Kellan Lutz, Hugh Jackman Take Bites and Swipes & More Casting News
Label: LifestyleKellan Lutz (left) and Hugh Jackman
Christopher Polk/Getty, Han Myung-Gu/WireImage
It's comeback time. Whether seeking revenge or reprising beloved roles, a fresh crop of movies shows that the best characters always come back for more.
Twilight's Kellan Lutz feasts on others as a vampire, but this time, he's utilizing his own body for powers, Zimbio reports.
The actor will star in Tatua as a tattooed assassin whose weapons are extracted from the ink on his body. The process is a strain on the hit man, but he must put that aside when his son is kidnapped by a dangerous foe.
Hugh Jackman is set to reprise his role as Wolverine in
X-Men: Days of Future Past, the Hollywood Reporter. Ian McKellen (Magneto) and Patrick Stewart (Professor Xavier), will also be joining Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Nicholas Hoult.
Charlize Theron will star in an adaptation of the final installment of a South Korean revenge trilogy, the Hollywood Reporter also says. The original movie revolves around a woman wrongfully imprisoned for 13 years who then sets out to seek her long-awaited revenge. Writer William Monahan says the English-language remake will be "very American – and very unexpected."
The made-for-TV Disney channel movie Life-Size is getting a sequel, Variety reports. Tyra Banks will reprise her role as Eve, the doll who comes to life, and also executive produce the movie. No word yet on whether Lindsay Lohan, who played Eve's owner, will be making a return.
Also coming soon:
Beyoncé won't be slowing down after her Super Bowl performance in February. Just a couple weeks later, she'll introduce her still untitled, feature-length documentary on HBO, Deadline reports. The documentary airs Feb. 16.
Bridesmaids' Rose Byrne will be going through the motions as a newlywed in I Give it a Year, Zimbio reports. As if being newly married wasn't tough enough, the "too perfect" ex Anna Faris will be shaking up an already teetering balance.
Cate Blanchett will be stirring up her wicked ways as the evil stepmother in a live-action adaptation of Disney's Cinderella, also according to Zimbio.
And George Clooney is sticking to his winning formula by joining forces with his Argo team to produce an untitled crime drama, Variety reports.
Healthcare law will have new California Legislature scrambling
Label: BusinessSACRAMENTO — When state lawmakers are sworn in Monday for the new legislative session, they will have little time to enjoy the pomp and circumstance.
Facing a federal deadline, the Legislature must move quickly to pass measures to implement President Obama's healthcare law and revamp the state's insurance market. New legislation will help extend coverage to millions of uninsured Californians and solidify the state's reputation as a key laboratory for the federal law.
Legislative leaders have said they also want to overhaul environmental regulations, curb soaring tuition at public colleges, and tweak the state's tax structure and ballot-initiative system.
But healthcare remains one of the largest and most immediate challenges.
The federal Affordable Care Act takes effect in January 2014, when most Americans face the requirement to buy health insurance or pay a penalty. State lawmakers must pass a series of rules to clear the way for enrollment in a new state-run insurance market next fall, including a requirement for insurers to cover consumers who have preexisting medical conditions and limits on how much they can charge based on age.
Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to call a special session of the Legislature next month — concurrent with the regular session — so healthcare bills that he signs can take effect within 90 days rather than the next year.
"It's a very, very big undertaking to make the promise of the Affordable Care Act a reality," said state Health and Human Services Secretary Diana Dooley. "We are working as hard and as fast as we can in a very complex area with a lot of conflicting information."
As an early adopter of the Affordable Care Act, California has already laid much of the groundwork.
It was the first state to establish an insurance exchange after Congress passed the legislation in 2010. More than 30 other states have since sought federal help in enacting their own. Millions of Californians will be able to purchase coverage, with federal subsidies earmarked for families earning about $92,000 or less annually.
One of the most significant proposals will be an expansion of Medi-Cal, the state's health insurance program for the poor. About 2 million low-income Californians would be newly eligible under the expansion, with the federal government subsidizing costs for the first three years. The state would then shoulder a portion of the bill.
