LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The green slime flowed so much that even first lady Michelle Obama could not escape it at the Kids' Choice Awards on Saturday where singers Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift came away big winners.
The program is an annual stop for Hollywood stars who are popular among teenage and young viewers watching the Nickelodeon cable TV network, and this 25th anniversary was no exception.
Hosted by "Men in Black" movie star Will Smith, the awards featured performances by Katy Perry and British boy band One Direction, who performed their hit "What Makes You Beautiful" from the album "Up All Night."
But as always, the green slime was the biggest star at the show where Bieber won favorite male singer in fan voting.
On stage, Bieber took the orange blimp trophy from Smith, then the show's host had a surprise for the 18-year-old pop starhortcuts' id='lw_1332249666_1'. Bieber was also voted by fans as the celebrity they most wanted to see get slimed, and the green goo flowed from the rafters and water cannons aimed at the stage.
There was so much goo splashing around in the finale that it splattered on the face of a surprised first lady.
Obama was on hand at the popular show to give the "big help" blimp trophy to country star Swift.
The honor, bestowed on Obama two years earlier for her work with kids fitness and health, goes to a celebrity who has devoted time and energy to charitable causesl re-start his 'Symphonica' . Swift was singled out for her work to stop bullying and for providing aid to tornado victims in the southern United States.
Swift "rocketed to the top of the music industry, but still keeps her feet on the ground," Obama said about the 22-year-old country singer, calling her "someone who is going to keep making sparks fly for all of us in the years ahead."
Other winners included made-for-TV band Big Time Rush, named favorite music group.
Selena Gomez, 19, was named favorite female singer for her work with pop band The Scene, as well as favorite TV actress in the "Wizards of Waverly Place," which ended its run on the Disney Channel earlier this year.
"Twilight" stars Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner both grabbed orange blimpsill with severe span class='yshortcuts. Stewart, 21, was named favorite movie actress his career and has a personal fortune val. Lautner, 20, earned the title best "butt kicker" for his role as werewolf Jacob Black in the vampire romance flicks.
Favorite movie actor was Adam Sandler, 45, known for goofy comedies such as his recent "Jack and Jill."
Nickelodeon's "Victorious" was named top TV show.
(Reporting By Bob Tourtellotte; Editing by Will Dunham)
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Saturday, March 31, 2012
Myanmar's Suu Kyi: from prisoner to would-be lawmaker
(Reuters) - Aung San Suu Kyi, the long-time standard-bearer for democracy in Myanmar, is taking a leap of faith in running for parliament on Sunday, opting to enter a political system crafted and run by the soldiers who kept her locked up for a total of 15 years.
Her party's participation in this weekend's by-elections for 45 seats marks a change of heart for the Nobel Peace Prize winner, who repeatedly rebuffed the military's attempts to bring her into a political apparatus in which it dictated the terms.
But since a general election in November 2010, followed by Suu Kyi's release from house arrest the same month, the pace of change in the former Burma under a nominally civilian government has been staggering, enough to convince her to compromise with the apparently reform-minded ex-generals now in charge.
Some Burmese fear it is a deal with the devil, given the continuing presence of the military in political life.
Suu Kyi is keeping an open mind.
"Some are a little bit too optimistic about the situatione-hacking scandal which has damaged span. We are cautiously optimisticed of failing to investigate allegation. We are at the beginning of a road," the 66-year-old Suu Kyi said last month.
"Many people are beginning to say that the democratization process here is irreversible span class='yshortcuts' id='lw_132. It's not so."
Without her National League for Democracy (NLD) party's participation, there would have been little interest in Sunday's by-elections for a legislature where 25 percent of the seats are reserved for the military and a party close to the military has most of the rest.
But the polls have captured the world's imagination and, if they are deemed free and fair, could persuade the West to start to lift economic sanctions imposed under the junta.
Suu Kyi is running in the constituency of Kawhmu, south of Yangon It was also an embarrassment for Bri. She was due there on Saturday evening and planned to tour polling stations early on Sunday after voting starts at 6 a.mtold the inquiry, could o. (2330 GMT on Saturday).
It was the Oxford-educated Suu Kyi's steely determination in confronting the authoritarian generals that kept her country in the spotlight during its years of isolation, winning the hearts of her people and giving her a crucial role in the West's targeted policies to squeeze Myanmar's junta.
Suu Kyi was living in Britain but returned to her family home in April 1988 to care for her ailing mother just as resentment of junta rule boiled over into nationwide protests.
As the daughter of the General Aung San, Myanmar's assassinated independence hero, Suu Kyi was persuaded to enter politics, giving a rousing speech to hundreds of thousands of people near Yangon's Shwedagon Pagoda that catapulted her to the forefront of the fight against dictatorship.
HERO'S DAUGHTER
"I could not, as my father's daughter, remain indifferent to all that was going on," Suu Kyi told the crowd in August 1988.
The military crushed the uprising the following monthouse she shared with McCartney in early 2001 aft. Thousands were killed and imprisonedion has dragged Morgan into a p. Paying the price for her popular appeal, Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest on July 19, 1989, and remained there for six years.
Even without her, the NLD overwhelmingly won an election in 1990 for an assembly to draft a new constitution, trouncing the military's proxy partycked, The inquiry was . The junta simply refused to allow the assembly to convene.
The NLD continued to reject the military's demand for a leading role in politicsnation for how he cam. The top generals refused to hold dialogue with Suu Kyi and questioned her patriotism by calling her by her British married name, Mrs Michael Aris.
Even in her brief periods of freedom after 1989, she never left Myanmar, afraid the military would not let back in border=0/LONDON (Reuters) -. For that reason she was unable to be with Aris, an Oxford academic, when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and died in Britain in 1999.
Their love story has been played out on the big screen, with Malaysian star Michelle Yeoh playing Suu Kyi in a 2011 film, "The Lady", as she is affectionately known in Myanmar.
A final stint of house arrest - after she was found guilty of breaching a security law when an American intruder swam to her home and stayed for two nights - kept her out of the 2010 election, which the NLD boycotted and a military-backed party won easily.
Insiders say the NLD was split on whether to run but Suu Kyi said she "would not dream" of taking partstyle='text-align:le. That decided the matter.
Upon her release on November 13, 2010, thousands greeted her amid jubilation in Yangon.
The election held just six days earlier had promised little but, against all odds, the civilian administration under President Thein Sein has released more than 600 political prisoners, reached ceasefires with ethnic militias and begun to overhaul the economy.
Suu Kyi and Thein Sein, a softly spoken former junta general, have found some mutual understanding: she has called him "honest" and "sincere" and in November she accepted his appeal for the NLD to take part in the by-elections.
It will not be plain sailing.
The campaign trail has left Suu Kyi suffering from sickness and exhaustion and the NLD has alleged irregularities.
Suu Kyi has made no secret of the fact she wants to change a constitution that enshrines the military's role in politics.
"There are certain laws which are obstacles to the freedom of the people," she said during a rallye, The accusation has dragged . "We will strive to abolish these laws within the framework of the parliament."
That puts her on a collision course with hardliners and an armed forces commander who has vowed to protect the military's place in the corridors of power.
(Writing by Martin Petty in Bangkok; Editing by Alan Raybould and Ed Lane)
This article is brought to you by RELATIONSHIP ADVICE.
Her party's participation in this weekend's by-elections for 45 seats marks a change of heart for the Nobel Peace Prize winner, who repeatedly rebuffed the military's attempts to bring her into a political apparatus in which it dictated the terms.
But since a general election in November 2010, followed by Suu Kyi's release from house arrest the same month, the pace of change in the former Burma under a nominally civilian government has been staggering, enough to convince her to compromise with the apparently reform-minded ex-generals now in charge.
Some Burmese fear it is a deal with the devil, given the continuing presence of the military in political life.
Suu Kyi is keeping an open mind.
"Some are a little bit too optimistic about the situatione-hacking scandal which has damaged span. We are cautiously optimisticed of failing to investigate allegation. We are at the beginning of a road," the 66-year-old Suu Kyi said last month.
"Many people are beginning to say that the democratization process here is irreversible span class='yshortcuts' id='lw_132. It's not so."
Without her National League for Democracy (NLD) party's participation, there would have been little interest in Sunday's by-elections for a legislature where 25 percent of the seats are reserved for the military and a party close to the military has most of the rest.
But the polls have captured the world's imagination and, if they are deemed free and fair, could persuade the West to start to lift economic sanctions imposed under the junta.
Suu Kyi is running in the constituency of Kawhmu, south of Yangon It was also an embarrassment for Bri. She was due there on Saturday evening and planned to tour polling stations early on Sunday after voting starts at 6 a.mtold the inquiry, could o. (2330 GMT on Saturday).
It was the Oxford-educated Suu Kyi's steely determination in confronting the authoritarian generals that kept her country in the spotlight during its years of isolation, winning the hearts of her people and giving her a crucial role in the West's targeted policies to squeeze Myanmar's junta.
Suu Kyi was living in Britain but returned to her family home in April 1988 to care for her ailing mother just as resentment of junta rule boiled over into nationwide protests.
As the daughter of the General Aung San, Myanmar's assassinated independence hero, Suu Kyi was persuaded to enter politics, giving a rousing speech to hundreds of thousands of people near Yangon's Shwedagon Pagoda that catapulted her to the forefront of the fight against dictatorship.
HERO'S DAUGHTER
"I could not, as my father's daughter, remain indifferent to all that was going on," Suu Kyi told the crowd in August 1988.
The military crushed the uprising the following monthouse she shared with McCartney in early 2001 aft. Thousands were killed and imprisonedion has dragged Morgan into a p. Paying the price for her popular appeal, Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest on July 19, 1989, and remained there for six years.
Even without her, the NLD overwhelmingly won an election in 1990 for an assembly to draft a new constitution, trouncing the military's proxy partycked, The inquiry was . The junta simply refused to allow the assembly to convene.
The NLD continued to reject the military's demand for a leading role in politicsnation for how he cam. The top generals refused to hold dialogue with Suu Kyi and questioned her patriotism by calling her by her British married name, Mrs Michael Aris.
Even in her brief periods of freedom after 1989, she never left Myanmar, afraid the military would not let back in border=0/LONDON (Reuters) -. For that reason she was unable to be with Aris, an Oxford academic, when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and died in Britain in 1999.
Their love story has been played out on the big screen, with Malaysian star Michelle Yeoh playing Suu Kyi in a 2011 film, "The Lady", as she is affectionately known in Myanmar.
A final stint of house arrest - after she was found guilty of breaching a security law when an American intruder swam to her home and stayed for two nights - kept her out of the 2010 election, which the NLD boycotted and a military-backed party won easily.
Insiders say the NLD was split on whether to run but Suu Kyi said she "would not dream" of taking partstyle='text-align:le. That decided the matter.
Upon her release on November 13, 2010, thousands greeted her amid jubilation in Yangon.
The election held just six days earlier had promised little but, against all odds, the civilian administration under President Thein Sein has released more than 600 political prisoners, reached ceasefires with ethnic militias and begun to overhaul the economy.
Suu Kyi and Thein Sein, a softly spoken former junta general, have found some mutual understanding: she has called him "honest" and "sincere" and in November she accepted his appeal for the NLD to take part in the by-elections.
It will not be plain sailing.
The campaign trail has left Suu Kyi suffering from sickness and exhaustion and the NLD has alleged irregularities.
Suu Kyi has made no secret of the fact she wants to change a constitution that enshrines the military's role in politics.
"There are certain laws which are obstacles to the freedom of the people," she said during a rallye, The accusation has dragged . "We will strive to abolish these laws within the framework of the parliament."
That puts her on a collision course with hardliners and an armed forces commander who has vowed to protect the military's place in the corridors of power.
(Writing by Martin Petty in Bangkok; Editing by Alan Raybould and Ed Lane)
This article is brought to you by RELATIONSHIP ADVICE.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Carrie Underwood finds "real things" to sing about
NASHVILLE, Tenn (Reuters) - Carrie Underwood says she's glad she took some time off from country music following her marriage to hockey star Mike Fisher in 2010.
After storming the country music scene since her 2005 "American Idol" win, her almost two-year break from recording and touring helped her find "real things to sing about", and write what she calls her fun, rocking new single "Good Girl."
"I feel like so many people get stuckA fire department spokeswoman declined t. They write, they get songs together, they make an album, they go on touromestic violence, The last 10 ye. Then they do it all over again He decline. I just wanted to change things upight is to begin with a pr. I can't have stuff to write about if I don't have a life," Underwood told Reuters.
The singer says taking that time off allowed her to remember what it's like to be normal.
"So much happens when you're just in your celebrity bubble, and I don't want to be in that bubblet going to comment on any o. It's fun sometimes, but for your heart and for you as a person, you need to step away and be real so you'll have real things to write about and real things to sing about," she said.
Underwood, 29, will be performing the single - the first from her upcoming album "Blown Away" - at the Academy of Country Music Awards on Sundayg her hit, 'I Will Always Love You,' as the . She also is nominated for best female vocalist and best vocal event for her duet "Remind Me" with Brad Paisley.
"I'm excited to be singing 'Good Girl,'" she said, adding with a conspiratorial smile, "We're planning some really fun tricks for the performance."
When pressed for more information, Underwood would only say, "We're having something made for the performance and it will be pretty rockin'."
CARRIE ROCKS
"Good Girl," and its edgy music video, see Underwood showing off her rock chick side in a departure from the pop country that marked earlier hits like "Jesus, Take the Wheel" and "Cowboy Casanova."
She said it's not a change of direction but an indication of the variety that will mark "Blown Away" - her follow-up to 2009's "Play On".
"Good Girl" was the last song that Underwood co-wrote for the albums Angeles/span, the city's oldest A. She was in Los Angeles and called frequent co-writer Ashley Gorley to see if he had time to write with her.
"I wanted to write a fun song for the albumon Sunday focused on her public beh. We wrote it so fast and it was so much fun to write," Underwood recalled.
She said the album is an indication of the different musical influences in her life.
"I love singing all kinds of music, which is why I can do the Steven Tyler thing and the next week turn around and sing on the Grammys with Tony Bennett. Those are polar opposites, but I feel comfortable in both places.
"My album is a lot like thatnd 22 American Music Awards, The. It's a big ol' puzzle and everything has its own placebrity news website TMZ,com as being . There's 'Good Girl' and there's some more traditional stuff than I've ever done before," she said.
Underwood said it was cool to be nominated for awards, especially when she has been away for some time.
"It's really amazing to still be remembered in the female vocalist category even though the industry and my fans haven't necessarily heard me on the radio (or seen) me all over the place," she said.
The 47th annual Academy of Country Music Awards will be broadcast from Las Vegas on Sunday on CBS television.
(Reporting by Vernell Hackett; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Bob Tourtellotte)
This article is brought to you by MATCHMAKING.
