Belfast Titanic Quarter cafe trading on honesty

A cafe that lets its customers name their price is expanding after proving honesty actually does pay. The Dock in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter asks patrons to put whatever they feel is appropriate into an honesty box before leaving.

Originally opened on a pop-up basis, the premises has be trading for 15 months and has proved so successful it has added an extension.

Church of Ireland minister Rev Chris Bennett, who helps to run the cafe with counterparts from other faiths in Northern Ireland, described it as a “community living room”.

“Overseas visitors who may not know what a cup of coffee costs over here, we might give them a suggested price, but 99 times out of 100 we just leave it to people’s discretion whatever they think is a fair price,” he said.

The cafe is close to the Titanic Belfast visitor attraction. Staffed by volunteers, the charity cafe is also boosted by the fact it doesn’t have to pay rent. Building owners Titanic Quarter have offered the commercial unit free of charge until a new tenant emerges.

Titanic Quarter chief executive David Gavaghan said the cafe had become a “community hub” for an area with about 15,000 people living, working and studying.

Boston Bruins top Pittsburgh Penguins in nasty Game 1

If NBC is to be believed, midway through the second period of Game 1 of the National Hockey League Eastern Conference final, Boston Bruins coach Claude Julien told his team: "No more pretty hockey."

By the measure of black-and-blue Bruins hockey, however, the rest of the game was beautiful.

For the Pittsburgh Penguins, who have averaged more than four goals a game in these playoffs, the fact that they were shut out, 3-0, will not be the biggest concern. Nor will the goaltending of Tomas Vokoun, who was not too much better than average.

Rather, it will be the fact that for those last 30 minutes, the Pittsburgh Penguins apparently forgot they were the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Evgeni Malkin got into a fight (which is not why he is paid $7.5 million a year), and Sidney Crosby looked as though he was auditioning for the part of Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter on Ice, casting sneering comments from behind hulking cronies.

In short, they looked suspiciously like another team that was faster and more talented than the Bruins but was lured into running their mouths and swinging their fists instead of playing hockey: the 2011 Vancouver Canucks. That didn't work out so well for the Canucks, who lost the Stanley Cup final to the Bruins in seven games. And it is a trap that the Bruins would dearly love to spring on the Penguins this year.

After all, the Penguins are all about "pretty hockey." Why dump the puck in when you can weave your way through five defenders, pirouette with balletic grace along the end boards, and then drop a no-look pass perfectly onto the stick of one of your trailing defenseman? When the Penguins are on their game — as they were on occasion Saturday night — it looks as if the NHL never abandoned FoxTrax. The puck moves from stick to stick so rapidly it is only a blur.

And for 30 minutes Saturday, the Bruins were persuaded to play "pretty hockey." Or at least to attempt it. The scoreboard seemed to suggest they were holding their own. They were up, 1-0, on a David Krejci goal that pinballed between Vokoun's pads after a deflection.

But they were hardly in control.

Between the flashing pads of goaltender Tuuka Rask and the long arms of defenseman Zdeno Chara, which seemingly sweep clear every puck within a 20-foot radius, the Bruins were surviving, and — when they could manage — counterpunching. But 30 more minutes seemed a lot to ask.

Which is why Julien reminded them that they are, in fact, not the Pittsburgh Penguins.

And that could be a good thing.

In a sport where the winning smile is often toothless, titles are no beauty contests. In the Western Conference, the Los Angeles Kings play as though goals are subject to a United Nations embargo. Scoring two in a game is cause for breaking out the champagne.

"Pretty hockey" rarely gets you handed the cup by that guy in the little white gloves. The Bruins know that. Hockey's showcase event is a grind unlike any other in professional sports.

But dumb hockey doesn't help much, either. And the Bruins know that, too.

In 2011, the Canucks took the Bruins bait — literally. When "pretty hockey" was in short supply, Canuck forward Alexandre Burrows bit the finger of Bruin Patrice Bergeron. When the series shifted to Boston, the Canucks lost their focus completely and were routed.

Now, the Penguins are not the 2011 Canucks. They're better, and perhaps more important, they're healthier. But the Bruins would like nothing more than to turn this series into a repeat of that 2011 final.

These Bruins are vulnerable to teams that can come at them with speed, as the Toronto Maple Leafs did in the first round, pushing them to the seventh game before collapsing. But they were just a warmup act for the Penguins.

For 30 minutes, the Penguins gave the Bruins all they could handle.

For the other 30 minutes, they gave the Bruins a reason to hope.

