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Gwyneth Paltrow named People's most beautiful woman

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 01 Mei 2013 | 22.24

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow on Wednesday was named the world's most beautiful woman for 2013 by People magazine, knocking pop singer Beyonce out of the top spot.

The 40-year-old mother of two credits a five-day-a-week exercise regimen for keeping her in shape as she grows older.

"It makes me look younger and feel strong," Paltrow told the magazine. "When I first started, I thought, 'I'll never be good at this. This is a nightmare!' But now it's like brushing my teeth, I just do it."

It is the fourth time Paltrow, who is married to Coldplay singer Chris Martin, has been named to the magazine's annual beautiful people issue, but the first time landing the coveted cover as most beautiful woman.

She joins the likes of fellow actresses Jennifer Lopez, Julia Roberts, Halle Berry and Jennifer Aniston to top the list.

Paltrow reprises her starring role as Pepper Potts in the action film "Iron Man 3," which opens next month.

The actress has cut back her film work after giving birth to children Apple, 8, and Moses, 7, and released her second cookbook, "It's All Good," this month.

She is also the founder of lifestyle and clothing website Goop.com.

Paltrow won an Oscar for her role as William Shakespeare's muse in the 1998 film "Shakespeare in Love."

The full list of People's "World's Most Beautiful People" can be found on www.people.com/mostbeautiful

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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Country singer George Jones dead at 81

By Bill Trott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - George Jones, a classic country singer with a voice full of raw honky-tonk emotion and a life full of honky-tonk turmoil, died on Friday at age 81, his spokesman said.

Jones, whose career spanned more than six decades and included hits such as "He Stopped Loving Her Today" and "Window Up Above," died at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, in Nashville.

He had been hospitalized since April 18 with fever and irregular blood pressure, spokesman Kirt Webster said.

In November 2012, Jones embarked on a farewell tour after a career that produced his first top 10 record in 1955 with "Why Baby Why."

The "Grand Tour" was to conclude in Nashville in November this year, where Jones was to be joined by some of the many stars who influenced him.

News of his death brought tributes from a number of country music's top stars.

"Heaven better get ready for George Jones. He will always be the greatest singer of real country music - there'll never be another," Alan Jackson said on Twitter.

Dolly Parton said, "My heart is absolutely broken. George Jones was my all time favorite singer and one of my favorite people in the world."

"George Jones has passed. Damn. Thought he'd live forever. Let's break out his catalogue and play it all day," said Toby Keith.

Like his idol, Hank Williams, Jones battled addiction. Alcohol and cocaine frequently derailed his career and at one point his reputation for canceling performances earned him the nickname No-Show Jones.

But when Jones did show up and was in good form, listeners were treated to a powerful and evocative voice. Jones was at his best with cry-in-your-beer songs made extra mournful by his masterful phrasing.

As his late contemporary Waylon Jennings put it, "If we could all sound like we wanted to, then we'd all sound like George Jones."

Born in Saratoga, Texas, on September 12, 1931, Jones began performing for spare change as a boy on the streets of nearby Beaumont. Under the influence of Williams, Ernest Tubb and Lefty Frizzell, he graduated to the rough roadhouses of East Texas.

Jones had an early marriage, a divorce and a stint in the Marines before his first hit, "Why Baby Why" in 1955. His first No. 1 song, "White Lightning," came in 1959, followed by "Tender Years" in 1961.

'THE POSSUM'

The next two decades brought a string of top 10 songs - "If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will)," "Window Up Above," "She Thinks I Still Care," "Good Year for the Roses," "The Race Is On" and "He Stopped Loving Her Today," which Jones said was his favorite. He also had a successful run of duets early in his career with Melba Montgomery.

Jones, who was known as "The Possum," divorced his second wife in 1968 and the next year married one of country music's most popular singers, Tammy Wynette. The pairing was an enormous professional success for both as they recorded and toured together and Jones began working with Billy Sherrill, Wynette's producer.