According to a Kaiser Family Foundation study, the expansion could cost the state $6.3 billion over a decade, meaning a 1.7% increase in the amount California spends on Medi-Cal.
California got a head start on the effort by signing up more than 550,000 low-income people in a temporary program. They are expected to automatically move into Medi-Cal in 2014.
Lawmakers will also consider legislation that would create a health plan for people who cannot afford insurance on the open market but make too much money to qualify for Medi-Cal. The option, known as the Basic Health Plan, would provide coverage for individuals with incomes between 133% and 200% of the federal poverty level, or between $15,000 and $21,800 a year.
State Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina), chairman of the Senate Health Committee and author of the proposal, said the plan was needed to help California's working poor. "I don't think they should be choosing between putting food on the table and buying health insurance," he said.
Insurers urged lawmakers to resist requirements that could make policies offered through the exchange unaffordable.
"We think the Affordable Care Act does much to get millions of people coverage, but new insurance taxes, costly benefit requirements and age pricing restrictions all have the potential of driving up costs," said Nicole Evans, a spokeswoman for the California Assn. of Health Plans.
Healthcare advocates said it was critical for the Legislature to promote policies that would ensure a mix of healthy and sick policyholders to keep premiums affordable.
"It should be a goal of the state to have millions of people enrolled on Day 1," said Anthony Wright, executive director of the consumer group Health Access California, "to bring in those federal dollars and make healthcare cheaper for everybody."
michael.mishak@latimes.com
After Death of Sattar Beheshti, Iranian Blogger, Head of Tehran’s Cybercrimes Unit Is Fired
Label: World
TEHRAN — Iranian’s national police chief fired the commander of Tehran’s cybercrimes police unit on Saturday for negligence in the death of a blogger in prison.
The dismissal of the commander, Gen. Saeed Shokrian, follows investigations by Parliament and Iran’s judiciary into the unexplained death of the blogger, Sattar Beheshti, 35, who died in early November just a few days after being arrested by the cybercrimes police unit, known here as FATA.
“Tehran’s FATA should be held responsible for the death of Sattar Beheshti,” said Iran’s national police chief, Ismael Ahmadi-Moqaddam, according to the Iranian Labor News Agency.
It is unclear whether General Shokrian will also face judicial charges over the blogger’s death.
The public nature of his dismissal suggests that he will bear most of the responsibility for the death. In similar cases in the past, officials have been punished, but it is rare for them to be named and publicly dismissed on the same day.
Mr. Beheshti’s Web site, My Life for My Iran, criticized Iran’s financial contributions to the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon. Mr. Beheshti posted pictures of Lebanese youths having parties alongside images of Iranians living in poverty.
The exact cause of Mr. Beheshti’s death remains murky. Mr. Ahmadi-Moqaddam said Tuesday that investigations had ruled out torture as a cause of death, saying it was possible that Mr. Beheshti, who in pictures looks big and strong, died of “psychological shock.”
Iranian activists and bloggers say Mr. Beheshti died of injuries following beatings. Iran’s judiciary spokesman, Gholam Hussein Mohseni-Ejei, recently admitted that Mr. Beheshti — while in prison — had lodged a written complaint against an interrogator, in which he accused the man of having beaten him during his detention in Tehran’s Evin prison.
“I, Sattar Beheshti, was arrested by FATA and beaten and tortured with multiple blows to my head and body,” read the document, published by the opposition Kalame Web site. He added, “If anything happens to me, the police are responsible.”
Mr. Ahmadi-Moqaddam said that Mr. Beheshti was given tranquilizers while in the prison’s clinic, but that when handed over to the cybercrimes unit its officers denied him the same tranquilizers. “This might be regarded as neglect,” he said. “However, there were no signs of beatings on his body.”
Official statements on the cause of death have been contradictory. An influential member of Parliament who earlier denied that Mr. Beheshti had been tortured in any way told the Tabnak Web site that the blogger had been beaten, but died of shock and fear.
