LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pop star Justin Bieber and his girlfriend, Selena Gomez, a Disney actress and singer, have broken up, ending a relationship that made them one of Hollywood's most high-profile young couples, media reports said.
Bieber, 18, and Gomez, 20, disclosed their relationship in February 2011 when they appeared together at an Oscar night party after months of rumors of their dating.
E! Online late on Friday was the first to report the split, with other media outlets including US Weekly and People also saying the relationship was over. The reports cited unnamed sources close to the couple.
Representatives for Bieber and Gomez did not returns calls or emails on Saturday.
Bieber has released two No. 1 albums in just over a year - the holiday-themed 'Under the Mistletoe' and his latest, 'Believe.' In September, he topped Billboard's '21 Under 21' list of top young musical acts. It was his second year in a row with the title.
Gomez rose to fame as a teenager in the Walt Disney Co television series 'Wizards of Waverly Place' and has enjoyed success as a pop singer.
(Reporting By Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Greg McCune and Peter Cooney)
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Friday, November 9, 2012
Mick Jagger's love letters to singer Marsha Hunt up for auction
(Reuters) - Love letters written by Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger to American singer Marsha Hunt, discussing poetry and his personal turmoil, will hit the auction block next month.
Hunt, with whom Jagger had his first child, Karis, told Britain's Guardian newspaper she was selling the letters, written in July and August 1969, because she had been unable to pay her bills.
'I'm broke,' Hunt, who lives in France, told the newspaper.
The Guardian said on Friday the 10 letters would be sold by Sotheby's on December 12.
The auction house values the letters from between 70,000 and 100,000 pounds ($111,000-$160,000).
Jagger wrote them to Hunt while filming the Tony Richardson movie 'Ned Kelly' in Australia.
They are described as showing a sensitive side of the then-young singer, who wrote about the poetry of Emily Dickinson, meeting author Christopher Isherwood and an unrealized multimedia project.
Jagger's relationship with Hunt, who is African-American, was kept under wraps until 1972.
'The sale is important,' Hunt told The Guardian. 'Someone, I hope, will buy those letters as our generation is dying and with us will go the reality of who we were and what life was.'
Hunt has said she was the inspiration for the Rolling Stones' song 'Brown Sugar,' which Jagger wrote while in Australia.
The rock star also cites in the letters the disintegration of his relationship with singer Marianne Faithful, whom he was also dating at the time, and the death of Rolling Stones' guitarist Brian Jones.
(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Peter Cooney)
This news article is brought to you by PERSONAL FINANCE BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Hunt, with whom Jagger had his first child, Karis, told Britain's Guardian newspaper she was selling the letters, written in July and August 1969, because she had been unable to pay her bills.
'I'm broke,' Hunt, who lives in France, told the newspaper.
The Guardian said on Friday the 10 letters would be sold by Sotheby's on December 12.
The auction house values the letters from between 70,000 and 100,000 pounds ($111,000-$160,000).
Jagger wrote them to Hunt while filming the Tony Richardson movie 'Ned Kelly' in Australia.
They are described as showing a sensitive side of the then-young singer, who wrote about the poetry of Emily Dickinson, meeting author Christopher Isherwood and an unrealized multimedia project.
Jagger's relationship with Hunt, who is African-American, was kept under wraps until 1972.
'The sale is important,' Hunt told The Guardian. 'Someone, I hope, will buy those letters as our generation is dying and with us will go the reality of who we were and what life was.'
Hunt has said she was the inspiration for the Rolling Stones' song 'Brown Sugar,' which Jagger wrote while in Australia.
The rock star also cites in the letters the disintegration of his relationship with singer Marianne Faithful, whom he was also dating at the time, and the death of Rolling Stones' guitarist Brian Jones.
(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Peter Cooney)
This news article is brought to you by PERSONAL FINANCE BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Author Philip Roth says he is done with writing
(Reuters) - Seminal American author Philip Roth, whose novels explored modern Jewish-American life, has told a French magazine that he will write no more books because he has lost his passion for it.
