Santana's stepping out
Legendary guitarist Carlos Santana has stepped into a new role shoe salesman.
The Carlos collection of women's shoes comes in 13 styles, ranging in price from $59 to $70 a pair, including funky, jeweled sandals, suede boots and metallic strappy spikes.
A portion of the proceeds will benefit the San Rafael, Calif.-based Milagro Foundation, started by Santana and his wife, Deborah, in 1998 to serve the needs of youngsters in arts, education and health.
Santana also sells silk ties, inspired by his artwork, to raise money for the Milagro Foundation.
The Carlos collection of shoes are available at select Macy's department stores in California, Arizona, Texas and Nevada, and at Burdines stores in Miami. Santana's other products are sold on his Web site, www.santana.com/.
Put down that soda
The sugary sodas loved by millions of U.S. adolescents may help drive youngsters' soaring obesity rates, a new report suggests.
Researchers studied 548 sixth- and seventh-graders for more than a year and a half, gauging how a taste for sugar-sweetened soft drinks affected a child's body mass index, a measure of body fat. The study accounted for other influences on children's body weight, such as TV viewing habits and sexual maturity.
Writing recently in the journal The Lancet, the Boston researchers reported that the risk of becoming obese during the study period increased 60 percent for every can or glass of sugar-sweetened drink a child consumed daily. One-quarter of the children drank more than one serving each day.
Childhood obesity rates doubled in the United States between 1980 and 1994, and many doctors now believe excessive body weight is the country's top pediatric medical concern.
Backstreet boost
The best way to boost a sagging economy? Book the Backstreet Boys.
Their Feb. 18 concert at the Alerus Center in Grand Forks, N.D., injected more than $1 million into the local economy, says Deb Melby of the Greater Grand Forks Convention and Visitors Bureau.
More than 19,000 people attended. Of those, Melby says, 11,400 came from outside a 20-mile radius of Grand Forks, and as many as 4,000 of them stayed in hotels.
However, not all businesses benefited.
"I thought I might snag a few (concert-related) customers, but no," says Wayne Davis, who runs a jewelry store in the Columbia Mall. "It's mostly all going to restaurants and clothing stores."
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