Black Licorice Halloween Hazard! Don't Eat Too Much Warns FDA (South Asian Mail)
(Halloween is the biggest candy eating holiday in the US, and many Americans will be stashing up on licorice: but in a timely update to consumers issued this week, the Food and Drug Administration asks: do you realize that you can overdose on licorice? Eating too much (for instance 2 ounces a day for two weeks), especially if you are aged 40 or older, can land you in hospital with irregular heart rhythm (arrhythmia). The FDA advice is, no matter what your age, don't eat too much licorice.)
Mormons Ban Cross-Gender Halloween Costumes (Radar Online)
(A Mormon Halloween party for kids in Sandy, Utah has caused an uproar after banning the wearing of "cross-gender" costumes. The Thursday night event, held at the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints' Crescent 16th Ward in Sandy was advertised via hand-made posters taped to every door in its neighborhood.)
(Marin animal care workers are warning about the dangers of sticky Halloween decorations after an owl was found caught in an artificial spider web in San Rafael.The quarter-pound western screech owl was found alive by a resident Tuesday morning, caught in the strands of a fake greenish-white web strung from a tree in a yard on Riviera Drive in East San Rafael, said Carrie Harrington, a spokeswoman for the Marin Humane Society.)
(Break out your Bibles, Halloween’s coming. That’s the message from a Calgary pastor, promoting an initiative called Jesus Ween that aims to turn standard Oct. 31 activities on their head. “I don’t believe Halloween represents anything close to God or close to Christianity,” says Paul Ade, who has been doling out Bibles instead of sugary treats since 2002.)
(Halloween time is not all fun and games. Authorities are warning parents about marijuana-laced candy that could end up in their trick-or-treaters' bags. The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department wants to raise awareness about the types of items sold at marijuana dispensaries. They're zeroing in on pot-laced food items, so they don't end up in the wrong hands this Halloween.)
(Candy shaped like marijuana leaves that's showing up on store shelves doesn't get kids high, but parents and anti-drug activists say the sweets represent a new low. The "Pothead Ring Pots," ''Pothead Lollipops" and bagged candy are being distributed to about 1,000 retailers around the country, including some in Buffalo, N.Y., where an irate parent asked city officials to fight back against the candy.)
(Emergency crews were confronted with alarming scenes when they were called to an accident on a film set in Toronto. The actors, injured when a high platform moved suddenly, appeared to be covered in blood and gore, reports the BBC. But it turned out that most of it was make-up - they were dressed as zombies for the latest Resident Evil film.)
(Hardware store manager Mike Dowling wants to be clear: His shovels might slow an attacking zombie, but you'll to need something else to put the final nail in the creature's coffin. "I wouldn't say it's for killing zombies," the veteran Omaha store manager said. "But it's helpful for cleaning up if you ever have to." In a pop-culture world of zombie marches, video games and television shows, one regional hardware chain has taken the novel approach of actively marketing power tools and garden implements as protection against the undead.)
(The series of events that culminated with the alleged assault on the zombies began when the Witch Mansion opened in the East India Square Mall, just in time for the huge Halloween season here. The Witch Mansion is a pretty standard haunted house; it is dark and it is loud and things jump out at you. It has some 3-D gimmicks and slow animatronics, but what’s interesting about the Witch Mansion is the very end, when you exit into the mall and there, directly across the way, is another haunted house.)
(A Halloween display of a skeleton hanging by a noose has caused controversy in a small Virginia town. According to a report on WVEC.com, a Franklin lawmaker and some residents say the decoration is racially offensive. "You can show black people a noose and it's gonna' immediately, immediately slavery registers hanging, lynching," said Councilman Greg McLemore according to the report.)
(A Mansfield dentist is offering cash and prizes in exchange for sweets. This Halloween, trick-or-treaters can bring their excess candy to the office of Craig Callen in Mansfield and receive $1 per pound (5-pound limit per child) and free toothbrushes. There also will be a drawing for two free children's bikes.)
(A strange gooey substance - similar to that which inspired the alien horror movie The Blob in the US - has invaded the Lake District. Walkers have been left baffled by the quivering, translucent mass, nicknamed Star Jelly because it reputedly fell to Earth from meteors. Four police officers in Philadelphia first came across a huge blob in 1950 and their discovery led to the 1958 sci-fi film, reports The Mirror.)
