She gained notoriety in 2011 as the uncompromising 'Tiger Mom' - boastful that Chinese mothers make better parents and ultimately have more successful children. Now though, Amy Chua has come up with the even more controversial theory that some races and religions are just superior to everyone else - and the inadequacies of others are bringing down America to their mediocre level.

Authorities have named 27-year-old playwright Daniel McClung (left) as the man killed in a blaze that broke out today in a Manhattan high-rise. The fire, pictured right, broke out around 11am and trapped many in the building, including one father who live tweeted the harrowing details. Updating his Twitter account from the 26th floor of his Midtown apartment, scientist Gurinder Singh 'Mickey' Atwal tweeted (inset right) that he was unable to escape with his wife and two-year-old son because the stairwells were blanketed with thick smoke.

Rick Dyer (pictured) claims that he shot Bigfoot in San Antonio, Texas, on September 6, 2012. He has released a photo of the beast and plans to have a press conference. Dyer was involved in a Bigfoot hoax back in 2008, when he claimed he had the body of the creature. However, it turned out to be a big rubber ape suit.

More than half of the continental U.S. is bracing itself for a dangerously cold start to the week as a whirlpool of frigid, dense air known as a 'polar vortex' descended on Monday, top left, into much of the U.S., pummeling parts of the country with a dangerous cold that could break decades-old records with wind chill warnings stretching from Montana to Alabama. As many as 140 million Americans are bracing this week for a polar blast that's barreling across the country. Much of the United States will see the coldest temperatures in almost 20 years, according to the National Weather Service. It was 5 degrees at kickoff on Sunday inside sold-out Lambeau Field for a playoff game between the Green Bay Packers and the San Francisco 49ers, bottom left, one of the coldest ever played and the extremely cold temperatures have frozen Lake Michigan, main image.

A 54-year-old man was killed and two others injured when a private jet crashed and burst into flames as it landed in Aspen, Colorado today. Co-pilot Sergio Carranza Brabata, from Mexico, died when the Canadair CL- 600 skidded down the right-side of runway at Aspen-Pitkin County Airport, flipped and exploded about 12.30pm. The two injured men are also reportedly Mexican pilots. They were rushed to Aspen Valley Hospital, with one in a critical condition. Witnesses, including singer Leann Rimes, file photo inset, looked on in horror as emergency crews rushed to extinguish the flames created by the crash (main and inset), which caused thick plumes of black smoke to surround the airport at the resort ski town.

Aubrey Lee Price, bottom right, faked his own death in June 2012 after he was indicted over a $21m bank fraud. He then changed his name to Jason and by August 2012 he had settled in the rural Florida town of Citra. MailOnline has spoken exclusively to local residents including Bonnie and Richard Sipe, who let him live rent-free on their land, main image, in turn for repairing the property and growing palm trees and watermelons. Instead the enterprising banker began growing marijuana out of a shed where he claimed he was nursing his sick uncle. Price also lied to locals including Jamie McManus, bottom left, and Marc Abney, top left, about alcohol issues and how he had lost his family after being convicted for selling cocaine. He was arrested in Brunswick, Georgia, on New Year’s Eve and was quickly discovered to be on the FBI's Most Wanted list.

In the new TV commercial, for the Re-Fresh body spray,' half-a-dozen moms are seen stalking their young men as they go on dates, flirt or make out with girls. The ad, in which the brand is targeting a younger market, begins with a well-built, shirtless teen spraying himself with Old Spice, an aftershave often associated with older men. He then puts his T-shirt on and leaves, but as he walks out his bedroom door his mother is seen lurking behind it. She begins the heartfelt sing-along, sobbing, 'I didn't see it coming, but it came in a can. My sweet son sprayed into a man.'

Cory Perkins married his wife Lynette (pictured) on Nov.30 at Chengeta Safari Lodge in Zimbabwe. Perkins posted the photos on reddit which became a viral sensation.Perkins and his wife of three years, Lynette, decided to go back to Africa so that she could see her family and so that they could help her community in Africa by building a safe house for young girls affected by the AIDS epidemic.

Elementary school teacher Jennifer Doan was eight weeks pregnant when she survived the tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma last May (right). She and her husband gave birth to a baby boy on December 21 (left) and decided to give him the middle name Nicolas (middle), after one of the children she couldn't save. Another six of Doan's students perished in the tornado when it hit Plaza Towers Elementary, which didn't have a storm shelter.

Los Angeles-based writer Alli Reed conducted an experiment to test whether the 'worst fake dating profile in history' would deter the opposite sex, but hundreds of men still begged to meet up with the woman she dubbed 'aaroncarterfan.' She created the fake OKCupid profile using a picture of her best friend who is a model, 'hoping to prove that there exists an online dating profile so loathsome that no man would message it,' despite how attractive the picture is. With her goal to be 'so abhorrent that not even men who comment on YouPorn videos' would respond to her, she was shocked when she got more than 150 messages in just 24 hours.

President Barack Obama returned to Washington Sunday along with daughters Sasha and Malia (main). Michelle (right) stayed behind ahead of her birthday on January 17. The White House did not say how much longer Michelle would stay in Hawaii or when she would rejoin her family in Washington. The four Obamas - including daughters Sasha, 12, and Malia, 15 - were seen around the northern end of the island of Oahu.

