Billionaire Adelson, wife give new $10 million to Romney "Super PAC"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top Republican donors Sheldon Adelson and his wife gave another $10 million to the "Super PAC" backing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in October, saying they hoped to "level the playing field" with Democrats ahead of the November 6 election.

In a campaign year of unprecedented contributions, Adelson and his wife Miriam have stood out above the rest.

The 79-year-old billionaire chairman of Las Vegas Sands Corp, Adelson emerged as the Republican Party's biggest patron in the 2012 campaign, pouring at least $47 million into Republican coffers with his wife.

The Adelsons gave $5 million each to the pro-Romney Super PAC Restore Our Future, accounting for about half of the fund's cash raised from October 1 through 17, according to Federal Election Commission filings released on Thursday. The filings are the last disclosures before the November 6 elections.

In a statement on Thursday, the Adelsons said they were exercising their "privileges" of free speech to counter the millions of dollars raised by President Barack Obama as well as contributions from liberal billionaire George Soros and labor unions.

"Our family has felt an obligation to help level the playing field by providing support to the candidates and causes on the other side of the equation," according to the statement provided by a Sands spokesman.

A series of U.S. court cases in recent years have shined a spotlight on political spending as a form of free speech.

The rulings spawned Super PACs, outside groups that can raise and spend unlimited funds but cannot formally coordinate with official campaigns.

Soros, a billionaire financier, held the previous political donation record with $27.5 million contributed to Democrats in 2004. In October, Soros gave $1 million to the pro-Obama Super PAC.

The Adelsons have also donated to Super PACs helping Republicans in Congress. They were the largest donors behind the party's convention in Tampa, Florida, in late August.

During the Republican primaries, the Adelsons used their fortune to attack Romney. They gave up to $20 million to presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, who won the South Carolina primary.

The Adelsons became Romney donors in June when the candidate became Obama's remaining Republican challenger.

Forbes estimates Adelson's fortune to be $20.5 billion.

In September, Adelson told Politico he planned to spend up to $100 million, or "whatever it takes," to defeat Obama.

Adelson may have given another $20 million to $30 million to fundraising groups that do not need to report their contributors, according to Politico.

Adelson has also used his contributions to push for a stronger U.S. defense of Israel's sovereignty. He is a director of the Republican Jewish Coalition and has called Obama's Israel positions too soft.

In the previous presidential campaign of 2008, Adelson was a much less prominent donor, giving about $100,000 to Republican candidates and party funds, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan group that tracks spending.

(Additional reporting by Alina Selyukh and Alexander Cohen; editing by Todd Eastham)

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R&B singer Natina Reed hit and killed by car in Georgia

(Reuters) - Natina Reed, a member of the R&B singing trio Blaque, was struck and killed by a car as she walked in a major roadway in Georgia, police said on Saturday.

Reed, who also appeared in the cheerleader movie "Bring It On" in 2000, would have turned 33 on Sunday.

She was struck by a car at about 10:30 p.m. Friday on a state highway just north of the Atlanta suburb of Lilburn, Gwinnett County Police Sergeant Rich Long said.

The car's driver called 911 and a passenger performed CPR but Reed was pronounced dead at an area medical center, police said. Authorities ruled the driver was not at fault and no charges were expected to be filed, Long said.

Investigators were trying to determine why Reed was in the road, Long said.

As part of Blaque, Reed performed the 1999 hits "Bring It All to Me" and "808" with fellow members Shamari Fears DeVoe and Brandi Williams.

Reed's fellow group members said in a statement on Saturday that Blaque had recently reunited and the group was working on an album and a reality show.

"My world as I know it has forever changed," DeVoe said on Twitter on Saturday. "Until we meet again, may you find comfort in the arms of an angel. I love you Natina."

(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Bill Trott)

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Kate Moss opens up about modeling misery

NEW YORK (Reuters) - If you hate having your picture taken, you're in good company - British supermodel Kate Moss does as well.

