News Update Place

 

Adnan Ghalib, 35, works for the agency FinalPixx, but seemed to find a place in Britney Spears’ heart – and bed? Well, Adnan Ghalib and Britney Spears have been seen checking into hotels anyway:

•  Britney Spears invited Adnan Ghalib to her Beverly Hills hotel room on December 22nd.
•  Six days later, Adnan Ghalib was seen in Britney Spears’s car, driving the pop princess to a West Hollywood home.
• Adnan Ghalib was seen going into a Palm Springs hotel with Britney Spears on January 2nd at 2 AM. The pair checked out at 7 AM.

Adnan Ghalib was not with Britney Spears when she had her meltdown — and he didn’t visit her during her hospital stay either. Adnan Ghalib and Britney Spears were seen the day after her release, having breakfast together.

1. Official Blog: Finalpixx
2. Wikipedia: Adnan Ghalib
3. Google News: Adnan Ghalib
4. The Hollywood Gossip: Adnan Ghalib Category
5. ET Online: The Adnan Ghalib Interview (January 22, 2008)
6. PerezHilton: Adnan could be DEPORTED! (January 31, 2008)
7. Video: Adnan Ghalib and Britney Spears (Time: 1:03)

Some said they joined the Hillary Clinton crowd because the line outside the Brown Chapel AME Church where Barack Obama was to speak looked too daunting.

Some were Alabamians who said they were simply coming to witness the observance to the Selma to Montgomery march. Supporters in both crowds talked about wanting clarity on issues such as Iraq, seniors, health care and education, while others seemed to just want a glimpse of a star. Still others were taken by the forces of unity, national politics, and history unfolding in their midst.

“I really want to hear them both,� said Willette Carter, 49, of Greensboro, who came with her grandchildren ages 5 and 13. “Hillary is a woman. Barack is a black so I am following them both very closely to see what they see as the issues and are proposing.�

Carter, who is still undecided between the two candidates, stood in line to hear Clinton. Her husband opted to hear Obama.

“You get excited when you have someone of your gender running, but you get excited when you have someone of your race running,� said Carter, a registered nurse who is black. “I just want to see what they will bring to the table as far as change and making changes for our country.�
— Goodman is a reporter with the Clarion Ledger

By Julie Goodman

The US hair salon where pop star Britney Spears shaved her head has apparently set up a website to auction her locks for more than $1m (£512,500).

Spears has since been spotted wearing a blonde wig

Spears had the drastic cut at Esther’s Hair Studio in California on Friday.

The website, buybritneyshair.com, claims to have been set up by salon owner Esther Tognozzi.

It includes photos of the hair, saying it is “absolutely authentic”. Meanwhile, Spears has been spotted in Hollywood sporting a short blonde wig.

The salon’s website offers bidders an “opportunity of a lifetime” and says a portion of the proceeds will be donated to various unnamed charities.

A bald Spears was photographed at an LA tattoo parlour

As well as the hair, the winning bidder will also get the hair clippers Spears used, a blue lighter she left at the salon and the can of Red Bull she was drinking at the time.

The site adds that the successful bidder can pick up the hair from Esther’s Hair Studio in Tarzana, California.

Salon co-owner JT Tognozzi said: “We still don’t know why Britney chose our shop. We’ll probably never know.”

Mr Tognozzi said they originally listed the hair on internet auction site eBay, but it was cancelled for an “unknown reason.”

Internet frauds

On Tuesday morning there were scores of supposed locks of Spears’ hair for sale on eBay - including some located in the UK and Germany.

“It’s pretty crazy all the frauds and stuff that’s out there,” Mr Tognozzi said. “They’re not even in our state.”

EBay said many postings claiming to offer “genuine” locks have already been removed.

An eBay spokeswoman said: “Anyone considering the purchase of such an item should read the listing carefully and only proceed if they are completely happy that the item they are buying is authentic.”

Since splitting with husband Kevin Federline last year, Spears has been making headlines with her partying lifestyle.

One of the most annoying things companies do is when they add features without warning.

Myspace ‘profiles’ are now showing an additional component/section(?) called ‘Video Space’ (located below the ‘Who I’d like to meet’ component and above the ‘Top Friends’ area) that just popped up by default across the network, if the users had uploaded any videos.

Until now, about the closest thing to this was that myspace would just ‘insert’ video clips right into your profile into the ‘about me’ section when you clicked a text link below a video you were watching. (kinda cavemanish imo) This is a much stronger move in that they are starting to catch up from where they WERE this summer (completely down for days) to actually leveraging a massive untapped resource (other people’s content) in order not to fall in the shadow of the big acquisition that just happened.

