Husband of late reality TV star sentenced

The husband of reality television star Jade Goody, who died of cancer last month, has been jailed for 12 weeks for attacking a cab driver.

Jack Tweed, 21, was sentenced Tuesday at Harlow Magistrates' Court northeast of London. He had denied the assault charge.

Tweed's wife died March 22 after a highly publicized battle with cervical cancer. The couple married in a media extravaganza two months before her death.

Goody's last months were marked by an outpouring of public sympathy, but Tweed has been dogged by legal problems.

In September, he was given an 18-month jail sentence for beating a teenager with a golf club. He was granted early release on that charge.

Defense lawyer Tania Panagiotopoulou says Tweed has matured since Goody's illness and had pleaded for a lesser sentence.

Jessica Simpson's courtship with country music seems to have had a shorter shelf life than her marriage.

After lackluster sales for her country debut, "Do You Know," Simpson and her Nashville record label have parted ways, leaving many wondering what's next for the 28-year-old entertainer.

"Right now it seems like she's taken a break from recording. There is nothing else on the books," said Ian Drew, senior music editor at Us Weekly magazine.

A spokeswoman for the one-time pop princess says Simpson remains part of the Sony Music Group on the Epic label, but is no longer working with the company's country division, Sony Music Nashville.

"She was on loan to Sony Nashville for her country album," said Lauren Auslander.

As for her future in country music? "We don't know yet," she said.

"Do You Know" started strong but faded fast. The lead single, "Come on Over," a flirtatious, steel guitar-laced slice of country pop, peaked at No. 18 last summer and the album debuted at No. 1. But the second single, "Remember That," stalled at No. 42, and the third, "Pray Out Loud," failed to chart.

To date, the disc, Simpson's fifth studio release, has sold around 178,000 copies — a long way from her 3 million-selling 2003 disc, "In This Skin."

"Everywhere I saw her around the U.S. at different radio station events she was always well-received," said Lon Helton, editor and publisher of the industry trade publication "Country Aircheck." "For whatever reason, the music did not resonate."

Simpson came to country after her 2006 pop outing, "A Public Affair," fell flat. The Texas-born blonde touted the move as a return to her roots. She performed on the Grand Ole Opry, signed autographs at the Country Music Association's annual festival, and toured with country's multiplatinum trio Rascal Flatts.

But she got more publicity for her life outside of music, most of it far from positive. She was ridiculed when it seemed as if she had gained a few pounds, and the status of her romance with Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo was constantly scrutinized.

She was also criticized for a few erratic concert performances. At a February show in Michigan, Simpson apologized to fans after she forgot the lyrics to a song and asked her band to start over on another.

Some detractors viewed her country career as a calculated attempt to follow other pop stars who have found success on country radio.

"Working the country market is very different. You really have to work it at country. You have to spend your life on the road building an audience and she didn't really put the work in," Drew observed. "She walked the walk and talked the talk, but she didn't have the street cred that she needed to make it work."

But others say Simpson shouldn't bail too soon. She may just need more time to find an audience.

"It doesn't seem like she was even on the country music scene long enough to prove what she is capable of doing for this industry. She never got the chance," said Neely Yates, music director for country station 96.3 in Lubbock, Texas.

Helton wondered whether the singer was a victim of bad timing. Pop rockers Darius Rucker and Jewel were crossing over to country about the same time, which he called unusual in country music.

"What was the ability of the market to absorb and focus on more than one pop singer at a time coming over?" he asked.

The question now is whether Simpson will keep her record deal. After two disappointments, Epic may be ready to move on without her.

"She's never really sold a lot of records except for the album out at the height of 'Newlyweds,'" said Drew, referring to her popular reality TV show, "Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica," which chronicled her ill-fated marriage to Nick Lachey. "Other than that, she's never been able to sell much of anything."

But in a recent interview, Rascal Flatts' Gary Levox said Simpson is in a no-win situation with her critics: "She's in a spot where whatever she does, they pick her apart. They need to just leave her alone and just let her sing."

"She's a wonderfully gifted singer," added bandmate Jay DeMarcus. "All the other stuff overshadows what she's really about and it's unfortunate, because there's more to her there than just tabloid fodder."