The author of such novels as 'American Pastoral', for which he won a Pulitzer Prize, and 'Portnoy's Complaint' slipped his retirement announcement into an interview last month with French magazine Les Inrocks.
On Friday, Houghton Mifflin confirmed his decision. 'He told me it was true,' said Lori Glazer, executive director of publicity at the publisher.
Roth, 79, one of the world's most revered novelists and a frequent contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature, said he had not written for three years.
'To tell you the truth, I'm done,' Roth was quoted as telling Les Inrocks. ''Nemesis' will be my last book,' he said of his 2010 short novel set against a fictional polio epidemic in Newark, New Jersey, in 1944.
The novella 'Goodbye, Columbus' catapulted Roth onto the American literary scene in 1959 with its satirical depiction of class and religion in American life. Published along with five other short stories, it won the National Book Award in 1960. He again received that award in 1995 for 'Sabbath's Theater.'
Roth, who has written some 25 novels, told Les Inrocks that he had always found writing difficult and that he wanted nothing more to do with reading, writing or talking about books.
He said that when he was 74, he started re-reading his favorite novels by authors Ernest Hemingway, Ivan Turgenev, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and others, and then re-read his own novels.
'I wanted to see whether I had wasted my time writing,' he explained. 'After that, I decided that I was done with fiction. I no longer want to read, to write, I don't even want to talk about it anymore,' he was quoted as saying.
'I have dedicated my life to the novel: I studied, I taught, I wrote, I read - to the exclusion of almost everything else. Enough is enough! I no longer feel this fanaticism to write that I have experienced all my life. The idea of trying to write again is impossible,' Roth told the magazine.
Roth's four most recent novels, 'Everyman,' 'Indignation,' 'The Humbling' and 'Nemesis', have been short works, often focusing on ageing, physical decline, depression and death.
New Jersey-born Roth is best known for his semi-autobiographical and unreliable alter-ego Nathan Zuckerman, who appeared in nine of his novels.
Roth told Les Inrocks that he had spent most of his time in recent years preparing material for his biographer, Blake Bailey. 'If I had a choice, I would prefer that there is no biography written about me, but there will be biographies after my death so (I wanted) to be sure that one of them is correct,' Roth was quoted as saying.
Roth said he had asked his literary executors and his agent to destroy his personal archives after his death once Bailey has finished the biography. 'I don't want my personal papers hanging around everywhere,' he said.
(Reporting By Eric Kelsey and Jill Serjeant in Los Angeles)
This article is brought to you by DATING SERVICE.
The author of such novels as 'American Pastoral', for which he won a Pulitzer Prize, and 'Portnoy's Complaint' slipped his retirement announcement into an interview last month with French magazine Les Inrocks.
On Friday, Houghton Mifflin confirmed his decision. 'He told me it was true,' said Lori Glazer, executive director of publicity at the publisher.
Roth, 79, one of the world's most revered novelists and a frequent contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature, said he had not written for three years.
'To tell you the truth, I'm done,' Roth was quoted as telling Les Inrocks. ''Nemesis' will be my last book,' he said of his 2010 short novel set against a fictional polio epidemic in Newark, New Jersey, in 1944.
The novella 'Goodbye, Columbus' catapulted Roth onto the American literary scene in 1959 with its satirical depiction of class and religion in American life. Published along with five other short stories, it won the National Book Award in 1960. He again received that award in 1995 for 'Sabbath's Theater.'
Roth, who has written some 25 novels, told Les Inrocks that he had always found writing difficult and that he wanted nothing more to do with reading, writing or talking about books.
He said that when he was 74, he started re-reading his favorite novels by authors Ernest Hemingway, Ivan Turgenev, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and others, and then re-read his own novels.
'I wanted to see whether I had wasted my time writing,' he explained. 'After that, I decided that I was done with fiction. I no longer want to read, to write, I don't even want to talk about it anymore,' he was quoted as saying.
