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Big Oprah news: the queen of talk has a secret baby sister!

Oprah gets a sister; fitness guru Jack Lelanne dies at 96; HCG weight-loss products deemed fraudulent; massive bombing in Moscow airport; and a British undercover operative claims sex with his surveillance subjects was officially sanctioned.

Big Oprah news: the queen of talk has a secret baby sister!

Oprah dropped a bomb on her show yesterday: she’s got a half-sister that she only found out about in November. Oprah identified the woman as a Milwaukee resident named Patricia. She is nine years younger than Oprah, and was born and given up for adoption while the talk show host was living with her father. Patricia discovered she was related to the media-baroness in 2007, but refrained from making the information public for fear of the intense media scrutiny that would inevitably ensue. The two met for the first time this past Thanksgiving, an encounter Oprah filmed and then aired on her show yesterday. If that isn’t media scrutiny, we don’t know what is.     

American fitness guru Jack Lelanne has died at the age of 96. Lelanne become a fixture of American television in the late 1950s, when his now iconic health and exercise program became a national hit. During the show’s 34-year run, Lelanne helped countless women cook better food and live healthier lives. A spirited and energetic man well into his 90s, Lelanne would often say of his senior status: "I can't die, it would ruin my image."  

We’ve long suspected that HCG weight loss products were fraudulent, and now the FDA is confirming that the shady supplements will not help you shed pounds. HCG products usually contain human chorionic gonadotropin, a hormone made by the placenta during pregnancy. The hormone has been advertised as a weight loss aid ever since the ‘50s, when a British physician claimed it could curb hunger when combined with a near starvation diet of around 500 calories a day. No subsequent studies have confirmed this theory, and now the FDA is condemning the products as “fraudulent and illegal.”  

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An apparent suicide bomb was detonated in Moscow’s busiest airport on Monday afternoon, killing at least 30 people and injuring some 130 more. The explosion occurred in the arrivals terminal of Domodedovo airport at around 4:30 p.m. In a televised address, Russian president Dimitri A. Medvedev said that preliminary information indicated the bombing was a terrorist act, but further details have yet to be confirmed. 

A former agent with the British Metropolitan police is claiming he was sanctioned to have sex with members of the left wing groups he was charged with infiltrating. The agent claims that sexual relationships with the environmental, anarchist and left wing individuals under surveillance were sanctioned for both male and female officers. This claim contradicts a statement made last week by the Association of Chief Police Officers that officers were strictly forbidden from sleeping with activists. Women who feel they have been violated by the undercover operatives protested yesterday in a demonstration at Scotland Yard. 

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