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Saturday 30 August 2014
New Details about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's wedding
Update!
My minions are working overtime to bring you the breaking Brangie wedding deets. Here’s what else I know:
- Sons Maddox and Pax walked mom down the aisle. Cue the ‘awwws‘.
- Daughters Zahara and Vivienne played flower girls and tossed rose petals…
- …while daughter Shiloh and son Knox stepped in as ring bearers.
- According to E!, the newly dubbed Mrs. Pitt looked stunning in a “very traditional, but very Angie” white floor-length gown made of antique lace and silk.
- Angelina also opted for a veil and wore a small gold locket with a photo of her late mother inside it. (The tears! The tears!)
- My sources also say the boys donned cream linen suits to match their groom dad, and the girls wore dresses specially made to match their style. Because Brangelina babies are fashion goddesses like that.
- As for a honeymoon, the A-listers are scheduled to jet off to Malta and begin filming By the Sea, a drama written by Angie that marks the newlywed’s first time on-screen together since 2005′s Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
Six adorable babies later, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie made it official last Saturday!
The genetically blessed globetrotters tied the knot in France at Château Miraval, my spies tell me. The wedding comes two years after Brad popped the question with a massive sparkler designed by Robert Procop.
Now, you know my sidekick Zahara ruled her minion siblings with an iron fist when it came to planning this ball for the ages.
“We talk about it occasionally, and the kids talk about it with us,” mama bear Angie told People back in May about the big day. “Which is verging on hysterical, how kids envision a wedding. They will in a way be the wedding planners. It’s going to be Disney or paintball – one or the other! We’ve got a lot of different personalities in the house. They’ve got some strong opinions. It will be fun. That’s the important thing. When we do it, it will feel like a great day for our family.”
Friday 29 August 2014
Pastor Chris Oyakhilome’s wife files for divorce in London court, alleges adultery
The wife is seeking divorce on the grounds of “unreasonable behaviour” and “adultery”. She outlined several allegations against the pastor which cannot publish for legal reasons. The divorce case, with Suit No FD14D01650, was filed on April 9, 2014 at Divorce Section A, Central Family Court, First Avenue House, High Holborn, London, UK, on Anita’s behalf by Attwaters Jameson Hill Solicitors, a full-service law firm with expertise in commercial law and a strong consumer focus in family, wills and estate, personal injury law and medical negligence.
Efforts to reconcile the popular couple, whose church is one of the biggest denominations in Nigeria and has branches all over world, have failed. They have two teenage daughters, Sharon and Charlyn." Continue...
Oyakhilome is the president of Believers’ Love World Inc, the registered name of the Christian ministry, while his wife is the vice-president. The pastor, according to an elder of the church, has denied allegations of adultery and believes his wife is being influenced by “bad friends” who are intent on destroying their home. While Anita believes she has been relegated in the scheme of things in the church, her husband has reportedly accused her of trying to usurp power and authority above her seniors in the ministry. Sources told TheCable that the pastor had been making efforts to avoid divorce in the hope that the wife would eventually have a change of mind. However, the decree nissi was served on the charismatic pastor in his hotel room during a recent visit to the UK. Decree nissi, in legal terms, is like a yellow card in a football match which is a precursor to a red card (“decree absolute”) if no new evidence is provided to stall proceedings. Church insiders said Oyakhilome had been hoping for rapprochement, but he was left with no option than to receive the papers when the lawyers cornered him at his hotel in London. The decree absolute, which will effectively end the marriage, is expected to be issued soon while terms of the divorce will be worked out by the lawyers on both sides.
Joan Rivers Still in serious condition
They Grow Up So Fast
Kylie Jenner
Just what the world doesn't need -- or can handle -- is another Kim Kardashian, but Kylie Jenner (who's all Jenner and no Kardashian) seems to be following in her sister's footsteps to a T. This new look, y'all? We don't like it at all.
Kylie had such a cutting-edge look for most of her adolescence, and it set her apart from her sisters. The Kardashian/Jenners all have some similar features and similar styles, but Kylie was markedly different because she seemed to dance to the beat of her own drum. Now, however, it looks like she's trying to blend in instead of celebrating her differences, whether it's in looks, personality, or style ... and it's not working.