Castro insists US go further, lift 'cruel' embargo

Fidel Castro says the Obama administration did not go far enough in softening sanctions, and criticized it for leaving in place the embargo that bars most trade and travel between the two countries.

The White House said Monday that Americans will now be able to make unlimited transfers of money and visits to relatives in Cuba. Under Bush administration rules, Cuban-Americans were eligible to travel here only every three years and send up to $300 to relatives every three months.

Monday's action eliminated those limits in the hope that less dependence on their government will lead Cubans to demand progress on political freedoms.

Castro responded in an online column Monday night. The ailing former president wrote that the U.S. had announced the repeal of "several hateful restrictions," but had stopped short of real change.

"Of the blockade, which is the cruelest of measures, not a word was uttered," he wrote.

Castro noted that several U.S. senators favor lifting the trade embargo and urged Obama to seize the opportunity.

"The conditions are in place for Obama to use his talent in a constructive policy that ends something that has failed for nearly half a century," he wrote.

While analysts say the U.S. policy change could usher in a new era of openness between the two countries, few here think it will mean the end of the trade embargo, which has choked off nearly all U.S. trade with the island for 47 years and counting.

"I'm not hoping for much more from Obama," said 43-year-old office worker Layna Rodriguez. "I don't know that he can do much more since to him, the important thing is what the Americans in his country do."

But many Cubans are happy that relatives in America will now be able to come whenever they want, stay as long as they want and send as much cash home as they can. About 1.5 million Americans have relatives in Cuba, which turned to communist rule after Fidel Castro seized control in 1959.

For Olguita Sierra, the shift in U.S. policy allowing Cuban-Americans to make unlimited trips and money transfers to the island came a month too late.

The 72-year-old's son Sergio lives in Miami and had not been eligible for a trip to Cuba until next year. His request for an emergency visa was pending in March when his father passed away.

"What hurts me most is that my husband died just a little while ago without seeing him," Sierra stammered, tears welling in her eyes. "If only Obama had made this decision sooner."

Jose Pilar Ramos, a 20-something looking for work in the Old Havana tourist district, said his cousin in Miami does not have enough money to visit Cuba — regardless of what U.S. law now allows.

"Obama can do what he wants, but the problem is here. People don't want to work for $4 a week, even if they get more money from family members over there," he said, nodding toward the waters of the Florida Straits, which lap at the Havana coastline.

Nearly all Cubans work for the government, earning an average of 414 pesos — just $19.70 — a month. Ramos said he lost his state job after trying to flee Cuba three times by small boat, most recently in February when he was picked up on the high seas by the U.S. Coast Guard and sent home.

As he spoke, a police officer approached, demanded his identification card and detained him for venturing outside of his neighborhood in East Havana. Police keep close watch on tourist areas, ensuring that foreigners and Cubans don't mix more than necessary. Nobody had bothered Ramos until he began speaking to a foreign journalist.

Other steps taken Monday by the White House include expanding items allowed in gift parcels sent to Cuba. The administration also will begin issuing licenses for companies to provide cellular and television services to Cubans, and letting family members pay for relatives on the island to get those services.

But for many, the moves are only a beginning. Alberto Sal, a 68-year-old retiree, said he had high hopes when Obama was elected but is still waiting for significant action.

For instance, the president said nothing Monday about bipartisan measures in both houses of Congress that would effectively allow all Americans to travel to Cuba.

"He should do more and lift travel restrictions for all Americans," Sal said. "Until he does that, I don't think he's doing much."

N. Korea says it will restart its nuclear reactor

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea vowed Tuesday to restart its nuclear reactor and to boycott international disarmament talks for good in retaliation for the U.N. Security Council's condemnation of its rocket launch.

China, the country's main ally, appealed for calm. Russia called on Pyongyang to return to the talks in the interests of denuclearization, reports said.

North Korea's swift denunciation of the council's "hostile" move came hours after all 15 members, including Beijing and Moscow, unanimously agreed to condemn the April 5 launch as a violation of U.N. resolutions and to tighten sanctions against the regime.