"I'm terrible at a snapshot. Terrible. I blink all the time. I've got facial Tourette's," she told Vanity Fair in the December issue, out on Wednesday.

Moss, who has graced countless magazine covers and was emblematic of the waif look popular in the 1990s, added "Unless I'm working and in that zone, I'm not very good at pictures."

Moss, 38, opened up about her years spent before the camera, including now-legendary shoots that left her anxious, demoralized, and hungry.

Among her regrets is a 1992 Calvin Klein session that helped launched Moss' career.

She recalled the shoot, at age 17 or 18, with Mark Wahlberg (then going by his rapper name, Marky Mark) and photographer Herb Ritts.

"I had a nervous breakdown," she said. "It (the job) didn't feel like me at all. I felt really bad about straddling this buff guy. I didn't like it. I couldn't get out of bed for two weeks. I thought I was going to die."

"It was just anxiety," she added. "Nobody takes care of you mentally. There's a massive pressure to do what you have to do (and) I was really little ... I didn't like it. But it was work, and I had to do it."

When she was even younger, she posed nude for The Face - another regret.

"I see a 16-year-old now, and to ask her to take her clothes off would feel really weird. But they were like, 'If you don't do it, then we're not going to book you again.' So I'd lock myself in the toilet and cry and then come out and do it."

Moss, who became associated with the "heroin chic" look after her early shoots, said "I had never even taken heroin - it was nothing to do with me at all."

"I was thin," she conceded. "But that's because I was doing shows, working really hard ... You'd get home from work and there was no food. You'd get to work in the morning, there was no food ... You don't get fed."

Moss has kind words for her time with Johnny Depp in the mid-1990s, when she said she felt taken care of. After their break-up in 1998, "I really lost that gauge of somebody I could trust. Nightmare. Years and years of crying."

Now, she says, her years of partying and high living have ebbed. She married guitarist Jamie Hince in 2011 after a four-year romance. "I don't real­ly go to clubs anymore. I'm actually quite settled."

"Living in Highgate (in London) with my dog and my husband and my daughter! I'm not a hell-raiser."

Still, she added, "Don't burst the bubble. Behind closed doors, for sure I'm a hell-raiser."

(Reporting by Chris Michaud, editing by Jill Serjeant and Sandra Maler)

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George Clooney is distant cousin of Abraham Lincoln

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Aunt Rosemary was not George Clooney's only famous relative. You can add a certain Civil War American president to the Oscar-winning actor's family tree.

Politics has apparently run in the activist actor's blood for centuries, as website Ancestry.com on Thursday revealed that the "Ocean's 11" star is distantly related to President Abraham Lincoln.

According to Ancestry.com, Clooney is the half-first cousin five times removed from Lincoln, the 16th president. The genealogy website breaks down the connection, explaining the "half" means that two of their ancestors were half-siblings - Lincoln's mother Nancy Hanks was the half-sister of Clooney's 4th great-grandmother Mary Ann Sparrow.

Hanks and Sparrow shared the same mother, Lucy Hanks, but had different fathers. Lucy Hanks was Lincoln's maternal grandmother as well as the 5th great-grandmother of Clooney.

Clooney's aunt was singer and actress Rosemary Clooney, who died in 2002.

Clooney, long noted for his political activism, is a major Hollywood backer of President Barack Obama. He hosted a Democratic Party fundraiser at his Los Angeles home in March that raised $15 million.

Lincoln, a Republican, is considered one of the greatest presidents in the history of the United States. He led the country through the Civil War and is credited with the abolition of slavery, which officially became law in 1865 after his assassination.

He is the subject of an upcoming Steven Spielberg film "Lincoln," starring Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role, which is to open in the United States next week.

Ancestry.com is offering free access to more than 20,000 documents showcasing Lincoln's life, his family tree and the most pivotal moments of his presidential career. The details can be found at www.ancestry.com/lincoln.

