“Due to the restructuring of the Playing for Good Foundation, the philanthropic trip to Rwanda that the foundation had previously planned with Paris Hilton has been postponed,” the organization said Thursday in a statement.

“Paris has been a loyal and gracious supporter of Playing For Good but the foundation has to regrettably reschedule this trip. Playing for Good would like to thank Ms. Hilton for her generosity and her continued support of this initiative and is looking forward to rescheduling the trip with her at a later time.”

After being released from jail in June after serving 23 days for violating probation in a DUI case, Hilton said she wanted to change her image – and make charity work a focal point of that effort.

In September, she announced her plan to visit Rwanda, the scene of genocide in 1994.

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Spears was not required to attend the hearing on the misdemeanor charges stemming from an Aug. 6 parking lot mishap.

Superior Court Judge Susan Speer dismissed the hit-and-run charge after a lawyer for the pop star said his client had paid an undisclosed amount to a woman whose car was hit in a Studio City parking lot.

A charge of driving without a license was not dismissed and a pretrial hearing was scheduled for Nov. 26. Speer accepted a not guilty plea entered on Spears’ behalf by lawyer Michael Flanagan to that charge.

Outside court, Flanagan said Assistant City Attorney Michael Amerian had offered Spears a plea deal involving the license charge that would have resulted in her being placed on probation for a year.

Flanagan said he believed a plea was unnecessary because Spears had rectified the situation by recently getting a California driver’s license.

“She got a license, she has insurance, has always had insurance,” he said. “The question is: Is probation really necessary?”

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Lohan’s 21-year-old daughter Lindsay, star of “Mean Girls,” “Freaky Friday” and other films, has said that her father’s behavior and her parents’ divorce have caused her to act out.

Michael and estranged wife Dina Lohan settled their long-simmering divorce in August, months after he left a New York state prison where he served almost two years for drunken driving and other charges.

He reunited with Lindsay in September after a 3 1/2-year estrangement. She had entered a drug and alcohol treatment center the previous month after reaching a plea deal on misdemeanor drunken driving and cocaine charges.

Lohan’s visit to the Cirque Lodge in Utah was her third trip to rehab since January, a frenetic year in which she wrecked a Mercedes-Benz, released the box-office flop “I Know Who Killed Me” and was arrested more than once. She left the center earlier this month.

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Pitt, 43, and Jolie, 32, are teaming up for their first producing project, a new series for HBO, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

And it’s a subject close to their hearts: The untitled drama will go behind the scenes of an international aid organization and follow workers who put their lives in danger to help others. The series is being written by Scott Burns, who co-wrote The Bourne Ultimatum and produced Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

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Jax Joseph Nilon was born at 8:30 p.m. Oct. 18 and weighed 4 lbs. 7 oz., and Jaid Thomas Nilon was born at 8:31 p.m. and weighed 4 lbs. 9 oz.

“We’re so in love with them,” Beauvais-Nilon tells PEOPLE. “They boys are just gorgeous.”

The twins, who were born in Los Angeles, join Oliver, the actress’s 15-year-old son from a previous marriage.

Friends such as Angie Harmon and Virginia Madsen have already showered the boys with gifts, including individual outfits from Janie & Jack and Gymboree.

“She wants to establish each twin’s own identity,” says a friend who attended the actress’s baby shower last month. “She doesn’t want to dress them up the same.”

Beauvais-Nilon announced her pregnancy last June to PEOPLE, saying, “We are over the moon and feel very blessed.”

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The actor showed his comic side again, joining brothers Luke and Andrew along with Jessica Simpson, Willie Nelson, Woody Harrelson and Dan Rather for a lawn mower-riding competition in Texas.

The Bad Boy Lawn Mower Race, held at Nelson’s homestead near Austin last week, was part of a music-video shoot for his new song, “You Don’t Think I’m Funny Anymore,” reports the Austin American-Statesman.

Photos from the shoot, featuring Harrelson and Owen Wilson in cowboy hats and action shots from the race, were posted Friday on a Nelson fan blog. The men rode red lawnmowers, while Simpson was given a flashy pink one.

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The singer on Saturday was spotted driving with her children in Studio City, Calif., in her white Mercedes convertible, which was decorated with pumpkins on the dashboard.

A presumed court-appointed monitor was seated in the front seat, with her sons in the rear.

On Wednesday, L.A. Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon had temporarily suspended her visitation rights. A source close to Spears told PEOPLE the judge removed her rights after the pop star was unreachable by a cell phone designated for court-related scheduling.

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“It’s a real personal song,” Anthony said before belting out Journey’s “Faithfully” inside a packed Staples Center. “This song has a whole new significance.”

It was when he sang the song’s lyrics “They say that the road ain’t no place to start a family” that concert goers erupted in cheers. He noted to fans that the song had “quite a special significance,” dedicating it to the couple’s “friends” in the audience as well.

Lopez’s Turn
After Anthony’s hour-long set (featuring music from the couple’s film El Cantante), Lopez, 38, hit the stage asking fans “How are you, L.A.?” and later told the crowd “This is such a special time.”

Lopez was clearly showing an expanding belly, continuing to wear her loose-fitting outfits on stage. She also wore noticeably low-heeled boots during the heavier dance routines.

This has been a year of firsts for Lopez. She released her first Spanish album, embarked on her first tour and – if you believe the bump – becoming a mother for the first time. But as Lopez continues to remain mum on the topic her fans have their own opinions.

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Notably absent were any big-name celebrities being doused in Nick’s traditional green slime. That, of course, was good news for Emma Watson, who also was named Nickelodeon’s Best Movie Actress.

“This is so cool. I’m so thrilled,” the 17-year-old Harry Potter star said.

Watson – who was wearing a gold-sequined top and Diesel jeans – beat out Cameron Diaz, Dakota Fanning and Keira Knightley for the award.

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“I completely adopted the new name and I love it … I’m a Parker now,” she said Thursday at the Padres Contra El Cáncer (Parents Against Cancer) annual benefit in Los Angeles. “I love every bit of it … I like the tradition of changing the name.”

Not to mention the reception she gets in Texas – they have a home there as Parker, 25, plays for the San Antonio Spurs – where she’s called Mrs. Parker. “It’s really nice to hear,” she says. “Especially in Texas. Everyone is really respectful there.”

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Officer Mike Lopez said Spears turned herself in around 9 p.m. and left about 45 minutes later. Spears was fingerprinted and photographed, he said.

“She was fine, cooperative,” Lopez said. “She did her business and came out.”

Spears, 25, was wearing large designer sunglasses and a black turtleneck dress and jacket. As she left the station, she told KCAL-TV that all went smoothly.

“They were nice,” she said of police. She told the station she was wearing the sunglasses because she had pinkeye.

The charges stem from an Aug. 6 wreck during which paparazzi filmed Spears steering her car into another vehicle as she tried to turn into a spot in a Studio City parking lot. The video showed her walking away after assessing the damage to her own car.

The owner of the other car, Kim Robard-Rifkin, filed a police report three days later.

Spears had been ordered to report for booking ahead of an Oct. 25 court appearance.

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In attendance for Hilton’s first runway show was the 24-year-old designer’s personal Prince Charming (of nearly a year), David Katzenberg, also 24. After arriving an hour early for the event, he told PEOPLE, “I am very proud of her. She worked hard on it.”

When it came time for the designer to take her walk down the runway for the event’s finale, Katzenberg gave her a kiss on the cheek and white roses, then said, “I was extremely impressed.”

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“The only time I’m reminded that there is something different about him – that he has some deviation of what is perceived to be normal – is when I see him with other 4-year-olds. Then I go, ‘Oh yeah,’ and it comes back to me,” Farrell tells the Irish Independent. “But from day one I felt that he’s the way he’s meant to be.”

Farrell says James shows “amazing courage,” and adds: “[I'm] incredibly blessed to have him in my life.”

The 31-year-old actor shares custody of James with ex-girlfriend Kim Bordenave, the boy’s mother – whom Farrell credits with helping James get the help he needs. The child’s early years have been a struggle, Farrell says, but recently the family enjoyed a major breakthrough.

“He took his first steps about six weeks ago, and it was four years in the making,” Farrell says. “It was incredibly emotional. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.”

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The onetime party girl, 21, arrived over the weekend and had a low-key evening with friends Sunday, seeing the movie Elizabeth: The Golden Age and visiting a tanning salon.

Lohan was due this week on the set of the tango-themed film Dare to Love Me, the film for which she was preparing in July when she was arrested for DUI.

Lohan’s mother Dina says her daughter is eager to get back to work, telling PEOPLE, “Lindsay is very happy and her life is back in control.”

Earlier this month Lohan checked out of the exclusive Cirque Lodge Treatment Center in Utah, where she has been since August.

She still has to serve her 24-hour jail sentence arranged as a plea deal in the drunken-driving case.

Meanwhile, Lohan filed a legal action against a man who is suing her over a car accident in West Hollywood in 2005.

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“Please tell everybody – categorically I am not pregnant,” Anderson told Las Vegas celebrity blogger Robin Leach.

“It’s just not true,” the mother of two added to Leach, who interviewed her at a party Wednesday night for airline magnate Richard Branson. “I would tell you if it was.”

To underscore it, at the party Anderson was “celebrating her marriage last weekend with bottles of expensive Cristal champagne,” Leach writes.

On her own Web site, Anderson offered a less precise denial – and suggested new beau Rick Salomon is a little sensitive about the media attention.

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To insure the 21-year-old actress continues her recovery from alcohol and drug abuse, a sober companion, trained to be with people overcoming addictions, will be with her, Michael Lohan told PEOPLE.

On Oct. 5, Lohan left rehab at Utah’s Cirque Lodge Treatment Center, which helped the actress find the companion.

“Lindsay’s companion is really, really tough, and she’s really nice, she’s an amazing lady, a great influence on Lindsay’s life,” the elder Lohan said before attending a family court hearing in Westbury, N.Y., concerning his youngest children Ali, 13, and Dakota, 11.

He also talked about another part of her new life – beau Riley Giles, whom she met in rehab. “He’s a great, great kid,” Lohan said. “If you met him, you’d like him.”

Lohan does not know where his daughter will be staying in L.A., but after filming – slated to begin Oct. 15 – he expects her to come back to Utah to live, receive continued counseling and attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. “It looks like she may have already found a house,” he said, noting that she currently stays in a rental near the lodge.

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Later Thursday night, Federline arrived at a club called The Liquid Room in downtown Wilmington, where he partied like a rock star in the VIP area, ordering up rounds.

“He’s drinking Jack and Coke and Patrón. That’s all he drinks,” a cocktail waitress told PEOPLE.

When the deejay spun his ex-wife’s new song, all eyes darted to Federline, clad in a white T-shirt and jeans and wearing noticeable bling. “When ‘Gimme More’ came on, I looked at him, and he didn’t have any reaction. He wasn’t dancing,” said a reveler in the club.

One observer said the VIP area is normally very quiet, “but when K-Fed is there, he brings the whole posse.”

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“Samaire Armstrong decided to enter an outpatient facility to deal with some personal issues in a therapeutic atmosphere and is doing very well,” the rep said in a statement Friday. “She continues to work on her show and will be completing her treatment in a matter of weeks.

The nature of the personal issues wasn’t revealed.

Armstrong, 26, also appeared on The O.C. and Entourage.

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“I’m just really excited right now and just happy. I’m the luckiest guy on earth,” the 33-year old actor tells PEOPLE. “She’s the coolest girl in the world.”

He was among the celebs who came to pay tribute to comedian Billy Crystal when he received this year’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center on Thursday night.

Fallon and his bride-to-be haven’t picked a wedding date yet. “We’re still planning it,” he says. But “the sooner the better for me. I’m in love.”

Juvonen, 40, is Drew Barrymore’s long-time business partner, and produced Fallon’s 2005 romantic comedy, Fever Pitch.

So was the former Saturday Night Live performer’s marriage proposal serious or funny? “It was serious. I did the whole one knee thing. I tried not to cry before she did. I was breaking down a little bit,” he says. “I don’t even remember what I said.”

Ironically, Fallon plays a man who’s commitment phobic in his new movie, Rockett, with Sharon Stone, Tom Arnold, and Lucy Liu, opening Nov. 20.

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The pop star, who appeared relaxed in blue jeans and sunglasses as she entered the courtroom – telling reporters, “I’m good, thank you” – emerged 45 minutes later appearing solemn and declining to comment.

But the hearing was a rare victory. The judge expanded her visitation schedule, giving her one monitored overnight visit a week with Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1, a court spokesman said. Lawyers will work on when the new schedule begins.

“Ms. Spears did speak (at the hearing),” says court spokesman Allan Parachini, “and her voice was soft and respectful.”

Spears’s attorney, Sorrell Trope, tells PEOPLE: “I consider this a very positive sign for my client. I have every expectation that she will comply with all the orders made by the court. I remain absolutely optimistic that she will eventually regain 50-50 custody.”

Earlier in the day, another lawyer for Spears asked a judge for overnight privileges, saying the boys are psychologically harmed by being away from their mother.

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Witnesses told police the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star was driving alone on Fountain Avenue when another vehicle cut him off and he hit a parked car, said Officer Ana Aguirre.

Bloom, 30, wasn’t injured and filed a report with police, Aguirre said.

“No alcohol was involved, and he wasn’t speeding,” Aguirre said. There was minor damage to his car and the parked car, she said.

Aguirre didn’t know the exact time or location of the crash.

A phone message left early Friday at the office of Bloom’s publicist, Robin Baum, wasn’t immediately returned.

Bloom’s screen credits also include “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy and “Troy.”

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Sabrina Sakaë was born Sunday morning in New York and weighed 8 lbs. 4 oz.

“Mother, father and baby Sabrina are all healthy and very happy and will be residing at their ranch in Colorado,” the singer’s rep said in a statement.

When the Mexico City-born singer’s pregnancy was announced in June, a posting on her Web site read: “Her pregnancy is going well and she is healthy, very happy and full of energy, as usual.”

Asked for Mottola’s opinion about expanding the family, Thalía, 35, told PEOPLE EN ESPAÑOL that her husband, 58, has wanted to have kids together for years.

“If it had been up to Tommy, I would have had children from the first day we married. I would already have three or four,” she said.

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Speaking amid a crowd of people outside the ABC studio in the middle of Times Square, where Lopez, 38, performed a live concert to promote her new CD Brave, a pained-looking Sawyer said to the singer: “All right, all right, I know what everybody’s asking, and I know you have so little privacy in your life … so, I’m just going to say, ‘How are you?’ ”

Replied Lopez: “I’m very well, thank you. This is really, really a great, happy time in my life. … Everything’s great.”

She credited her happiness to her new album and her current concert tour with husband Marc Anthony – for which Lopez has dressed in modest, loose-fitting ensembles designed by Roberto Cavalli.

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The pair tied the knot Saturday night in Las Vegas at the Mirage Hotel before Anderson’s children and members of her family, sources confirm to PEOPLE.

A conventional marriage it wasn’t, as the nuptials actually took place in an hour-and-a-half between Anderson’s two magic shows.

Anderson, 40, donned a white denim Valentino dress at the small ceremony. Wedding guests included Tobey Maguire, Lukas Haas and magician Hans Klok.

Anderson has had two high-profile marriages – to ex-husbands Tommy Lee and Kid Rock, who famously fought at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards. Salomon, 38, is divorced from actress Shannen Doherty.

Lee and Salomon made their matrimonial intentions known when they applied for a marriage license last month in Las Vegas, where Anderson has been performing with magician Hans Klok at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino.

So why a third walk down the aisle for Anderson? Says a source, “They are head over heels in love. They are really close. They have a relationship already and they have the license.”

“Rick is always with her,” another source has told PEOPLE. “He’s backstage when she does her show all the time.”

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“Brit really needed her mom,” a source tells PEOPLE. “So Lynne flew out and they met.”

Spears will be needing all the support she can get. Documents released Thursday regarding her heated custody battle with ex-husband Kevin Federline revealed stricter measures, particularly placed on her.

With regard to her supervised visitation rights with her two sons, Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1, the document says: “the monitor shall terminate visitation immediately if any conduct or action by [Spears] endangers the minor children.”

Before their next hearing on Oct. 26, she must complete three joint counseling sessions with Federline, three individual sessions, and twice-weekly random testing for drugs and alcohol.

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“She’s finished the program,” one source says. “Lindsay is done, but she may come back for outpatient treatment. She over-extended her stay because she wanted to. She could have been out awhile ago, but she chose to stay.”

Lohan’s mother, Dina, told PEOPLE Friday: “I’m proud of her. She’s moving ahead with her life. Things were getting out of control. She took action. She took responsibility. She really needed to heal.”

Lohan was photographed Friday afternoon with her father Michael, who carried her suitcases, leaving Cirque Lodge. “I will be there in her life as best I can but from here on she’s going to have a lot of decisions to make on her own,” Michael told PEOPLE Friday. “Now that she is going out into the world, I can only hope for the best.”

The father and daughter reunited last month for the first time in three years when he paid a visit to her in rehab. “I’m enjoying my time with Lindsay and I’m happy to see and believe she’s the Lindsay I last saw three years ago, before all this turmoil came into her life,” says Michael. “I am trying my best to lead by example and institute important tools.”

Of the actress’s reunion with her father, Lohan’s mom, Dina, told PEOPLE recently: “It can only help her recovery. It’s time to mend.”

Back to Work
And Lohan is already gearing up for her return to work: A source says she has plans to start filming her tango-themed move, Dare to Love Me, in Los Angeles on Oct. 15. Plus, says the source, despite reports suggesting Lindsay is an insurance liability for film studios, Lohan has been insured for this film.

“Lindsay will start her life over,” says the source. “She’s gotten rid of the people around her who were bad influences.”

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The custody-battling pop star is now getting pounded in the court of public opinion for her new pole dancing video for the single “Gimme More” off her upcoming album, Blackout, to be released Nov. 13.

“Our analysis: Looks like it was shot in one take on the cheap and then gussied up with a bit of cutting and camera work,” grumbles Rolling Stone on its Web site. “There’s no real choreography (just a bit of dancing near a pole) and all the smoke and mirrors – literally and figuratively – made us nauseous.”

Entertainment Weekly complained: “I’ve seen sexier pole work during an afternoon of fly-fishing.”

And Stereogum.com says that this Tale of Two Britneys “hurts like the Dickens.”

For Spears, the good news is that the video is considered a step up from her disappointing performance at the MTV Video Music Awards.

“It looked a little more energetic than the VMA performance and she didn’t look as scared or as freaked out,” says JJ Kincaid, afternoon DJ at Z100 in New York. “But we just expect so much more and it’s like, ‘Oh, girl. Please just do something different. Come on.’”

The single still continues to do well – it’s one of the Top 5 requested songs on Z100 – and not everybody was left as cold by the video, though the compliments continue to come backhanded.

