Princesses in north India win a royal fortune

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NEW DELHI (AP) — It has all the makings of a best-selling novel. An Indian maharaja crowned as a toddler and rich beyond imagination falls into a deep depression in old age after losing his only son.
After his own death a few months later, his daughters, the princesses, don't get the palaces, gold and vast lands they claim as their birthright. Instead, they are given a few dollars a month from palace officials they accuse of scheming to usurp the royal billions with a forged will. The fight rages for decades.
On Saturday, an Indian court brought the chapter to a close, ruling that the will of Maharaja Harinder Singh Brar of Faridkot was fabricated.
His daughters will now inherit the estimated $4 billion estate, instead of a trust run by his former servants and palace officials.
Chief judicial magistrate Rajnish Kumar Sharma, in the northern city of Chandigarh, finally gave his ruling on the case filed by the maharaja's eldest daughter, Amrit Kaur, in 1992, a court official said Monday. The court official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The Faridkot riches were legend in India's Punjab state.
The estate includes a 350-year-old fort, palaces and forests lands in Faridkot, a mansion surrounded by acres of land in the heart of India's capital New Delhi and similar properties spread across four states. The 18 cars include a Rolls Royce, a Daimler and a Bentley, all in running condition.

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A peacock dances inside the Faridkot estate, in New Delhi, India, Monday, July 29, 2013. A court in  …

In addition, there is an aerodrome in Faridkot, spread over 200 acres, which is being used by the Punjab state administration and the army.
And more than 10 billion rupees ($170 million) worth of gold, jewelry studded with diamonds, rubies and emeralds.
Brar himself was a boy-king who grew up amid the final gasps of India's royal families. He was crowned maharaja of the tiny kingdom of Faridkot in western Punjab — the last maharaja it would turn out — at the age of 3, upon his father's death.
After India won independence from Britain in 1947, Faridkot and hundreds of other small kingdoms were absorbed into the country, royal titles and power were abolished and the royal families were given a fixed salary from the Indian government. That payment, the "privy purse," was abolished in 1971.
Some royals slipped into penury, some converted their former palaces into luxury hotels to provide them an income.
A few, like Brar, held onto their enormously profitable real estate and continued to live a rarefied life.
But in 1981, Brar's only son, Tikka Harmohinder Singh, was killed in a road accident and he tumbled into a deep depression. It was then, his three daughters' argued, that his trusted aides connived to deprive his family of their fortune. They set up the Meharawal Khewaji Trust, naming all the maharaja's servants, officials and lawyers as trustees.

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A man walks past the Faridkot estate, in New Delhi, India, Monday, July 29, 2013. A court in Punjab  …

A short time after Brar's death in 1989, a will leaving all his wealth to the trust became public. The two younger princesses, Deepinder Kaur and Maheepinder Kaur, were given monthly salaries of $20 and $18 respectively. Brar's wife, mother and oldest daughter — the presumed heir — were cut off without a penny.
The trust told the court that Amrit Kaur had been shunned by her father for marrying against his wishes.
Kaur told the court that her father had never made a will and that she had remained with him until his death.
In the two decades that it has taken for the court to give its ruling, much has changed. The value of the estates has increased manifold. The New Delhi properties alone are worth about $350 million. One of his daughters, Maheepinder Kaur, died. Amrit and Deepinder are in their 80s.
The family's lawyer, Vikas Jain, told India's Financial Express newspaper that some of the fortune had been squandered.
The trust is weighing a challenge to the Chandigarh court order in a higher court, news reports said Monday.
"The will was real and it was not forged. The trust, after going through the order in detail, could challenge it in an upper court," Ranjit Singh, a lawyer for the trust, was quoted as telling The Times of India newspaper.

McDonald's McDouble: Cheapest, Most Nutritious Food in History? No Way.

Thank heavens for the McDonald’s McDouble cheeseburger, “one of the unsung wonders of modern life.” Right?

Wrong!

More on Shine: McDonald's Alums' Big Bet on Healthy Food

Though the unhealthiness of fast food should be pretty much a given at this point, New York Post columnist Kyle Smith has giddily praised the McDouble not only as an unsung wonder but also as a wonderful way for people to eat cheaply and healthfully. In his nearly-800-word opinion, published Monday, Smith praised the McDouble’s $1 price and pitted “class snobs, locavore foodies and militant anti-corporate types” against “the poor.” He mysteriously called organics “the Abercrombie and Fitch jeans of food,” and even challenged the notion that fast food is linked to obesity.

More on Yahoo!: Vegetarians Live Longer and Prosper: Study

Smith’s column was inspired by a recent Freakonomics radio podcast titled “A Burger a Day,” in which host Kai Ryssdal based his show around a comment from a listener (Ralph Thomas) calling the McDouble “the cheapest, most nutritious and bountiful food that has ever existed in human history.”

Oh, Thomas and Smith, where to even begin to tear down your crazy claims?

