Just to be perfectly clear: yes, Save The Children has suddenly stopped its work in support of a tax on soda; but no, that's not connected to the huge monetary grant the group's seeking from the Coca-Cola corporation. Okay. [NYT]

A new report by the EU's drug agency places Britain on top of the world's cocaine consuming nations, with more young Britons having used cocaine than Americans in the same age group. There's also been an increase in crack smoking.

This is Senior U.S. District Judge Jack T. Camp Jr., former chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Atlanta. He just got arrested for buying coke, weed, and prescription painkillers. From a stripper.

"Girls Gone Wild" boss and Douche of the Decade Joe Francis is suing to stop the sale of former employee Ryan Simkin's tell-all book. But Simkin gave us an excerpt (below)—involving Paris Hilton smuggling coke and ecstasy, sexxxily.

Pepsi cola has already been revealed to be the pinnacle of the entire universe. But that has not resulted in Pepsi's "Max" chemical product beating Coke's similar chemical product in market share. Solution? War.

Alleged drug lord Jose Figueroa Agosto was arrested yesterday in Puerto Rico, ending a 10-year manhunt and, like fellow smuggler Christopher "Dudus" Coke, Figueroa was arrested wearing a wig. He previously escaped from prison four years into a 209-year sentence.

Burger King sales are plummeting now that "super fans" are cutting back. For example, one super fan "figures he is saving more than $100 a week by eating fewer burgers." Goodness! Can America's food crisis grow any more dire?

A teenage Haitian girl who was in the shower when her house collapsed was rescued alive yesterday, 15 days after the earthquake. "[She] mumbled something about having a little Coca-Cola with her in the rubble." Sign her up, Coke. [AP]

Coca-Cola planted an ordinary-looking vending machine in a college cafeteria and gave the student body an awesome surprise. Coke, please install many, many more of these!

Edgy comedian David Cross: Just how edgy is he? Edgy as a knife (double-edged). Sniffing coke while sitting near the President of the USA. That's what David Cross did, says David Cross.

• David Burke's chauffeur is accusing the chef of "punching him in the face and slamming a car-trunk hood on his head" after he asked to take time off for his wife's birthday. Burke faces six months in prison if convicted. [NYP]
• Beatrice Inn's chances of reopening? Slim to none, it seems. [P6]
• It looks like it's the end of the line for Jeffrey Chodorow's Ono. [GS]
• A roundup of places that just opened, or will be open later this week. [Eater]
• A roundup of what will be new in the meatpacking district this fall. [GS]
• The Hamptons scene is a little less decadent this year. Surprise! [NYP]
• The ice cream of the future isn't cold and doesn't melt, apparently. [NYM]
• Coke is testing out a new carbonated milk drink called "Vio." [Fox News]
• Try to block this out when you go out to eat later, but an audit of restaurant inspections finds that 22% of city eateries weren't inspected last year. [NYDN]

"Coca-Cola is a delightful palatable and healthful BEVERAGE. It relieves fatigue and is indispensable for (Business and Professional) MEN: Students, Wheelmen, Athletes. It relieves mental and physical exhaustion." And for the ladies?

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford took a little secret solo jaunt down to Buenos Aires, just because. What could he do down there, hypothetically? We've put together a guide of popular activities for the single traveler!

Last night, the promo for next week's Real Housewives of New Jersey said the secret to Danielle Staub's shady past could be found in an out-of-print book called Cop Without a Badge. Well, that's been tracked down and a "coke whore" named Beverly Merrill bears an awful close resemblance.

• The Beatrice Inn will need to install fire sprinklers, add an additional exit, and create a wider entrance to the haunt if it wants to reopen its doors. [P6]
• Frederick Lesort's Frederick's Madison filed for bankruptcy today. [Crain's]
• Masa charges a 20% service charge to diners' tabs, although they prefer to call it an "administrative fee." Of course if you can still afford to spend $400 per person on sushi, you can probably afford to additional fee, too. [Eater]
• Speaking of overpriced spots, Daniel is now offering an early-bird special: The three-course prix-fixe menu with wine is (only) $98 per person, but you'll have to consume it between 5:30 to 6pm and on weeknights only. [TONY]
• Tavern on the Green bidders took a final tour of the place today. [NYT]
• Silvano Marchetto's Scuderia gets a blah review in the News today. [NYDN]
• Beverage conglomerate smackdown: Pepsi is now suing Coke for suggesting Powerade is better than Gatorade when, in fact, they're both lousy. [AP]

Thankfully scientists, finished with curing widespread disease and prolonging life, have turned to important studies. Two new endeavors prove two shocking facts: snorting coke makes people annoying, and drunk people like to fuck.

You can't trust the Red Chinese for a single second. (Kidding! Trust them all you want). Nor can you trust multinational corporations! When they combine, they tend to be exceptionally devious. For example: Major companies are running ads featuring Chinese athletes having tender moments with their own parents, in preparation for the Olympics. But while the athletes are real, their parents-the catalysts for the ad's emotional strength-are played by actors. You have to see it to believe it! In one ad, a Chinese hurdler poses on a billboard (pictured) with two actors who are kind of like his parents, but probably more attractive. A Coke ad shows athletes and their parents bonding by doing sports together, something that their real parents would never do, I guess. "From an acting standpoint, we prefer to use trained actors who can match our creative requirements for the TV commercial," says a Coke spokesman, while urinating on the concepts of truth and familial honor. Watch the Coke ad below, and trust no one: Click to view [via WSJ]

If you're famous, and you want to do cocaine (or smoke crack), our best advice is: don't do it, because you're a role model. Ha ha. But seriously, hopeless crackhead celebrities; if you're going to do it at least don't be an idiot. Coke is hardly even frowned upon in Hollywood, but getting busted while acting like a maniac can seriously impair your image and earning ability in middle America. So learn from your more unfortunate peers' mistakes; after the jump, five cases of cocaine-fuelled idiocy, and how not to reproduce them.

Remember that Wired article about the various pluses and minuses of drug use that got the Times' panties all in a bunch about whether it would actually "promote drugs?" It was a stupid controversy over a relatively innocuous drug story. The Wired piece didn't deserve criticism for its content, but it might have been served by some disclosure; the author of it, Mathew Honan, is a reformed cokehead. That fact didn't appear in Wired, but on Honan's own blog:

In Brazil, they do things a little differently. There, it makes perfect sense that Coke Zero is promoting itself by paying for free tongue piercings for anyone willing to be photographed with a Coke Zero-branded tongue stud [Adrants]. It's strategic, you see—Brazilian strategic. Any presumption on your part that this is not the work of a sly marketing genius would be xenophobic. Below, some pictures of Brazilian Coke fans who chose to partake of the free piercings, and a bonus Portuguese Coke Zero ad featuring talking, walking tongues. Do not view while on acid.