The U.N. statement, issued eight days after the launch, was weaker than the resolution Japan and the United States had pursued but still drew an angry response from Pyongyang, which called it "unjust" and a violation of international law.

North Korea claims it sent a communications satellite into space as part of a peaceful bid to develop its space program.

The U.S. and others call the launch an illicit test of the technology used to fire an intercontinental ballistic missile, even one eventually destined for the U.S.

A Security Council resolution passed in 2006, days after North Korea carried out an underground nuclear test, prohibits Pyongyang from engaging in any ballistic missile-related activity — including launching rockets that use the same delivery technology as missiles mounted with warheads, Washington and other nations say.

The council on Monday demanded an end to the rocket launches and said it will expand sanctions against the communist nation. The council also called for quick resumption of disarmament talks.

President Barack Obama called the statement a "clear and united message" that North Korea's action was unlawful and would result in real consequences, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

North Korea, following through on earlier threats to withdraw from international disarmament talks if the council so much as criticized the launch, announced Tuesday it would boycott the 5 1/2-year-old negotiations hosted by China.

"The six-party talks have lost the meaning of their existence, never to recover," the North's Foreign Ministry said in a statement, declaring it would never participate in the talks again and is no longer bound to previous agreements.

Since 2003, envoys from six nations — the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan — have been meeting in Beijing for sporadic negotiations on getting Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program in exchange for aid and other concessions.

Under a 2007 six-party deal, North Korea agreed to disable its main nuclear complex in Yongbyon north of Pyongyang — a key step toward dismantlement — in return for 1 million tons of fuel oil and other concessions. Disablement began later that year.

In June 2008, North Korea famously blew up the cooling tower at Yongbyon in a dramatic show of its commitment to denuclearization.

But disablement came to halt a month later as Pyongyang wrangled with Washington over how to verify its 18,000-page account of past atomic activities. The latest round of talks, in December, failed to push the process forward.

On Tuesday, the North said it would restart nuclear facilities, an apparent reference to its plutonium-producing reactor at Yongbyon. North Korea already is believed to have enough plutonium to produce at least about half a dozen atomic bombs.

It also threatened to gird against what it called "hostile acts" by the U.S. and its allies.

"We have no choice but to further strengthen our nuclear deterrent to cope with additional military threats by hostile forces," the Foreign Ministry said in the statement carried by state media.

Analyst Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University, called Pyongyang's move yet another tactic in the regime's bid to get Washington to the negotiating table outside the six-party framework.

"The U.N. statement humiliated North Korea internationally, and that's why North Korea angrily reacted to it," said Atsuhito Isozaki, assistant professor of North Korean politics at Keio University in Japan. "Since China and Russia supported the statement, North Korea feels betrayed."

However, Prof. Yoo Ho-yeol of Korea University in Seoul said Pyongyang will find it difficult to boycott the talks entirely, since that would only serve to further isolate the impoverished country, one of the world's poorest.

"We hope the relevant parties will proceed from the overall interest, exercise calmness and restraint," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a press conference in Beijing on Tuesday.

Russia' Foreign Ministry said it regrets Pyongyang's response and called on the regime to return to the talks, the ITAR-Tass news agency said.

South Korea, expressing "deep regret," also decided Tuesday to fully join the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative, a program launch in 2003 to halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the presidential office said.

The move is bound to further infuriate Pyongyang.

$80,000 for a Year Off? She’ll Take It!

This year may be a disastrous one for the global economy, but it’s shaping up to be one of the best that Heather Eisenlord has enjoyed in a good long while. Granted, that might not be saying much: For the past five years, Ms. Eisenlord has been an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, a notably grueling place for a lawyer to work.

But even by more stringent standards of fun, the coming year looks pretty good. Ms. Eisenlord, 36, who works in Skadden’s banking group, will be buying a plane ticket that will take her around the world for a year, and she’s been stocking her apartment in Brooklyn with Lonely Planet travel guides.

Although she’s not yet sure exactly what she’ll be doing on her trip, she has some ideas. She would like to teach English to monks in Sri Lanka and possibly help bring solar power to remote parts of the Himalayas. She’ll probably hit 10 to 15 destinations around the world, most likely practicing not-for-profit law wherever she can be helpful.

