fashion girls 2011
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Tuesday, April 19, 2011
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Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
A second celebrity dismissed from 'Dancing'
A second celebrity dismissed from 'Dancing'
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Wendy Williams is saying goodbye to the "Dancing With the Stars" ballroom — and to the cross-country treks she made as she juggled taping her daily talk show in New York and performing on the dance show in Los Angeles.The TV host was dismissed Tuesday from "Dancing With the Stars" after coming into the episode in last place. She earned 15 points out of 30 the previous night for her foxtrot with professional partner Tony Dovolani.
Williams said being on the show was "a wonderful opportunity" and she thanked the judges and her partner for teaching her how to dance.
"Despite stereotypes, this is one black girl who can't even do the running man," Williams said.
She struggled throughout her three weeks on the show, regularly landing near the bottom of the leaderboard. Judges' scores are combined with viewer votes to determine which couple is ousted each week.
"The problem is it's not my personality in the competition, it's my feet," she said on Tuesday's episode. "If my personality were in the competition, I'd win!"
Williams is the second contestant eliminated from the hit ABC show's 12th season. Radio host Mike Catherwood was dismissed last week.
The results show also included musical performances by OneRepublic and Selena Gomez and the Scene.
Returning to dance on Monday will be actors Kirstie Alley, Ralph Macchio and Chelsea Kane; athletes Hines Ward, Chris Jericho and Sugar Ray Leonard; singer Romeo; reality star Kendra Wilkinson and model Petra Nemcova.
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Online:
http://abc.go.com/shows/dancing-with-the-stars/
Cobain guitar sculpture dedicated in Washington
Cobain guitar sculpture
ABERDEEN, Washington (AP) — A sculpted guitar memorial to Kurt Cobain has been unveiled in a park in the Nirvana frontman's Washington state hometown.The dedication in Aberdeen on Tuesday marked the 17th anniversary of Cobain's suicide in Seattle. A diverse group of fans and Aberdeen residents, many born after Cobain's 1994 death, attended the ceremony.
The sculpture was placed in a park near the Young Street bridge where Cobain spent time while growing up. The bridge attracts Cobain fans because it's mentioned in his song "Something in the Way."
Besides the concrete guitar, there's a steel ribbon dangling in the air with lyrics from the Nirvana song "On a Plain" that say: "One more special message to go and then I'm done and I can go home."
Amy Poehler named Harvard's 'Class Day' speaker
Amy Poehler
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Harvard has announced that comedian and actress Amy Poehler has been selected as this year's "Senior Class Day" speaker.The school announced Tuesday that the Massachusetts native will address graduates and their families in Harvard Yard's Tercentenary Theatre on May 25.
The annual ceremony is scheduled the day before commencement and is a chance for Harvard's senior class to socialize one last time before graduating.
Poehler, a Boston College graduate, is known for her work on the late-night sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live" and currently stars in the NBC comedy series "Parks and Recreation."
Kevin Spacey calls for arts funding in Congress
Kevin Spacey
WASHINGTON (AP) — Kevin Spacey performed some impromptu "street theater" Tuesday to ask Congress for continued funding of the National Endowment for the Arts amid calls for deep budget cuts.Spacey was supposed to testify in the House during a hearing that was canceled at the last minute for budget negotiations to avoid a government shutdown. Instead, he performed a version of his testimony for arts supporters.
"Let's pretend," he said, introducing himself to a packed crowd that included a few lawmakers before reading his prepared testimony.
The Academy Award-winning actor said a theater workshop led by the great actor Jack Lemmon when Spacey was 13 gave him a big boost into theater. When it came time to perform a scene for Lemmon, Spacey spoke in a shaky voice with little self-esteem.
"Now that was a touch of terrific," Lemmon told Spacey.
"He saw something in me — a potential — that even I hadn't recognized," Spacey said. "That moment shaped me, and it shaped my life."