(Reporting by Zorianna Kit; Editing by Chris Michaud and Jackie Frank)

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Songwriter Bill Dees,"Oh, Pretty Woman" co-writer, dead at 73

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Singer-composer Bill Dees, best known for his songwriting collaboration with Roy Orbison on the hits "Oh, Pretty Woman" and "It's Over," has died at age 73 in Mountain Home, Arkansas, according to an obituary posted online by a local funeral home.

Dees, a Texas native who got his start in the 1950s with a high school band called the Five Bops, is credited with writing scores of songs in all, some recorded by such performers as Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn and Glen Campbell.

But Dees' most fruitful collaboration was his work with fellow Texan Orbison, with whom he teamed up to write Orbison's signature 1964 hit, "Oh, Pretty Woman." which was featured years later in the soundtrack to the movie "Pretty Woman," starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere.

The band Van Halen also scored a hit with a cover version of "Oh, Pretty Woman."

According to various accounts, the song's refrain grew out of an offhand comment Dees made when Orbison's wife, Claudette, walked into the room where the two men were writing together, and Orbison asked her if she needed any money.

Dees cracked, "Pretty woman never needs any money," and the song took shape from there, with the bulk of the composition coming together in less than hour.

As recounted in one biography posted on Dees' official website, Dees also contributed uncredited harmony vocals on the record.

"Oh, Pretty Woman" went to No. 1 in United States and topped the charts in Britain, as did the 1964 Orbison ballad co-written by Dees, "It's Over," a considerable achievement given the dominance of the Beatles and other British groups on both sides of the Atlantic at the time.

Other Orbison singles Dees co-wrote included "Born on the Wind," "Crawling Back," "Communication Breakdown," "Walk On," "Windsurfer" and "So This Is Love."

Dees died last week, on October 24, at Mountain Home, where he had lived since 1989, according to an announcement posted on the website of the Kirby & Family Funeral Home, where a memorial service is scheduled for Saturday, November 3.

(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Eric Walsh and W Simon)

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Billionaire Adelson, wife give new $10 million to Romney "Super PAC"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top Republican donors Sheldon Adelson and his wife gave another $10 million to the "Super PAC" backing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in October, saying they hoped to "level the playing field" with Democrats ahead of the November 6 election.

In a campaign year of unprecedented contributions, Adelson and his wife Miriam have stood out above the rest.

The 79-year-old billionaire chairman of Las Vegas Sands Corp, Adelson emerged as the Republican Party's biggest patron in the 2012 campaign, pouring at least $47 million into Republican coffers with his wife.

The Adelsons gave $5 million each to the pro-Romney Super PAC Restore Our Future, accounting for about half of the fund's cash raised from October 1 through 17, according to Federal Election Commission filings released on Thursday. The filings are the last disclosures before the November 6 elections.

In a statement on Thursday, the Adelsons said they were exercising their "privileges" of free speech to counter the millions of dollars raised by President Barack Obama as well as contributions from liberal billionaire George Soros and labor unions.

"Our family has felt an obligation to help level the playing field by providing support to the candidates and causes on the other side of the equation," according to the statement provided by a Sands spokesman.

A series of U.S. court cases in recent years have shined a spotlight on political spending as a form of free speech.

The rulings spawned Super PACs, outside groups that can raise and spend unlimited funds but cannot formally coordinate with official campaigns.

Soros, a billionaire financier, held the previous political donation record with $27.5 million contributed to Democrats in 2004. In October, Soros gave $1 million to the pro-Obama Super PAC.

The Adelsons have also donated to Super PACs helping Republicans in Congress. They were the largest donors behind the party's convention in Tampa, Florida, in late August.

During the Republican primaries, the Adelsons used their fortune to attack Romney. They gave up to $20 million to presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, who won the South Carolina primary.

The Adelsons became Romney donors in June when the candidate became Obama's remaining Republican challenger.

Forbes estimates Adelson's fortune to be $20.5 billion.