Most of us would have been thrilled to learn this was in the works, but I’m mildly annoyed to learn that the videos I’ve uploaded are all of a sudden appearing in my profile. I’ve already inserted them in my About Me section, to get around the fact that the site didn’t allow this in the first place, and now I have to go back and fix it.

[tags]Myspace, videos, video, profile[/tags]
[flickrs]Myspace, videos, video, profile[/flickrs]
[dels]Myspace, videos, video, profile[/dels]

Donald Trump announced today Miss USA, Tara Conner, will keep the crown. Personal problems and reports of partying tarnished Conner’s reputation and nearly cost her the title.

Trump, along with NBC owns the pageant organization that produces the Miss USA, Miss Universe and Miss Teen USA contests.

Michelle Franzen has the story from New York. Miss USA Tara Conner arrived at Trump Tower in New York City to officially hear Donald Trump say she is still Miss USA. “Tara is a good person, Tara has tried hard, Tara deserves a second chance,” said Trump.

Trump, the owner of the pageant organization that oversees the contest, along with NBC, said Conner has some behavioral issues and made some bad mistakes, but she is a good role model. “It truly takes someone with a wonderful heart,a heart of gold,” said Miss USA Tara Conner.

Conner said she was grateful to be able to keep the crown. “I’ve had a very big blessing bestowed upon me and you’ll never know how much I owe Trump for saving me on this one,” said Conner.

In the past few weeks, Conner has come under fire for excessive partying in bars and other conduct considered inappropriate by pageant organizers.

The Kentucky native turned 21 on Monday and was crowned Miss USA in April. Conner is not the first pageant winner to tarnish the tiara. Vanessa Williams, 1984’s Miss America, stepped down after nude photos of her surfaced.

Now, after getting a second chance, Conner, said she realizes she is a role model and promised her party days are over. Michelle Franzen, NBC News, New York. Conner will be entering rehab and has four months as Miss USA left before she passes the crown and title onto the next winner.

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Calling it a “sad, bloody story,” veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent Mike Wallace expressed regret about Dan Rather’s departure from CBS News but said Rather wasn’t finished yet.
“You wait and see, he’s going to find his place,” Wallace told a packed house on Wednesday at the annual conference of PromaxBDA in New York. “We’re going to be hearing from Dan. He’s a superb reporter.”

Wallace and CNN host Larry King received the organizations’ TV Century Awards.

Wallace has in the past suggested that Rather should have resigned for his role in the discredited “60 Minutes Wednesday” report on        President Bush’s military career that led to the firing of one producer and the forced resignations of four executives. But Wallace was much more conciliatory Wednesday, a day after Rather and CBS News parted ways.

“It’s a sad, sad story. He’s a good man, a hell of a reporter, (he) made a mistake,” Wallace said. When asked about why Rather would go ahead with a report that seemed shaky, he said: “I don’t know. Ask him.”

And Wallace didn’t mince words when asked whether incoming “CBS Evening News” anchor Katie Couric, the longtime former co-host of NBC’s “Today” show, has the gravitas to carry an evening newscast.

“Katie Couric is a fine reporter, a superb interviewer,” Wallace said.

The 88-year-old correspondent said CBS chief Leslie Moonves’s strategy is to grab a greater share of viewers aged 25 to 54, the demographic regarded as the core audience for the network evenings newscasts, and he believes Couric will be able to find a way to do it.

“Forget perky. Perky is out. She is a serious individual who wants to take on a serious job of getting more people to watch the 6:30 p.m. news,” Wallace said. But Wallace said he didn’t know what Couric and CBS management had in mind.

“That’s above my pay grade,” Wallace said.

The conference’s first session was highlighted by a number of presentations as well as a musical number by        Megan Mullally, late of the NBC sitcom “Will & Grace” and this fall a syndicated talk-show host.

The conference continues Thursday.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

SANTA MONICA, Calif. -        Reese Witherspoon has sued Star magazine, alleging the tabloid ran a false story saying she is pregnant with her third child.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday in Superior Court claims a story in the magazine’s June 26 issue falsely stated that she didn’t want producers of two of her upcoming movies to know she was expecting. The story also suggested that Witherspoon, 30, was wearing maternity clothing, according to the lawsuit.

“It is a frivolous lawsuit,” Mike Kahane, general counsel to the tabloid’s parent company, American Media Inc., said in a statement Thursday. “It has no legal merit and we intend to vigorously defend it and have every confidence that we will prevail.”

Witherspoon claims the story harmed her because it suggested she is hiding information from her producers. Being pregnant would affect her ability to perform her duties in connection with those films, the lawsuit said.

