A CATHOLIC priest who floated away under hundreds of helium balloons in a bid to raise money for his parish is missing off Brazil.

Only pieces of the party balloons have been found by searchers looking for Reverend Adelir Antonio de Carli off the coast of Santa Catarina state, the Associated Press reported. Mr de Carli, 41, lifted off from the port city of Paranagua yesterday afternoon wearing a helmet, thermal suit and a parachute.

He was reported missing about eight hours later after losing contact with port authority officials, according to the treasurer of his Sao Cristovao parish, Denise Gallas.

Mr de Carli had been trying to break a 19-hour record for flying with balloons to raise money for a spiritual rest-stop for truckers in Paranagua, Brazil's second-largest port for agricultural products.

A video of Mr de Carli posted on the G1 website of Globo TV showed the smiling 41-year-old priest slipping into a flight suit, being strapped to a seat attached to a huge column green, red, white and yellow balloons, and soaring into the air to the cheers of a crowd.

He soared to an altitude of 6000m then descended to about 2500m for his flight to the city of Dourados, 750km northwest of his parish.

But winds pushed him out to sea and Mr de Carli was 50km off the coast when he last contacted Paranagua's port authority, Ms Gallas said.

Mr de Carli had a GPS device, a satellite phone, a buoyant chair and was an experienced skydiver, she said.

"We are absolutely confident he will be found alive and well, floating somewhere in the ocean," she said. 
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AUSSIE Steve Cousins has been labelled "the most ridiculous act ever" on Britain's Got Talent - but he finally won the judges over with his bizarre balloon act. Twenty-nine-year-old Cousins, originally from Newcastle, New South Wales, calls himself the "Balloonatic" and says "I do something very silly involving a big balloon". After taking to the stage in a collared shirt to introduce himself to the judges Cousins disappears off stage and reappears in the body suit, which leaves little to the imagination.

He's handed a giant red balloon which he proceeds to climb into and bounce on his head. Before long, he's immersed in the balloon and bouncing to the tune of Oompa Loompa.

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Since winning last year's American Idol, Jordin Sparks has been performing non-stop. Which, as it turns out, wasn't such a great idea. Sparks is being forced to sit out the opening dates of Alicia Keys' North American tour due to what was described as an acute vocal cord hemorrhage condition."Jordin Sparks is on vocal rest and is expected to make a full and complete recovery," a spokesman for the Zomba Label Group, Sparks' recording home, said in a statement Monday. "She looks forward to joining Alicia Keys on tour in May."The label did not know when exactly Sparks would be back on the road. The tour, which kicked off last Saturday in Virginia, runs through July. Sparks was scheduled to be Keys' opening act. Also unknown was whether Sparks, as befitting Idol tradition, would be up for singing on the show's May 21 season finale. Fox said Monday it didn't have a set lineup yet.News of Sparks' vocal problems was apparently first made known by Penn State University, which announced last week that a Sparks solo concert set there for Sunday was canceled. Sparks' doctors informed the university of the condition, it said, and noted that without rest the 18-year-old risked "permanent vocal cord damage." A vocal cord hemorrhage, or bleeding in the vocal cord, "can be a serious problem," according to the Penn Center for Voice at Pennsylvania Hospital's Website.

The condition is described by the hospital as "a complication of laryngitis caused when a person who has laryngitis uses their voice at the height of the infection."

The diagnosis jibes with Zomba's, which, in its statement, said "Sparks has been going non-stop over the past two years."Per the hospital Website, treatment for vocal cord hemorrhage includes rest, fluids, antibiotics and/or steroids. In severe cases, it said, laser microsurgery could be warranted.Sparks' label said she was going the rest—and reeducation—route.

"Now she's going through the normal course of learning how to manage and care for her voice," the statement said.

Since defeating Blake Lewis for the Idol crown last May, Sparks has toured with her fellow finalists from the show, belted at the Super Bowl and recorded her first album. Earlier this month, she appeared on Idol's charity fundraiser, Idol Gives Back, dueting with Chris Brown on their hit, "No Air." Apparently, she should have stuck to "The Sounds of Silence."link
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