| Race around the clock
As NASCAR wallows in yet another mess of its own making, true racing takes center stage Saturday at the house that stock car racing built: the Rolex 24 at Daytona. The 45th annual twice-around-the-clock sports car race gets the green flag at 1:30 p.m. Saturday -- the first hour will be shown live on Fox and many more hours on SPEED -- and continues unabated into dusk, darkness, dawn and daylight, persevering through deluges, downpours, dust and detonations of the fireworks variety. Last year, the winning Daytona Prototype of Chip Ganassi Racing ran 734 laps for 2,613.04 miles on Daytona's 3.56-mile road course, utilizing the NASCAR turns and tri-oval and the infield circuit that winds through a carnival featuring a 150-foot Ferris wheel, movies, games and non-stop partying.
Resort usually has checkouts, not check-ins
Nyree Thompson was eight months pregnant, but wanted to spend a quiet morning playing the penny slots at an Atlantic City casino on Saturday. Then she had what she thought were some indigestion pains, but less than 10 minutes later her son, Qualeem, was born right there on the casino floor. Mom and baby are doing fine, but resort officials took note of the historic significance of the event. "We've had people die here," said vice president Steve Callendar, "but we've never had people born here." This time, the Wookie didn't win Frederick Young, 44, was arrested last week in Los Angeles on a charge of misdemeanor battery. What made it interesting was that he was dressed as Chewbacca from the Star Wars movies at the time. (Above is the real Chewie. Not some impersonator.) He was working as a street performer in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre when tour operator Brian Sapir took exception to the way Young was treating some tourists.
Eosinophilic esophagitis on the rise
SAN DIEGO, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- Eosinophilic esophagitis, a disease first described in children 20 years ago, has shown a rising incidence in children and adults, says a U.S. study. Eosinophilic esophagitis, known as EE, is an inflammatory condition of the esophagus, with symptoms including vomiting, heartburn and difficulty swallowing. Researchers at the University of California-San Diego School of Medicine and Rady Children's Hospital and Health Center show that the disease causes many of the same kinds of tissue changes seen in pediatric asthma. Their research may lead to new drug targets for EE, which appears to be allergy-driven in some patients. In patients with EE, the disease leads to scarring and narrowing of the esophagus so that food can't readily pass through it.
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