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On Thursday night the two, both 25, went to London’s Brinkley’s restaurant before making their way to Boujis nightclub. The pair was later seen smiling and jumping into a waiting Range Rover before heading home after a late night.

Despite calling it quits in April, William and Kate were back together in only a matter of weeks. Yet they tried to keep a low profile, meeting up for secret dates including a party at army officer William’s barracks.

In August, they vacationed in the Seychelles, in the Indian Ocean, making it official they were together again. There, having arrived on separate planes, they went diving and read books by the pool.

The couple – who have dated on and off for about five years – were also spotted at Locanda Ottomezzo, an Italian eatery, in London’s Kensington the last week in September. A source at the restaurant told PEOPLE that the couple came in and requested a “table for two.”

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Sporting a shaggy blond beard and a dark jacket, Wilson was joined by fellow cast mates Adrien Brody, Anjelica Huston, Jason Schwartzman and filmmaker Wes Anderson. It was among Wilson’s first public appearances since a suicide attempt in late August.

Before the movie started, Anderson introduced Wilson, his longtime friend and collaborator, saying, “I’ve never made a movie without him and I hope I never have to.”

The two have worked together on several films, including “Bottle Rocket,” “Rushmore,” and “The Royal Tenenbaums,” for which they were nominated for a best screenplay Oscar.

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A passionate film-lover from an early age, legend has it that the young Shaw first cut his teeth in the business by distributing film reels on a bicycle to rural, village cinemas in Singapore and Malaysia, giving poignancy to his name “Run Run.”

He started out helping his elder brothers Runje, Runde and Renme set up a film studio in Shanghai in 1925. The brothers later moved into Hong Kong — making and distributing films to its chain of around 100 cinemas spread across other Asian markets like Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

“A man who can live more than 100 years and work in cinema and entertainment business for 80 years must have something very extraordinary,” said Law Kar, a Hong Kong film researcher.

Shaw rose through the ranks, and eventually split from his brothers to set up his own studio in the 1950’s dubbed the “dream factory,” which ushered in a golden-era of Hong Kong film-making.

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The judge recommended that Snoop Dogg and Priority Records put their contractual dispute before the court’s case evaluation service. The service will give both sides a neutral idea of strengths and weaknesses of their case before it heads to trial, she said.

The rapper sued the company in November 2006, alleging it owes him $2 million in fees under a 1998 recording agreement and did not consult with him before releasing his greatest hits CD. He also claims breach of contract, contending the company did not pay him a $950,000 advance promised after he recorded “Tha Last Meal.”

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Isaac Hanson, 26, was diagnosed with venous thoracic outlet syndrome, said spokesman Ken Phillips. Also known as Paget-Schroetter Syndrome, the potentially fatal ailment occurs when a blood clot forms in a deep arm or shoulder vein.

Dr. Bradley Grimsley, Hanson’s surgeon, said he expected the guitarist to make a full and swift recovery, Phillips said in a news release.

Phillips said Hanson has had similar problems in the past, but not to this extent. Hanson was taken to Baylor University Medical Center Tuesday night after a show at the House of Blues.

Hanson and his doctor were to discuss the surgery at a news conference Friday. Phillips said Hanson may be released from the hospital then.

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The video – for the song “Gimme More” – will premiere on MTV’s TRL at 3:30 p.m. ET., a rep for the network confirms to PEOPLE.

Although details about the final version of it are being kept a secret, Spears, 25, was spotted in costume at a Los Angeles warehouse back in July, reportedly filming a video. Her outfit consisted of a short black dress, black boots and a black hat.

But it is not for certain that the footage from that particular shoot made the final cut that will air on TRL.

In fact, the video will contain footage from two different shoots, sources say.

After an underwhelming performance of the song at the Sept. 9 MTV Video Music Awards, and the ongoing bitter custody battle with ex Kevin Federline playing out in the media, rooting fans will be watching for the singer to make a big splash with the new video.

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Documents released Thursday reveal other stricter measures L.A. Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon handed down the previous day, particularly pertaining to Spears.

The commissioner specified that “a missed test, refusal to submit to a test, or failure to respond to the testing agency’s call … shall be deemed by the court as a failed test,” the documents read. Spears, 25, is still expected to complete twice-weekly random testing for drugs and alcohol.

Spears was also ordered to complete at least three individual counseling sessions by the next hearing.

With regard to her supervised visitation rights with her two sons, Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1, “the monitor shall terminate visitation immediately if any conduct or action by [Spears] endangers the minor children,” the documents state.

Read full article.

“She has fulfilled her requirements for a California driver’s license,” said the DMV’s Mike Marando.

L.A. Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon, who’s overseeing her custody case, had ordered her to show proof that she was a legal driver. Her lawyer told PEOPLE that among the reasons she lost temporary custody was because she lacked a valid license.

On Monday, Spears, 25, handed off sons Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1, to a bodyguard for ex Kevin Federline, then drove with a friend to a DMV office in Van Nuys, Calif.

“Ms. Spears actually took and passed a written test in April,” Marando says. “She was fingerprinted and photographed yesterday. She will be issued a formal license in the mail soon.”

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In high school, “I had crises of faith,” Pitt, 43, tells Parade.

“I’d go to Christian revivals and be moved by the Holy Spirit, and I’d go to rock concerts and feel the same fervor,” he tells the magazine in its new issue. “Then I’d be told, ‘That’s the Devil’s music! Don’t partake in that!’ I wanted to experience things religion said not to experience.”

Pitt, who took up journalism at the University of Missouri at Columbia, says when he started questioning religion, “It wasn’t a loss of faith for me, it was a discovery of self. I had faith that I’m capable enough to handle any situation.”

The young Pitt also had a little help from a college girlfriend.

“She was a Methodist preacher’s kid. She wasn’t that into me, truthfully, although we were together for a semester,” Pitt says. “She helped me more than anyone else as far as setting off in my own direction. She was a hardcore realist. She called me on so much bull—- about any romantic ideas that I had grown up with about life.”

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Recalling what it was like in the 1970s, when her mother, Betty, was undergoing treatment for the disease, the talk show host, 49, tells USA Today, “Everything was a dirty little secret back then.”

With October being Breast Cancer Awareness month, DeGeneres adds, “The fact that she had a mastectomy was not spoken of. She tried to shield me from it a little bit, but she needed my help with recovery and physical rehabilitation. It bonded us even more.”

DeGeneres was 16 at the time her mother was battling the cancer, which was further stigmatized by the fact that, Ellen also recalls, she was raised in what she considers the confining atmosphere of small town Atlanta, Texas.

Remembering the support her daughter gave her, Betty DeGeneres, now 77, tells the newspaper, “It’s a very special relationship that I do not take for granted. We’ve been there for each other.”

Betty DeGeneres also says her medical condition helped contribute to the demise of her second marriage. Since then, she adds, her famous daughter has tried to fix her up.

“I’ve had a couple of boyfriends, and they were very nice,” says the elder DeGeneres. “Ellen had Peter O’Toole on the show and asked him what he was looking for in a woman, ‘because my mama’s single.’ ”

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Reed, whose face has graced campaigns for Diesel and Abercrombie & Fitch,
follows on the heels of swimsuit model Josie Maran, who was eliminated from the first week of the competition last Wednesday. While Maran received a lukewarm reception from the judges, Reed seemed to impress the panel with his quickstep on Monday night. But a solid score wasn’t enough to keep him around for a third week.

“I’m stunned but I’m not surprised,” Reed told PEOPLE minutes after Tuesday’s show ended. “I just don’t have the fan base that other people have, but that’s okay. I was able to get my foot in the door, even if it was only halfway,” he joked.

Reed’s partner Anna Trebunskaya says she’ll “miss his sparkle. We had the best time.”

Wayne Newton, who was in the bottom two with Reed this week, escaped elimination despite having the week’s lowest score.

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Turns out everyone got “Punk’d”: Longoria’s video was the latest spoof to show up on Will Ferrell’s Funny or Die Web site.

“I’m so amused. It’s so funny. Oh my gosh. I’ve gotten like 100 calls on it saying it’s so hilarious,” Longoria gushed to Ryan Seacrest during his KIIS-FM radio show Tuesday.

“We’ve got this comedian called Perry Hilton, who does everything that Paris Hilton does. If you go on there, he’s gotten a DUI. He goes out clubbing … So, they go, ‘We want to do a sex video in that night vision – kind of like the one she did,’ ” Longoria explained.

The PG-rated clip, (click here to see it), shows Longoria wearing lingerie, chatting on a bed with a hunky “Perry.” (One blog, Egotastic.com, identifies him as actor Eric Christian Olson.) The video is shot in night-vision with a fake time stamp of Feb. 3, 2004, before Longoria hit it big on Desperate Housewives and married NBA star Tony Parker.

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Lufti, whom Kevin Federline’s camp attempted to subpoena in the ongoing custody battle, reminded PEOPLE in an e-mail that Federline getting custody is “temporary.”

“We … signed all the necessary documents that she needed to get done,” he said. Spears, he added, is “in a good mood, no problems, very optimistic.”

Monday a judge granted Federline physical custody of Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1, “until further order of the court.” Lufti told PEOPLE that what led to the ruling was just a misunderstanding.

“Scheduling conflicts and errors in communication led her to believe that her deadline was later this week rather than [Monday],” Lufti said. “However, once we finally realized what was going on, we completed the list of tasks. …So everything’s looking good.”

At least one of the judge’s requirements, however, remains unfulfilled.

Spears, facing a misdemeanor charge of driving without a valid license, went to the Department of Motor Vehicles on Monday to get a California license to replace her Louisiana card, but DMV spokesperson Jan Mendoza says Spears hasn’t yet finished the application process.

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“I’m sort of superstitious, so I saved all of the negative [pregnancy] tests in a drawer,” Berry reveals on the Oprah Winfrey Show Tuesday, talking about her struggle to get pregnant. “Don’t ask! I don’t know why, but I did. … After about 35 tests, we finally got a positive test.”

Of the lengthy process, she says, “while I was trying to get pregnant, we tried really hard, so it was a lot of staying home and just doing what you do.”

In addition to her own mothering instincts, she says her boyfriend, Canadian model Gabriel Aubry, 31, will be a great dad.

“He’s always his authentic self, never worried about being judged,” she tells Winfrey, according to excerpts from the interview that appear on the show’s Web site. “To walk with that kind of confidence … and with integrity, I know he has ability to love me, love our children, and he will do that.”

Asked about the use of the word children, Berry says, “Well, there’s just one right now. But we’re hoping right after this one to do it again.”

And when it comes to gender of the current impending arrival, Berry and Aubry don’t know yet. “We’re going to wait,” she says, “because we have a whole life[time] to know what it is.”

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After a closed-door hearing Monday, a judge ordered that, starting Wednesday, Kevin Federline will get physical custody of Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1, “until further order of the court.”

L.A. Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon didn’t outline his reasons in the written ruling, but Spears’s attorney, Sorrell Trope, says, “We weren’t able to prove compliance with what the judge ordered.”

“Specifically,” Trope says, “the judge ordered that by 10 a.m. (Monday) morning, both parties show valid California driving licenses. I’ve been unable to produce evidence of that.”

Later Monday, after handing over her sons to a bodyguard of Federline’s, Spears applied for a California driver’s license in Van Nuys.

Spears, 25, has been charged with misdemeanor driving without a valid license and hit-and-run following a fender-bender in a store parking lot on Aug. 6.

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“Today’s incident was the result of one person’s desire to do his job and my desire to maintain my privacy,” he said through his U.S. publicist, Paul Freundlich.

“Some have already attempted to inflate the facts, but the reality is this: While out riding to an AA meeting, a time when my privacy is especially important to me, I felt myself being pursued. I sped up, and, in an effort to elude an oncoming car which was making an illegal u-turn, saw no choice but to drop my bike,” said Urban.

“In actual fact, my pursuer came to my assistance, without taking photos, and helped me from the road. I returned home, got my car and continued on my way,” he concluded.

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“It can only help her recovery,” Lohan’s mom Dina tells PEOPLE in an e-mail. “It’s time to mend.”

She adds, “He is visiting Lindsay alone because we are giving her dad a chance to make amends.” A protection order against her former spouse, she says, precludes both parents spending time together with their daughter simultaneously.

During the first week of September, father and daughter ended their three-and-a-half year estrangement when Michael visited Lindsay at the Cirque Lodge Treatment Center. They have been in contact since and Michael is set to arrive in Utah late Monday night to begin their five-day retreat together Tuesday morning.

“She is in a better place than ever,” a source close to Michael tells PEOPLE. “Lindsay asked [him] to come out, and he’s ecstatic she’s back in his life.”

The 21-year-old actress has been in rehab since August 3, following her arrest in July for driving under the influence and cocaine possession.

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The other nominees are rap pioneer Afrika Bambaataa, literate songwriter Leonard Cohen, the original British Invasion combo The Dave Clark Five and surf rock instrumentalists The Ventures.

The nominations illustrate how far the Hall of Fame has stretched its definition of rock ‘n’ roll to incorporate a variety of musical styles.

It’s certainly the case with Madonna, the Detroit-area native who burst out of New York dance clubs in the early 1980s with “Holiday” and soon became a pop culture icon. She scored 17 Top Ten hits in the 1980s alone and is due to put out an album next year, working with the likes of Timbaland and Justin Timberlake.

The Beastie Boys molded punk rock and rap into the goofy hit “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right to Party.” They became critical favorites and are still together, releasing an instrumental album this year.

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Winfrey, 53, now leads Forbes.com’s list of the 20 richest celebs on television. It’s one of many new celebrity lists being issued by the Web site, which appears to have figured out that ranking boldfaced names is a good way to get some attention.

Winfrey, whose media empire includes a magazine and stakes in syndicated daytime talk shows by Dr. Phil McGraw and Rachael Ray, earned an estimated $260 million between June 2006 and June 2007.

Jerry Seinfeld is No. 2 with $60 million. The comedian, who has a vast Porsche collection, continues to get rich from reruns of his sitcom “Seinfeld,” which he partly owns.

Simon Cowell of Fox’s “American Idol” places third with $45 million. David Letterman, ranks fourth with $40 million, followed by Donald Trump and Jay Leno (both $32 million), McGraw and Judy “Judge Judy” Sheindlin (both $30 million) and George Lopez ($26 million).

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Jorja Fox, who has starred on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation since its inception in 2000, will not complete the series’ current season, bowing out after the seventh episode in November, E! Online TV columnist Kristin Dos Santos reports.

The news will no doubt be a blow to fans of the actress, albeit not a surprising one.

Her departure comes after rocky contract negotiations offscreen and an onscreen story line that has been foreshadowing for months a less than happy ending for her character.

It was the inability for Fox and producers to come to terms on a salary boost, which they had been negotiating since January, that put the final nail in her CSI coffin.

The story should sound more than a little familiar to fans of the show.

Fox, along with costar George Eads, both were fired from their acting gigs back in 2004, when they famously held out, unsuccessfully, for a bigger payday. They eventually were hired back after making public mea culpas. Eads wound up with a contract extension, but not Fox.

While the contracts for the entire CSI cast expires at the end of the current season, Fox’s lapsed in May.

Producers appeared to waste no time in finding a would-be replacement.

In July, show-runner Carol Mendelsohn announced that the series would be taking on a new female lab technician that will be introduced in the current season’s third episode. Producer Jonathan Littman also confirmed at a network event over the summer that the Grissom-Sara storyline would definitely be concluding this season.

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The money will go to the Cancer for College foundation run by a fraternity brother of Ferrell’s at the University of Southern California. The $47,100 high bidder, a man from Dallas, asked to remain anonymous. The opening bid was $5,000.

“Winning this auction means a lot to me on a very personal basis,” the winner said in a statement released by the foundation. “I lost my mother to ovarian cancer a few years ago, so I feel fortunate that my 10-year-old and I are able to participate in an event involving Cancer for College and Will Ferrell.”

Ferrell came up with the idea to auction off a non-speaking part as an extra in his new movie, “Step Brothers.”

“We are overwhelmed with the response and generosity to the auction,” Ferrell said. “This money will help so many young people with their dreams of attending college.”

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First, a costar of Heroes’ Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia shot down recent rumblings (as well as a YouTube video that was closely analyzed by fans) that the 18-year-old actress and her 30-year-old costar were getting closer.

“The rumor is not true,” costar James Kyson Lee, who plays Ando, told PEOPLE at Tuesday’s Lift Up America Meet Me in Miami premiere in Hollywood. “Let’s just end it there.”

He added about the romance talk: “I think we were just surprised because they’re 12 years apart – for people to even conceive that. I know there have been a lot of jokes, Hayden turning 18 and whatnot. At some point, you just have to let it go, and respect their privacy.”

Also on rumor control Tuesday night was Helena Christensen, who scoffed at reports that she recently hooked up with newly single Heath Ledger.

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The first stop of the day… The Clinton Global Initiative, where Pitt asked for support for his Make It Right program. He’s partnering with billionaire Steve Bing on the project, which plans to build 150 affordable – and environmentally sustainable – homes in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward. Pitt and Bing have each promised to match donations pledged during the initiative up to $5 million.

“These people will not be beaten,” Pitt said at the luncheon. “In the past year, we’ve been meeting with the community, building their trust … We need your help.”

In the afternoon… Jolie attended a press conference with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guteres, to talk about a new campaign, Nine Million, aimed at improving education for refugee children around the world.

Then in the evening… Jolie, a Goodwill Ambassador for the U.N. refugee agency, spoke at a session focused on education for children in war-torn areas such as Darfur and Iraq.

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The Los Angeles jury had been deliberating for 12 days.

Jurors told Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler they were split, but did not indicate which way they were leaning. Later, a court representative said 10 jurors had voted for guilty and two for not guilty. Fidler discharged the nine men and three women, thanking them for their service.

“We are disappointed the jury was unable to reach a verdict,” Los Angeles district attorney Steve Cooley,” said in a statement. “We will seek the court’s permission to re-try the case and begin immediately to prepare for a re-trial.”

Music producer Spector, 67, is charged with second-degree murder for the death of actress Lana Clarkson.

He denied shooting Clarkson – His legal team argued that her death had been the result of suicide rather than murder.

The fatal incident occurred at Spector’s hilltop, castle-like home in Alhambra, Calif., after he and Clarkson, 40, had been out for a night on the town.

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The events begin the week of Oct. 6, a month after Pavarotti’s death from pancreatic cancer.

They include video clips of Pavarotti interviews screened at the Italian cultural institute in Lima, Peru; concerts in Budapest, Hungary; Copenhagen, Denmark and Lyon, France; a viewing of a “Traviata” performance in Montevideo, Uruguay, and a series of Saturday screenings of Pavarotti operas in New Delhi.

In New York, a photographic exhibition and a series of concerts is planned, while in Seoul, South Korea, the National Opera is planning a commemorative evening, the ministry said in a statement.

