An emotional
President Barack Obama vowed on Friday to "take meaningful action,
regardless of the politics," to prevent future tragedies like the
shooting massacre Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown,
Conn.
"Our hearts are broken today,"
Obama said in a brief statement at the White House briefing room,
frequently pausing to wipe tears from his eyes. "The majority of those
who died today were children, beautiful little kids between the ages of 5
and 10 years old. They had their entire lives ahead of them: birthdays,
graduations, weddings, kids of their own. Among the fallen were also
teachers, men and women who devoted their lives to helping our children
fulfill their dreams."
Obama expressed sorrow for the
victims' loved ones and sympathy for the parents of the children who
survived but who know that "their children's innocence has been torn
away from them too early."
"As a country we have been
through this too many times," Obama said, listing a series of mass
shootings over the past few years in places like Aurora, Colo.
"These neighborhoods are our
neighborhoods, and these children are our children. And we're going to
have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more
tragedies like this, regardless of the politics," he stressed. Read more at new.yahoo.com
It looks like Brooke Mueller went to the same school of
excuses as Lindsay Lohan. After it was reported by TMZ on Friday that the
ex-wife of Charlie Sheen and mother of his 3-year-old twin boys had overdosed
on drugs, her rep Steve Honig – who coincidentally or not just quit as Lohan’s
mouthpiece – explained, "An assistant thought Brooke was non-responsive
while she was napping and hastily called an ambulance. As a precaution, Brooke
was brought to a local hospital and discharged after an hour. She was diagnosed
with exhaustion and dehydration and is now fine and resting at home. That's
it."
That was the same excuse Honig used for the “Liz and
Dick” actress in June when she was found unconscious in her hotel room during
filming of the Lifetime movie. “She was on set last night at 7 p.m. and worked
through the night until 8 a.m. this morning,” he explained at the time. “She
took a nap before shooting her final scene. Producers were concerned when she
did not come out of her room and called paramedics as a precaution. Lindsay was
examined and is fine, but did suffer some exhaustion and dehydration.” . Read more here
HOUSTON (AP) —
Actress Daryl Hannah (Read Daryl Biodata here) of "Splash" fame was arrested in northeast Texas on
Thursday, along with a 78-year-old landowner as the pair protested an
oil pipeline designed to bring crude from Canada to the Gulf Coast.
"They've arrested Daryl Hannah and a rural Texas great-grandmother," said Paul Bassis, Hannah's manager.
Hannah
and landowner Eleanor Fairchild were standing in front of heavy
equipment in an attempt to halt construction of the Keystone XL pipeline
on Fairchild's farm in Winnsboro, a town about 100 miles east of
Dallas. They were arrested for criminal trespassing and taken to the
Wood County Jail, Bassis said. Hannah also faces a charge of resisting
arrest, according to jail records.
Hannah has long opposed
TransCanada's construction of the $7 billion pipeline, which is designed
to transport heavy tar-sands crude oil from Alberta, Canada, to Texas'
Gulf Coast refineries.
"It is unfortunate Ms. Hannah and other
out-of-state activists have chosen to break the law by illegally
trespassing on private property," David Dodson, a spokesman for
TransCanada Corp., said in an email. He also said protesters were
"putting their own safety and the safety of others at risk."
Bassis
said he spoke to the actress Thursday evening and that there was "a
strong indication" that both women would be kept overnight at the local
jail.
"The streets of Winnsboro will be much safer tonight now
that they've gotten that 78-year-old great grandmother off the streets,"
Bassis said.
Hannah — who has starred in dozens of movies,
including "Kill Bill" and "Splash" — also was arrested in August 2011
while protesting the pipeline in Washington. She was one of several
hundred prominent scientists and activists arrested that month.
They
argue the pipeline would be unsafe because it would be carrying heavy,
acidic crude oil that could more easily corrode a metal pipe, which
would lead to a spill. They also say refining the oil would further
contaminate the air in a region that has long struggled with pollution.
TransCanada
says its pipeline would be the safest ever built, and that the crude is
no dirtier than oil currently arriving from Venezuela or parts of
California.
The issue became politically charged when
congressional Republicans gave President Barack Obama 60 days to decide
whether TransCanada should be granted the necessary permit for the
pipeline to cross an international border before snaking its way 1,700
miles south to the Texas coast.
Obama, saying his administration
did not have enough time to study the potential environmental impacts,
denied the permit in January.
