Celebrity Mania

Heather Mills fails to buy her daughter first-class tickets

London : She has been awarded millions of pounds in royalties by Sir Paul McCartney, but Heather Mills failed to buy first-class ticket for her four-year-old daughter Beatrice. Moments after her 24.3 million pounds settlement with Macca, Mills accused him of failing to provide enough cash for Beatrice to go first class.

 

Britney Spears sent Adnan Ghalib 100 text messages a day, says his secret lover     

Melbourne : Britney Spears was so was so insecure about her boyfriend Adnan Ghalib that she constantly bombarded him with calls and messages, says his secret lover.

 

Heath Ledger's family feuding over his estate

New York : Heath Ledger's family is embroiled in the midst of a battle for control of the late actor's estate. Two uncles of the 'Brokeback Mountain' star have accused the actor's dad Kim Ledger for squandering money and so they want him to be dropped as executor of the estate.

 

Pete Doherty treats shoppers with an impromptu gig

Washington, March 21 : 'Babyshambles' rocker Pete Doherty recently amazed shoppers at a music shop by giving an impromptu performance. Peter Sirrell, the owner of Music Man store in Reading, revealed that Doherty entertained shoppers with a few of his hit songs. He said that Doherty had to stop when a string of the guitar he was playing broke.

 

Nicole Kidman house hunting near BFF Naomi Watts' home

Washington, Mar 21 : Pregnant Nicole Kidman is looking for a new home, and there's nothing she'd like more than a place near BFF Naomi Watts. The Oscar winner's camp recently got in touch with Watts' neighbours, asking them if they were looking to sell their property – even though it isn't on the market, revealed a source.

 

Amy Winehouse's wild ways force neighbours to sell up

London, Mar 21 : It's been just six-weeks since she's moved into her new house, but troubled star Amy Winehouse's wild ways have troubled her neighbours so much that they have finally decided to move. The 'Rehab' star's neighbours did not seem to be too pleased with her wild lifestyle, constant parties and all-hours visits, and decided to pack up and move. According to reports, the 24-year-old singer is seen nipping out for late-night snacks and welcoming weird guests till the early hours of the morning.

 

Jennifer Lopez all set to compete in triathlon

Washington, Mar 21 : New-mum Jennifer Lopez is reportedly getting set to compete in a triathlon – barely six months after giving birth. The curvy singer, who recently gave birth to twins Emme and Max on 2nd Feb, is all set to participate in the endurance sports event, in which participants swim, cycle and run, later this year (08).  The 38-year-old superstar revealed her intention in an exclusive new People magazine interview. In fact, JLo prompted the journalist Peter Castro to ask her when she plans to enter a triathlon.

 

Woman injured in audience stampede sues Oprah Winfrey Show

Washington, Mar 21 : Oprah Winfrey's talk show is being taken to court by woman who allegedly got injured in a stampede when audience members rushed to grab the prime seats during a shoot. The woman, namely Orit Greenberg, has claimed that she was pushed down a flight of stairs by other Oprah audience members as they rushed into Harpo Studios in Chicago, Illinois in December 2006, due to which she suffered serious injuries.

 

Sarah Jessica Parker rakes in £12.5m from TV ads

London, Mar 21 : Sarah Jessica Parker has earned herself a whopping 12.5million pounds since the TV series 'Sex ant the City' ended, thanks to a string of lucrative advertising deals. The 43-year-old has made more than her three co-stars Kristin Davies, Cynthia Nixon and Kim Cattrall, reports the Mirror. Most of her money came from endorsement deals with companies such as Garnier and Gap. Details of the actress' earnings come as all four have reunited to film a movie version of the hit show in New York.

 

Jenna Jameson wants Charlize Theron to pose nude for PETA

London, Mar 21 : Adult movie superstar Jenna Jameson believes that Charlize Theron would be the perfect choice to pose naked for PETA. Jameson wants the Oscar-winning actress to be her successor as the next sex icon. "Bettie Page was the ultimate sex icon. Then next came Marilyn Monroe, then Pamela Anderson, then me," The Sun quoted Jameson, as saying. "Now I'm on the lookout for the next woman to pass my title onto. Charlize would be perfect," she added.