In September, Adelson told Politico he planned to spend up to $100 million, or "whatever it takes," to defeat Obama.

Adelson may have given another $20 million to $30 million to fundraising groups that do not need to report their contributors, according to Politico.

Adelson has also used his contributions to push for a stronger U.S. defense of Israel's sovereignty. He is a director of the Republican Jewish Coalition and has called Obama's Israel positions too soft.

In the previous presidential campaign of 2008, Adelson was a much less prominent donor, giving about $100,000 to Republican candidates and party funds, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan group that tracks spending.

(Additional reporting by Alina Selyukh and Alexander Cohen; editing by Todd Eastham)

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R&B singer Natina Reed hit and killed by car in Georgia

(Reuters) - Natina Reed, a member of the R&B singing trio Blaque, was struck and killed by a car as she walked in a major roadway in Georgia, police said on Saturday.

Reed, who also appeared in the cheerleader movie "Bring It On" in 2000, would have turned 33 on Sunday.

She was struck by a car at about 10:30 p.m. Friday on a state highway just north of the Atlanta suburb of Lilburn, Gwinnett County Police Sergeant Rich Long said.

The car's driver called 911 and a passenger performed CPR but Reed was pronounced dead at an area medical center, police said. Authorities ruled the driver was not at fault and no charges were expected to be filed, Long said.

Investigators were trying to determine why Reed was in the road, Long said.

As part of Blaque, Reed performed the 1999 hits "Bring It All to Me" and "808" with fellow members Shamari Fears DeVoe and Brandi Williams.

Reed's fellow group members said in a statement on Saturday that Blaque had recently reunited and the group was working on an album and a reality show.

"My world as I know it has forever changed," DeVoe said on Twitter on Saturday. "Until we meet again, may you find comfort in the arms of an angel. I love you Natina."

(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Bill Trott)

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Kate Moss opens up about modeling misery

NEW YORK (Reuters) - If you hate having your picture taken, you're in good company - British supermodel Kate Moss does as well.

"I'm terrible at a snapshot. Terrible. I blink all the time. I've got facial Tourette's," she told Vanity Fair in the December issue, out on Wednesday.

Moss, who has graced countless magazine covers and was emblematic of the waif look popular in the 1990s, added "Unless I'm working and in that zone, I'm not very good at pictures."

Moss, 38, opened up about her years spent before the camera, including now-legendary shoots that left her anxious, demoralized, and hungry.

Among her regrets is a 1992 Calvin Klein session that helped launched Moss' career.

She recalled the shoot, at age 17 or 18, with Mark Wahlberg (then going by his rapper name, Marky Mark) and photographer Herb Ritts.

"I had a nervous breakdown," she said. "It (the job) didn't feel like me at all. I felt really bad about straddling this buff guy. I didn't like it. I couldn't get out of bed for two weeks. I thought I was going to die."

"It was just anxiety," she added. "Nobody takes care of you mentally. There's a massive pressure to do what you have to do (and) I was really little ... I didn't like it. But it was work, and I had to do it."

When she was even younger, she posed nude for The Face - another regret.

"I see a 16-year-old now, and to ask her to take her clothes off would feel really weird. But they were like, 'If you don't do it, then we're not going to book you again.' So I'd lock myself in the toilet and cry and then come out and do it."

Moss, who became associated with the "heroin chic" look after her early shoots, said "I had never even taken heroin - it was nothing to do with me at all."

"I was thin," she conceded. "But that's because I was doing shows, working really hard ... You'd get home from work and there was no food. You'd get to work in the morning, there was no food ... You don't get fed."

Moss has kind words for her time with Johnny Depp in the mid-1990s, when she said she felt taken care of. After their break-up in 1998, "I really lost that gauge of somebody I could trust. Nightmare. Years and years of crying."

Now, she says, her years of partying and high living have ebbed. She married guitarist Jamie Hince in 2011 after a four-year romance. "I don't real­ly go to clubs anymore. I'm actually quite settled."

