[Munich, June 2. Image via Flynet]

• Saberi said she was moved to hear that so many people worked for her release. She added, "I think that if somebody is supposed to speak about my case from now on, nobody knows about it as well as I do, and I will talk about it more in the future." • Tennessee has nullified the 18-month marriage of a transgender woman and a man because the state considers them both men. The woman was born a man and had a sex change operation, but the state does not recognize gender change (or gay marriage) even after sex reassignment surgery. • A Sacramento woman survived a car crash because she was hurled out of the car, over the the highway sound wall, and landed in a plum tree in a backyard. Firefighters say she survived because the tree cushioned her fall. • A Turkish court has ordered that an employer give a woman her job back after she was fired for kissing her boyfriend at work. The kiss was brief, and no customers say it, but her boss caught it on a security camera and fired her. • The banning of four books of French erotic literature in Turkey has caused debate over the qualifications of committee members to determine what is literature and what isn't after they decided to ban a book by the acclaimed French poet Apollinaire. • A new study suggests chemicals and hormones produced from our changing moods can affect eggs and sperm, altering the patterns of genes that are active in them and thus how a child develops. • Scientists have found that by observing the pattern of activity in the brain they can tell whether a person heard words spoken in anger, joy, relief, or sadness. This is the first study to show that emotional information is represented by distinct spatial signatures in the brain. • Scientists in Australia have figured out why there is an obesity epidemic: we eat too much food. They calculated how much people are eating today as opposed to three decades ago by comparing agricultural data. They determined that based on the total amount of food that is grown and imported, humans are actually less fat than we should be based just on changes in consumption, which may be explained by exercise. • A McDonald's in Alabama pulled Kidz Bop CDs from the store's Happy Meals because parents complained they could hear an obscenity in a cover of Gavin DeGraw's "I Don't Wanna Be." McDonald's says there's no obscenity in the song, but a parent says, "In the song the word is supposed to be 'looking,' but they're saying the f-word with the -ing on the end." • A stripper working at a Times Square peep show caught an ex-con who was counterfeiting money. She noticed that the two $10 bills he handed her looked like they were made on an Ink Jet printer and alerted her manager. When confronted, the man panicked and dropped 21 more bills. The man was arrested and is currently out on bail. • A British man was arrested after he drove up to a police officer posing as a prostitute and how much she would charge to have sex with his 14-year-old son, who was sitting in the car. The man won't serve jail time because of his "previous excellent character" and the boy will be allowed to live with his father, but the man will be put on the sex offender registry for five years. • A study found that in many police units in England and Wales female officers have to wear uniforms and stab vests designed for men. Maria Eagle, the justice minister, said, "It does make a very clear point, doesn't it? How welcome would you feel as a woman in a police force like that, if you can't even get clothes that fit you? It's crazy." • Police are investigating whether a Russian gynecologist, Igor Ivanov, purposely sterilized his pregnant ex-fiance, Olga Sokolova, when she was admitted to a hospital with abdominal pains. Sokolova had called off their wedding on the night before they were supposed to get married because she believed he was cheating on her. She started dating someone else and got pregnant. Ivanov was the only doctor on duty when she was admitted to the hospital, and he told her she was miscarrying and performed emergency surgery, causing serious internal damage that will prevent her from having children. • On Saturday Sister Mary Elizabeth Lloyd will run a 100-mile marathon in Florida while wearing her nun's habit to raise money to help orphaned children. ''I'm like Johnny Cash,'' Lloyd said. 'I wear black to draw attention. And when people ask me: 'Why in God's name are you doing this?' I can say, 'For the orphaned children.''' • A video posted by the U.K. National Health Service in Leicester was banned by YouTube after 24 hours for showing what looks like a teenage girl giving birth on a playground while students watch. The NHS was trying to get their anti-teen pregnancy message to young people with a viral video. • Business is booming at Cryos, the world's biggest sperm bank. In 2008 the number of donors tripled, from 30 a day to 100 at its four offices in Denmark. The worldwide demand for sperm surged in the past three or four years and Cryos "can't meet the avalanche of demand from the western world, in particular the United States," said Chief executive Ole Schou, "We help a tsunami of highly-educated single women who are more demanding and who prioritised their careers and who want to have a child before it is too late." • Vietnam is experiencing a boom in male births, which researchers believe can be blamed on the tenfold increase in the availability of ultrasounds in the last decade. They believe women being able to know the sex of their unborn child is increasing the number of sex-specific abortions. • A scientist who writes under the name "Mike The Mad Biologist" blogged that he perceives a double standard in how female scientists are viewed when they party after work. "If a female scientist at a meeting parties hard and flirts, she is viewed as a 'party girl.' In other words, she is no longer viewed as a scientist with an interesting social life, but as 'a good time' (although perhaps not sexually)," he writes, adding, "Mind you, I think this double standard sucks. But... I'm not sure what we (including male scientists) can do about it, other than not be assholes (which would be a good start)." • Here's a letter to the Princeton Alumni Weekly from an alum of 1945: "Gone is the distinct masculine flavor of an all-male college. The maleness of the Nassau Inn's Tap Room has been replaced by a female, dainty, tearoom atmosphere... My fear is that the Princeton University I knew has been taken over by a female majority (for better or worse). I am surprised that other male graduates are not upset by these developments." • English ice cream maker Frank Frederick is reviving his Italian family's 100-year-old gelato brand, along with his grandfather's practice of singing opera to his cows to make them produce endorphin-rich milk. Frederick flew in opera tenor Marcello Bedoni from Italy to serenade his cows. "The cows are such gentle beasts and have a good ear for opera," said Bedoni. •