The best part of all: Skadden is paying her about $80,000 to do it.

For a sixth-year associate at a New York law firm, $80,000 isn’t exactly competitive pay. But for someone cruising around the world, doing good wherever she sees fit and, let’s face it, probably hitting a beach or two, the pay is excellent.

Only in a financial world turned upside down would an arrangement like this one make sense. Looking to cut costs like everyone else, but not prepared to lay off associates, Skadden has chosen instead to offer all of its associates — about 1,300 worldwide — the option of accepting a third of their base pay to not show up for work for a year. (So far, the partners have no equivalent arrangement.)

The company is helping associates find pro bono work, and is encouraging them to do so. But the lawyers could also spend the year catching up on every episode of “Top Chef” that they missed during the boom years, or traveling around the world, “all of which is O.K. by us,” said Matthew Mallow, a partner at the firm. Other firms have adopted similar strategies, but Skadden’s program is unusual in that it has no pro bono requirements.

As of Friday, about 125 associates had expressed interest. “I think it’s fair to say that the numbers are in excess of our expectations,” Mr. Mallow said.

Only at a corporate law firm would the managers underestimate employees’ interest in taking a year off from the grind for what most of America would consider a small fortune.

Not everyone could cover monthly living expenses on a third of one’s pay, and naturally some skeptical lawyers grilled the partners about job security. If there are layoffs in a year, they wondered, is it really possible that the lawyers who’d been defending trees in British Columbia wouldn’t be disadvantaged, compared with the lawyers who’d been slaving away on contracts in Midtown?

Not only were the lawyers assured that their time away wouldn’t hurt them; in some ways it would be protective: If there are layoffs while they are away, they will be immune.

So far, the majority of the lawyers are looking for worthwhile legal work, Skadden says, to keep them as competitive as possible; but yes, some will take the year off to spend time with their children or look after a sick relative. Someone’s planning to wrap up his Ph.D., someone else is looking into legal work for a news organization, and another associate will be joining Ms. Eisenlord on her round-the-world adventure.

Ms. Eisenlord says she fully intends to go back to Skadden after her trip, and will be eager to return to the work she loves and the co-workers she admires. It’s possible that after a year teaching monks English, installing solar panels in the Himalayas and working on human rights in developing nations, she will come to the conclusion that there is no more fulfilling life than the one she has spent in corporate law.

But maybe she will have some kind of revelation. If there is any silver lining to this financial catastrophe, it’s that business as usual has come to a grinding halt. Sometimes it takes getting thrown out of the office to notice there is a life outside.

Protests Reveal Deep Divisions

Thailand, the land of politeness and smiles, is also famous for kickboxing. The street battles in Bangkok this week were a window into the country’s pugilistic side, an outpouring of frustration by protesters who say they feel injustice and discrimination in the workings of Thailand’s troubled democracy.

Although the protests ended peacefully on Tuesday, the grassroots resentment and anger are likely to linger.

“Whoever wins or loses this round, the stalemate and tension will remain,” said Thongchai Winichakul, a professor of Southeast Asian history at the University of Wisconsin.

The “red shirts,” as the protesters are known, draw their strength from the north and northeastern parts of Thailand. Many of them are farmers and small businessmen, and they portray themselves as battling an unelected but influential elite, notably the judiciary, the military and the powerful advisers of King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

A central lament of the red shirts is that the will of the electorate has been repeatedly thwarted: three prime ministers since 2006 have been forced from office — one in the military coup of 2006 and two removed by the courts in highly political trials.

“They chased out governments that were elected,” said Thongdee Wongsamart, a middle-aged protester who recently lost her job as a cleaner in a tour company. “I’m angry.”

Many of the red shirts are followers of Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister ousted in the 2006 coup. But they are often quick to point out that their grievances about the state of Thai democracy are more important than their support for Mr. Thaksin, a former telecommunications tycoon.

“This is not only about Thaksin and his money,” said Mr. Thongchai of the University of Wisconsin. “These are people against the coup who are targeting an unelected bureaucratic elite.”

Many red shirts say they do not trust the Thai media, which they accuse of siding with the government. Those from the provinces say they resent being looked down as people who speak funny dialects.