Spacey — who won Oscars for his roles in "American Beauty" and "The Usual Suspects" and was executive producer of last year's "The Social Network" — said he's worried fewer kids will have opportunities in the arts. Funding cuts in the 1990s and similar notions now threaten the grants provided by the arts endowment for local theaters and arts groups, he said.
"To me, it is important just to absolutely embrace arts and culture and the creative industries and what they bring to our nation," Spacey told The Associated Press. "It is the single greatest export we exchange around the world."
Alec Baldwin and Hill Harper of TV's "CSI: NY," who was a law school friend of President Barack Obama, spoke later on Capitol Hill, also urging lawmakers to shield the arts from drastic cuts.
House Republicans have passed a $40 million cut this year to the relatively small $168 million annual budget of the arts endowment, though the cut is subject to Senate negotiations. Others want to cut off funding entirely in 2012, including Sarah Palin, who recently called such government spending "frivolous."
Obama's proposed budget for 2012 calls for a $22 million reduction due to pressure to cut spending.
Several state arts agencies also are facing severe cuts. Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback called for eliminating the state arts commission but met resistance in the state Senate. Cuts have been proposed in Washington state and New Hampshire as well.
Grants from arts agencies are used as leverage to draw donations from corporations and philanthropists for substantial projects. Spacey said an NEA grant is a "stamp of approval" for small arts groups.
Robert Lynch, president of the lobbying group Americans for the Arts, said many new lawmakers in a rush to cut budgets fail to see the jobs and economic boost that arts organizations provide as small businesses. The $166 billion nonprofit arts sector includes 5.7 million jobs and generates nearly $30 billion in tax revenue, he said.
"Without a lot of time to understand what this sector means and how it can contribute, it's lumped along with everything else that can be cut to make a smaller government," Lynch said, adding that many arts supporters have left Congress. Still, he said, "I'm one of the last optimists in Washington."
The arts group plans to hold its first-ever White House briefing Tuesday to press for support from Obama's staff.
Republican Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho, chairman of the House subcommittee that funds the arts, told supporters he believes a majority in Congress supports preserving funding. Still, some believe the government simply shouldn't fund the arts at all.
Democratic Rep. James Moran of Virginia said the government is buying fighter jets that each cost as much as the annual budget of the National Endowment for the Arts. The F-22 costs $412 million each, and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter costs $126 million each. The government is buying hundreds of them.
"We are not a poor country. We are a wealthy country, but our real power comes from the power of our ideas," he said "This is not about saving money. This is ideological."
Spacey also has publicly opposed a recently announced 30 percent cut to arts funding in Britain, where he serves as artistic director of London's Old Vic Theatre. He said the cuts taking full effect by 2015 would devastate hundreds of arts groups.
The British government should change its tax laws, Spacey said, and use the U.S. model of providing tax breaks for charitable donations to help fill the gap left by cuts in public funding.
Bristol Palin earns $262K for teen pregnancy work
Bristol Palin
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Tax documents show unwed mother Bristol Palin earned more than $262,000 for her role in helping raise awareness for teen pregnancy prevention in 2009.The most recent data for The Candie's Foundation that's posted online by research firm GuideStar shows compensation at $262,500 for the now 20-year-old daughter of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee.
Bristol Palin was 18 when she was appointed as a teen ambassador for the New York-based foundation in 2009, months after giving birth to son, Tripp. She and the 2-year-old boy's father, Levi Johnston, are no longer together.
Foundation officials did not immediately return calls for comment Tuesday. But Palin family attorney John Tiemessen responded in an email but wouldn't comment about Palin's compensation.
Palin, who still works for the foundation, told The Associated Press last year that girls would think twice about having sex if they knew how tough it is to be a mother. She said she "wasn't prepared at all" for the dramatic changes in her life since becoming a mom.
"I don't think anyone realizes how difficult it really is until you actually have a screaming baby in your arms and you're up all night," Palin said.
When she was first named to the ambassador role, Palin said in a statement she felt she could be a living example of the consequences of teen pregnancy.
"If I can prevent even one girl from getting pregnant, I will feel a sense of accomplishment," she said at the time.