“Definitely he was beaten inside the FATA detention center,” the lawmaker, Alaeddin Borujerdi, told the Web site, “but he didn’t die as a result of these beatings.” He also stressed that the cybercrimes unit must change the way it deals with prisoners.
Iranian activists who have been in contact with Mr. Beheshti’s family say his relatives were not allowed to see his body before a hurried funeral on Nov. 6 in his hometown, Robat Karim, 30 miles southwest of the capital, Tehran.
In Mr. Beheshti’s final post, on Oct. 29, a day before his arrest, he said he was being threatened by security officials. “They told me that if I didn’t close my big mouth my mother should prepare to wear black clothes,” for mourning.
The Iranian Parliament’s special investigator into the case, Mehdi Davatgari, said he welcomed the commander’s removal. “This move shows the civil rights of our citizens are our top priority,” he said.
Ashley Hebert and J.P. Rosenbaum Are Married
Label: Lifestyle
People Exclusive
J.P. Rosenbaum and Ashley Hebert
Victor Chavez/Getty
It’s official: Bachelorette star Ashley Hebert and her fiancé J.P. Rosenbaum tied the knot Saturday afternoon in Pasadena, Calif.
Surrounded by family, friends and fellow Bachelor and Bachelorette alumni like Ali Fedotowsky, Emily Maynard, and Jason and Molly Mesnick, the couple said "I do" in an outdoor ceremony officiated by franchise host Chris Harrison.
"Today is all about our friends and family," Hebert, whose nuptials will air Dec. 16 on a two-hour special on ABC, tells PEOPLE. "It's about standing with J.P., looking around at all the people we love in the same room there to celebrate our love."
The 28-year-old dentist from Madawaska, Maine, met New York construction manager Rosenbaum, 35, on season 7 of The Bachelorette. The couple became engaged on the season finale.
Hebert and Rosenbaum are the second couple in the franchise's 24 seasons to make it from their show finale to the altar, following in the footsteps of Bachelorette Trista Rehn, who married Vail, Colo., firefighter Ryan Sutter in 2003.
Asperger's dropped from revised diagnosis manual
Label: HealthCHICAGO (AP) — The now familiar term "Asperger's disorder" is being dropped. And abnormally bad and frequent temper tantrums will be given a scientific-sounding diagnosis called DMDD. But "dyslexia" and other learning disorders remain.
The revisions come in the first major rewrite in nearly 20 years of the diagnostic guide used by the nation's psychiatrists. Changes were approved Saturday.
Full details of all the revisions will come next May when the American Psychiatric Association's new diagnostic manual is published, but the impact will be huge, affecting millions of children and adults worldwide. The manual also is important for the insurance industry in deciding what treatment to pay for, and it helps schools decide how to allot special education.
This diagnostic guide "defines what constellations of symptoms" doctors recognize as mental disorders, said Dr. Mark Olfson, a Columbia University psychiatry professor. More important, he said, it "shapes who will receive what treatment. Even seemingly subtle changes to the criteria can have substantial effects on patterns of care."
Olfson was not involved in the revision process. The changes were approved Saturday in suburban Washington, D.C., by the psychiatric association's board of trustees.
The aim is not to expand the number of people diagnosed with mental illness, but to ensure that affected children and adults are more accurately diagnosed so they can get the most appropriate treatment, said Dr. David Kupfer. He chaired the task force in charge of revising the manual and is a psychiatry professor at the University of Pittsburgh.
One of the most hotly argued changes was how to define the various ranges of autism. Some advocates opposed the idea of dropping the specific diagnosis for Asperger's disorder. People with that disorder often have high intelligence and vast knowledge on narrow subjects but lack social skills. Some who have the condition embrace their quirkiness and vow to continue to use the label.
And some Asperger's families opposed any change, fearing their kids would lose a diagnosis and no longer be eligible for special services.