Bruno Mars' mother dies of brain aneurysm

Los Angeles (CNN) -- The mother of Grammy-winning singer Bruno Mars died of a brain aneurysm in a Honolulu, Hawaii, hospital Saturday, a Mars representative told CNN Sunday. Bernadette Hernandez was 55.

Mars -- born Peter Gene Hernandez in Hawaii 27 years ago -- was just 4 when he began performing in his family's show as an Elvis impersonator.

He moved to Los Angeles as a young adult to write and produce for other artists, but his last three years have been his most successful.

His debut album for Atlantic Records, "Doo-Wops & Hooligans," includes "Just The Way You Are," which won him a Grammy for best male pop vocal performance in 2010. The album and his hit single "Grenade" were nominated for three Grammys in 2011.

His second album, "Unorthodox Jukebox," includes the hits "Locked Out of Heaven" and "When I Was Your Man."

Mars is set to resume touring on June 22, but it was not immediately clear whether the concert schedule would be affected by his mother's death.

Colorado storm chaser Tim Samaras killed in Oklahoma tornado along with son, longtime partner

Colorado storm chaser Tim Samaras, his son Paul Samaras, and longtime chase partner Carl Young were killed in the EF-3 tornado that tore through El Reno, Oklahoma Friday.

Tim and Paul were both born and raised in Lakewood, Colo. but most recently were living in Bennett. Tim is survived by his wife, Kathy.

Tim Samaras was considered a leader in storm chasing expertise and tornado research and worked with 7NEWS, National Geographic, the Discovery Channel, Boeing, and the federal government.

Samaras and his team starred in the Discovery Channel's "Storm Chasers" for three years before the show was canceled in 2012.

A family member posted this statement on Tim Samaras' Facebook page at 5:30 a.m. Sunday morning:

"I'm Jim Samaras - Tim Samaras's brother. Thank you to everyone for the condolences. It truly is sad that we lost my great brother Tim and his great son, Paul. Our hearts also go out to the Carl Young family as well as they are feeling the same feelings we are today. They all unfortunately passed away but doing what they LOVED. Chasing Tornado's. I look at it that he is in the 'big tornado in the sky...' We (the family) will keep folks aware of what the funeral estrangements are, but please in the meantime keep Tim and Paul in your thoughts and prayers."

Tim Samaras was 55 and his son Paul was 24. Carl Young was 45.

"Carl and Tim were the best of friends," and chased many times, Jim Samaras said. 

Carl Young’s father, Bob Young, told CNN his son always wanted to be a meteorologist.

Tim founded TWISTEX (Tactical Weather Instrumented Sampling in Tornadoes EXperiment) to pursue tornadoes and advance the research and warning available to the public.

"Tim Samaras has led, designed, and fielded complex instrumentation research efforts over the past 30 years," the TWISTEX website says.

He was one of the safest in the storm chasing community, and he did it not for just the thrill but the research, friends said.

--Reaction from friends and colleagues--

The deaths of the three men have stunned the storm chasing and weather science community.

"I have known Tim for over 20 years, he was the most brilliant and most careful severe weather researcher of them all. Tim was not a cowboy, he was as cautious as possible about his approach to studying these dangerous storms," said Mike Nelson, 7NEWS Chief Meteorologist, who has worked with Tim in a variety of weather and science projects.

"Tim and Paul were really good people and it was important to them that they were not thought of as simply storm chasers, but as scientist hoping to help get data to understand tornadic activity.  They helped people build better constructed buildings among other things," said Brad Boggot, a 7NEWS photojournalist who traveled with Tim and Paul during severe weather season several years ago.

"We are deeply saddened by the loss of Tim Samaras and his son. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family." Discovery Channel Spokesperson.

Tim Samaras has been following his passion for storm chasing for 30 years.

"It all started when I was about six years old and saw that fantastic tornado in The Wizard of Oz," Samaras told National Geographic.

Samaras was able to mix his passion with his career as an engineer. He has successfully gathered scientific measurements from inside of tornadoes and holds the world record for measuring the lowest barometric pressure drop (100 millibars) inside of a tornado that destroyed the town of Manchester South Dakota on June 24, 2003.

Samaras has also built a special probe with cameras that are able to look inside of a tornado safely. He successfully captured this in Storm Lake, Iowa on June 11, 2004.

He always reminded friends and fellow chasers to stay safe.

His last Tweet on Friday said, "Dangerous day ahead for OK--stay weather savvy!"

The camera equipment Tim and his time were using at the time of their fatal run-in with the tornado is missing, according to a fellow storm chaser.  "The family and overall scientific community would like it recovered to see what happened and what went wrong. If you come across camera equipment in the tornado debris, please let authorities know."