Days after Sen. John McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate in 2008, Bristol Palin's pregnancy was announced. Sarah Palin has not ruled out a run from president in 2012.
The Candie's Foundation is a division of the apparel brand Candie's. It has been raising awareness about teen pregnancy since 2001.
The blog Palingates first reported the compensation figure.
Third 'Dark Knight' to film in Pittsburgh
Dark Knight
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Criminals beware, Batman will be on the beat this summer in Pittsburgh.Film director Christopher Nolan, who has helmed the two previous Batman films — starring Christian Bale as the caped crime fighter and his alter ego, Bruce Wayne — said Tuesday the Pennsylvania city will host filming for a third film for at least a month.
"Pittsburgh is a beautiful city. We have been able to find everything we were looking for here and I am excited to spend the summer in Pittsburgh with our final installment of Batman," he said in a statement, adding that he finally settled on the city because of its architecture and diverse sampling of locations.
Mayor Luke Ravensthahl said the decision was "another example of the growing film industry in our community and we will be rolling out the red carpet for them."
The city is no stranger to film productions, having been the location for more than 100 film and television products since 1990, including "I Am Number Four" and Kevin Smith's "Zack & Miri Make A Porno."
The Pittsburgh Film Office is a non-profit economic development agency that markets southwest Pennsylvania as a location for filming.
"Film production means jobs for Pennsylvanians, it's as simple as that," Office director Dawn Keezer said. "A single film can mean millions of dollars and many local jobs. A franchise as prestigious as Batman opens our region up to an entirely new audience as filmmakers and studio executives experience southwestern Pennsylvania."
She said filming could last between four and six weeks and will start in July. The film, "The Dark Knight Rises," is scheduled to be released in July 2012, and stars Bale, Gary Oldman, and Anne Hathaway as Catwoman.
The previous two films include "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight."
Rocker Vince Neil facing 2 misdemeanors in Vegas
Vince Neil
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Less than six weeks after being released from jail on a drunken driving charge, Motley Crue singer Vince Neil is facing two new misdemeanor charges in a Las Vegas casino showroom confrontation with an ex-girlfriend.Neil, 50, is accused of poking his finger into the chest of Alicia Jacobs in a casino comedy club late March 24, and of cursing and pointing or poking at Jacobs and her friends, John Katsilometes and Patricia McCrone.
Neil's lawyer, David Chesnoff, said Neil intends to plead not guilty and fight the battery domestic violence and disorderly conduct charges. He's due May 2 in Las Vegas Justice Court.
"There are two sides to every story, especially when there are issues surrounding relationships," Chesnoff said. "We are looking forward to a trial on the matter."
Neil could face up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine on each charge.
Jacobs, 39, a Las Vegas entertainment television reporter, showed police a bruise that she said came from the finger-poke.
She said Tuesday she worries about being in the same room with Neil, with whom she told police she had a seven-month relationship that ended in early March.
"His drinking frightens me," Jacobs told The Associated Press. "Complete strangers in the theater saw exactly what happened."
Katsilometes, 45, an entertainment columnist for the Las Vegas Sun, published an account of the confrontation the next day. He branded Neil's brief entrance into the Hilton Las Vegas hotel's Shimmer Cabaret, the encounter, and Neil's swift exit "drive-by belligerence."
Katsilometes said Neil cursed at him, Jacobs and McCrone. "He was obviously intent on venting in a swift, profane, two-syllable outburst," Katsilometes wrote. "I didn't believe he was out to cause bodily injury to me."
He declined additional comment Tuesday, citing the criminal case.
McCrone, 40, is publicist for her brother-in-law, the iconic Las Vegas crooner Wayne Newton. She said she wasn't injured when Neil poked her with his index finger. But she also wasn't surprised that Clark County District Attorney David Roger decided to file charges.
"It was a big scene. There were a lot of witnesses," McCrone said. "I wasn't hurt, but it was a complete surprise. He definitely sought us out."
Neil was freed from Clark County jail Feb. 25 after serving 10 days for driving drunk last June near the Las Vegas Strip.