The film footage, provided by RAI state television, has been dispatched to 90 Italian cultural institutions around the world “to bring the most important moments of Pavarotti’s international career to the largest public possible,” the statement said.

Pavarotti, who died at age 71, was beloved by generations of opera-goers and pop fans alike for his breathtaking high Cs, hearty renditions of popular folk songs like “O Sole Mio” and collaborations with pop singers, like Bono, with whom he recorded “Miss Sarajevo” in 1995 to raise money to help rebuild Bosnia.

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“The joke that everyone was upset about — me calling the kids `adorable mistakes’ — was the most innocuous joke,” the 36-year-old comedian tells Us Weekly magazine in the issue that comes out Friday. “It never occurred to me that would be deemed hurtful or over the line.”

Says Silverman: “I don’t want to get into feuds with girls half my age. I’m in it to be funny and not for the drama. It’s embarrassing.”

Silverman, known for her deadpan delivery and winsome depravity, drew criticism earlier this month when she followed Spears’ much-panned VMA performance with an off-color monologue taking aim at the troubled singer and her two sons with ex-husband Kevin Federline.

“They are the most adorable mistakes you will ever see,” Silverman said of Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1.

Silverman also joked that Spears, at 25, had already accomplished in her life everything she ever will.

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“It was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun,” he said. “And there wasn’t any kind of craziness at all.”

O’Reilly said his fellow patrons were tremendously respectful as he ate dinner with civil rights activist Al Sharpton.

The comments were made during O’Reilly’s nationally syndicated radio broadcast last week. The liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America called attention to them by distributing a transcript and audio clip on the Internet.

“This is nothing more than left-wing outlets stirring up false racism accusations for ratings,” said Bill Shine, senior vice president for programming at Fox News Channel. “It’s sad.”

O’Reilly spoke during a general discussion about racial relations with Fox News analyst Juan Williams. O’Reilly said he believed black Americans were “starting to think more and more for themselves” and backing away from a race-based culture encouraged by Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

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The actress (and girlfriend of Justin Timberlake) is “in talks” to play Wonder Woman in the movie Justice League of America, Daily Variety reported Tuesday.

If Biel, 25, dons Lynda Carter’s super-bustier with gold lariat from the ’70s TV show, she would join an ensemble cast of caped crusaders Superman, Batman, Aquaman and the Flash. No other actors have been named for those parts.

Biel is currently filming Powder Blue with Forest Whitaker. Her rep declined to comment.

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Tonight—the second installment in Dancing’s three-night premiere—the ladies will take a breather while the men hoof it on the hard wood.

“I’m ready to do it,” soap star Cameron Mathison (left) told PEOPLE. “I think I’m good under pressure with things that I’m familiar with. I am not a dancer, but we’ve put a lot of work into it and I’m ready.”

Even after seeing the ladies’ top-notch performances, there were no nerves for billionaire Mark Cuban, who’s been using the show’s dance training to rehabilitate after a recent hip-replacement surgery.

“I don’t know if I’m going to be the best dancer out there, but I guarantee you I will be the one with the biggest smile on my face,” Cuban said.

Monday night’s show turned out to be the “mother” of all shows—literally.

For starters, everyone was jazzed about the news that co-host Samantha Harris had given birth to a baby girl (Josselyn) on Sunday. She was replaced by affable, adorable season two champ Drew Lachey.

Then, with exception of Cheetah Girl Sabrina Bryan, it was all about the moms getting their grooves on. 90210 alum Jennie Garth went first. Bruno Tonioli called her a “yummy mommy,” as her husband Peter Facinelli, and their 10-year-old daughter Luca Bella watched from the sidelines.

She was followed by Marie Osmond, new mom Mel B, and Jane Seymour, whose husband and five kids were in the audience cheering her on.

“I didn’t dare look at them,” Seymour says of her family. “I felt so much love and support from them. I love watching my kids play baseball and they get up on the mound and they pitch and I’m there. … Here it’s like I’m on the mound and they are watching me and they are the mom. They see me in training, they see me in the kitchen doing the mambo moves while I cook breakfast.”

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Ray Stevenson already is on board to portray the titular vigilante. Shooting is scheduled to begin in October in Montreal. Lexi Alexander will direct the Lionsgate project.

Knight would play Microchip, the Punisher’s armorer and confidant — the man who supplies him with his stockpile of weapons and one of the few people who knows the Punisher’s true identity. Knight, who played Jerry’s portly nemesis Newman on “Seinfeld,” next will be seen in the indie feature “Throwing Stars.”

Also in talks for roles are Dominic West and Doug Hutchison. West (”300″) would play the Punisher’s archenemy known as Jigsaw, a mob assassin whose face was torn to shreds and stitched back together like a jigsaw puzzle.

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The show at the oceanfront Convention Hall was the first of two benefit rehearsals for Springsteen and the E Street Band, who are about to embark on their first tour together in four years. They will also play Tuesday night, and a third rehearsal concert has been added for Friday at Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford.

Springsteen and the band opened up with “Radio Nowhere,” a song from their new album.

“We’re going to run through some things, some new things, some old things. There may be some mistakes — but I doubt it,” Springsteen told the crowd.

Asbury Park and the boardwalk where the Convention Hall is located have been featured prominently in the New Jersey native’s work. His first album was titled “Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.,” and the boardwalk Casino was the scene of the title track video for his 1987 “Tunnel of Love” album. Blocks away is the Stone Pony nightclub where Springsteen has performed numerous times.

Fans young and old gathered for hours before the show in warm sunshine on the boardwalk outside the hall.

“I think it’s rare that you get any musician who appeals to so many generations,” said Dara Webster, 34, of Westport, Conn. She was there with her 63-year-old mother, Maida Webster.

The elder Webster, a retired social worker from New Canaan, Conn., was attending her 20th Springsteen show. “I think he speaks from the heart,” Maida Webster said. “He’s down to earth.”

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In January, Bach, 44, allegedly crashed into 26-year-old Nicole Valdez’s car in the San Fernando Valley and fled the scene. Valdez says damages total $1,377.

In June, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ordered Bach to turn herself in because she was not properly booked when the criminal charges were filed.

Bach, who has pleaded not guilty, is ordered to appear for a hearing Tuesday and faces up to six months in jail if convicted.

Hasselhoff, 55, was awarded primary custody of the former couple’s two children last June. The decision marked a turnaround for the actor, who had been blocked temporarily from seeing Taylor-Ann, 17, and Hayley, 14, after a drunken video of him surfaced.

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Responding to Richards’s most recent court filing in their custody battle, Sheen, 41, says in a statement released Monday that for 18 months Richards herself filed “not a single complaint” about the welfare of their daughters – and that her attacks only began after he asked to pick his own nannies.

“I have asked that the court eliminate Ms. Richards’s ability to abuse and harass us any longer,” said Sheen, who has accused Richards of using the nannies as spies on his personal life. “One can only imagine what we’ve withstood thus far.”

In her filing, Richards accuses Sheen of “an attraction to underage women,” an allegation she made earlier, providing numerous printouts of porn Web sites he allegedly visited during their marriage. The filing has not been released publicly, but a copy has been reviewed by PEOPLE.

“The FBI was aware of these issues,” Sheen states. “I provided them with every computer I owned. The computers were returned two weeks later. Haven’t heard from them since. Period. The end.”

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“I’m a little dinged up – lots of Neosporin,” Clooney told PEOPLE at the New York event. “I’m definitely not jogging or doing jumping jacks.”

He added that he and Larson are “just resting.”

“You don’t really want to rub or massage parts that are broken or anything,” he said.

Clooney is shooting Burn After Reading, and the accident may have him in hot water with producers, he told Extra.

“I’m not suppose to be on a motorcycle,” he said. “I think I am in trouble now.”

Larson, meanwhile, broke a toe – not her foot, as reported – and also suffered a black eye, Clooney told Extra.

“We are hiding it with makeup,” he said. “It looks like I socked her a couple times.”

Clooney, 46, suffered a hairline fracture of a rib and road rash, and Larson, 28, suffered the toe injury, when they were struck by a turning car while riding through New Jersey. Both were released after receiving treatment.

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Harris,33, and husband, financial wholesaler Michael Hess, welcomed daughter Josselyn Sydney Hess Sunday morning at 1:49 a.m. in Los Angeles, weighing in at 6 pounds, 12 ounces, reports E! News. She is the couple’s first child.

“Michael and I are ecstatic to have a little girl to welcome into our lives,” Harris told E! Online. “We can’t wait to introduce her to our family and friends in the morning!”

Harris had been tracking her pregnancy on a blog, The Bump Report, for Fitness Magazine since January. On her Sept. 15 entry, the mother-to-be wrote: “We’re less than a month away from my due date, and Michael and I have been getting more excited – and anxious – each day. We can’t wait to find out the sex of our baby. Some days I think, ‘How the heck am I going to deal with sleep deprivation? Will I know what to do with this beautiful, crying little thing? How do people manage to figure it all out?’ ”

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The New Jersey native, 31, has no qualms about speaking her mind when it comes to men, diet or how she stays fit in Hollywood.

“I told my boyfriend after three weeks that I wanted to marry him and that we could do it tomorrow,” Larter tells Cosmopolitan in its October issue.

And while such a pronouncement might scare off some men, the Heroes star and her boyfriend – actor Hayes MacArthur (who appears in the upcoming film The Game Plan) – have been steadily dating for two years.

“Now that I’m actually in love, I know that what came before wasn’t real,” she says. “It’s about being there for each other through the ups and downs of life.”

In terms of the future, she says, “I do want to get engaged and married … and I look forward to that time when I’m home with babies.”

Another issue where Larter is equally brazen: Her approach to diet, especially given Hollywood’s rigid standards for female stars. “I love wine, bread and cheese,” she says in the interview. “I just have to cut out the bread sometimes.”

Larter, who characterizes her approach to food as being “just like every other girl,” explains that it’s all about moderation and balance. “Last night, I drank some merlot and made potatoes au gratin with a rib-eye steak,” she says. “It was amazing. I hope to always find that balance.”

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The German government initially declined permission to film at the so-called Bendlerblock — part of the Defense Ministry grounds and now a memorial to the anti-Nazi resistance — citing concerns over “the dignity of the place.” However, it reversed course this month.

On Friday night, the movie makers gathered at the site to start filming scenes, German media reported.

“Shortly before we started filming, screenplay writer Christopher McQuarrie, director Bryan Singer and Tom Cruise made short remarks and then asked for a minute of silence — out of respect for the place and out of respect for the life achievement of these people who were executed there,” Christian Berkel, a German actor who plays fellow plotter Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim, was quoted as saying in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

“It was a very moving moment,” he added.

The government’s initial refusal to permit filming at the place where Stauffenberg worked and died led to speculation over whether Cruise’s religious beliefs had triggered the decision. Officials denied that.

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Even the reclusive Neil Armstrong has joined the former “Dirty Harry” star for a round of golf, as Eastwood considered whether to make a movie about the first man on the moon.

After filming an interview with Brubeck for an upcoming film, Eastwood, a good amateur pianist, discussed his passion for directing and promoting jazz. The oldest director to win an Academy Award, Eastwood remains full of energy and has a full plate of projects in the works.

“I’m pretty vigorous, I can go as long as a lot of others,” Eastwood, 77, told Reuters.

“I’m sort of concentrating on (directing) at this point in my life and I love it because I learn something new every time,” he said at his Mission Ranch hotel. “Something new makes your life interesting.”

“I do it because you learn something all the time, you’re a constant student of life, student of what you do, which for me is make films.”

“I would always hope that the last film that I did would be the very best,” he said. “The last film I did was ‘Letters from Iwo Jima.’ I felt I was in the groove on that one, and ‘Million Dollar Baby’ and ‘Mystic River.”‘

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Sony Screen Gems hinted there could be more “Resident Evil” movies, though the latest had been billed as the final one.

“Until the next,” joked Rory Bruer, Sony’s head of distribution. “It absolutely would not surprise me considering the success of the franchise that they find a way to come up with another. It’s a real possibility.”

Lionsgate’s “Good Luck Chuck,” with Jessica Alba and Dane Cook in a romantic comedy about a man jinxed at finding true love, debuted in second place with $14 million despite an almost universal thrashing by critics.

Universal’s “Sydney White,” starring Amanda Bynes as a college freshman who teams with frat house dorks in a fight against campus snobs, premiered at No. 6 with $5.3 million.

The previous weekend’s top movie, the Warner Bros. drama “The Brave One,” fell to No. 3 with $7.4 million, raising its total to $25.1 million.

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A helicopter shooting scenes for the movie buzzed overhead, while crew members barked instructions to extras through a bullhorn.

People who showed up weren’t paid as extras, but promoters promised a free concert by Costner’s band, Modern West.
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McCarthy and Carrey, 45, went public with their romance last year. Though she’s in love, McCarthy has no plans to marry the twice-divorced actor.

“There will be no certificate,” she says. “It goes far deeper than that. Jim came into our life with an open heart and open arms. He’s learned a lot about autism. He listens. The power of listening. It can move mountains.”

McCarthy and film director John Asher filed for divorce in August 2005, after six years of marriage. Earlier that year, Evan, now 5, was diagnosed with autism.

McCarthy, who starred on MTV’s “Singled Out,” details Evan’s progress in her new book, “Louder Than Words: A Mother’s Journey in Healing Autism.”
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Anthony recently admitted to Access Hollywood that he harbors a major KFC addiction, saying, “I can’t eat anything else after a concert.” Lopez is not as big of a fan, but that didn’t stop KFC president Gregg Dedrick from publicly extending the unusual invite, the TV show reports.

“We would like to offer you, your entourage and a few VIP guests an ‘all access’ pass to the KFC location of your choice,” Dedrick wrote in an open letter to the couple.

“You have a bucketful of choices for ‘after party’ locations because KFC has more than 5,500 restaurants across the country. Hearing about your fondness for KFC was music to our ears, so just name the time and the place and we’ll open our doors to you for a post-concert feast.”

There was no immediate response from the couple, whose North American tour kicks off Sept. 29 in Atlantic City, N.J., and includes 16 dates, wrapping in Miami on Nov. 3.
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NEW YORK – Some of the most creative thinking in television these days has nothing to do with comedy or drama. It’s about the commercials.
Fueled by a growing sense of desperation, networks are inserting games, quizzes and mini-dramas into commercial breaks. They’re incorporating more product pitches into programming. Two experimental programs without traditional commercial breaks will premiere this fall. NBC has even called on Jerry Seinfeld for help.
This is all being done to stop viewers with DVRs from fast-forwarding through advertisements, or to circumvent those that do.
Adding to the urgency, this week Nielsen Media Research begins offering ratings for commercial breaks, instead of just the shows around them.

“We all need to become more creative in how we incorporate sponsors into a program,” said Ed Swindler, executive vice president for NBC Universal ad sales. “No one on the creative side or the business side wants to make commercials intrusive, but we do need to commercialize efficiently so viewers can afford to get free television.”

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Source: news.yahoo.co

MEXICO CITY – A 20-year-old dancer from Japan was crowned
Miss Universe 2007 on Monday night, marking only the second time her country has won the world beauty title.
Dressed in a black, red and purple Japanese-style gown, Riyo Mori nervously grabbed the hands of first runner-up, Natalia Guimaraes of Brazil, just before the winner was announced. Then she threw her hands up and covered her mouth, overcome with emotion.

But she gathered herself together enough to catch the diamond-and-pearl-studded headpiece valued at $250,000 as it slipped off her head when Miss Universe 2006 Zuleyka Rivera of Puerto Rico crowned her. Mori immediately placed it back on her head.

The last time Japan won the pageant was in 1959 when Akiko Kojima became the first Miss Universe from Asia.

“She is an amazing champion, an amazing woman and I hear that they go totally insane in Japan, so that’s good,” said Donald Trump, who co-owns the pageant with NBC.

Full story

Source: news.yahoo.com

CANNES, France – A harrowing film about illegal abortion in Communist-era Romania beat 21 movies by well-known directors such as
Quentin Tarantino, Ethan and Joel Coen, and Wong Kar-wai to win the
Cannes Film Festival’s top prize Sunday.
Romanian director Cristian Mungiu’s low-budget film, “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” depicts the horrors a student goes through to ensure her friend can have a secret abortion.
Mungiu, who was awarded the Palme d’Or by actress
Jane Fonda, said he didn’t even have enough money to shoot the film just six months ago. He hoped the win would inspire other “small filmmakers from small countries.”
“You don’t necessarily need a big budget and big stars to tell a story that everyone will listen to,” said 39-year-old Mungiu, the first Romanian to win Cannes’ top prize.
The films shown at Cannes’ 60th anniversary edition ran the gamut of weighty subjects, from death and loss to abortion and aging. The winners of the awards, announced by jury president
Stephen Frears (director of “The Queen”), reflected the darker themes.

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Source: news.yahoo.com

CANNES, France (Reuters) – A hard-hitting Romanian movie set towards the end of the communist era won the
Cannes Film Festival’s top honor on Sunday.
“4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” directed by Cristian Mungiu, was the critics’ favorite to win the Palme d’Or in the build-up to a glittering red-carpet ceremony that ended the 12-day movie marathon on the French Riviera.
The film tells the grim story of young student friends Otilia and Gabita who are ruthlessly exploited when one goes to have an illegal abortion.
But despite being set in the pitiless and colorless landscape of socialist Romania, the story underlines the lengths to which friends go to save each other.
Mungiu welcomed the international attention the award would bring to his and other small-scale productions.
“I … hope that this award that I am getting tonight is going to be good news for small film makers from small countries because it looks like you don’t necessarily need a big budget and a lot of stars,” he said.

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Source: news.yahoo.com

LOS ANGELES – Box-office treasure is a little harder to come by on the new voyage of “Pirates of the Caribbean.” The third installment in the Walt Disney Co. franchise, “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” hauled in $112.5 million from Friday to Sunday, well below last summer’s $135.6 million opening weekend for its predecessor, “Dead Man’s Chest.”
“At World’s End” had the fifth-biggest three-day opening ever, with this month’s “Spider-Man 3″ ($151.1 million) and “Shrek the Third” ($121.6 million) both outperforming it.
Adding in $14 million from Thursday night preview screenings, “At World’s End” had taken in $126.5 million domestically, according to studio estimates Sunday. The Thursday night screenings skewed the weekend figures for “At World’s End,” which likely would have done much of that business on Friday without those previews.
“At World’s End” took in an additional $205.5 million internationally since it began rolling out overseas Wednesday, putting its worldwide total at $332 million.

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MIAMI – Police said a handyman delivering drugs shot and critically wounded a prominent Latin music songwriter and producer inside a waterfront mansion.
Fabio Alonso Salgado was shot around 11:30 p.m. Friday in the chest and on the back of the head. A police report described the injuries as “near fatal” but also said Salgado was able to talk with authorities and identify his attacker in a photo.
Salgado, also known as Estefano, has worked with Latin music stars including
Gloria Estefan,
Jennifer Lopez,
Marc Anthony, Shakira,
Ricky Martin, Enrique Iglesias and
Julio Iglesias.
The handyman, Francisco Oliveira, 29, who had worked for Salgado for five years and was delivering marijuana to him, according to police, is being charged with attempted murder. He was being held at the Miami-Dade County Jail without bond, according to jail records. It was not immediately clear whether he had an attorney.

