Travel Web site ProfessionalTravelGuide.com has come up with a list of 9 haunted hotels (http://www.professionaltravelguide.com/Haunted-Hotels-2008) for thrill-seekers who like hearing things go bump in the night.

This list is not endorsed by Reuters:

1. Hotel Del Coronado, Coronado, California

Kate Morgan’s body was found six days after she checked into Room 302 of the Hotel del Coronado to meet her estranged husband on Thanksgiving Day 1892. He reportedly never showed up. Kate’s untimely death was ruled a suicide. Room 302 is now known as Room 3312, but Kate’s spirit is said to roam the entire hotel.

2. Roosevelt Hotel, Hollywood, California

The site of the first Academy Awards and the center of Hollywood during its heyday, The Roosevelt Hotel is said to accommodate the ghosts of Marilyn Monroe (Suite 1200) and Montgomery Clift, star of "From Here to Eternity" (Room 928). Marilyn Monroe was a frequent guest there. Her image is said to appear in a mirror now located in the lobby.

3. The Sagamore, Bolton Landing, New York

The Sagamore in Bolton Landing, New York, is said to harbor the ghost of a boy from the 1950s. The boy would collect lost golf balls and sell them to the pro shop for extra cash. Running after a ball one day, he was fatally struck by a car. Apparently, guests still see the boy on the golf course sometimes.

4. Driskill Hotel, Austin, Texas

The smell of cigar smoke can be detected when Colonel Driskill, a Texas cattle baron and Confederate officer, is said to be wandering the lavish Driskill Hotel in Austin, Texas. In 1877, the daughter of a Texas senator took a fatal tumble down the grand staircase. It is said she can be heard bouncing a ball in the lobby and along the mezzanine.

5. Shieldhill Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland

Guests tell stories of "The Gray Lady" who is said to haunt Shieldhill Castle in Edinburgh, Scotland. According to legend, she was the daughter of the family who owned the castle until the mid-20th century. She is said to have fallen in love with one of the hired hands. When her father disapproved of the marriage, she committed suicide.

6. Hotel Provincial, New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans is renowned for its spooks and hauntings. Part of the Provincial Hotel was once a Confederate hospital. Maids have reported bloodstains mysteriously appearing and disappearing. Once, as the elevator opened on the second floor, the vision of an entire hospital apparently came into view.

7. The Marshall House, Savannah, Georgia

Used as a hospital during the Civil War and during yellow fever epidemics in the 19th century, the Marshall House in Savannah, Georgia, is reportedly one of the most haunted hotels in the city. For more ghosts, check out the famed Pirate House Restaurant with a tunnel dug by pirates that leads to the river.

8. The Heathman Hotel, Portland, Oregon

At this hotel, guests who have left their rooms clean have returned to find something amiss or moved about. Records for the hotel will have shown no one entering the room. Evidently, these occurrences are frequent, especially in rooms ending in-03.

9. The Carolina Inn, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Paranormal researchers have studied The Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, believed investigating the spirit of Dr. William Jacocks who lived at the inn for many years. Orbs, piano notes, soft-spoken words and other ghostly happenings add to the spooky ambience.

James was picked by 56 percent of the league’s general managers to secure the MVP title, ahead of Los Angeles’ Lakers guard Kobe Byrant, who won the title last season and was chosen by 37 percent of managers to repeat the feat.

It was the third successive year James has been tipped for MVP honors, though his coach Mike Brown suggested he may be forced to rest the player in more games this season.

"It’s something we talked about before the season started," Brown told reporters after James sat out the 97-79 pre-season loss to the Detroit Pistons on Wednesday.

"We sat down and talked about the possibility of getting him a game off, two games off, especially after all the basketball he has played."

James has been a virtual ever-present in the Cavaliers since the team chose him as the number one draft pick straight out of high school in 2003.

He started 79 regular season games in his 2003-04 rookie season, 80 in 2004-05, 79 in 2005-06, 78 in 2006-07 and 74 last season and has averaged more than 41 minutes per game.

However he, along with Bryant, spent the off-season helping the US "Redeem Team" to win gold at the Beijing Olympics and neither has had much opportunity to recharge their batteries.

While James is favored to earn MVP honors few believe it will be enough to carry the Cavaliers to the title, with 46 percent of general managers picking the Lakers to avenge last year finals loss to the Boston Celtics.

Just 19 percent of general managers believed the Celtics would retain their title.
 

If Manny Pacquiao beats Oscar de la Hoya, famed trained Freddie Roach said his ward will probably go after Ricky Hatton and former pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather Jr.–if he goes out of retirement.

Roach, who is very confident about Pacquiao’s chances against the bigger de la Hoya, told BoxingConfidential.com’s Brad Cooney that boxing history favors their side.

“We are not going to win by decision, we are going to knock this guy out. In history, guys that go up in weight classes and then come back down get knocked out. Roy Jones Jr, Sugar Ray Leonard, guys like that,” Roach said.

If Pacquiao succeeds on beating the Mexican-American star, Roach said they will be running after Hatton, then Mayweather.

“A win over De La Hoya makes him a superstar, and sets up the Ricky Hatton fight,” Roach explained. “Obviously, Floyd is the best fight for us, if he comes back.”

Pacquiao’s coach said Mayweather could slug it out with his ward somewhere between 140 to 147 pounds.

“Floyd is a great fighter, and has a whole different style than the other fighters. Manny’s best fighting weight is at 140lbs… he likes 147, so let’s meet somewhere in the middle,” he said.

Preparations versus DLH

Roach said they are presently devising strategies to nullify de la Hoya’s strengths.

