Championship leader Jorge Lorenzo has stretched his MotoGP lead at the half-way point in the season, winning round nine at Mugello in Italy. German rookie Stefan Bradl finished fourth, the best result of his career.

The 2010 world champion Jorge Lorenzo took the lead from pole-sitter Dani Pedrosa at the start and never looked back. The Spanish Yamaha rider led the rest of the race and found time to wave to the crowd on the last lap, as he cruised across the line five seconds ahead of his countryman, Pedrosa.

Lorenzo stretches his championship lead to 19 points at the half-way stage in the MotoGP season, ahead of Pedrosa on his Honda. Pedrosa jumped up into second in the overall standings at the expense of his teammate Casey Stoner.

Jorge Lorenzo won at Mugello, the Spaniard is building a hefty overall lead

The reigning world champion, who is competing in his last season before retirement, suffered an off-track excursion at half-distance and could only recover to finish ninth. This poor result, coupled with his last-lap retirement in Germany last weekend, means Stoner now trails Lorenzo by 37 points after leading for much of the season.

Bradl battles for first podium

German rider Stefan Bradl occupied third place for most of the race, but was overtaken by Italian Andrea Dovizioso in the closing laps. Bradl held off a further challenge from Ducati's Nicky Hayden to finish fourth, the best finish of his career in the MotoGP class.

Bradl is in his rookie season, having comfortably won the championship in the Moto2 feeder series on smaller bikes last year. His fifth place finish last week at the Sachsenring near Chemnitz in eastern Germany had equalled his best performance of the season to date, until he topped it at Mugello on Sunday.

Riding on a "satellite bike," a motorcycle operated by an independent customer team rather than a manufacturer, Bradl is an impressive seventh in the overall standings - ahead of two riders, Hayden and Ben Spies, on factory bikes.

Hayden's teammate, multiple champion Valentino Rossi, ultimately rolled in fifth behind Bradl in front of his Italian home fans, with the American nipping at his heels in sixth.

The rest is here:
Lorenzo wins in Mugello, Bradl sets personal best

Amy Carmichael, CTVNews.ca Published Sunday, Jul. 15, 2012 6:30AM EDT

A U.S. yoga instructor isnt alone in expressing concerns about cellphone use at the gym.

Both a personal trainer and an etiquette expert say its a problem and that Alice Van Ness, the yoga instructor at Facebook who says she was fired after trying to stop a student from texting in class, was doing the right thing.

People think their life is so much more important than others and that they can disturb a class or other people in a gym. Its completely out of control, in my opinion, says Melissa Wessel, who specializes in strength training and leads boot camps in Toronto.

Van Ness wrote about her experience at Facebook for elephantjournal.com. Van Ness said management at the Facebook gym encouraged her to let students do whatever they wanted, including come in late and take phone calls. In June, she glared at a texting student while she demonstrated a difficult pose. This, she says, prompted her firing.

Van Ness writes: I said nothing, but Im sure my face said it all. Really? Your email is more important than understanding your body? Its more important than taking time for you? Its more important than everyone else here?

A Toronto etiquette expert sides with Wessel and Van Ness on the issue of phones in gyms and fitness classes.

Rude, says Louise Fox, an etiquette expert certified at the prestigious Protocol School of Washington, host of mannerstv.com and owner of The Etiquette Ladies.

Wessel has her clients leave their phones in their locker. But she says that many gym clients and trainers are phone addicts who cant detach for a workout.

I personally think its ridiculous, Wessel says.

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Etiquette expert backs yoga teacher fired by Facebook

At least for one day, Penn State football players weren't letting recent negative attention affect them.

STATE COLLEGE -- They sprinted back and forth, lugging 100-pound sand bags, heaving them in a pile, one after another.

The blue shirts roared for their own.

The white shirts roared back.

The drill finished and the dozen or so Nittany Lions erupted and grabbed one another in equal parts celebration and good-natured mocking, smiles and cheers all around.

They wouldn't really say it before or even after the 10th annual Lift For Life event Friday evening on the new lacrosse field on campus. No, they mostly talked about how this was just to raise money to fight kidney cancer, as always.

How they were circling together as a team and blocking out all of the negativity that has nothing to do with them and yet shadows every one.

Most wouldn't talk directly about it, but this sure seemed like it also was an opportunity to let off some steam and to bond even tighter -- and even remind the world that Penn State football is about good things, too.

Fans gathered and ringed the field in support, despite off-and-again rain showers. For a day, the scars of the scandal past and the unseen worries to come lifted away.

"There's no way to run from it or look away from it because it's out there," said senior defensive tackle Jordan Hill. "But we're not going to talk about it as a team. You can't really focus on it as a player because you'll get too emotional and that really affects your play."

