Jorge Luis Diaz-Alonso. Police said on Monday that he has been transferred from a federal prison to Pima County custody to face a first-degree murder charge.
Pena was shot at a Tucson hotel. Several potential suspects were identified, but the case went cold.
SEATTLE--(FOX NEWS) FBI agents have joined the search for a 10-year-old Grays Harbor County girl missing since Friday night.
Lindsey Baum
Lindsey Baum was last seen walking home from a friend's house about six blocks from her own home in the small town of McCleary.
Grays Harbor Undersheriff Rick Scott says law enforcement officers were canvassing the city Sunday. He says search and rescue volunteers and others combed the area Saturday where the girl was last seen but "didn't yield anything."
Scott says there's no evidence of foul play, but his agency is "beginning to investigate with that possibility in mind."
The girl's mother reported her missing at Friday night.
"I just need my daughter home," Melissa Baum, the girl's mother told The Aberdeen Daily World. She said she's afraid someone has taken her daughter and away from McCleary, a town of about 1,500.
McCleary Police Chief George Crumb told the newspaper that while his department hoped she ran off, "she's been gone far too long."
"This is a small town. These things don't happen. And yet here they are," Melissa McCann, a family friend told KOMO-TV. "She comes from her friend's [house] a lot, so it doesn't make sense that she didn't show up at home. We're just baffled."
VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (FOX NEWS) -- The Air Force has successfully launched an unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile from the California coast to an area in the Pacific Ocean some 4,200 miles away.
Lt. Raymond Geoffroy says the ICBM was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 3:01 a.m. Monday and carried three unarmed re-entry vehicles to their targets near the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
The missile, configured with a National Nuclear Security Administration Test Assembly, was launched under the direction of the 576th Flight Test Squadron.
The Air Force says the launch was an operational test to check the weapon system's reliability and accuracy, and the data will be used by United States Strategic Command planners and Department of Energy laboratories.
(FOX NEWS)--JBS Swift Beef Co. of Greeley, Colo., is voluntarily expanding its beef recall to include about 380,000 pounds of products because of possible E. coli contamination.
A recall earlier this week involved about 41,000 pounds of products.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Sunday that all the beef products were produced April 21 and are in boxes bearing "EST. 969," a package date of "042109" and a time stamp ranging from "0618" to "1130."
The USDA says an investigation by its Food Safety and Inspection Service of 24 illnesses in multiple states prompted the company to re-examine its food safety system. The department says 18 of the illnesses appear to have the same cause, and the company is conducting the recall "out of an abundance of caution."
(FOX NEWS)--Microsoft today announced pricing plans for its new Windows 7 operating system, which will end up costing consumers less than its oft-vilified Vista counterpart.
Specifically, the estimated prices in the United States for a Windows 7 upgrade are:
* Windows 7 Home Premium (Upgrade): $119.99 * Windows 7 Professional (Upgrade): $199.99 * Windows 7 Ultimate (Upgrade): $219.99
And the estimated prices for the full Windows 7 package are:
* Windows 7 Home Premium (Full): $199.99 * Windows 7 Professional (Full): $299.99 * Windows 7 Ultimate (Full): $319.99
Microsoft also says that consumers who purchase new PCs before Windows 7 goes on sale will get free upgrades once it is released in the fall. (Windows Vista Home Basic is not eligible for upgrades.) The company is also offering consumers who live in the United States and other select markets the opportunity to preorder Windows 7 starting tomorrow at a 50 percent discount, which means that in the United States, for example, you can preorder Windows 7 Home Premium for $50 or Windows 7 Professional for $100 while supplies last.
The offer ends July 11 in the United States and Canada, and July 5 in Japan. Customers in the United Kingdom, France and Germany can preorder theirs July 15 to Aug. 14.
Microsoft Windows 7 will officially hit stores Oct. 22.
LOS ANGELES, California (FOX NEWS) -- A private funeral service for actress Farrah Fawcett will be conducted Tuesday afternoon at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles, California, according to her publicist.
Fawcett, who's acting career spawned four decades, rose to stardom on the TV show "Charlie's Angels."
The family did not release any details about who would deliver the eulogy or how many people have been invited.
Fawcett, the blonde actress whose best-selling poster and "Charlie's Angels" stardom made her one of the most famous faces in the world, died Thursday. She was 62, and had been battling anal cancer on and off for three years.
Fawcett's beauty -- her gleaming smile was printed on millions of posters -- initially made her famous. But she later established herself as a serious actress. She starred as a battered wife in the 1984 TV movie "The Burning Bed."