They draw the contrast between the light touch used by security forces last year against royalist protesters and the thousands of troops who forcibly dislodged the red shirts from Bangkok’s streets this week.

The royalists crippled the country late last year by blockading Bangkok’s two commercial airports for a week, stranding hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors. They surrounded Parliament and trapped legislators inside, receiving moral support from the king’s wife, Queen Sirikit.

“This country has a double standard, has no justice and will never be peaceful,” read a comment on pantip.com, an Internet chat site that has a popular political section. “There will be civil war because people see that injustice has become an acceptable thing.”

The royalists are seen as having an invisible hand protecting them.

“I don’t understand why the army did nothing when the PAD seized the airports,” said a user on pantip.com referring to the royalist People’s Alliance for Democracy. “They cannot touch the PAD but they can suppress red shirts.”

The leaders of the royalist protests were eventually arrested but then quickly released on bail.

The case against the group “has not proceeded very far and it appears that its leaders may eventually be indicted with lesser charges, if at all,” David Streckfuss, an expert in Thai politics, wrote in The Bangkok Post on Tuesday.

The government has closed down several Internet sites linked to the red shirts as well as a satellite television station that carried live broadcasts of the protests. By contrast ASTV, a satellite television run by one of the royalist leaders, Sondhi Limthongkul, was never shut down.

While he was still in power Mr. Thaksin sought to keep Mr. Sondhi off the airwaves. The red shirts gloss over this dark side of the former prime minister. Mr. Thaksin was very popular for lifting incomes in rural areas, cracking down on drugs and paying off the country’s debts to the International Monetary Fund.

But he often mixed his personal business interests with those of the government. He intimidated journalists. And his crackdown on drugs may have came at the cost of what human rights groups say were hundreds of extrajudicial killings.

“Thaksin is a minor point in my opinion, and the major point is democracy,” said Somchai Luangtant, 49, who sells graduation gowns in Bangkok. “People should know that the Thai people want real democracy, not like what we have right now.”

First View of the Dark Side of the Sun

Soon we may get the first ever glimpse of the dark side of the sun.

Well, no, there's no actual dark side of a luminous ball of burning gas, but there is an effective dark side, as in, the side of the sun we can't see at any given time.

Scientists aren't content to get just half of the picture, so they've launched the STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatories) mission, a pair of NASA spacecraft that will orbit the sun simultaneously to provide a complete view of all sides of the star at once.

"Then there will be no place to hide and we can see the entire sun for the first time," STEREO project scientist Michael Kaiser of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center told Wired.com.

The perfect spherical view will come on Feb. 6, 2011. Right now the satellites, which were launched in October 2006, are about 90 degrees apart, which allows a picture of about 270 degrees of the sun — the fullest view yet.

"The who goal of all of this is to try to get a better handle to try to predict solar storms, which cause cell phone disturbances, and disruptions to communications and power." Kaiser said. "We'd like to be able to predict these things as far in advance as possible to give us a longer warning time."

Solar storms are magnetic disruptions on the sun that release violent sprays of charged particles into space. These storms can produce magnificent displays of the Northern Lights. But some past storms have also cost airlines and satellite communications industries millions of dollars, and have led to large scale power blackouts (including one across the entire province of Quebec, Canada). Being able to reliably forecast these tempests in advance could make a huge difference in preventing disturbances on Earth.

Predicting solar weather is also important for the future of manned spaceflight. If astronauts are exposed to the intense radiation from solar storms while traveling beyond the protective magnetic field of the Earth, they could suffer serious harm. Even astronauts close to home who venture out for a spacewalk during a storm are put in danger.

"For future missions going to the moon and Mars, that's very important," Kaiser said. "Some of these solar storms can be very intense. If the astronauts were completely exposed to one of these storms the radiation could be high."

The STEREO mission also aims to improve our basic scientific understanding of the dynamics within the sun, which could shed light on the workings of stars in general.

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Is Rihanna Already Married and Pregnant?

Rihanna and Chris Brown have always denied any sort of relationship beyond being friends. The couple continue to spend a ton of time together and recently, Rihanna has been sporting a wedding ring.

