Miss India is named Miss World in London
Miss India, Yukta Mookhey, 20, won the title of Miss World 1999 in London on Saturday.Second and third prizes in the competition, which attracted entrants from 94 countries, went to Miss Venezuela, Martina Thorogood, 24, and Miss South Africa, Sonia Raciti, 21. "I did my best and I left the rest to God," Mookhey said.
Competitors donned both evening wear and swimsuits to parade before eight judges, including world heavyweight boxing champion Lennox Lewis and Formula One racing driver Eddie Irvine.
Demonstrators outside the west London Olympia center, where the contest was held, denounced it as a "sexist cattle market."
Rocker Nugent hunts deer despite protests
Rock star Ted Nugent says protests against state-sanctioned deer hunts in two Michigan parks are off target.
"It's a boon to all except those that think Bambi's real," Nugent said Friday while hunting near his home in rural Jackson County. "Reducing living, breathing flesh-and-blood creatures to the value of a cartoon. It hurts."
Managers of the parks, concerned that the high numbers of deer will either starve or devour endangered plant life, endorsed a series of hunts in July. They consulted with an advisory committee that included representatives of two outdoors groups that Nugent heads.
Opponents say the hunts are unnecessary and inhumane, but Nugent says the hunters are doing a job that needs to be done.
"These fantasy-based hippies have a lot of nerve, bringing their cartoon education into the equation of wildlife management," he said. "It angers me that the debate is even allowed to continue. Wildlife cannot be stockpiled or everybody loses."
Music group planning Columbine donation
The Backstreet Boys planned to donate $75,000 from their Denver concert to the Columbine College Fund, but the nonprofit organization is about to fold for lack of funds.
"We're currently trying to get in contact with the correct organization to make sure that the money donated on behalf of the Backstreet Boys gets to the kids," Mark Norman, vice president of show promoter House of Blues, said recently.
The group donated the money after learning that 1,200 tickets to their Oct. 31 Denver concert sold for at least $110 apiece.
Patrice Pagano, who established the San Francisco-based fund in May to provide college scholarships to students in the Columbine High School massacre, said so far only about $800 has been donated.