Ashes: England set to keep Ian Bell at six in Melbourne
Ian Bell looks set to stay at six in England's batting order for the fourth Ashes Test in Melbourne on Boxing Day.
The in-form batsman has been tipped to move up the order to five, with Paul Collingwood struggling for runs.
But England captain Andrew Strauss said: "I'm not going to 100% rule it out, but I'd be surprised if we went down that route."
Meanwhile, James Anderson showed no signs of suffering with a side strain as he took part in training on Friday.
The paceman had not bowled since England's 267-run defeat in the third Test at Perth last week after complaining of soreness down his side.
However, the 28-year-old bowled an hour-long spell in a net session, giving England a huge boost two days before the crucial match against Australia.
"Jimmy seems absolutely fine," said Strauss. "He's done quite a lot of bowling, but it [side strain] has settled down nicely."
With 200 wickets in 55 Test matches, Anderson is key to England's hopes of regaining their lead in the five-match series at the MCG, which is set to host 90,000 people for the traditional Boxing Day encounter.
However, the fate of his his new-ball partner in Perth, Steve Finn, is less assured.
Although the 21-year-old has taken 19 wickets in the series - one less than leading wicket-taker Graeme Swann - he has conceded 3.96 runs an over, in comparison with Anderson's frugal 2.95.
The Middlesex seamer complained of sore calves after Perth, prompting speculation that he could be dropped for either Tim Bresnan or Ajmal Shahzad in Melbourne.
However, Strauss insisted Finn is fully fit to play at the MCG.
"There was a little bit of weariness after that Test, but no cause for concern in terms of fitness for this one," Strauss said of Finn.
"I think he's been a little frustrated that he hasn't been as consistent as he would like.
"Last summer in England, his lengths were very good consistently - and maybe he has not done that on this tour.
"But he is a bowler with a knack of taking wickets, which is a great skill to have. Every match he plays he is learning about bowling in Australia. The vast majority of what he has done on this tour, I've been very happy with - and I expect him to continue getting better."
While Bell has been in excellent touch during the tour - his first-innings 53 in the defeat in Perth was his fourth successive Test half-century - Collingwood has continued to struggle batting at five.
The 34-year-old has gone 10 innings since his last Test half-century, against Pakistan at Trent Bridge in July.
But England look set to resist the temptation to alter the batting line-up, although Bell remained sanguine about talk of a promotion.
"Whether it happens or not is irrelevant for this series, as long as we're winning the next two Tests," said the Warwickshire batsman.
"That's the most important thing to me, contributing to this team winning the Ashes.
"I think we've played some very good cricket since we've been here. We had a blip in Perth - we knew Australia at some point would play some great cricket and have some great individual performances.
"We've had a good opportunity to have a sit down and talk about what happened in Perth... in Melbourne, I'm sure we can put right what went wrong."
Team-mate Kevin Pietersen said England will be more prepared for Australia's swing bowling after Mitchell Johnson took nine wickets in Perth.
"I just don't think we prepared for it," Pietersen told BBC Radio 5 live. "The ball swings in England in summer so swing bowling's not a problem.
"We didn't bat as well as we could have [in Perth] - we understand the reasons and a had good thrash in the team meeting about the reasons," he said.
"We've come to grips with that and will be a lot better prepared come Melbourne. We've had great success against swing bowlers in the past."
Pietersen also defended the under-fire Collingwood, saying: "We support players who are not going through the best of times, because it happens to us all.
"We all know Colly's someone who, when his back is up against the wall, scores runs. I'll be very surprised if we're not 100-3 this week and he gets us a big hundred and in a really good position - I've seen it so many times before."
Meanwhile, the curator at the Melbourne Cricket Ground has hinted England will have nothing to fear from his pitch.
Cameron Hodgkins says he has had no directive from Cricket Australia on what type of surface to prepare for the match - and that it should pose fewer problems than the Waca did in Perth.
"[The MCG] is more a wicket that offers a little bit up front and is quite flat towards the end of the match," he told BBC Sport.
"On the Waca's worst day they'd still be faster and bouncier than anything that we'd turn out.
"We traditionally are quite slow on the first day, normally, and that probably causes the most difficulty for batsmen who want to get on with it.
"So patience is normally a key ingredient here. If you don't have that you can be four or five down early on, and the game's over."
England have been boosted by the news that bowler James Anderson is expected to be fit for Melbourne, despite feeling stiffness in his side after the match in Perth.
England (from): AJ Strauss (captain), AN Cook, IJL Trott, KP Pietersen, PD Collingwood, IR Bell, MJ Prior (wkt), GP Swann, TT Bresnan, CT Tremlett, JM Anderson, A Shahzad, ST Finn.