After storming the country music scene since her 2005 "American Idol" win, her almost two-year break from recording and touring helped her find "real things to sing about", and write what she calls her fun, rocking new single "Good Girl."
"I feel like so many people get stuckA fire department spokeswoman declined t. They write, they get songs together, they make an album, they go on touromestic violence, The last 10 ye. Then they do it all over again He decline. I just wanted to change things upight is to begin with a pr. I can't have stuff to write about if I don't have a life," Underwood told Reuters.
The singer says taking that time off allowed her to remember what it's like to be normal.
"So much happens when you're just in your celebrity bubble, and I don't want to be in that bubblet going to comment on any o. It's fun sometimes, but for your heart and for you as a person, you need to step away and be real so you'll have real things to write about and real things to sing about," she said.
Underwood, 29, will be performing the single - the first from her upcoming album "Blown Away" - at the Academy of Country Music Awards on Sundayg her hit, 'I Will Always Love You,' as the . She also is nominated for best female vocalist and best vocal event for her duet "Remind Me" with Brad Paisley.
"I'm excited to be singing 'Good Girl,'" she said, adding with a conspiratorial smile, "We're planning some really fun tricks for the performance."
When pressed for more information, Underwood would only say, "We're having something made for the performance and it will be pretty rockin'."
CARRIE ROCKS
"Good Girl," and its edgy music video, see Underwood showing off her rock chick side in a departure from the pop country that marked earlier hits like "Jesus, Take the Wheel" and "Cowboy Casanova."
She said it's not a change of direction but an indication of the variety that will mark "Blown Away" - her follow-up to 2009's "Play On".
"Good Girl" was the last song that Underwood co-wrote for the albums Angeles/span, the city's oldest A. She was in Los Angeles and called frequent co-writer Ashley Gorley to see if he had time to write with her.
"I wanted to write a fun song for the albumon Sunday focused on her public beh. We wrote it so fast and it was so much fun to write," Underwood recalled.
She said the album is an indication of the different musical influences in her life.
"I love singing all kinds of music, which is why I can do the Steven Tyler thing and the next week turn around and sing on the Grammys with Tony Bennett. Those are polar opposites, but I feel comfortable in both places.
"My album is a lot like thatnd 22 American Music Awards, The. It's a big ol' puzzle and everything has its own placebrity news website TMZ,com as being . There's 'Good Girl' and there's some more traditional stuff than I've ever done before," she said.
Underwood said it was cool to be nominated for awards, especially when she has been away for some time.
"It's really amazing to still be remembered in the female vocalist category even though the industry and my fans haven't necessarily heard me on the radio (or seen) me all over the place," she said.
The 47th annual Academy of Country Music Awards will be broadcast from Las Vegas on Sunday on CBS television.
(Reporting by Vernell Hackett; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Bob Tourtellotte)
This article is brought to you by MATCHMAKING.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Amazon founder Bezos finds Apollo 11 engines on sea floor
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Space enthusiast and entrepreneur Jeff Bezos has found the rocket motors used to send the Apollo 11 astronauts to the moon and plans to mount a recovery expedition soon, the Amazon.com CEO and founder reported on a blog post.
The five F-1 engines were fired up on July 16, 1969, sending the massive Saturn 5 rocket on its way to the moonow, Tomorrow' - that had raised more than . The motors burned out a few minutes after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center and tumbled into the Atlantic Ocean.
Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins flew on into the history books, becoming the first humans to reach the moon.
"I was 5 years old when I watched Apollo 11 unfold on television, and without any doubt it was a big contributor to my passions for science, engineering, and exploration," Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com and the Blue Origin rocket company, wrote in his blog on Wednesday.
"A year or so ago, I started to wonder, with the right team of undersea pros, could we find and potentially recover the F-1 engines that started mankind's mission to the moon?" he wrote.
Using a deep-sea sonar scanner, Bezos' team found the engines on the sea floor, some 14,000 feet below the surface.
"We're making plans to attempt to raise one or more of them," Bezos said.
"We don't know yet what condition these engines might be inng a mock campaign ral. They hit the ocean at high velocity and have been in salt water for more than 40 yearsfor former Republican president. On the other hand, they're made of tough stuff, so we'll see," he said.
NASA, which retains ownership of its space artifacts, said it was reviewing a recovery proposal it received from Bezos on Thursday.
"We'll be working with his expedition, not necessarily out there physically, but with his team on ownership issues and what he'd like to do with them," NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs told Reuters.
"We'll be interested to see what condition the engines were in, how they survived the high impact on the water and after so much time sitting in the ocean," he said.
If the salvage operation is successful, the Saturn 5 engines would be the second major piece of space history to be recovered from the sea floor.
In 1999, Discovery Channel staged an expedition to find and recover the Liberty Bell 7 capsule that was used by Mercury astronaut Virgil "Gus" Grissom on the second U.S The comedian. human space flight.
The capsule's door blew off early and Grissom nearly drowned after his 15-minute suborbital ride class='yshortcuts' id='lw_1329411308_1'Stephe. It sat on the ocean floor for 38 years until it was found and recovered by a team led by Oceaneering for a television documentary.
The capsule was refurbished by the Kansas Cosmosphere & Space Center, a Smithsonian-affiliated museum in Hutchinson, Kansas, and is now the centerpiece of a exhibit.
A spokeswoman for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, the repository for NASA artifacts, said it was way too early to know whether the Apollo 11 rocket motors might someday be part of the national collection.
(Editing by Jane Sutton and Lisa Shumaker)
This article is brought to you by MATCH.
The five F-1 engines were fired up on July 16, 1969, sending the massive Saturn 5 rocket on its way to the moonow, Tomorrow' - that had raised more than . The motors burned out a few minutes after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center and tumbled into the Atlantic Ocean.
Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins flew on into the history books, becoming the first humans to reach the moon.
"I was 5 years old when I watched Apollo 11 unfold on television, and without any doubt it was a big contributor to my passions for science, engineering, and exploration," Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com and the Blue Origin rocket company, wrote in his blog on Wednesday.
"A year or so ago, I started to wonder, with the right team of undersea pros, could we find and potentially recover the F-1 engines that started mankind's mission to the moon?" he wrote.
Using a deep-sea sonar scanner, Bezos' team found the engines on the sea floor, some 14,000 feet below the surface.
"We're making plans to attempt to raise one or more of them," Bezos said.
"We don't know yet what condition these engines might be inng a mock campaign ral. They hit the ocean at high velocity and have been in salt water for more than 40 yearsfor former Republican president. On the other hand, they're made of tough stuff, so we'll see," he said.
NASA, which retains ownership of its space artifacts, said it was reviewing a recovery proposal it received from Bezos on Thursday.
"We'll be working with his expedition, not necessarily out there physically, but with his team on ownership issues and what he'd like to do with them," NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs told Reuters.
"We'll be interested to see what condition the engines were in, how they survived the high impact on the water and after so much time sitting in the ocean," he said.
If the salvage operation is successful, the Saturn 5 engines would be the second major piece of space history to be recovered from the sea floor.
In 1999, Discovery Channel staged an expedition to find and recover the Liberty Bell 7 capsule that was used by Mercury astronaut Virgil "Gus" Grissom on the second U.S The comedian. human space flight.
The capsule's door blew off early and Grissom nearly drowned after his 15-minute suborbital ride class='yshortcuts' id='lw_1329411308_1'Stephe. It sat on the ocean floor for 38 years until it was found and recovered by a team led by Oceaneering for a television documentary.
The capsule was refurbished by the Kansas Cosmosphere & Space Center, a Smithsonian-affiliated museum in Hutchinson, Kansas, and is now the centerpiece of a exhibit.
A spokeswoman for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, the repository for NASA artifacts, said it was way too early to know whether the Apollo 11 rocket motors might someday be part of the national collection.
(Editing by Jane Sutton and Lisa Shumaker)
This article is brought to you by MATCH.
The fairy tale life of "Mirror Mirror" star Lily Collins
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - With her dark eyes, dark hair and pale skin, actress Lily Collins certainly fits the bill to play 'the fairest of them all' in the new retelling of classic Snow White tale in the upcoming film, "Mirror Mirror."
The movie, which comes out on Friday, sees an exiled Snow White teaming with seven rebel dwarfs and one prince (Armie Hammer) to defeat an evil Queen (Julia Roberts), take back her kingdom and restore it to its former glory before Snow White's father died.
Yet the 23-year-old Collins, whose previous acting credits include playing Sandra Bullock's daughter in "The Blind Side" and Taylor Lautner's love interest in "Abduction," learned she had a lot more in common with Snow than just looks.
"I feel like Snow and my experience paralleled a lot during the shoot," Collins told Reuterscel, span class='yshortcuts' id='lw_13. "At the beginning of the story, she's very wide-eyed, innocent and unsure of what's happeningian streak of conservatism, He. I started out very wide-eyed and excited, but unsure of what was going on."
As the "Mirror Mirror" story progresses, Snow White learns to stand up to her evil step-mother and fight for her rights when she becomes part of the dwarves' army.
Collins said she also became a fighter, both emotionally and physically, during the shoot and pre-production as she learned about the acting craft and studied fencing and sword fighting.
Snow White blossoms into a young woman who embraces life and love and believes in herself, leading to a deeper understanding of the world around her.
"I too became more open to living life to the fullest and believing that you can put your mind to doing anything and really accomplish itho delivers cutting putdowns with span class='. I left a very inspired young woman based on what I learned as Snow," Collins said.
SINGER, DANCER, JOURNALIST
Not that Collins needed much inspiration -- in the performing arts, anyway -- because showbiz already runs in her veinsespousing his libertarian streak of conserva. Her father is Grammy and Oscar-winning British musician Phil Collins of Genesis fame_1332030976_6'Amanda Crew/span and span class. Although the younger Collins was born in the U.K., her parents divorced when she was five, and she moved to Los Angeles with her mother, where she grew up.
In at least one way, "Mirror Mirror" proves that Collins is indeed her father's daughteryears as a 'Monday Night Football' color commen. A Bollywood-style song and dance sequence during the end credits of the film showcases her singing talents.
"I didn't tell my dad I was singing in the movie because I wanted to shock him by playing him the song," said CollinsSztykiel executive produces with Josh Bycel. "He loved it! He made me replay it a couple times because he didn't believe it was me!"
Although Collins enjoys singing, she is not looking to pursue a career in music, saying that at the moment, "my heart and soul is in acting."
But that wasn't always the casetreak of conservatis. As a teenager, journalism was her passionclass='yshortcuts' id='lw_1332030. She was published in Elle Girl and Seventeen magazines and in 2008, she worked as a journalist for kids network Nickelodeon, covering the U.SMonday Night Football' color commentator and h. presidential campaign.
She went on to begin studying broadcast journalism and communication at the University of Southern California, but she had to decide between school and acting when she found herself shooting "The Blind Side" in Atlanta and flying back to L.Asometown,' written by span class=. for examsas a 'Monday Night Footba. She has since deferred her schooling but plans on returning.
"That was grueling," said Collins, "but it was worth it because I was able to finish the semesteron Fener/span, Aaron Kaplan and Sean Pe. When I do go back, I want to be there fully and not think about what time I need to be at my next audition."
No matter what happens with school, Collins said she'll always be a journalist even as her acting career grows.
"Journalism is something I've always loved and continue to use everyday," she confessedend Update' anchor, known for obscure . "I'm a genuinely interested personC pilot 'span class=. I carry a notebooklass='yshortcuts' id='lw_133203. I ask questions, and I'm socials he has turned to political commentar. In learning about character traits for roles, it's the best way to do researchoject comes from Twentieth Century Fox. So I'm still going to be a journalist at heart."
(Reporting By Zorianna Kit; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
This article is brought to you by FREE DATING.
The movie, which comes out on Friday, sees an exiled Snow White teaming with seven rebel dwarfs and one prince (Armie Hammer) to defeat an evil Queen (Julia Roberts), take back her kingdom and restore it to its former glory before Snow White's father died.
Yet the 23-year-old Collins, whose previous acting credits include playing Sandra Bullock's daughter in "The Blind Side" and Taylor Lautner's love interest in "Abduction," learned she had a lot more in common with Snow than just looks.
"I feel like Snow and my experience paralleled a lot during the shoot," Collins told Reuterscel, span class='yshortcuts' id='lw_13. "At the beginning of the story, she's very wide-eyed, innocent and unsure of what's happeningian streak of conservatism, He. I started out very wide-eyed and excited, but unsure of what was going on."
As the "Mirror Mirror" story progresses, Snow White learns to stand up to her evil step-mother and fight for her rights when she becomes part of the dwarves' army.
Collins said she also became a fighter, both emotionally and physically, during the shoot and pre-production as she learned about the acting craft and studied fencing and sword fighting.
Snow White blossoms into a young woman who embraces life and love and believes in herself, leading to a deeper understanding of the world around her.
"I too became more open to living life to the fullest and believing that you can put your mind to doing anything and really accomplish itho delivers cutting putdowns with span class='. I left a very inspired young woman based on what I learned as Snow," Collins said.
SINGER, DANCER, JOURNALIST
Not that Collins needed much inspiration -- in the performing arts, anyway -- because showbiz already runs in her veinsespousing his libertarian streak of conserva. Her father is Grammy and Oscar-winning British musician Phil Collins of Genesis fame_1332030976_6'Amanda Crew/span and span class. Although the younger Collins was born in the U.K., her parents divorced when she was five, and she moved to Los Angeles with her mother, where she grew up.
In at least one way, "Mirror Mirror" proves that Collins is indeed her father's daughteryears as a 'Monday Night Football' color commen. A Bollywood-style song and dance sequence during the end credits of the film showcases her singing talents.
"I didn't tell my dad I was singing in the movie because I wanted to shock him by playing him the song," said CollinsSztykiel executive produces with Josh Bycel. "He loved it! He made me replay it a couple times because he didn't believe it was me!"
Although Collins enjoys singing, she is not looking to pursue a career in music, saying that at the moment, "my heart and soul is in acting."
But that wasn't always the casetreak of conservatis. As a teenager, journalism was her passionclass='yshortcuts' id='lw_1332030. She was published in Elle Girl and Seventeen magazines and in 2008, she worked as a journalist for kids network Nickelodeon, covering the U.SMonday Night Football' color commentator and h. presidential campaign.
She went on to begin studying broadcast journalism and communication at the University of Southern California, but she had to decide between school and acting when she found herself shooting "The Blind Side" in Atlanta and flying back to L.Asometown,' written by span class=. for examsas a 'Monday Night Footba. She has since deferred her schooling but plans on returning.
"That was grueling," said Collins, "but it was worth it because I was able to finish the semesteron Fener/span, Aaron Kaplan and Sean Pe. When I do go back, I want to be there fully and not think about what time I need to be at my next audition."
No matter what happens with school, Collins said she'll always be a journalist even as her acting career grows.