She appeared on stage as a woman who extracts vengeance from a would-be rapist in William Mastrosimone's play "Extremities," a performance she reprised on film in 1986.
Other Fawcett films include "Logan's Run" (1976), "Saturn 3" (1980), "The Cannonball Run" (1981), "The Apostle" (1997) and the Robert Altman-directed "Dr. T and the Women" (2000).
LOS ANGELES, California (FOX NEWS) -- Gale Storm, whose acting and singing talents earned her three stars on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, died Saturday, according to a Danville, California nursing facility where she was a patient.
Storm was 87.
Storm got her first movie contract, a stage name and a husband when she won a radio talent show in Hollywood at the age of 17.
Her first TV show -- "My Little Margie" -- set the sitcom stage with Lucille Ball and other female stars in the 1950s, said Skip E. Lowe, a longtime friend who acted in some of Storm's first movies in the early 1940s.
"She was a wonderful singer," said Lowe. "She started as a singer and became known as an actress and singer."
Born Josephine Owaissa Cottle in Bloomington, Texas, in 1922, she entered and won a CBS Radio talent show that offered a grand prize of a one-year movie contract with RKO Studio, according to her personal biography.
She teamed up with the male winner, Lee Bonnell, whom she married and had four children with. The couple remained married for 45 years until his death in 1986.
"We fell deeply in love and were married two years later, just as soon as my mother would allow it!" she wrote.
The new name Gale Storm was also part of the prize, she said.
Lowe, who interviewed her several times in recent decades on his cable TV show, said Storm was open about her bout with alcoholism.
"She was battling that bottle," Lowe said.
Storm wrote about her alcoholism on her official Web site:
"My successes have certainly not been without problems. During the 1970s I experienced a terribly low and painful time of dealing with alcoholism. I had Lee's unfailing support through the entire ordeal. My treatment and recovery were more than rugged."
Storm said she was "fully recovered for more than 20 years."
She also chronicled her alcoholism battle in an autobiography published in 1980 and titled "I Ain't Down Yet."
Her work in movies in the 1940s when she starred in dozens of B-movies -- mostly Westerns -- was great preparation when television became big in the early 1950s, she said.
Her first TV series, "My Little Margie" was a radio show transferred to TV as a summer replacement for "I Love Lucy" in 1952. "I was overwhelmed by the immediate success of it," she said. "During the next four years, millions of people saw the 126 episodes of 'Margie' on TV and listened to separate, live episodes on network radio," Storm said.
Her next sitcom was "The Gale Storm Show: Oh! Susanna," airing from 1956 until 1960. Storm played the social director on a cruise ship.
Along with film, radio and TV, Storm recorded several top-10 pop hits for Dot Records in the 1950s.
"I was thrilled when my very first record, 'I Hear You Knockin' ,' sold over a million copies and won for me the coveted 'gold' record," she wrote. "After that, my hit records included 'Dark Moon,' 'Ivory Tower,' 'Teen Age Prayer,' and 'Memories Are Made Of This .'"
Her three Hollywood Walk of Fame stars are for recording, radio and television, according to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.
She acted in a few TV episodes in the 1980s, including "The Love Boat" and "Murder She Wrote."
Storm married Paul Masterson in 1988 after Bonnell died. Her second husband died in 1996.
Time Title Artist Year 1. 6:06 Never Can Say Goodbye--Jackson 5 1971 2. 6:11 You Make Me Feel Like Dancing--Leo Sayer 1976 3. 6:27 Treat Her Right--Roy Head and the Traits 1965 4. 6:34 We Are the World--USA For Africa 1985 5. 6:47 Rock and Roll Heaven (updated version)--Righteous Brothers 1991
6:51 Ed McMahon tribute from The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien (clip)
6. 7:07 Rock With You--Michael Jackson 1979
7:11 Ed McMahon (clip)
7. 7:19 She's Not There--The Zombies 1964
7:22 Rod Argent interview
8. 7:33 Hold Your Head Up--Argent 1972 9. 7:43 Longfellow Serenade--Neil Diamond 1974 10. 7:56 Devil With the Blue Dress On--Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels 1966 11. 8:07 The Girl is Mine--Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney 1982 12. 8:18 Daydream--The Lovin' Spoonful 1966
8:20 The Dick Van Dyke Show theme song
8:21 Dick Van Dyke interview
13. 8:32 Dancing Machine--The Jackson 5 1974 14. 8:40 It's a Miracle--Barry Manilow 1975
8:46 Ed McMahon (clip)
8:49 The Tonight Show (Johnny's Theme)
15. 8:55 Billie Jean--Michael Jackson 1983 16. 9:07 Thriller--Michael Jackson 1982
915: Dick Cavett reminisces about Ed McMahon (Mark Simone morning show clip)
17. 9:24 ABC--Jackson 5 1970
9:28 The Bob Newhart Show theme song
9:29 Jack Riley (Bob Newhart Show) interview
18. 9:36 Bad--Michael Jackson 1987 19. 9:46 You're Going to Lose That Girl--The Beatles 1965 20. 9:55 She's Out of My Life--Michael Jackson 1980
NEW YORK (FOX NEWS) -- As prosecutors asked to jail Bernard Madoff for 150 years, a U.S. District Court judge Friday entered a preliminary order calling on the convicted Ponzi schemer to forfeit more than $170 billion in assets, prosecutors announced.