Australia (from): RT Ponting (captain), PJ Hughes, SR Watson, MJ Clarke, MEK Hussey, SPD Smith, BJ Haddin (wkt), MG Johnson, RJ Harris, BW Hilfenhaus, PM Siddle, MA Beer, UT Khawaja.
Umpires: A Dar (Pkn) and T Hill (NZ)
Third umpire: M Erasmus (SA)
Match referee: R Madugalle (SL)
Queen focuses on sport in speech
In this preview of the broadcast, released by the Buckingham Palace, the Queen emphasises how sport can be used to create harmony
The Queen has made sport the central focus of her Christmas message this year, Buckingham Palace has revealed.
She emphasises how it can be used to build communities and create harmony, and highlights the important role that volunteers play.
Her message will also focus on how sport can be used to encourage the development of vital social skills.
The address will be broadcast in full on radio and television at 1500 GMT on 25 December.
The Queen will say: "In the parks of towns and cities, and on village greens up and down the country, countless thousands of people every week give up their time to participate in sport and exercise of all sorts, or simply encourage others to do so.
"These kinds of activity are common throughout the world and play a part in providing a different perspective on life."
Footage showing William and Harry and a group of young African orphans from Lesotho bonding as they play football is included in the broadcast.
The Princes visited the country in June and travelled to the remote Semongkong Children's Centre to meet the youngsters, during a tour of southern Africa.
Christmas Day messages are normally recorded at Buckingham Palace, but this year the Queen suggested Hampton Court Palace - the first time it has been used.
The broadcast, produced by ITN, will be available on the Royal Channel of the YouTube website.
It will also be shown in Commonwealth countries and on the British Forces Broadcasting Service.
Minaj talks about being fondled by Rihanna
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Lauryn Hill Announces 2011 Winter Tour
Rapper/R&B star Lauryn Hill is heading out on a Winter tour starting next, playing a series of mid-sized venues possibly for the last time in her career.
The Grammy Award winning artist will hit the road on a 17-date tour, which will kick off December 27th in New York
, at the High Line Ballroom.
Hill is pegged for six-dates in New York, a pair in New Jersey, five dates down south (North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia), the mid-West and Canada.
Lauryn Hill will hit the road with a live band, well aware that she "may never play venues of this size again," some of which she hasn't played since the Fugee days."
She will perform reworked version of classics from her catalog, including tracks off her hit 1998 album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
According to Hill, she is looking forward to "see her loyal supporters up close and personal again."
Tour dates are listed below:
Mon/Dec-27
New York, NY
High Line Ballroom
Tue/Dec-28
Brooklyn, NY
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Sat/Jan-01
New York, NY
Bowery Ballroom
Mon/Jan-03
New York, NY
The Blue Note
Tue/Jan-04
New York, NY
The Blue Note
Wed/Jan-05
New York, NY
The Blue Note
Sat/Jan-08
Charlotte, NC
Amos' Southend
Sun/Jan-09
Asheville, NC
The Orange Peel
Wed/Jan-12
Charleston, SC
The Music Farm
Fri/Jan-14
Atlanta, GA
Centerstage
Sun/Jan-16
St. Louis, MO
The Pageant
Tue/Jan-18
Minneapolis, MN
First Avenue
Thu/Jan-20
Chicago, IL
House of Blues
Sat/Jan-22
Toronto, ON
Sound Academy
Sun/Jan-23
Montreal, QC
Metropolis
Sat/Jan-29
Atlantic City, NJ
House of Blues
Fri/Feb-04
Montclair, NJ
The Wellmont Theatre
Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys Top List of 2010's Most Charitable Stars
In a world of celebrities behaving badly, these 20 stars balanced things out.
Lady Gaga, a leader in gay-rights issues, takes the No. 1 spot on a new list of the "Top 20 Celebs Gone Good" in 2010, honoring stars for their charity work. Alicia Keys, who is devoted to fighting HIV and AIDS, was the runner-up.
Rounding out the top 10 are Taylor Swift, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, Ellen DeGeneres, Nick Jonas, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Oprah Winfrey and Justin Bieber.
The list is compiled by DoSomething.org, a charity leader for teens and social change.
Source: People.com
Spider-Man' musical returns with new safety measures
The Broadway musical "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" returned Thursday night after a string of stunt mishaps and a serious injury to one of the actors.
"It was like nothing you've ever seen in a Broadway show before," said Rick Mars, who watched the show Thursday. "The stunts were the highlight of the show, I mean the audience would go nuts every time they'd start flying over the audience."