"Journalism is something I've always loved and continue to use everyday," she confessedend Update' anchor, known for obscure . "I'm a genuinely interested personC pilot 'span class=. I carry a notebooklass='yshortcuts' id='lw_133203. I ask questions, and I'm socials he has turned to political commentar. In learning about character traits for roles, it's the best way to do researchoject comes from Twentieth Century Fox. So I'm still going to be a journalist at heart."
(Reporting By Zorianna Kit; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
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Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Titanic in 3D cranks up experience, director says
LONDON (Reuters) - "Titanic" director James Cameron said the 3D version of his 1997 blockbuster, released to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the luxury liner, "turns up" the experience of the original.
He also denied suggestions that the film, which hits U.Sr made a recording of McCartney's call or ha. and British theatres on April 6, was a way of cashing in on the tragedy, which happened on April 15, 1912 with the loss of more than 1,500 lives.
"I just think it makes it more immersive," Cameron said of the 3D re-makequently said he was referring to rumors, . "It kind of turns up the experience to 11 instead of 10," he told reporters late on Tuesday at the red carpet world premiere held at London's Royal Albert Hall.
Titanic, starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, earned more than $1.8 billion at the global box office.
Before inflation is taken into account, it is second only to Cameron's 3D sci-fi adventure "Avatar", which grossed $2.8 billion, in the all-time ticket sale rankings.
Cameron, who has just returned from a solo dive to the deepest point in the ocean, defended his decision to re-release Titanic in 3D format.
"Look, there's always going to be people that can piss in the soup of anything good," he told reporters, when asked if he was capitalizing on the Titanic tragedy and its upcoming anniversary.
"But frankly I think that remembering Titanic, remembering the history -- that's what the film was there fordiastore/b75bf25b-9eb1-4b05-883a-ff2b9c3. That's why I made it, you know.
"I was fascinated by the story, I was fascinated by the history, the people that were heroic, the people that lost their livesa tabloid newspaper editor in Britain, He has . I was genuinely touched by the tragedy when I was there at the wreck.
"I think the film is a good focusing agent for that at this time when we should be remembering the wreck and its message, the disaster and its message for all of us."
For British actress Winslet, who shot to fame after appearing in the original, the 3D experience was a strange one.
"It's weird," she told Reutersestigate allegations that Murdoc. "I mean, it is like being forced to go through a photo album of your former self for three and a half hours solidly alt='' width=120 height=30 . It's quite strange you know."
Asked how she felt about watching herself on screen in 3D during the film's more intimate moments, she replied:
"Oh terrible! Wouldn't you? I am not going to lookited the now defunct News of the World tabloid a. I'll be in the bar by that point I expect -- or on the floor!"
DiCaprio did not attend the premiere as he was shooting new movie "Django Unchained", directed by Quentin Tarantino, in the United States.
(Writing by Mike Collett-White)
This article is brought to you by DATE.
He also denied suggestions that the film, which hits U.Sr made a recording of McCartney's call or ha. and British theatres on April 6, was a way of cashing in on the tragedy, which happened on April 15, 1912 with the loss of more than 1,500 lives.
"I just think it makes it more immersive," Cameron said of the 3D re-makequently said he was referring to rumors, . "It kind of turns up the experience to 11 instead of 10," he told reporters late on Tuesday at the red carpet world premiere held at London's Royal Albert Hall.
Titanic, starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, earned more than $1.8 billion at the global box office.
Before inflation is taken into account, it is second only to Cameron's 3D sci-fi adventure "Avatar", which grossed $2.8 billion, in the all-time ticket sale rankings.
Cameron, who has just returned from a solo dive to the deepest point in the ocean, defended his decision to re-release Titanic in 3D format.
"Look, there's always going to be people that can piss in the soup of anything good," he told reporters, when asked if he was capitalizing on the Titanic tragedy and its upcoming anniversary.
"But frankly I think that remembering Titanic, remembering the history -- that's what the film was there fordiastore/b75bf25b-9eb1-4b05-883a-ff2b9c3. That's why I made it, you know.
"I was fascinated by the story, I was fascinated by the history, the people that were heroic, the people that lost their livesa tabloid newspaper editor in Britain, He has . I was genuinely touched by the tragedy when I was there at the wreck.
"I think the film is a good focusing agent for that at this time when we should be remembering the wreck and its message, the disaster and its message for all of us."
For British actress Winslet, who shot to fame after appearing in the original, the 3D experience was a strange one.
"It's weird," she told Reutersestigate allegations that Murdoc. "I mean, it is like being forced to go through a photo album of your former self for three and a half hours solidly alt='' width=120 height=30 . It's quite strange you know."
Asked how she felt about watching herself on screen in 3D during the film's more intimate moments, she replied:
"Oh terrible! Wouldn't you? I am not going to lookited the now defunct News of the World tabloid a. I'll be in the bar by that point I expect -- or on the floor!"
DiCaprio did not attend the premiere as he was shooting new movie "Django Unchained", directed by Quentin Tarantino, in the United States.
(Writing by Mike Collett-White)
This article is brought to you by DATE.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Mandela archives, letters and notes go online
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Thousands of letters, photographs and documents relating to former South African President Nelson Mandela went online on Tuesday in a project aimed at increasing access to the archives which detail his long walk to freedom.
Items including letters Mandela wrote to his family that were smuggled out of prison, his Methodist church membership card from about 80 years ago and hand-written diaries have been digitized and laid out on a website (archive.nelsonmandela.org) designed to look like a museum exhibit.
"The one thing that it does immediately is make a much sought-after legacy available to the world," said Achmat Dangor, the chief executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
The project, with an initial cost of $3 million, was put together by the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory and the Google Cultural Institute.
It is a first for Internet giant Google, which has made sure the material is open to all and original copyright holders keep their rights Q: The story unfolds in real time and is . Google is planning to use this project as a springboard to bring more content on line from other historical figures of the 20th century.
Google has been criticized for trying to use its technological might to wall off material from rivals.
"You can interact with the contentAwards and at the Critics Choice Awards, . You can search the content (Reporting By Zorianna Kit; Editi. Although we have mimicked the museum experience, we are now in a place where we think we have augmented the experience,' said Mark Yoshitake, who leads project management for the Google Cultural Institute.
Sections such as "Presidential Years" include photos with links to videos, text, personal notes and testimonials laid out for use with typical computers and tablets.
Ndileka Mandela, the granddaughter of the former president, said he has always been a progressive man and is elated by the online archive.
"As much as we would like to claim him as our grandfather, he is a public figurethis movie because that. The publishing of the letters he wrote to various family members is not really a problem because it shows people that he is a human being," she said.
Mandela, 93, underwent keyhole abdominal examination last month that showed nothing was wrong with the man awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for helping bring down white-minority apartheid rule in South Africa.
"For a man his age, he is doing wellrned best actress nominations fr. He hasn't lost his sense of humor," said Ndileka Mandela.
(Editing by Paul Casciato)
This article is brought to you by FREE DATING SITE.
Items including letters Mandela wrote to his family that were smuggled out of prison, his Methodist church membership card from about 80 years ago and hand-written diaries have been digitized and laid out on a website (archive.nelsonmandela.org) designed to look like a museum exhibit.
"The one thing that it does immediately is make a much sought-after legacy available to the world," said Achmat Dangor, the chief executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
The project, with an initial cost of $3 million, was put together by the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory and the Google Cultural Institute.
It is a first for Internet giant Google, which has made sure the material is open to all and original copyright holders keep their rights Q: The story unfolds in real time and is . Google is planning to use this project as a springboard to bring more content on line from other historical figures of the 20th century.
Google has been criticized for trying to use its technological might to wall off material from rivals.
"You can interact with the contentAwards and at the Critics Choice Awards, . You can search the content (Reporting By Zorianna Kit; Editi. Although we have mimicked the museum experience, we are now in a place where we think we have augmented the experience,' said Mark Yoshitake, who leads project management for the Google Cultural Institute.
Sections such as "Presidential Years" include photos with links to videos, text, personal notes and testimonials laid out for use with typical computers and tablets.
Ndileka Mandela, the granddaughter of the former president, said he has always been a progressive man and is elated by the online archive.
"As much as we would like to claim him as our grandfather, he is a public figurethis movie because that. The publishing of the letters he wrote to various family members is not really a problem because it shows people that he is a human being," she said.
Mandela, 93, underwent keyhole abdominal examination last month that showed nothing was wrong with the man awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for helping bring down white-minority apartheid rule in South Africa.
"For a man his age, he is doing wellrned best actress nominations fr. He hasn't lost his sense of humor," said Ndileka Mandela.
(Editing by Paul Casciato)
This article is brought to you by FREE DATING SITE.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Redford puts star power behind Colorado River film
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Actor and director Robert Redford, a longtime environmental activist, has teamed with his son to film a documentary about the Colorado River system, which conservationists believe is endangered by decades of development and global warming.
Redford, 76, who lives in Utah, traveled to Washington, D.Cnd all the other rock and roll greats, I wou. along with Jamie Redford, a Northern California resident, to discuss the urgency of the message in their film, "Watershed," featured recently at the D.C5504_5'Ringo Starr/spa. Environmental Film Festival.
Both father and son have been tireless vocal advocates for conservation, particularly in the western United StatesZHk9MDtmaT11bGNyb3A7aD. Their documentary, produced by Jamie Redford and narrated by his father, draws attention to the enormous and, they say, unsustainable demands on the Colorado River system that provides much of the American west with water.
"The watershed issue is something that's happening all over the world, where the need for water is greater than the amount of water to provide for it," Robert Redford told Reuters.
"I think we're picking the Colorado River as an example of what's going on with watersheds all over the world and trying to focus on that and draw attention to it."
The river flows from the Rocky Mountains 1,450 miles to the Gulf of Californias game,' span class. But, as the Redfords' film points out, the water rarely makes it that far because of the multiple demands of agriculture, industry and communities upstream.
The film opens with an explanation of the history of the Colorado River system's development, starting with the Colorado River Compact of 1922, which provided for the equitable division and apportionment of the water among seven states in the U.S3M7Y2g9MzM2O2NyPTE7Y3c9NDUwO2R4PTA7ZHk9MDtmaT1. and two in Mexico.
But "Watershed" holds that the compact, 90 years later, has transformed one of the world's wildest rivers to the point where it will soon be unable to provide sufficient water for the populations dependent upon it.
"With population in the region expected to reach 50 million by 2050, temperatures rising and precipitation patterns becoming more erratic, demand will outpace supply unless we embrace a new water ethic" Redford says in the film.
A star of hits including "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", "All the President's Men", "The Sting" and the Oscar-winning director of "Ordinary People," Redford hopes "Watershed" serves as a warning.
"There's a new water reality that people have to be aware of, and I think looking at the Colorado River as an example is what this film's about.
"I think it's using art as a tool for social awareness, you know, making a film about an issue and then getting it out to as many people as possible increases awarenessced outside the Capitol Records bui. Maybe increased awareness will help solve our problem," he said.
The film illustrates the various demands on the Colorado River through the eyes of the people who live on it, from a fly-fishing instructor near the river's source to farmers and families living downstreamuts' id='lw_1328835504_4'The Beatles. Jamie Redford said that by enlisting real people in the project, the issue was more likely to resonate with audiences.
"It was pretty clear from our point of view that what we wanted to do was specifically focus on people, and we wanted to take a positive look at what is a challenging situation," he said.
"So, in that regard, we found characters up and down the river from the headwaters all the way out to the Colorado delta in Mexico that are fighting to make a difference and are making a difference and setting an example of what you can do."
As a California native and long-time resident of Utah, Jamie's father said he has watched the gradual depletion of the Colorado for 50 years and that the issue is too important to ignore any longer.
"You've got 30 million people dependent on that water source, and a lot of that dependency is urban renewal, booming metropolitan cities/media/m/base/images/transparent-950. You've got drinking, you've got sanitation and you've got electrical generation-10T005553Z_1_BTRE81902LG00_RTROPTP. You pull that off the river," said Redfordas prevented from attending Thursday's . "Plus, the agricultural water rights that the farmers and ranchers haveur gathered, clutching memorabi. You've got a depletion that has to be looked at."
An early supporter of President Obama, Redford said he is disappointed by the administration and Congress's progress on future fuel sources, noting that non-sustainable, carbon-based fuels are a major contributing factor to global warming and the problems facing those who depend on the Colorado Riverrtcuts' id='lw_1328835504_3'. But no one in government, Redford said, is courageous enough to make decisions that could prevent worsening of the situation.
"The future is about young people," he said/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Y2g9MzM2O2NyPTE7Y3c. "Young people coming on today, like Jamie my son, his son, other generations coming, what are we thinking about them?
"I think we have such a tendency to think short, short term, and therefore apply short term solutions to longer term problemsss='yshortcuts' id='lw. We're just not going to get there unless that changes."
(Editing By Chris Michaud and Bob Tourtellotte)
This article is brought to you by ONLINE DATING.
Redford, 76, who lives in Utah, traveled to Washington, D.Cnd all the other rock and roll greats, I wou. along with Jamie Redford, a Northern California resident, to discuss the urgency of the message in their film, "Watershed," featured recently at the D.C5504_5'Ringo Starr/spa. Environmental Film Festival.
Both father and son have been tireless vocal advocates for conservation, particularly in the western United StatesZHk9MDtmaT11bGNyb3A7aD. Their documentary, produced by Jamie Redford and narrated by his father, draws attention to the enormous and, they say, unsustainable demands on the Colorado River system that provides much of the American west with water.
"The watershed issue is something that's happening all over the world, where the need for water is greater than the amount of water to provide for it," Robert Redford told Reuters.
"I think we're picking the Colorado River as an example of what's going on with watersheds all over the world and trying to focus on that and draw attention to it."
The river flows from the Rocky Mountains 1,450 miles to the Gulf of Californias game,' span class. But, as the Redfords' film points out, the water rarely makes it that far because of the multiple demands of agriculture, industry and communities upstream.
The film opens with an explanation of the history of the Colorado River system's development, starting with the Colorado River Compact of 1922, which provided for the equitable division and apportionment of the water among seven states in the U.S3M7Y2g9MzM2O2NyPTE7Y3c9NDUwO2R4PTA7ZHk9MDtmaT1. and two in Mexico.
But "Watershed" holds that the compact, 90 years later, has transformed one of the world's wildest rivers to the point where it will soon be unable to provide sufficient water for the populations dependent upon it.
"With population in the region expected to reach 50 million by 2050, temperatures rising and precipitation patterns becoming more erratic, demand will outpace supply unless we embrace a new water ethic" Redford says in the film.
A star of hits including "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", "All the President's Men", "The Sting" and the Oscar-winning director of "Ordinary People," Redford hopes "Watershed" serves as a warning.
"There's a new water reality that people have to be aware of, and I think looking at the Colorado River as an example is what this film's about.