But the revision will not affect their education services, experts say.
The new manual adds the term "autism spectrum disorder," which already is used by many experts in the field. Asperger's disorder will be dropped and incorporated under that umbrella diagnosis. The new category will include kids with severe autism, who often don't talk or interact, as well as those with milder forms.
Kelli Gibson of Battle Creek, Mich., who has four sons with various forms of autism, said Saturday she welcomes the change. Her boys all had different labels in the old diagnostic manual, including a 14-year-old with Asperger's.
"To give it separate names never made sense to me," Gibson said. "To me, my children all had autism."
Three of her boys receive special education services in public school; the fourth is enrolled in a school for disabled children. The new autism diagnosis won't affect those services, Gibson said. She also has a 3-year-old daughter without autism.
People with dyslexia also were closely watching for the new updated doctors' guide. Many with the reading disorder did not want their diagnosis to be dropped. And it won't be. Instead, the new manual will have a broader learning disorder category to cover several conditions including dyslexia, which causes difficulty understanding letters and recognizing written words.
The trustees on Saturday made the final decision on what proposals made the cut; recommendations came from experts in several work groups assigned to evaluate different mental illnesses.
The revised guidebook "represents a significant step forward for the field. It will improve our ability to accurately diagnose psychiatric disorders," Dr. David Fassler, the group's treasurer and a University of Vermont psychiatry professor, said after the vote.
The shorthand name for the new edition, the organization's fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, is DSM-5. Group leaders said specifics won't be disclosed until the manual is published but they confirmed some changes. A 2000 edition of the manual made minor changes but the last major edition was published in 1994.
Olfson said the manual "seeks to capture the current state of knowledge of psychiatric disorders. Since 2000 ... there have been important advances in our understanding of the nature of psychiatric disorders."
Catherine Lord, an autism expert at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York who was on the psychiatric group's autism task force, said anyone who met criteria for Asperger's in the old manual would be included in the new diagnosis.
One reason for the change is that some states and school systems don't provide services for children and adults with Asperger's, or provide fewer services than those given an autism diagnosis, she said.
Autism researcher Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer for the advocacy group Autism Speaks, said small studies have suggested the new criteria will be effective. But she said it will be crucial to monitor so that children don't lose services.
Other changes include:
—A new diagnosis for severe recurrent temper tantrums — disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. Critics say it will medicalize kids' who have normal tantrums. Supporters say it will address concerns about too many kids being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with powerful psychiatric drugs. Bipolar disorder involves sharp mood swings and affected children are sometimes very irritable or have explosive tantrums.
—Eliminating the term "gender identity disorder." It has been used for children or adults who strongly believe that they were born the wrong gender. But many activists believe the condition isn't a disorder and say calling it one is stigmatizing. The term would be replaced with "gender dysphoria," which means emotional distress over one's gender. Supporters equated the change with removing homosexuality as a mental illness in the diagnostic manual, which happened decades ago.
___
AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner .
Israel Moves to Expand Settlements in East Jerusalem
Label: World
Ronen Zvulun/Reuters
A worker at a construction site in the West Bank Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, near Jerusalem, in June. Israel plans to link the settlement with Jerusalem. More Photos »
JERUSALEM — Israel is moving forward with development of Jewish settlements in a contentious area east of Jerusalem, defying the United States by advancing a project that has long been condemned by Washington as effectively dooming any prospect of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A day after the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to upgrade the status of the Palestinians, a senior Israeli official said the government would pursue “preliminary zoning and planning preparations” for a development that would separate the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem from Jerusalem. If such a project were to go beyond blueprints, it could prevent the creation of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state.
The development, in an open, mostly empty area known as E1, would connect the large settlement town of Maale Adumim to Jerusalem. Israeli officials also authorized construction of 3,000 housing units in parts of East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The timing of the twin actions seemed aimed at punishing the Palestinians for their United Nations bid, and appeared to show that hard-liners in the government had prevailed after days of debate over how to respond. That represented a surprising turnaround, after a growing sense that Israeli leaders had acceded to pressure from Washington not to react quickly or harshly.
