A century ago, Elsie Scheel was the perfect woman. So said a 1912 article in The New York Times about how Miss Scheel, 24, was chosen by the “medical examiner of the 400 ‘co-eds’ ” at Cornell University as a woman “whose very presence bespeaks perfect health.”
Miss Scheel, however, was hardly model-thin. At 5-foot-7 and 171 pounds, she would, by today’s medical standards, be clearly overweight. (Her body mass index was 27; 25 to 29.9 is overweight.)




Gunmen on motorcycles sprayed a van carrying employees from a community center with bullets Tuesday, killing five female teachers and two aid workers, but sparing a child they took out of the vehicle before opening fire.
Residents of Gardendale, a suburb near the hub of the west Texas oil industry, face having up to 300 wells in their backyards.
On the eve of Mexico's Day of the Dead this year, authorities in Veracruz declared triumphantly that they had solved one of the decade's most notorious slayings of a journalist in Mexico.
Two types of ice seals joined polar bears Dec. 21 on the list of species threatened by the loss of sea ice, which scientists say reached record low levels this year due to climate warming.
An unmanned mobile oil drilling rig owned by Royal Dutch Shell is adrift -- again -- south of Kodiak Island after it lost towlines Sunday afternoon from two vessels trying to hold it in place against what have been pummeling winds and high seas, according to incident management leaders.
The gay GOP group confirms the ad was funded by outside donors, but refuses to identify them or their cause.





