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BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – Lindsay Lohan was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence Saturday after her convertible struck a curb, and investigators found what they believe is cocaine at the scene, police said.
Lohan, 20, and two other people were in her 2005 Mercedes SL-65 when it crashed on Sunset Boulevard around 5:30 a.m., Sgt. Mike Foxen said. It appeared the actress was speeding, Lt. Mitch McCann said at an afternoon news conference.
Officers at the scene found a “usable amount” of a drug tentatively identified as cocaine, McCann said. He declined to say where the drug was found other than to say Lohan was not carrying it.
Lohan, who spent time at a rehabilitation center earlier this year, was driven in another car to a hospital for treatment of minor injuries, McCann said. The two other people in her car were not hurt.
Officers received a 911 call about the accident and arrested Lohan at the hospital for investigation of misdemeanor driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, McCann said.
She was released from custody because she was admitted to the hospital, police said.
McCann declined to comment on Lohan’s blood-alcohol level. He said the case will be presented to the District Attorney’s Office where the actress could face more charges, including felonies. Her tentative arraignment date is Aug. 24.

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NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) – It has been a wild and in some cases wacky season for network TV, culminating in a hunt for millions of missing viewers that is so complicated that it’s worthy of its own episode of “CSI.”
On the surface, it is status quo — CBS extended its winning streak in total viewers to five years, while “American Idol”-powered Fox bagged a third consecutive season victory among adults 18-49, a demographic coveted by advertisers.

But underneath, a sea change has been brewing.

At the beginning of the season, Nielsen Media Research introduced “most current” ratings, totaling the audiences that watch a show live as well as those that record it on a DVR and watch it up to seven days later.

But even with those additional viewers counted this season, primetime television viewing dropped significantly compared with last season.

The steepest decline was in live viewership, which fell 10% year-over-year among the four major broadcast networks. Adding in DVR viewership, which can boost shows’ ratings by as much as 25% or more, the Big Four were still down 5%.

Things turned for the worse in the spring when many of TV’s best and brightest fell to season or even series lows. That list includes “Desperate Housewives,” “Lost,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “CSI: Miami” and “ER,” among others. Even “Idol” wasn’t immune though it hasn’t seen a year-over-year decline.
The reasons seem myriad. Explanations include poor comparisons with the
Winter Olympics, which boosted viewership levels last year, the lack of stunt counter-programming, a three weeks’ earlier start to daylight-saving time, an abnormally high amount of repeats in February and March and a shift in viewing behavior brought on by the DVR, streaming video and the growing number of ways network TV is consumed these days.

“It’s never one thing,” said Fox scheduling czar Preston Beckman, who acknowledged that the early start to daylight-saving time and the increase in DVR penetration has changed the game.

He thinks that the networks also have learned the hard way that viewers are annoyed by their favorite shows going on hiatus or repeating. It’s something Fox took into consideration three years ago when it scheduled “24″ straight through. Nielsen said that only 66% of program minutes in March were original compared with 80% a year ago.

Daylight-saving time generally shaves 3% or 4% off viewing, something the networks saw three weeks earlier this year. It particularly hit the 8-9 p.m. hour and such shows as NBC’s “My Name Is Earl” and “The Office.” But even when things started evening out, the ratings remained down.

“Probably the two had a compound effect and moved people away from their normal March viewing patterns into a lower general pattern of television viewing,” CBS research chief David Poltrack said. “We haven’t really recovered from that.”

Unlike the past two years, when several shows debuted in the winter and spring — “Office,” “The Unit,” “The New Adventures of Old Christine,” “Deal or No Deal” and, of course, “Grey’s Anatomy” — this year fewer programs were introduced and only three, ABC’s “October Road,” Fox’s “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” and CBS’ “Rules of Engagement” stuck.

“And certainly you wouldn’t put them in the same class as ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and ‘Deal or No Deal’ in terms of strength,” Poltrack said. “This was a spring where the networks were not reinvigorated with new programming as in years past. Hence, more repeats. This led to some lowering of overall viewing levels.”

Fox’s Beckman doesn’t think that the decline is as severe as it seems when just looking at live-plus-same day. It’s a function of the fact that the average Nielsen home is three or four times more likely to be recording programming and playing it back later than it was a year ago.

“When you incorporate the live-plus-seven (ratings), you see that viewing isn’t down as much as it appears to be,” Beckman said. By that yardstick, such series as “24,” “Lost” and “Idol” are flat or slightly up compared with a year ago.

NBC research chief Alan Wurtzel doesn’t think that there’s a mass departure of network TV viewers. It’s just that there are more choices and people are consuming media differently.

“It may well be that for a lot of people they don’t feel the need to be there day-and-date for conventional television anymore,” he said. “I do not believe that people aren’t interested in television. That doesn’t make any sense.”

But Beckman believes that with the networks putting so many shows on so many platforms, it is leading to a growing perception that viewers don’t have to watch it on network TV. The trick, he said, is whether the loss in potential advertising revenue is offset by the gains in the other ways the shows are being sold.

NBC is asking Nielsen to look into its measurement to make sure that there’s nothing hinky there, like a few years ago when young male viewership dropped precipitously. Nielsen said it’s looking into NBC’s concerns and plans to report to its clients before the Memorial Day holiday.

“What we’ve found is that people aren’t watching less TV this season, they’re watching slightly less live television,” a Nielsen spokesman said.

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NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) – Fox bagged its third straight crown in the key adults 18-49 demographic for the 2006-07 TV season, while CBS won for a fifth straight year in viewership.
The season finished up in grand style with a primetime Wednesday battle that featured the two-hour finales of “American Idol” and “Lost,” overlapping between 9-10:09 p.m. “Idol” won as expected, but “Lost” was able to hold its own, though both shows were down compared with last year’s ratings.

Such hits as “Idol” and “House” gave Fox the juice to win in adults 18-49, even though a disappointing fourth quarter got them started slower out of the gate. CBS had no problem holding onto its traditional victory in viewership and adults 25-54, the fifth straight in viewers and the fourth straight in what has become a baby boomer alternative to adults 18-49.

All four networks posted declines in adults 18-49 — Fox’s was the least (2%) and ABC’s the steepest (13%) — while only Fox gained viewers (up 3%) and CBS remained mostly flat, according to season-to-date data released Thursday by Nielsen Media Research. ABC last year had both the Super Bowl and “Monday Night Football,” which lowered ratings somewhat and made the comparisons worse than they actually were in the nonsports averages.

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LONDON –
Harry Potter author
J.K. Rowling will mark the release of the final book in the hugely popular series by giving a midnight reading and signing in London.
About 1,700 lucky fans in Britain and Ireland will win a chance to have Rowling sign a copy of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” The event will take place at the Natural History Museum on July 21, the day the book is released.

The first 500 randomly selected winners will also be invited to attend the midnight reading. Timed tickets will be issued for the subsequent book signing, which is expected to last until dawn. All the winners will receive a free copy of the book.

Seven U.S. residents can enter to win round-trip tickets to London and hotel accommodations to participate in the reading.

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LOS ANGELES – Prosecutors said Thursday they will ask a judge to revoke
Tom Sizemore’s probation and impose a sentence of 16 months in prison.
The 45-year-old actor has had a string of legal problems, the most recent coming this month, when he was arrested outside a hotel where police found two bags of suspected methamphetamine and smoking pipes in his car. He has pleaded not guilty to several drug-related charges.

Prosecutors said in court documents that in light of the actor’s arrest, Sizemore should have his 36-month probation revoked.

Sizemore, who appeared in the movies “Saving Private Ryan” and “Black Hawk Down,” was convicted of methamphetamine possession in October 2004.

His probation was revoked the following year after he acknowledged faking a drug test and failing to be checked for drugs every three days.

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LOS ANGELES – Twelve years ago, forensic scientist Henry Lee mesmerized jurors with his analysis of scientific evidence in
O.J. Simpson’s murder trial. Holding up a photo of what he said was a shoe print he declared ominously: “Something’s wrong.”
Despite challenges from others, it was a statement simple and accessible enough to help turn the tide in Simpson’s case and was emblematic of the style that has made Lee a nationally renowned expert. He made forensic evidence understandable before television’s “CSI” shows transformed it into a pop culture subject.

Lee often carries a large magnifying glass to the witness stand, casting himself in the role of a modern day Sherlock Holmes. He also uses props to present a show-and-tell explanation that intrigues jurors.

But his extraordinary reputation is now under attack. The judge in Phil Spector’s murder trial has ruled that Lee removed something from the scene where actress Lana Clarkson was shot and withheld it from the prosecution.

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CANNES, France (Reuters) – French director
Catherine Breillat typified a trend at the Cannes film festival by casting unknowns who had never acted before in “Une vieille maitresse.”
“A painter chooses their colors, they don’t buy them ready-made at the market and that’s how I choose the actors who play in the film,” she told reporters after a press screening of her 19th century tale of love and betrayal.

“They are unknowns, of course, but I think that unknowns are often much better, with a lot more freshness than others who may be worn down.”

Although hardly unknown, singer
Norah Jones took her first role in Chinese director Wong Kar-wai’s “Blueberry Nights” and this trend towards debutant actors recurred in films from
Israel, Austria and the United States.

Gus Van Sant used non-professionals in his skateboarder film “Paranoid Park,” casting many via the MySpace Internet site.

In Breillat’s film, neither Fu’ad Ait Aattou, who plays the young Ryno de Marigny, nor Claude Sarraute, a veteran French journalist who takes the role of the worldly Marquise de Flers, had appeared in a film.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Fictional Kazakh television reporter Borat Sagdiyev, who made movie audiences around the world laugh and cringe as he toured the United States, is going into print with a book of travel advice.
Borat, the creation of British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, has signed a book deal with Flying Dolphin Press, an imprint of Random House Inc.’s Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group.

Suzanne Herz, publisher of Flying Dolphin Press, said it will be two books in one — one half a guide to the United States for Kazakhs and the other half a guide to Kazakhstan for Westerners.

The book, to be released in hardcover, will have a dual title: “Borat: Touristic Guidings To Minor Nation of U.S. and A.” and “Borat: Touristic Guidings To Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”

“There is one and only Borat and we are honored to have him join our pantheon of international writers,” Herz said in a statement.

It has been a year since the movie “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” premiered at the
Cannes Film Festival and went on to become a box-office hit that grossed over $250 million worldwide.

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LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – In her first major solo role without her twin sister, Mary-Kate Olsen is returning to series television for the first time since 2002 with a co-starring role on Showtime’s dark comedy “Weeds.”

Olsen will play Tara, a devoted Christian girl living in the newly developed megachurch community Majestic who becomes a love interest for Nancy Botwin’s (
Mary-Louise Parker) son Silas (Hunter Parrish). Olsen will appear in 10 of the 15 episodes of the show’s third season, which premieres August 13.

Since their debut on ABC’s hit comedy series “Full House” at age 9 months, Olsen and her twin sister, Ashley, have starred together in a string of kids- and tween-oriented series and movies for television and video. In 2001-2002 they starred in the ABC Family sitcom “So Little Time.” They most recently starred in the 2004 feature comedy “New York Minute,” which the two also produced.

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CHICAGO – Donald Trump has exchanged insults with
Rosie O’Donnell and questions Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s intelligence. So which co-host does he back in their recent on-air tiff on ABC’s “The View”?
Neither, apparently.

“I’ve always said Rosie is very self-destructive,” Trump said Thursday in Chicago. “… As far as Elisabeth Hasselbeck, I’ve always said she’s probably the dumbest person on television, but when she called me … obnoxious, she was probably right.”

The argument Wednesday included O’Donnell calling Hasselbeck “cowardly” for not defending her when media outlets suggested that she’d called U.S. troops “terrorists” during a previous debate.

“What you did was not defend me. … I asked you if you believed what the Republican pundits were saying — you said nothing, and that’s cowardly,” O’Donnell said.

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BEERWAH, Australia – Bindi Irwin wants her new TV show to continue the educational and conservation work of her father, the late “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin.
“I’m proud to be showing kids that conservation and helping wildlife is a stack of fun,” the 8-year-old Bindi said Friday at the Australian launch of “Bindi: The Jungle Girl.”

“It’s just the most amazing thing that we could ever do,” she said.

Producers say the show will feature Steve Irwin in scenes shot before he was killed by a stingray last fall while filming one of his popular television documentaries.

Irwin’s widow, Terri, said her husband would have been very proud of his daughter’s debut. The series will air on the Discovery Kids Channel in the United States and the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

“I think he would have said, `Crikey mate, I couldn’t wait for Bindi to take over,’” Terri Irwin said.

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CANNES, France (Reuters) – When director Pedro Almodovar was named hot favorite to triumph at the
Cannes Film Festival in 2006, he called it a curse after he failed to win.
The dubious honor of pre-award favorite — which so often goes to a film that then fails to win the competition — falls this year to a movie depicting Romania towards the end of the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu and all its uncaring grimness.

One of the first films to be screened, “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” has led virtually from the start.

Directed by Cristian Mungiu, it unfolds in a single day and tells the story of Gabita illegally aborting an unwanted baby and the trials of her friend and accomplice, Otilia.

Its popularity in Cannes is appropriate given that the main competition was full of harrowing tales, while several have also featured outstanding performances by leading actresses.

The movie marathon wraps up with Sunday night’s award ceremony. Journalists are winding down, the crowds are thinning out and the films are back in focus after 10 hectic days of screenings, interviews, red carpets, parties and deals.

“4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” is one of the few films in Cannes this year that united critics from France and those from the non-French-speaking world.

The often yawning gap between the two camps has made the 60th Cannes Film Festival even more difficult to predict than usual, although there is a general feeling that the quality of the main competition line-up has been generally good.

With two films yet to screen — Emir Kusturica’s “Promise Me This” and Naomi Kawase’s “The Mourning Forest” — favorites include “No Country For Old Men” by the Coen brothers, “Alexandra” by Russia’s Alexander Sokurov, “Zodiac” by
David Fincher (U.S.) and “Secret Sunshine” from
South Korea.

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Seventeen-year-old Jordin Sparks won the 2007 “American Idol” television singing contest on Wednesday, beating an older, more offbeat male rival to become the youngest ever winner of the coveted title.

Sparks, who captured the hearts of viewers of the most popular U.S. TV show with her bubbly personality and big voice, beat 25-year-old Blake Lewis in a contest that was decided by a telephone vote in which a record 74 million votes were cast.

The two finalists embraced after host Ryan Seacrest announced the result with Sparks, dressed in a long, flowing gold gown, having difficulty catching her breath.
“Thank you so much for everything — Mom and Dad, I love you!” said the emotional teenager, who along with the “American Idol” title will receive a recording contract.

In its sixth season, “American Idol” has grown from a cheesy summer talent competition into a cultural phenomenon that draws about 30 million viewers twice a week to News Corp.’s Fox network.

About 100,000 people auditioned for this year’s show, which puts contestants through auditions and performances that showcase musical genres ranging from country to hard rock. In its first five seasons, “Idol” has produced a list of successful stars from both its winners and losers.

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LONDON (Reuters) – British actress Keira Knightley, star of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” film trilogy, won 3,000 pounds ($5,965) in libel damages on Thursday over a newspaper slur that she was excessively thin.

The Daily Mail had run a story with a picture of her in a bikini, headlined: “If Pictures Like This One of Keira Carried a Health Warning, My Darling Daughter Might Have Lived”.

“The article could be interpreted to have asserted that the claimant bore personal responsibility for causing the tragic death of Sophie Mazurek, a 19-year-old, who battled with anorexia,” Knightley’s lawyer Simon Smith told the High Court.

The 22-year-old actress had been embarrassed by the “entirely false” and “deeply offensive” suggestions.

He added the story could be taken to mean that the actress had set out to lose an excessive amount of weight by failing to eat properly and by over-exercising inappropriately because she wanted to become unnaturally thin.

Three days earlier the paper had published an article under the headline “It’s Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Keira Knightley” in which it referred to her denial that she suffered from anorexia.

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The “American Idol” finale was no small affair. Everyone from Jerry Springer to Teri Hatcher to Brittany Murphy turned out. The Hoff even took a break from his current scandal and “America’s Got Talent” judging duties to join the 2,999 other people in the Kodak Theater.

And what did they get to see? Well, for one: Randy in an even more atrocious jacket than the night before. And then a Jordin-Blake version of “I Saw Her Standing There” that was so cute and sexy, the two almost seemed attracted to each other.

Gwen Stefani and Kelly Clarkson performed, and then Ryan presented the first in a series of sardonic awards to, essentially, the biggest freaks that auditioned this year.

And I’ll have you know that one of them — a terrifying man who does for cats what “Jaws” did for sharks — is someone I had only recently succeeded in excavating from my subconscious. Thanks for the reminder, “Idol.”

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Party princess turned pending prisoner Paris Hilton seems to be sanctifying her sins by turning to the word of the Lord.

The Hollywood Boulevard blonde was busted bumming around Beverly Hills carrying the self-help book “The Power of One” and the Holy Bible.

Perhaps Paris was so busy praying and preaching that she forgot to put on her bra.
As if that wasn’t enough, she then stripped down for a swim in the Raleigh Hotel’s pool.

The Miami Herald is also claiming that Spears then boogied and boozed until 5 a.m. in the VIP section of SET.

A source splurged to the paper that Spears was doing Purple Hooter Shots — which are part vodka, part Chambord and part 7-Up — while getting down and dirty to tracks by Fergie and Nelly Furtado as per her request.

“Spears was dancing around like a crazy lady,” said one eyewitness. “ She is definitely back in the scene.”

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Jordin Sparks grew up on “American Idol,” watching the show since she was 12 years old and telling her mother it was what she wanted to do.

“Now I’m actually doing it,” the 17-year-old told reporters backstage after winning the competition in Wednesday’s season finale.
The announcement that the Arizona teenager bested Blake Lewis, 25, the beat-boxer from Washington, came at the end of a two-hour extravaganza at the Kodak Theatre.

“I’ve just been trying to top myself each week,” Sparks told The Associated Press. “I would sing my song and after I was done I was like, `OK, what am I going to do next week that’s going to be … either just as good or better.”

Sparks, with a floor-length gown and movie-star hair, gushed like a teenager when her name was called.

“Thank you so much for everything,” she told the crowd. “Mom, Dad, I love you. Nana, Papa, P.J., thank you guys.”