During his time with Sherrill, Jones refined his honky-tonk voice and sang more ballads, often with the lush string accompaniment that had become a trend in the country music capital of Nashville.

The marriage to Wynette went bad as Jones' addiction problem escalated and Wynette claimed he once came at her with a gun. They divorced in 1975 but later resumed recording together. Wynette died in 1998 at age 55.

Jones continued to put out hit songs in the early 1980s, even as cocaine compounded his personal tumult. Amid a string of hospitalizations and arrests, he disappeared for days at a time, missed shows and recording sessions and took police on a drunken chase through Nashville.

Jones credited fourth wife Nancy, whom he married in 1983, with helping him clean up. But in 1999 he was seriously injured after driving drunk and crashing into a bridge, leading to another stay in rehab.

At one point Jones was so incorrigible that one of his four wives cleared the liquor from their home and hid all the car keys so he could not go for more. Jones responded by cranking up his riding lawn mower and driving it to a bar - an escapade he chronicled in "Honky Tonk Song."

Although he was heard infrequently on mainstream country radio in the later years of his career, Jones was a sought-after duet partner and won a Grammy for the song "Choices" in 1999.

He also won a Grammy for best male country vocal performance in 1980 for "He Stopped Loving Her Today," and received a lifetime achievement Grammy last year.

(Additional reporting by Tim Ghianni in Nashville and Jill Serjeant; Writing by Bill Trott; Editing by Vicki Allen)

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Feminist author Mary Thom, 68, killed in NY motorcycle crash

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Renowned feminist and former women's magazine editor Mary Thom was killed in a motorcycle crash over the weekend in Yonkers, New York, friends and colleagues said.

Thom, 68, a former editor of Ms. Magazine, crashed her motorcycle on the Saw Mill Parkway on Friday evening, said Eleanor Smeal, publisher of Ms. Magazine and a close friend of Thom.

An accomplished author, editor and journalist, Thom devoted her career to giving voice to women's rights issues in books, magazine columns and through her work within the women's movement, which mourned the loss over the weekend.

"We, who are Mary's friends and family haven't absorbed her loss yet: it's too sudden,'' said actress Jane Fonda and feminist authors Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan, three co-founders of the Women's Media Center, in a statement.

"Ms. Magazine, the Women's Media Center, the women's movement and American journalism have suffered an enormous blow."

Thom, an Akron, Ohio, native, spent more than a quarter century at Ms. Magazine and wrote a book about working her way from an entry level research position to executive editor in "Inside Ms.: 25 Years of the Magazine and the Feminist Movement," according to Smeal.

Thom also edited a book of letters sent to the magazine during the publication's formative years between 1972-1987.

Smeal said she would sorely miss Thom's virtually constant presence at the heart of the movement over decades.

"She was always there,'' Smeal said on Sunday. "She was always there as a guiding hand to make sure that the spirit of feminism came through in everything we wrote at the Women's Media Center and at Ms. Magazine. She will truly be missed."

Thom was an avid motorcycle enthusiast who never owned a car and had been riding for four decades, her nephew Thom Loubet told the Journal News newspaper in Westchester, New York.

She was a top editor at the Women's Media Center at the time of her death, Smeal said.

(Reporting by Chris Francescani; Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Jackie Frank)

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Catherine Zeta-Jones seeks help again for bipolar disorder

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones has sought help again for bipolar disorder, in what her publicist called a "pro-active" move to take care of her health.

It's the second-known trip to a healthcare facility for the British actress since 2011, when news first broke that she suffers from bipolar II disorder - a milder form of the illness that is marked by sharp mood swings and erratic behavior.

"Catherine has pro-actively checked into a healthcare facility," publicist Cece Yorke said on Monday. "Previously Catherine has said that she is committed to periodic care in order to manage her health in an optimum manner."

Zeta-Jones, 43, who won an Oscar for her role in the 2002 musical "Chicago," underwent treatment in 2011 for what aides said was the stress of coping with the advanced throat cancer diagnosis and treatment of her husband, actor Michael Douglas.