“Well, obviously, the left hook gets our attention. Obviously we will be watching out for that. We are working on getting away from that hook daily. We are working on everything that Oscar does well,” said Roach.

With Pacquiao’s speed advantage, Roach said they are incorporating more head movements in the training.
 
“I love the way Manny is moving his head right now, and I love where Manny is at right now,” he said.

Roach added that regarding de la Hoya’s size advantage, Pacquiao is “handling bigger guys quite well.”

“We just finished a great sparring day. Manny just hurt a 160-pound sparring partner with a right hook,” he said.

The famed trainer added that Pacquiao’s power does not seem to be affected with the added weight. He is currently walking around at 151 pounds.

“His punches are unbelievable. I wore the body suit for the first time with Manny Pacquiao because I don’t want him holding back his body punches. He knocked the wind out of me three times today. We will be testing Oscar’s body out, trust me,” he said.

The study, called INTERHEART, looked at 16,000 heart attack patients and controls between 1999 and 2003 in countries on every continent, marking a shift from previous studies which have focussed on the developed world.

The patients and controls filled in a "dietary risk score" questionnaire based on 19 food groups, which contained healthy and unhealthy items and were tweaked to include dietary preferences of each country taking part in the study.

The researchers found that people who eat a diet high in fried foods, salty snacks, eggs and meat — the "Western Diet" — had a 35 percent greater risk of having a heart attack than people who consumed little or no fried foods or meat, regardless of where they live.

People who ate a "Prudent Diet" — high in leafy green vegetables, other raw and cooked vegetables, and fruits — had a 30 percent lower risk of heart attack than those who ate little or no fruit and veg, the study showed.

The third dietary pattern, called the "Oriental Diet" because it contained foods such as tofu and soy sauce which are typically consumed in Asian societies, was found to have little impact on heart attack risk.

Although some items in the Oriental diet might have protective properties such as vitamins and anti-oxidants, others such as soy sauce have a high salt content which would negate the benefits, the study said.

The study was groundbreaking in its scope and because previous research had focussed mainly on developed countries, according to Salim Yusuf, a senior author of the study.

"We had focussed research on the West because heart disease was mainly predominant in western countries 25-30 years ago," Yusuf, who is a professor of medicine at McMaster University in Canada, told AFP.

"But heart disease is now increasingly striking people in developing countries. Eighty percent of heart disease today is in low- to middle-income countries" partly because more people around the world are eating western diets, he said.

"This study indicates that the same relationships that are observed in western countries exist in different regions of the world," said Yusuf, who is also head of the Population Health Research Institute at Hamilton Health Sciences in Ontario.

Patients who had been admitted to coronary care units in 262 centers around the world, and at least one control subject per patient, took part in the study.

The INTERHEART results were published Monday in Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association.

The main countries in the study were Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia in South America; Canada and the United States in North America; Sweden in western Europe; Croatia, Poland and Russia for eastern Europe; and Dubai, Egypt, Iran, Kuwait and Qatar for the Middle East.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the main countries were Cameroon, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe; while nearly all the South Asian countries — India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka — took part, as did Southeast Asian countries including the Philippines and Singapore, Yusuf told AFP.

But Britain, which once ranked in the top five, has slipped to 44th place behind El Salvador and Peru, after a 50 billion pound ($86.5 billion) pledge this week by the government to bolster bank balance sheets.

The United States, where some of Wall Street’s biggest financial names have collapsed in recent weeks, rated only 40, just behind Germany at 39, and smaller states such as Barbados, Estonia and even Namibia, in southern Africa.

The United States was on Thursday considering buying a slice of debt-laden banks to inject trust back into lending between financial institutions now too wary of one another to lend.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report based its findings on opinions of executives, and handed banks a score between 1.0 (insolvent and possibly requiring a government bailout) and 7.0 (healthy, with sound balance sheets).

Canadian banks received 6.8, just ahead of Sweden (6.7), Luxembourg (6.7), Australia (6.7) and Denmark (6.7).

UK banks collectively scored 6.0, narrowly behind the United States, Germany and Botswana, all with 6.1. France, in 19th place, scored 6.5 for soundness, while Switzerland’s banking system scored the same in 16th place, as did Singapore (13th).

The ranking index was released as central banks in Europe, the United States, China, Canada, Sweden and Switzerland slashed interest rates in a bid to end to panic selling on markets and restore trust in the shaken banking system.

The Netherlands (6.7), Belgium (6.6), New Zealand (6.6), Malta (6.6) rounded out the WEF’s banking top 10 with Ireland, whose government unilaterally pledged last week to guarantee personal and corporate deposits at its six major banks.

Also scoring well were Chile (6.5, 18th) and Spain, South Africa, Norway, Hong Kong and Finland all ending up in the top 20.

At the bottom of the list was Algeria in 134th place, with its banks scoring 3.9 to be just below Libya (4.0), Lesotho (4.1), the Kyrgyz Republic (4.1) and both Argentina and East Timor (4.2).

Rankings

1. Canada

2. Sweden

3. Luxembourg

4. Australia

5. Denmark

6. Netherlands

7. Belgium

8. New Zealand

9. Ireland

10. Malta

11. Hong Kong

12. Finland

13. Singapore

14. Norway

15. South Africa

16. Switzerland

17. Namibia

18. Chile

19. France

20. Spain

China has found the toxic industrial chemical melamine in 31 milk powder products, the government said Wednesday, announcing the results of a sweeping national check.

The chemical has been blamed for the deaths of four children and for sickening of 53,000 in one of China’s worst product safety scandals ever.