Joran Van der Sloot Unsurprisingly Linked To Sex Trafficking Ring

• New evidence has linked Joran Van der Sloot with the disappearance of two girls from Thailand. Van der Sloot was allegedly involved with a sex trafficking ring, where he recruited a dozen young Thai woman.

The girls were later sold to a pimp in Holland, and each woman got him a finder’s fee of $13,000. Van der Sloot was investigated for human trafficking, but never charged. However, the investigation has recently been reopened after police noticed that two women who appeared on a video with the Dutchman have gone missing. • Bristol Palin’s exboyfriend, Ben Barber, spoke to the Daily Beast about his experiences with the Palin family and his (rather low) opinion of Levi Johnston. Barber claims he helped Bristol with Tripp “more than Levi ever did,” and that Levi is “probably the worst person to give fame to anyways.” He also claims Todd and Track are both “furious” that Bristol and Levi are back together. • 11 years ago, Chrissy Steltz was horribly injured when friends, who were playing around with a gun at a party, accidentally shot her in the face. She remembers her 16-year-old self as beautiful, but now, at 27, she’s happy to receive a prosthetic face. The new face was created by doctors to reflect her former bone structure, but it was aged to reflect the passage of time between the accident and today. • Valerie Bertinelli’s talk show pilot (working title: “Say It Now”) won’t go forward, sources say. The show, which had been viewed as a potential replacement for Oprah’s show when it ends its 25-year run in September 2011, failed to impress executives. They say CBS is also looking at a talk show hosted by Julie Chen that has been described as “‘The View‘ for the mommy set.” • A girl who was kidnapped as a baby seven years ago in Los Angeles was found last night in a home in Phoenix that also served as a palm reading business. The 8-year-old had lived with the Arizona family for the better part of the past decade. Her new parents kept her out of school for fear that she would be recognized and taken away. She was reportedly found in good health, but due to her lack of schooling, she is unable to read. • Researchers believe they have confirmed the protective brain hypothesis, which states that a large brain is a better brain, by studying 493 species of mammals from different regions on the planet. They found that species with big brains generally lived longer lives than those with smaller brains. However, researchers stress that the evidence is “correlative” and do not necessarily indicate cause and effect. • The FDA announced today that follow-up studies of the Roche breast cancer drug showed that it failed to extend patient lives or slow tumor growth. The drug in question, Avastin, was approved in 2008 based on early trials on the condition that later studies would show a survival benefit. •