(With just a few days left to buy that perfect Halloween costume, perennial favorites like “Casper the Friendly Ghost” and the “Wicked Witch of the West” continue to lose out to the newest celebrity lookalikes and stars of best-selling movies and videogames -- with a little TV fantasy thrown in.)
(The story out there is as controversial as it is ghoulish. Back in 1912 — so the well-known plot goes — Charles W. Hillegas, son of a prominent Naperville family, dug up his wife, dead and buried for 18 years, because he believed he’d figured out a potion that would bring her back to life.)
(For most of the year, Salem, Mass., looks like many other historic New England towns. Come October, though, the streets are packed with portable toilets, fried dough vendors and carnival rides. It's a major tourist attraction thanks to its infamous 17th-century witch trials.)
(A woman who took part in a bizarre vampire-style attack on a teenager has been granted a discharge without conviction. Xenia Gregoriana Borichevsky, 20, had pleaded guilty on the morning of trial earlier this year to injuring with intent to injure after the victim, whose name is suppressed, was bitten on the chest and arms, breaking the skin and causing him to be hospitalised with an infection.)
(About 350 children showed up last year for Halloween at Jeffrey Lewinski's house on Washburn Street in Lockport, where the 39-year-old man and some friends put on a show called "Night Terrors," a temporarily constructed haunted house. Lewinski had expected an even larger cast to put on the free show again Monday. But that was before parents in the community realized that Lewinski is a registered sex offender.)
(Heidi Klum is trying to prove that she's the Queen of Halloween by starting a costume war with Kim Kardashian on Twitter, and Snooki recently showed off her purrfect costume. So which celeb's outfit is better? Heidi already teased everyone with a sneak peak of her costume, dubbed the "visible woman" because it makes it appear like only her skin is invisible. The body suit covered with blood veins and muscles was spooky enough, but Heidi recently tweeted a photo of her face that is definitely disturbing.)
(IT’S a topic most people would assume has too little bite for the attention of high-minded academics. But several of Edinburgh University’s brightest social scientists will speak in London this week at a conference set up to discuss how vampires are portrayed in contemporary pop culture.)
(Meet the grey squirrel who’s going nuts about Halloween... It is fascinated by Vicky Freeman’s hollowed-out pumpkin, trying to work out whether it’s a treat to get its teeth into or a mere trick suspended by a piece of string. For minutes on end, it jumps inside the pumpkin, then out again.)
(The party is the firm’s big annual bash. Employees wear Halloween costumes to the office, where they party until around noon, and then return to work, still in costume. I can’t tell you how people dressed for this year’s party, but I can tell you about last year’s. That’s because a former employee of Steven J. Baum recently sent me snapshots of last year’s party. In an e-mail, she said that she wanted me to see them because they showed an appalling lack of compassion toward the homeowners — invariably poor and down on their luck — that the Baum firm had brought foreclosure proceedings against.)
(Last week, Beavis and Butt-Head sought to become vampires or werewolves in an effort to woo women. That vampirism is on the collective mind - a mind oft represented by a blinking overhead light bulb - of the pop culture parodying duo suggests the sun may soon rise on the vampire phenomenon.)
(Snoopy taking first flight as a World War I ace. Charlie Brown taking grief as rocks pile up in his Halloween bag. And Linus taking to his patch as he awaits the mighty Great Pumpkin. The scenes are so deeply poignant and richly imagined that “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” still resonates 45 years after the holiday classic first aired on CBS to high ratings.)
(Sixteen-year-old Alex Simpson has always loved dancing to legendary pop star Michael Jackson's music, and yesterday, he and dozens of other people took to Target, and busted a move to the Halloween-themed "Thriller" to raise money for cancer research. At exactly 9 a.m., Simpson donned the iconic red leather jacket and led about 20 area residents of all ages - all decked out in zombie attire - in the epic choreography, while amused shoppers stood by and watched. The event was part of "Thrill the World," an annual global flash mob event that this year featured 227 groups in England and across the U.S. simultaneously busting out to the dance.)
(Halloween is already a hectic day for parents, thanks to costume stress, sugar overdoses and scared children. Now, a Yale University study suggests many pregnant women want to keep their child’s birthday out of that mix. The study found a significant decrease in births on Halloween — both spontaneous and by Caesarian section — in the United States over an 11-year period. It found an increase in births on Valentine’s Day.)
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