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Source: abcnews.go.com

LOS ANGELES – “Don’t Read!! Personall,” warns the diary’s inside cover. But its author,
Anna Nicole Smith, has no hold in death on the remnants of her life.
The public now can discover that she was delighted by rough sex, ecstatic over the prospect of plastic surgery for her breasts, and fearful of a jealous boyfriend. She was careless with spelling, punctuation, and, too often, with her own well-being.

Complaining about her then-lover’s carousing, Smith writes that she’ll break it off with him if he doesn’t stop. Then she amends her stand, according to new diary excerpts released exclusively to The Associated Press.

“We discussed it and he said he wouldn’t go out and get drunk no more unless it was with me,” Smith wrote in the diaries, which span about a year from early 1991 to 1992.

On an evening out a few weeks later with the same man (identified only by first name), Smith wrote that she got drunk and “asked a guy for his #.”

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Britney Spears’ relationship with her mother has turned toxic.

The singer, who once was so close to Lynne Spears that she co-wrote a book with her and gushed that her mom was her best friend, is so furious with the woman that she refused to visit her in the hospital on Mother’s Day, according to several reports.

“Britney has cut off all communication with her mom,” a “friend” of the 25-year-old singer told the National Enquirer. “She’s gone from calling Lynne ten times a day to flat-out refusing to speak to her.”
Lynne, 52, was hospitalized in southern California recently when a bout of the flu turned into pneumonia. Spears reportedly is furious with her mother for urging the “Oops I Did It Again” singer to enter rehab, and didn’t call her earlier this month for her birthday, either. The Star is reporting a similar story.

“Britney says her mom betrayed her and she refuses to get over it,” the source told the Enquirer. “When she was told to give her mom a call, Britney said: ‘I’m busy, I have my own kids now.’ ”

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LOS ANGELES -
Paris Hilton is “emotionally distraught and traumatized” over her 45-day jail sentence and isn’t capable of testifying in a civil lawsuit against her, the socialite-reality TV star’s psychiatrist said.
Dr. Charles Sophy has been seeing Hilton, 26, for the past eight months and has talked with her several times since her May 4 hearing for violating the terms of her probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case, according to court papers.

Sophy said Hilton needs time to recover from the shock of receiving jail time before testifying in a civil case brought against her by actress and diamond heiress Zeta Graff.

Messages left with Hilton’s spokesman and lawyer weren’t immediately returned early Tuesday.

In court papers filed Monday, Sophy said Hilton is “distraught and traumatized as a consequence of the findings at the May 4 hearing … and her fear of incarceration.”

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My Name is Earl star Jaime Pressly and her deejay fiancé, Eric Cubiche, welcomed a baby boy, Dezi James, on Friday, her rep tells PEOPLE.

The child was born at 7:31 a.m. in Los Angeles and weighed 6 lbs. 4 oz.

The Emmy-nominated actress, 29, who also designs the clothing line J’aime, told PEOPLE the name is part of a running joke – the Cuban-American Cubiche, 33, does a Desi Arnaz impersonation, calling Pressly “Luuucy” when he comes home at night. James is her father’s name.

The couple were friends for more than nine years and dated for a year and a half before getting engaged in October, when Cubiche presented Pressly with a ring they had designed together.

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Source: www.people.com

Fridays are on Katie, y’all.

As she shoots her latest movie, Mad Money, in Shreveport, La., Katie Holmes is making sure her fellow cast and crew members – all 200 or so of them – are well fed. For the third consecutive Friday she brought in a special treat.

“We got cupcakes,” one cast member told PEOPLE. “They were good, too.”

Holmes, who is costarring with Queen Latifah, Diane Keaton and Ted Danson in the comedy, started the Friday tradition on April 27, when she treated the set to 300 ice cream cones – a nice break as temperatures climbed into the high 80s.

The next Friday, Holmes arranged for more than 80 pizzas to be flown in from Chicago and baked locally before being delivered to the set.

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Source: www.people.com

Donald Trump has a new name to answer to: Grandpa.

Son Donald Trump Jr. and wife Vanessa, both 29, welcomed their first child Saturday afternoon in New York City, the couple told PEOPLE.

The 6-lb. 14-oz. girl, named Kai Madison, joins uncle Barron, The Donald’s own 1-year-old son with wife Melania, among the youngest Trumps.

“Everyone’s great,” Trump Jr. said in a phone call from the hospital. “Baby’s great, Vanessa’s great – and I’m getting used to the idea [of being a father].”

And what’s the origin of the baby girl’s unusual name? “Her [maternal] grandfather,” he says. “It’s Danish. He’s a Danish musician and we wanted to keep it as a family name.”

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Source: www.people.com

LOS ANGELES – The survival of a major “Lost” character was left in doubt this week in an episode that shot adrenaline into the plot of the ABC series but failed to give it a needed ratings boost.

The Wednesday episode in which Locke (Terry O’Quinn) was shot, perhaps fatally, by Ben (Michael Emerson), the leader of “the Others,” drew 12.1 million viewers. That’s about the same sized audience the show has been attracting in recent weeks.

That compares to the 22 million-plus “Lost” drew at its peak last season, its second. Still, the drama about plane-crash survivors on a mysterious island has been winning its 10 p.m. EDT time slot among the young adult viewers prized by advertisers.

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NEW YORK – Summer’s coming, and darn good thing! There’s still a chill in the air for viewers who in years past could count on their favorite dramas heating up as the end of the season approached.

But this year? Brrrrrrr!

Consider: Is the audience really hot for ABC’s “Desperate Housewives,” where on Sunday Lynette (Felicity Huffman) got locked in a freezer (!) with her hunky restaurant employee?

So what if Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) is engaged to marry the town’s new mayor? And was anyone surprised that Susan (Teri Hatcher) is back with Mike the Plumber — after getting herself lost in the wilderness pursuing him?

Can events on Wisteria Lane raise the mercury by the season finale May 20? Or will late frost still be clinging to those manicured lawns?

Jack Bauer’s been busy trying to keep the country from going radioactive. But his crusade has received a cool reception from “24″ viewers, who, sensing a familiar routine to this Fox thriller, are maybe wearied by nukes in the clutches of terrorists and the White House in the clutches of knaves.

The sixth season started promisingly, with counter-terrorist go-to guy Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) getting sprung from imprisonment and torture by Chinese officials. But on Monday’s episode, which was 21 hours into Bauer’s current day-from-hell, darned if the Chinese didn’t seize the ultra-secure CTU headquarters — putting Bauer (along with the rest of the free world) in further peril, with his own father playing a key role in the villainy.

Odds are the Chinese (and Dad) will be thwarted by Bauer during the May 21 season finale. But could it leave viewers feeling as burned-out as Jack?

NBC is hyping the May 16 finale for “Crossing Jordan” with an intriguing mishap: Sassy Boston medical examiner Jordan (Jill Hennessy) and her coroner cronies go down in a plane crash.

This would barely be worth noting (”Crossing Jordan” has never generated much sizzle) were it not such a missed opportunity: What if their plane ended up on the mysterious “Lost” island?

Why not? More scattered and elliptical than ever this season, ABC’s “Lost” seems to have an unlimited capacity for taxing its viewers with new characters and new plot twists.

Just recently, yet another intruder dropped in when her helicopter crashed. She brought a disturbing message: The entire wreckage of Oceanic Air Flight 815 had been found at the bottom of the ocean miles away, along with the bodies of all its passengers.

Huh? Many island dwellers on “Lost” from that doomed flight not only survived it, but, after three seasons, remain visibly alive. That is, with the possible exception of Locke (Terry O’Quinn), who, when last seen, wasn’t looking too lively.

Maybe the May 23 finale will shed needed light, if not heat, on the show’s burning issues. But, based on its tepid ratings lately, viewers may have begun to despair of ever finding out the whole truth. (The series’ conclusion, announced this week for 2010, is an awfully long time to wait.)

On the other hand, “Heroes,” in its first season, is cooking, and viewers will be hot to learn what happens on its finale May 21.

The bottom-line question seems simple: Will a large chunk of New York City go out with a bang, blown up by a human nuke?

That might be the only simple thing about “Heroes.” NBC’s mystic saga is packed with characters whose mission, alliances and fate seem in constant flux. These folks seem to have only one thing in common: wildly varying special powers.

A prime example is Claire the Cheerleader (Hayden Panettiere), who is physically indestructible. But can she (or anybody) ward off New York’s devastation?

And who, if anyone, will be the one who goes boom? Bad guy Sylar (Zachary Quinto), who has a habit of leeching powers from all the good guys? Or good guy Peter (Milo Ventimiglia), already haunted by a vision that “I wipe out this whole city” — and whose hands were glowing frightfully when he was last glimpsed?

Like its characters, “Heroes” is unfettered by time, space or other ordinary restraints. Fueled by freshness and imagination, it revels in its own pyrotechnic sense of privilege.

Where does that leave New York? Right now, up for grabs.

Meanwhile, across the river, time is running out for “The Sopranos.”

These days, the main heat associated with this HBO drama is the heat Tony and his fellow Jersey mobsters are packing. But even if, now, in its final season, “The Sopranos” isn’t the phenomenon it once was, the series conclusion should be a towering event.

Why? From the first episode in January 1999, Tony Soprano was a man with no way out. Since then, he’s been a father, husband and criminal living on borrowed time — time shared unforgettably with viewers. On June 10, time is up for this masterpiece. It ought to be a scorcher.

___

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Britney Spears has been keeping her newly-short haircut under wraps in public – but one of her backup dancers says the pop star’s buzz cut looks great.

“She looks so good she should model,” dancer Crisilla Crossland tells the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The famously self-shorn singer, whose hair is now now about 2 inches long, even jokingly asked her dancers: “Would y’all cut your hair?” – though none of them took her up on the offer, the dancer says.

So, what about Spears’s upcoming album? Crossland tells the paper that Spears has been rehearsing two new songs, which she calls “amazing.”

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Source: www.people.com

The producer of Lindsay Lohan’s new movie, Georgia Rule, famously scolded her in a letter for missing work last summer – but the film’s director says he was the one who requested the reprimand.

“Once somebody walks on my set, it’s my problem, but we can’t go chasing them,” Garry Marshall said Tuesday at the movie’s New York City premiere. “This film is low-budget. We can’t lose days. … Tough love is a part of this business – she missed a day on the second week of shooting.”

So at Marshall’s request, Morgan Creek Productions chief James G. Robinson sent Lohan a stern letter calling her absences from the set “irresponsible and unprofessional” and blaming her “all-night heavy partying” for her “so-called ‘exhaustion.’ ” The letter quickly made headlines when it was posted on The Smoking Gun’s Web site.

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Just before Ryan Seacrest began to announce the night’s results, the final four contestants clumped together onstage, refusing to separate. Well, it was a cute piece of stage business, but they couldn’t stay that way all night – and they didn’t. Just as the wise Simon Cowell anticipated, LaKisha Jones was the one voted off. She probably expected it: Earlier in the show, Seacrest caught her muttering to herself during a commercial break. What had she been saying? “Hopefully I’ll remember the words,” she told him, “and I don’t want to cry.”

She did cry, briefly, but then she sang a big, sassy version of “Stayin’ Alive,” strolling through the studio audience.

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Today’s burning question: If Paris Hilton is such a traffic scofflaw that she has to be locked up, what was she doing behind the wheel of a car this week?

It turns out that, despite her jail sentence for violating probation by driving with a suspended license, that California card in her designer purse is now perfectly valid. According to the Department of Motor Vehicles, her license was suspended in November – and reinstated in March.

“If her license was reinstated, she’s perfectly okay to drive despite her probation violation. There’s no problem with that,” explains veteran DUI attorney Lawrence Taylor.

Meanwhile, Hilton’s lawyer issued a statement Wednesday afternoon saying she is “ready to face the consequences” for her actions.

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Tammy Faye Bakker Messner has asked her friends and fans to pray for her now that doctors have stopped medical treatment for her stomach cancer.

In a message posted on her Web site, the evangelist and former TV personality, 65, who was also the subject of a 2000 feature documentary, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, thanks those who have sent her “rooms full of flowers, the tables full of cards, and beautiful little gifts.”

She acknowledges that she has not had the opportunity to reply to the outpouring, saying, “I have been on so much medication, so many have been trying to help with thank-you notes.” She also says she is “trusting God to heal my sick stomach. Please try to understand.”

Regarding her current condition, Tammy Faye, who phoned Larry King on his CNN program last December to say she was living in a North Carolina hospice, writes, “The doctors have stopped trying to treat the cancer and so now it’s up to God and my faith. And that’s enough! But please continue to pray for the pain and sick stomach.”

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Jordana Brewster of The Fast and the Furious and producer Andrew Form were married last weekend in the Caribbean, her rep tells PEOPLE.

Brewster, 27, wore a Vera Wang dress in Sunday’s private ceremony on Nevis Island.

The couple met in 2005 when she was shooting The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. Form, 38, was one of the producers.

“We started dating in secret – you know, hanging out in my trailer – because it would have been unprofessional otherwise,” Brewster told InStyle Weddings for its spring issue. “But every day, Andrew wore these work boots to the set, and if I was lying down in the shot or there was equipment in the way, I’d look for his shoes. It was comfortable just to know he was nearby.”

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Virginia Madsen spoke openly on Tuesday about a topic most actresses only whisper about to their dermatologists: Botox.

Pointing to the bridge between her eyes, the Sideways Oscar nominee, 45, told a New York press luncheon that “over the years” she’s put the wrinkle-erasing product to use in order to deal with her “11″ lines, and “more recently,” she said, she’s also used Juvéderm to correct the creases at the sides of her mouth.

“As I started to talk about it and as it ended up in print there was such an overwhelming response from friends and family, lots and lots of actors, people on the street,” said Madsen, who is the new spokesperson for Allergan, Inc. – the maker of Botox and Juvéderm. “They were surprised that I looked so ‘normal.’ ”

Madsen, whose mother, Elaine Madsen, was at her side, said: “That is how it should be. I don’t have that sort of frozen look that we have talked about.”

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Extreme Makeover: Home Edition host Ty Pennington was charged Tuesday with misdemeanor drunken driving.

Pennington’s blood-alcohol level was .14 percent – well above the state’s legal limit of .08 percent, says Los Angeles City Attorney spokesman Frank Mateljan.

Pennington was arrested May 5 in the Marina Del Rey section of Los Angeles and released on $5,000 bond. He apologized to viewers and his coworkers on the show, calling the arrest a “wake-up call.”

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Paris Hilton is now part of a grass-roots campaign to keep her out of jail.

In a message that went up Monday on her MySpace page and reported in the New York Post, the hotel heiress writes (in her own spelling): “My friend Joshua started this petition, please help and sihn it. i LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!”

The petition, directed to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, asks that Hilton be pardoned from her sentence of 45 days in jail for violating the terms of her probation by driving with a suspended license. The punishment was handed down in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday. An appeal has been filed.

“I urge all fans and supporters and all that are outraged by injustice to sign this petition,” writes Hilton.

The petition, which had more than 900 signatures by Tuesday morning, urges the California actor-turned-governor to pardon Hilton because she provides “beauty and excitement to (most of) our otherwise mundane lives.”

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Brittany Murphy has tied the knot with Simon Monjack, the British writer and director of her latest project, the couple tell PEOPLE.

“They were married at their home in Los Angeles several weeks ago in a very intimate ceremony,” Murphy’s rep tells PEOPLE. “It was officiated by a rabbi and they were surrounded by their families.”

After the wedding they then headed to Louisville for last weekend’s Kentucky Derby.

“This was our first trip as a married couple. We came to the Kentucky Derby and had a wonderful time,” they said in a statement to PEOPLE on Tuesday.

The couple visited jeweler Neil Lane about two weeks ago to pick out an engagement ring – and left the store with two rings, Lane says.

“They couldn’t decide on one, so they got them both,” Lane tells PEOPLE. “Simon told me: ‘You know, you only live once.’ He did it with a lot of love and sentiment. I’ve never had that happen to me before. It’s so romantic.”

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When her new movie, Blonde & Blonder premieres at the Cannes Film Festival later this month, Pamela Anderson will not be there.

“I’ve been hearing rumors that I will be attending,” the Baywatch and Borat star, 39, writes on her Web site.

Instead, she’ll be holding her own special unveiling of the comedy stateside, on Tuesday.

“I’m having my own premiere with my kids,” Bandon, 10, and Dylan, 9, Anderson goes on to say, “in my bed with popcorn.”

Fans should not be disappointed, however. Anderson’s costar, Denise Richards, will be attending the French premiere, says the blonder star. (Richards is a brunette.)

Of the movie, Anderson says she “can’t believe we shot movie in 3 weeks – and that it’s getting so much attention.” (Not that all of it was favorable. At one point, Richards made headlines for reportedly tossing a photographer’s laptop off a hotel balcony.)

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First daughter Barbara Bush didn’t take just anyone to Monday night’s White House state dinner for Queen Elizabeth of England.

At the 25-year-old’s side: her former college sweetheart, Jay Blount, The Washington Post’s The Reliable Source column reports.

This, of course, has prompted many a question. Are the duo dating? Or just procrastinating their way through first daughter banquet benefits from time to time?

Presented with these very questions, the saturnine 25-year-old investment management consultant kept his lips zipped when contacted by The Post.

Blount was last seen with the Bush family at Easter 2005, when he joined the clan in Texas. By some accounts, he and the dark-haired twin had parted ways more than a year ago, says the newspaper.

But in recent months there have been other reported sightings of the two in and around New York, where Bush works for the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

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(CBS) Actress Brittany Murphy has married screenwriter Simon Monjack in a private ceremony in Los Angeles several weeks ago. This is the first marriage for both.

“It was officiated by a rabbi, and they were surrounded by their families,” her publicist told The Showbuzz Tuesday.

Word of the marriage got out after the couple was spotted flashing their wedding rings during a Playboy party at the Kentucky Derby last Saturday.

A source told Us Weekly magazine that Murphy and Monjack were “drinking Crown Royal and didn’t want photographers to take pictures of their rings because they were making a formal announcement Monday.”

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(CBS/AP) Washington turned out adoring schoolchildren and ladies in hats for Queen Elizabeth II’s visit. The White House, too, laid on special touches at President George W. Bush’s first-ever white-tie state dinner to honor America’s closest ally and make the queen feel welcome.

The centuries-old vermeil flatware and candelabras came from a London silversmith. A made-of-sugar replica of the queen’s 1953 coronation rose graced the cake. English farmhouse cheeses accompanied the salad course.

And the traditional “special guest” invited only at the last minute was sure to be of interest to an avid horse enthusiast such as the queen: Calvin Borel, the jockey who rode Street Sense to victory in the Kentucky Derby this weekend with the royals in attendance.

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Source: www.showbuzz.cbsnews.com

Paris Hilton has appealed her 45-day jail sentence for violating her probation, according to papers released Monday.

The one-page notice of appeal was filled out by hand and filed Friday shortly after the judge issued the sentence.

