2014 Winter Olympics.

The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXII Olympic Winter Games(French: Les XXIIes Jeux olympiques d'hiver), were a major international multi-sport eventheld in Sochi, Russia, in the tradition of the Winter Olympic Games.

Scheduled for 7–23 February 2014, opening rounds in certain events were held on the eve of the opening ceremony, 6 February 2014. Both the Olympics and 2014 Winter Paralympics were organized by the Sochi Organizing Committee (SOC). Sochi was selected as the host city in July 2007, during the 119th IOC Session held in Guatemala City. It is the first Olympics in Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Soviet Union was the host nation for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.

A total of 98 events in 15 winter sport disciplines were held during the Games. A number of new competitions—a total of 12 accounting for gender—were held during the Games, including biathlon mixed relay, women's ski jumping, mixed-team figure skating, mixed-team luge, half-pipe skiing, ski and snowboard slopestyle, and snowboard parallel slalom. The events were held around two clusters of new venues: an Olympic Park constructed in Sochi's Imeretinsky Valley on the coast of the Black Sea, with Fisht Olympic Stadium, and the Games' indoor venues located within walking distance, and snow events in the resort settlement of Krasnaya Polyana.

In preparation, organizers focused on modernizing the telecommunications, electric power, and transportation infrastructures of the region. While originally budgeted at US$12 billion, various factors caused the budget to expand to over US$51 billion, surpassing the estimated $44 billion cost of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing as the most expensive Olympics in history.

The lead-up to the 2014 Games was marked by several major controversies. These included allegations of corruption leading to the aforementioned cost overruns and concerns for the safety and human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) athletes, spectators and supporters during the Games due to the country's recently adopted "propaganda" law, which led to ongoing, Olympic-focused protests. There were also protests by ethnic Circassian activists over the site of Sochi, where they believe a genocide took place, and various security concerns over threats by jihadist groups tied to the insurgency in the North Caucasus.

The Hunger Games.

PLOT.

The nation of Panem consists of a wealthy Capitol ruling twelve poorer districts. As punishment for a past rebellion, each district must provide two "tributes" - one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 selected by lottery (the "Reaping") - once every year to compete in the Hunger Games; they must fight to the death in an arena, with the sole survivor rewarded with fame and wealth.

In District 12, when Primrose Everdeen is chosen in her first Reaping, her older sister Katniss, an expert archer, volunteers to take her place. Peeta Mellark, a baker's son, is selected as the other district tribute. Katniss and Peeta are taken to the Capitol accompanied by their mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, a past District 12 victor and heavy drinker, and chaperone Effie Trinket.

During a TV interview with host Caesar Flickerman, Peeta reveals his love for Katniss. She is outraged, believing it to be a ploy to gain favor with Sponsors who can provide gifts during the Games, but discovers Peeta is sincere.

The televised Games begin with the tributes positioned in front of weapons and supplies piled in and around a structure called the Cornucopia. Katniss ignores Haymitch's advice to avoid the temptation, and barely escapes death in the inevitable melee over the supplies; eleven others are not so lucky.

She tries to get as far away from the others as possible in the forest, but is eventually treed by the Careers (Marvel, Glimmer, Cato and Clove; tributes from Districts 1 and 2 who almost always win the Games due to their training at special academies) and Peeta. Rue, the District 11 girl, is hiding in a nearby tree and quietly draws her attention to a tracker jacker nest. Katniss drops the nest on her besiegers; the poisonous flying insects kill Glimmer and drive the rest away. Stung herself, Katniss loses consciousness. When she wakes up, she finds that Rue has taken care of her for days. They become friends and allies.

Katniss devises a plan to destroy the pile of supplies the Careers have gathered together. With Rue acting as a decoy to draw their enemies away, Katniss sets off mines planted around the supplies. Afterward, she hears Rue's call for help. When Katniss frees Rue from a trap, she has to dodge a spear thrown by Marvel, which impales Rue. Katniss kills Marvel with her bow, then tearfully comforts the dying Rue, whose televised death sparks a riot in Rue's district. Panem's President, Coriolanus Snow, summons head gamemaker Seneca Crane to express his displeasure at how these Games are turning out; instead of providing a safety valve for social unrest, they are having the opposite effect.