'I have dedicated my life to the novel: I studied, I taught, I wrote, I read - to the exclusion of almost everything else. Enough is enough! I no longer feel this fanaticism to write that I have experienced all my life. The idea of trying to write again is impossible,' Roth told the magazine.
Roth's four most recent novels, 'Everyman,' 'Indignation,' 'The Humbling' and 'Nemesis', have been short works, often focusing on ageing, physical decline, depression and death.
New Jersey-born Roth is best known for his semi-autobiographical and unreliable alter-ego Nathan Zuckerman, who appeared in nine of his novels.
Roth told Les Inrocks that he had spent most of his time in recent years preparing material for his biographer, Blake Bailey. 'If I had a choice, I would prefer that there is no biography written about me, but there will be biographies after my death so (I wanted) to be sure that one of them is correct,' Roth was quoted as saying.
Roth said he had asked his literary executors and his agent to destroy his personal archives after his death once Bailey has finished the biography. 'I don't want my personal papers hanging around everywhere,' he said.
(Reporting By Eric Kelsey and Jill Serjeant in Los Angeles)
This article is brought to you by DATING SERVICE.
U.S. author Philip Roth says he's done with writing
(Reuters) - Seminal American novelist Philip Roth, one of the world's most revered authors, is retiring from writing, his publisher Houghton Mifflin said on Friday.
The 'American Pastoral' author slipped his retirement announcement under the radar in an interview with French magazine Les Inrocks last month.
'To tell you the truth, I'm done,' Roth was quoted as telling the magazine. ' 'Nemesis' will be my last book,' he said of his 2010 short novel.
'He told me it was true,' Lori Glazer, Houghton Mifflin's vice president and executive director of publicity, told Reuters on Friday.
Roth, 79, whose most famous works include 'Goodbye, Columbus' and the sexually-explicit 'Portnoy's Complaint,' has never won the Nobel Prize for Literature despite his name often coming up as a leading contender for the award.
He is the author of more than 25 novels in a career spanning more than 50 years. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his 1997 novel 'American Pastoral' and two National Book Awards.
But Roth told Les Inrocks that he had always found writing difficult and wanted nothing more to do with reading, writing or talking about books.
He said that at the age of 74, he started re-reading all his favorite novels by authors including Ernest Hemingway, Ivan Turgenev and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and then re-read all his own novels
'I wanted to see whether I had wasted my time writing,' he explained.
'After that, I decided that I was done with fiction. I no longer want to read, to write, I don't even want to talk about it anymore,' he was quoted as saying.
'I have dedicated my life to the novel: I studied, I taught, I wrote, I read - to the exclusion of almost everything else. Enough is enough! I no longer feel this fanaticism to write that I have experienced all my life. The idea of trying to write again is impossible,' Roth told the French magazine.
The New Jersey-born novelist is best known for his semi-autobiographical and unreliable narrator Nathan Zuckerman.
The novella 'Goodbye, Columbus' catapulted Roth onto the American literary scene in 1959 with its satirical depiction of class and religion in American life.
Published along with five other short stories, 'Goodbye, Columbus' won the National Book Award in 1960 - an award he would go on to win again in 1995 with the novel 'Sabbath's Theater.'
(Reporting By Eric Kelsey in Los Angeles, Editing by Jill Serjeant, Jan Paschal and Claudia Parsons)
This news article is brought to you by INTERNET NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
The 'American Pastoral' author slipped his retirement announcement under the radar in an interview with French magazine Les Inrocks last month.
'To tell you the truth, I'm done,' Roth was quoted as telling the magazine. ' 'Nemesis' will be my last book,' he said of his 2010 short novel.
'He told me it was true,' Lori Glazer, Houghton Mifflin's vice president and executive director of publicity, told Reuters on Friday.
Roth, 79, whose most famous works include 'Goodbye, Columbus' and the sexually-explicit 'Portnoy's Complaint,' has never won the Nobel Prize for Literature despite his name often coming up as a leading contender for the award.