“It’s a long shot,” Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson tells PEOPLE of the appeal’s chances. “I wouldn’t hold my breath. It was a clear-cut case against her. Paris’s excuses didn’t ring true.”

Lawrence Taylor, a 30-year DUI attorney, says, “Her chances of winning an appeal are little to none. The prosecutors had a slam dunk case. The evidence was overwhelming that she repeatedly violated probation.”

In all, it has been a tumultuous few days for Hilton. After the sentencing, she was so upset she fired her longtime publicist – then scheduled a dinner with him to discuss the matter.

She also spoke out for the first time over the weekend. Described as visibly shaken and tearful, the heiress, 26, who had been found in violation of her probation after she drove with a suspended license, made her feelings clear to photographers waiting outside her Los Angeles home on Saturday night.

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Neve Campbell and British actor John Light have married, PEOPLE has confirmed.

“Neve was married in a small ceremony in Malibu on Saturday,” her rep, Jill Fritzo, says.

The two reportedly met on the set of the 2001 independent movie they were making together, Investigating Sex.

When they became engaged in February 2006, Light, now 32, got down on one knee and recited Shakespeare to Campbell, 33, PEOPLE reported.

Campbell, best known for her role as the brainy Julia Salinger on the 1994-2000 TV family drama Party of Five, also starred in all three Scream films.

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A family court judge on Monday temporarily blocked David Hasselhoff from seeing his two daughters after one of the girls videotaped the actor while he was drunk.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark Juhas granted an emergency order filed by Hasselhoff’s ex-wife, Pamela Bach, who was present in court. Hasselhoff didn’t attend the session.

“He suspended all visitation and custody until May 21,” says Bach’s attorney, Debra Opri, who is also asking that the judge order Hasselhoff into rehab before he can again see his daughters Hayley, 14, and Taylor Ann, 16.

It was Taylor Ann who made the widely publicized video of her father wearing only a pair of jeans, lying on the floor and eating a hamburger while appearing extremely intoxicated. Taylor’s voice can be heard on the videotape telling him that if he tests positive for alcohol the following day, he could be fired from his job.

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In a move that further dispels rumors of marital strife, Tom Cruise has plunked down $35 million for a Beverly Hills home for himself, Katie Holmes and baby Suri, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The star, 44, had been renting a home in Beverly Hills for the past several years (he and Holmes, 28, married last November), but that lease runs out next year, according to the paper.

The new address, which reportedly was not even on the market when Cruise made his offer, is described as a ” traditional-style residence.”

Originally built as a 10,000-sq.-ft. structure in 1937, the house was expanded four years ago and currently contains seven bedroom and nine bathrooms, say those familiar with the property.

The Cruises will have their privacy: the house sits on 1.3 acres behind gates and a lengthy driveway, and sports a tennis court and a pool.

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It wasn’t exactly happily ever after, but Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz made nice at Sunday morning’s Los Angeles premiere of Shrek the Third.

The event – which also drew the film’s stars Eddie Murphy, Mike Meyers, Julie Andrews, Rupert Everett and Antonio Banderas (with his wife, Melanie Griffith) – marked the former couple’s first major public appearance together since breaking up in January.

The exes arrived at nearly the same time, and they later smiled together for a cast photo – even sharing a hug and a kiss.

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LOS ANGELES – ABC is attempting to rescue once-hot “Lost” by ending the show — in 2010. Bowing to the fact that convention isn’t working for the drama about plane-crash survivors on a surreal island, the network is taking the unusual step of turning “Lost” into a limited-run series.
It will run for three shorter and uninterrupted seasons until its “highly anticipated and shocking finale” in the 2009-10 season, ABC said Monday.

The series, which saw its ratings drop this season amid complaints about scheduling, an increasingly meandering plot and unpopular new characters, still must prove itself to disenchanted viewers to survive.

“Due to the unique nature of the series, we knew it would require an end date to keep the integrity and strength of the show consistent throughout and to give the audience the payoff they deserve,” ABC Entertainment President Stephen McPherson said in a statement.

Typically, networks milk a series until it runs dry of ratings and then drop the ax.

Last January, “Lost” producers said they were talking with the network about setting an end date.

Executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have agreed to remain with the show, now in its third season, through the end, ABC said. Lindelof created the show with J.J. Abrams and Jeffrey Lieber.

“We always envisioned `Lost’ as a show with a beginning, middle and end,” Lindelof and Cuse said in a statement. “By officially announcing exactly when that ending will be, the audience will now have the security of knowing that the story will play out as we’ve intended.”

A total of 48 episodes will air over the next three seasons, with 16 episodes running without a break each season in the style of Fox’s “24.” That will take care of viewer complaints about reruns that left them dangling.

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America’s favorite party girl has been ordered to jail, and her stay there will be no trip to the Hilton.

A judge sentenced Paris Hilton to 45 days in a Los Angeles county jail Friday for violating her probation. Come June 5, Hilton will be confined to a segregated 8-by-12-foot cell in a Lynwood, Calif., detention center for women. Her designer duds won’t be welcome.
“She will be in an orange jumpsuit, and everything else, the accoutrement, the makeup, is an absolute minimum,” said Sgt. Steve Whitmore of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department.

Hilton’s cell phone, her crystal-encrusted trademark, will be banned as well. But not being able to text and talk with her celebrity friends will be the least.

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Billionaire Warren Buffett doesn’t want to give up the throne at his holding company anytime soon, but the 76-year-old is preparing for that day.

Many details remain secret, but the question of who might become Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s chief investment officer is getting a lot of attention because Buffett said in March he plans to hire one or more candidates for that position soon on a trial basis.

Wrapping up this weekend’s activities surrounding Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholders meeting, Buffett said whoever he hires should expect to be paid based on how well their investments perform.

“I would give them a small salary, and then pay them a percentage based on how they outperformed the S&P on a five-year average,” Buffett said at a news conference Sunday.

Vice Chairman Charlie Munger said that fits with the company’s overall compensation plan.

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Source: abcnews.go.com

(AP) Spider-Man caught just about everyone in his web. The superhero’s latest adventure, “Spider-Man 3,” smashed box-office records with $148 million in its first three days, according to studio estimates Sunday.

That put it ahead of the previous record debut of $135.6 million set last summer by “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.”

With $59.3 million on opening day Friday, Sony’s “Spider-Man 3″ broke the single-day box-office record, also held by “Dead Man’s Chest” with $55.8 million in its first day.

Since it began rolling out overseas on Tuesday, “Spider-Man 3″ has taken in $227 million in foreign markets, bringing the film’s worldwide total to $375 million. In just days, the movie has grossed $117 million more than its whopping $258 million production budget.

In just two days, it also nearly matched the $114.8 million opening weekend of 2002’s “Spider-Man,” which had held the debut record until “Dead Man’s Chest” opened.

Former Facts of Life star Kim Fields has welcomed a son, Sebastian Alexander Morgan, her rep confirms to PEOPLE exclusively.

The boy, who will be called “Sam,” was born Friday at 11:30 a.m. (Fields was in labor for less than two hours.)

He weighed 6 lbs., 4 oz. and was 19″ long. Fields – whose pregnancy and delivery were “trouble free, sickness free, very smooth, perfect,” according to her rep – said upon first seeing her son, “Oh, my God. He’s gorgeous.”

This is the first child for Fields and her boyfriend, Broadway actor Christopher Morgan – who was in the delivery room, speechless and crying when his son arrived, said the rep.

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Proving to be one of the most sought-after celebrities at this weekend’s Kentucky Derby, Larry Birkhead beamed when talking about his nearly 8-month-old daughter, Dannielynn.

“The nursery is all pink,” Birkhead, 34, told PEOPLE of the baby’s room. (Pink was the favorite color of Dannielynn’s mom, the late Anna Nicole Smith.)

The baby also is already developing distinctive tastes, according to her father. “She loves Disney characters and zoo characters,” says Birkhead.

As for the nursery’s decor, “I did it all myself,” he says.

“There are actually three nurseries,” adds Birkhead, who, after picking up Dannielynn from the Bahamas on May 1, brought her to meet his folks in Kentucky. He, meanwhile, calls Los Angeles home.

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You win some, you lose some. An hour after boxing champ Oscar De La Hoya lost a major match-up Saturday in Las Vegas against “Pretty Boy” Floyd Mayweather, his wife, Millie Corretjer, revealed he was going to be a father for the fourth time.

“I think tonight is a good night to tell him,” she told the Los Angeles Times before she gave her husband the news. “He has a lot to look forward to now.”

This will be De La Hoya’s fourth child and his wife’s second. The couple welcomed a son, Oscar Gabriel, on Dec. 29, 2005.

De La Hoya, 34, and Corretjer, a 33-year-old Puerto Rican pop singer, were married Oct. 5, 2001. The couple met in 2000, when both were signed to the same record label. (De La Hoya’s debut CD that year earned a Grammy nod.)

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Lindsay Lohan reportedly participated in what the Britain’s News of the World on Sunday called a “marathon cocaine binge” only 20 days after she left rehab.

A rep for the actress had no comment on the report.

The paper’s story also includes what it says are screen grabs from video clips of Lohan, 20, inside the ladies room of Teddy’s nightclub in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, with two friends who are also allegedly taking drugs. (PEOPLE has not seen the video.)

Lohan also is quoted boasting about her sexual conquests among celebrities, while unnamed “friends” of the actress, according to the paper, said her drug-taking began at 8 p.m. one night and was still going on at 11 a.m. the next morning.

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Source: www.people.com

Paris Hilton and her longtime press representative, Elliot Mintz, have ended their relationship, Mintz announced in an e-mail to PEOPLE Sunday night.

The dissolution of their partnership comes two days after Hilton, 26, was sentenced to 45 days in jail for violation of her probation by driving with a suspended driver’s license. (She is to report for jail by June 5.)

According to Mintz’s message, “The day after the hearing, I sent Paris an e-mail expressing my sadness over the ruling of the judge and the irrational sentence he imposed.”

At her hearing Friday, Hilton told Superior Court Judge Michael Sauer that Mintz had repeatedly informed her that her license had been suspended for only 30 days and that she could still drive for work-related matters.

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LAS VEGAS – The chairman and chief executive of HBO was arrested early Sunday on suspicion of assaulting his girlfriend outside the MGM Grand casino hours after a boxing match aired by his company, authorities said.
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Chris Albrecht was in Las Vegas for Saturday night’s fight between Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr., held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena and broadcast on pay-per-view by Home Box Office, Inc., a division of Time Warner Inc.

Officers assigned to the fight reported seeing Albrecht fighting with a woman identified only as his girlfriend in the MGM Grand’s valet parking lot shortly after 3 a.m., said Las Vegas police spokesman Officer Bill Cassell.

“Some of our guys observed a domestic dispute between him and his girlfriend,” Cassell told the Los Angeles Times. “It was a physical confrontation.”

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LOS ANGELES – Hollywood’s biggest superhero now has the biggest box-office debut.
“Spider-Man 3″ took in a record $59 million domestically on opening day Friday, breaking the previous all-time high of $55.8 million for “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” in its first day last summer.

Sony Pictures, the studio behind the “Spider-Man” franchise, also reported Saturday that the movie took in an additional $45 million overseas on Friday for a worldwide total of $104 million, a record for single-day grosses globally.

Sony spokesman Steve Elzer said executives at the studio declined to comment until estimates for the full weekend are available Sunday morning.

By then, the “Spider-Man” franchise could reclaim the record for best three-day opening ever. The first “Spider-Man” pulled in $114.8 million domestically in its debut weekend in 2002, a record that stood until “Dead Man’s Chest” shattered it with $135.6 million last July.

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MIDDLETOWN, N.J. – Cable operator Comcast is investigating how hardcore pornography was broadcast during a popular cartoon program on the Disney Channel.

Customer Paul Dunleavy would also like to know. He was stunned Tuesday morning to find his 5-year-old son watching something other than “Handy Manny,” a cartoon about a bilingual Latino handyman and his talking tools.

“It was two people doing their thing, it was full-on and it was disgusting,” the Middletown father of three told The New York Daily News for Wednesday newspapers. “I couldn’t believe it.”

Dunleavy’s phone number was unlisted when The Associated Press tried to contact him Wednesday.

Fred DeAndrea, a spokesman for Philadelphia-based Comcast, confirmed the programming error occurred around 9:30 a.m. Tuesday. He described it as an “isolated issue in a local New Jersey facility.”

“We automatically detected the issue and it was corrected promptly. We apologize to any customer who experienced an issue yesterday morning,” said DeAndrea, who said the mistake was made by his company, not Disney.

DeAndrea declined to provide the duration of the pornography broadcast, how many homes it reached, how the mistake happened and whether anyone will be disciplined for the X-rated error.

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Source: www.philly.com

The horsey set’s annual rite of spring, the Kentucky Derby, is bringing to Louisville as diverse a crowd as ever has been seen in the event’s 133-year history.

Among the names expected to turn out for the weekend’s festivities and Saturday’s big event: Kevin Federline, Larry Birkhead – and Queen Elizabeth II of England.

“I am so excited to attend the Kentucky Derby this year and am honored that the Barnstable Brown Family personally invited me,” Federline tells PEOPLE. The Barnstable Brown Party, now in its 19th year, is considered the biggest Derby Eve gathering of celebrities in town and the real place to be seen.

“I’ve wanted to go for the past few years, so I am taking the opportunity and going to enjoy attending the race, going to the black tie gala’s and enjoying the whole experience,” said Federline. “It’s such a great tradition, and I’m glad I can be a part of it!”

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Source: www.people.com

Britney Spears’s third live show in less than a week drew a large crowd that included Lindsay Lohan on Thursday.

Lohan was spotted in the balcony at the House of Blues in West Hollywood, where The Hills’ Whitney Port also braved the tight security (one fan even put his arm in a cast to smuggle in a recording device – only to be busted once inside).

Dressed in the same miniskirt and bikini top costume she’d worn at her shows in San Diego and Anaheim, Spears performed the same medley of past hits she’d lip-synched at the previous concerts.

Lohan, like Spears a recent rehab alum, and the pop star go way back, at least by Hollywood standards: They hit the L.A. nightclub circuit along with Paris Hilton shortly after Spears filed for divorce from Kevin Federline in November.

Latin R&B singer Frankie J, who opened for Spears in Anaheim and Los Angeles, tells PEOPLE that despite the mixed reviews for her short performances, she accomplished what she set out to do.

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Source: www.people.com

Paris Hilton on Friday was sentenced to 45 days in jail for violating the terms of her probation by repeatedly driving with a suspended license.

“[Hilton] disregarded everything … and didn’t care and kept driving,” said Superior Court Judge Michael Sauer.

Hilton, 26, who, with her parents Kathy and Rick Hilton, was present in the Los Angeles Metropolitan courtroom, looked stunned when the sentence was handed down. Her mother gasped.

“I’m shocked and disappointed at the sentence by the judge,” the hotel heiress’s attorney, Howard Weitzman, said afterwards. “To sentence Paris Hilton to jail is uncalled for, inappropriate and ludicrous. She was singled out for who she is. She’s been selectively targeted. Paris was honest in her testimony. We plan to appeal. Shame on the system.”

Sauer ordered Hilton to report to jail no later than June 5.

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Source: www.people.com

Last summer’s The Illusionist may have given her résumé a prestige boost, but Jessica Biel says “it’s still a struggle” to get the parts she wants – partly because she’s too sexy.

Biel, who was named Esquire’s “Sexiest Woman Alive” in 2005, says in the June issue of Elle that the honor hurt her career.

“[One director told me,] ‘I’m not looking for the sexiest woman; I’m looking for the girl next door,’ ” says Biel, 25, who stars in the new thriller Next opposite Nicolas Cage and whose credits include the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 2004’s Blade: Trinity and 2005’s Stealth.

“Parts I really want aren’t going to me,” she says. “Like The Other Boleyn Girl with Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman. I don’t want to say that there’s nothing I love that I can’t have. But there’s still the occasional script that the director doesn’t want to see you for. They want that top tier of girls.”

One thing Biel does have in common with Johansson is that both have been linked to Justin Timberlake – although Johansson has denied the rumors, even telling Seventeen: “If it’s somebody one week, it’s going to be somebody else the next week. It’s either me or Jessica Biel.”

Full story

Source: www.people.com

For Hollywood, it’s the Summer of the Part Threes.

Leading off is “Spider-Man 3,” which will surely weave its web around moviegoers’ dollars this weekend. Hot on Spidey’s heels is band of big-money buccaneers who will try to loot the box office with “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” only three weeks later.

And these are only two of the likely blockbusters hitting theaters in a season packed claustrophobically tight with big franchise sequels — including four other “threepeat” films: “Shrek the Third” (May 18), “Ocean’s Thirteen” (June 8), “The Bourne Ultimatum” (Aug. 3) and “Rush Hour 3″ (Aug. 10) — the second installment of which had the highest opening comedy weekend box office gross (on a non-holiday) in history.

Full article

Source: www.foxnews.com

Paris Hilton arrived at court 10 minutes late Friday for a probation violation hearing at which a jail sentence was a possibility.

The heiress arrived in the back of a black sport utility vehicle and swept into the Metropolitan Courthouse with several men in suits, ignoring screams of photographers lining the route into a rear entrance.
Wearing a gray jacket and white shirt over black slacks and with a black headband on, she said nothing and appeared serious.

Prosecutors announced earlier they were asking the judge to sentence Hilton to 45 days in jail for allegedly violating the terms of her probation for an alcohol-related reckless driving conviction.

Prosecutors also were seeking to have Hilton ordered to avoid alcohol for 90 days, wear a monitoring device that would chart whether she complies, and have the suspension of her drivers license extended for an additional four months.

Full story

Source: abcnews.go.com

NEW YORK (AP) — Jada Pinkett Smith says good friend Katie Holmes is an equal partner in her marriage with Tom Cruise.

“People think Tom and the Church of Scientology got something on Kate? They don’t,” the 35-year-old actress and wife of Will Smith tells People.com in a story posted Thursday. “Kate is running her own show. And she’s a great mother. Her kids — Connor, Bella, Suri — are dynamic children and are extremely happy. And her husband is very, very happy.”

Pinkett Smith denies reports that Holmes, 28, is a prisoner in her marriage to the 44-year-old actor, who’s been depicted by the tabloids as a controlling husband.

“It burns my soul — I see her in the house with Tom; he doesn’t have that on her! … Let me tell you: Kate ain’t no little wimpy kitty cat,” says Pinkett Smith, who also calls Holmes a “tigress.”

Full story

Source: www.cnn.com

LOS ANGELES, California (Hollywood Reporter) — The summer movie season is upon us. Let the hyperbole begin!