 

Ridley Scott, Leonardo DiCaprio reunite for 'The Low Dwellers'

Washington, Mar 21 : Ridley Scott and Leonardo DiCaprio will reunite for a dark thriller titled 'The Low Dwellers,' bought by Ryan Kavanaugh's Relativity Media after a heated bidding war with Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures.

 

Famous Five returns to TV with 21st Century makeover

London, Mar 21 : Enid Blyton's Famous Five are set to make a comeback on TV in a new animated series - with an updated 21st Century look. 'Famous Five: On the Case' features the children of the original ginger beer-loving adventurers - and their dog, Timmy. Exhibiting the updated look, the Famous Five's offspring are multicultural; their enemies include a DVD bootlegger and they sport modern gadgets like iPods and mobile phones.

The new series launches on 5 May on the Disney Channel.

 

Paris Hilton's 12-day, 20,000 air mile globe trot has greens fuming

London, Mar 21: Paris Hilton has environmentalists fuming with her plans to clock-up 20,000 air miles in just 12 days. The heiress will be travelling the globe with beau Benji Madden and his band Good Charlotte as they start their tour. However, the move has environmentalists less than pleased what with all the carbon fuel being burnt up, reports The Mirror.

 

Fergie is 'not preggers', says rep

Washington, Mar 21: Fergie and fiance Josh Duhamel have slammed rumours that they will soon be joining the celebrity parent brigade. The denial came soon after pictures appeared on the internet showing the Black Eyed Peas singer with a 'baby bump'. A representative for Fergie stated that the couple has no plans to start a family soon, saying she's "not preggers," reports Usmagazine. com.

 

Miley Cyrus immortalised in wax by Madame Tussaud's

Washington, Mar 21: The latest celebrity to be immortalised in wax is none other than teen sensation Miley Cyrus. The multi-talented star's wax replica was unveiled at Madame Tussaud's in New York on 20th March.

 

Now, a sex tape featuring Lindsay Lohan?

London, Mar 21: Drugs, booze binge, rehab – Lindsay Lohan has done it all. Only a sex tape was left to be added on to her notorious 'credentials' – and now, even that has reportedly surfaced on the net.

 

Clint Eastwood set to return as 'Dirty Harry'

London, Mar 21: Clint Eastwood will be stepping into the role of tough cop Dirty Harry once again at the ripe old age of 77.

 

Brits would rather have Victoria Backham and David Beckham as PM than Gordon Brown!

London, Mar 21: David Beckham and wife Victoria BackhamMost Brits would rather have celeb couple David Beckham and wife Victoria aka Posh Spice running the UK than PM Gordon Brown. The finding is based on a poll of 2,122 people polled by Current TV.

 

Bond stunts are leaving 007 Daniel Craig sore         

Washington, Mar 21: All those stunts in the new Bond film are leaving lead actor Daniel Craig rather sore. Craig, who returns for the second time as the suave British spy in 'Quantum of Solace', tells TV show Extra that the bruises from his stunts are starting to trouble him.

 

Hugh Jackman signs on for 'Drive''

Washington, Mar 21: Aussie actor Hugh Jackman has signed on to star in 'Drive'. The Universal pic will be directed by Niel Marshall, and is an adaptation of James Sallis' novel of the same name. 'Drive' will see Jackman playing the role of a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway car driver in heists.

 

Brooke Shields is desperate for a son

Washington, Mar 21: Now that she's got two daughters, there's nothing Brooke Shields would like more than a baby boy. The 'Blue Lagoon' star revealed that she's ready for a son. However, convincing hubby if six-years Chris Henchy is what the star is finding an uphill task. "I want a boy! I'm going to have to convince him and he's a hard sell at this point," usmagazine. com quoted her, as saying.

