Liz Murray Homeless to Harvard

Liz Murray

Liz Murray (born September 23, 1980 in The Bronx, New York) is an American whose success story has spread around the world. She is known for being the homeless girl wandering the slums of New York, who eventually turns her life around once she realizes she is not doomed to experience life on the streets. Determined and confident, she strives for and succeeds at becoming a student at Harvard University. Her story was told in an Emmy-nominated Lifetime TV movie Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story. Her memoir, Breaking Night, was recently published. Murray is currently an inspirational speaker, represented by the Washington Speakers Bureau.

Miss Understood

Miss Understood continues to act as Mistress of Ceremonies at East Village hot spot Lucky Chengs
Miss Understood stopping a bus in the middle of 1st Avenue

Miss Understood (born Alex Heimberg) is an American drag artist originally from Levittown, New York, who has been based in New York City since the late 1980s. She was a prominent figure in the East Village drag scene of the early 1990s which revolved around the legendary Pyramid Club and Wigstock, an annual open air drag festival. Her film and television appearances include The Brenda and Glennda Show, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, HBO's Dragtime, TLC's Faking It, Wigstock, The Movie, and Sex and the City.

Singer Tori Amos Working on Musical

Acclaimed singer/songwriter Tori Amos, who recently released the album "American Doll Posse," told Me-me-me.tv that she has been writing a musical.

Amos told the website, "I think I am writing a musical! IÕm gushing but IÕm under lock and key." Although Amos won't appear in the musical, she plans to write all the songs. She stated, "IÕm trying to be....Tim RiceÉ Yes, (Andrew Lloyd) Webber and Rice. IÕm trying to be both. So IÕm busy. This is such a big project, a double record, twenty three songs and the extras. You need to hear ÔSmokinÕ Joe,Õ about how to kill a man.Ó

Amos, who got her start playing at piano bars as a teenager, has enjoyed cult success since her major label debut in 1992, "Little Earthquakes," and sold over 15 million records worldwide, in spite of little mainstream radio airplay. She was featured as one of VH1Õs Ò100 Greatest Women in Rock nÕ Roll,Ó A nine-time Grammy Award nominee, she has collaborated with artists including Trent Reznor, Michael Stipe, and Maynard James Keenan, and is famous for songs such as ÒCornflake Girl,Ó "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", and "Professional Widow.Ó

Jessica Cutler Washington Sex Scandal blogger

WASHINGTON Jessica Cutler, the former Senate aide whose online sex diary landed her a book deal and a Playboy photo spread but got her kicked off Capitol Hill, has filed for bankruptcy.

Cutler, a former aide to then-Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, created the "Washingtonienne" blog in 2004 and began posting racy details about her sex life with six men, including a Senate colleague and "a few generous older gentlemen" who she said paid many of her living expenses.

When the blog was discovered, Cutler was fired. She moved to New York, wrote a novel based on the scandal, posed naked and started a new Web site that describes herself as "a published author who jumps out of cakes for money."

Under the occupation heading of her Web site, it reads: "I'm freelancing."

Cutler has spent much of her time fending off a lawsuit by ex-boyfriend and fellow DeWine staffer Robert Steinbuch, who claims Cutler's blog publicly humiliated him. He is seeking more than $20 million in damages.

What is Mannatech Ambrotose

What is Mannatech Ambrotose

How much would you pay for a pill made of sugar?

Try $415 million. That's how much Mannatech, a Texas-based company, made in the last 12 months selling sugar pills and powders made from larch bark and aloe, known as glyconutrients.

Mannatech says its product, Ambrotose, is a simple nutritional supplement that helps the cells in one's body communicate with one another. Ambrotose is sold exclusively by multilevel marketing sales associates who, functioning as independent contractors, try to sign up customers to buy the product and become sales associates themselves.

But critics say the company's bottom line is has been boosted by unverifiable health claims made by some of it's multilevel marketing sales force.

investigation found outlandish claims being made by some Mannatech sales associates around the country, extolling what they say are the extraordinary powers of Mannatech's patented product, called Ambrotose. Ambrotose costs at least $200 a month -- more than some prescription drugs.

Lynne Koplitz

Lynne Koplitz is an American stand-up comedian and actress. She was host of Telepictures nationally syndicated dating show Change of Heart, guest host on NBC's Later, co-host of the Food Network's How to Boil Water, and co-host of Sony Pictures syndicated talk show Life and Style. Her stand-up has appeared on a number of Comedy Central specials, including Premium Blend. She performed at the Montreal Comedy Festival.

Koplitz earned a BA in theatre arts from Troy University where she was a member of the Iota Kappa Chapter of Chi Omega in 1989. She performed for a regional theater group in Knoxville, Tennessee before moving to New York City. Her father was a chef.

She is working on an HBO comedy special.

Pennsylvania Eastern State Penitentiary

Built in 1829, this hulking pile of stone was Pennsylvania's Eastern State Penitentiary, a cautionary landmark for nearly a century and a half, the place nobody wanted to go.

Willie L. Smith, spent 20 years at Eastern, even building some high-security cells.

Now, people are paying to get in.

Almost 150,000 tourists passed through the forbidding gates of Eastern State last year Ñ into a dark hallway, through a gift shop that has a subterranean feel and down dusty corridors lined by crumbling walls. With audio tour guides at their ears, they go through cellblocks; gaze at the mess halls, hospital and prison chapel; climb into a guard tower; and pace in the exercise yard. They peer into the cells of death row.

Teenagers giggle tentatively; children are subdued; adults exhibit a kind of nervous relief, never happier to be law-abiding citizens. But the paying customers keep coming. And Eastern State is just one of three dozen prisons and jails now collectively drawing millions of visitors each year around the country.