Prosecutors said the sentence would ensure chairman will stay in prison for the rest of his life.
Madoff's wife, Ruth, will be allowed to keep $2.5 million in funds "in settlement of the claims she would have otherwise brought against the property," acting U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin said.
Madoff, who pleaded guilty to 11 counts, including fraud, money laundering and perjury, is to be sentenced Monday. The forfeitures amount to all of his assets.
Included in the forfeitures are millions of dollars in loans made to family members, employees and friends, all personal property, including paintings, jewelry and furniture, millions of dollars in investment and banking accounts and several pieces of property.
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to sell a $7.5 million co-op apartment in New York, a $7 million property in Montauk, New York, and a $7.45 million property in Palm Beach, Florida, along with several cars and boats.
Meanwhile, Dassin filed paperwork with the court Friday asking that Madoff be sentenced to 150 years to ensure that the former NASDAQ chairman would remain in prison for the remainder of his life and "promote general deterrence."
Madoff's multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme is said to have defrauded thousands of investors under false pretenses. The scheme, which spanned decades, has generated a fraud loss of more than $13 billion.
"This is more than thirty-two times the baseline level of loss that would carry a sentence of life under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines," Dassin wrote.
Madoff promised his clients a high return with limited risk, but in reality early investors were paid with later investors -- and nobody realized huge gains. Some of the victims of the scheme included individuals and nonprofit organizations.
"His so-called 'investment business' was a fraud; his frauds affected thousands of investors in the United States and worldwide," Dassin wrote.
Madoff pleaded guilty on March 12 and has since been in jail at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.
Madoff's lawyer believes his 71-year-old client should serve only 12 years in prison.
SANTA CRUZ, California —(FOX NEWS) A man who works three jobs to support his family including one as a limousine driver has won a $39 million jackpot in California's SuperLotto Plus.
Clyde Persley, who is married with a 4-year-old daughter, turned in his winning ticket on Tuesday night and should get his first check for about $16 million in four to six weeks, said a California lottery spokeswoman.
The 49-year-old Santa Cruz man operates candy-making machines for Santa Cruz Nutritionals, drives a limousine and picks up extra hours at a restaurant.
He says his first moves will be taking his wife on a trip to Hawaii and hiring a financial adviser.
He bought his winning ticket at a Santa Cruz market where he has played the lottery twice a week for several years.
Photographer Bruce McBroom -- who snapped that unforgettable picture of the bathing-suit-clad Farrah Fawcett -- reflects on working with the star, and creating a piece of pop culture history at her house one summer day in 1976. ("She was amazingly beautiful and sweet, and it's not fair that things like this happen to good people," says McBroom about Fawcett, who died yesterday from cancer. "I think she will be remembered as this wonderful, wholesome all-American girl that's on the poster, and also now for her courageous battle against cancer, and the fact that she shared it with a lot of people who may be going through similar situations. I applaud her for that.")
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What do you remember about Farrah from the early days? BRUCE MCBROOM: I had the pleasure of knowing Farrah when she was the young innocent girl who just arrived in Hollywood. She was a very smart young lady, but she was this little girl from Texas with these really wonderful parents and very innocent in the way of Hollywood, and very honest and open. There was no artifice about her, no phoniness. She had no idea of how beautiful and how attractive she was, I’m sure.... Even after becoming a hit on Charlie’s Angels, she was never one that lurked in her dressing room. I would be working with her on a set, and she was totally accessible. No attitude…. She was just like [an] apple-pie, girl-next-door kind of girl, and in all the years I knew her she never changed.
How did the shoot for the poster come about? One day I got a call from some guy in the Midwest from a poster company. He said, "I’m doing this poster of Farrah Fawcett and Farrah said to hire you to shoot her. I’ve hired two photographers and they photographed her and she hates the pictures." He said, "Here’s the thing, it’s gotta be her great hair, she’s gotta be smiling, she’s gotta be in a bikini and they’ve gotta be drop-dead, sexy pictures."