 

Paul McCartney vows to be friends with Mills

London, Mar 20 : Sir Paul McCartney has vowed to maintain a cordial relationship with Heather Mills for the sake of their four-year-old daughter Beatrice. The former Beatle told his friends that he wants have a friendly relationship with Mills because its time for him to concentrate on their daughter.

 

Amy Winehouse poses nude for charity campaign

Washington, Mar 20 : English singer songwriter Amy Winehouse has posed nude for a photo shoot for a charity campaign. The campaign is in aid of raising breast cancer awareness among young women, Contactmusic reported.

 

Heather Mills to judge upcoming Miss USA pageant

Washington, Mar 20 : Heather Mills has signed up to be one of the judges for the upcoming Miss USA pageant. This will be the first public role that 40-year-old Mills will be taking part in, ever since her divorce battle with McCartney was made public during the week, Contactmusic reported.

Paris Hilton named as Harvard University’s “Woman of the Year”

Washington : Socialite Paris Hilton is off to Harvard University, and no, it is not for studies, but because she is being named as the University's Woman of the Year. According to the New York Post's Page Six, the Simple Life star will be stopping by the Cambridge, Massachusetts institution on 6 February (08) during a promotional tour for her new movie 'The Hottie and the Nottie'.

She will be picking up her award from Harvard's Hasty Pudding Club the very next day, reports Contactmusic.

Ladies who have won the Women of the Year included Scarlett Johansson, Halle Berry and Sarah Jessica Parker.

Early loss of virginity doesn’t turn school kids into criminals

Melbourne : A new study has challenged the widely believed view that high school students who lose their virginity at an early age tend to take to a life of crime.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Virginia, US, found that an early loss of virginity is not linked to criminal behaviour.

As a part of the Rethinking Timing of First Sex and Delinquency study, researchers led by Kathryn Paige Harden questioned 534 pairs of twins in US high schools.

They found that kids who got intimate earlier were no more likely to shoplift, graffiti objects or engage in drug-related behaviour than their counterparts.

"After controlling for these genetic and environmental confounds using a quasi-experimental design, earlier age at first sex predicted lower levels of delinquency in early childhood," News.com.au quoted the report, as saying.

"Twins differ considerably in their age at first intercourse, indicating that non-shared environmental factors are the strongest influence on sexual timing.

"Nevertheless, the twins who experienced first sex earlier than their co-twins did not demonstrate higher levels of delinquency, suggesting that early sexual timing does not, in and of itself, elevate delinquent behaviour."

The average age that participants had sex for the first time was 16.44 years.

However, the report did note that there were potential problems with having sex at a younger age such as greater psychological distress, undergoing an abortion, lower education etc.

"Early age at first sex has been linked to earlier leaving of the parental home, lower educational attainment, experiencing a pregnancy termination… and receiving medical treatment to facilitate pregnancy; greater psychological distress among college women; and experimentation with cocaine and other substances," the report stated.

"Also, (research has) found that physical involvement with a boyfriend among seventh- and eighth-grade girls predicted disordered eating."

The study is published online in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence. (ANI)

Brit teens top underage sex club in Europe: Report

London:  No one can match British teenagers, when it comes to under-age sex, for figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) have shown that teens in the UK indulge in sex quite younger than their European counterparts.

The WHO report shows that 4 out of 10 girls in England have underage sex, beating all other European countries as well as their male counterparts.

According to the report, 39.9 percent of girls in England confessed that they had sex at the age of 15 years or younger, which is the highest of any of the 24 European countries surveyed.

England is followed by Wales, at 38.5 percent, and Scotland with 34.1 percent.

Even the number of boys in the UK having sex before 16 (at 34.9 percent) is also higher than all other European countries excluding Ukraine, where 47.1 percent of teenagers insisted that they had lost their virginity before 15.

"More than two-thirds of women in the 1950s had their first sexual experience with someone they were married or engaged to. In 2000, this was under 1%," Times Online quoted Kaye Wellings, an expert in reproductive health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, as saying.

