The News Of …

Robert De Niro and wife Grace Hightower have announced that they have welcomed a baby girl (who was born via surrogate) to their family.
The new addition to the De Niro family was born via surrogate and named Helen Grace. A second child for the couple who have been married for almost 14 years, the baby weighed in at 7 lbs., 2 oz. at time of birth. She joins older brother, 13-year-old Elliot. No further details about the birth were provided.
68-year-old De Niro himself has four other children from previous relationships. He has a 35-year-old son, Raphael, from his marriage to Diahnne Abbott, and adopted Diahnne’s daughter, 40-year-old Drena. He also has 16-year-old twin sons Julian and Aaron (with ex-girlfriend Toukie Smith).
Speaking about his approach to parenthood in 2009, the actor said – “One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my years as a father is to keep the lines of communication open with my kids.
“I care deeply about all of them, and I have made a conscious effort to talk to and to listen to them… not to lecture them, but to tell them things I think are important for them to know.”

Robert De Niro.

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Adam Lambert has been arrested after getting into a fight with his Finnish boyfriend outside a gay bar in Helsinki.
Lambert, who finished second on American Idol in 2009, and Sauli Koskinen began arguing inside the DTM (Don’t Tell Mama) bar – according to Finnish tabloid Iltalehti.
The pair was kicked out of the club and continued fighting in the street until bystanders were able to break them up.
The two were questioned by police and spent several hours in jail following the brawl but were released Thursday afternoon. No further action is expected because there were no injuries – police officer Petri Juvonen said.
Lambert made light of the situation in a tweet, writing: “Jetlag+Vodka=blackout. Us?blackout=irrational confusion. jail+guilt+press=lesson learned. Sauli+Adam+hangover burgers= laughing bout it.”
Koskinen (a Finnish reality star) later wrote on his blog: “Celebrities are people too and fame is not easy. Love is not always easy either, but it’s forever.”
The 29-year-old American singer has dated Koskinen (26) since November 2010.

Adam Lambert.

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Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. was sentenced yesterday to 90 days in a Las Vegas jail after pleading guilty to a reduced battery domestic violence charge and no contest to two harassment charges. The 34-year-old Mayweather also was ordered to complete 100 hours of community service and pay a $2.500 fine. The plea deal avoids trial on felony allegations that the undefeated prizefighter hit his ex-girlfriend and threatened two of their children during an argument at her home in Sep. 2010. Mayweather stood still in a striped olive vest and showed no reaction when the judge imposed the sentence and told him he must report to the Clark County jail on January 6.

Floyd Mayweather Jr.

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A small plane heading for Georgia spiraled out of control and crashed Tuesday morning on a major New York-area highway, hitting a wooded median and scattering wreckage across the road. All five people aboard (including two investment bankers) were killed, but no one on the ground was injured.
The pilot had discussed icy conditions with controllers just before the plane went down, but investigators were unsure what role, if any, icing played in the crash.
The New York investment banking firm Greenhill & Co. said two of its managing directors, Jeffrey Buckalew (45) and Rakesh Chawla (36) as well as Buckalew’s wife and two children, were on the plane, which crashed on Interstate 287. Buckalew was the registered owner of the single-engine plane and had a pilot’s license.
Wreckage was scattered over at least a half-mile, with a section found lodged in a tree of a home about a quarter-mile away, near a highway entrance ramp. The crash closed both sides of the busy highway for hours, though several lanes were open again in time for the evening rush hour.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators said the search for wreckage was suspended after dark Tuesday and would be resumed after the Wednesday morning commute to minimize traffic problems.
NTSB officials said they don’t believe the plane had a black box, which would have recorded flight data, but they said investigators were searching for other memory devices, including GPS, collision avoidance systems or any device with a recordable chip that might yield more information.
Rockaway Township resident Chris Covello said he saw the plane spin out of control from the car dealership where he works in Morristown, near the site of the crash.
“It was like the plane was doing tricks or something, twirling and flipping” – he said. “It started going straight down. I thought any second they were going to pull up. But then the wing came off and they went straight down.”

Plane.

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North Korea announced the death of supreme leader Kim Jong Il and urged its people on Monday to rally behind his young son and heir-apparent, while the world watched for signs of instability in a nation pursuing nuclear weapons.
South Korea launched a high alert for its military as it faces the North’s 1,2 million-strong armed forces, while President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak agreed by phone to closely monitor the events and cooperate.
People on the streets of the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, broke into tears as they learned the news that their “Dear Leader” had died at the age 69 of heart failure Saturday while carrying out official duties on a train trip.
“He passed away too suddenly to our profound regret” – said a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency. “The heart of Kim Jong Il stopped beating, but his noble and august name and benevolent image will always be remembered by our army and people.”
While there was no immediate statement on official succession, there were clear indications that Kim’s 20-something son, Kim Jong Un, would be in charge.
The North said in a dispatch that the people and the military “have pledged to uphold the leadership of comrade Kim Jong Un” and called him a “great successor” of the country’s revolutionary philosophy of juche, or self reliance.
“At the leadership of comrade Kim Jong Un, we have to change sadness to strength and courage and overcome today’s difficulties” – North Korea said.
It was not immediately clear what effect Kim’s death would have on recent efforts to bring North Korea back into nuclear talks aimed at exchanging aid for commitments by the North to disarm.

Kim Jong Il.