"I think it's using art as a tool for social awareness, you know, making a film about an issue and then getting it out to as many people as possible increases awarenessced outside the Capitol Records bui. Maybe increased awareness will help solve our problem," he said.
The film illustrates the various demands on the Colorado River through the eyes of the people who live on it, from a fly-fishing instructor near the river's source to farmers and families living downstreamuts' id='lw_1328835504_4'The Beatles. Jamie Redford said that by enlisting real people in the project, the issue was more likely to resonate with audiences.
"It was pretty clear from our point of view that what we wanted to do was specifically focus on people, and we wanted to take a positive look at what is a challenging situation," he said.
"So, in that regard, we found characters up and down the river from the headwaters all the way out to the Colorado delta in Mexico that are fighting to make a difference and are making a difference and setting an example of what you can do."
As a California native and long-time resident of Utah, Jamie's father said he has watched the gradual depletion of the Colorado for 50 years and that the issue is too important to ignore any longer.
"You've got 30 million people dependent on that water source, and a lot of that dependency is urban renewal, booming metropolitan cities/media/m/base/images/transparent-950. You've got drinking, you've got sanitation and you've got electrical generation-10T005553Z_1_BTRE81902LG00_RTROPTP. You pull that off the river," said Redfordas prevented from attending Thursday's . "Plus, the agricultural water rights that the farmers and ranchers haveur gathered, clutching memorabi. You've got a depletion that has to be looked at."
An early supporter of President Obama, Redford said he is disappointed by the administration and Congress's progress on future fuel sources, noting that non-sustainable, carbon-based fuels are a major contributing factor to global warming and the problems facing those who depend on the Colorado Riverrtcuts' id='lw_1328835504_3'. But no one in government, Redford said, is courageous enough to make decisions that could prevent worsening of the situation.
"The future is about young people," he said/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Y2g9MzM2O2NyPTE7Y3c. "Young people coming on today, like Jamie my son, his son, other generations coming, what are we thinking about them?
"I think we have such a tendency to think short, short term, and therefore apply short term solutions to longer term problemsss='yshortcuts' id='lw. We're just not going to get there unless that changes."
(Editing By Chris Michaud and Bob Tourtellotte)
This article is brought to you by ONLINE DATING.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Robert De Niro apologizes for "white first lady" joke
(Reuters) - Actor Robert De Niro on Wednesday apologized for joking at a Democratic fundraiser with Michelle Obama about the possibility of having a "white first lady" at the White House after November's presidential elections.
The Oscar-winning star of "The Godfather: Part II" and "Raging Bull" said he had intended no offense with the remark about the wives of Republican presidential contenders Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney.
"My remarks, although spoken with satirical jest, were not meant to offend or embarrass anyone -- especially the first lady," De Niro said in a statement.
De Niro found himself in hot water after Monday's fundraiser in New York when he introduced Michelle Obama as the main speaker.
"Callista Gingrich, Karen Santorum, Ann Romneyent: 'She had everything, beaut. Now do you really think our country is ready for a white first lady?" De Niro saidat Sunday night's Gramm. "Too soon, right?"
Newt Gingrich called the remarks inexcusable and divisivensparent-95031,png' style='background-ima. Michelle Obama's office said the joke was "inappropriate."
(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy)
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The Oscar-winning star of "The Godfather: Part II" and "Raging Bull" said he had intended no offense with the remark about the wives of Republican presidential contenders Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney.
"My remarks, although spoken with satirical jest, were not meant to offend or embarrass anyone -- especially the first lady," De Niro said in a statement.
De Niro found himself in hot water after Monday's fundraiser in New York when he introduced Michelle Obama as the main speaker.
"Callista Gingrich, Karen Santorum, Ann Romneyent: 'She had everything, beaut. Now do you really think our country is ready for a white first lady?" De Niro saidat Sunday night's Gramm. "Too soon, right?"
Newt Gingrich called the remarks inexcusable and divisivensparent-95031,png' style='background-ima. Michelle Obama's office said the joke was "inappropriate."
(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy)
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Hugh Hefner's son Marston pleads to domestic violence
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The 21-year-old son of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner has pleaded no contest to a charge of domestic violence stemming from a fracas with his Playmate girlfriend Claire Sinclair.
Marston Hefner, after entering his plea on Tuesday to the charge of corporal injury to a cohabitant, is scheduled to be sentenced on June 12 in Pasadena, just outside of Los Angeles, according to Pasadena assistant city prosecutor Chris Blankenhorn.
Hefner is expected to receive one year of domestic violence counseling and be ordered to stay away from Sinclair for three years, Blankenhorn said.
Sinclair, who was named the 2011 "Playmate of the Year," was shown with a bruise on her arm in a photo on the celebrity website TMZ shortly after the incident first came to light.
(Reporting By Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)
This article is brought to you by FREE DATING SITES.
Marston Hefner, after entering his plea on Tuesday to the charge of corporal injury to a cohabitant, is scheduled to be sentenced on June 12 in Pasadena, just outside of Los Angeles, according to Pasadena assistant city prosecutor Chris Blankenhorn.
Hefner is expected to receive one year of domestic violence counseling and be ordered to stay away from Sinclair for three years, Blankenhorn said.
Sinclair, who was named the 2011 "Playmate of the Year," was shown with a bruise on her arm in a photo on the celebrity website TMZ shortly after the incident first came to light.
(Reporting By Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)
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Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Daughter of ailing Zsa Zsa Gabor seeks court help
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The estranged daughter of ailing screen legend Zsa Zsa Gabor is set to ask a Los Angeles court on Tuesday to appoint a conservator to oversee her 95 year-old mother's affairs, her attorney said on Tuesday.
In the latest round of a bitter dispute between Francesca Hilton and Gabor's 9th husband, Frederick Von Anhalt, Hilton says she fears that Gabor is being isolated from her family and that her financial affairs may be exploited.
Gabor is bedridden in her Bel Air home and is fed by a tube after suffering a stroke, breaking her hip and having a leg amputatedtanding of the most fundamen. She has been in and out of hospitals repeatedly in the last two years and is cared for by von Anhalt.
Hilton's lawyer claimed in a statement that she had recently discovered Gabor's home is in default over missed mortgage payments and that von Anhalt recently secured a $700,000 loan against the property.
Hilton, 64, Gabor's daughter from her second marriage to hotel baron Conrad Hilton, wants to have a court decide 'what is best for her mother, to determine whether Zsa Zsa is getting the best care she can afford, whether Zsa Zsa is being isolated or allowed to be with family and friends who love her, and whether her funds are being managed in her best interests.'
Von Anhalt could not immediately be reached for comment.
Attorney Kenneth Kossoff said that 'in spite of her conflicts with von Anhalt, Francesca has been hoping he had Zsa Zsa's interests at heart.
'However, having just recently learned that he took out a $700,000 loan, and that there was a notice of default recorded against the property in late February 2012 because he apparently has not been paying Zsa Zsa's mortgage payment, it became clear to Francesca that if she did not seek to protect her mother, no one else would.'
The conservatorship petition, to be presented in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, will allow the court to investigate Gabor's health, assets and total environment.
Hungarian-born Gabor starred in 1950s films 'Moulin Rouge' and 'Lili' and became a fixture on the Hollywood celebrity circuit by virtue of her multiple marriages to wealthy men.
Francesca Hilton, an actress and writer, has been estranged from her mother since a 2005 lawsuit involving family finances that was dismissed by a Los Angeles judge.
In the past year, Von Anhalt has put their Bel Air mansion up for sale for $15 million, announced plans to auction Gabor's fur coats to help pay for her medical care and claimed that he plans to give Gabor another baby through egg donation, artificial insemination and a surrogate mother.
(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
This article is brought to you by FREE DATING SITE.
In the latest round of a bitter dispute between Francesca Hilton and Gabor's 9th husband, Frederick Von Anhalt, Hilton says she fears that Gabor is being isolated from her family and that her financial affairs may be exploited.
Gabor is bedridden in her Bel Air home and is fed by a tube after suffering a stroke, breaking her hip and having a leg amputatedtanding of the most fundamen. She has been in and out of hospitals repeatedly in the last two years and is cared for by von Anhalt.
Hilton's lawyer claimed in a statement that she had recently discovered Gabor's home is in default over missed mortgage payments and that von Anhalt recently secured a $700,000 loan against the property.
Hilton, 64, Gabor's daughter from her second marriage to hotel baron Conrad Hilton, wants to have a court decide 'what is best for her mother, to determine whether Zsa Zsa is getting the best care she can afford, whether Zsa Zsa is being isolated or allowed to be with family and friends who love her, and whether her funds are being managed in her best interests.'
Von Anhalt could not immediately be reached for comment.
Attorney Kenneth Kossoff said that 'in spite of her conflicts with von Anhalt, Francesca has been hoping he had Zsa Zsa's interests at heart.
'However, having just recently learned that he took out a $700,000 loan, and that there was a notice of default recorded against the property in late February 2012 because he apparently has not been paying Zsa Zsa's mortgage payment, it became clear to Francesca that if she did not seek to protect her mother, no one else would.'
The conservatorship petition, to be presented in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, will allow the court to investigate Gabor's health, assets and total environment.
Hungarian-born Gabor starred in 1950s films 'Moulin Rouge' and 'Lili' and became a fixture on the Hollywood celebrity circuit by virtue of her multiple marriages to wealthy men.
Francesca Hilton, an actress and writer, has been estranged from her mother since a 2005 lawsuit involving family finances that was dismissed by a Los Angeles judge.
In the past year, Von Anhalt has put their Bel Air mansion up for sale for $15 million, announced plans to auction Gabor's fur coats to help pay for her medical care and claimed that he plans to give Gabor another baby through egg donation, artificial insemination and a surrogate mother.
(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
This article is brought to you by FREE DATING SITE.
George Michael "fighting fit," to re-start tour
LONDON (Reuters) - British singer George Michael has rescheduled dates of a tour he was forced to cancel when he fell ill with severe pneumonia last year and spent several weeks in a Vienna hospital.
'George Michael is back in good health and fighting fit after a battle with pneumonia,' said a statement released on his behalf on Tuesday.
The 48-year-old former Wham! frontman will re-start his 'Symphonica' tour on September 4 with a new concert in Vienna, where he will donate 1,000 tickets as a thank you to the medical staff who treated him.
'I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you first to the doctors and nurses who saved my life and took such great care of me and to all my fans, family and friends for their love and support,' he said.
'I'm looking forward to seeing everyone.'
Michael, who went on to pursue a successful solo career recording hits including 'Careless Whisper', 'Faith' and 'I Want Your Sex', will also perform at the Palais Garnier Opera House in Paris on September 9.
He will perform the postponed concert at London's Royal Albert Hall on September 29, and organizers said original tickets to cancelled dates will still be valid.
Michael has sold an estimated 100 million records over his career and has a personal fortune valued at around 90 million pounds ($120 million).
But the Grammy Award-winning artist has a history of run-ins with the law, notably in 2010 when he spent four weeks in a British prison for driving under the influence of cannabis.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
'George Michael is back in good health and fighting fit after a battle with pneumonia,' said a statement released on his behalf on Tuesday.
The 48-year-old former Wham! frontman will re-start his 'Symphonica' tour on September 4 with a new concert in Vienna, where he will donate 1,000 tickets as a thank you to the medical staff who treated him.
'I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you first to the doctors and nurses who saved my life and took such great care of me and to all my fans, family and friends for their love and support,' he said.
'I'm looking forward to seeing everyone.'
Michael, who went on to pursue a successful solo career recording hits including 'Careless Whisper', 'Faith' and 'I Want Your Sex', will also perform at the Palais Garnier Opera House in Paris on September 9.
He will perform the postponed concert at London's Royal Albert Hall on September 29, and organizers said original tickets to cancelled dates will still be valid.
Michael has sold an estimated 100 million records over his career and has a personal fortune valued at around 90 million pounds ($120 million).
But the Grammy Award-winning artist has a history of run-ins with the law, notably in 2010 when he spent four weeks in a British prison for driving under the influence of cannabis.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
George Michael "fighting fit", to re-start tour
LONDON (Reuters) - British singer George Michael has rescheduled dates of a tour he was forced to cancel when he fell ill with severe pneumonia last year and spent several weeks in a Vienna hospital.
'George Michael is back in good health and fighting fit after a battle with pneumonia,' said a statement released on his behalf on Tuesday.
The 48-year-old former Wham! frontman will re-start his 'Symphonica' tour on September 4 with a new concert in Vienna, where he will donate 1,000 tickets as a thank you to the medical staff who treated him.
'I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you first to the doctors and nurses who saved my life and took such great care of me and to all my fans, family and friends for their love and support,' he said.
'I'm looking forward to seeing everyone.'
Michael, who went on to pursue a successful solo career recording hits including 'Careless Whisper', 'Faith' and 'I Want Your Sex', will also perform at the Palais Garnier Opera House in Paris on September 9.
He will perform the postponed concert at London's Royal Albert Hall on September 29, and organizers said original tickets to cancelled dates will still be valid.
Michael has sold an estimated 100 million records over his career and has a personal fortune valued at around 90 million pounds ($120 million).
But the Grammy Award-winning artist has a history of run-ins with the law, notably in 2010 when he spent four weeks in a British prison for driving under the influence of cannabis.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
'George Michael is back in good health and fighting fit after a battle with pneumonia,' said a statement released on his behalf on Tuesday.
The 48-year-old former Wham! frontman will re-start his 'Symphonica' tour on September 4 with a new concert in Vienna, where he will donate 1,000 tickets as a thank you to the medical staff who treated him.
'I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you first to the doctors and nurses who saved my life and took such great care of me and to all my fans, family and friends for their love and support,' he said.
'I'm looking forward to seeing everyone.'
Michael, who went on to pursue a successful solo career recording hits including 'Careless Whisper', 'Faith' and 'I Want Your Sex', will also perform at the Palais Garnier Opera House in Paris on September 9.
He will perform the postponed concert at London's Royal Albert Hall on September 29, and organizers said original tickets to cancelled dates will still be valid.
Michael has sold an estimated 100 million records over his career and has a personal fortune valued at around 90 million pounds ($120 million).
But the Grammy Award-winning artist has a history of run-ins with the law, notably in 2010 when he spent four weeks in a British prison for driving under the influence of cannabis.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
Monday, March 19, 2012
Einstein the scientist, dreamer, lover: online
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - At speeds even he could barely imagine, Albert Einstein's private papers and innermost thoughts will soon be available online, from a rare scribble of 'E=mc2' in his own hand, to political pipe-dreams and secret love letters to his mistress.
Fifty-seven years after the Nobel Prize-winning physicist's death, the Israeli university which he helped found opened Internet access on Monday to some of the 80,000 documents Einstein bequeathed to it in his will.
It will go on adding more at http://alberteinstein.info and in time, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem says, it is committed to digitizing its entire Einstein archive.