He is the author of more than 25 novels in a career spanning more than 50 years. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his 1997 novel 'American Pastoral' and two National Book Awards.
But Roth told Les Inrocks that he had always found writing difficult and wanted nothing more to do with reading, writing or talking about books.
He said that at the age of 74, he started re-reading all his favorite novels by authors including Ernest Hemingway, Ivan Turgenev and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and then re-read all his own novels
'I wanted to see whether I had wasted my time writing,' he explained.
'After that, I decided that I was done with fiction. I no longer want to read, to write, I don't even want to talk about it anymore,' he was quoted as saying.
'I have dedicated my life to the novel: I studied, I taught, I wrote, I read - to the exclusion of almost everything else. Enough is enough! I no longer feel this fanaticism to write that I have experienced all my life. The idea of trying to write again is impossible,' Roth told the French magazine.
The New Jersey-born novelist is best known for his semi-autobiographical and unreliable narrator Nathan Zuckerman.
The novella 'Goodbye, Columbus' catapulted Roth onto the American literary scene in 1959 with its satirical depiction of class and religion in American life.
Published along with five other short stories, 'Goodbye, Columbus' won the National Book Award in 1960 - an award he would go on to win again in 1995 with the novel 'Sabbath's Theater.'
(Reporting By Eric Kelsey in Los Angeles, Editing by Jill Serjeant, Jan Paschal and Claudia Parsons)
This news article is brought to you by INTERNET NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Ex-oilman named new leader of world's Anglicans
LONDON (Reuters) - A former oil executive was named leader of the world's 80 million Anglicans on Friday, ending months of closed-door negotiations as the church struggles with bitter rifts over senior women clergy and homosexuality.
Justin Welby, 56, who has been bishop of the northern English city of Durham for barely a year, will replace incumbent Rowan Williams in December.
He is widely regarded as an opponent of gay marriage but in favor of the ordination of women as bishops, two of the most divisive issues facing the Church.
Welby's appointment as the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury caps a meteoric rise in the Church of England hierarchy since he quit the oil business world and was ordained in 1992.
The bespectacled and soft-spoken Welby accepted the appointment at London's Lambeth Palace, the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury for 800 years.
'My initial reaction was, 'oh no',' a smiling Welby told reporters in a wood-vaulted room adorned with portraits of former archbishops and gold chandeliers.
'It's something I never expected. And the last few weeks have been a rather strange experience, to put it mildly.'
The long-awaited appointment, announced by Prime Minister David Cameron's office, follows weeks of intense speculation that a row over whether to choose a reformer or a safe pair of hands had stalled the nomination process.
'Well this is the best kept secret since the last cabinet reshuffle,' Welby told an audience that included his wife, five children and a baby grand-daughter, after opening his address with a brief prayer.
'It's exciting because I believe that we are at one of those rare points where the tide of events is turning and the church ... has great opportunities to match its very great but often hidden strength.'
Welby - who trained as a priest after the death of his infant daughter in a car crash - is likely to come under intense pressure to prevent the Anglican church tearing itself apart over women bishops and gay rights.
Liberal church leaders in the United States and Britain are at odds with more conservative figures in Africa and elsewhere.
'What the church does here deeply affects the already greatly suffering churches in places ... like Nigeria,' Welby said.
Williams once famously warned that his successor would need the 'constitution of an ox and the skin of a rhinoceros'. Commentators say Welby's experience of tough negotiation and deal-making in business will stand him in good stead.
(Writing by Maria Golovnina; editing by Andrew Roche)
This news article is brought to you by INTERNET NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Justin Welby, 56, who has been bishop of the northern English city of Durham for barely a year, will replace incumbent Rowan Williams in December.
He is widely regarded as an opponent of gay marriage but in favor of the ordination of women as bishops, two of the most divisive issues facing the Church.
Welby's appointment as the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury caps a meteoric rise in the Church of England hierarchy since he quit the oil business world and was ordained in 1992.