However, he encouraged TransCanada
to reroute the northern portion of the pipeline to avoid an
environmentally sensitive area of Nebraska. He also promised to expedite
permitting of a southern portion of the pipeline from Cushing, Okla.,
to the Gulf Coast to relieve a bottleneck at the Cushing refinery.
TransCanada
began construction of that portion of the pipeline this summer after
receiving the necessary permits. Some Texas landowners, joined by
activists from outside the state, have tried through various protests to
stop or slow down construction. Yahoo News
Bonnie Franklin,
who starred in the sitcom "One Day At a Time," has been diagnosed with
pancreatic cancer (read more about pancreatic cancer), her family said Monday.
In a statement released
by CBS, the family said the 68-year-old actress is undergoing treatment
and continuing her normal schedule.
Franklin, who lives in Los Angeles, and her family "remain extremely positive" and asked that her privacy be respected.
The
petite, red-headed actress starred as single mom Ann Romano in the hit
CBS comedy "One Day At a Time," which aired from 1975 to 1984. Her
co-stars included Mackenzie Phillips and Valerie Bertinelli.
On her Twitter account, Phillips sent "out love and sweet prayers" to the "incomparable Bonnie Franklin."
Franklin's
recent credits include appearances on "The Young and the Restless" and
"Hot in Cleveland," which reunited her with Bertinelli.
On
stage, Franklin was in the original Broadway production of "Applause,"
for which she received a 1970 Tony Award nomination, and other plays
including "Dames at Sea" and "A Thousand Clowns."
Her family said Franklin is grateful for people's support and concern as she fights cancer. Source: yahoonews
Composer Marvin Hamlisch, who earned critical acclaim and popularity for a prolific output of dozens of motion-picture scores and shows including "The Way We Were," "The Sting" and "A Chorus Line," has died in Los Angeles. He was 68.
Hamlisch collapsed
after a brief illness and died on Monday, a family spokesman said in a
statement. The spokesman gave no more details.
The composer and conductor was the creative force behind more than 40 film scores, including original compositions and musical adaptations such as his arrangement of ragtime composer Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer" in the 1973 film "The Sting."
He won two Oscars for best score and best song for "The Way We Were," also released in 1973, which starred Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand. Hamlisch first worked with Streisand as a rehearsal pianist for "Funny Girl."
His other film scores included "Sophie's Choice," "Ordinary People," "The Swimmer," "Three Men and a Baby," "Ice Castles," "Take the Money and Run" and "Bananas." His latest effort was for a film based on the life of pianist Liberace.
On Broadway, he won a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize for the 1975 musical "A Chorus Line,"
which at the time became the most successful show on the Great White
Way. He had been working on a new Broadway musical called "Gotta Dance." Read more at Reuters
PARIS (Reuters) - Pop star Madonna treated fans to an intimate show at Paris' famed Olympia theatre on Thursday, voicing her love for a France that is open to minorities and artists and reinterpreting "Je t'aime moi non plus," a song laced with sexual innuendo.
Tickets for the
surprise show - a last-minute addition to Madonna's "MDNA" tour - were
offered first to members of her fan club and sold out within minutes.
Some people began gathering outside the Olympia as early as Wednesday
for the show, and anticipation was running high.
In the end,
reaction was mixed and some in the audience voiced disappointment at the
show's length, a mere 45 minutes. A few called for refunds as they left
the 2,700-seat theatre, Paris' oldest surviving music hall which has
welcomed iconic stars from Edith Piaf and Jacques Brel to the Rolling
Stones.
The concert was expected to have a political overtone to it, and Madonna started off on a rebellious note.
"I have a special affinity with France, and I have for
many years," the pop star shouted at the start. "It could go all the way
to Napoleon because I think of myself as a revolutionary."
Yet there was no repeat of the performance she gave at the 80,000-seat Stade de France on July 14, which angered France's far right party leader Marine Le Pen by showing a picture of her with a swastika superimposed on her face.
France's National Front has since announced it will sue her.
On Thursday,
Madonna offered only veiled criticism of the party's anti-immigrant
stance, paying homage to a France which she said once "opened its arms
to minorities."
"I know that I have
made a certain Marine Le Pen very angry with me," she said, adding that
her intention was not to make enemies. "We are entering some very scary
times in the world. People are afraid, and what happens when people are
afraid? They say 'get out! You're the reason. You're the problem.