"Living in Highgate (in London) with my dog and my husband and my daughter! I'm not a hell-raiser."

Still, she added, "Don't burst the bubble. Behind closed doors, for sure I'm a hell-raiser."

(Reporting by Chris Michaud, editing by Jill Serjeant and Sandra Maler)

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

George Clooney is distant cousin of Abraham Lincoln

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Aunt Rosemary was not George Clooney's only famous relative. You can add a certain Civil War American president to the Oscar-winning actor's family tree.

Politics has apparently run in the activist actor's blood for centuries, as website Ancestry.com on Thursday revealed that the "Ocean's 11" star is distantly related to President Abraham Lincoln.

According to Ancestry.com, Clooney is the half-first cousin five times removed from Lincoln, the 16th president. The genealogy website breaks down the connection, explaining the "half" means that two of their ancestors were half-siblings - Lincoln's mother Nancy Hanks was the half-sister of Clooney's 4th great-grandmother Mary Ann Sparrow.

Hanks and Sparrow shared the same mother, Lucy Hanks, but had different fathers. Lucy Hanks was Lincoln's maternal grandmother as well as the 5th great-grandmother of Clooney.

Clooney's aunt was singer and actress Rosemary Clooney, who died in 2002.

Clooney, long noted for his political activism, is a major Hollywood backer of President Barack Obama. He hosted a Democratic Party fundraiser at his Los Angeles home in March that raised $15 million.

Lincoln, a Republican, is considered one of the greatest presidents in the history of the United States. He led the country through the Civil War and is credited with the abolition of slavery, which officially became law in 1865 after his assassination.

He is the subject of an upcoming Steven Spielberg film "Lincoln," starring Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role, which is to open in the United States next week.

Ancestry.com is offering free access to more than 20,000 documents showcasing Lincoln's life, his family tree and the most pivotal moments of his presidential career. The details can be found at www.ancestry.com/lincoln.

(Reporting by Zorianna Kit; Editing by Chris Michaud and Jackie Frank)

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Songwriter Bill Dees,"Oh, Pretty Woman" co-writer, dead at 73

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Singer-composer Bill Dees, best known for his songwriting collaboration with Roy Orbison on the hits "Oh, Pretty Woman" and "It's Over," has died at age 73 in Mountain Home, Arkansas, according to an obituary posted online by a local funeral home.

Dees, a Texas native who got his start in the 1950s with a high school band called the Five Bops, is credited with writing scores of songs in all, some recorded by such performers as Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn and Glen Campbell.

But Dees' most fruitful collaboration was his work with fellow Texan Orbison, with whom he teamed up to write Orbison's signature 1964 hit, "Oh, Pretty Woman." which was featured years later in the soundtrack to the movie "Pretty Woman," starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere.

The band Van Halen also scored a hit with a cover version of "Oh, Pretty Woman."

According to various accounts, the song's refrain grew out of an offhand comment Dees made when Orbison's wife, Claudette, walked into the room where the two men were writing together, and Orbison asked her if she needed any money.

Dees cracked, "Pretty woman never needs any money," and the song took shape from there, with the bulk of the composition coming together in less than hour.

As recounted in one biography posted on Dees' official website, Dees also contributed uncredited harmony vocals on the record.

"Oh, Pretty Woman" went to No. 1 in United States and topped the charts in Britain, as did the 1964 Orbison ballad co-written by Dees, "It's Over," a considerable achievement given the dominance of the Beatles and other British groups on both sides of the Atlantic at the time.

Other Orbison singles Dees co-wrote included "Born on the Wind," "Crawling Back," "Communication Breakdown," "Walk On," "Windsurfer" and "So This Is Love."

Dees died last week, on October 24, at Mountain Home, where he had lived since 1989, according to an announcement posted on the website of the Kirby & Family Funeral Home, where a memorial service is scheduled for Saturday, November 3.

(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Eric Walsh and W Simon)

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