Among items likely to attract popular attention is a very rare manuscript example of the formula the author of the theory of relativity proposed in 1905, E=mc2, where energy, E, equals mass times c - the speed of light in a vacuum - squared.
Once published, a cache of two dozen love letters to the woman who would become his second wife - but written while he was still married to his first - may also attract the curious.
So too may an idealistic proposal in 1930 for a 'secret council' of Jews and Arabs to bring peace to the Middle East.
At present, only a selection of documents dating from before 1923, when Einstein was 44, are available cords late last year and h. As papers are scanned, the bulk of them in Einstein's native German, the university will publish English translations and notes, said Hanoch Gutfreund, whose committee oversees the archive.
'This is going to be not only something to satisfy the curiosity of the curious,' he said_1329115023_5'Foo Fighters/span we. 'But it also will be a great education and research tool for academics.'
LOVER, DREAMER
Some items, he acknowledged, were so personal that the archivists weighed carefully whether make them public.
Among these are 24 love letters the scientist wrote to his cousin, Elsa Einstein, with whom he conducted an affair for several years before finally divorcing his first wife, Mileva Maric, and remarrying in 1919: 'If you let enough time go by,' Gutfreund concluded, 'Then it's kosher.'
Also not yet included online, but now on display at the university, is a letter Einstein wrote in German to the Arab newspaper Falastin in which he proposed a 'secret council' to help end Jewish-Arab conflict in then British-rule Palestine.
Einstein envisioned a committee of eight Jews and Arabs -- a physician, a jurist, a trade unionist and a cleric from either side -- that would meet weekly:
'Although this 'Secret Council' has no fixed authority, it will however, ultimately lead to a state in which the differences will gradually be eliminated,' Einstein wrotelly a pop record,' She flashed a . 'This representation will rise above the politics of the day.'
The scientist, who quit Nazi Germany for the United States, long supported the Jewish community in Palestineornia, February 12, 2. But he had sometimes mixed feelings about the Israeli state that was established during the war of 1948h some microphones and a tape machine,' said f. In 1952, he turned down an offer to become Israel's largely ceremonial president.
(Editing by Alastair Macdonald)
Fifty-seven years after the Nobel Prize-winning physicist's death, the Israeli university which he helped found opened Internet access on Monday to some of the 80,000 documents Einstein bequeathed to it in his will.
It will go on adding more at http://alberteinstein.info and in time, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem says, it is committed to digitizing its entire Einstein archive.
Among items likely to attract popular attention is a very rare manuscript example of the formula the author of the theory of relativity proposed in 1905, E=mc2, where energy, E, equals mass times c - the speed of light in a vacuum - squared.
Once published, a cache of two dozen love letters to the woman who would become his second wife - but written while he was still married to his first - may also attract the curious.
So too may an idealistic proposal in 1930 for a 'secret council' of Jews and Arabs to bring peace to the Middle East.
At present, only a selection of documents dating from before 1923, when Einstein was 44, are available cords late last year and h. As papers are scanned, the bulk of them in Einstein's native German, the university will publish English translations and notes, said Hanoch Gutfreund, whose committee oversees the archive.
'This is going to be not only something to satisfy the curiosity of the curious,' he said_1329115023_5'Foo Fighters/span we. 'But it also will be a great education and research tool for academics.'
LOVER, DREAMER
Some items, he acknowledged, were so personal that the archivists weighed carefully whether make them public.
Among these are 24 love letters the scientist wrote to his cousin, Elsa Einstein, with whom he conducted an affair for several years before finally divorcing his first wife, Mileva Maric, and remarrying in 1919: 'If you let enough time go by,' Gutfreund concluded, 'Then it's kosher.'
Also not yet included online, but now on display at the university, is a letter Einstein wrote in German to the Arab newspaper Falastin in which he proposed a 'secret council' to help end Jewish-Arab conflict in then British-rule Palestine.
Einstein envisioned a committee of eight Jews and Arabs -- a physician, a jurist, a trade unionist and a cleric from either side -- that would meet weekly:
'Although this 'Secret Council' has no fixed authority, it will however, ultimately lead to a state in which the differences will gradually be eliminated,' Einstein wrotelly a pop record,' She flashed a . 'This representation will rise above the politics of the day.'
The scientist, who quit Nazi Germany for the United States, long supported the Jewish community in Palestineornia, February 12, 2. But he had sometimes mixed feelings about the Israeli state that was established during the war of 1948h some microphones and a tape machine,' said f. In 1952, he turned down an offer to become Israel's largely ceremonial president.
(Editing by Alastair Macdonald)
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Dennis Miller joins ABC Comedy Pilot
NEW YORK, March 16 (TheWrap.com) - Dennis Miller has joined the ABC pilot 'Awesometown' as a genius boss who delivers cutting putdowns with surgical precision.
That shouldn't be a stretch for the former 'Saturday Night Live' 'Weekend Update' anchor, known for obscure and bitter insults-- at least, not on film, Accor. In recent years he has turned to political commentary, espousing his libertarian streak of conservatism.
He has also spent two years as a 'Monday Night Football' color commentator and hosted several talk shows.
'Awesometown,' written by Adam Sztykiel, follows four young professionals in New Yorks/1,2/dumwrBSbQJOs7_gLbkbL5g--/YXBwaWQ9e. The rest of the cast includes Nick Kocher, James Earl III, Amanda Crew and Ben Rappaportki/span and span class='yshortcuts' id='lw. Sztykiel executive produces with Josh Bycel, Jon Fener, Aaron Kaplan and Sean Perrone, and the pilot is directed by Jesse Peretz1,2/dumwrBSbQJOs7_gLbkbL5g--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9. The project comes from Twentieth Century Fox TV.
(Editing By Zorianna Kit)
That shouldn't be a stretch for the former 'Saturday Night Live' 'Weekend Update' anchor, known for obscure and bitter insults-- at least, not on film, Accor. In recent years he has turned to political commentary, espousing his libertarian streak of conservatism.
He has also spent two years as a 'Monday Night Football' color commentator and hosted several talk shows.
'Awesometown,' written by Adam Sztykiel, follows four young professionals in New Yorks/1,2/dumwrBSbQJOs7_gLbkbL5g--/YXBwaWQ9e. The rest of the cast includes Nick Kocher, James Earl III, Amanda Crew and Ben Rappaportki/span and span class='yshortcuts' id='lw. Sztykiel executive produces with Josh Bycel, Jon Fener, Aaron Kaplan and Sean Perrone, and the pilot is directed by Jesse Peretz1,2/dumwrBSbQJOs7_gLbkbL5g--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9. The project comes from Twentieth Century Fox TV.
(Editing By Zorianna Kit)
Saturday, March 17, 2012
No settlement or verdict in Nicolette Sheridan trial
LOS ANGELES, March 16 (TheWrap.com) - Nicollette Sheridan's wrongful termination trial against her former 'Desperate Housewives' bosses ended Friday just as it began the day -- completely up in the air.
Sheridan's legal team and attorneys for ABC and 'Housewives' creator Marc Cherry failed to reach a settlement late in the day, after meeting with Judge Helen Bendix about the possibility of resolving the case.
Adam Levin, attorney for Cherry and ABC, emerged from Bendix's chambers late Friday and announced that the attorneys were asked to meet and discuss a settlement by Judge Elizabeth Allen White, who is presiding over the caseand what we dramatize is the fact that she was. However, they were unable to reach an accord.
'We will wait for the jury,' Levin said.
The settlement discussions occurred after the jury, split 8 to 4, told White that it was 'hopelessly deadlocked.' White sent them home for the weekend, telling them that, if they couldn't reach a verdict on Monday, a mistrial would be likely.
Sheridan is seeking $6 million, claiming that she was fired from 'Desperate Housewives' in retaliation for complaining about Cherry striking her on setst intense preparation I've done fo. Cherry countered that he was merely attempting to give Sheridan stage direction, and that the decision to kill off her character, Edie Britt, was made months before the incident.
Sheridan's attorney, Mark Baute, told reporters outside the courthouse that, shockingly, he believes the jury is leaning in his client's favor.
'We believe the vote is 8-4 in our favor,' Baute positedortcuts' id='lw_1331125. 'We believe if the jury is patient and civilized with each other, the vote will swing our way.'
Baute did add that he believes that the jury foreman is 'against us ..edictions, Reuters sat do. He's trying to hang the case.'
The attorney added that he wouldn't be surprised if there were further closing argumentsarris), as told through the eyes of. Asked if he would take the case up again in the case of mistrial, Baute replied, 'One hundred percent.'
(Editing By Zorianna Kit)
This article is brought to you by FREE DATING SITES.
Sheridan's legal team and attorneys for ABC and 'Housewives' creator Marc Cherry failed to reach a settlement late in the day, after meeting with Judge Helen Bendix about the possibility of resolving the case.
Adam Levin, attorney for Cherry and ABC, emerged from Bendix's chambers late Friday and announced that the attorneys were asked to meet and discuss a settlement by Judge Elizabeth Allen White, who is presiding over the caseand what we dramatize is the fact that she was. However, they were unable to reach an accord.
'We will wait for the jury,' Levin said.
The settlement discussions occurred after the jury, split 8 to 4, told White that it was 'hopelessly deadlocked.' White sent them home for the weekend, telling them that, if they couldn't reach a verdict on Monday, a mistrial would be likely.
Sheridan is seeking $6 million, claiming that she was fired from 'Desperate Housewives' in retaliation for complaining about Cherry striking her on setst intense preparation I've done fo. Cherry countered that he was merely attempting to give Sheridan stage direction, and that the decision to kill off her character, Edie Britt, was made months before the incident.
Sheridan's attorney, Mark Baute, told reporters outside the courthouse that, shockingly, he believes the jury is leaning in his client's favor.
'We believe the vote is 8-4 in our favor,' Baute positedortcuts' id='lw_1331125. 'We believe if the jury is patient and civilized with each other, the vote will swing our way.'
Baute did add that he believes that the jury foreman is 'against us ..edictions, Reuters sat do. He's trying to hang the case.'
The attorney added that he wouldn't be surprised if there were further closing argumentsarris), as told through the eyes of. Asked if he would take the case up again in the case of mistrial, Baute replied, 'One hundred percent.'
(Editing By Zorianna Kit)
This article is brought to you by FREE DATING SITES.
Meghan McCain talks sex and politics in Playboy
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Meghan McCain, daughter of 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain, always has been outspoken and with her partying ways and sometimes daring clothes, she admits she would have been a crazy U.S-INVISIBLE,JPG');' width='93' height='57' al. first daughter.
In an interview with men's magazine Playboy released on Friday, the 27-year-old McCain admits to being paranoid about her image when wearing low-cut dresses but says she likes to show cleavage.
She insists she is not lesbian, as some have speculated, but says she might have an easier time in life if she werespan class='yshortcuts' . McCain reserves her most withering criticism for President Barack Obama and the current Republican primary race, but says talk of politics on a date is boring.
As a sometime darling of the paparazzi, McCain has been the most high-profile child of U.Shortcuts' id='lw_1328. Senator John McCain since the Arizona Republican's failed bid for president.
Since then, she has become a political pundit on TV and shows no sign of shying from the spotlight -- or holding her tonguem Kardashian/span didn't. She would have been inescapable if her father had won, in her estimation.
'You would have the craziest first daughter ever, who'd be making ridiculous headlines and hurting the administration every step of the way,' McCain told Playboy, in an interview that ranged from her love of shotguns to her admiration for the late gonzo journalist Hunter S Buddhist name on a wooden grave tablet at his stu. Thompson.
In 2009, McCain and racy reality TV star Tila Tequila were often photographed hanging out together want to cuddle up with span cla. Their friendship earned McCain plenty of attention, and she admits to some qualms about partying in public.
'I do get paranoid, when I'm wearing low-cut dresses, that somebody's going to take a picture and put it on the Internet and be like, 'Meghan was showing off her breasts again,'' McCain told Playboy.
'But you know, showing a little cleavage can make a girl feel sexy too,' she said.
In response to a question asking her to clarify a comment about hanging out in bed with her girlfriends to cope with her father's 2008 loss, McCain was direct'lw_1328923699_0'Ashton. 'I'm not a lesbian, if that's what you're asking,' she said.
'I've been hit on by women from time to time, and it might simplify my life if I were gay, but no,' she said.
McCain took aim at President Obama, arguing that 'morale in the military and in the country at large would be higher' if her father had won the White House.
As for the current Republican primary race and its contenders, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, she asked rhetorically, 'Where's the electricity?'
Still, McCain considers talk of politics on a date a turn-off_gLbkbL5g--/YXBwaWQ9eW5l. 'I'm obsessed with this stuff, but it doesn't put me in the mood,' she said.
And she spoke highly of 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' author Hunter Sming second in the nightmare fema. Thompson, who killed himself in 2005ttie and the Nottie', which was voted the worst ro. She described Thompson as someone who liked drinking whiskey and shooting gunsg' style='background-image. 'I appreciate both those things,' she saidd the worst romantic. 'We would have understood each other.'
The interview with McCain appears in the April issue of Playboy which hit newsstands on Friday.
(Reporting By Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
In an interview with men's magazine Playboy released on Friday, the 27-year-old McCain admits to being paranoid about her image when wearing low-cut dresses but says she likes to show cleavage.
She insists she is not lesbian, as some have speculated, but says she might have an easier time in life if she werespan class='yshortcuts' . McCain reserves her most withering criticism for President Barack Obama and the current Republican primary race, but says talk of politics on a date is boring.
As a sometime darling of the paparazzi, McCain has been the most high-profile child of U.Shortcuts' id='lw_1328. Senator John McCain since the Arizona Republican's failed bid for president.
Since then, she has become a political pundit on TV and shows no sign of shying from the spotlight -- or holding her tonguem Kardashian/span didn't. She would have been inescapable if her father had won, in her estimation.
'You would have the craziest first daughter ever, who'd be making ridiculous headlines and hurting the administration every step of the way,' McCain told Playboy, in an interview that ranged from her love of shotguns to her admiration for the late gonzo journalist Hunter S Buddhist name on a wooden grave tablet at his stu. Thompson.
In 2009, McCain and racy reality TV star Tila Tequila were often photographed hanging out together want to cuddle up with span cla. Their friendship earned McCain plenty of attention, and she admits to some qualms about partying in public.
'I do get paranoid, when I'm wearing low-cut dresses, that somebody's going to take a picture and put it on the Internet and be like, 'Meghan was showing off her breasts again,'' McCain told Playboy.
'But you know, showing a little cleavage can make a girl feel sexy too,' she said.
In response to a question asking her to clarify a comment about hanging out in bed with her girlfriends to cope with her father's 2008 loss, McCain was direct'lw_1328923699_0'Ashton. 'I'm not a lesbian, if that's what you're asking,' she said.
'I've been hit on by women from time to time, and it might simplify my life if I were gay, but no,' she said.