The bespectacled and soft-spoken Welby accepted the appointment at London's Lambeth Palace, the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury for 800 years.
'My initial reaction was, 'oh no',' a smiling Welby told reporters in a wood-vaulted room adorned with portraits of former archbishops and gold chandeliers.
'It's something I never expected. And the last few weeks have been a rather strange experience, to put it mildly.'
The long-awaited appointment, announced by Prime Minister David Cameron's office, follows weeks of intense speculation that a row over whether to choose a reformer or a safe pair of hands had stalled the nomination process.
'Well this is the best kept secret since the last cabinet reshuffle,' Welby told an audience that included his wife, five children and a baby grand-daughter, after opening his address with a brief prayer.
'It's exciting because I believe that we are at one of those rare points where the tide of events is turning and the church ... has great opportunities to match its very great but often hidden strength.'
Welby - who trained as a priest after the death of his infant daughter in a car crash - is likely to come under intense pressure to prevent the Anglican church tearing itself apart over women bishops and gay rights.
Liberal church leaders in the United States and Britain are at odds with more conservative figures in Africa and elsewhere.
'What the church does here deeply affects the already greatly suffering churches in places ... like Nigeria,' Welby said.
Williams once famously warned that his successor would need the 'constitution of an ox and the skin of a rhinoceros'. Commentators say Welby's experience of tough negotiation and deal-making in business will stand him in good stead.
(Writing by Maria Golovnina; editing by Andrew Roche)
This news article is brought to you by INTERNET NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
"Dancing" co-host Brooke Burke has thyroid cancer
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - 'Dancing with the Stars' co-host Brooke Burke said on Thursday that she has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and will need surgery.
The television presenter and model said in a three-minute video posted on the website Modernmom.com that she will need her thyroid removed.
'I need to have thyroid surgery and a thyroidectomy, which means I'm going to have a nice, big scar right here on neck,' Burke said, drawing a finger across her throat.
Burke, a former winner of ABC's celebrity ballroom dancing competition, said she had a biopsy in July, but it had taken her months to go public with the results.
'I'm ready to deal with it, and I'm going to be fine,' she said.
There was no word on when the surgery would take place, but Burke's publicist said her work schedule for 'Dancing with the Stars' would not be affected.
Burke, 47, said in July that her doctor suggested she undergo a thyroid ultrasound after he felt a lump in her neck during a routine physical.
The thyroid is a gland in the neck that produces hormones that regulate vital body functions, such as heart rate and blood pressure.
Burke's co-host Tom Bergeron said on Thursday during an appearance on the CBS chat show 'The Talk' that he had known about her condition for several months. 'We are all there with her,' he said.
'I've known about this for a few months ... I have had experience with this in my family. You never want to hear the word cancer. But thyroid cancer is one of the most treatable cancers. It has an incredibly high success rate,' he said.
(Reporting By Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant)
This news article is brought to you by RELATIONSHIPS ADVICE - where latest news are our top priority.
The television presenter and model said in a three-minute video posted on the website Modernmom.com that she will need her thyroid removed.
'I need to have thyroid surgery and a thyroidectomy, which means I'm going to have a nice, big scar right here on neck,' Burke said, drawing a finger across her throat.
Burke, a former winner of ABC's celebrity ballroom dancing competition, said she had a biopsy in July, but it had taken her months to go public with the results.
'I'm ready to deal with it, and I'm going to be fine,' she said.
There was no word on when the surgery would take place, but Burke's publicist said her work schedule for 'Dancing with the Stars' would not be affected.
Burke, 47, said in July that her doctor suggested she undergo a thyroid ultrasound after he felt a lump in her neck during a routine physical.
The thyroid is a gland in the neck that produces hormones that regulate vital body functions, such as heart rate and blood pressure.
Burke's co-host Tom Bergeron said on Thursday during an appearance on the CBS chat show 'The Talk' that he had known about her condition for several months. 'We are all there with her,' he said.
