We understand that the deadline for Oscar voters to send in their ballots is today, but we’re still more than a little miffed that we missed seeing Leonardo DiCaprio, Bruce Dern and Richard Gere by a day. A little birdie told us Paramount threw a schmoozefest in the middle of Michael’s dining room yesterday to drum up some Academy love for its pictures — the overly long and ridiculously profane The Wolf of Wall Street and the absolutely brilliant Nebraska. Having a slew of Tinseltown A-listers in their midst gave the regular folks (it’s a relative term, I know) a chance to do some serious stargazing. “It was a bit surreal,” one diner told me. It seems only fitting to us that Hollywood took over the dining room on a day when the rest of Manhattan was in a deep freeze straight out of a disaster movie. The Day After Tomorrow, anyone?

Chobani, maker of America's No. 1–selling Greek Yogurt brand, joins NASDAQ as part of the 3rd annual NASDAQ "Fit Week." The week will feature bell ceremonies by companies that help Americans lead healthier lifestyles. In honor of the occasion, Hamdi Ulukaya, Founder and CEO, Chobani rings the Closing Bell.

Amman, 8 January 2014  – Development partners from 18 countries and the EU, meeting in Amman today, agreed that the Kuwait II Pledging Conference for Syria, slated for 15 January 2014, should encompass support for critical development efforts to compliment the humanitarian response to the crisis in Syria and its spill-over impacts on neighbouring countries. The meeting, which brought together partners with long-standing experience and knowledge of the region and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Country Directors from Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey, endorsed UNDP’s Resilience-based Development Response in support of people and communities affected by the Syrian crisis in those five countries.
 

The Bridges of Hope Project (BOHP) supported educational development by building 12 elementary school libraries, each containing 300 - 350 books, in selected towns and villages throughout Turkey in 2013. In addition, every student was given a popular science book published by TUBITAK, the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, to inspire young minds in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.