Melanie Oudin Boyfriend

Melanie Oudin Boyfriend

Austin Smith is one of the hottest searches on the Web today. He's the 15-year-old boyfriend of tennis's new darling Melanie Oudin, 17, who beat Nadia Petrova and former No. 1 Maria Sharapova over the weekend. And Austin's more than, um, an athletic supporter. Melanie Oudin was a U.S. Open dark horse when she qualified to compete in the Open's Grand Slam main draw on a wild card. She's turned out to be a spoiler, with big wins this weekend and reported matches upcoming against Caroline Wozniacki and Svetlana Kuznetsova.

Melanie credits two-years-younger Austin with her champion weekend. Austin traveled with Melanie's family from their home state of Georgia to New York City to support Melanie during the Open. Himself an accomplished tennis player winning state titles in Georgia, Austin helped Melanie prepare for her high-profile matches last week by practicing with her on the court at Arthur Ashe Stadium, surrounded by 24,000 seats.

He also wanted her to wear something magic. To set her apart from the pack of pros who usually don clothes and shoes with their names or nicknames on them, Austin designed an emblem for Melanie to wear on her shoes that reads, "BELIEVE." Melanie planned to have Adidas custom-stitch her name into the back of her shoes until Austin designed the BELIEVE plate for the back of her pink and yellow tennies. Apparently the Open requires players' names to appear on their clothing, but Melanie went ahead with the alteration anyway.

Mike Bongiorno

Mike Bongiorno

Mike Bongiorno, TV presenter was as old as the medium that he came to symbolize. The man who is an integral part of the history of television in Italy has passed away today at the age of 85 in the French city of Montecarlo. I owe Mike my reverential love for quizzes ever since I was a toddler and I would be amazed at the persons locked in the glass cabin wearing the headphones answering question after question shot at them by Mike.

Even as Mike’s presence shifted into the era of the vile kitsch of Berlusconi’s Mediaset he still carried the immense history of the early beginnings of television and the recent versions of Mike that we saw in the advertorials will remain a pleasant reminder of the character who will forever be seen shouting “Allegria!”. The ANSA news agency said Bongiorno died from a heart attack. It quoted Premier Silvio Berlusconi as saying Italy had lost a great TV personality and he had lost a friend.

Nicknamed "The Quiz King," Bongiorno was of American origin but made his name in Italy. He was one of Italy's most enduring and beloved television personalities. In the 1950s and 1960s, he popularized quiz shows through a series of successful programs on state-run RAI. Bongiorno was also the host of countless other shows, including a popular annual song fest in San Remo.

Tropical Storm Fred

Tropical Storm Fred

Tropical Storm Fred emerged Monday night and appears destined to head north into the distant Atlantic and die. Before doing so, it might strengthen into a Category 1 hurricane, the National Hurricane Center said. As of 5 a.m. today, Fred, the sixth named storm of the season, was 285 miles southwest of the Cape Verde Islands, moving west at 15 mph. It had sustained winds of 50 mph.

Forecasters with the U.S. National Hurricane Center said Fred was gradually becoming more organized and had the potential to become a hurricane within the next 36 hours. Tropical storms become hurricanes when their top sustained winds reach 74 mph. At 5 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, Fred was centered about 285 miles (460) southwest of the southernmost Cape Verde Islands and was moving west at about 15 mph. A gradual turn to the west-northwest and northwest with a decrease in forward speed was forecast over the next two days, the center said.

“Given the current organization and favorable shot-term environment … Fred certainly has the potential to become a hurricane within the next 36 hours,” the center said. Fred’s anticipated immediate track would keep it far from the Gulf of Mexico, where U.S. oil and gas operations are clustered. It was the sixth named tropical storm of the 2009 Atlantic-Caribbean hurricane season, which runs from June through November. Energy traders keep a close eye on storms that could enter the Gulf of Mexico and disrupt offshore U.S. oil and natural gas production or refinery operations along the coast.