The Obama administration swiftly condemned the move as unhelpful. Senior officials expressed frustration that it came after Israeli officials had played down the importance of the Palestinian bid and suggested that they would only employ harsh retaliatory measures if the Palestinians used their new status to go after Israel in the International Criminal Court.
“We reiterate our longstanding opposition to settlements and East Jerusalem construction and announcements,” a spokesman for the National Security Council, Tommy Vietor, said. “We believe these actions are counterproductive and make it harder to resume direct negotiations or achieve a two-state solution.”
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a Saban Forum speech on Friday night at a Washington hotel, criticized Israel’s decision to proceed with plans for construction without referring to any settlements directly by name. “These activities set back the cause of a negotiated peace,” Mrs. Clinton said.
Israel gave the United States only a few hours’ notice of the plan, and President Obama did not call Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a senior official said. For Mr. Obama, whose most bitter clashes with Mr. Netanyahu have come over settlements, the Israeli move could undermine a series of developments in recent weeks — from the violence in Gaza to the Palestinian vote — in which the two leaders appeared to draw closer together.
In her speech, Mrs. Clinton condemned the General Assembly vote as “a step that will not bring us any closer to peace,” and reiterated America’s deep commitment to Israel.
“America has Israel’s back,” she said, “and this month we proved it again.” After listing many ways in which the United States has supported Israel, Mrs. Clinton articulated the two-state vision, what she called the need for a “political horizon.”
“There is more the Israelis need to do,”she said, adding, “There is still an opportunity with the West Bank Palestinians” to have a different status quo that would be in Israel’s interest.For years, American and European officials have told the Israelis that E1 is a red line. The leaked, somewhat vague, announcement of plans to proceed with building is the diplomatic equivalent of what the Israeli military did last month when it massed tens of thousands of ground troops at the Gaza border. It is a potent threat that may well, in the end, not be carried out because the Israeli government worries about its consequences.
The Palestinian Authority described the plan as “a new act of defiance from the Israeli government.” Saeb Erekat, the chief negotiator, said in a statement, “At a moment where the Palestinian leadership is doing every single effort to save the two-state solution, the Israeli government does everything possible to destroy it.”
Mr. Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on the zoning and construction decisions, which were made Thursday night around the time of the General Assembly vote.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 30, 2012
An earlier version of this article misspelled the given name and surname of the leader of the Israeli Labor Party. She is Shelly Yacimovich, not Shelley Yachnimovich.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 30, 2012
An earlier version of this article misidentified the location of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Saban Forum speech in Washington. It was at a hotel, not at the Brookings Institution.
Average wireless bill increased 7% in 2012 , 70% of subscribers now own smartphones
Label: TechnologyWe all love our smartphones, but they are a costly addiction to support. According to Consumer Reports, American wireless subscribers saw their wireless bills increase by 7% between 2011 and 2012, and the big culprit is the continued proliferation of smartphones. Overall, 70% of wireless subscribers who took part in Consumer Reports’ survey owned smartphones this year, up from 50% in 2011. As the publication notes, “upgrading from a plain cell phone at a major carrier isn’t cheap” since “you have to buy the smart phone itself (usually $ 100 to $ 400 when signing a two-year contract) and fork over $ 70 to $ 110 a month for a plan with data service… a lot more than a basic phone plan, which generally costs $ 40 to $ 70 a month.”
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Dennis Quaid Files for Divorce, Seeks Joint Custody
Label: LifestyleKimberly Buffington-Quaid and Dennis Quaid
Casey Rodgers/NBC/AP
Dennis Quaid is ready to end his marriage for good.
After his wife of eight years, Kimberly Buffington-Quaid, sought legal separation in October, the Vegas star filed Friday for divorce in Los Angeles Superior Court.
The actor requests joint physical and legal custody of their 4-year-old twins, Thomas and Zoe, and offers to pay spousal support, according to the petition.
