Blog Posts by Beth Greenfield, Shine Staff

photo composite: HeinekenGood things come in tall packages—at least according to Heineken, which is rolling out a fancy new long-neck beer bottle in the U.S. this month following its heralded release around the globe. It's the first major package redesign for the brand since 1946.

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Heineken’s new “star bottle,” which has been in select New York markets since September, features “a curved embossment, inspired by the iconic racetrack label,” as well as a “thumb groove that improves bottle grip and encourages drinkers to hold the bottle at a lower point, keeping the beer colder,” said a company spokesperson, adding that a lower grasp is meant to help block out sunlight.

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It’s just the latest in a beer-industry trend that has manufacturers experimenting with all sorts of new package innovations. Miller Lite, for instance, is following last year’s “punch top can” (to Read More »from Heineken Launches New Bottle. Will Other Beers be Green with Envy?

The new cover of Us Weekly. Photo via Us Weekly.There are certain words that may reasonably come to mind with the mention of Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi: “Jersey,” “reality TV,” “alcohol,” “Guidette,” and even, now, “mom.”

But “diet guru”?

It’s a distinct (though scary) possibility. On Friday, Snooki announced plans to publish a pregnancy book next year. Though it's not going be an "advice" book, according to the reality star, she does "hope that this book will help all pregnant ladies out there."

She started giving moms pointers earlier this week, though we wouldn't necessary call her tips "helpful."

Online excerpts from her  interview in latest issue of Us Weekly detail her quick postpartum weight loss. The mag's cover photo, spreading like wildfire on the internet, boasts a svelte Snooki and the promise of her secrets to so-called success.

Since when are we taking health advice from the patron saint of the "Jersey Shore" hangover? Since celebrities started making a second career of this post-baby body business. See Miranda Kerr,

Read More »from Snooki, Pregnancy Guru? Why Moms Probably Shouldn't Take Advice From MTV's Reality Star

Beware of bacon. Photo: Getty Images/Flickr/Cara SlifkaYou know in your gut (and your gut knows it, too) that bacon is bad for you. And yet you can’t resist. But a new study might make it easier. It found that consuming high amounts of the breakfast favorite and other processed meats can raise your risk of premature death by 44 percent.

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The research, conducted by scientists across 10 European countries, included tracking the health of more than 450,000 participants over the course of a decade or more. Of the 26,000-plus who died during those years, the ones who ate the most processed meats—5.5 ounces or more every day of bacon (so, five strips), sausage, hotdogs, salami, ham and the like—were 44 percent more likely to have died than those who ate little or none. In other terms, the meats were to blame in about 1 in 30 deaths, the main causes of which were cancer and heart disease. 

More on Yahoo!: Vegetarians May Have Lower Risk of Heart Disease: Study

The aim of the study, "Meat

Read More »from Like Bacon, Sausage and Hot Dogs? Then Beware: They May Raise Your Risk of Death, New Study Finds.

Marilyn Hagerty, left, joined Padma Lakshmi as a guest judge on Top Chef Season 10. Photo: David Moir/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images.Stop the presses! Marilyn Hagerty, perhaps the most famous food reviewer since Anton Ego, has returned to her Grand Forks, ND, Olive Garden, to pen an update—and this time around she's not quite as impressed.

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In the piece, published in the Grand Forks Herald, Hagerty is more critical about the chain's offerings than she was the first time. She also ruminates about how much her life has changed since she first critiqued the place—a move that gave the octogenarian columnist instant celebrity status one year ago.

“That was March 7, 2012, and my world has not been the same. I went viral, and I didn’t even know what that meant,” Hagerty, 86, writes in today’s review. “In the past year, I have learned.”

The reviewer, who has been with the paper since 1957, touched off a media circus with her first review of the new Olive Garden, a completely earnest rundown in which she called the eatery “impressive” and “the largest and

Read More »from Olive Garden Reviewer Marilyn Hagerty is Back! And This Time She's Been Short-Changed on Seafood.

