The Huffington Post

The new data came from the 2008 to 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which rely on questionnaires and face-to-face surveys. Between the ages of 12 and 15, the percentage of girls who reported experiencing a major depressive episode in the past year jumped from 5 to 15 percent respectively. A depressive episode was defined as a period of two weeks or longer during which teens experienced a depressed mood or a loss of interest or pleasure, along with other changes in day-to-day functioning, like a loss of sleep or appetite or changes in concentration. The figures also suggest that an average of 1.4 million girls between ages 12 and 17 experienced one of those episodes within the last year — a rate that is nearly three times that of their male peers.

After getting rebuked by Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson and getting savaged by the British press for questioning London’s readiness for the Olympics, GOP presumptive nominee Mitt Romney thinks the city is ready for the games.

“After being here a couple days, it looks to me like London is ready,” Romney said on NBC’s “Today.” “And of course, it is hard to put on the games in a major metropolitan area. What they have done that I find so impressive is they took the venues and put them right in the city. You’re going to be on the back side of 10 Downing Street for beach volleyball.”

That was a response to Cameron who mocked Romney’s initial questioning of London’s readiness. “We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world. Of course, it’s easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere,” he said Thursday, referencing Romney’s stewardship of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games.

Ann Romney also appeared in the interview, and she said it was fine that her husband would not be watching her partly-owned dressage horse, Rafalca, which has been an awkward subject for the Romneys as a symbol of their wealth. “I give him a pass when it comes to my horses,” she said.

Six states received the lowest grades for their abilities to accurately count election results based on their lack of access to paper ballots, according to a report released Wednesday by Common Cause, Rutgers Law School and the Verified Voting Foundation.

The report showed that Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Vermont and Wisconsin were best when it came to catching voting problems, while Colorado, Delaware, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina ranked at the bottom of the list.

States were graded on whether their machines leave a paper trail, whether an audit is done of ballots, whether election officials check the vote count against the amount of voters who come to the polls, whether there are contingency plans in place in case of machine failure, and whether voting-by-mail is encouraged over online voting for military and overseas voters. Failure in the paper ballot category led to failure for states in the audit category, given the need for paper ballots to conduct the audit.

The report — which studied election technology and administration in the 50 states and the District of Columbia — calls primarily for states to implement paper ballots in all counties in order to guard against system failures and other issues. The grading centered primarily on whether the state had paper trails in place.

A British hotel has replaced the ubiquitous nightstand Bible with something a bit more modern: “Fifty Shades Of Grey.” The irony is that the Damson Dene Hotel, located in England’s Lake District, was purchased from a Methodist group 10 years ago, reports MSNBC. Its owner, Jonathan Denby, apparently thought it inappropriate to distribute Bibles in today’s secular society.

“‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ is all that people are talking about at the moment, but I know that some are too shy to buy it for themselves,” hotel manager Wayne Bartholomew told the Daily Mail. “I thought it would be a special treat for our guests to find it in their bedside cabinet and that includes the men too.”

Who knew Singaporeans had such a taste for In-N-Out Burger? A recent pop-up staged by the company sold out in an astounding five minutes.

The Irvine, Calif.-based fast food chain had decided to organize a pop-up event in the Southeast Asian city-state between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. It was one of several In-N-Out pop-ups taking place around the world in recent months as the company tests global waters. Other cities have included Sydney, Australia; Tokyo, Japan; and Seoul, South Korea.

But customers began lining up at 9:30 a.m., and in a matter of minutes all 300 available wristbands were passed out.

Residents who live in the same apartment complex as suspected shooter James Holmes were still not allowed to return home as they expected on Tuesday since police said the investigation is not quite wrapped up yet.

More than 30 homemade grenades, 10 gallons of gasoline, improvised explosive devices (IED’s) and trip wires or trigger mechanisms have been secured from the apartment.

An unnamed law enforcement official told CNN that grenades were wired to a control box in the kitchen, resembling setups that are more often seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. The official added that had the explosives gone off as intended, they likely would have knocked down the walls of nearby apartments.