For all we know they are already married and are expecting a baby!

SAMMI Cheng is back

SAMMI Cheng is back, and she’s loving it. The 36-year-old singer-actress has been on a three-year, self-enforced hiatus from the entertainment industry, in which her output consisted of a measly feature film, no albums but a concert tour in 2007.

Nevertheless, be prepared to see more of the Cantopop star in 2009, starting with her first movie since 2005 – Lady Cop and Papa Crook.

Directed by Felix Chong and Alan Mak, the movie features Cheng as Szeto, a police detective who is assigned to help a triad boss, John Fok (Eason Chen), find his kidnapped son. What ensues is a game of cat and mouse as Szeto moves her base of operations into John’s house as he tries to hide his illegal activities from her.

Cheng first entered the entertainment industry in 1988, at the age of 16 after win-ning a talent contest. Her first album, Sammi, was released in 1990, and her film debut was in 1992 in Life Of His Own alongside Jacky Cheung. She has since acted in over 21 movies and released more than 30 albums, and is widely recognised as one of the most successful and highest-paid celebrities in Hong Kong.

Lady Cop and Papa Crook is the first movie Cheng has made since 2005’s Everlasting Regret (in which she earned a nomination for “best actress” at the Venice Film Festival).

In a phone interview from Hong Kong, Cheng expressed delight to be back making movies, though it took a little getting used to at first.

“I haven’t made a movie in two years, so I was stressed out and nervous at first. After the first three days, I had to ask the director to give me three days off,” she said.

“During that time, I tried my best to do things that would calm me down. I got up early in the morning and did a lot of sports to release stress; then in the afternoon I watched movies and TV, and at night I just prayed and read the Bible (during her three-year break, Cheng became a born-again Christian).

“It was strange ... to me those three days off were like a test. If I could not get my act together and try to eliminate the stress, I would not have finished the film.”

But finish the film she did, and she now looks back at it with fondness, especially at her first role as a policewoman, which the directors modelled after Andy Lau’s character in Infernal Affairs.

“They wanted to turn me into a female version of Andy Lau’s character in Infernal Affairs, with the black suits and long trench coats.

“It was fun to be a lady cop, plus this character is actually quite close to my own personality. Work-wise, I’m always rushing around, but when it comes to love, I’m always very blur and very bad at it!” she said with a laugh.

Lady Cop and Papa Crook also marks the first time Cheng is acting alongside Eason Chen, and she is looking forward to working with him again.

“I was very happy to work with him. I feel he has a lot of potential as an actor, and is also good-looking in a very alternative kind of way,” she said. “We got along very well, and we were even complaining that we never got to be lovers in the movie! Hopefully we can get together to do a crazy romantic comedy ... I think it would be quite good!”

For now though, Cheng has plenty of work lined up for 2009, including two movies that were written specifically for her, as well as another major period film which is still in the pre-production stage. She is also planning to complete her comeback with a new album – the first in almost four years – this year.

So be prepared ... 2009 may just be the Year of Sammi.

Female newscaster among 26 nabbed at sex party

KUALA LUMPUR Police arrested a female newscaster of a private television station and 25 others who took part in a sex party at a hotel room in Jalan P. Ramlee on Thursday.

Nine tested positive for drugs, said ASP Mahani Ahmad of the vice, gambling and secret society branch.

All those arrested during the 3.30am operation aged between 18 and 31 years, she said when contacted.

She said the police also found liquor and various drugs like ketamine, cocaine and syabu in the room on the 11th floor of the hotel.

A 20-year-old student of a private college in Kelana Jaya, believed to be the drugs supplier, was among those held.

During the raid, three couples were on the bed while the rest were entertaining themselves and believed to have been intoxicated, she said.

She said preliminary investigations showed the sex party was hosted by two men and those who attended it knew each other through Friendster, a social network in the internet.

Those arrested were taken to the Kuala Lumpur contingent police headquarters. Meanwhile, about 40 people were arrested for various offences during the new year's eve party in Bukit Bintang where several fights took place between drunken youths.

A number of people including foreign tourists also lost cash, passports and electronic gadgets to pickpockets and 10 police reports were lodged at the mobile police station deployed there.