Before Emily Blunt, Jessica Chastain and more even RSVP to an awards show like the Oscars, they book an appointment with top beauty pros for some serious pre-event primping
Credit: Paul A. Hebert/Getty
Updated: Thursday Feb 14, 2013 | 04:00 PM EST
LONDON (Reuters) - Stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street on Friday, rebounding after the S&P 500 <.spx> posted its worst two-day loss since November.
Futures for the S&P 500, the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq 100 were up 0.2-0.3 percent at 0958 GMT.
European shares rose and German Bund futures fell on Friday after a better-than-expected German Ifo survey.
Shares in Hewlett-Packard
Chipmaker Texas Instruments Inc
Fellow chipmaker Marvell Technology Group Ltd
Insurer American International Group Inc reported fourth-quarter results that beat Wall Street expectations, helping its shares rise 4.2 percent in after hours trade.
Citigroup Inc
Newmont Mining Corp
Private equity firm KKR & Co LP
Interpublic Group, the second-biggest U.S. advertising and marketing group, is expected to follow larger rival Omnicom in reporting upbeat quarterly results, with earnings per shares seen up $0.03 year on year to $0.53 on higher revenue from the United States.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 46.92 points, or 0.34 percent, to 13,880.62 on Thursday. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> lost 9.53 points, or 0.63 percent, to 1,502.42. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> dropped 32.92 points, or 1.04 percent, to close at 3,131.49.
(Reporting By Francesco Canepa/editing by Chris Pizzey, London MPG Desk, +44 (0)207 542-4441)
PARIS (Reuters) - Seven French hostages kidnapped in Cameroon have been found alive in a house in northern Nigeria and are safe with Nigerian authorities, French television reported on Thursday.
The hostages, four children and three adults, were captured by Islamist militants this week while on a tourist excursion to the Waza national park near the Nigerian border with Cameroon.
It was the first case of foreigners being seized in the mainly Muslim north of Cameroon, a former French colony, but the region is considered within the operational sphere of Islamist sect Boko Haram and fellow Nigerian Islamist militants Ansaru.
"The hostages are safe and sound and are in the hands of Nigerian authorities," BFMTV quoted an officer from Cameroon's army as saying.
France's minister for veterans' affairs, who told parliament on Thursday that seven hostages abducted from Cameroon had been released, said minutes later there was no official confirmation that they had been freed.
A French diplomatic source said there would be no official confirmation until French authorities had received physical proof the hostages had been freed or they were in French hands.
(Reporting By Emile Picy and Nicholas Vinocur in Paris; Additional reporting by Joe Brock in Abuja; Editing by Pravin Char)
American Idol
By Jamie Bufalino
02/20/2013 at 11:00 PM EST
Mariah Carey
Mario Anzuoni/Reuters/Landov
"One song, one chance, no mercy," Ryan Seacrest said as the first group of 10 female contestants gathered in Las Vegas to try to finally sing their way – in front of a boisterous studio audience – through to the "America votes" phase of the competition.
Five women moved on, five went home.
Kentucky high school junior Jenny Beth Willis, whose rendition of a Trisha Yearwood song earned mixed reviews from the judges, was the first up. Although Keith Urban appreciated her "effortless confidence," Nicki Minaj said her performance lacked excitement (a comment that elicited the first audience boos of the season). Final result: It was the end of the road for Willis.
Tenna Torres, 28, – who attended Mariah Carey's camp for kids as a youngster – took the stage next and impressed the judges with her take on the Natasha Bedingfield's "Soulmate." But she lost style points with Minaj, who didn't like one particular aspect of her look. "Lose the hair," said Minaj, who felt the contestant's coif aged her. Final result: She made it through to the Top 20.
The three most powerful performances of the night all made it to the next round: Nashville's Kree Harrison, who despite taking a decidedly plain-Jane approach to styling, wowed the judges with her version of Patty Griffin's "Up to the Mountain." "You sang the hell out of that song," said Carey.
Angela Miller, 18, of Massachusetts, belted out Jessie J's hit "Nobody's Perfect." But she pretty much was.
And Amber Holcomb, an assistant teacher from Texas, closed the show with a rousing (and well received) rendition of "My Funny Valentine."
For the final spot of the night, it came down to Anchorage, Alaska, resident Adriana Latonio, 17, who tackled Aretha Franklin's "Ain't No Way," and Shubha Vedula, a Michigan high school senior who sang Lady Gaga's "Born This Way."