This will be the third divorce for Quaid, 58, who was previously married to Meg Ryan and P.J. Soles.
Kimberly, a former real estate agent, initially filed for divorce in March. She
put the divorce on hold a month later, pulling the papers so they could work on their marriage, before then filing for separation.
General Assembly Grants Palestine Upgraded Status in U.N.
Label: World
Damon Winter/The New York Times
The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, center, was congratulated by Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. More Photos »
UNITED NATIONS — More than 130 countries voted on Thursday to upgrade Palestine to a nonmember observer state of the United Nations, a triumph for Palestinian diplomacy and a sharp rebuke to the United States and Israel.
But the vote, at least for now, did little to bring either the Palestinians or the Israelis closer to the goal they claim to seek: two states living side by side, or increased Palestinian unity. Israel and the militant group Hamas both responded critically to the day’s events, though for different reasons.
The new status will give the Palestinians more tools to challenge Israel in international legal forums for its occupation activities in the West Bank, including settlement-building, and it helped bolster the Palestinian Authority, weakened after eight days of battle between its rival Hamas and Israel.
But even as a small but determined crowd of 2,000 celebrated in central Ramallah in the West Bank, waving flags and dancing, there was an underlying sense of concerned resignation.
“I hope this is good,” said Munir Shafie, 36, an electrical engineer who was there. “But how are we going to benefit?”
Still, the General Assembly vote — 138 countries in favor, 9 opposed and 41 abstaining — showed impressive backing for the Palestinians at a difficult time. It was taken on the 65th anniversary of the vote to divide the former British mandate of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, a vote Israel considers the international seal of approval for its birth.
The past two years of Arab uprisings have marginalized the Palestinian cause to some extent as nations that focused their political aspirations on the Palestinian struggle have turned inward. The vote on Thursday, coming so soon after the Gaza fighting, put the Palestinians again — if briefly, perhaps — at the center of international discussion.
“The question is, where do we go from here and what does it mean?” Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, who was in New York for the vote, said in an interview. “The sooner the tough rhetoric of this can subside and the more this is viewed as a logical consequence of many years of failure to move the process forward, the better.” He said nothing would change without deep American involvement.
President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, speaking to the assembly’s member nations, said, “The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the state of Palestine,” and he condemned what he called Israeli racism and colonialism. His remarks seemed aimed in part at Israel and in part at Hamas. But both quickly attacked him for the parts they found offensive.
“The world watched a defamatory and venomous speech that was full of mendacious propaganda against the Israel Defense Forces and the citizens of Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel responded. “Someone who wants peace does not talk in such a manner.”
While Hamas had officially backed the United Nations bid of Mr. Abbas, it quickly criticized his speech because the group does not recognize Israel.
“There are controversial issues in the points that Abbas raised, and Hamas has the right to preserve its position over them,” said Salah al-Bardaweel, a spokesman for Hamas in Gaza, on Thursday.
“We do not recognize Israel, nor the partition of Palestine, and Israel has no right in Palestine,” he added. “Getting our membership in the U.N. bodies is our natural right, but without giving up any inch of Palestine’s soil.”
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, spoke after Mr. Abbas and said he was concerned that the Palestinian Authority failed to recognize Israel for what it is.
“Three months ago, Israel’s prime minister stood in this very hall and extended his hand in peace to President Abbas,” Mr. Prosor said. “He reiterated that his goal was to create a solution of two states for two peoples, where a demilitarized Palestinian state will recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
“That’s right. Two states for two peoples. In fact, President Abbas, I did not hear you use the phrase ‘two states for two peoples’ this afternoon. In fact, I have never heard you say the phrase ‘two states for two peoples’ because the Palestinian leadership has never recognized that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people.”
The Israelis also say that the fact that Mr. Abbas is not welcome in Gaza, the Palestinian coastal enclave run by Hamas, from which he was ejected five years ago, shows that there is no viable Palestinian leadership living up to its obligations now.
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