You're 17 years old, Kylie, and surely going to reinvent yourself a dozen times in the next couple of years, but this look? This one you're rocking right now? This one isn't The One, OK? Can we move away from whatever possessed you to do this and head on back to a more comfortable -- and unique -- territory?
Syria Refugees Top 3 Million Mark, UN Says
U.S. To Consider Spousal Abuse In Immigration Claims |
GENEVA (AP) — The civil war in Syria has forced a record 3 million people out of the country as more than a million people fled in the past year, the U.N. refugee agency said Friday.
The tragic milestone means that about one of every eight Syrians has fled across the border, and 6.5 million others have been displaced within Syria since the conflict began in March 2011, the Geneva-based agency said. More than half of all those uprooted are children, it said.
"The Syria crisis has become the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era, yet the world is failing to meet the needs of refugees and the countries hosting them," said U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres.
Syria had a prewar population of 23 million.
The recent surge in fighting appears to be worsening the already desperate situation for Syrian refugees, the agency said, as the extremist Islamic State group expands its control of broad areas straddling the Syria-Iraq border and terrorizes rivals and civilians in both countries.
According to the agency, many of the new arrivals in Jordan come from the northern province of Aleppo and the northeastern region of Raqqa, a stronghold of the group. An independent U.N. commission says the group is systematically carrying out widespread bombings, beheadings and mass killings that amount to crimes against humanity in both areas.
The commission investigating potential war crimes in Syria said on Wednesday that the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad likely used chlorine gas to attack civilians, who are bearing the brunt of a civil war that has killed more than 190,000 people and destabilized the region.
The massive numbers of Syrians fleeing the civil war has stretched the resources of neighboring countries and raised fears of violence spreading in the region.
The U.N. estimates there are nearly 35,000 people awaiting registration as refugees, and hundreds of thousands who are not registered.
International Rescue Committee President David Miliband said the Syrian refugee crisis represents "3 million indictments of government brutality, opposition violence and international failure."
"This appalling milestone needs to generate action as well as anger," he said, calling for more aid to Syria's overburdened neighbors and for civilians still in the country.
The refugee agency and other aid groups say an increasing number of families are arriving in other countries in shockingly poor condition, exhausted and scared and with almost no financial savings left after having been on the run for a year or more. In eastern Jordan, for example, the agency says refugees crossing the desert are forced to pay smugglers $100 per person or more to be taken to safety.
Lebanon hosts 1.14 million Syrian refugees, the single highest concentration. Turkey has 815,000 and Jordan has 608,000.
Thursday 28 August 2014
Wednesday 27 August 2014
Judges Blast Indiana, Wisconsin Gay Marriage Bans
CHICAGO (AP) — Federal appeals judges bristled on Tuesday at arguments defending gay marriage bans in Indiana and Wisconsin, with one Republican appointee comparing them to now-defunct laws that once outlawed weddings between blacks and whites.
As the legal skirmish in the United States over same-sex marriage shifted to the three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, more than 200 people lined up hours before to ensure they got a seat at the much-anticipated hearing.
While judges often play devil's advocate during oral arguments, the panel's often-blistering questions for the defenders of the same-sex marriage bans could be a signal the laws may be in trouble — at least at this step in the legal process.
Attorneys general in both states asked the appellate court to permanently restore the bans, which were ruled unconstitutional in June. Its ruling could affect hundreds of couples who married after lower courts tossed the bans and before those rulings were stayed pending the Chicago appeal.
Gay marriage is legal in 19 states as well as the District of Columbia, and advocates have won more than 20 court victories around the country since the Supreme Court ordered the U.S. government to recognize state-sanctioned gay marriages.
The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to take up a case, but Utah and Oklahoma cases were appealed to the high court and Virginia's attorney general also has asked the justices to weigh in. Appeals court rulings are pending for Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee, while appellate court hearings are scheduled next month for Hawaii, Oregon, Nevada, and is expected soon in Texas.
Richard Posner, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, hit the backers of the ban the hardest. He balked when Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General Timothy Samuelson repeatedly pointed to "tradition" as the underlying justification for barring gay marriage.