Although the judges saw potential in both contestants, they ultimately picked Lantonio's powerhouse vocals in a final emotional moment.
Thursday will bring out the guys. The first round of 10 will take the stage to try to make the top 20 – but once again, five will go home.
SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria's government resigned on Wednesday after violent nationwide protests against high power prices, joining a long list of European administrations felled by austerity during Europe's debt crisis.
Prime Minister Boiko Borisov, a former bodyguard who swept to power in 2009 on pledges to root out corruption and raise living standards in the European Union's poorest member, now faces a tough task to prop up eroding support ahead of a probable early election.
Wage and pension freezes and tax hikes have bitten deep in a country where living standards are less than half the EU average and tens of thousands of Bulgarians have rallied in protests that have turned violent, chanting "Mafia" and "Resign".
On Tuesday, 11 people were hospitalized - including one man bleeding heavily from the head - and 11 arrested after protesters threw flares at police, who fought demonstrators with shields and truncheons.
"I will not participate in a government under which police are beating people," Borisov, who began his career guarding the Black Sea state's communist dictator Todor Zhivkov, said as he announced his resignation on Wednesday.
Parliament is expected to accept the resignation later in the day.
The spark for the protests was high electricity bills, after the government raised prices by 13 percent last July. But it quickly spilled over into wider frustration with Borisov's domineering manner and unpredictable decision making.
The prime minister made sacrifices in an attempt to cling on, sacking his finance minister, cutting power prices and risking a diplomatic row with the Czech Republic by punishing foreign-owned companies, a move that conflicted with EU norms on protection of investors and due process.
Borisov's rightist GERB party is the dominant faction in parliament but will not take part in talks to form a new government, Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said, indicating that an election planned for July will now be held early.
"He made my day," student Borislav Hadzhiev, 21, in central Sofia said, commenting on Borisov's resignation. "The truth is that we're living in an extremely poor country."
IRE
GERB's popularity has held up well and it still leads, just, in the polls, largely because budget cutbacks have been relatively mild compared with those in many other European countries. Salaries and pensions were frozen rather than cut.
But the last opinion poll, taken before protests grew last weekend already showed the opposition Socialists were nearly tied with the ruling party and analysts said the protests had boosted the Socialists' chances.
Unemployment in the country of 7.3 million is far from the highs hit in the decade after the end of communism but remains at 11.9 percent and average salaries are stuck at around 800 levs ($550) a month.
Millions have emigrated in search of a better life, leaving swathes of the country depopulated and little hope for those who remain.
The measures announced this week has also put the country on a collision course with the EU and financial investors without easing the tension at home.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas demanded an explanation from Bulgaria and accused it of "politicizing" the power sector by threatening to revoke the electricity distribution license of central Europe's largest listed company CEZ, 70 percent of which is owned by the Czech state.
There have also been fines for another Czech company, Energo-Pro and Austria's EVN.
The precedent is unlikely to encourage other foreign investors, who already have to navigate complicated bureaucracy and widespread corruption and organized crime if they want to take advantage of Bulgaria's 16-percent flat tax rate.
"The resignation is the only responsible move," said Kantcho Stoychev, an analyst with pollster Gallup International. "It also gives Borisov some legitimacy to stay in political life in the future, despite the violent police actions last night."
(Additional reporting by Angel Krasimirov; editing by Patrick Graham)
02/20/2013 at 07:00 AM EST
"The most important thing are my babies must come home," she wrote in an email to her private investigator friend Danno Hanks, who tells PEOPLE in this week's cover story: "She lost all hope."
McCready, 37, was found dead Sunday of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head on the porch of her Heber Springs, Ark., home, the same spot where the body of her boyfriend David Wilson was discovered last month, also with a gunshot wound to the head.
The long-troubled country singer and mom to Zayne, 10 months, and Zander, 6, had recently gone to a court-ordered rehab center. She left for police a harrowing scene of death and filth.
The house reeked, food was left out and dog feces were everywhere. Bottles full of prescription pills sat on the nightstand and in the bathroom, according to a police source. Also found: the body of a dog, whom McCready apparently shot before taking her own life.
"People talk about a train wreck, but the world lost a real person, a human being, a mother," says country singer Chely Wright, a friend of McCready's from their early days in Nashville. "I'm praying for her kids."
