Thursday, January 1, 2015

Joseph Gordon-Levitt Has Been Secretly Married For Over A Week!



You guys! Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been married for over a week and we didn’t know it! What a sneakster…


JGL, who is 33, tied the knot with his girlfriend Tasha McCauley on December 20, according to Us Weekly, who got the word from his rep.


McCauley is the co-founder of Fellow Robots, a robotics company based at NASA Research Park in California. The two have kept their relationship on the down low, but we first got wind of their relationship in 2013, when he told Howard Stern that he has a partner “not in show business.”






Joseph Gordon-Levitt Has Been Secretly Married For Over A Week!

Keaton doesn't feel Batman's shadow



Michael Keaton has insisted he has never felt overshadowed by his role in Batman.


The 63-year-old actor starred in Tim Burton’s 1989 hit film about the Caped Crusader, and the 1992 sequel Batman Returns. In his latest movie, Birdman, Michael plays a washed-out Hollywood star who feels haunted by his former superhero role.


Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu wrote the role especially for him, but Michael insisted he does not relate to it at all.


Asked if he feels Batman has followed him around all these years, Michael said: “Oh no, no, no.


“Obviously, I relate to him in, ‘Oh yeah, I played Batman’, he plays a character called Birdman, it’s not coincidental. I’d be insane if I didn’t go, ‘Yeah, I did that too’.


“The thing is, this movie’s about Alejandro, more than any of us. And we’re just the vessels. So I relate to the fact that I’m an actor, and I had to play that. I just don’t relate to the type of personality this guy is.


“But I’m human, he’s human. I relate to how sometimes you feel good, sometimes you don’t feel so good. Sometimes you feel secure, sometimes you don’t feel so secure.


“But I’m not that type of personality, which makes it easier to look at the guy and go, ‘Well, what happened in his life that made him like that, besides the entertainment business?’ That’s in his personality, regardless of what he does for a living.”


In Birdman, Michael’s character Riggan is riddled with self-doubt and a fear of failure. And the actor admitted the role was not easy.


“It was fun to play, but at the same time, this movie’s tricky – you can’t enjoy it while you’re doing it,” he confessed.


“It’s odd. You really enjoy it, but it was so hard to do these scenes – you have to be locked in.”





Keaton doesn't feel Batman's shadow

Economist Thomas Piketty refuses France's highest honour



France’s influential economist Thomas Piketty, author of “Capital in the 21st Century”, on Thursday refused to accept the country’s highest award, the Legion d’honneur, to criticise the Socialist government in power.


“I refuse this nomination because I do not think it is the government’s role to decide who is honourable,” Piketty told AFP.


“They would do better to concentrate on reviving (economic) growth in France and Europe,” added Piketty, who was once close to the Socialist Party but has distanced himself from the policies of President Francois Hollande.





Economist Thomas Piketty refuses France's highest honour

Police probe 'ecstasy' pair deaths



Two people have died and one is in hospital as a result of what police believe could be a dangerous batch of ecstasy.


Suffolk Police said a man, believed to be in his 20s, was found seriously unwell in Chestnut Close, Rendlesham at 7.10am.


He received treatment at the scene but was pronounced dead.


At 9.40am two men were reported as being unwell at Provan Court, Ipswich.


One man, believed to be in his 20s, was pronounced dead at the scene. The other was taken to hospital in a serious condition.


Detectives believe their cases may be linked to another drugs related death on Christmas Eve. A man in his 20s died on Bramford Lane, Ipswich.




Source Article from https://uk.news.yahoo.com/police-probe-ecstasy-pair-deaths-145631917.html



Police probe 'ecstasy' pair deaths

Street's Paula Lane has baby boy



Coronation Street actress Paula Lane has given birth to a baby boy.


The 28-year-old, who plays Kylie Platt in the ITV1 show, revealed on Twitter that she and husband Tom Shaw welcomed their first child on New Year’s Eve.


She wrote: “Our world is complete – we finished off a momentous year with the arrival of our beautiful baby boy on NYE!!!!”


Lane, who has appeared on the long-running soap since 2010, was last seen on Weatherfield’s cobbled streets on Christmas Day while she takes a break from the show.


Her co-star Catherine Tyldesley, who is currently expecting her first child, tweeted: “Massive congrats guys!!! Lots of love!! I’m cooking him a little pal as we speak ;-) xxx”


And fellow Corrie actress Debbie Rush, who plays Anna Windass, wrote: “Massive congratulations to @lane_paula and @SirTomShaw on the birth of your baby boy. What a way to start the year! Sending much love xxxxx”




Source Article from https://uk.news.yahoo.com/streets-paula-lane-baby-boy-142438072.html



Street's Paula Lane has baby boy

Troubled EU hoping the only way is up in 2015



BRUSSELS (AP) — Beset by critics and buffeted by economic woes, European Union chiefs might have been forgiven for thinking that at least Pope Francis would apply some balm for the New Year in his address to the EU parliament.


Not so. Even the pontiff spoke of a continent that was “elderly and haggard” facing a world which “regards it with aloofness, mistrust and even, at times, suspicion.”


Little wonder that many in Europe hope that 2015 is the year the fortunes of the 28-nation bloc bottom out and things finally look up again.


Certainly, the EU has the zest and energy brought by a new team, headed by the no-nonsense Donald Tusk, once an activist in the Solidarity movement before becoming democratic Poland’s longest-serving prime minister. He is expected to add visibility to the EU presidency as he takes over from the colorless Herman Van Rompuy.