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Lift for Life event lends Lions chance to make positive impact

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otUxfUpPPfE

12-07-2012 23:22 Hear who and how the winner of the United By Keren 2012 Health and Fitness Challenge lost 4 percent body fat and 2.8kg... We do not focus on scales and measurements! We focus on achievable lifestyle changes that in turn help you to reach those goals. Congratulations Ana!

Originally posted here:
United's 2012 Health and Fitness Challenge Winner Announcement - Video

Retirement conjures up images of spending more time with family and paring down a bucket list, but the reality can be quite different without adequate financial planning.

Here's a guide to what experts say are the five most common mistakes people make when they retire.

Mistake No.1: Not having a plan

Some pre-retirees fail to sufficiently consider what they would like to accomplish after leaving the workforce. According to Christine Fahlund, a senior financial planner at T. Rowe Price, it's essential for people who are considering retirement to identify what activities are going to be interesting and challenging for them in retirement.

"In addition, it is very important for married couples to communicate with one another about what each one wants to do in retirement," she says. "The discussion will provide a good idea of how much it will cost to make their respective visions a reality."

Mistake No. 2: Not enough funds

If pre-retirees expect they will live on much less money in retirement, Fahlund suggests trying to cut down and make lifestyle changes before retirement to see if its viable.

Kevin Worthley, a certified financial planner, says it's essential for pre-retirees to analyze how their retirement income needs will match up with retirement resources.

Mistake No. 3: Not calculating rising costs of living

Worthley says many people fail to calculate inflation, or rising costs of living, when evaluating how much they will need in retirement.

Continued here:
Five Common Retirement Mistakes

Britain's Perri Shakes Drayton believes she's on course for the 400m hurdles Olympic final after clocking a personal best of 53.77 seconds during victory at the London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace.

In an all-star field, which included Olympic champion Melanie Walker and European Champion Irina Davydova, Shakes-Drayton thrived in front of a home crowd, running the second fastest time in the event in 2012; and breaking a two-year old personal best of 54.18 seconds.

The impressive final run before the Games propels the 23 year old into contention for a medal come the London Olympics, but the home town hurdler is setting herself a modest target.

Shakes-Drayton was in disbelief after running a big personal best at Crystal Palace.

"I think I've got make the final now but I've got to stay level headed and not let this race get to me too much," she said.

"I've run a personal best today. You know I just believed in myself. I thought it was an opportunity to run against the best, these girls have run some phenomenal times.

"I thought, let's focus on what I've got to do. We've done a lot of work this week with my coach and today went well.

"It was waiting wasn't it? I honestly didn't expect to run a personal best today," she added. "Conditions wise they weren't the best but the rain stopped, that's what I wanted, no rain. This is what I'm used to.

"It will give me confidence but I won't let it get to my head too much because with my event anything can happen so it could be my day one day and another persons day another, so today is was my day but I'm not going to take what happened today to much and get too ahead of myself."

As well as coming into form at just the right time, Shakes-Dryaton looked at home in front of a capacity Crystal Palace crowd.

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London Olympics 2012: Perri Expects After Personal Best

The National Reconnaissance Office is so intent on extracting confessions of personal or illicit behavior that officials have admonished polygraphers who refused to go after them and rewarded those who did, sometimes with cash bonuses, a McClatchy Newspapers investigation found.

The disclosures include a wide range of behavior and private thoughts such as drug use, child abuse, suicide attempts, depression and sexual deviancy. The agency, which oversees the nations spy satellites, records the sessions that were required for security clearances and stores them in a database.

Even though its aggressively collecting the private disclosures, when people confess to serious crimes such as child molestation theyre not always arrested or prosecuted.

Youve got to wonder what the point of all of this is if were not even going after child molesters, said Mark Phillips, a veteran polygrapher who resigned from the agency in late May after, he says, he was retaliated against for resisting abusive techniques. This is bureaucracy run amok. These practices violate the rights of Americans, and its not even for a good reason.

The agency refused to answer McClatchys questions about its practices. However, its acknowledged in internal documents that its not supposed to directly ask more personal questions but says it legally collects the information when people spontaneously confess, often at the beginning of the polygraph test.

After a legal review of Phillipss assertions, the agencys assistant general counsel, Mark Land, concluded in April that it did nothing wrong. My opinion, based on all of the facts, is that managements action is legally supportable and corrective action is not required, he wrote.

But McClatchys review of hundreds of documentsincluding internal policy documents, memos and agency e-mailsindicates that the National Reconnaissance Office is pushing ethical and possibly legal limits by:

n Establishing a system that tracks the number of personal confessions, which then are used in polygraphers annual performance reviews.

n Summoning employees and job applicants for multiple polygraph tests to ask about a wide array of personal behavior.

n Altering results of the tests in what some polygraphers say is an effort to justify more probing of employees and applicants private lives.

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US spy agency accused of illegally collecting personal data

WORLD 400m hurdles champion Dai Greene remains confident of his Olympic gold medal prospects in London, despite another defeat to Javier Culson last night.

