Longitude Health, Inc. (www.longitudehealth.com), provider of web-based, guided health and wellness solutions for mid-size, self-insured companies, today announced the company’s sponsorship of the 7th annual, National Women’s Health & Fitness Day® (www.fitnessday.com). This year’s event will be held on September 24th and is considered to be the nation’s largest annual health promotion for women, with organizations offering various health and fitness events and advice to improve the wellbeing of women across the country.

To underscore the importance of women’s health, and unveil a valuable on-line resource, Longitude Health will unveil MyHealthVillage.com in a live Webcast. MyHealthVillage.com is an innovative health and wellness site providing free and insightful physician-guided input and peer-to-peer support on health, wellness and a variety of common chronic conditions including asthma, cholesterol, diabetes and weight management. The Webinar will be held on September 18th at 2:30 pm (ET) and can be accessed by clicking here or copying and pasting the following URL into a browser:

https://bridgeview.webex.com/bridgeview/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=667141536

The Celebrity Chef Tour benefiting the James Beard Foundation is once again making its way through Las Vegas. Ceres Restaurant at JW Marriott Las Vegas Resort & Spa will be hosting this epicurean affair on Thursday, Nov. 13 beginning at 7:00 pm. Showcasing the talents of Executive Chef Mike Lata, co-owner of Fig Restaurant in Charleston, S.C. with Host Executive Chef Bruce Knapik and his team, the evening starts with an elegant reception featuring unique hors d’oeuvres complemented by fine wines. A one-of-a-kind dinner follows with the culinary team sharing their insights on the dinner as they engage guests in an intimate setting.

Each course is meticulously paired with an assortment of carefully selected wines. “We are so honored to be asked, once again, to host this very special event,” said General Manager Jim Rose. “This exclusive gastronomic affair is a celebration of America’s culinary heritage and we look forward to sharing this with our Las Vegas friends and neighbors.” American Express, Yahoo!, Souverain, Certified Angus Beef, Renaissance Hotels and Hudson Valley Foie Gras are proud sponsors of the Celebrity Chef Tour benefiting the James Beard Foundation. Tickets are available to the public for $175 per person (plus tax) and can be reserved by calling Ceres Restaurant at 702-869-7381 or visiting www.celebritycheftour.com.Limited number of tickets available.

The Eastern North Carolina Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society held its annual Dinner of Champions on September 4 at Prestonwood Country Club in Cary. More than 250 guests gathered to celebrate the mission of the National MS Society and contributions made by individuals and organizations in North Carolina’s health and life sciences communities.

Chris Viehbacher, president of North American pharmaceuticals for GlaxoSmithKline, chaired the event that featured a keynote address by former four-term North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt. More than $200,000 was raised for the Society’s Access to Health Care Fund that will fill gaps in care for people living with multiple sclerosis in eastern North Carolina.

“The community’s commitment to the MS cause was evident by its support for the Dinner of Champions,” says Staci Barfield, director of development for the Eastern North Carolina Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. “We were thrilled to celebrate the health and life sciences communities with all of our guests.”

The North Carolina Biotechnology Center presented its inaugural Health and Life Sciences Achievement Awards at the dinner, honoring North Carolina companies and individuals that have contributed significantly to the health and life sciences.

Awards and winners were:

• The Mind to Market Award was presented to Targacept, a Winston-Salem-based biopharmaceutical company specializing in a new class of drugs for the treatment of multiple diseases and disorders of the central nervous system.

• The Breakthrough Research Award was presented to Dr. Michael Ehlers, a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Department of Neurobiology at the Duke University Medial Center. Dr. Ehlers received the award in recognition of his work focused at the interface of cell biology and neural circuit plasticity.

• The Promise for Tomorrow Award recognized student researcher Shivani Sud for developing a model to identify early stage colon cancer patients with a high risk for recurrence. Sud is a graduate of Durham’s Jordan High School and is a freshman at Princeton University.

• The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Jim Hunt, former four-term North Carolina governor, for his sustained efforts in enhancing the health and life sciences communities in North Carolina.

For more information, visit www.nationalMSsociety.org/nct.

Many UK travelers are stranded abroad after the country’s third largest package holiday group went into administration.

The XL Leisure Group, which operates XL airlines, flies to 50 destinations, mainly in the Mediterranean. All its flights have now been cancelled and its aircraft grounded.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said 85,000 people could be stranded abroad and 200,000 have made advance bookings with the company.

David Clover, a spokesman for the CAA, said it was making arrangements to help customers of the four tour companies within the XL group.

“In respect of people who are currently abroad we’re making arrangements and working very closely with the travel industry to organise repatriation flights.

Websites claiming to provide a complete travel comparison service are failing to deliver on car hire, according to leading online car rental comparator Carrentals.co.uk, which believes customers are being let down in terms of the choice of locations and the price they pay.

Carrentals claims that sites such as Travelsupermarket are simplifying their car hire business to focus predominantly on key airport locations and fail to offer many customers the breadth of rental options they are looking for.

Gareth Robinson, managing director of Carrentals.co.uk, says: “Travelsupermarket bills itself as the travel comparison site, but in reality it focuses on a limited number of locations and companies. In terms of its car rental offering, the majority of its locations are airports, providing no choice to customers arriving by train or ferry, or who simply want to hire a car somewhere like Chamonix.”

Carrentals.co.uk found that in key locations such as London Travelsupermarket offered just 21* locations, including Luton, Stansted, City, Heathrow and Gatwick airports, compared to 49 locations offered by Carrentals.co.uk, including the airports, plus Vauxhall, West Hampstead, Wembley and Kensington.

September represents Leukemia Awareness Month and Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Childhood leukemia is just one type of the many childhood cancers. It accounts for about twenty five percent of all childhood cancers. About 2,200 young Americans are affected by the disease each year. You can read a young survivor’s leukemia story and learn more about the disease at www.leukemia-cure.com/leukemia-story.html.

Sundia Fruit, the premier fruit brand in the US, has taken a big stride towards transforming itself as world’s no.1 fruit brand. Sundia has now launched an entire new range of fresh true fruit products-Sundia Original, Sundia Lite, Sundia Organic, Sundia Mini, and Sundia Fresh Produce. Sundia fruit cups will carry organically grown watermelons, peaches, ruby red grapefruit, pineapple, mandarin orange, mangoes, and papaya (as Tropical Medley).