For more on Mindy McCready's troubled life and tragic death, including inside accounts of her troubling behavior, the latest on the investigation into her boyfriend's death, and exclusive interviews with her closest friends and her former fiancé Dean Cain, pick up this week's PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday
CHICAGO (AP) — Drug overdose deaths rose for the 11th straight year, federal data show, and most of them were accidents involving addictive painkillers despite growing attention to risks from these medicines.
"The big picture is that this is a big problem that has gotten much worse quickly," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which gathered and analyzed the data.
In 2010, the CDC reported, there were 38,329 drug overdose deaths nationwide. Medicines, mostly prescription drugs, were involved in nearly 60 percent of overdose deaths that year, overshadowing deaths from illicit narcotics.
The report appears in Tuesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
It details which drugs were at play in most of the fatalities. As in previous recent years, opioid drugs — which include OxyContin and Vicodin — were the biggest problem, contributing to 3 out of 4 medication overdose deaths.
Frieden said many doctors and patients don't realize how addictive these drugs can be, and that they're too often prescribed for pain that can be managed with less risky drugs.
They're useful for cancer, "but if you've got terrible back pain or terrible migraines," using these addictive drugs can be dangerous, he said.
Medication-related deaths accounted for 22,134 of the drug overdose deaths in 2010.
Anti-anxiety drugs including Valium were among common causes of medication-related deaths, involved in almost 30 percent of them. Among the medication-related deaths, 17 percent were suicides.
The report's data came from death certificates, which aren't always clear on whether a death was a suicide or a tragic attempt at getting high. But it does seem like most serious painkiller overdoses were accidental, said Dr. Rich Zane, chair of emergency medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
The study's findings are no surprise, he added. "The results are consistent with what we experience" in ERs, he said, adding that the statistics no doubt have gotten worse since 2010.
Some experts believe these deaths will level off. "Right now, there's a general belief that because these are pharmaceutical drugs, they're safer than street drugs like heroin," said Don Des Jarlais, director of the chemical dependency institute at New York City's Beth Israel Medical Center.
"But at some point, people using these drugs are going to become more aware of the dangers," he said.
Frieden said the data show a need for more prescription drug monitoring programs at the state level, and more laws shutting down "pill mills" — doctor offices and pharmacies that over-prescribe addictive medicines.
Last month, a federal panel of drug safety specialists recommended that Vicodin and dozens of other medicines be subjected to the same restrictions as other narcotic drugs like oxycodone and morphine. Meanwhile, more and more hospitals have been establishing tougher restrictions on painkiller prescriptions and refills.
One example: The University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora is considering a rule that would ban emergency doctors from prescribing more medicine for patients who say they lost their pain meds, Zane said.
___
Stobbe reported from Atlanta.
___
Online:
JAMA: http://www.jama.ama-assn.org
CDC: http://www.cdc.gov
___
AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com
LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures pointed to a slightly firmer open on Wall Street on Wednesday, with futures for the S&P 500 and Dow Jones 0.1 percent higher at 0936 GMT, while those for the Nasdaq 100 added 0.2 percent.
U.S. producer prices, housing starts and building permits for January are all due at 1330 GMT, with the data expected to show a slight acceleration in factory price pressures alongside a continued recovery in the housing market.
The market focus, though, is likely to be on the minutes from the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee's January meeting, due at 1900 GMT, which will be scanned for clues on how long monetary policy is likely to remain ultra accommodative.
The earnings season continues, with Devon Energy Corp., Fluor Corp. and Newfield Exploration among those due to report.
With the season now three quarters of the way through, 28 percent of S&P 500 companies have missed full-year earnings forecasts, with 41 percent undershooting on revenues, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine data.
Dell Inc
Demand Media Inc
Boeing
Life Technologies
Herbalife
Heinz
Sina Corp
Milennial Media
Marriott International
Nabors Industries
Total System Services Inc
European shares traded flat on Wednesday, consolidating after the previous session's sharp gains, held back by weak earnings newsflow and as traders cited caution ahead of the minutes to the U.S. Federal Reserve's January policy meeting. <.eu/>
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 53.91 points, or 0.39 percent on Tuesday to 14,035.67 points - just 0.9 percent away from its record high. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> closed up 0.73 percent at 1,530.94, while the Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> added or 0.68 percent to 3,213.59.