You're to blame,'" she told the audience.
LONG WAIT, SHORT SHOW
Tickets for the
show, which included both classics and songs from her latest album
"MDNA," started at 80 euros ($98) and were offered first to members of
Madonna's fan club. They sold out in less than 5 minutes, organizers
said, and the Olympia's website crashed several times due to heavy
traffic.
Fans started
gathering at noon on Wednesday to attend the show, with many pitching
tents on the sidewalk to make sure they got as close as possible to the
Material Girl.
Die-hard fan,
25-year-old Ally Gloser from Cologne, Germany, said she had bought
tickets for 11 of Madonna's shows over the summer, at a cost of 2,500
euros.
"Normally, I'm a student. Now I'm a poor student," she said.
True to form, the
53-year-old offered up an array of sexy outfits and age-defying moves,
at one point adding a French touch for Parisian fans with a black
leather pencil skirt, red lipstick, and a French beret. She paid tribute
to several French artists, including actor Alain Delon and singer Piaf.
"I walk in her
footsteps, actually I crawl in her footsteps", she said of the "La Vie
en rose" singer while kneeling on stage.
Under red lights
and on an entirely empty stage, Madonna sang the famous French song, "Je
t'aime moi non plus" ("I love you, neither do I") written by Serge
Gainsbourg in the late 1960s. She tied a dance partner down on a chair
and pretended to shoot him in the mouth.
Audience reaction to the show was mixed.
"The show itself
was pretty good, but she didn't even sing for an hour", complained
33-year-old Guillaume Delaval. "She spoke for 15 minutes about
tolerance, it's not the U.N. here."
Pierce Brosnan, the Irish actor who played in four James Bond movies, attended the show with his wife.
"We're fans. My
wife wanted to come, so we bought tickets," he told Reuters, explaining
he was in Paris to shoot a movie with Emma Thompson called "Love Punch."
Stephen R. Covey, author of the bestselling motivational book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," died on Monday at an Idaho hospital from injuries he suffered in a bicycle accident in April, family members said in a statement.
He was 79.
Covey, a former professor at Brigham Young University in Utah, founded an executive training center in Salt Lake City that merged in 1997 with Franklin Quest Co to form FranklinCovey, a leading provider of time-management seminars and publications.
The publicly traded company is perhaps best known for its line of Franklin Planner appointment calendars, which it markets along with books, workshops and other products based on its "Franklin System" of business management and Covey's "7 Habits" principles.
Covey, a Salt Lake City native, earned a master's degree in business administration from Harvard University and a doctorate from Brigham Young.
But it was his
seminal self-help guide to success in business, "The 7 Habits of Highly
Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change," published in
1989, that made Covey a brand name.
He went on to write
several more bestsellers about business management, including
"Principle-Centered Leadership," became a favorite motivational speaker
on the Fortune 100 circuit and served as a personal consultant to
organizations ranging from Procter & Gamble to NASA.
Covey was
recognized in 1996 as one of Time magazine's 25 most influential
Americans, and was named among the world's top 50 business thinkers in
2011 by Thinkers50, a group that compiles that list every other year.
His "7 Habits"
title has sold more than 20 million books in 38 languages worldwide, and
the audio version has sold over 2 million copies, more than any
nonfiction book ever released on tape, according to publisher Simon
& Schuster.
The book spent five
years on the New York Times bestseller list and begat a number of
sequels, including his 2004 title, "The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to
Greatness," and his final work, "The 3rd Alternative," published last
year.
He died at the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in
Idaho Falls "due to the residual effects of a bike accident he suffered
this past April," his family said in its statement.
Covey fell off his
bike and suffered severe head injuries requiring hospitalization on
April 19 during a ride near his home in Provo, Utah, according to Provo
police Sergeant Brandon Post.
Covey was
remembered on Monday by colleagues at Utah State University, where he
joined the business school faculty in 2010, as an accomplished scholar
and tireless mentor to students.
"Dr. Covey touched the lives of people around the world
in very personal ways," Utah State President Stan Albrecht said in a
statement. "He was an inspirational leader who was always a powerful
voice for individual integrity, strong character and extreme
trustworthiness in every aspect of life."
In an article published in the business school's
magazine, Covey was described by one of his sons as an informal,
approachable person with a good sense of humor.