McCain took aim at President Obama, arguing that 'morale in the military and in the country at large would be higher' if her father had won the White House.
As for the current Republican primary race and its contenders, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, she asked rhetorically, 'Where's the electricity?'
Still, McCain considers talk of politics on a date a turn-off_gLbkbL5g--/YXBwaWQ9eW5l. 'I'm obsessed with this stuff, but it doesn't put me in the mood,' she said.
And she spoke highly of 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' author Hunter Sming second in the nightmare fema. Thompson, who killed himself in 2005ttie and the Nottie', which was voted the worst ro. She described Thompson as someone who liked drinking whiskey and shooting gunsg' style='background-image. 'I appreciate both those things,' she saidd the worst romantic. 'We would have understood each other.'
The interview with McCain appears in the April issue of Playboy which hit newsstands on Friday.
(Reporting By Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
A Minute With: Susan Sarandon on new film, single life
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Academy Award-winning actress Susan Sarandon plays a widow disappointed in her sons and unhappy with her life in new film comedy, 'Jeff Who Lives at Home,' in U.S He was pardoned a month aft. theaters on Friday.
The film stars Jason Segel as Jeff, a directionless, pot-smoking man who lives in his mother's (Sarandon) basementters is that they are really. Meanwhile estranged brother, Pat (Ed Helms) is convinced his wife (Judy Greer) is cheating on him.
Directed by Jay and Mark Duplass, the film follows Jeff during one day as he embarks on a new path down the road of life upon which he is convinced the cosmic universe has set -- thanks to a series of odd signs.
Sarandon sat down with Reuters to talk about the film, having sons smoking weed at home and what life has been like as a single woman since splitting with Tim Robbins three years ago.
Q: What made you decide to star in a low-budget, independent movie like this one?
A: 'I loved all the twists and turns and I was moved by the reconciliation of the family'Whittier, California/span,. I was also moved by the questions Jeff is asking#39; offices at the Wat. Every film is a different universe, and I thought this would be a fun universe to drop in on.'
Q: Most of your time on screen is spent in an office environment while your 'sons' have their own storyline789_4'love letters/span between a young span cla. Did you feel isolated from the rest of the cast during shooting?
A: 'She's kind of isolated anyway, that's the pointost of all let's really grow together and f. Everybody in that family has become estranged from each other and is isolated almost certain impeachment due to t. Even though Jeff is living downstairs, he's on some kind of nocturnal schedule and she's going off to work and really upset she's not able to have fun the former president's library. But I felt connected to Jason and Ed probably because I saw them off the set.'
Q: You have two boys of your own - Jack and Milesshortcuts' id='lw_1331592789_5'Nix. Although they are a younger than Jeff and Pat, did you see any of yourself or your boys in this on-screen family?
A: 'No, but my boys in real life are on their journeys too, trying to find a philosophy that gets them off the track of feeling they have to be successfult office by his successor, span class='ysho. They have questions because they're sons of famous people, which can be a drag'yshortcuts' id='lw_1331592789_7'President. And they're both artists so they're trying to understand that age old dilemma of art and commercein 1940, nearly three decades before becom. I don't mind if they live in the basement, take a stupid job or smoke some weed while they're figuring it out.'
Q: Really?
A: 'I would rather have them smoking weed than drinkingrly three decades before becoming . But I was very clear with my kids that some drugs can kill you the very first time you try thems then known, that 'nothi. They're all illegaland the subsequent cover-up, . At least something that grows and is a leaf is not the same as methamphetamine whose wife stood by him throughou. You can't just lump them all togethertween the time they met during tr. But what I said to my kids was that to have a drink or to smoke, to get a break from your life and to relax is one thinglmost certain impeachment due to . If you're smoking from the time you wake up, you will not have a life to have a break fromry have been unveiled at the f. The important thing is to talk about it.'
Q: You share a special kiss in this film that may shock certain moviegoersor jealousy, In fact I should always want . Were you nervous shooting it?
A: 'Not at allis political opponents' offices at t. I've been there before on filmng display in the span clas. I think it's more about the bravery involved with relationships - whether or not you're going to be vulnerable to another person, whether or not you ever want to be intimate with another personnt, died in 1994, Th. The age, the color is just a detaillw_1331592789_0'Richa. It's making that leap in extending yourself to another person.'
Q: Physically? Sexually? Emotionally?
A: 'It's the connection that's important, I think, as a womaners to 'burn a hamburger' for him, . I love sex, but sex without connection for me is not interestingo fine ever happened' to hi. When a guy says, 'It was nothing, it was just sex,' I believe that's true for him died in 1994, . It doesn't work that way for me39; offices at the Watergate . I could have just sex, but I'm interested in connection.'
Q: In 2009 you and your sons' father, Tim Robbins, ended a 21 year partnershipif you are through with c. How has it been being on your own?
A: 'It's been a lot of different thingss ours,' he continued, . It's traumatic and exhilarating 'Every day and every night I want. The one thing that's been really clear to me is that you have to think of your own life and your relationship and everything as a living organism rotating display in. It's constantly moving, changing, growingd change and wouldn't be you,' Nixon w. I think long-term relationships need to be constantly reevaluated and talked about.'
Q: Some people in similar situations feel that they've failed to keep the relationship togethers that they are really from . Did you?
A: 'Of course you feel like a failureve letters has really become a lost art with te. It's a big deal but again, it's an opportunity to growf the letters will be on rotating display in th. At the end of my first marriage (in 1979 to Chris Sarandon), it was about the loss of ideal, about who you thought this person wasmpt to bug his polit. I thought love conquered all and I had to reevaluate everythinghibit curator Bob Bostock, He sa. And you need your girlfriends, you need to take long, long walks until you're exhausted and no longer freaking out and you hold on until a new dawn, showing the poetic side of a man who. Then you get another chance.'
Q: After your marriage ended, you vowed to never marry againe, she writes: 'Hi-ho, Hi-ho! How. Your daughter (Eva Amurri, 26, whose father is filmmaker Franco Amurri) was married last fall39;s courtship between the time they met during tr. How was that for you?
A: 'She's brilliantand every night I want to see you and be with y. Her views about a lot of things are obviously different than mines go to the mountains weekends;. I don't know if that's in reaction to me or that's just the way she came in- because if you didn'. She's always been really clear about what she wants, what she doesn't want and she has executed her life in way to move toward thatanted - because if you didn'. She's picked the right guy who has the same goals and strategies of lifenge and wouldn't be you. It's not been traumatic at allfish ownership or jealousy, In fact I . The wedding was fun.'
(Reporting by Zorianna Kit)
This article is brought to you by FREE DATING.
The film stars Jason Segel as Jeff, a directionless, pot-smoking man who lives in his mother's (Sarandon) basementters is that they are really. Meanwhile estranged brother, Pat (Ed Helms) is convinced his wife (Judy Greer) is cheating on him.
Directed by Jay and Mark Duplass, the film follows Jeff during one day as he embarks on a new path down the road of life upon which he is convinced the cosmic universe has set -- thanks to a series of odd signs.
Sarandon sat down with Reuters to talk about the film, having sons smoking weed at home and what life has been like as a single woman since splitting with Tim Robbins three years ago.
Q: What made you decide to star in a low-budget, independent movie like this one?
A: 'I loved all the twists and turns and I was moved by the reconciliation of the family'Whittier, California/span,. I was also moved by the questions Jeff is asking#39; offices at the Wat. Every film is a different universe, and I thought this would be a fun universe to drop in on.'
Q: Most of your time on screen is spent in an office environment while your 'sons' have their own storyline789_4'love letters/span between a young span cla. Did you feel isolated from the rest of the cast during shooting?
A: 'She's kind of isolated anyway, that's the pointost of all let's really grow together and f. Everybody in that family has become estranged from each other and is isolated almost certain impeachment due to t. Even though Jeff is living downstairs, he's on some kind of nocturnal schedule and she's going off to work and really upset she's not able to have fun the former president's library. But I felt connected to Jason and Ed probably because I saw them off the set.'
Q: You have two boys of your own - Jack and Milesshortcuts' id='lw_1331592789_5'Nix. Although they are a younger than Jeff and Pat, did you see any of yourself or your boys in this on-screen family?
A: 'No, but my boys in real life are on their journeys too, trying to find a philosophy that gets them off the track of feeling they have to be successfult office by his successor, span class='ysho. They have questions because they're sons of famous people, which can be a drag'yshortcuts' id='lw_1331592789_7'President. And they're both artists so they're trying to understand that age old dilemma of art and commercein 1940, nearly three decades before becom. I don't mind if they live in the basement, take a stupid job or smoke some weed while they're figuring it out.'
Q: Really?
A: 'I would rather have them smoking weed than drinkingrly three decades before becoming . But I was very clear with my kids that some drugs can kill you the very first time you try thems then known, that 'nothi. They're all illegaland the subsequent cover-up, . At least something that grows and is a leaf is not the same as methamphetamine whose wife stood by him throughou. You can't just lump them all togethertween the time they met during tr. But what I said to my kids was that to have a drink or to smoke, to get a break from your life and to relax is one thinglmost certain impeachment due to . If you're smoking from the time you wake up, you will not have a life to have a break fromry have been unveiled at the f. The important thing is to talk about it.'
Q: You share a special kiss in this film that may shock certain moviegoersor jealousy, In fact I should always want . Were you nervous shooting it?
A: 'Not at allis political opponents' offices at t. I've been there before on filmng display in the span clas. I think it's more about the bravery involved with relationships - whether or not you're going to be vulnerable to another person, whether or not you ever want to be intimate with another personnt, died in 1994, Th. The age, the color is just a detaillw_1331592789_0'Richa. It's making that leap in extending yourself to another person.'
Q: Physically? Sexually? Emotionally?
A: 'It's the connection that's important, I think, as a womaners to 'burn a hamburger' for him, . I love sex, but sex without connection for me is not interestingo fine ever happened' to hi. When a guy says, 'It was nothing, it was just sex,' I believe that's true for him died in 1994, . It doesn't work that way for me39; offices at the Watergate . I could have just sex, but I'm interested in connection.'
Q: In 2009 you and your sons' father, Tim Robbins, ended a 21 year partnershipif you are through with c. How has it been being on your own?
A: 'It's been a lot of different thingss ours,' he continued, . It's traumatic and exhilarating 'Every day and every night I want. The one thing that's been really clear to me is that you have to think of your own life and your relationship and everything as a living organism rotating display in. It's constantly moving, changing, growingd change and wouldn't be you,' Nixon w. I think long-term relationships need to be constantly reevaluated and talked about.'
Q: Some people in similar situations feel that they've failed to keep the relationship togethers that they are really from . Did you?
A: 'Of course you feel like a failureve letters has really become a lost art with te. It's a big deal but again, it's an opportunity to growf the letters will be on rotating display in th. At the end of my first marriage (in 1979 to Chris Sarandon), it was about the loss of ideal, about who you thought this person wasmpt to bug his polit. I thought love conquered all and I had to reevaluate everythinghibit curator Bob Bostock, He sa. And you need your girlfriends, you need to take long, long walks until you're exhausted and no longer freaking out and you hold on until a new dawn, showing the poetic side of a man who. Then you get another chance.'
Q: After your marriage ended, you vowed to never marry againe, she writes: 'Hi-ho, Hi-ho! How. Your daughter (Eva Amurri, 26, whose father is filmmaker Franco Amurri) was married last fall39;s courtship between the time they met during tr. How was that for you?
A: 'She's brilliantand every night I want to see you and be with y. Her views about a lot of things are obviously different than mines go to the mountains weekends;. I don't know if that's in reaction to me or that's just the way she came in- because if you didn'. She's always been really clear about what she wants, what she doesn't want and she has executed her life in way to move toward thatanted - because if you didn'. She's picked the right guy who has the same goals and strategies of lifenge and wouldn't be you. It's not been traumatic at allfish ownership or jealousy, In fact I . The wedding was fun.'
(Reporting by Zorianna Kit)
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Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Puzo family fires back at studio in "Godfather" suit
(Reuters) - The estate of 'The Godfather' author Mario Puzo has fired back at movie studio Paramount Pictures with a $10 million counterclaim over Paramount's attempts to block a new book in the Mafia saga.
Lawyers for the estate of Puzo also sought to end Paramount's rights to the 1969 best-seller, which went on to become an Oscar-winning movie released by the studio.
'Mario Puzo brought vast wealth to Paramount at a time when they desperately needed itsparent-95031,png' style='. Now that he's gone, Paramount's trying to deprive his children of the rights he specifically reserved,' Bertram Fields, an attorney for the Puzo family, said in a statement on Tuesday.
'I promised Mario I'd protect his kids from this kind of reprehensible conduct Kutcher, also newly-separated from his actres. Paramount wanted a war, and they're going to get one - only the stakes will be much higher than they thought,' Fields added.
Paramount filed a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court in February that accused Puzo's heirs of approving sequels to 'The Godfather' without the studio's permission and in violation of earlier agreements.
A third book 'The Family Corleone' is due to be published in Mayes/1,2/dumwrBSbQJOs7_gLbkbL5g--/YXBwaWQ9. It is billed as an all-new prequel to 'The Godfather' set in New York in 1933.
The counterclaim, filed on Monday, said Puzo's estate had informed Paramount several times of the upcoming publication of 'The Family Corleone' and noted that the movie studio had not objected to the book 'The Godfather's Revenge' in 2006.
Moreover, the estate said, Puzo received only 'minimal payment' from Paramount for the rights to 'The Godfather' and that the agreement at the time excluded rights to any further books that include the characters from 'The Godfather' in new and different situations.
'The Puzo Estate, representing the children of Mario Puzo, needs no permission from Paramount to use the title of their father's novel or to publish a sequel novel or to use what Paramount claims are 'the Godfather works',' the counterclaim said.
Attorneys asked the court to terminate the rights of Paramount to the original 'The Godfather' book and asked for $10 million in damages.
Paramount could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday.
Mario Puzo died in 1999or lovers was 'The Notebook' . The two sequels to the story of the Corleone Mafia family that have been published since his death were written by U.Stle='' class='lzbg'LOS ANGELES (Reu. author Mark Winegardner, and the forthcoming third novel is written by Ed Falco.
(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
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Lawyers for the estate of Puzo also sought to end Paramount's rights to the 1969 best-seller, which went on to become an Oscar-winning movie released by the studio.
'Mario Puzo brought vast wealth to Paramount at a time when they desperately needed itsparent-95031,png' style='. Now that he's gone, Paramount's trying to deprive his children of the rights he specifically reserved,' Bertram Fields, an attorney for the Puzo family, said in a statement on Tuesday.
'I promised Mario I'd protect his kids from this kind of reprehensible conduct Kutcher, also newly-separated from his actres. Paramount wanted a war, and they're going to get one - only the stakes will be much higher than they thought,' Fields added.
Paramount filed a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court in February that accused Puzo's heirs of approving sequels to 'The Godfather' without the studio's permission and in violation of earlier agreements.