(Reporting By Toni Vorobyova; Editing by Susan Fenton)
CARACAS (Reuters) - After Hugo Chavez spent two months out of the public eye for cancer surgery in Cuba, the Venezuelan government hailed his homecoming on Monday and said the president had achieved another milestone - four million followers on Twitter.
The 58-year-old flew back from Havana before dawn and was taken to a military hospital. No new details were given on his health, and there were no images of his arrival. Officials say his condition remains delicate.
The normally loquacious socialist leader, who is struggling to speak as he breathes through a tracheal tube, took to Twitter with a passion back in April 2010, tweeting regularly and encouraging other leftist Latin American leaders to do likewise.
His @chavezcandanga account quickly drew a big mixed following of fans, critics and others just curious to see how his famously long speeches and fiery anti-U.S. invective would work within the social media network's 140-character limit.
But as he fought the cancer and underwent weeks of grueling chemotherapy and radiation therapy, he began to tweet less and less frequently, before stopping altogether on November 1.
Early on Monday morning, he made his reappearance.
"It was 4:30, 5 a.m. He got to his room and surprised everyone: rat-tat-tat, he sent three or four messages, and at that moment fireworks began to go off around the country," Vice President Nicolas Maduro said in a televised cabinet meeting.
During the day, Maduro added, the president's number of followers had shot up to well over four million.
"It's incredible, in just a few hours ... he's the second most-followed president in the world (after Barack Obama), and the first if we make the comparison by per capita," he said.
Obama has more than 27 million Twitter followers and is No. 5 most followed globally. Chavez is Twitter's No. 190 globally.
4TH MILLION FOLLOWER
Maduro said Chavez's four millionth follower was a 20-year-old single Venezuelan woman named Alemar Jimenez from the gritty San Juan neighborhood in downtown Caracas, near the military hospital where the president arrived earlier in the day.
"She's one of the golden generation of youth who support the fatherland and have been waiting with growing love for commander Hugo Chavez," Maduro said, before presenting a dazzled-looking Jimenez to the cameras and giving her a bunch of flowers.
"We were really emotional" she said, recounting how she was with her mother when they heard Chavez had returned. "I sent him a message on Twitter saying he must get better."
There are still big questions over the president's health. He could have come back to govern from behind the scenes, or he may be hoping to ease political tensions and pave the way for a transition to Maduro, his preferred successor.
Chavez has often ordered followers to fight back against opposition critics of his self-styled revolution by using social media, leading from the front himself on Twitter and referring to the Internet as a "battle trench."
As his ranks of followers grew, Chavez said he hired 200 assistants to help him respond to messages - which he said were a great way to receive first-hand the requests, demands, complaints and denunciations of citizens in the thousands.
During his re-election campaign last year, the government launched an SMS text message service that forwards his tweets to cellphones that lack Internet service, broadening their reach to the poorest corners of the South American country.
"He's a communication revolution!" Maduro said, later unbuttoning his shirt on TV to show he was wearing a T-shirt bearing Chavez's eyes emblazoned across his chest.
For the tens of thousands who signed up on Monday to follow Chavez on Twitter, it is unclear how much will be posted there in the weeks and months ahead. Venezuela's 29 million people are mostly wondering something similar.
(Additional reporting by Diego Ore; Editing by Todd Eastham)
By Steve Helling and Mike Fleeman
02/18/2013 at 06:00 PM EST
Mindy McCready and David Wilson
Courtesy Mindy McCready
"At first, she said she hadn't heard the gunshot because the TV was too loud. Then she said she had heard the gunshot," the source says. "So obviously there were a lot of questions, and the Sheriff was asking for clarification."
But before investigators could re-interview her, the long-troubled country singer also would die under eerily similar circumstances, her body discovered at the same Heber Springs, Ark., house just feet away from where David Wilson died.
McCready's death was blamed on what "appears to be a single self-inflicted gunshot wound," the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.
This differed from how the sheriff characterized Wilson's case. His cause and manner of death still have not been established by the coroner. It was McCready's publicist, and not a law enforcement official, who announced that Wilson had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
After Wilson's death, McCready, 37, spoke to investigators three times, but they didn't feel as if they were through with her.
"At no point did [police] tell her she was a suspect, and she wasn't officially one," says the source. "But she knew that some of her answers didn't stand up to questioning. She was very cooperative, but she just wasn't making a lot of sense."
Copyright © News marmolite. All rights reserved.
Design 
And Business Directories