“The true facts are that plaintiff is not pregnant, does not have a baby bump and has not otherwise gained weight such that she has had to resort to wearing empire-waist dresses,” the lawsuit said.

Witherspoon, who is married to        Ryan Phillippe, won an Oscar for her role as June Carter Cash in 2005’s “Walk the Line.” The couple have a daughter, Ava, born in 1999, and a son, Deacon, born in 2003.

LONDON (Reuters) - A musical version of “The Lord of the Rings” is to open in London next year but the production has been reworked and cut after its world premiere in Toronto received some damning reviews.

Wallace, taking on board the acerbic reception meted out to the musical by some North American critics, said: “There will be a series of revisions. There is stuff we have learned. We are breaking it down scene by scene.”

“The writers have been doing some reworking. This will be a cut and reworked version with more music and we have edited out some of the sub-plot,” said Wallace, formerly in-house producer with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s London-based The Really Useful Group.

The Toronto show, which took four years to bring to the stage, opened in March with critics applauding its leaping orcs and menacing dark riders but getting lost in the tangled plots of Middle Earth.

The 55-member cast slipped into 500 costumes and engaged in fight scenes and acrobatics atop a 40-tonne, computer-controlled stage floor featuring 17 elevators, which spun and rose amid magic and illusion.

Ben Brantley of The New York Times complained, “Everyone and everything winds up lost in this” while the Toronto Globe and Mail said, “It still looks a lot like unfinished business.”

But the London Times branded it “a stirring triumph of theatrical magic.”

Wallace said: “I was surprised by how extreme some of the North American response was. But I was gratified that the UK critics were more responsive. I think it is coming back to its spiritual home in London.”

The producer, who plans to open the show next in Germany in 2008, said, “We have taken into account what critics said. A pattern emerged. We did indeed need to heighten the emotional intensity of the third act. We can make it more impactful.”

(Additional reporting by Jennifer Kwan in Toronto)

MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. - Grammy-winning rapper Eminem continued divorce proceedings with his wife, Kimberley Mathers, in a private hearing Thursday. Details of the meeting were not disclosed.
Kimberley Mathers, who is seeking financial support, attorney fees and joint custody of the couple’s 10-year-old daughter, Hailie Jade Scott, was seen being escorted out of the building by a sheriff’s deputy.

Her lawyer, Michael J. Smith, declined to comment. A message seeking comment was left Thursday with Eminem’s attorney, Harvey Hauer.

Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Bruce Mathers III, was not seen by reporters at the courthouse, but was present for the hour-long meeting before Court Referee David Elias, court officer Mark Mileski said.

Eminem filed for divorce April 5, 82 days after the couple remarried.

The 33-year-old rapper remarried Kimberley Mathers in Rochester on Jan. 14, a month after the couple announced they were getting back together.

Their first marriage lasted from 1999 to 2001.

Macomb County Circuit Judge Antonio Viviano, who originally was scheduled to preside over Thursday’s hearing, had set a deadline of Aug. 25 for completion of depositions, interrogatories, pension evaluations and other matters.

A settlement conference is scheduled for Sept. 19.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - Actor

        Rob Lowe narrowly won approval from planners for a massive dream estate on his $8.5 million Montecito lot despite a neighbor’s complaint that the mansion would spoil his panoramic ocean view.

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“I’ve always been a big believer in the process. I’m obviously pleased with the outcome,” the former star of “The West Wing” said after Wednesday’s 3-2 vote by the Montecito Planning Commission.

The vote came after a daylong commission debate over whether the proposed 14,260-square-foot estate would overwhelm the Picacho Lane neighborhood, which is also home to mystery writer Sue Grafton.

Lowe’s proposal calls for a 24-foot-high privacy hedge that would screen their estate from neighbor Fred Gluck, former head of the international consulting firm McKinsey & Co. Gluck said the hedge would partially block views of the Pacific.

The complaint blossomed into a debate on the expanding size of Montecito homes.

Lowe, who purchased the 3.4-acre, undeveloped property for about $8.5 million last year, told the commission that Gluck first complained about potential view loss, then on the size of the home.

Lowe noted that Gluck’s 8,577-square-foot home also exceeds Montecito guidelines for what planners call floor-area ratios.

Lowe’s proposal is to build a 9,860-square-foot home with a 2,000-square-foot basement, an 800-square-foot guest house, an 800-square-foot second-story cabana with an 800-square-foot garage below. There will also be a swimming pool, spa and tennis court.

On Wednesday, three commissioners sided with Lowe and said the estate was compatible with the neighborhood. Two agreed with Gluck that the project sets a disturbing precedent.

Information from: Santa Barbara News-Press, www.newspress.com