The new president of the EU’s executive, Jean-Claude Junker, replaces the long-serving Jose Manuel Barroso. Junker, a former Luxembourg prime minister, says his “last chance Commission” needs to streamline bureaucracy to connect with its half billion citizens.


But the best-laid schemes were already starting to unravel with the approach of the new year.


Two weeks ago, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras promised that Greece would not “gamble” with its recovery from financial crisis. Now the country at the heart of the EU’s economic woes has done exactly that. On Monday, parliament failed to approve a new president, forcing the government to call early elections for Jan. 25 — a poll that could re-ignite Europe’s sovereign debt crisis.


An election that may bring to power leftists opposed to Greece’s harsh bailout conditions could dampen the enthusiasm generated by a December EU summit that created a strategic investment fund to kick-start the EU’s sluggish economies and generate job growth.


Instead of plotting a bright future, the EU could soon be plodding through one crisis after another again.


Yet in a sense, it has always been this way.


“Europe doesn’t move in giant leaps. It moves forward, muddling through,” said Hendrik Vos, the University of Ghent’s EU expert.


A few years ago, Greece was in such deep financial trouble that many feared it would be kicked out of the club of countries that use the euro currency. The crisis spawned the memorable term “Grexit.” But Vos believes the EU is no more likely to take the radical step of kicking Greece out in 2015 than it was at the height of the crisis in 2012.


In fact, the eurozone gained a new member Thursday as Lithuania became the 19th European nation to use the common euro currency.


This year “Brexit” might be a key phrase. Britain, which still uses its own currency, has always been an uneasy partner within the EU but now the Eurosceptic UKIP party is soaring in popularity. That is pushing British Prime Minister David Cameron into a more anti-EU, anti-immigrant stance ahead of Britain’s national election in May. In order to retain power, Cameron’s Conservatives may be tempted to harden their pledge to hold a referendum on pulling out of the EU in 2017.


Since Britain has stayed out of the euro currency, cutting it free might be a less tricky option than kicking Greece out of the euro. But to lose such a huge economy, home to London, one of the world’s great financial centers, would be a devastating blow to EU prosperity and prestige.


Still, former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said that Britain appeared to be “moving steadily and with apparent determination ever closer” to a Brexit.


Despite their differences, many Europeans realize a united front can be useful, especially when facing a formidable foe such as Russian President Vladimir Putin — whose annexation of Crimea from Ukraine last year has brought a new Cold War with the West.


Yet consensus is hard to come by these days.


Within the EU, one camp argues for an icy shoulder toward Moscow for its actions regarding Ukraine while others seek some openness to make progress.


“It remains difficult to find one voice,” Vos said. “And I fear it will be the same in 2015.”


___


Raf Casert can be followed on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/rcasert


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Troubled EU hoping the only way is up in 2015

First baby of 2015? It's a secret in many places



PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Bye, bye Baby New Year. The crowning of the year’s first baby is being kept secret in many communities as hospitals say safety concerns trump tradition.


Community Health Systems — one of the country’s largest health care operators — recently ordered its 207 facilities to stop publicizing the first baby of the year, citing the potential for abductions and identity theft. Other U.S. hospitals have either removed themselves from the new year’s tradition altogether or limited the amount of information provided to the media.


“We know the birth of the new year baby is a joyous and exciting event, but protecting patient safety and privacy is our most important responsibility,” said Tomi Galin, a spokeswoman for the Franklin, Tennessee-based company.


She pointed to guidance from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, which has suggested health care providers obtain parental consent and eliminate home addresses and other identifying information from birth announcements or stop providing them to media.


Still, the head of the center’s missing children division said, the tradition of publicizing a hospital’s first birth of the year is relatively low-risk.


“We’ve never given direction to hospitals that they shouldn’t do it,” said the center’s Robert Lowery, stressing caution, not overreaction.


Community Health’s decision to opt-out of the New Year’s baby business made front-page headlines this week in many states after local journalists learned they would need to look elsewhere for news on the usually slow holiday.


The company’s Pennsylvania spokeswoman, Renita Fennick, said doctors will still let parents know if their baby arrived first and that new moms and dads could still contact the media on their own — so long as reporters and photographers stayed away from the maternity ward.


The Geisinger Health System, which competes with Community Health in Pennsylvania, said it would eliminate hometowns from its 2015 New Year’s birth announcements.


Galin said Community Health’s policy change came after several of the company’s hospitals stopped publicizing New Year’s births on their own. She described it as a preventative measure and that it was not a reaction to threats or abduction attempts.


The Joint Commission, a health care accreditation organization, suggested hospitals stop providing birth notices to local newspapers more than a decade ago after a rash of hospital abductions, but it has not required that they be eliminated.


Commission spokeswoman Elizabeth Zhani says hospitals decide whether to stop providing birth notices based on a risk assessment.


Other hospitals continue to highlight the first baby of the year, same as ever, with parents’ permission.


The New York Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs the city’s 11 public hospitals, gets written permission before releasing the mother and baby’s names, measurements and borough of residence. They also send out a photo.


“If there is hesitation from the family, we will only release the information they are comfortable with,” city hospitals spokeswoman Jen Bender said. “We’ve only had positive experiences promoting the first baby of the new year.”





First baby of 2015? It's a secret in many places