Can you really get married online? Photo: DreamPictures/VStock/Blend Images/CorbisNow this is news: Having a wedding doesn’t have to be a chore after all. In fact, you needn’t even worry about being in the same room as your fiancé, let alone get all angsty about flowers and seating arrangements. That’s thanks to the phenomenon known as proxy marriages, which is on the rise, according to the New York Times.

“In a twist that underscores technology’s ability to upend traditional notions about romance, people are not just finding their match online, but also saying ‘I do’ there,” the article, published Wednesday, notes. It describes the scene at a Queens, New York, mosque, where a bride is marrying her groom—who’s in Bangladesh—via Skype.

Sounds a bit crazy, sure. “But for Ms. Chowdhury, 21, and Mr. Ahmmed, 31, the giggling pair pretending to feed each other wedding dessert by holding forkfuls of cake to their computer screens that day, it felt full of the gravity of any other wedding.”

So how can you go about arranging a proxy marriage? We’ve broken down the basics, and Read More »from How To Get Married On The Internet (Yes, People Are Doing That Now)

Crystal Kelley and baby S (Photo by CNN)

Crystal Kelley, a surrogate who entered into an agreement to have a Connecticut couple’s baby for them last year, found herself embroiled in a bitter battle when an ultrasound found fetal abnormalities, and the couple asked her to have an abortion, a CNN report revealed this week.

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Kelley refused to abort, touching off a legal battle that had each side going to great lengths to save the unborn baby in its own way—the parents, by wanting to “have mercy on the child and let her go,” and Kelley, by deciding to “carry and protect” the child until its birth.

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After a many-months-long ordeal that involved lawyers, monetary offers, and Kelley’s move from Connecticut to Michigan, where state laws would see her as the rightful mother, “Baby S” was born—with even more health problems than expected. The baby is now 8 months old, living with adoptive

Read More »from What are a Surrogate's Rights? Woman's Controversial Pregnancy in Spotlight

Manns is honoring Booth (inset) with good deeds. Photo courtesy of Samantha Manns.An Ohio teen, grieving over the February death of her 89-year-old great-grandmother, has begun an incredible quest in her memory: to perform 89 random acts of kindness for total strangers over the next 18 months.    

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“Some of her last words were, ‘I don’t want anybody to be upset.’ And I was really upset for a few days,” Samantha Manns, 18, told her hometown Ohio paper, the Chillicothe Gazette, which reported her story Monday. “Then I thought, maybe I can’t be happy right now, but I can do things to make other people happy.”

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She launched her plan back in February at a McDonald's drive-thru, where she paid the $5 bill of the customer behind her. It was simple, really, and made a total stranger's day.

The customer, she said, cried tears of joy. “I saw it in my rear-view mirror,” Manns told Yahoo! Shine. “It made me feel pretty good.”

She repeated that deed a few days

Read More »from One girl, 89 random acts of kindness: Teenager's Amazing Homage to Late Great-Grandmother

Raven Furlong's missing poster, from Facebook.In recent photos, Raven Furlong has a short shock of auburn hair and deep hazel eyes. Kara Nichols has long, bleached blond hair and a pierced belly button. And Kayla Croft Payne has bright blue eyes and a pierced lower lip.

Now, though, all three young women are currently missing, having disappeared when they were not yet 20 years old. But there’s another disturbing link, too: All had profiles on a website called Model Mayhem, a social networking site that aims to connect wannabe models with photographers, makeup artists, casting directors and other professionals.

“We cannot come out and say, ‘Model Mayhem, shame on you, this is your fault,’ because we don’t know,” Michelle Bart, president and cofounder of the nonprofit National Women’s Coalition Against Violence and Exploitation, told Yahoo! Shine. “But there is plenty of information to warrant an investigation by the FBI.”

Bart said that the organization is representing the families of the three missing girls—to launch a campaign to

Read More »from Modeling Website Linked to Search for Missing Women. What is ModelMayhem.com?