Neil also was fined $585 and ordered to serve 15 days on house arrest as part of a plea deal that avoided trial in the case. He didn't contest police accounts that he was driving drunk when he was stopped in his black Lamborghini late last June after leaving the Las Vegas Hilton.
Neil is the front man for a four-member heavy metal band known for bad behavior, hard partying, famous girlfriends and hard-driving hits like "Girls, Girls, Girls" and "Dr. Feelgood," both from the late 1980s. He also owns tattoo shops and two bars in Las Vegas. One is at the Hilton.
The singer denied in an interview with AP just before his arrest last June that he used drugs or abused alcohol.
"There's just a point in your life where you kind of stop. That's what happened with me," Neil said in an interview about a tell-all book. "There's other things in life than just drugs and alcohol."
Neil had also pleaded guilty to drunken driving before, in a 1984 crash in California that killed his passenger, Nicholas Dingley, a 24-year-old drummer with the group Hanoi Rocks.
Neil, then 25, wasn't injured. His conviction on manslaughter and drunken driving charges got him 20 days in jail, and he agreed to pay $2.5 million in restitution to victims.
US school acquires Robert Frost's letters to pal
Robert Frost
CONCORD, New Hampshire (AP) — Writing from England as World War I got under way, Robert Frost was more worried about his personal finances than the threat of war."This row was exciting at first. But it has lost some of its interest for us," the poet wrote to his friend Ernest Silver in August 1914, just weeks after Great Britain declared war on Germany. "Not that I think the Germans will come. I bet one of my little amateur bets that other day that not one of them would set foot in England."
The letter is one of six recently donated to Plymouth State University in New Hampshire, where Frost taught for a year before moving to England in 1912. His reputation as a poet grew after the publication of his first book a year later, but Frost still worried about how he would provide for his family upon returning to the United States.
"I wonder if I can count on your friendship to help me to some place where I can recoup. You know the kind of thing I should like — something in the English department, if possible, where I should have some energy to spare for my poetry," he wrote. "I can probably hang on another year if I have to, but there will be the more need in the end of my finding work because by that time I shall be in debt."
In another letter dated Feb. 2, 1915, Frost said he was considering moving to Vermont or Maine to be near friends. "But money is really going to be short and we must go where we can go with a reasonable chance of making ends meet," he wrote.
Frost, the celebrated New England poet known for such verse as "The Road Not Taken" and "The Gift Outright," met Silver at Pinkerton Academy in Derry, where Silver was the high school principal and Frost taught English. When Silver became the president of what was then known as Plymouth Normal School, he invited Frost to come teach education and psychology.
But after a decade of teaching combined with unsuccessful farming, Frost's move to England marked his shift toward poetry as a vocation, said Alice Staples, librarian for the archives and special collections at Plymouth State. The letters come from a time in which Frost faced a choice not unlike the dilemma posed in 1916's "The Road Not Taken," she said.
In England, Frost befriended other literary greats, including William Butler Yeats and Ezra Pound. In a May 7, 1913, letter, he described Yeats' manner as being "like that of a man in some dream he can't shake off," and called Pound "the dazzling youth who translates poetry from six languages."
"Someone says he looks altogether too much like a poet to be a poet," Frost wrote of Pound. "He lives in Bohemia from hand to mouth but he goes simply everywhere in great society."
Frost also described reading Yeats to students in Plymouth before meeting the poet overseas, a detail Plymouth State University President Sara Jayne Steen found particularly striking.
"To think that he was bringing such a contemporary writer to the students and working with them, and then to think how exciting that must've been for him, to be in a position where he could meet and talk with the man he had just been teaching," Steen said.
The letters, which have not been published before, were donated privately to the university, Steen said. To mark the 100th anniversary of Frost's time on campus, the school has set up a display including audio of Frost reading his poetry along with photos and other memorabilia.
"There could hardly be anything more perfect in the centennial year of Robert Frost and Ernest Silver coming to Plymouth than to have the letters that were part of that correspondence come to us," Steen said.
