Getting up close and personal.(Entertainment)

NATALIE BECKER, SUGA, VANIA CLOETE and SANDRA ROSENBERG are more than just pretty faces and good voices on radio. RAFIEK MAMMON partied with them at the Good Hope FM studios, and got the girls to share some of their thoughts.

What's the nicest thing about being on radio?

Natalie: To be in a position where I can inform, entertain, engage, challenge and put a smile on someone's face, knowing I have made a positive difference in someone's life. I also just love the music!

Suga: I have an opportunity to communicate with the masses and perhaps even change perceptions out there.

Sandra: It's an aural medium that's direct and instantaneous. I also love the fact that I can get to work without make-up. The perks and freebies aren't that bad either.

Vania: Radio is a very powerful medium and the intimacy between you and your listeners is just …

FIFA cancels stadium practice time at 3 venues

FIFA said Sunday that canceling training sessions for teams at three of the 10 World Cup stadiums is "normal procedure" at a major tournament to protect pitches.

The United States and Algeria were given 48 hours notice that they cannot practice at Pretoria's Loftus Versfeld on Tuesday.

Chile and Switzerland also were denied permission to train Sunday at the Nelson Mandela Bay stadium in Port Elizabeth.

The decisions were "taken by the technical experts who know best what the conditions of the pitch are like," FIFA said in a statement.

World Cup regulations call for teams to be allowed a 60-minute practice on the eve …

Bomb blast kills 3 policemen in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Fighting has escalated in eastern Afghanistan as Afghan and coalition forces step up their attacks on insurgents along the Pakistan border and militants retaliate with attacks on pro-government forces, including a bomb blast Thursday that killed three Afghan policemen.

Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, a spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province, said the three policemen were killed by a bomb that was placed on a bus.

The bus was transporting Afghan policemen and trainees to a training academy in the provincial capital of Jalalabad. Six others on the bus were wounded in the explosion, Abdulzai said.

Afghanistan's spring fighting season is expected to …

University of Florida Study: Adolescent Girls Who Set Goals Too High May Risk Anorexia.

Byline: University of Florida

GAINESVILLE, Fla., Nov. 7 (AScribe Newswire) -- Perfectionism puts adolescent girls with unhealthy eating habits at risk for becoming anorexic and the body imperfections that go along with it as they grow older, a new University of Florida study finds.

"The hard thing is that we encourage girls to set goals," said Julia Graber, a UF psychology professor and one of the study's researchers. "We want adolescents to find things to strive for - that they think are important and want to work hard for - but when they set unrealistic goals, it leads to problems."

The study also found that girls who showed some bulimic tendencies, such as binge eating and occasional purging, were more likely to …

Best of our blogs.(Capital Region)

Finally, local nurseries are beginning to cut the prices on their gardening and landscaping stock to make room for, presumably, mums. I always take advantage of this time for the fun of seeing if I can find some shrubs or perennials that are not too awfully …

GORE, BRADLEY TO GET ELECTION DEBATES OFF TO AN EARLY START.(MAIN)

Byline: RICHARD L. BERKE and JOHN M. BRODER New York Times

LOS ANGELES -- Vice President Al Gore and former Sen. Bill Bradley are poised to begin an unusually early and intense series of debates in the run-up to the primary season next year. As a start, their campaigns said Thursday that they have agreed to take part in a nationally televised town meeting four weeks from now in New Hampshire.

On Thursday, the campaign released a letter from Tony Coelho, Gore's campaign chairman, to Douglas Berman, his counterpart in the Bradley campaign, calling for a series of debates beginning as soon as next weekend.

While the Bradley campaign has not responded …

Two Alaska utilities look into 40-mile intertie.(Member News)

Manokotak Power Company and Nushagak Cooperative (Dillingham, Alaska) continue to investigate a federal-state grant opportunity that would connect the village of Manokotak to Nushagak Cooperative power plant via a 40-mile electrical tie line. The reason for the proposed merger of Manokotak Power into the cooperative is to reduce the cost of electricity in the village and to assure adequate and reliable electric service. Manokotak has 405 residents and 139 electric consumers.

Legal obligations to provide retail electric service would be assumed by the cooperative; including operating and maintaining the proposed intertie. Manokotak electric consumers would become …