Three things you need to know today.
Hot dog contest: For the first time in the 96-year history of the Nathan's July 4th International Hot Dog Eating Contest, the competition will include men's and women's divisions.
Male and female contestants will vie for equal purses of $20,000. The men's champ gets a mustard-yellow belt, the women's champ a pink belt.
World record holders are Joey "Jaws" Chestnut, who two years ago ate 68 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes, and Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas with 41 hot dogs and buns.
Watch live coverage from Coney Island, New York, on ESPN beginning at noon ET.
Yellowstone cleanup: Dozens more workers have joined the effort to clean up an oil spill that dumped hundreds of barrels of crude into Montana's Yellowstone River, ExxonMobil said.
ExxonMobil said between 750 to 1,000 barrels (32,000 to 42,000 gallons) of oil escaped late Friday when a pipeline ruptured beneath the river near Billings. Some of the oil has washed ashore or formed pools of "milky brown" residue in river eddies, Yellowstone County Sheriff Mike Linder said.
High water and a swift current have helped break up the spill, local officials said.
But cleanup efforts have been hampered by flooding that has made it harder to track and clean up the oil, said Linder and Duane Winslow, the county's emergency services director.
Royal trip: Prince William and his wife, Catherine, will tour Prince Edward Island, the fifth day of their Canadian tour.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will start the day with a visit to Province House, the second oldest active legislature building in Canada.
Later, Prince William will emphasize the Canadian military's contributions to the training of search-and-rescue pilots by taking part in a "waterbird" emergency landing exercise in a helicopter at Dalvay-by-the-Sea.
On Monday evening, the royal couple will travel to Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories, for the next phase of their trip.
Learn to spell. You idiot
So far so good, I still get to eat ‘Hot dog’ as of July 4th, 2011, but that day is not too far (unfortunately, in Texas and several southern states) I’d get offered ‘Taco” on July 4, 2021. Good bless America.
Its called texmex ya a$$. Im not "unamerican" because I eat a friggin fajita on the fourth. Jeez.
@jitterburg. You've never had a Nathans dog. Nothing else like them. Also you cant spell you idiot. Nothing worse than a little knowledge
I'd love to grill the winners of each division; I'd rellish knowing what tips they could give all of us, in case we want to enter next year. I'm pretty sure they'll be on a roll with their advice..
Eating contests are not harmless fun. The cholesterol from all those hot dogs does not go away. It sticks to the inside of the arteries, increasing the chance that the contestant will either have a heart attack now, or earlier than he should. And you don't need to be fat to have a heart attack.
Oh please, you think they don't puke all those up immediately after the contest is over?
@Jitterbug:
Upton Sinclair wrote about the atrocities of the meat industry of the late 1800s and early 1900s. He was right about what he wrote. Things have changed a lot since then, things are more cleaner now.
The hot dogs and hamburgers are made from scrap meat. Only poor people ate burgers for many years, until fast food came out and then anyone will eat them.
I don't eat meat at all, I am vegetarian since birth. I am not missing anything. But I don't judge those who want to eat meat.
BuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrP !!!!!!!!!! Yuck !!!!!!!!!!! It didn't taste like that when I ate it !!
For once in my life, I don't feel that weird about not being into sports.Being the red-blooded American male that I am, I think I'll check out some more Mahler Youtubes now. Awwriiiiiiiiiight!