The report revealed that 15 percent of the sexually active teenagers in England didn't use contraception.

 "It is depressing that so many young people are losing out on childhood by becoming parents too soon, and this becomes a vicious circle because there is a greater likelihood that the family will break up," said Jill Kirby, director of the rightwing think tank the Centre for Policy Studies.

The WHO report published in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

More than half of Brit firms encourage staff to check emails on holiday

London : Getting away from work on holidays is becoming harder for Brit employees, for according to a new research, more than half of the UK's companies encourage staff to check their emails while they are on leave.

Such a practice is followed to ensure that the workers don't lose touch of their work.

The survey of 200 companies, conducted by Continental Research for Mitel, the telecommunications consultancy, found that 17 per cent of British businesses encourage all staff to check emails while on holiday.

A further 35 per cent asked senior managers to pick up emails while on leave.

Citing the situation critics fear that the blurring of the line between work and leisure time is putting employees under strain.

"Anyone who works 100 per cent of the time will not be working very effectively," the Telegraph quoted Jim Norton, senior policy adviser at the Institute of Directors, as saying.

The survey also found that 39 per cent of businesses banned staff from checking work emails while on leave. (ANI)

Almost 10% of young Chinese netizens suffer Internet addiction: Survey

New Delhi: A new survey has revealed that about 9.7 percent of Chinese netizen between 13 and 30 are addicted to the Internet.

According to the report issued by the China Youth Association for Network Development (CYAND), an Internet-addict is one whose life, career and interpersonal relations are harmed by Internet use.

"Anyone fitting in one of the three criteria we set is considered Internet-addicted: First, a person feels happier or more self-fulfilled online than in real world. Second, he feels upset, depressed, or panicked when being cut off from the Internet for any reason. Third, he lies to the family members about how long he spends online," China Daily quoted the report, as stating.

China had 210 million Internet users at the end of 2007, and as reported by the China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC), the main Internet watchdog, it is slotted to become the world's largest at the beginning of this year.

The ages of Internet users ranged between 18 and 30 and they accounted for 49.9 percent of the total users, the survey said.

Even though the CINIC did not give the figure of those below 18, teenagers and youths obviously took up half of the total number of net users.

A clear gender difference was found among the addicted in the survey. About 13.29 percent of young male netizens are addicted, 7.18 percentage points higher than their female counterparts.

Among the Internet-addicted, 68.64 percent are male and 31.36 percent are female, the report said.

About 11.39 percent of the young net users between 18 and 23 are addicted to the Internet, the highest compared with those between 13 and 17 and those between 24 and

30.

The survey also found that Internet-addicted youths suffer frustration in interpersonal relations than those who were not.

It showed that 21.59 percent of the addicted do not get along well with family members, compared with 9.94 percent of those not.

The report also said that 17.49 percent of the addicted do not have good friendships, compared with 9.01 percent of those not.

The association sent out 12,000 questionnaires in schools, Internet cafes and other public places in 12 Chinese cities, including the biggest Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and Guangzhou in September last year and received 11,023 responses.

It also did online surveys at three leading websites getting 10,363 responses.

One-third high school teens spend 30 hrs a week on 'screen time'

Washington: Almost one third of the high school teenagers are spending an average of 30 hours per week in front of the screen, says a new study.

During the study, the researchers examined 1,293 seventh grade students from 10 Montreal high schools and observed the patterns of screen-time including time spent on viewing television, video, computer and the Internet.

"Boys and those whose parents had lower educational attainment were much more likely to be in the 'high-screen time' group," said Tracie A. Barnett, Ph. D., lead author of the study.

"Teens with high levels of screen time may be at increased risk of obesity," she added.

The students were asked to complete in class questionnaires four times a year for five years where they gave the details of their usual number of hours spent watching television or videos, and using the computer or surfing the Internet.

The findings revealed that 52 percent of boys and 26 percent of girls reported average total screen-time levels above 42 hours per week.