"He always treated everybody the same, exactly," Sean Covey
said in the spring 2010 issue of the Huntsman Alumni Magazine. "It
didn't matter if you were the CEO of a Fortune 10 company or the local
barber. You wouldn't have ever known the difference."
In his final hours,
Covey was surrounded "by his loving wife and each one of his children
and their spouses, as we sang him his favorite hymns, just as he always
wanted," the family statement said. YahooNews Read more new about Stephen R.Covey accident
British singer Amy Winehouse's family have put her north London home up for sale following her death last July, a spokesman for the family said on Thursday.
"The Winehouses
have decided to put the house on the market, with great regret," the
spokesman said in an email to Reuters. (See Winehouse's official website)
"Amy loved that
house but none of the family felt it appropriate that they should live
in it and it was not practical to keep it empty while paying the costs
of its upkeep."
Winehouse's fans
have flocked to the property in Camden, north London and transformed a
nearby square into a shrine following the "Back To Black" star's death. (see same news)
Winehouse was 27 years old when her body was discovered at the house after a long battle with drink and drugs.
Newspaper reports said the three-bedroomed property had gone on the market for 2.7 million pounds ($4.2 million). Source : YahooNews ,
LOS ANGELES - Media mogul Oprah Winfrey is expanding her online empire by teaming up with the Huffington Post (read Huffington Post history) for a section dedicated to the chat show host that will engage her audience, the Oprah Winfrey Network said on Wednesday.
The Huffington Post Oprah section
will launch in August, and will curate content from Oprah.com, which
features the motto "Live Your Best Life" and accompanies Winfrey's OWN
TV programming with videos, articles and advice on health, fashion and
culture.
The section also will develop original content with Oprah.com, OWN and Huffington Post editors, and interactively engage with readers. Read Oprah Biodata.
"Oprah was about
engagement and authenticity long before engagement and authenticity
ruled the web. And since those qualities are deeply embedded in the DNA
of both OWN and HuffPost, I'm delighted that we'll be working together
to enlarge the conversation on living our best lives," Arianna Huffington said in a statement.
Winfrey, 58, the
'Queen of Talk' who revolutionized chat shows with her intimate,
confessional couch format on "The Oprah Winfrey" Show that first aired in the 1980s, has seen her Oprah Winfrey Network struggle to connect to her TV audience with her mix of interviews and feel-good programs.
Earlier this year,
the network laid off 30 staff members and canceled the heavily hyped
Rosie O'Donnell talk show that failed to provide a ratings boost for the
fledgling channel, drawing in an average of 180,000 daily viewers as of
March.
Winfrey's collaboration with Huffington Post
will allow her to reach the news aggregator website's 36.9 million
monthly users, with the hope of recouping some of her key audience,
women ages 25 to 54. Oprah currently is followed by 11.5 million users
on Twitter and 7 million fans on Facebook.
Talk show hosts such as Katie Couric, Dr Phil, Bill Maher and Ricki Lake have contributed to Huffington Post's
blogosphere in the past while Ellen DeGeneres and Anderson Cooper have
their own dedicated aggregator news pages. But this is the first time
the site has collaborated with a host to develop a dedicated section. (Reuters)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Pamela Anderson and Lionel Richie owe the government money.
California tax authorities said Anderson owes $524,241 in personal income taxes. The Franchise Tax Board included the "Baywatch" star on a list of the state's 500 biggest income-tax delinquents posted Friday. Read Pamela Anderson and Lionel Richie Biography
Meanwhile, E! Online reports (http://eonli.ne/HDd0EP) that Richie owes the federal government $1.1 million in unpaid taxes and that a lien has been issued warning that the singers' assets may be seized if he doesn't pay up in a timely manner.
A message seeking comments from Richie's publicist wasn't immediately returned Saturday. A call to Anderson's tax attorney, Robert Leonard, wasn't immediately returned.
California law requires tax authorities to update and publish the names and amounts owed by the state's 500 biggest tax scofflaws twice a year.
"When taxpayers do not pay their fair share, it places an unfair burden on those who do," the tax board said on its website, which said the 500 owe the state nearly $233 million.
Other notable names on California's tax-delinquent list include CNET co-founder Halsey Minor, Joe Francis, the founder of the "Girls Gone Wild" video empire, actor Nick Cassavetes and boxer James Toney.
Minor and his wife, Shannon, are on top of the list for owing the state $10.5 million in personal income taxes.