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He nabbed a mirror ball trophy on “Dancing With the Stars” last month, but the biggest and best prize is yet to come. J.R. Martinez tells PEOPLE exclusively that he and girlfriend Diana Gonzalez-Jones are expecting their first child next spring.
“We found out just last week it’s a girl and we are over the moon” – Martinez (28) says. “Diana has a little baby bump now and it’s the cutest thing ever. With the holidays coming up, this is the biggest and best gift we could get.”
The Iraq war vet and Gonzalez-Jones met when he landed a role on All My Children in 2008. At the time, she was working as an assistant to the soap’s executive producer. The two became close friends, but it wasn’t until last year that the pair decided to take their friendship to the next level.
“We were so good as friends that romantically, we just clicked right away. There was no adjustment period” – Gonzalez-Jones told PEOPLE earlier this year.
Impending fatherhood “is sinking in” Martinez says, admitting that he can’t believe all of the good things that have happened in the past year.
“2011 has been full of a lot of surprises and opportunities and ultimately, a lot of blessings” – says Martinez. “Diana and I were just asking ourselves, ‘How is 2012 going to top 2011?’ Well, we have our answer!”

J.R. Martinez.

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British-American author and essayist Christopher Hitchens died Thursday from complications of esophageal cancer. He was 62.
Hitchens was known for his wry monthly columns for Vanity Fair magazine.
“There will never be another like Christopher. A man of ferocious intellect, who was as vibrant on the page as he was at the bar” – said Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter. “Those who read him felt they knew him, and those who knew him were profoundly fortunate souls.”
Hitchens was born in Portsmouth, England, in 1949 and graduated from Oxford University in 1970.
He landed a job with Vanity Fair as a contributing editor in November 1992.
“Christopher was a master of the stunning line and the biting quip, and he had few equals in the sphere of commentary, let alone social life” – a Vanity Fair statement said.
Hitchens also wrote for other publications like New Statesman, the London Evening Standard, London’s Daily Express, The Nation, Harper’s, The Spectator, The Times Literary Supplement, New York Newsday, The Atlantic, and Slate.
CNN’s Piers Morgan tweeted about Hitchens from his official Twitter page Thursday night.
“RIP Christopher Hitchens – greatest literary provocateur of my lifetime. Huge talent, huge loss” – Morgan wrote.

Christopher Hitchens.

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Chris Paul is on his way to Hollywood, joining the biggest collection of N.B.A. stars in a single arena, and creating a true basketball rivalry in Los Angeles for the first time.
The Clippers (long overshadowed by the Lakers) acquired Paul from the New Orleans Hornets on Wednesday night, ending a twisting, contentious chapter in league history.
Paul, an elite point guard, will be joining Blake Griffin, one of the league’s most electrifying players. The pairing rivals the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol in star power and could eventually overtake them. Paul is just 26, while Griffin (the reigning rookie of the year and slam-dunk champion) is 22.
The intrigue comes with asterisks and anger.
The Clippers completed the blockbuster deal only six nights after Commissioner David Stern (acting as the Hornets’ de facto owner) rejected a three-team deal that would have sent Paul to the Lakers. The decision was quickly denounced by team officials around the league, who considered it improper for Stern to dictate where a player would land.
Stern, in a conference call Wednesday night, conceded the awkward position created by the league’s ownership of the Hornets. But he defended his veto of the Lakers deal and said the trade sending Paul to the Clippers “is a very good transaction and better for the future of the Hornets” than “the transaction on which I did not sign off.”
The Clippers are sending the Hornets four of their best assets – shooting guard Eric Gordon, who turns 23 this month; a 2012 first-round draft pick that belonged to the Minnesota Timberwolves; the promising young forward Al-Farouq Aminu; and center Chris Kaman, whose expiring contract will help the Hornets lower their payroll.

Chris Paul.

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Gemenid meteor shower watchers can’t figure out where all the material in the event comes from. Asteroid 3200 Phaethon, the apparent source of the Gemenid meteor shower, doesn’t seem to shed enough rock and dust to account for the shower’s intensity.
Roll up, roll up for the mystery (meteor) shower – the Geminids.
By now you’ve probably heard that tonight’s the night for what is arguably one of the most spectacular meteor showers of the year, the Geminids.
The shower earns its name from its apparent point of origin, or radiant, in the constellation Gemini.
But where many meteor showers represent Earth’s encounter with dust from a comet, the Geminids appear to have an odd duck of a source – an asteroid that some now call a rock comet.
And it’s not clear from recent observations whether the object, known as 3200 Phaethon, is kicking off enough material to account for the intensity of the meteor shower Earth encounters.
A team of astronomers identified the debris gap in a paper published in the Astronomical Journal in Nov. 2010. And researchers are still puzzling over it.

Geminid meteor shower.

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Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov is seeking to tap the dissent that sparked Russia’s biggest anti- government demonstrations in a decade, pledging to run against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for the presidency next March.
“Society is awakening” – the New Jersey Nets basketball team owner told reporters in Moscow yesterday after announcing his candidacy in the wake of protests against alleged fraud in a December 4 parliamentary vote. Those among the authorities who fail to establish dialogue with the public “will have to leave.”
Thousands of Russians took to the streets to protest the results of a parliamentary contest that observers from the U.S. and Europe said was neither free nor fair. Prokhorov, 46, Russia’s third-richest man with a fortune Forbes magazine put at 18 billion dollars, said he plans to build grassroots support and that he opposes “revolution” and “populism.”
“He could certainly act as a channel to vent out the frustration of many young professional voters” – Lilit Gevorgyan, a London-based analyst at IHS Global Insight, said yesterday by e-mail. “His entry could be a game changer in what otherwise seems to be a perfectly controlled vote.”
Russia’s benchmark Micex Index of 30 stocks fell for a third day, retreating 0.5 percent to 1,343.80 at 1:28 p.m. in Moscow after last week’s 7.3 percent decline, the biggest in almost three months. The ruble weakened for a ninth straight trading session against the dollar, losing 0.2 percent to 31.6568.

Mikhail Prokhorov.

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