Let’s start with the plainest of facts: nutritional content. One McDouble contains 19 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat and 1 gram of trans fat, representing a whopping 29 percent, 42 percent, and 65 percent of your USDA daily allowance intakes, respectively, in just a single meal. The cholesterol content is at 22 percent of daily allowance—so if you’ve already had more than one egg for breakfast, you’re sunk, way before dinnertime. Fiber is at a woeful 2 grams, or 7 percent of the daily recommended intake (DRI). And the sandwich contains 850 mg of sodium, which is a pretty high 35 percent of the daily limit.

“It’s a pretty extreme claim,” Jim White, a registered dietician and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, told Yahoo! Shine about Smith’s column. “My main problem is it’s got 40 percent of the saturated fat for the day,” he explained, which can only add to the problem of lower-income populations having higher rates of disease. "I'm worried about heart disease. And I hate to hear a claim like this," he added, "because affordable foods can still be healthy."

So, taking cost in to account, what's the alternative?

As a guest on the Freakonomics broadcast, Mother Jones food columnist Tom Philpott wisely suggested that you “get a pound of brown rice, organic, and a pound of red lentils for about two bucks each. And a serving size, say a cup of each of those things, would be about 75 cents.” And check out the nutritional benefits: That serving size of red lentils contains 57 percent of DRI for fiber, 18 grams of protein (compared with 23 for the double burger), less than one gram of total fat, zero percent sodium and no cholesterol. The brown rice, meanwhile, adds 14 percent of daily fiber and 5 grams of protein, with a scant 1.8 total grams of fat and no sodium or cholesterol.

But Smith responded to that solution by snarkily dodging the issue. “Great idea,” he wrote. “Now go open a restaurant called McBoiled Lentils and see how many customers line up.”

He basically echoes an opinion shared on Freakonomics, in which guest Blake Hurst, a corn and soy farmer, declared, “I’m sorry, there is no amount of marketing that’s going to make me prefer brown rice and lentils over a McDonald’s cheeseburger.”

Are people like Smith truly concerned about feeding poor people nutritiously and cheaply? Or are they perpetuating corporate, agri-business myths that help to brainwash Americans into believing that healthy, plant-based whole foods are snobbish, while fat-drenched and antibiotic-laden meats and processed foods are cool?

While the cheeseburger may cost a mere buck, it brings with it less obvious costs related to healthcare. A constant stream of studies show that fast food contributes to heart disease and high blood pressure; a recent study found that vegetarians live longer than meat eaters due to having lower blood pressure. And while McDonalds has worked to lower the amount of antibiotics in its meats, it has not eliminated them entirely—something that concerns many health experts.

All of this does not even touch on the large carbon footprint and the inhumane treatment of animals that go into the making of McDoubles. But that kind of talk is what Smith is waiting for. “Activists will go anywhere to wave the banner of caring and plant their flagpole of social justice right in the foot of the working class,” he wrote. So I’ll save that part, and let the nutrition facts speak for themselves.

Lady Gaga Broke Her Hip, But ‘Nobody Knew’

Lady Gaga has been lying relatively low for the past six months following a hip injury that halted her Born This Way World Tour in February. While the hip injury was public knowledge (her camp issued a statement that she was suffering from a labral tear for which she underwent surgery), most people didn't know just how bad the injury really was.

Now the pop star has revealed it was much worse than she initially let on. "My injury was actually a lot worse than just a labral tear,” she says. “I had broken my hip. Nobody knew, and I haven’t even told the fans yet. But when we got all the MRIs finished before I went to surgery there were giant craters, a hole in my hip the size of a quarter, and the cartilage was just hanging out the other side of my hip. I had a tear on the inside of my joint and a huge breakage. The surgeon told me that if I had done another show I might have needed a full hip replacement. I would have been out at least a year, maybe longer.”

In an interview with Women's Wear Daily, the singer (born Stefani Germanotta) said that the recovery process was very difficult for her because she had to stop performing – and she hadn't gone two weeks without performing since she was 14 years old. It also meant she had to be wheeled around in a wheelchair that was more than just a fashion accessory. But it wasn't all bad.
"I had six months to beef up my brain and my body," Gaga says. "I got to put a giant white or black sheet of paint over my whole canvas and I got to review ARTPOP again. I was given the time to really be creative because it’s a gazing process, it really is. I have to gaze into the work for long periods of time for it to be good."
The time off the road allowed her to rehabilitate and gave her the space to work with her creative team, known as Haus of Gaga, to brainstorm ideas for her forthcoming ARTPOP album and multimedia art project. The album, which is due out November 11, will be preceded by the single, "Applause," on August 19 – the date of the album's presale. Gaga has revealed the cover artwork for the single, which features the 27-year-old singer in smeared, colorful clown-like face paint with her hair hidden underneath a dramatic black wrap.
The "Poker Face" singer said that she chose the cover image from the "Applause" video shoot, which took place recently in Los Angeles. "When I look at it I see that there is a longing for the applause," she says. "I see that there is a void that is leaking onstage, that the performer is leaking, that the art is sort of becoming something else in front of your eyes. Something more human, something more honest."

As for the sound of her new music, Gaga remains very tightlipped. But Little Monsters only need to be patient a little while longer, as the pop star is scheduled to return to her high heels for a performance at the MTV Video Music Awards on August 25, where it's rumored she'll sing "Applause," and she's sure to get plenty of it!