• Sometimes the morning brings good news: Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana are going to play Italian priests in the movie version of Nine, which was inspired by Fellini's 8 1/2. Priests! [Elle UK]

• And here's the bad news: The U.S. Department of Labor reports job losses of nearly 10,000 in the apparel and textile sector for January alone. Departent stores cut nearly 9,000 positions the same month. [WWD]
• Luxury conglomerate It Holding SpA, which owns the labels Gianfranco Ferre and Malo, may go into bankruptcy. The Italian stock exchange has suspended trade of its stock indefinitely. [WSJ]
• Residents of San Francisco's Mission district — kind of like the Williamsburg of the west — successfully fought a proposed American Apparel using the city's stringent permit requirement laws for chain stores. The idea of hundreds of American Apparel-clad hipsters arguing the finer points of locally-owned commerce to the planning commission is a little wacky but sweet. [SF Gate]
• Meanwhile, spunky Badgers influenced the University of Wisconsin to let its contract with Russell Apparel, owner of the Russell Athletic brand, lapse following reports of anti-union activity by the company in Honduras. [U.S. News]
• Phoebe Philo talks at some length about her design process for her first Céline pre-spring and resort collections, which are to be shown in June. There's nary a mention of the fact that her first Céline collection was to be for fall 09, which booster Anna Wintour had booked into an exclusive Vogue editorial for the March issue, and which sources recently reported LVMH had gotten "a team" to work on in Philo's stead. [WWD]
• This completely escaped my notice: the real people in the background of the ad campaign for Isaac Mizrahi's first collection for Liz Clairborne include bloggers Dannielle Kyrillos of Daily Candy and Katrina Longworth of Spout Blog. Wonder whose idea that was? [Brand Freak]
• Model Heather Marks diaried her food intake for seven days in the run-up to New York fashion week. You can now commence arguing about whether or not it's healthy; I vote her a paragon of nutritional virtue, but then, I've been in this industry a long time. [Grub St.]
• Fendi's sole perfume, Palazzo, which launched in 2007, is being taken off the market due to disappointing sales. [WWD]
• Victoria's Secret has hired an L.A. entertainment company to help place their products in film and television venues. Look forward to a net increase of characters taking moments to adjust their VS bra straps in 3, 2, 1... [Brand Week]
• The Times of London has a sneak peek at a new exhibition of Madonna's clothes in the English capital, and a fascinating take on the semiotics of her Madgesty's dress. [Times of London]
• Oooh. I totally want stationery that features designers' doodles and sketches. [WWD]
• Fashion houses seem of two minds about how to design for the recession: some, like Louis Vuitton and Zac Posen, are talking all about "classic" this and neutral colors that, while others, like Coach, want more than ever to harness the bright sparkle of trendiness that might make their products stand out from others'. Everyone's going to be watching to see what Marc Jacobs does, of course. [WSJ]
• And whatever that might be, the Guardian has a good, long appreciation of Jacobs' recent Stephen Sprouse collection for Louis Vuitton, and a more than a few 80s New York stories of the designer himself. [Guardian]
• Unsurprisingly, Kate Moss is the female celebrity women most want to dress like. I think, cough, she is part of the reason Hunter rubber boots are selling so well, Wall Street Journal. [The Sun]
• Ew, Fergie has a shoe line now. [WWD]
• McDonald's McCafe will be the "official coffee" of New York fashion week, with espresso and drip coffee available for free in the tents all week long. Naturally they're expecting front-row celebs to be photographed, paper cups in hand. Micky D's hasn't traditionally had the best outreach with the womenfolk; I guess by now they figured out the shortest distance to a girl's heart is via vanilla latte. [AdAge]
• The pre-holiday 70% and 80% markdowns at Saks and other department stores were just a harbinger of things to come. Expect the big stores that can afford the hit to keep pushing prices down — and expect the smaller concerns to continue struggling to compete. [WSJ]
• This is just ridiculous. Heel height has nothing to do with the economic climate, and "sky-high heels," which I'm pretty sure didn't even exist in the 1930s since they didn't then know how to achieve height and strength by using a metal core within the heel shaft, have been in for about the last four years and certainly aren't any new recession thing. Who writes this crap, and why aren't they busy getting to the bottom of the Lipstick Sales Conundrum or retooling the Hemline Bellwether hypothesis? [The Sun]
• American Eagle Outfitters is suing Citigroup for allegedly misleading them into buying assets that they were assured were safe and liquid, but whose value has now plummeted. [Dealbook]
• Unlike Kellogg's, Speedo is standing by Michael Phelps in the wake of being photographed doing whatever he was doing with that unusual-looking pipe. [WWD]
• Jason Wu's PR firm threw the 26-year-old designer a party at the Soho Grand ahead of fashion week. [Style.com]
• Love magazine, the hotly-awaited brainchild of power stylist Katie Grand (formerly of Pop) has leaked its inaugural cover. It's a triple header, with one featuring Agyness dressed up as Queen Elizabeth II, another showing Iris Strubegger as a purple-haired cyber clubkid, and the third with Iggy Pop. Looks like a winner. [Models.com]