Greene again finished second in the Diamond League meeting in Crystal Palace behind the undefeated dominant 2012 world leader after an identical result in Paris last week.

On that occasion in France, Greene ran a personal best of 47.84secs, while clocking 48.10 last night in London with his Puerto Rican rival clocking 47.78 on both occasions.

But in the last week Greene has overcome a stuttering start to the season which had been affected by winter knee surgery and illness.

The Llanelli star, who was named Great Britain Olympic athletics team captain this week, remains adamant he will peak in London.

It was pretty good, but I would have loved to have got one over on Javier before the Olympics, said Greene.

But from where I was six weeks ago to where I am now I am still very happy.

I will work on some technical things over the next couple of weeks and there is a bit more to come.

I have more to give and feel as if I am on an upward curve.

I am getting faster every week and there are a few technical issues to iron out and I will get stronger as I do more training.

Originally posted here:
Athletics: Dai Greene confident of Olympic success

UpdatedJul 14, 2012 11:58 AM ET

The curious thing about hitting rock bottom, New York Mets pitcher R.A. Dickey discovered, is that it is not literally made of rock.

I remember it as a dark black clay, a wet, wet clay, said Dickey, recalling the bottom of the Missouri River in which he nearly drowned after vainly attempting to swim across it. It had a sucking feeling to it, but luckily not so overpowering that I was unable to push off it.

On June 9, 2007, Dickey was in the midst of an underwhelming season with the Triple-A Nashville Sounds, his 11th overall in the minor leagues. His marriage, after his wife Anne learned of his infidelity, was in peril.

So while the Sounds were in Omaha, Neb., for a series against the Royals, Dickey decided to take on the daring stunt.

Maybe if I somehow get across, swim like a madman through the turbidity, he wrote in his recently released tell-all memoir, Wherever I Wind Up, God will help me close the prodigious gap between the man I am and the man I want to be.

Five years later, Dickey sat in front of his locker at Citi Field and talked to The Daily about that period of his life.

When I was sinking I had resigned myself to death, Dickey said. The fear had come and gone.

It has all led to a rebirth for the 37-year-old right-hander, who has reinvented himself as a knuckleball pitcher after spending parts of 14 seasons in the minors. He was selected for the All-Star Game for the first time this year. Meanwhile, his personal story of being molested as a child has put him in the national spotlight.

Continued here:
Dickey cedes control, finds success

During the 2012 Special Olympics Summer Games, held June 8-10 at The College of New Jersey, more than 2,300 Special Olympics athletes from across New Jersey competed.

Among the athletes were 16 members of the Somerset Hills YMCAs Sea Wasps swim team. This year was especially rewarding as they exceeded their prior best in 24 of 40 events, including eight team records and 10 personal bests.

We are proud of our team, said Suzi Pellegrino, Somerset Hills YMCA senior director of Aquatics. Their achievements are only matched by the strength of their friendship, their determination and their dedication to training, which fully embraces the mission of the Special Olympics.

In the 200-yard Free Relay and the 200-yard Medley Relay, team records were set by Melissa Bosch of Warren, Daisy DeSimone of Bernardsville, Samantha LaMonte of Basking Ridge and Susan Huck of Somerville. Teammates William Saillot of Berkley Heights, Robbie Finer of Warren, Matt Iannaconne of Morristown and David Yu of Basking Ridge set team records in both the 200-yard Free Relay and the 200-yard Medley Relay. Additionally, team records were set in individual events by Melissa Bosch (50-yard Breast and 100-yard IM), Daisy DeSimone (100-yard Breast) and William Saillot (100-yard Breast).

Personal bests were set by Susan Huck (100-yard Free), Samantha LaMonte (100-yard Free), William Saillot (100-yard Breast), David Yu (50-yard Back), as well as Dan Homan (100-yard back) of Basking Ridge, Vincent Xie (25-yard Back) of Basking Ridge, Stephanie Ridilla (100-yard Back) of Berkley Heights, Dan Israel (25-yard Breast) of Basking Ridge, Kristen Clark (50-yard Free) of Basking Ridge and Alicia Plucinski (200-yard Free) of Basking Ridge.

The Ys Special Olympics program is available to anyone in the community and brings to life the Ys mission to encourage healthy living for all. The Y meets its mission through low and no cost programs made possible by funds raised through the Strong Kids campaign.

The teams medal count was quite high, said Coach David DeSimone, but I dont pay much attention to the medals. Rather, I focus on the effort and the outcome. The ultimate winners are those who can always improve performance, and every athlete on our team earned at least one personal record. In my nine years coaching, this is the best Summer Games team weve had.

For more information, visit somersethillsymca.org or call 908-766-7898.

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Somerset Hills YMCA swim team has success at 2012 Special Olympics Summer Games