A third book 'The Family Corleone' is due to be published in Mayes/1,2/dumwrBSbQJOs7_gLbkbL5g--/YXBwaWQ9. It is billed as an all-new prequel to 'The Godfather' set in New York in 1933.
The counterclaim, filed on Monday, said Puzo's estate had informed Paramount several times of the upcoming publication of 'The Family Corleone' and noted that the movie studio had not objected to the book 'The Godfather's Revenge' in 2006.
Moreover, the estate said, Puzo received only 'minimal payment' from Paramount for the rights to 'The Godfather' and that the agreement at the time excluded rights to any further books that include the characters from 'The Godfather' in new and different situations.
'The Puzo Estate, representing the children of Mario Puzo, needs no permission from Paramount to use the title of their father's novel or to publish a sequel novel or to use what Paramount claims are 'the Godfather works',' the counterclaim said.
Attorneys asked the court to terminate the rights of Paramount to the original 'The Godfather' book and asked for $10 million in damages.
Paramount could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday.
Mario Puzo died in 1999or lovers was 'The Notebook' . The two sequels to the story of the Corleone Mafia family that have been published since his death were written by U.Stle='' class='lzbg'LOS ANGELES (Reu. author Mark Winegardner, and the forthcoming third novel is written by Ed Falco.
(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
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Monday, March 12, 2012
Nixon love letters to his "dearest heart" on display
(Reuters) - Old-school love letters between a young Richard Nixon and the woman he would later marry have been unveiled at the former president's library in California, showing the poetic side of a man who addressed his future wife as 'dearest heart.'
The letters, written by hand from 1938 to 1940, include professions of love in which Nixon tells Pat Ryan, as she was then known, that 'nothing so fine ever happened' to him as falling in love with her.
'Every day and every night I want to see you and be with you9422051_0'Amanda Knox/span, t. Yet I have no feeling of selfish ownership or jealousyan court/span, has sold he. In fact I should always want you to live just as you wanted - because if you didn't then you would change and wouldn't be you,' Nixon wrote in one of the letters, part of a rotating display at the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.
'Let's go for a long ride Sundays; let's go to the mountains weekends; let's read books in front of fires; most of all let's really grow together and find the happiness we know is ours,' he continued.
Nixon, who was U.Sthe public eye, . president from 1969 to 1974, stepped down in the face of almost certain impeachment due to the involvement of his aides and campaign in an attempt to bug his political opponents' offices at the Watergate complex and the subsequent cover-up.
He was pardoned a month after he left office by his successor, President Gerald Fordunds and a deep gash in her throat, in th. Nixon, whose wife stood by him throughout a scandal that damaged national trust in the White House and government, died in 1994.
The letters illustrate the couple's courtship between the time they met during tryouts for a community play in Whittier, California, in 1938 and when they were later married in 1940, nearly three decades before becoming president and first lady.
'What's so charming about these letters is that they are really from another time, because I think the writing of love letters has really become a lost art with technology,' said exhibit curator Bob Bostock.
He said that while Nixon's letters showed a romantic side, Pat Ryan's letters tended to be 'a bit lighter, humorous.'
In one, she writes: 'Hi-ho, Hi-ho! How does it go? It would be good to see and hear - The book was cons. Night school is over about 9 so if you are through with club meeting perhaps I'll see you?'
In another letter, she offers to 'burn a hamburger' for him.
Six of the letters will be on rotating display in the Nixon library in Yorba Linda, California, through September 3 as part of an exhibit to mark what would have been Pat's 100th birthday shelled by regime troop. She died in 1993.
(Reporting By Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Paul Thomasch; Desking by Eric Walsh)
This article is brought to you by FREE DATING SITES.
The letters, written by hand from 1938 to 1940, include professions of love in which Nixon tells Pat Ryan, as she was then known, that 'nothing so fine ever happened' to him as falling in love with her.
'Every day and every night I want to see you and be with you9422051_0'Amanda Knox/span, t. Yet I have no feeling of selfish ownership or jealousyan court/span, has sold he. In fact I should always want you to live just as you wanted - because if you didn't then you would change and wouldn't be you,' Nixon wrote in one of the letters, part of a rotating display at the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.
'Let's go for a long ride Sundays; let's go to the mountains weekends; let's read books in front of fires; most of all let's really grow together and find the happiness we know is ours,' he continued.
Nixon, who was U.Sthe public eye, . president from 1969 to 1974, stepped down in the face of almost certain impeachment due to the involvement of his aides and campaign in an attempt to bug his political opponents' offices at the Watergate complex and the subsequent cover-up.
He was pardoned a month after he left office by his successor, President Gerald Fordunds and a deep gash in her throat, in th. Nixon, whose wife stood by him throughout a scandal that damaged national trust in the White House and government, died in 1994.
The letters illustrate the couple's courtship between the time they met during tryouts for a community play in Whittier, California, in 1938 and when they were later married in 1940, nearly three decades before becoming president and first lady.
'What's so charming about these letters is that they are really from another time, because I think the writing of love letters has really become a lost art with technology,' said exhibit curator Bob Bostock.
He said that while Nixon's letters showed a romantic side, Pat Ryan's letters tended to be 'a bit lighter, humorous.'
In one, she writes: 'Hi-ho, Hi-ho! How does it go? It would be good to see and hear - The book was cons. Night school is over about 9 so if you are through with club meeting perhaps I'll see you?'
In another letter, she offers to 'burn a hamburger' for him.
Six of the letters will be on rotating display in the Nixon library in Yorba Linda, California, through September 3 as part of an exhibit to mark what would have been Pat's 100th birthday shelled by regime troop. She died in 1993.
(Reporting By Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Paul Thomasch; Desking by Eric Walsh)
This article is brought to you by FREE DATING SITES.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
French actor confirms engagement to Halle Berry: report
mlns:og='http://ogp.me/ns#' xmlns:fb='http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml'> French actor confirms engagement to Halle Berry: report - Yahoo! News . ...'/>
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Peter Thiel, university-hater, heads to campus
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Peter Thiel, the superstar Silicon Valley investor, has famously dismissed university as a waste of time and money, and even offered students cash to drop out.
But his views apparently do not apply to himself - or to Stanford University.
Thiel, 44, will teach at the elite university this spring, sharing pearls of entrepreneurial wisdom in a class called 'Computer Science 183: Startup.' The course is already oversubscribed, with Thiel's return to his alma mater sparking both enthusiasm and skepticism on a campus increasingly obsessed with start-up success.
'It's puzzling to us what he has to say,' said Nruthya Madappa, a senior in electrical engineering who saw rumors of Thiel's class explode on her Facebook news feed on a recent evening and rushed to sign up 'several minutes' after course enrollment went live.
'He's famously known to make people furious with his views and the way he questions things,' she said an offer to become a resident performer at a Las . 'But he's challenging us to look at our education here in a different way.'
Thiel, who co-founded online payment processor PayPal and later reaped billions with bets on gilded names like Facebook, LinkedIn and Zynga, is known for his maverick ways, even emerging recently as the main financial backer for libertarian presidential contender Ron Paulunce on the judge's panel of span class='y. Thiel has argued that the brightest young minds should strike out on their own and start companies rather than take on crushing debt to pursue a college degree.
Never mind that Thiel himself holds both a bachelor's degree in philosophy and a law degree from Stanford; he has backed up his talk with his checkbook It's becoming an arms race fo. Last year, Thiel started a fellowship that offered $100,000 to 20 budding entrepreneurs between the ages of 14 and 20 who would drop out to focus on their ventures.
But Thiel last year also submitted a formal course proposal to Stanford after approaching Sebastian Thrun, a Stanford computer science professor, to discuss the possibility of teachingX Factor' is already recording its audition phas. (Thrun has since left the university to work on an online education project.)
Mehran Sahami, the department's associate chair for education, said the curriculum committee debated whether Thiel would use the class as a conduit to recruit students to his companiesoing to have to pony up? Try $20 million, . Other faculty voiced concerns that they were 'not sure of his motivations given his history with respect to universities,' Sahami said.
'We went into this with eyes wide open,' said Sahami, a former research scientist at Google'X Factor' judges, Paula Abdul was . 'But on balance, this would be something our students would benefit from.'
Still others, like Vivek Wadhwa, a fellow at Stanford's Rock Center of Corporate Governance, were not so sure.
'It's hypocritical, but I'm not surprised,' Wadhwa saidd, So the question is: How much is. 'The same people who go around bashing education are the most educated So the question is: How muc. What's he going to do? Tell students, 'When you graduate from my class, drop out right after that?''
Thiel did not respond to requests for comment.
SPECIAL GUEST ZUCKERBERG?
With several weeks to go until Stanford's spring quarter begins, Thiel's class - capped by the university at 250 spots, the capacity of the lecture hall - is already oversubscribedeason, according to ano. There is a wait-listng an arms race for singing talent being pa. And those who have managed to enroll in time may participate only with Thiel's consent.
'Inner accounts from the early days of startups including PayPal, Google and Facebook will be used as case studies,' the listing for CS: 183 readsed at the 11th hour, She was also f. 'The class will be taught by entrepreneurs who have started companies worth over $1B and VCs(venture capitalists) who have invested in startups including Facebook and Spotify.'
Students expect the lectures - and particularly the guest appearances - to be high-wattage affairsabout an offer to become a resident p. There's already speculation over who he might bring in: Sean Parker? Mark Zuckerberg?
'It could be anybody,' Madappa saidcted that offer three w. 'He's well-connected in the Valley and is instead thinking about an offer . Who knows who he's going to pick to come?'
The excitement bubbling around Thiel's class speaks to the startup-mania that's consumed Stanford perhaps more than any other American universitypears/span has rejected a $10 million offer to h. Although interest waned in the 2000s, Stanford's introductory computer science class recently broke an enrollment record last set during the 1999-2000 academic year, at the height of the dot-com bubble, when 762 students took the course during the 1999-2000 academic year.
Sitting in the student union cafe on a recent evening, Zach Weiner, a senior majoring in symbolic systems, described a campus where Andrew Luck, the football team's star quarterback and 2011 Heisman Trophy runner-up, could pass largely unharassed but where the undergraduate daughters of the venture capitalist Vinod Khosla are considered quasi-celebrities.
'Kids are rabid about entrepreneurship,' Weiner saids' id='lw_1331364364_4'Nicole S. 'They say Stanford can't sell out a home football game but they can sell out a Peter Thiel talk 20 times over.'
Travis Kiefer, 24, is one former student who followed Thiel's recommended pathpony up? Try $20 million, Reports . He left Stanford before his senior year and moved into a two-bedroom house off University Avevenue in Palo Alto - just a few blocks from the storied garage where Hewlett-Packard was born - to start a travel website.
Although his parents 'expressed very strongly that they want to come out and see me in a cap and gown,' Kiefer said they would understand if he never returned What the ne. But Kiefer called Thiel's arguments 'too extreme,' saying that skipping college altogether 'might work for some people, but those people are so few and far between.'
Kiefer said he fully planned to return if his startup stalled, thanks to Stanford policies that do not penalize but almost encourage leaves of absences.
'It's really easy to just take a year off,' Kiefer said already recording its audit. 'They welcome you back with open arms.'
Harry Elam, a vice provost of undergraduate education, said that exposing students to Thiel's arguments was consistent with the university's mission.
In fact, he said, the university considered one of its most important commencement speeches in recent years to be the 2005 address by Steve Jobs, the late Apple CEO, who recounted his own experience dropping out of Reed College in 1972.
'The spirit of the message, and the idea of what it takes to succeed in entrepreneurship, is something we understand,' Elam said.
(Reporting By Gerry Shih; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Cynthia Osterman)
This article is brought to you by MATCHMAKING.
But his views apparently do not apply to himself - or to Stanford University.
Thiel, 44, will teach at the elite university this spring, sharing pearls of entrepreneurial wisdom in a class called 'Computer Science 183: Startup.' The course is already oversubscribed, with Thiel's return to his alma mater sparking both enthusiasm and skepticism on a campus increasingly obsessed with start-up success.
'It's puzzling to us what he has to say,' said Nruthya Madappa, a senior in electrical engineering who saw rumors of Thiel's class explode on her Facebook news feed on a recent evening and rushed to sign up 'several minutes' after course enrollment went live.
'He's famously known to make people furious with his views and the way he questions things,' she said an offer to become a resident performer at a Las . 'But he's challenging us to look at our education here in a different way.'
Thiel, who co-founded online payment processor PayPal and later reaped billions with bets on gilded names like Facebook, LinkedIn and Zynga, is known for his maverick ways, even emerging recently as the main financial backer for libertarian presidential contender Ron Paulunce on the judge's panel of span class='y. Thiel has argued that the brightest young minds should strike out on their own and start companies rather than take on crushing debt to pursue a college degree.
Never mind that Thiel himself holds both a bachelor's degree in philosophy and a law degree from Stanford; he has backed up his talk with his checkbook It's becoming an arms race fo. Last year, Thiel started a fellowship that offered $100,000 to 20 budding entrepreneurs between the ages of 14 and 20 who would drop out to focus on their ventures.
But Thiel last year also submitted a formal course proposal to Stanford after approaching Sebastian Thrun, a Stanford computer science professor, to discuss the possibility of teachingX Factor' is already recording its audition phas. (Thrun has since left the university to work on an online education project.)
Mehran Sahami, the department's associate chair for education, said the curriculum committee debated whether Thiel would use the class as a conduit to recruit students to his companiesoing to have to pony up? Try $20 million, . Other faculty voiced concerns that they were 'not sure of his motivations given his history with respect to universities,' Sahami said.
'We went into this with eyes wide open,' said Sahami, a former research scientist at Google'X Factor' judges, Paula Abdul was . 'But on balance, this would be something our students would benefit from.'
Still others, like Vivek Wadhwa, a fellow at Stanford's Rock Center of Corporate Governance, were not so sure.
'It's hypocritical, but I'm not surprised,' Wadhwa saidd, So the question is: How much is. 'The same people who go around bashing education are the most educated So the question is: How muc. What's he going to do? Tell students, 'When you graduate from my class, drop out right after that?''
Thiel did not respond to requests for comment.
SPECIAL GUEST ZUCKERBERG?
With several weeks to go until Stanford's spring quarter begins, Thiel's class - capped by the university at 250 spots, the capacity of the lecture hall - is already oversubscribedeason, according to ano. There is a wait-listng an arms race for singing talent being pa. And those who have managed to enroll in time may participate only with Thiel's consent.
'Inner accounts from the early days of startups including PayPal, Google and Facebook will be used as case studies,' the listing for CS: 183 readsed at the 11th hour, She was also f. 'The class will be taught by entrepreneurs who have started companies worth over $1B and VCs(venture capitalists) who have invested in startups including Facebook and Spotify.'