[Los Angeles, November 16. Image via x17]

The spot was discussed on Marketplace last week. AdWeek's Barbara Lippert says: "It really seems to be in the Sarah Palin moment. Because all that is about anti-intellectualism and shootin' and huntin'… And this is, you know, 'Oh, we really always hated Starbucks, and thank God for McDonald's and a real American option.'" And trend-watcher Faith Popcorn agrees, claiming: "It's adapting kinda the campaign approach." In fact, the commercial seems offensive on many levels. But what do you think? Clip below.

McDonald's Targets Starbucks Attitude [Marketplace]

• It will not surprise anyone to learn that the clothes worn in the Sex & The City movie were not paid for by the movie's production budget but by designers hoping that product placement in the movie will result in clothing sales to actual people convinced that dressing like the characters in Sex & The City is a wise course of action. [Variety]
  
• Speaking of which, Matthew Broderick on the opening of his latest film, the Helen Hunt-directed Then She Found Me: "We just get dressed, get in a car, and hope for the best. But Sarah Jessica's premiere will be a big one! She looks really beautiful today, but it's just the dress rehearsal for now." [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• Hell to the no, Rami Kashou did not copy Yves Saint Laurent in designing a dress for Heidi Klum! [NY Mag]
  
• Bloomingdales' workers are on the brink of their first-ever strike. That's what you get when you let retail workers unionize, Terry Lundgren! [Crain's]

• "Her new 'grande bourgeoise' style suits her well," says lingerie designer Chantal Thomas of France's new first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. We think this is a compliment. [WWD, 4th item]
• Designer Bruce Oldfield is designing uniforms for McDonald's employees in the UK. But don't worry, they're not too "quirky and eccentric." [Vogue UK]
• Model Hana Soukupova on how she goes green: "I got a Range Rover as I just learned to drive and it's big and safe and great for driving around NYC. I am very eco-conscious and must admit I have been considering a different car for the summer. I'm thinking of swapping it for a Mini Cooper." You know, Hana? There's also walking. I know models at least have to know how to do that. [Chic Report]
• Yves Saint Laurent designer Stefano Pilati loves Jamba Juice. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Coach: Income up, stock down. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Calypso founder Christiane Celle has left the company she started, a mere seven months after cashing out big time to private equity firms. Blah, blah, irreconcilable differences, what else is new; can we still get candy-colored linen and silk little dresses? [WWD, sub req'd]
• Urban Outfitters: Soon to feature in-house collections by Geren Ford, Steven Alan, Charlotte Ronson, and Paul & Joe. Pete Wentz must be so excited. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Aw, vintage Krazy Karl. [Sassybella]

Seriously guys, I know the fast food industry has, like, ruined the world and everything, but a 4-piece box of chicken McNuggets has fewer calories and more protein than a Luna bar and taste oh so much better on a hangover. And it's on the dollar menu so it's sort of like getting back at the government for all those years of nation-defiling agriculture subsidies.

Calorie Counts May Clarify Options, Not Actions [NY Times]