Francis owes $794,000, Cassavetes, the son of filmmaker John Cassavetes and actress Gena Rowlands, owes $273,000 while Toney owes $354,000. Source : Yahoo News
Whitney Houston, whose soaring voice lifted her to the top of the pop music world but whose personal decline was fueled by decades of drug use, died on Saturday in a Beverly Hills hotel room. She was 48.
Her death came on the eve of the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles and at the same hotel where her mentor, record mogul Clive Davis, was holding an annual pre-event party at which she was scheduled to perform.
A dramatic scene unfolded at the Beverly Hilton Hotel as music celebrities arriving for the party expressed shock at her death, while reporters swarmed the hotel and fans gathered to pay their respects.
A Beverly Hills police officer told reporters they were called to the Beverly Hilton at around 3:20 pm PST and that emergency personnel found Houston's body in a fourth-floor room, and she was pronounced dead at 3:55pm.
The cause of death is under investigation.
"She has been positively identified by friends and family (who) were with her at the hotel, and next of kin have already been notified," Lieutenant Mark Rosen told reporters.
Police said there were no obvious signs of criminal intent.
Tributes poured in from around the world for a singer whose remarkable vocal range produced some of the most memorable music of her generation, including her signature hit, "I Will Always Love You."
"Whitney Houston was not only an amazing artist but also a beautiful person. She was so smart and her knowledge and appreciation for the musical art form was remarkable," Motown founder and R&B legend Berry Gordy said in a statement.
Neil Portnow, president of the Recording Academy, which runs the Grammys, said event producers were working on ways to honor the singer in front of her many friends in the audience.
Standing on the red carpet outside the hotel, Portnow told Reuters they would "try to celebrate her life," and called Houston a "one of a kind singer" whose body of work was "staggering."
Throughout her decades in music, Houston won six Grammys, 30 Billboard awards and 22 American Music Awards.
She released seven studio albums, sold some 170 million CDs, singles and videos that included smash hits "Saving All my Love for You."
She also appeared in the movies "Bodyguard" (1992), "Waiting to Exhale" (1995) and "The Preacher's Wife" (1996).
Houston was inspired to sing as a child by soul singers in her New Jersey family, including mother Cissy Houston and cousins Dionne Warwick and the late Dee Dee Warwick.
Her godmother was Aretha Franklin.
"I just can't talk about it now," Franklin said in a statement.
"It's so stunning and unbelievable. I couldn't believe what I was reading coming across the TV screen. My heart goes out to Cissy, her daughter Bobbi Kris, her family and Bobby (Brown)."
STELLAR CAREER, PERSONAL TROUBLES
By the early 1990s, Houston reigned as the queen of pop, but her critical and commercial success on stage was accompanied by an increasingly troubled personal life.
In 1992 she married singer Bobby Brown, who had a bad-boy reputation, and their tumultuous 14 years together were marred by drug abuse and domestic violence.
In 2000, she and Brown were stopped at an airport in Hawaii and security guards discovered marijuana in their luggage.
In a 2002 TV interview, she admitted using marijuana, cocaine, alcohol and prescription drugs.
The pair also starred in a reality TV series, "Being Bobby Brown," which painted an often unflattering portrait of the couple.
The last 10 years of Houston's life were dominated by drug use, rumors of relapses and trips to rehab.
She launched a comeback tour in 2009, and in April 2010 she called media reports she was using drugs again "ridiculous."
In May 2011, Houston enrolled in a drug and alcohol rehab program.
Despite her personal troubles she commanded great affection among her music industry colleagues, and emotional tributes flooded the media in the hours after news broke of her death.
"I am absolutely heartbroken at the news of Whitney's passing," legendary music producer Quincy Jones said in a statement. "... I always regretted not having had the opportunity to work with her. She was a true original and a talent beyond compare. I will miss her terribly."
Pop star Rihanna posted on Twitter "No words, just tears," and rapper Nicki Minaj tweeted "Jesus Christ, not Whitney Houston. Greatest of all time." – Reuters
25 year-old dental hygienist Jessica Phillips impressed the judges with an emotional rendition of “Again” by Faith Evans during the American Idol Season 11 auditions in Portland, Oregon on Wednesday (February 1)- watch video below.
Burger Jokes
-
1. Why were the burgers in the
refrigerator embarrassed?
They saw the salad dressing!
2. Why was the burger thrown out of the
Army?
He couldn't pass mu...
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