During Monday night's performance, 31-year-old actor Christopher Tierney fell at least 20 feet while performing a stunt. He was hospitalized and was in serious condition at a local hospital.
Jonathan Dealwis, a tourist from New Zealand who was in the audience that night, said he saw the actor fall.
"Spider-Man was on a bridge, and Mary Jane was dangling from it,"
Dealwis said. "I think he was meant to sort of swoop over there, but he just fell off.... The harness, you could see it just flick off his back and fly backward."
Afterward, Dealwis said, "it just went black, and the producer came on and said we're going to pause for a moment. You could hear Mary Jane weeping."
Workers for the show met with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the New York State Department of Labor and devised new safety rules.
The new rules, which include providing sufficient rehearsal for understudies, were instituted before Thursday night's show.
Reeve Carney, one of the actors who play the title character, said: "I've always felt safe in the show and ... I felt even safer today considering all the measures they put in place following Monday."
Officials: 45 people lynched in Haiti amid cholera fears
At least 45 people, most of them voodoo priests, have been lynched in Haiti since the beginning of the cholera epidemic by angry mobs blaming them for the spread of the disease, officials said.
"People who practice voodoo have nothing to do with the cholera epidemic," said Max Beauvoir, the head of a voodoo organization in the Caribbean country.
Beauvoir said Thursday that he has appealed to authorities to help before the situation gets worse.
Some of the victims were killed with machetes, others were burned alive by mobs that added tires and gasoline to stoke the fires. The cholera outbreak started in October.
Forty of the victims were found in a southwest area of Haiti called Grand Anse, said Moise Fritz Evens, a communications ministry official.
The victims have been targeted because of "misinformation" that had been circulating in the community that voodoo practitioners were spreading cholera by using witchcraft, according to communications Minister Marie-Laurence Lassegue.
"It was necessary to increase awareness of the disease and educate the population countrywide instead of getting into a religious war that has no ending," Lassegue said.
The killings add to ongoing woes that have hit the island after the devastating earthquake in January.
About 220,000 people were killed in the earthquake, and countless others left homeless. A cholera outbreak after the earthquake has killed more than 2,000 people, health officials said.
Source:CNN
Controversial activists arrested in Guyana
Two controversial Guyanese, Mark Benschop, a social and political activist and Freddie Kissoon, a university lecturer and columnist of the Kaiteur News newspaper, who were arrested for two minor offences and were locked up for two nights, went on hunger strike, and were eventually granted bail, thus aborting habeas corpus proceedings filed on their behalf.
They were granted bail by Magistrate Chandra Sohan in the sum of one Guyana dollar each, which is half a US penny.
Their lawyer, Nigel Hughes, said that they were locked up because of malice, since both charges were minor ones and do not carry imprisonment, but merely small fines.
They were charged with wilfully remaining in the La Repentir Cemetery to prevent the movement of traffic, and obstructing municipal workers from carrying out their duties. The arrest came after Benschop went to the cemetery and sat in front of the gate to prevent trucks from dumping garbage in the area, since it was creating a health hazard.
It is understood that, after Benschop was arrested, Kissoon went to his assistance and he also was arrested and taken to the Brickdam Police Station, where they were locked up.
Their lawyers moved to the High Court by way of habeas corpus proceedings, but bail was granted and they were released before Chief Justice Ian Chang could deal with the application. They were ordered to return to court on February 9.
On Thursday afternoon, the Working People's Alliance issued a statement calling on the police to apologise, stating that they granted station bail to a man who was charged for being in possession of cocaine and they refused to do so for two prominent men who were arrested for minor offences.
The WPA said that Benshop and Kissoon should be complimented for protesting against a health hazard.
Trinidad public servants threaten to shut down country on January 4
President of the Trinidad and Tobago Public Service Association (PSA) Watson Duke has declared an intensified war on the government in the New Year. He said he had asked public servants to stop working on January 4 and he was calling for a shutdown of the country on that day.
He said he has also asked public servants to work half day from now till then.
The Trinidad Guardian newspaper reported that Duke said he also was expecting the support of the Maxi Taxi and Taxi Drivers Associations, as well as the Public Transport Service Corporation's bus drivers on January 4.
He added, "I expect the country to come to a halt that day. Government must understand there can be no peace until public servants get a piece of the national pie."
He said if the 33,000 public servants did not get a salary increase there would be no investment in the country and the economy would stagnate and decay.
Duke vowed, "Whatever price we have to pay, in life or death or prison, we will continue to represent our members to the best of our interest. We are taking this to a new level next year."