When David Carnahan's school crush lost her father last month, the young Texas boy provided more than a shoulder to cry on. Devastated that Jolie Fowler (top right) and her younger sibling would grow up without a dad, David began raising money to help support the grieving family (left). David's mom Jennifer Weeldreyer Carnahan (bottom right) posted a fundraising profile online on her son's behalf. He's raised more than $1000 through donation website gofundme.com and in the process, 'learned a lot about what it means to give from the heart.'

The adorable cubs (left) - named Yeti, Odlin, Sampson and Apollo - are the world's first ever white lion-tiger hybrids, or 'ligers'. They were born from Ivory, a white male lion, and Saraswati, a white female tiger (both inset), at Myrtle Beach Safari in South Carolina. The cubs - who already have their own personalities - could grow to be the biggest cats on the planet. They already weighing 15lbs and gain on average a pound in weight every day. Their uncle, Hercules, currently holds the record for the world's largest cat at 922 lbs and 131 inches long.

He's behind you! Three Minnesota brothers have spent 95 hours building a giant shark with the snow dumped outside their parents New Brighton home.

Former RAF officer Mark De Salis (picture with his wife Karen left), 48, and Lynn Howie (top right) were both believed to have been shot in the back of the head. It is not known if Karen De Salis knew of her husband's relationship with Miss Howie, a mother-of-two from New Zealand. Photographs posted on Facebook show Mr De Salis and his 47-year-old companion face down on the sand with a picnic blanket, food and drink next to them.

An unknown object that stopped the world's most powerful tunnel boring machine digging underneath Seattle has finally been identified as an 8-inch diameter steel pipe. On December 6 the pipe caused an $80 million machine that is five-stories high with the world's widest cutting face to grind to a halt, leaving project officials baffled with much to explain to taxpayers.

Romney scolded the liberal network for airing the despicable comment while accepting host Melissa Harris-Perry's tearful apology. The MSNBC host was slammed after guests suggested offensive captions for family portrait. Panelist Dean Obeidallah compared the largely white family to 'the diversity of the Republican party' and actress Pia Glenn sang 'one of these things is not like the others'

'Most of the tiny houses out there are mini-McMansions,' says Portland cabin owner Phoenix, who believes the movement is about creativity and not trends. Phoenix and her partner's set of two 364-square-foot homes use Trader Joe's bags for wallpaper and tin cans for shingles, but not every micro-home owner is quite as frugal. Phoenix lives in the set of miniature houses with her 24-year-old son and partner. They've personalized their abode out of found and repurposed goods like old bean sacks and hammered tomato sauce cans from a local pizza shop and she believe that's how things should be.

Luck, who led his team to a stunning comeback victory over the Kansas City Chiefs, inadvertently appeared in the buff in a locker room picture. Luck was, well, lucky, that a well-placed cell phone shielded his modesty from full view. The second-year NFL quarterback led the Colts to a 45-44 victory over the Chiefs - after rallying from a 38-10 deficit after halftime. Luck's heroics - including throwing for 443 yards and four touchdowns - will no doubt go down as one of the best performances in NFL playoffs history.

Around a dozen children, including a girl in a wheelchair (right), were not able to present the Queen (inset) with flowers at Sandringham once again today after Her Majesty decided not to accept them. The Queen broke tradition last week by declining to accept flowers from children as she left morning service at St Mary Magdalene church. Police told parents in the crowd that it was because too many youngsters had wanted to hand over their bouquets on Christmas Day, making her late for lunch.

Hundreds of members of the Satmar Hasidic community gathered Saturday in Brooklyn (right) for an emotional funeral service honoring Menachem Stark (top left), 39, whose burned body turned up on Long Island Friday. The Orthodox Jewish real estate developer was kidnapped Thursday. This development comes as cops released dramatic surveillance footage that shows the suspects forcing Stark into a Dodge Caravan (bottom left) after he left his offices in Williamsburg during the recent blizzard.

The man behind the massive Beanie Babies craze in the mid-nineties is notoriously reclusive, but new court documents have revealed previously unknown details of his life. Ty Warner, 69, is the creator of Beanie Babies, a billionaire businessman who admitted evading taxes in a secret Swiss bank accounts. Documents filed by his lawyers in an attempt to reduce his sentence, to be handed down on January 14, serve as a fascinating biographies of one of the business world's most private personalities.

From Las Vegas and New York to London, Paris and Rome, much-loved teddy Mr Fox has been taken on holiday by owner Jessica Johnson, 35, of Miami, for the last 30 years. The globe-trotting toy has visited some of the world's top tourist attractions including the Vatican, Buckingham Palace, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

The three-month-old calf was enjoying a quiet dip in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, but became stranded when it struggled to pull itself out of the lake. Fortunately the tiny elephant's mother was on hand to help haul him to safety with the help of her huge trunk, as seen in these adorable images taken by South African photographer Ken Watkins.

These festive athletes have found a novel way of getting rid of their decorations - at the annual Christmas Tree Throwing World Championships, held in Wiedenthal, Germany. The less-than-serious annual event is now in its eighth year and features competitions in distance throwing, height throwing and flinging of Christmas trees.

Steakhouses around the world are well-known for touting their authenticity. But this Russian restaurant went the extra mile to show off their chargrilling process by setting an entire billboard on fire. These dramatic images show the moment the stunt promoting the food at Double Grill and Bar, in the city of Yekaterinburg, got underway

Many of the images taken by Brazilian photographer Hid Saib for his Neon series appear to have come from a science fiction film. Some of the paint flecks have taken on an out of this world quality, with the droplets resembling a galaxy of stars dotted across his subject's faces and shoulders, while in other portraits the bright make up gives the effect of a vivid fireworks display.