Branson Launches Virgin Hotels – Sir Richard Branson has announced his Virgin Group plans to invest around £320 million on a string of new luxury hotels. A new website www.virginhotels.com leads with the strapline: ‘Fancy getting into bed with Virgin’ and describes the project as ‘our next (ad)venture’. The site says that Virgin Hotels will be a four-star chain that targets ‘high income, well-educated, metropolitan “creative class” customers’. [luxuo]

Mark Zuckerberg Is Now Richer Than Steve Jobs – Just 5 years after founding Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg is worth more than Apple’s iconic chief Steve Jobs. This year, Zuckerberg, 26, added $4.9 billion to his fortune–vaulting to #35 on the Forbes 400 with an estimated fortune of $6.9 billion. Why the jump? Recent private equity investments in Facebook valued the firm at around $23 billion–more than triple its 2009 value of $7 billion. Illiquid private shares in secondary markets point to an even richer valuation. [forbes]

SARU In Defence Of De Villiers – The saga surrounding Springbok rugby coach Peter de Villiers and fullback Francois Steyn, took another turn when the South African Rugby Union came out in defence of the embattled coach. In a statement explaining De Villiers’ non-appearance for a meeting with Steyn and his French club Racing Metro, Saru say the club was informed the meeting was to be postponed. [timeslive]

Woman Skydiver On Trial For Parachute Murder Of Love Rival – Els or “Babs” Clottemans, 25, is alleged to have murdered her married skydiving partner Els Van Doran, 37, in November 2006, after apparently growing jealous that they were both having an affair with the same boyfriend, a fellow parachutist. Parachuting with both women, the lover, Marcel or “Mars” Somers, 25, watched in horror as Mrs Van Doran, a mother with two children, crashed over two miles to her death into a garden in the Flemish Limburg town of Opglabbeek. [telegraph]

Facebook Fixes Massive Tech Problem With A Simple Reboot – Ever been on the phone to IT support and they told you to turn it off and then on again, and that sorts it out? Facebook last night had that sort of problem. So they turned the site off and on again. And it fixed their problem. Literally. As Robert Johnson, its director of software engineering, explained in a slightly shamefaced blogpost, the site was offline for about two-and-a-half hours – its worst outage in four years – due to some technical changes that Facebook had made. [guardian]

You Must Not Stop Worrying – According To Mail & Guardian, “The ANC Youth League (ANCYL) may be have been defeated at the ANC’s national general council (NGC), but the loss was far from permanent, a political analyst said on Friday.” Yes of course, we would never for a moment actually sit back and enjoy ourselves. Thanks to traditional media’s daily soap opera, we have been able to panic on a daily basis (if you buy into that existence) since 1994. I’m surprised we’re all still here! [mail&guardian]

Lindsay Lohan Released From Jail After Posting Bail – CNN is reporting that Lindsay Lohan has already been released on $300, 000 bail, posted late Friday night. Initially she was to remain in jail before her probation revocation hearing, which is set for October 22. However, the judge overturned the decision and released Lohan on bail and on the condition that she be fitted with another SCRAM alcohol-detection ankle bracelet. [time]

Man Builds And Flies Da Vinci Inspired Human-Powered Plane With Flapping Wings – A University of Toronto student has done something nobody’s been able to do before — he built and flew a human-powered aircraft with flapping wings. Todd Reichert, an engineering PhD candidate at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies, achieved the feat, which has eluded humankind since Leonardo da Vinci sketched the first human-powered ornithopter in 1485. [toronto]

Federer’s Peers Reckon He Is Still Number 1 – Rafael Nadal may have completed his career Grand Slam at the US Open, but at least some of his peers in the top echelons of men’s tennis still consider Roger Federer to be the best in the world.Nadal’s win at Flushing Meadows earlier this month gave him his ninth major. He has also won five times at the French Open, twice at Wimbledon and once in Australia. Federer’s tally is record 16 – six Wimbledons, five U.S. Opens, four Australian titles and a lone French. [koos]

Smokers Left Out In The Cold As Paris Bans Heaters – Patio heaters are set to be banned from Paris because of the harm they cause to the environment. The French capital’s Socialist council said it wanted to get rid of appliances which have become the ‘4x4s of café culture’. Since the smoking ban was introduced three years ago, hundreds of the gas heaters have sprung up outside cafés and restaurants. Where to next? [dailymail]

Portia De Rossi Is Now Portia Degeneres – Portia de Rossi has officially taken wife Ellen DeGeneres’ last name. A Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner granted De Rossi’s request to take the last name of her partner during a closed hearing Thursday. The television star will now legally be known as Portia Lee James DeGeneres.The couple was married in August 2008. The 37-year-old Australian-born actress asked for the name change last month. [popeater]

Mercedes And Toyota Use Laptop Batteries To Power Electric Cars – Mercedes and Toyota are bringing new electric cars onto the market that rely on technology from the Californian automaker Tesla. The startup company, whose sports cars already have a cult following in Hollywood, has pioneered the use of laptop batteries in electric autos.Experts considered the idea of using laptop computer batteries to power a car laughable at best — until the car turned out to actually work, sending shock waves through the industry. [derspiegel]

Man Gets 14,400 Years For Raping Daughter – A Philippine court has sentenced a father to 14,400 years in prison after he was convicted of the near daily rape of his teenage daughter over the course of a year. A trial court originally condemned the man, a rickshaw driver, to die in March 2006 after he was convicted of 360 counts of rape allegedly carried out during the year his wife worked in Hong Kong. But the Court of Appeals in Manila commuted the sentence to 40 years for each count. [associated]

USA Is The Fattest Nation In the World – The United States is the fattest nation among 33 countries with advanced economies, according to a report out today from an international think tank. Two-thirds of people in this country are overweight or obese; about a third of adults — more than 72 million — are obese, which is roughly 30 pounds over a healthy weight. Well done guys, you’re awesome! [usatoday]

Soyuz Capsule Lands In Kazakhstan – A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts who lived six months on the International Space Station touched down safely, but one day late, Saturday morning in the cloudy, central steppes of Kazakhstan.The homecoming of American astronaut Tracy Caldwell-Dyson and Russia’s Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko had been delayed after technical glitches hindered the undocking of the spacecraft. Borat could not be reached for comment. [latimes]

Petition Against New Media Bill – The ANC is proposing the “Protection of Information Bill” and the “Media Appeals Tribunal” and these threaten press freedom enshrined in the Constitution and will hamper public scrutiny of the government and security agencies, blocking the media from exposing corruption and abuse of power. Hundreds of prominent South Africans, business executives, civic leaders and journalists have condemned the measures and submitted amendments on the Bill to Parliament, but so far the ANC is defending both proposals. This campaign seeks to deliver a petition to the ANC while they are still at the NGC this week. [avaaz]

[thanks jp]