'I've known about this for a few months ... I have had experience with this in my family. You never want to hear the word cancer. But thyroid cancer is one of the most treatable cancers. It has an incredibly high success rate,' he said.
(Reporting By Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant)
This news article is brought to you by RELATIONSHIPS ADVICE - where latest news are our top priority.
UK PM warns of witch-hunt against gays in pedophile scandal
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron warned on Thursday that speculation about the identity of an unidentified member of his ruling Conservative party accused of sexually abusing children could turn into a witch-hunt against gay people.
Cameron, who leads a troubled two-party coalition, ordered an investigation this week after a victim of child sexual abuse in Wales said a prominent Conservative political figure had abused him during the 1970s.
The claims, which follow the unmasking of late BBC star presenter Jimmy Savile as one of Britain's most prolific sex offenders, have stoked concern that a powerful pedophile ring may have operated in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s.
'I have heard all sorts of names bandied around and what then tends to happen is of course that everyone then sits around and speculates about people, some of whom are alive, some of whom are dead,' Cameron said during an ITV television interview.
'It is very important that anyone who has got any information about any pedophile no matter how high up in the country go to the police,' he said.
Britain's interior minister warned lawmakers this week that if they named suspected child abusers in parliament they risked jeopardizing future trials.
MPs benefit from 'parliamentary privilege' - meaning they can speak inside parliament freely without fear of legal action on a host of legally sensitive issues that might otherwise attract lawsuits.
Reports of child abuse have provoked fevered speculation on the Internet about the identity of the Conservative figure from the era of Margaret Thatcher, prime minister from 1979 to 1990.
When the ITV interviewer passed Cameron a piece of paper with the names of people identified on the Internet as being alleged child abusers, Cameron said:
'There is a danger if we are not careful that this could turn into a sort of witch-hunt particularly against people who are gay.'
'I am worried about the sort of thing you are doing right now - giving me a list of names you have taken off the Internet,' Cameron said.
The BBC aired a program last week in which Steven Messham, one of hundreds of victims of sexual abuse at children's care homes in Wales over two decades, said he had been sexually abused by a prominent Conservative political figure.
However, the BBC reporter said he could not name the figure because there was 'simply not enough evidence to name names'.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
This news article is brought to you by ECONOMY BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Cameron, who leads a troubled two-party coalition, ordered an investigation this week after a victim of child sexual abuse in Wales said a prominent Conservative political figure had abused him during the 1970s.
The claims, which follow the unmasking of late BBC star presenter Jimmy Savile as one of Britain's most prolific sex offenders, have stoked concern that a powerful pedophile ring may have operated in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s.
'I have heard all sorts of names bandied around and what then tends to happen is of course that everyone then sits around and speculates about people, some of whom are alive, some of whom are dead,' Cameron said during an ITV television interview.
'It is very important that anyone who has got any information about any pedophile no matter how high up in the country go to the police,' he said.
Britain's interior minister warned lawmakers this week that if they named suspected child abusers in parliament they risked jeopardizing future trials.
MPs benefit from 'parliamentary privilege' - meaning they can speak inside parliament freely without fear of legal action on a host of legally sensitive issues that might otherwise attract lawsuits.
Reports of child abuse have provoked fevered speculation on the Internet about the identity of the Conservative figure from the era of Margaret Thatcher, prime minister from 1979 to 1990.
When the ITV interviewer passed Cameron a piece of paper with the names of people identified on the Internet as being alleged child abusers, Cameron said:
'There is a danger if we are not careful that this could turn into a sort of witch-hunt particularly against people who are gay.'
'I am worried about the sort of thing you are doing right now - giving me a list of names you have taken off the Internet,' Cameron said.
The BBC aired a program last week in which Steven Messham, one of hundreds of victims of sexual abuse at children's care homes in Wales over two decades, said he had been sexually abused by a prominent Conservative political figure.
However, the BBC reporter said he could not name the figure because there was 'simply not enough evidence to name names'.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
This news article is brought to you by ECONOMY BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
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