"It was tradition to not allow blacks and whites to marry — a tradition that got swept away," the 75-year-old judge said. Prohibition of same sex marriage, Posner to the Wisconsin attorney, derives from "a tradition of hate ... and savage discrimination" of homosexuals.
Posner, who has a reputation for making lawyers before him squirm, frequently cut off Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher, just moments into his presentation and chided him to answer his questions.
At one point, Posner ran through a list of psychological strains of unmarried same-sex couples, including their children having to struggle to grasp why their schoolmates' parents were married and theirs weren't.
"What horrible stuff," Posner said. What benefits to society in barring gay marriage, he asked, outweighs that kind of harm to children?
"All this is a reflection of biology," Fisher answered. "Men and women make babies, same-sex couples do not... we have to have a mechanism to regulate that, and marriage is that mechanism."
Samuelson echoed that, telling the hearing that regulating marriage — including by encouraging men and women to marry — was part of a concerted Wisconsin policy to reduce numbers of children born out of wedlock.
"I assume you know how that has been working out in practice?" Judge David Hamilton responded, citing figures that births to single women from 1990 to 2009 rose 53 percent in Wisconsin and 68 percent in Indiana.
While the judges seemed to push defenders of the bans the hardest, they also pressed the side arguing for gay marriage about just where they themselves would draw the line about who could and couldn't marry.
Would they argue in favor of polygamy on similar grounds, pointing to the emotional toll on children in families with multiple mothers or fathers, asked Judge David Hamilton, a President Barack Obama appointee.
"If you have two people, it's going to look like a marriage," said Kenneth Falk of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana. "If you have three or four, it doesn't. ... There's no slippery slope."
Among those following the arguments in court was plaintiff Ruth Morrison, a retired Indianapolis Fire Department battalion chief. She said that because Indiana won't recognize the woman she married in another state as her wife, she wouldn't be able to pass on pension and other benefits if she dies.
"Now Indiana tells us our promises are only good if our spouses are of the opposite sex," Morrison, wearing a fire department uniform, said during a rally ahead of the hearing Monday night.
A voter-approved constitutional amendment bans gay marriage in Wisconsin. State law prohibits it in Indiana. Neither state recognizes same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. The lawsuits that led to Tuesday's hearing in Chicago contend that the bans violate the U.S. Constitution's equal protection guarantee.
Despite the seriousness of the hearing, there was some levity.
At one point, visibly uncomfortable Samuelson struggled to offer a specific reason for how gay marriage bans benefit society. He then noted a yellow courtroom light was on signaling his allotted time was up.
"It won't save you," Judge Ann Claire Williams, a Bill Clinton appointee, told him, prompting laughter in court.
Samuleson smiled, and said: "It was worth a try."
Tuesday 26 August 2014
The Conversations Between This Teen And His Grandma BFF Are Totally Priceless
This is Kevin Droniak and his grandma. They’re besties, they’re awesome and they’re YouTube stars.
Droniak and his grandma's rise to viral stardom began about two years ago when the 17-year-old, wanting to share his firecracker of a granny and her priceless wisdom with the world, decided to set up a camera in his grandma’s car to capture their conversations.
That first video was an immediate hit, and since then, the teen has been recording his grandma on the sly, filming them in her car talking about everything from Miley Cyrus(who grandma seems to think is a classmate of Droniak’s) to Vine (“No, I don’t want to know what Vine is. What is it?”) to how babies are made and what she looks for in a man:
Earlier this month, Droniak finally revealed his tricks to his nan, screening her viral YouTube videos for her to see. Grandma's reaction? Pure gold:
Since his big reveal, Droniak says his grandma has become increasingly hesitant about being filmed. Still, he's promised his many fans that he and grandma will continue to make videos, and he says they’ll be even “better” than they already are.
That'll likely be music to the ears of many of Droniak's 146,000-plus subscribers.
"BEST CHANNEL EVER," declared one YouTuber after watching one of Droniak's many grandma videos.
"Grandma is the best!" wrote another. "Love these two."
Watch more of Kevin Droniak and his grandma on the teen's YouTube channel.