Can you walk us through the shoot? She and Lee Majors [her then husband] lived in a big house up on Mulholland Drive [in Los Angeles]. I showed up and it was just the two of us.... Farrah did her own hair and her own makeup, not that she needed much makeup. I said, “He wants you in a bikini” and she said, "I don’t have a bikini." She was only about 29, and just gorgeous in anything. We took a lot of pictures. She’d go in, get something out of the closet and I’d find another background. I knew I didn’t have a picture that resonated with me even though she looked great. I was running out of ideas and I was getting desperate. We’d been there all day. I said, "You know how you look best. Is there anything else that you’ve got that we haven’t shot? The guy says he wants sexy." So she said, "Lemme go look around." She comes to the door and she’s standing in the doorway in that red suit. And she said, "What do you think of this?" It was like it was spray painted on her; I don’t think it was a swimsuit. I said, "You know what? That’s it!" I said, "Farrah, just get comfortable and do your thing." When she did the series of sitting-up poses, I said, "We've got it." And I heaved a big sigh of relief.
What else resonates about the shoot? I literally ran out of color film about the same time that I took that picture. I knew I had it. Somewhere in that last roll of film is the picture that we’re looking for. She said, "I’m so tired of looking pretty and having this hair and makeup." And she grabbed the garden hose and just held it up and drowned herself with a garden hose. I grabbed my Nikon, and I was looking for a roll of black-and-white film, and I said, "Don’t stop, don’t stop!" And what I have always maintained, the sexiest pictures I took are the pictures I took after the session. It was a totally innocent Farrah: "I’m so sick of looking pretty all day." She just smeared her makeup, and it was the capper of the whole thing. We had so much fun. We just had a blast doing it.
The poster went on to adorn countless bedroom walls. Did you two have any idea how popular it would be? Neither Farrah or myself thought that this was a big deal. This was like, "Come on up, we’ll take some pictures, and we’ll send them to this guy." I give Farrah all the credit for knowing how she looked best. She knew how she photographed best and she knew what she was selling. She gave a gift to the publisher, coming up with the red suit, doing her own hair and makeup, and unerringly finding the one picture out of thousands that made her look the way she wanted to look…. She had the right to approve all photos. We shot 40 rolls of film and Farrah sent [the poster producer] six 35-mm slides. She marked her favorite and second favorite; they went with her favorite. Farrah picked that image -- and she was right on the money.
MIAMI, Okla.--(FOX NEWS) At least eight people died Friday when a tractor-trailer slammed into a line of cars stopped on a northeast Oklahoma turnpike in a series of accidents that left twisted metal and debris strewn about the highway and stranded miles of traffic in scorching heat for hours.
Emergency crews worked well into the evening to untangle the wreckage and determine whether there were additional victims.
Oklahoma Highway Patrol Lt. George Brown said traffic was stopped about 1 p.m. on the Will Rogers Turnpike northeast of Miami because of an earlier crash when the big rig slammed into at least three cars, which then crashed into more vehicles.
"It looks like a war zone," he said. "There's mangled metal everywhere. There's debris, fluids, dead bodies."
Brown said at least eight people were killed, but he feared rescue crews might find more bodies as they worked to get to an automobile pinned under the semitrailer. Two of the dead were in that car, but troopers were not sure Friday evening whether more victims were in the vehicle.
The wreckage was on a steep embankment and two tow trucks had to work slowly to lift the truck up and off the car, Brown said.
Investigators don't believe the driver of the tractor-trailer tried to stop before the crash, Brown said. The speed limit in the area is 75 mph.
Heather Collier, a spokeswoman for Freeman Hospital in Joplin, Mo., said her hospital saw eight patients from the accident, but she said she could not disclose their medical conditions.
The turnpike's eastbound lanes were closed for hours after the accident, which occurred near the border with Missouri and Kansas. Stalled traffic baked in 100-degree weather and emergency crews delivered water to some stranded motorists.
Some got out of their vehicles and walked along the highway shoulder while they waited. Workers from a nearby casino brought bottled water, and emergency officials brought a tanker truck to spray people.
* * Friday is the first anniversary of 94.7 reclaiming the call letters of WLS-FM! In the past year, the station has gone from well outside the Top 20 to a Top 5 rated station (Adults 25-54). Their Cume for ages 12+ has grown from just over 600,000 to as high as over 1.5 million. Despite the rough radio economy, WLS-FM's billing is reportedly up 95% this year. What a year it has been for 94.7! Here's looking forward to what will be accomplished by their second anniversary! * *