No specific reason was given this time for her decision to seek help.

Bipolar II is a milder form of the disorder and is marked by less manic "up" moods but more depressive episodes, according to medical experts. It can be treated with medication or therapy.

Zeta-Jones was last seen on screen in February in the crime thriller "Side Effects," which received warm critical acclaim.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Philip Barbara)

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Jackson looked like hospice patient, paramedic tells wrongful death trial

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Michael Jackson looked pale, thin and like a hospice patient on the day he died in 2009, a Los Angeles paramedic told a jury on Tuesday in the wrongful death lawsuit involving the pop star and the promoters of a never-realized series of London concerts.

Richard Senneff, the first witness in the civil trial, testified that he was initially unaware that the person lying in pajamas on a bed in the rented Los Angeles mansion was the world famous pop singer.

"The patient appeared to be chronically ill to me," Senneff testified, saying he could see Jackson's ribs. "He was very pale and underweight. I thought perhaps this was a hospice patient."

Jackson's personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, appeared "frantic" but never mentioned that the "Thriller" singer had taken the anesthetic propofol, Senneff said.

"He was pale, he was sweating, he was very busy," Senneff said of Murray, who was convicted in 2011 of the involuntary manslaughter of Jackson through an overdose of propofol, which is usually used in surgical settings.

Senneff, who gave similar testimony in Murray's 2011 criminal trial, was testifying on Tuesday on behalf of Jackson's mother and his three children.

Jackson's immediate family accuses AEG Live, who were promoting a series of London concerts by Jackson, of negligence in hiring Murray as the singer rehearsed for what would have been a career comeback after years out of the musical spotlight.

AEG Live maintains that Jackson kept his dependency on propofol secret from outsiders, and that a proposed contract with Murray was never fully executed.

Jackson, 50, was pronounced dead in a Los Angeles hospital on June 25, 2009, a day after a rehearsal and three weeks before the first concert was due to take place in London.

Katherine Jackson, 82, and the singer's two oldest children Prince and Paris, are also on the witness list later in the civil trial along with singers Diana Ross and Prince.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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Michael Jackson wrongful death trial set to get underway Monday

Written By Unknown on Senin, 29 April 2013 | 22.24

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The civil trial over the death of Michael Jackson is set to get formally underway next week after jury selection was completed on Tuesday in the $40 billion case that pits the pop star's mother against concert promoters AEG Live.

Six alternate jurors were chosen on Tuesday following the selection a day earlier of a jury of six men and six women for what is expected to be an emotional three-month trial.

The conclusion of the month-long search for a jury set the stage for opening statements to begin in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday.

Jackson's 82-year-old mother, Katherine, is suing AEG Live, the promoters of his never-realized series of 2009 London comeback concerts, for the wrongful death of her son.

The lawsuit alleges AEG Live was negligent in hiring Dr. Conrad Murray to care for the singer while he rehearsed for a series of 50 shows.

AEG Live contends that it did not hire or supervise Murray and that Jackson was addicted to prescription drugs for years before he agreed to do the "This Is It" London concerts.

The concert promoters also argue that they could not have foreseen that Murray, who was convicted in 2011 of involuntary manslaughter in Jackson's death, posed a danger to the singer.

Jackson, 50, died in Los Angeles on June 25, 2009, from a lethal dose of the surgical anesthetic propofol that Murray was administering for sleep problems. Murray, who is not being sued, formally appealed against his criminal conviction on Monday.

Potential witnesses in the civil trial include Jackson's mother, his two oldest children, Prince, 16, and Paris, 15, as well as Murray, singers Prince and Diana Ross, and Jackson's ex-wives, Lisa Marie Presley and Debbie Rowe.

Katherine Jackson and her son's three children are seeking some $40 billion in damages from privately held AEG Live for loss of the singer's earnings and other damages. The final amount will be determined by the jury should it hold AEG Live negligent.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Eric Beech)