Sony Pictures unleashes “Spider-Man 3″ in a record 4,252 theaters across North America Friday, and by Sunday morning, if not before, it will become clear whether Spidey has overtaken Captain Jack Sparrow for the honor of biggest opening weekend of all time, a formidable challenge since the bar set last summer by “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” stands at $135.6 million.
In the meantime, everyone — Hollywood executives, moviegoers and certainly the media — is likely to lose all sense of perspective, a phenomenon that happens every summer as the would-be blockbusters roll out.
The media are often eager to proclaim such high-profile movies an instant hit or miss. Each summer, there are a few big-budget movies whose failure to launch is immediately apparent. (Remember the ill-fated “Poseidon” last summer?) But for most big-budget gambles, the evidence is more ambiguous and won’t start coming into focus until the second or third weekend of a film’s release.

Full story

Source: www.cnn.com

(CBS/AP) Paris Hilton may have to bring the jumpsuit back in style and declare orange as the new black.

A judge sentenced the heiress to 45 days in jail Friday for violating her probation, putting the brakes on the hotel heiress’ famous high life.

Hilton, who parlayed her name and relentless partying into worldwide notoriety, must go to jail on June 5 and she will not be allowed any work release, furloughs, use of an alternative jail or electronic monitoring in lieu of jail, Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer ruled after a hearing.

The judge ruled that she was in violation of the terms of her probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case.

“I’m very sorry and from now on I’m going to pay complete attention to everything. I’m sorry and I did not do it on purpose at all,” she told the judge before he announced the sentence.

Full story

Source: www.showbuzz.cbsnews.com

LOS ANGELES – A judge sentenced
Paris Hilton to 45 days in county jail Friday for violating her probation, putting the brakes on the hotel heiress’ famous high life.

Hilton, who parlayed her name and relentless partying into worldwide notoriety, must go to jail by June 5 and she will not be allowed any work release, furloughs, use of an alternative jail or electronic monitoring in lieu of jail, Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer ruled after a hearing.

The judge, saying “there’s no doubt she knew her license had been suspended,” ruled that she was in violation of the terms of her probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case.

“I’m very sorry and from now on I’m going to pay complete attention to everything. I’m sorry and I did not do it on purpose at all,” she told the judge before he announced the sentence.

She was then ordered to report to a women’s jail in suburban Lynwood by the set date or face 90 days behind bars. The judge’s ruling excluded her from paying to serve time in a jail of her choice, as some are allowed.

Full story

Source: news.yahoo.com

OKLAHOMA CITY — Lauren Nelson is making plans to go where no Miss America has ever gone before — into a New York courtroom to testify against defendants in a sex sting — and she says she will be happy to do so.

Nelson, 20, posed as a 14-year-old girl last month as part of an undercover sting operation with the Suffolk County Police Department that led to the arrest of 11 men. Each is charged with attempted dissemination of indecent material to minors in the first degree.

Nelson, a Lawton native, said she talked Wednesday with Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota and agreed to testify in court. She also discounted earlier reports that she balked at testifying.

“Until yesterday at noon, I had not been asked to testify,” Nelson said Thursday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “I started out with this operation to put online predators behind bars and off the streets, and I’m going to see that operation through to the end.

“If that means me testifying or being part of this criminal case in any way, that will be exactly what I’ll do.”

Nelson said she chatted online, talked on the telephone and greeted at least two of the defendants when they arrived at a home in Long Island, N.Y., to meet who they believed was a 14-year-old girl.

Full story

Source: www.foxnews.com

A web-slinging superhero faces his inner demons. Surfing penguins compete for pride and glory. Giant robots use our planet as a wrestling ring. And John Travolta plays an obese woman.

The calendar says it’s spring, but in movie theaters across the nation, it’s summertime!
Hollywood’s rolling out its biggest and best for a summer movie season packed with action, drama, thrills, chills — and John Travolta playing an obese woman.
Spider-Man 3 | 28 Weeks Later | Shrek the Third | Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End | Hostel 2 | Oceans Thirteen | Surf’s Up | Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer | Nancy Drew | Evan Almighty | Live Free or Die Hard | Ratatouille | Transformers | 1408 | Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix | Hairspray | The Simpsons Movie | The Bourne Ultimatum | Underdog | Rush Hour 3

Full story

Source: Full story

Source: abcnews.go.com

(AP) Alec Baldwin has spent the past couple of weeks trying to explain why he lashed out at his 11-year-old daughter, Ireland, on a voicemail.

He issued an apology on his Web site, sat down with TV talk show hosts Barbara Walters and Rosie O’Donnell and asked NBC to let him out of his “30 Rock” contract to devote time to the issue of “parental alienation.”

On Friday, attorneys for Baldwin and his ex-wife, Kim Basinger, will appear in court for the first time since the tape leaked out as part of the actors’ bitter, protracted custody dispute over Ireland. The couple divorced in 2002.

In the telephone message, Baldwin, 49, can be heard berating Ireland as a “rude, thoughtless little pig,” for missing his call. A tape of the message was obtained by celebrity Web site TMZ.com and broadcast worldwide.

Full story

Source: www.showbuzz.cbsnews.com

LOS ANGELES – Paris Hilton’s life in the fast lane could slow down significantly. The hotel heiress faces a hearing Friday for allegedly violating the terms of her probation for an alcohol-related reckless driving conviction. Prosecutors have asked that she be jailed for 45 days.
Prosecutors also want Hilton to stay away from alcohol for 90 days, wear a monitoring device that will chart whether she complies, and they seek to have her license suspended for an additional four months.

City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo said Hilton is being treated the same as anyone else.

“Anyone who would have conducted themselves in a way that resulted in this set of facts, we would have made the same recommendation of 45 days in county jail, regardless of whether they were a celebrity or not,” he said Thursday.

Hilton could face up to 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Full story

Source: news.yahoo.com

Kate Moss caused mayhem Monday night when she made a personal appearance at the preview for her Kate Moss Topshop collection in London.

Fans, shoppers and photographers crammed London’s Oxford Street to see the model appear briefly in the window display of Topshop’s flagship store. There, she posed with the mannequins in a red limited-edition dress of her own design before retreating back into the store to sip champagne with friends.
Outside the store, 2,500 customers lined the street, all waiting to get inside for their allocated 20 minutes of shopping (each shopper was allowed to buy only five items). Having stood in line since 1:00 in the afternoon, the last group of shoppers left at 12:30 a.m.

Full story

Source: www.people.com

Playing Harry Osborn in the Spider-Man series lets James Franco see Tobey Maguire in a different role: dad to 6-month-old daughter Ruby.

“She’s a very sweet baby,” Franco, 29, told PEOPLE at Monday’s New York City premiere of Spider-Man 3. “It’s strange, because I’ve known Tobey about six or seven years, and to see him grow over those years, I’m really proud of him.”

Franco continued, “He seems like he’s an excellent dad. He’s completely consumed with that child.”
Rosemary Harris, who plays Spidey’s Aunt May, agrees. “[Tobey] seems to be a natural,” Harris, 76, told PEOPLE. “He’s a kind, loving person.” And Ruby, who was born in November, “seems to [be] traveling well. The baby’s mother, [Maguire's fiancée] Jennifer Meyer, looks radiant.”

Full story

Source: www.people.com

You think Lindsay Lohan parties now? Wait until she turns 21.

“I’m going to milk because it’s a big birthday,” says Lohan, who plans to mark the July milestone with a bash in – where else? – Las Vegas.

Lohan, who says she continues to hit the clubs even after rehab because she’s lonely, also says on Wednesday’s The Ellen DeGeneres Show that she plans to gamble for the first time while in Sin City.

“I’ll go and learn,” she says.
DeGeneres, placed on bed rest after hurting her back over the weekend, again hosted her show from an adjustable hospital bed. Next to her, Lohan also reclined on a bed set up for guests.

Full story

Source: www.people.com

SAN DIEGO -
Britney Spears took the stage late Tuesday at the House of Blues, making what is believed to be her first public concert appearance in nearly three years.

Starting the five-song set with her debut single “Baby One More Time,” Spears was back in top form. The one-time teen pop queen appeared onstage in boots, a sparkly pink bra top and a short white skirt with her belly ring out.

The drama of the past few months appeared to be behind her.
Her only words came as she was leaving. “Thanks everyone for coming,” she told the packed club, where people paid upward of $125 a ticket.

Tuesday’s appearance — in which Spears wore a long brown wig — was shrouded in mystery. The club marquee made no mention of Spears, announcing only the performance of “The M&Ms.” Word, however, quickly spread on the Internet and fans posted well wishes for her comeback performance.

Full story

Source: news.yahoo.com

LOS ANGELES – Britney Spears fans snapped up tickets on Tuesday to three Southern California concerts by an obscure band known as The M+Ms on rumors that the oft-troubled pop diva would stage a surprise performance at one of the shows.

A publicist for Spears was not immediately available for comment.

A spokesman for Live Nation, the concert promotion company that recently bought the House of Blues chain where the M+Ms were to appear, would not comment on the rumors of a Spears show. The M+Ms shows were to take place on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Full story

Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

Anna Nicole Smith’s ex-boyfriend arrived in Kentucky from the Bahamas on Tuesday with their infant daughter and said he is looking forward to introducing the baby to his family.

“It just feels good to be home,” Larry Birkhead said after stepping off a private jet and walking up to a fence where more than a dozen photographers and a handful of reporters were gathered.
Birkhead said he plans to show off 7-month-old Dannielynn to his family in Louisville and “relax and horse around.”

He said his plans include attending the Barnstable Brown party on Friday, an exclusive celebrity-packed gala on the eve of the Kentucky Derby. The event is where he and Smith first met when he was working as a freelance photographer.

He said Tuesday the baby had an easy flight.

“She did great,” he said.

At a private terminal at the Louisville airport, people could be seen moving a variety of baby gear off the plane and into the back of an SUV. Birkhead, dressed in a dark T-shirt and jeans, shielded the baby from view with a jacket.

Full story

Source: abcnews.go.com

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (AP) — Anna Nicole Smith’s ex-boyfriend arrived in Kentucky from the Bahamas on Tuesday with their infant daughter and said he is looking forward to introducing the baby to his family.

“It just feels good to be home,” Larry Birkhead said after stepping off a private jet and walking up to a fence where more than a dozen photographers and reporters were gathered.

Birkhead said he plans to show off 7-month-old Dannielynn to his family in Louisville and “relax and horse around.”
He said his plans include attending the Barnstable Brown party on Friday, a celebrity-packed gala on the eve of the Kentucky Derby. The event is where he and Smith first met when he was working as a freelance photographer.

He said Tuesday the baby had an easy flight.

“She did great,” he said.

Full article

Source: www.cnn.com

Sugababes singer Amelle Berrabah has been arrested after a woman was attacked in a bar.
Surrey Police confirmed they had arrested a 23-year-old on suspicion of assault in Guildford.

She was later released on police bail.

A police spokeswoman said they could not confirm the name of the woman.
Newspaper reports claimed that the newest member of the all-girl dance act was arrested after a confrontation on the dance floor of nightspot Bar Med in the Surrey town.

Full story

Source: news.sky.com

LOS ANGELES – Movie-goers continued to keep their eyes on the Peeping Tom thriller “Disturbia,” which fended off a weak batch of newcomers to remain No. 1 for the third straight weekend with $9.1 million.
The movie business seemed to be on hold in anticipation of a huge summer that begins this week with Sony’s “Spider-Man 3.” The top-12 movies took in an anemic $62.9 million, down 30 percent from the same weekend last year, when “RV” was the No. 1 movie with $16.4 million.
DreamWorks and Paramount’s “Disturbia,” starring
Shia LaBeouf as a house-bound teen whose surveillance of neighbors uncovers a killer, raised its total to $52.2 million after three weekends, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Full article

Source: news.yahoo.com

Donna Murphy is feeling fine.
She’s a few days from opening in the Manhattan Theater Company’s production of “LoveMusik,” the Hal Prince-directed musical about the 25-year romance between Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, and she’s out there every night, crooning “Speak Low” with her co-star, Michael Cerveris, and belting out “Surabaya Johnny” in her meticulously researched Lotte Lenyese accent.
No, nothing is bothering Ms. Murphy.

Well, there is that malady that she has been trying to shake for the last several years, a little condition that Broadway wags refer to as the “Donna Murphy syndrome.”

Full story

Source: www.nytimes.com

Some things are worth the pain that comes from separation. So reasoned the Edge, U2’s guitar player, when he parted with one of his most prized possessions this past weekend, the Gibson Les Paul electric guitar that he used to record “New Year’s Day” and has owned since 1982.

The rock ‘n’ roll legend was in New York City to host Saturday night’s “Icons of Music” auction, which benefited Music Rising, a charity he co-founded with Gibson Guitars in an effort to replace some of the musical instruments lost to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
“The initial idea was to try to help the [Bayou's] musicians, so we put a lot of instruments in the hands of professional musicians in New Orleans and that area,” the Edge told ABC News. “Now we have got to the point where we want to try to focus on the local music…the churches, the schools of the areas that have been most badly hit.”

Full article

Source: abcnews.go.com

NEW DELHI, India (AP) — Richard Gere tried to quell the storm over a public kiss he gave a Bollywood star at an AIDS awareness event, apologizing Friday for any offense.

Gere’s embrace and kiss of actress Shilpa Shetty sparked several noisy demonstrations by hard-line Hindu groups and a flurry of legal complaints, which ended with a judge in the northwestern city of Jaipur issuing an arrest warrant for the two stars for violating obscenity laws.
“What is most important to me is that my intentions as an HIV/AIDS advocate be made clear, and that my friends in India understand that it has never been, nor could it ever be, my intention to offend you,” Gere said in statement issued by the Heroes Project, an organization the 57-year-old actor co-founded to combat AIDS in India.

Full article

Source: www.cnn.com

It was a Texas-sized private bash to rival any backyard barbecue: Lance Armstrong opened the grounds of his Austin home on Friday night for 450 guests, including his steady, fashion designer Tory Birch – and good pal Matthew McConaughey and the actor’s current flame, Camila Alves. The occasion was to celebrate – and raise about $1 million for – the 10th anniversary of the Lance Armstrong Foundation.
“Why not have a party in my backyard?” the seven-time Tour de France champ, 35, asked guests from the stage, where his longtime buddy Lyle Lovett and his band performed before a backdrop of trees covered in twinkling lights which prompted Armstrong to joke, “My neighbors were all wondering why I was decorating early for Christmas.”

Full article

Source: www.people.com

The Star Wars Queen has taken on a new mission — delivering life-changing loans to women in the developing world.

“If a woman can’t tell her child, ‘I can feed you tomorrow, I can pay for your school,” then where do they go? What do they do? What do they choose?’” she said in an interview on ABC News’ “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
The movie star will launch a new microfinancing initiative called the Village Banking Campaign, for the Foundation for International Community Assistance — FINCA. The purpose of the campaign is to launch 100,000 new community banks.

Full article

Source: abcnews.go.com

Former “American Idol” finalist Jessica Sierra was arrested early Sunday on felony battery charges for allegedly hitting a man on the head with a heavy glass at a cafe, police said.

Sierra, 21, was booked in the Hillsborough County Jail on a charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. She was also charged with possession of cocaine and introduction of contraband into a correctional facility after officers found a small amount of the drug while searching her, police spokeswoman Andrea Davis said.
Sierra was released Sunday afternoon on $11,500 bail. There was no immediate indication if she had a lawyer.

Full article

Source: abcnews.go.com

Britney Spears was pulled over by Beverly Hills police for allegedly speeding but was let off with a warning, authorities say.

She was driving along Sunset Boulevard when she was stopped at 8:45 p.m. Friday.
“She was pulled over for speeding,” says Sgt. Mike Foxen of the Beverly Hills Police Department. “She was warned about her speed and let go. She was not cited.”

Full article

Source: www.people.com

Lindsay Lohan, who has been criticized for hitting the clubs after a stint in rehab, says she goes out because she feels isolated.

“Though it’s hard in L.A. not to go out, it gets lonely,” she tells Nylon magazine. “Being an actress is lonely, and I never want to be alone. I hate sleeping alone.”
Lohan, 20, lives in Los Angeles, but she was interviewed in her native New York City, where she says she was staying at the request of her younger brother Michael, 19, and sisters Ali, 13, and Dakota, 10.

Full article

Source: www.people.com

Luke Wilson says that running scared for his new horror movie Vacancy came easily. “Being the youngest of three brothers [Owen, 38, and Andrew, 42], I’m pretty jumpy,” Wilson, 36, tells PEOPLE. “That helped.” Then there’s something else that’s up in the air: his love life.

Your brother Owen is dating Kate Hudson. What about you?
WILSON: I’m not seeing anybody – I’m not being evasive. I don’t have a girlfriend, but I wouldn’t mind one. I definitely want [kids] at some point.
Why is America obsessed with the Wilson boys’ love lives?
Well, for Owen, it would be because he and Kate worked together, and they’re high profile. There doesn’t seem to be that much fascination with mine. [Laughs.]

Wouldn’t your parents love more grandkids?
Yeah, they really love Andrew’s son, Joey, and I’m sure they’d love more. We need to get a girl in the family.

Full article

Source: www.people.com

Victoria and David Beckham have finally found the house they will live in when they move to Los Angeles in the summer, PEOPLE has learned.

The multi-million-dollar mansion is “modern, airy, very light and spacious with lots of windows,” a source close to the couple tells PEOPLE, adding: “It still needs a bit of work inside.”
The sale is close to being finalized, says the source: “Victoria will land in L.A. on Saturday to sign the contract. She will meet with interior designers, discuss fixtures and all aspects of the house plan before flying out shortly afterwards.”

Full article

Source: www.people.com

A woman tried to kill Sandra Bullock’s husband, Jesse James, on Sunday morning outside their Southern California home, Orange County sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino confirms to PEOPLE.

“At around 10:40 a.m. James found the suspect, Marcia Valentine, lying on their driveway,” Amormino said. “He told her to leave, but instead she got into her 2004 silver Mercedes and tried to run him over three to four times. … Valentine tried to kill him.”
Bullock, 42, as well as James’s 10-year-old son, Jesse Jr., witnessed the attack.

Full article

Source: www.people.com

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) — Pamela Anderson will replace Carmen Electra as special guest star in Hans Klok’s new show, “The Beauty of Magic,” at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino.

Electra said at a press conference last week that she would be with the show for three months. Publicists had hailed it as her stage debut in Las Vegas and promised “sultry surprises.”

But the 35-year-old actress pulled out for “scheduling reasons,” said Bill Taylor, chief executive of Stage Entertainment, which produces Klok’s show.

“We couldn’t work dates out,” Taylor said.

In announcing her special guest appearance, Anderson popped out of an apparently empty box at the crowded Extra lounge at the former Aladdin casino-hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

Read full article.

Source: www.cnn.com

Two Hollywood productions face being shelved indefinitely because their stories so grimly echo last week’s massacre on a university campus.

Distributors are refusing to touch the films Dark Matter, starring Meryl Streep, which is about an alienated Asian student who shoots fellow students and professors, or The Killer Within, about an American student who goes on a similar rampage.