Students expect the lectures - and particularly the guest appearances - to be high-wattage affairsabout an offer to become a resident p. There's already speculation over who he might bring in: Sean Parker? Mark Zuckerberg?
'It could be anybody,' Madappa saidcted that offer three w. 'He's well-connected in the Valley and is instead thinking about an offer . Who knows who he's going to pick to come?'
The excitement bubbling around Thiel's class speaks to the startup-mania that's consumed Stanford perhaps more than any other American universitypears/span has rejected a $10 million offer to h. Although interest waned in the 2000s, Stanford's introductory computer science class recently broke an enrollment record last set during the 1999-2000 academic year, at the height of the dot-com bubble, when 762 students took the course during the 1999-2000 academic year.
Sitting in the student union cafe on a recent evening, Zach Weiner, a senior majoring in symbolic systems, described a campus where Andrew Luck, the football team's star quarterback and 2011 Heisman Trophy runner-up, could pass largely unharassed but where the undergraduate daughters of the venture capitalist Vinod Khosla are considered quasi-celebrities.
'Kids are rabid about entrepreneurship,' Weiner saids' id='lw_1331364364_4'Nicole S. 'They say Stanford can't sell out a home football game but they can sell out a Peter Thiel talk 20 times over.'
Travis Kiefer, 24, is one former student who followed Thiel's recommended pathpony up? Try $20 million, Reports . He left Stanford before his senior year and moved into a two-bedroom house off University Avevenue in Palo Alto - just a few blocks from the storied garage where Hewlett-Packard was born - to start a travel website.
Although his parents 'expressed very strongly that they want to come out and see me in a cap and gown,' Kiefer said they would understand if he never returned What the ne. But Kiefer called Thiel's arguments 'too extreme,' saying that skipping college altogether 'might work for some people, but those people are so few and far between.'
Kiefer said he fully planned to return if his startup stalled, thanks to Stanford policies that do not penalize but almost encourage leaves of absences.
'It's really easy to just take a year off,' Kiefer said already recording its audit. 'They welcome you back with open arms.'
Harry Elam, a vice provost of undergraduate education, said that exposing students to Thiel's arguments was consistent with the university's mission.
In fact, he said, the university considered one of its most important commencement speeches in recent years to be the 2005 address by Steve Jobs, the late Apple CEO, who recounted his own experience dropping out of Reed College in 1972.
'The spirit of the message, and the idea of what it takes to succeed in entrepreneurship, is something we understand,' Elam said.
(Reporting By Gerry Shih; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Cynthia Osterman)
This article is brought to you by MATCHMAKING.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Brad Pitt stages ''mini-Grammys'' show to help New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Every time he crosses the Claiborne Avenue bridge heading east across the New Orleans Industrial Canal, actor Brad Pitt gets a lump in his throat.
From that vantage point, he can look down on a section of the city's Lower Ninth Ward that is ground zero for 'Make It Right,' a home rebuilding initiative Pitt launched to help people whose homes were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which killed 1,500 people and devastated the historic Southern city.
'Each time I come back to New Orleans and drive over that bridge, I get this swell of joy,' Pitt told Reuters, his eyes going wateryBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTU3O3B4b2ZmPTUwO3. 'It's means a lot to me to watch that neighborhood take shape.'
Pitt and his movie star partner, Angelina Jolie, own a house in the city's French Quarter, and they visit the city regularly with their six children.
The actor shares his feelings about the city and its recovery with a few thousand people on Saturday evening, as he and comedian Ellen DeGeneres, a New Orleans native, host the Make It Right Foundation's biggest fundraiser at a New Orleans hotel.
Billed as 'A Night to Make It Right,' the star-studded, sold-out gala is expected to draw 1,200 guests who paid between $1,000 and $2,500 to attend a dinner prepared by New Orleans celebrity chefs John Besh and Emeril Lagasse, and a concert featuring musical stars Rihanna, Sheryl Crow, Seal and Druneral plans, . John.
The lineup includes Hollywood luminaries and honorary hosts Sean Penn, Spike Lee, Josh Brolin and Kevin Spacey.
In addition, some 2,000 people have anted up $150 for an 'after party' hosted by actor-comedian Aziz Ansari, with musical performances by Kanye West, Snoop Dogg and the Soul Rebels.
Asked if it was difficult to get the big names to journey to New Orleans for the event, Pitt joked, 'Even though these people don't like me that much, it really was simple.'
Noting that the celebrities traveled from as far away as Paris for the event, Pitt said the turnout was a mark of their regard for New Orleans.
'They carved this time out of their schedule strictly for this event, and came on their own dime,' he saiden sealed by officials until further tests . 'We have so much incredible talent that wanted to come and support the city - it's going to be like a mini-Grammys show.'
Pitt estimated the events and sponsorships would raise $4 million for Make it Right, which aims to build 150 homes in the Lower Ninth Ward and has pulled in about $30 million since its founding four years ago.
NEW AND IMPROVED
Since 2007, 75 homes have sprouted in a 16-block area that was at the epicenter of the Hurricane Katrina tragedyshe died, Celebrity website TMZ. Built to the specifications of architects selected through an international design competition held by Make It Right, all of the homes stand 5 to 8 feet off the ground, on pilings designed to keep the homes dry in the event of another flood.
Multi-angled steel roofs, windows of ultra-strong glass and tough siding materials are designed to withstand hurricane-force windssed the death of the we. Solar panels, rainwater collection systems and maximum air-circulation designs created homes with low utility bills.
The new houses are a sharp contrast to the modest, mostly one-story homes that characterized the neighborhood before Katrinafs,com/en_US/News/US-AFPRelax/022_51297839pb. Many of them stand just yards (meters) away from the spot where an Industrial Canal floodwall ruptured after the storm, putting the neighborhood under several feet of water.
Gloria Mae Guy still talks about how she and her neighbor climbed to a rooftop as the rising water forced them from their homesouston was born in Newark and got her start as . 'We held on all night until a boat came and they helped us get out,' she said.
Guy, 72, is back in the spot where she and her husband raised their five children, but now she lives in a modern, energy-efficient, two-story home, designed and built by Make It Right contractors over her mother's death, . 'I'm happy to be home, and I wouldn't be here if it weren't for Brad Pitt,' she said.
Tom Darden, executive director of the Make It Right Foundation, said Pitt made the goal of rebuilding according to standards of sustainable construction clear from the beginning, but equally important was finding ways to reduce construction costs.
'Brad said, 'We're going to build the best house we possibly can build and figure out how to make it affordable,'' Darden said.
It was a tall order, but through several years of studying sustainable building techniques and amassing contractors familiar with the methods, the foundation is gradually bringing its costs down, Darden said.
Darden emphasized that while Make It Right was formed to help low-income residents remain in the neighborhood where generations of their families have lived, the initiative was not about handouts.
Applicants for the Make It Right homes must pass an approvals process that requires showing proof of income and the ability to make payments on a mortgage, along with insurance and maintenance costs.
Another goal is to apply the techniques learned in New Orleans to other areas in need, Darden said, noting that Make It Right had recently begun projects in Newark, New Jersey, and Kansas City, Missouri.
'Brad is our visionary,' he saidAtlanta, Georgia, as early as Tuesday, Houston . 'I think for him it's largely a social justice issue and he wants to help as many people as he can.'
(Editing by Greg McCune and Peter Cooney)
This article is brought to you by DATING ADVICE.
From that vantage point, he can look down on a section of the city's Lower Ninth Ward that is ground zero for 'Make It Right,' a home rebuilding initiative Pitt launched to help people whose homes were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which killed 1,500 people and devastated the historic Southern city.
'Each time I come back to New Orleans and drive over that bridge, I get this swell of joy,' Pitt told Reuters, his eyes going wateryBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTU3O3B4b2ZmPTUwO3. 'It's means a lot to me to watch that neighborhood take shape.'
Pitt and his movie star partner, Angelina Jolie, own a house in the city's French Quarter, and they visit the city regularly with their six children.
The actor shares his feelings about the city and its recovery with a few thousand people on Saturday evening, as he and comedian Ellen DeGeneres, a New Orleans native, host the Make It Right Foundation's biggest fundraiser at a New Orleans hotel.
Billed as 'A Night to Make It Right,' the star-studded, sold-out gala is expected to draw 1,200 guests who paid between $1,000 and $2,500 to attend a dinner prepared by New Orleans celebrity chefs John Besh and Emeril Lagasse, and a concert featuring musical stars Rihanna, Sheryl Crow, Seal and Druneral plans, . John.
The lineup includes Hollywood luminaries and honorary hosts Sean Penn, Spike Lee, Josh Brolin and Kevin Spacey.
In addition, some 2,000 people have anted up $150 for an 'after party' hosted by actor-comedian Aziz Ansari, with musical performances by Kanye West, Snoop Dogg and the Soul Rebels.
Asked if it was difficult to get the big names to journey to New Orleans for the event, Pitt joked, 'Even though these people don't like me that much, it really was simple.'
Noting that the celebrities traveled from as far away as Paris for the event, Pitt said the turnout was a mark of their regard for New Orleans.
'They carved this time out of their schedule strictly for this event, and came on their own dime,' he saiden sealed by officials until further tests . 'We have so much incredible talent that wanted to come and support the city - it's going to be like a mini-Grammys show.'
Pitt estimated the events and sponsorships would raise $4 million for Make it Right, which aims to build 150 homes in the Lower Ninth Ward and has pulled in about $30 million since its founding four years ago.
NEW AND IMPROVED
Since 2007, 75 homes have sprouted in a 16-block area that was at the epicenter of the Hurricane Katrina tragedyshe died, Celebrity website TMZ. Built to the specifications of architects selected through an international design competition held by Make It Right, all of the homes stand 5 to 8 feet off the ground, on pilings designed to keep the homes dry in the event of another flood.
Multi-angled steel roofs, windows of ultra-strong glass and tough siding materials are designed to withstand hurricane-force windssed the death of the we. Solar panels, rainwater collection systems and maximum air-circulation designs created homes with low utility bills.
The new houses are a sharp contrast to the modest, mostly one-story homes that characterized the neighborhood before Katrinafs,com/en_US/News/US-AFPRelax/022_51297839pb. Many of them stand just yards (meters) away from the spot where an Industrial Canal floodwall ruptured after the storm, putting the neighborhood under several feet of water.
Gloria Mae Guy still talks about how she and her neighbor climbed to a rooftop as the rising water forced them from their homesouston was born in Newark and got her start as . 'We held on all night until a boat came and they helped us get out,' she said.
Guy, 72, is back in the spot where she and her husband raised their five children, but now she lives in a modern, energy-efficient, two-story home, designed and built by Make It Right contractors over her mother's death, . 'I'm happy to be home, and I wouldn't be here if it weren't for Brad Pitt,' she said.
Tom Darden, executive director of the Make It Right Foundation, said Pitt made the goal of rebuilding according to standards of sustainable construction clear from the beginning, but equally important was finding ways to reduce construction costs.
'Brad said, 'We're going to build the best house we possibly can build and figure out how to make it affordable,'' Darden said.
It was a tall order, but through several years of studying sustainable building techniques and amassing contractors familiar with the methods, the foundation is gradually bringing its costs down, Darden said.
Darden emphasized that while Make It Right was formed to help low-income residents remain in the neighborhood where generations of their families have lived, the initiative was not about handouts.
Applicants for the Make It Right homes must pass an approvals process that requires showing proof of income and the ability to make payments on a mortgage, along with insurance and maintenance costs.
Another goal is to apply the techniques learned in New Orleans to other areas in need, Darden said, noting that Make It Right had recently begun projects in Newark, New Jersey, and Kansas City, Missouri.
'Brad is our visionary,' he saidAtlanta, Georgia, as early as Tuesday, Houston . 'I think for him it's largely a social justice issue and he wants to help as many people as he can.'
(Editing by Greg McCune and Peter Cooney)
This article is brought to you by DATING ADVICE.
Britney Spears rejects $10M bid host 'X-Factor'
LOS ANGELES, March 9 (TheWrap.com) - Britney Spears has rejected a $10 million offer to host the next season of 'The X Factor,' TheWrap has learned.
So the question is: How much is Fox going to have to pony up? Try $20 million.
Reports this week that the pop star was considering a $10 million offer to host next fall's seasons of 'The X Factor' are out of date, according to a knowledgeable individual in Spears' camp.
The singer rejected that offer three weeks ago and is instead thinking about an offer to become a resident performer at a Las Vegas hotel in the fall, a la Celine Dion.
So here comes a game of chicken 'span class='yshortcuts' id='lw_13294. Fox desperately needs a big name to announce on the judge's panel of Simon Cowell's show, now that NBC's hit show 'The Voice' will be competing with them in the fall.
Spears' camp wants $20 million.
It's becoming an arms race for singing talent being paid to sit behind tables and. talk.
NBC has put its money where its mouth is, paying Christina Aguilera upward of $10 million to come back and judge the new season of 'The Voice.' They've given handsome paychecks, if not as much, to the other judges as well.
That pales in comparison to what Fox has shelled out for the 'X Factor' judgesina before its primary, st. Paula Abdul was paid $2.5 million for the last season, according to another knowledgeable insider, and she was announced at the 11th hour.
She was also fired, as were judge Nicole Scherzinger and host Steve Jones.
'X Factor' is already recording its audition phase, but won't need the judges until the end of May.
What the network wants is a big piece of news to present to advertisers at their upfront sales presentations on May 14.
Neither Fox, Spears' or Cowell's camps would comment.
(Editing By Zorianna Kit)
So the question is: How much is Fox going to have to pony up? Try $20 million.
Reports this week that the pop star was considering a $10 million offer to host next fall's seasons of 'The X Factor' are out of date, according to a knowledgeable individual in Spears' camp.
The singer rejected that offer three weeks ago and is instead thinking about an offer to become a resident performer at a Las Vegas hotel in the fall, a la Celine Dion.
So here comes a game of chicken 'span class='yshortcuts' id='lw_13294. Fox desperately needs a big name to announce on the judge's panel of Simon Cowell's show, now that NBC's hit show 'The Voice' will be competing with them in the fall.
Spears' camp wants $20 million.
It's becoming an arms race for singing talent being paid to sit behind tables and. talk.
NBC has put its money where its mouth is, paying Christina Aguilera upward of $10 million to come back and judge the new season of 'The Voice.' They've given handsome paychecks, if not as much, to the other judges as well.
That pales in comparison to what Fox has shelled out for the 'X Factor' judgesina before its primary, st. Paula Abdul was paid $2.5 million for the last season, according to another knowledgeable insider, and she was announced at the 11th hour.
She was also fired, as were judge Nicole Scherzinger and host Steve Jones.
'X Factor' is already recording its audition phase, but won't need the judges until the end of May.
What the network wants is a big piece of news to present to advertisers at their upfront sales presentations on May 14.
Neither Fox, Spears' or Cowell's camps would comment.
(Editing By Zorianna Kit)
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