Haymitch convinces Crane to make a rule change to appease the anger in the districts. It is announced that tributes from the same district can win as a team. Katniss then searches for Peeta and finds him with a badly infected leg from a sword wound. When a feast is proclaimed at the Cornucopia, with the promise that each tribute will find what they need there, Peeta insists that Katniss not risk herself to get medicine for him. However, when he falls asleep, she heads there. Upon arrival, she is ambushed and pinned by Clove, but when Clove boasts that she killed Rue, she is killed by Thresh, the District 11 male. Thresh tells Katniss that he will let her go this one time for Rue.

Crane eventually unleashes a pack of hound-like creatures, resulting in Thresh's death. Katniss and Peeta flee to the roof of the Cornucopia, where they find Cato, the only other survivor. After a struggle, Katniss wounds Cato with an arrow and Peeta hurls him to the creatures below. With Peeta and Katniss apparently victorious, the rule change is suddenly revoked. Peeta tells Katniss to shoot him. She instead gives him half of the Nightlock (poisonous berries) they collected. Before they can commit suicide, the couple is hastily proclaimed the victors of the 74th Hunger Games.

Haymitch warns Katniss that she has made powerful enemies with her display of defiance. Crane is locked in a room with a bowl of Nightlock. As Peeta and Katniss return to District 12, President Snow ponders the situation.

THE HISTORY OF FOOD.

The sandwich is 250 years old  this weekend and residents in the English town of Sandwich, where the bread meal was first eaten, are celebrating their culinary history. According to the town’s records the English nobleman Earl, John Montague first ordered a sandwich in 1762. It is reported he was playing cards with friends and wanted something he could eat without a knife and fork. He requested slices of beef between two pieces of bread, and so the sandwich was born. Montague chose to live in Sandwich over another port town, Portsmouth. Had he chosen the latter, we would be eating portsmouths today. It is perhaps a coincidence Sandwich is just a few kilometres from the town of Ham. The 11th Earl of Sandwich, also named John Montagu, hosted a celebratory lunch in honour of his ancestor and his contribution to the global fast food industry. He told reporters: “My ancestor…could never have imagined that his simple invention would spawn a multi-billion dollar industry, employing hundreds of thousands of people." He added: "My favourite sandwich is a traditional one - roast beef and hot horseradish on freshly baked bread.” Organisers of the celebrations are equally excited about the historic event. Mandy Wilkins said: “The sandwich is a global food and Sandwich, our town, is just a little town full of medieval buildings. It's bizarre that such an important food item should be named after us.”

A new study has found that energy drinks and sports drinks cause irreversible damage to teeth, with energy drinks being twice as damaging as sports drinks. A report recently published in the journal "General Dentistry" found that the high acidity levels in the drinks erode tooth enamel, the glossy outer layer that protects the tooth. Lead author Dr Poonam Jain said: "Young adults consume these drinks assuming that they will improve their sports performance and energy levels and that they are 'better' for them than soda….Most of these patients are shocked to learn that these drinks are essentially bathing their teeth with acid." This has led to an increase in tooth decay and the need for fillings. The report says 30 to 50 per cent of American teenagers regularly consume sports and energy drinks, with as many as 62 per cent drinking at least one sports drink a day. It also says brushing teeth after drinking one of the drinks does more harm than good as this will spread the acid over the tooth enamel. The doctors advised people to wait at least an hour before brushing your teeth. Dr Jennifer Bone of America's Academy of General Dentistry recommended people chew sugar-free chewing gum and rinse the mouth with water after drinking the drinks. She said: "Both tactics increase saliva flow, which naturally helps to return the acidity levels in the mouth to normal."

A new report published in the New England Journal of Medicine has found that coffee drinkers live longer. The study looked at the coffee-drinking habits of over 400,000 people over a 15-year period. The research team compared their statistics with those of people who did not drink coffee. The researchers found that male coffee drinkers lived ten per cent longer and women lived 15 per cent longer. The report said up to six cups of coffee a day seems to be good for one's health.

Other studies have said coffee could be bad for our health. Many have focused on the effects of caffeine on blood pressure. Head researcher Dr Neal D. Freedman said his study means people do not have to worry about drinking coffee. He wrote that for a long time people thought that drinking coffee was a risky thing to do. He said: "Our results…provide [comfort] for coffee drinkers that this isn't the case." He added that coffee contains over 1,000 compounds and many of these may be good for us.