Dateline’s Chris Hansen reportedly got a peek inside and described what he saw with NBC viewers, remarking that the explosives were sophisticated enough to take the building down.

In the middle of his living room are dozens of black softball shaped firework shells that he bought filled with explosive power. They are all over the place. In the middle there are two jars full of liquid wires as I said all over the place there was a black box with a red blinking light. A mechanical camera then pans over on top of a glass table — you see this water cooler jug half full of bullet. Then you pan down, then you see this black box with another red blinking light. The camera goes over, there are two chairs one has a jar apparently with fluid. The other has another black box and then there are green soda pop bottles filled with fluid all the way around.

If the gasoline had been ignited, it would have created a deadly domino effect rigged to the opening of the front door.

Back Alley Waffles, a new restaurant in downtown Washington, D.C., has shut its doors after just roughly three months in business, and it is blaming a Groupon deal gone bad. To recoup losses, Back Alley Waffles says it is now charging $450 each for waffles by appointment. (Hat tip: Washington City Paper.)

“Due to the shocking business practices of an obscenity known as ‘Groupon’ — contemptible even by the nearly non-existent standards of the modern corporation — I can no longer afford to sell waffles for $8.00 and still pay, for example, my employees something north of a subsistence wage,” Back Alley Waffles said on its website.

Back Alley Waffles complained that Groupon did not pay them the money that was owed to them right away. Instead, the website said, after more than a month, Groupon sent them the first of three payments by check, even as “the big surge in customers” forced Big Alley Waffles to pay for the food and labor right away.

The owners of Back Alley Waffles are not alone in regretting their use of Groupon. Jessie Burke, the owner of Posies Cafe in Oregon, wrote in September 2010 that using Groupon was “the single worst decision I have ever made as a business owner thus far.” She said that the Groupon deal cost her nearly $10,000, caused huge lines, and did not result in new regular customers.

Groupon maintained that its daily deals were not the cause of Back Alley’s closure. “According to our records, only 132 Groupons, or 18% have been redeemed since Back Alley ran [its deal] two months ago, and Mr. Nelson has received 2/3 of his share of the revenue to date,” wrote Julie Mossler, a Groupon spokeswoman, in an email to The Huffington Post. “We always hate to hear that a local business has decided to close,” Mossler added, “but the math does not point to Groupon as the cause.”

Former NFL wide receiver and current ESPN analyst, Keyshawn Johnson, has created his own wine label, KJ1.

Deadspin tells us that the vintage, which should hit stores this fall, is a “super-premium” 2007 Cabernet from Eastern Oregon. In a press release, Johnson promises this move isn’t coming out of the blue, that he’s “enjoyed wine for years and for me, Cabernet is king.”

Master Sommelier Virginia Philips’s first impression of the wine is already featured on Pymnts.com:

To the eye, the wine has a purple core with electric pink highlights on the rim. The nose is powerful, with much black pepper and overtones of ripe black cherry and rich berry aromas. There are notes of tobacco, vanilla and clove mingling with damp earth. Unctuous and full-bodied on the palate, there are chewy tannins leading to a lingering finish. The wine tastes well on its own; pairing suggestions include Steak au Poivre, Rosemary Crusted Lamb Chops or BBQ-rubbed meats.

Wine Spectator reports that the wine will cost $125 a bottle, with only 60 cases made.

The Syrian regime threatened Monday to use its chemical and biological weapons in case of a foreign attack, in its first ever acknowledgement that it possesses weapons of mass destruction.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi vowed, however, that Damascus would not use its unconventional arms against its own citizens. The announcement comes as Syria faces international isolation, a tenacious rebellion that has left at least 19,000 people dead and threats by Israel to invade to prevent such weapons from falling into rebel hands.

Syria’s decision to reveal the long suspected existence of its chemical weapons suggests a desperate regime deeply shaken by an increasingly bold rebellion that has scored a string of successes in the past week, including a stunning bomb attack that killed four high-level security officials, the capture of several border crossings and sustained offensives on the regime strongholds of Damascus and Aleppo.