Forget the public option. The answer to America’s skyrocketing heath care costs may be found in the UK’s public houses says the Chicago Tribune. British officials estimate that a new shatterproof pint glass could shave billions off the country’s health care costs by eliminating the use of broken glass in pub fights.  The paper says there are “87,000 alcohol-related glass attacks” in Britain each year.

Regardless of which team emerges victorious from the Super Bowl on Sunday, the real winner is New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin.  The Times-Picayune says after complaining last week that he could only find tickets in a “nosebleed section,” Nagin announced yesterday that he had scored some choice seats - and that taxpayers will be footing the bill.

A few weeks ago the Wall Street Journal had this great analysis of NFL football that determined there are only 11 minutes of actual playing time in a three-hour football game. Today, the Journal has more NFL numbers. The typical team requires 514,000 hours of labor to operate for a season of NFL football.

The Washington Post has a funny article about the impossibility of keeping up with all the viral videos that a pop culture devotee should. Whereas TV used to be the source for most “water-cooler moments,” the scope and timelessness of the Internet has greatly increased the likelihood of forwarding on a link that your friends saw a year ago.

Fashion Week is coming up and I’m betting Beyonce, Rihanna and Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen are pretty excited. The New York Daily News says the fashionable stars get a cool $100,000 for sitting in the front row.

Questlove, the drummer for Jimmy Fallon’s house band, inadvertently started a food fight in the cafeteria at NBC yesterday when he took a picture of a special menu in honor of Black History Month and posted it to his Twitter account. The New York Post says controversy ensued when some of his 1.2 million followers interpreted the menu, which featured black eyed peas, fried chicken and collard greens, as racist. Questlove’s response: “I think i need a twitter break.”

Who could possibly replace Simon Cowell’s knack for biting criticism when he ends his run on “American Idol” this year? Page Six in the New York Post is reporting that producers have their eyes on a man known for his equally sharp tongue: Howard Stern.

California is angry about its stunt double. The New York Times has an interesting story about “runaway production,” a term for when movies are shot elsewhere to save money. We see New York scenes shot in Hollywood or Toronto all the time. But the paper says California typically gets to play itself.

A California man has garnered the ire of his neighbors after building a ten-foot bridge that connects the living-room parking spot where his Ferrari spends the night to the street. The LA Times says despite the fact that the “city’s most extravagant parking space” won a design award last year, officials will likely force him to tear it down. VIDEO

There were no dog days for the natural pet food industry during the current recession says Boston Globe. One expert explains the industries booming sales this way: “Tighter budgets have many consumers spending more time at home with their pets, highlighting their importance in the family and making their owners more likely to spend discretionary dollars on them.”

The San Francisco Chronicle says the county’s newest inmates love to have their tummies scratched. Seventy-five Yorkie and Maltese puppies have been transferred to a trailer outside the county jail by the ASPCA. They are evidence in an animal abuse trial. 

The New York Daily News prints one of the most shocking photos I’ve seen in this morning’s paper. It’s of a two-year-old Chinese boy chained to a lamppost. His pedicab driver father says he couldn’t afford childcare and didn’t want anyone to kidnap the boy while he and his wife worked nearby.

The New York Post says the first lady provided the perfect ending to a speech President Obama gave at the National Prayer breakfast yesterday, in which he urged lawmakers to focus on reviving a “spirit of civility.” After kissing him on the cheek, she leaned back in to wipe off the lipstick she had left behind.

Apparently, the ‘it must’ve been something I ate’ excuse doesn’t fly in the NYPD. The New York Daily News says a cop who blamed his failed drug test on his wife’s marijuana-laced meatballs lost his appeal to be reinstated. His wife admitted putting pot in his pasta “in hopes that he would be fired before getting killed on the job.”