They are wary of taking on films which bear striking parallels to the case of Cho Seung Hui, the Asian student who this month killed 32 students and professors at the Virginia Tech campus before turning his gun on himself in the worst single gun massacre in modern American history. One British distributor, who declined to be named, said: “These films are too close to the knuckle.”

The Virginia massacre marks a setback for studios that have invested millions of dollars in films that were inspired by earlier real-life massacres.

Dark Matter, in which Streep plays a university patron who tries to befriend the troubled student, took its inspiration from a 1991 tragedy in which a Chinese physics student opened fire in two buildings on the University of Iowa campus. He killed six people, including a student and professors.

Read full article.

Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

OKLAHOMA CITY Apr 25, 2007 (AP)— Miss America can add crime fighter to her resume. Lauren Nelson recently went undercover with police in New York for a sting targeting sexual predators. Officers with Suffolk County’s computer crimes unit created an online profile of a 14-year-old girl that included photographs of Nelson as a teenager.

“I got to chat online with the predators and made phone calls, too,” Nelson said by phone from Atlantic City, N.J. “The Suffolk County Police Department was there the whole time.”
The operation was filmed for a segment of “America’s Most Wanted” that will air Saturday on Fox. Police spokesman Tim Motz said the operation was ongoing and declined to comment Tuesday evening.

Full article

Source: www.abcnews.go.com

(AP) With a farewell speech tucked into the top of her sparkly costume, Heather Mills came prepared to be eliminated from “Dancing With the Stars” Tuesday.

“We knew we were going out,” said the estranged Mrs. Paul McCartney when she learned her fate. “We were in the bottom two last week. We’re not surprised.”
Mills thanked her professional partner, Jonathan Roberts, as well as the show’s orchestra, makeup artists, costume designers and fans.

She said her participation on the program “raised a fortune for our charity, and hundreds of thousands of animals’ lives will be saved.” Mills donated her performance fee to an animal-welfare charity.

Full article

Source: www.showbuzz.cbsnews.com

(AP) Miss America Lauren Nelson can add Long Island crimefighter to her resume.

The Lawton, Okla., beauty recently went undercover with police in Suffolk County and participated in a sting operation targeting would-be sexual predators.

Officers with the county’s computer crimes unit created an online profile of a 14-year-old girl that included photographs of Nelson as a teenager.
“I got to chat online with the predators and made phone calls, too,” Nelson said in a telephone interview from Atlantic City, N.J. “The Suffolk County Police Department was there the whole time.”

The operation was taped for Fox television’s “America’s Most Wanted,” which will air the segment on Saturday. Tim Motz, a spokesman for the Suffolk police department, said the operation was ongoing.

Full article

Source: www.cbsnews.com

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Hollywood star
Sylvester Stallone has provided medical documents to Australia’s customs after being charged with importing 48 vials of banned human growth hormone, his lawyer told a Sydney court on Tuesday.

Stallone, who has not yet entered a plea, was not in the Sydney court for the brief hearing. His case was adjourned until May 15 to allow customs to examine Stallone’s medical material, which was not revealed in court.
Stallone’s lawyer, John Chicken, said the matter should be finalized soon. “We’re certainly seeking to move to a resolution,” he told the court.

Full article

Source: news.yahoo.com

PANAMA CITY, Fla. Apr 23, 2007 (AP)— Blowing his nose and wiping away tears, the multimillionaire founder of the “Girls Gone Wild” video empire pleaded guilty to contempt of court Monday and was sentenced to 35 days in jail.

Joe Francis, who was sued by seven women who were minors when filmed, apologized to the judge for yelling at the plaintiffs during settlement talks.
“I am sorry for my behavior. It was wrong. I had heard about appeals and things and I was confused. I am sorry, I really am,” said Francis, 34.

Francis drew the contempt charge during negotiations to settle the federal lawsuit brought after his production company filmed the women at Panama City Beach in 2003.

Full article

Source: abcnews.go.com

THE Spice Girls were back together yesterday but it was not for the reunion fans have been screaming for.

The only singing may have been a few select hymns when four of the former pop stars were reunited at the christening of Ginger Spice Geri Halliwell’s daughter, Bluebell Madonna.

Proud mum Geri looked stunning in a figure-hugging and aptly coloured minidress as she showed off her 11-month-old daughter at the star-studded service at Parish Church of St Michael in trendy Highgate Village, in north London.

Heavily pregnant Emma Bunton and Melanie Chisholm were in the wings to see ex-band mate Victoria Beckham and George Michael’s boyfriend Kenny Goss become Godparents but the fifth Spice Girl, Melanie Brown, stayed away.

Read full article.

Source: www.express.co.uk

For those of you dreaming about girl-on-girl good times between Hollywood hotties Lindsay Lohan and Keira Knightley, wake up, because the film fantasy has been flattened.

The sexy starlets are said to be feuding, as U.K.’s Daily Mail reported that Linds threw a “Mean Girl” and pulled out of Keira’s new film, “The Best Time of Our Lives,” a dramatic biopic of Welsh bard Dylan Thomas.
But this isn’t just a battle for the Boulevard babes.

Keira’s mom, Sharman McDonald (who wrote the screenplay), is reportedly raging at the reformed rehabber, as she was responsible for getting Lohan the lesbian-lover role.

Full article
Source: www.foxnews.com

Rock ‘n’ roll has always been about rebellion. And rebellion sells.

The music industry is well aware of this and has struggled mightily to co-opt most of the hot, countercultural phenomena that bubble up. Record labels now leak their own singles into file-sharing networks and systematically sign nominally indie bands to lucrative deals.

So how do musicians rebel when rebellion itself is a commodity?

A DJ known as Girl Talk is showing us how. Girl Talk (real name: Greg Gillis) has put together an album of “mash-ups” that has taken the world by storm.

Full article

Source: abcnews.go.com

(CBS) In most communities, a person who sees a murder and helps the police put the killer behind bars is called a witness. But in many inner-city neighborhoods in this country that person is called a “snitch.”

“Stop snitchin’” is a catchy hip-hop slogan that embodies and encourages this attitude. You can find it on everything from rap music videos to clothing. “Stop snitchin’” once meant “don’t tell on others if you’re caught committing a crime.”
But as CNN’s Anderson Cooper reports for 60 Minutes, it has come to mean something much more dangerous: “don’t cooperate with the police – no matter who you are.”

As a result, police say, witnesses are not coming forward. Murders are going unsolved.

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Source: www.cbsnews.com

British bookies are giving odds of 20-1 that the heir to the thrown, Prince William, will end up with Britney Spears. They figure Paris Hilton has a better chance at 14-1. It’s a nice publicity gimmick, but for both young American women, even at a million to one, you are throwing your money away.

Now that Prince William has split from his longtime girlfriend Kate Middleton, he is being described as the country’s most eligible bachelor. You can bet there will be many a pretty young girl with a double-barreled name, full of aspirations, hoping for a chance with the handsome prince. His pick-up line is reputed to be something like, “Hi, I’m gonna be King, wanna come home with me?” Who could resist that?! According to reports, not many.
So there they were, Kate and Wills, the next royal fairy tale. They were housemates through their university years. Though a commoner, she seemed so right for him. He, the army officer; she, dignified and discreet.

Not to be caught on the hop, souvenir companies readied commemorative plates and mugs bearing pictures of the once-happy couple, waiting on the shelf, only for the wedding date to be added, and now they are stuck with the crockery, a gamble that didn’t pay off.

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Source: www.cbsnews.com

Just as pop princess Britney Spears has been trying to twirl back into “The Zone” of success, her father Jamie has hit back, saying that it’s her own fault if she loses custody of her sons and careens her rep into ruins.

In a statement released to the New York Post, senior Spears sticks up for Brit’s former manager Larry Rudolph, whom the singing sensation fired for such things as pushing her into “Promises” rehab and introducing her to perennial party-girl Paris Hilton.
“When Larry Rudolph talked Britney into going into rehab, he was doing what her mother, father and team of professionals with over 100 years of experience knew needed to be done,” Jamie Spears told Page Six.

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Source: www.foxnews.com

NEW YORK – Another day, another list. But what the heck, this one is a “What is Sexy?” rundown from Victoria’s Secret. “SexyBack” singer
Justin Timberlake is sexiest male musician;
Jessica Alba, who starred in “Sin City,” is sexiest actress; and David Beckham, who has three sons with his wife, Victoria, is sexiest dad.
The list of sexy entertainers and athletes was announced Thursday. It was compiled by a team of Victoria’s Secret executives, designers and supermodel spokeswomen, including Heidi Klum and Karolina Kurkova. Klum and Kurkova were to host a party in Las Vegas on Thursday to celebrate the list-makers.

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Source: news.yahoo.com

(AP) Kitty Carlisle Hart, whose long career included Broadway, opera, television, and film, including the classic Marx Brothers movie “A Night at the Opera,” died after a battle with pneumonia. She was 96.

“She passed away peacefully” Tuesday night in her Manhattan apartment, said her son, director-writer-producer Christopher Hart, who was at her side. “She had such a wonderful life and a great long run. It was a blessing.”
Hart was touring the country in her autobiographical one-woman show, “Here’s to Life,” until the pneumonia struck around Christmas, her son said. Broadway’s theaters planned to dim their marquee lights Wednesday in honor of the longtime patron of the arts.

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Source: www.showbuzz.cbsnews.com

LOS ANGELES -
Lindsay Lohan said she felt safe being in rehab earlier this year, but she doesn’t consider herself an addict. The 20-year-old actress told Allure Magazine during an interview that appears in its May issue she decided to enter the secluded Wonderland Center, an addiction treatment facility, at the suggestion of her therapist.
“It’s so weird that I went to rehab. I always said I would die before I went to rehab,” Lohan said.

Her room was “all white, with a parquet, and it was different! I just felt safe,” Lohan said. “I thought, I’m going to stay here tonight. And I stayed there. For a month. It was great,” she said.

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Source: news.yahoo.com

(CBS/AP) Actress-singer Jennifer Lopez and her husband, Marc Anthony, are suing the National Enquirer in European courts over the tabloid’s claims they were linked to a drug scandal, their Belfast lawyer said Monday.

Paul Tweed, who specializes in bringing U.S.-based celebrities’ libel cases to British and Irish courts, told The Associated Press that Lopez, 38, and singer Anthony, 37, were seeking “a six-figure settlement” from the Enquirer, based in Boca Raton, Fla., and its parent company, American Media Inc.
Tweed said the lawsuit would be filed Tuesday in a Belfast court, and in subsequent days in courts in Dublin, London and Paris.

A telephone message left at the National Enquirer wasn’t immediately returned Monday. A spokesman for AMI, Richard Balvo, said he had no comment.

“It would be our policy to not comment on it at this time,” Balvo said.

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Source: www.showbuzz.cbsnews.com

Rapper Snoop Dogg is asking $1.995 million for his eight-bedroom mansion, which was once featured on the MTV show Cribs.

And the ‘hood? The quiet community of Claremont, 30 miles east of Los Angeles.

“It’s virtually brand new,” said Geoff Hamill, the Prudential real estate broker handling the sale. “It’s on a cul-de-sac. It’s in a family area in a college town.”
The nearly one-acre Mediterranean estate, in the exclusive Blaisdell Ranch area of Claremeont, has a pool, basketball court, home theater and recording studio. The rare tip-off that Snoop owned the home was a sign in the entry: “Wipe Your Bloody Feet.”

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Source: www.people.com

Salma Hayek is expecting her first child at age 40 – and she says women shouldn’t be in a hurry to have kids before they’re ready.

“Motherhood is not for everyone,” the Lonely Hearts star tells Marie Claire in its May issue. “It is for me, but there’s no reason women should feel rushed to have a child.”

Hayek, who spoke to the magazine before announcing her pregnancy and engagement to businessman François-Henri Pinault, continues: “Society thinks if you don’t have children, you’ve failed as a woman, even if you are CEO of a company.
“You’ve got to be beautiful, smart, skinny, tall, rich, successful at your job, married to the right guy – and have genius children. And by the way, you also have to be a nun!”

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Source: www.people.com

When she died, Angelina Jolie’s mother was still owed $180,000 in spousal payments from ex-husband Jon Voight, according to her will.

Marcheline Bertrand, 56, lost a battle with ovarian cancer on Jan. 27. An aspiring actress, Bertrand met Voight just after his Oscar nomination for 1969’s Midnight Cowboy. They married in 1971, but Bertrand filed for divorce seven years later. They had two children.
Details of Bertrand’s will surfaced in a legal filing entered in Los Angeles Superior Court on April 10.

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Source: www.people.com

The news that Prince William and Kate Middleton had split sent the British press into a frenzy – but for the exes, life goes on.

Middleton, 25, spent time over the weekend at her parents’ home in the village of Bucklebury, 50 miles west of London, where she avoided throngs of paparazzi.

For his part, William, 24, partied with pals at London’s Mahiki nightclub on Friday night before news of the split broke, and kept a low profile for the rest of the weekend.
It is believed that both have now gone back to work – the prince in Dorset, where he recently started an armored corps troop commander’s course, and Middleton in London, where she works an accessories buyer for the British fashion chain Jigsaw.

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Source: www.people.com

Marilyn Manson split with wife Dita Von Teese late last year, but he’s already found a new soul mate, he says.

“I’ve found my double, my twin, with my new girlfriend, Evan Rachel Wood,” the 38-year-old rocker tells France’s Le Parisien newspaper.

“She’s l9 and certainly that’s very young,” he added, “but that’s not a problem for me. She likes the same things as me. She understands I like to get up when night falls and go to sleep at dawn.”
A solo Manson was in Paris for three days to promote his upcoming sixth album, Eat Me, Drink Me, and he said depression and his ongoing divorce from Von Teese, 34, inspired the project.

“Our relationship ended at Halloween,” he tells the paper. “I was completely destroyed psychologically. I’d rented a house and begun working on this disc, which sort of tells everything that happened to me during the past year.”

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Katie Holmes is already making herself comfortable in Shreveport, La., where she was set to begin shooting a new movie on Monday.

On Friday, she visited the local Target, the Shreveport Times reports. “I met some really great people, and it was nice,” she told the paper. “They did recognize me, and it was a pleasure meeting them. We had nice chats about kids, and it was lovely.”
Holmes, 28, is in Louisiana to film the movie Mad Money with Queen Latifah and Diane Keaton. In the comedy from Thelma & Louise scribe Callie Khouri, the women play coworkers plotting to rob the Federal Reserve Bank.

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Source: www.people.com

Who better to throw Eva Longoria a bridal shower than her Desperate Housewives costars?

Longoria, 32, and castmates Teri Hatcher, Marcia Cross and Brenda Strong, along with hairstylist Ken Paves and stylist Robert Verdi, gathered at Felicity Huffman’s Los Angeles home on Sunday for an outdoor bash.
The guest of honor, who will marry Tony Parker in Paris on July 7, wore a taupe Badgley Mischka dress and Giuseppe Zanotti shoes to the party, where guests competed to make the most elegant wedding gown – out of toilet paper.

Longoria, serving as judge, chose Hatcher for her tissue frock adorned with pink roses and a tiara.

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Source: www.people.com

LONDON – Many saw her as Britain’s future queen, but it looks like Kate Middleton’s royal romance will not have a fairy-tale ending.
Middleton and Prince William have ended their four-year relationship, a decision that surprised palace-watchers and disappointed monarchists hoping for a glamorous royal wedding to rival that of
Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
For many Britons, however, the split provided more evidence that the royals are as human as anyone else.
“I think they’re just like any other couple,” said Minet Marshall, a 36-year-old London office worker. “They’re young, and before you meet the right person you have to kiss a lot of frogs.”

The Sun newspaper reported the breakup Saturday in a front-page story, saying the couple had reached an “amicable agreement” to separate.

William’s Clarence House office refused to comment, saying it did not discuss the prince’s private life, but royal sources did not deny the report, tacitly acknowledging it was true.

The news took many royal-watchers by surprise. It was widely thought the couple would soon announce their engagement; one bookmaker was so certain of a royal wedding it stopped taking bets on it earlier this year. The retail chain Woolworths had commissioned mugs, plates and other Wills-and-Kate memorabilia, despite the absence of a formal engagement.

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Source: news.yahoo.com

Singer James Blunt won’t be charged with hit and run for an incident in which he allegedly ran over a photographer’s foot outside a pre-Oscar party in February, according to the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office.

“Based on the information we have been given so far, we have decided not to file [charges],” Frank Mateljan, a spokesman for the L.A. City Attorney tells PEOPLE. “We reserve the right to file charges at any time. But at this time we have no plans to file anything.”
Adds Blunt’s lawyer, Steven M. Cron: “He was never charged with anything. … He is very happy about that.”

TMZ.com was first to report that Blunt would not be charged.

The accident took place at 1:58 am on Feb. 24 outside the home of CAA agent Brian Lourd, where Blunt and then-girlfriend Petra Nemcova had been guests at a party.

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Source: www.people.com

You can excuse a girl a bit of vanity – even Gwen Stefani. “If you had paparazzi outside your house, you’d make sure you looked good, too,” the singer and fashion designer tells Harper’s Bazaar in its May issue.

Stefani, 37, says she was “dying to get out of the house” when she was pregnant last year, but says: “I had to sneak into the back of my brother Todd’s car – eight months pregnant – and lie down on the floor. Just so we could go to Target.”
Baby Kingston was born in May 2006 and Stefani immediately set about losing her pregnancy pounds. “It’s so much work afterward to get the weight off,” she says. “If you just do it, it comes off. And when you’re nursing, like I am, your metabolism is like whoosh!”

Still, Stefani admits that she struggled to keep her size 4 figure even before her pregnancy. “I hate talking about it, but it’s true,” she says. “I’ve always been on a diet, ever since I was in the sixth grade. It’s an ongoing battle and it’s a nightmare. But I like clothes too much, and I always wanted to wear the outfits I would make.” She adds with a laugh: “And I’m very vain.”

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Source: www.people.com

Syndicated radio host Don Imus was fired Thursday by CBS Radio for insulting comments he made on his show about the Rutgers University’s women’s basketball team.

“From the outset, I believe all of us have been deeply upset and revulsed by the statements that were made on our air about the young women who represented Rutgers University in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship with such class, energy and talent,” CBS President and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves said in a statement.
“There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society,” the statement continued. “That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision.”

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Source: www.people.com

Madonna is on her way to Malawi for charity work – not to adopt another child, the singer’s rep tells PEOPLE.

“Madonna is indeed going to Africa to continue her work with the Raising Malawi organization,” says her rep Liz Rosenberg. “She is overseeing the building of a children’s health care center. ”
Her adoption of David Banda from Malawi last year caused a worldwide stir. A judge in Malawi has permitted a coalition of 67 human-rights groups to move forward with their legal challenge to the adoption and allow them to help decide if the singer is a fit mother.

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Source: www.people.com