Frost returned to the U.S. in 1915. In addition to his connection to Plymouth, the letters also show how Frost's time in England solidified his identity as a New Englander, Staples said. (Frost was born in California but moved to New England as a child.)
Though accustomed to New Hampshire's harsh winters, Frost complained that he'd rather be stuck in snow than the mud that surrounded him that spring in England.
"My original theory was that mud here took the place of snow at home. It is worse than that. Mud here takes the place of everything at home. ... We had three hours sunshine last week a thing so remarkable that it set the ladies cooing over their tea, 'Don't you think the English is a much maligned climate?'"
"I suppose the amount of it is that I am home-sick, and so not disposed to like anything foreign," he concluded. "Twenty-five years in New England have made very much of a damned Yankee of me."
Frost, who won four Pulitzer Prizes for poetry, died in 1963.
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Online:
http://library.plymouth.edu/archives/collections/frost-and-silver-the-letters
Angelina Jolie visits Libya-Tunisia border
Angelina Jolie
TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Refugees who fled violence in Libya have welcomed an unusual visitor to their border camp in Tunisia — Angelina Jolie.The American actress visited on Tuesday in her role as a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
The UNHCR said in a statement that Jolie urged more international aid for the refugees, and the Jolie-Pitt Foundation had also made an "important donation" for the refugee operation.
Jolie also praised the government of Tunisia for its generosity toward the refugees. Tunisia saw an uprising in January that overthrew a dictator and sparked revolts around the Arab world.
UNHCR says more than 400,000 people have fled from Libya over the last month amid fighting between longtime rebels and leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces.
Lady Gaga leads MTV's O Music Award nominations
Lady Gaga
NEW YORK (AP) — Lady Gaga and Tyler the Creator lead MTV's newly inaugurated O Music Awards with three nominations each.MTV announced Tuesday the categories and nominees for its new Web-based awards show, a celebration of digital music. Categories include best fan cover, most viral dance and best music hashtag meme.
Lady Gaga and rapper Tyler the Creator are among the nominees for most innovative artist and must-follow artist on Twitter. Lady Gaga is also nominated for favorite animated GIF, a kind of avatar. Tyler the Creator, of the much buzzed-about hip-hop group Odd Future, is also nominated for his remix of Lykke Li's "Follow Rivers."
Winners will be decided by fan voting in social media, with the results shown in real-time. The awards will be presented in a live hour-long webcast April 28 on MTV websites and mobile apps.
MTV, which is part of the Viacom-owned MTV Networks, hopes the show will do for digital music what its Video Music Awards, launched in 1984, did for the music video. As a reference to the rapidly shifting online world, even the "O'' in the OMAs is being left undefined and open to interpretation by viewers.
"Some elements of this will be experimental," said Dermot McCormack, head of digital media at MTV Music Group. "If there is such a thing as a beta award show, this is it."
Several of the awards will go to fans or even pets. Best animal performance is a category, with nominees like a parrot dancing to Willow Smith's song "Whip My Hair."
Other categories fete the new epicenters of online music, such as best independent music blog, best music discovery service and best performance series. The latter features a group of nominees that pits acclaimed online series like NPR's "Tiny Desk Concerts" and La Blogotheque's "Take Away Shows" against MTV's own "Unplugged."
"We're really launching a new franchise here, something that we're investing in," says Shannon Connolly, vice president of digital music strategy for MTV Music Group.
Other nominated artists include Kanye West, the Flaming Lips, Nicki Minaj, Arcade Fire and Justin Bieber. Among the non-artist nominees are the comedy site Funny or Die, the music discovery service Pandora and Andy Samberg's comedy troupe, the Lonely Island.
The network says success for the O Music Awards won't be assessed by ratings or view counts, but by its cultural influence.
"We won't be judging by how many streams we do on several websites," says McCormack. "We will be judging it by how much we can affect the conversation around digital music in the lead-up and beyond."
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Online:
http://www.omusicawards.com
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