52 percent of boys and 39 percent of girls reported average levels of TV/video use above 23 hours per week while 24 percent of boys and 7 percent of girls reported average levels of computer/Internet use of almost 30 hours per week.

Moreover, neighbourhood social factors also played an important role in influencing the patterns of screen-time.

The girls belonging to neighbourhoods ranked as the lowest third were more likely to have high screen-time up to five-fold while boys living in neighbourhoods that had the lowest level of education were more likely to have high screen time up to two- to three-fold.

"Researchers need to explore why adolescents' (notably girls') levels of especially television and video screen-time viewing through high school are higher if they live in neighbourhoods that are socio-economically disadvantaged," said Barnett.

The study was presented at the American Heart Association's 48th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention. (ANI)

China closed 44,000 pornographic websites in 2007

Authorities in China shut down 44,000 domestic websites and homepages and arrested 868 people while investigating 524 criminal cases in a campaign against Internet pornography last year, a national teleconference has heard.

Another 1,911 people involved in 1,609 Internet pornography activities were penalized, while the authorities canceled more than

440,000 pornographic messages online.

According to a Xinhua report, a total of 199,000 websites were registered by the authorities last year, but another 14,000 were refused the access to the Internet for failing to get official registration or to apply for official approval.

The campaign will continue until September, after the Beijing Olympic Games ends, the meeting, jointly organized by the Ministry of Public Security, the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and 11 other central departments, heard.

The crackdowns would focus on those who profited from spreading pornographic messages via the Internet and mobile phones, porn-site operators in foreign countries and Chinese Internet users, organizers of pornographic performances online and clients of prostitution.

The authorities will give special attention to websites that deal in audio and visual programs, blogging, videos, point-to-point services, and mobile phone sites.

One in four Brit teens lose their virginity by 16

London, : Nearly 25 percent of British teenagers lose their virginity before the legal age of 16, according to a new study.

The survey showed that one in ten of those polled got pregnant the first time they had sex.

Nearly a third didn't use any protection, with one in five having a one-night stand and six per cent catching an STD.

The study, by Onepoll. com, showed that while having a sexual intercourse one in ten were under 15, more than a third were drunk, and 43 per cent didn't enjoy the session.

The survey of 2,000 under-25s also revealed that nearly half were in a relationship, however, 42 per cent wished it had been with someone else.

More than one in three hoped that they had waited until they were older.

The study comes in the wake of the UK government's 26.8million pounds drive to slash Britain's teen pregnancy rate.

Onepoll. com managing director John Sewell called the results "extremely worrying" and said teenagers were gambling with their future health.

"It's interesting to see so many regret losing their virginity the way they did. But once you've done it — there's no going back," The Sun quoted Sewell, as saying. (ANI)

Indians have right to settle anywhere, says apex court

Brushing aside the recent controversy created by Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena in Maharashtra, the Supreme Court on Friday said every Indian has the right to settle anywhere in the country.

A Bench of Justices H K Sema and Markandey Katju said, "India is not an association or confederation of states, it is a union of states and there is only one nationality that is Indian. Hence every Indian has the right to go anywhere in India, to settle anywhere, and work and do business of his choice in any part of India peacefully." The court upheld the order of the municipal authorities in Gujarat, which banned slaughter of animals during the paryushan festival of Jain community. "It is a short restriction for a few days and surely the non-vegetarians can remain vegetarian for this short period."

"In a multi-cultural country like ours with such diversity, one should not be over-sensitive and over-touchy about a short restriction when it is being done out of respect for the sentiments of a particular society," said the judgment.

The court also deplored the growing tendency of some sections of the people in indulging in violence on issues that they differed on.

Justice Katju observed in the judgment, "These days unfortunately some people seems to be perpetually on the fuse, and are willing to protest, often violently, about anything under the sun on the ground that a book or painting or film has hurt the sentiments of their community."

The apex court said such tendency leading to Balkanisation of the country should be curbed with an iron hand.

"We are one nation and must respect each other and should have tolerance," the Bench said.