Tag Archives: california

Robert Pattinson Drives ‘Intense’ Bidding On Charity Auction Website

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on Robert Pattinson Drives ‘Intense’ Bidding On Charity Auction Website

One fan pays $80,000 to meet RPattz on the set of ‘Breaking Dawn.’ By Jocelyn Vena Robert Pattinson Photo: Kevin Winter/ Getty Images This week, a fan paid $80,000 in a charity auction through CharityBuzz to meet Robert Pattinson and get to visit the set of “Breaking Dawn.” And while it comes as no surprise that fans were clamoring for the chance to get up close and personal with the actor, Glenda Luft, director of communications for the site, told MTV News the bidding war was more intense than they could have ever imagined. “Bidding was definitely intense!” she told MTV News. “The package was hovering at $47,000 for a few days and then at $67,000, but we were so thrilled to see it jump to $80,000 in the very last moments of the auction.” So how did it all come together? “Summit Entertainment put the auction package together to raise funds for the GO Campaign, which empowers vulnerable children and orphans around the world,” she explained. “Summit included the incredibly rare opportunity to visit the set of ‘Twilight: Breaking Dawn’ in Vancouver for four people total, with hotel accommodations at a deluxe executive suite at the elite Four Seasons Hotel in Vancouver and VIP limousine service to and from the ‘Breaking Dawn’ set. As if that wasn’t enough, Summit also promised the winner an opportunity to meet Robert Pattinson on set!” There was one major stipulation: “The fans will need to be on their best behavior, as there is a strict conduct code to act in a ‘responsible and appropriate manner at all times during the experience.’ ” The fan might be excited, but so is the charity. “The GO Campaign was thrilled when we learned we’d have this ‘Twilight’ auction item because of all the good work it will help us accomplish,” Scott Fifer, executive director of the GO Campaign, said in a statement. “The funds raised will help us support tens of thousands of children around the world.” While they couldn’t share anything about the winner, Luft did share that Pattinson’s popularity made him one of the biggest auctions of the year — but he was beat by a Beatle. “This is one of our top celebrity auctions of the season, but not the highest in CharityBuzz’s history,” she said. “Yesterday, we auctioned the chance to meet Paul McCartney for $130,000!” Luft added that other big auctions on the site right now include chances to meet Prince William, U2’s The Edge and Taylor Swift. Check out everything we’ve got on “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1.” For young Hollywood news, fashion and “Twilight” updates around the clock, visit HollywoodCrush.MTV.com . Related Photos The Evolution Of: Robert Pattinson

Read more from the original source:
Robert Pattinson Drives ‘Intense’ Bidding On Charity Auction Website

Comments Off on Robert Pattinson Drives ‘Intense’ Bidding On Charity Auction Website

Posted in Celebrities, Gossip, Hollywood, Music

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Miley Cyrus Isn’t Breaking The Law In Bong Video, Experts Say

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on Miley Cyrus Isn’t Breaking The Law In Bong Video, Experts Say

Video allegedly shows her smoking salvia, which is legal in California. By James Montgomery Miley Cyrus Photo: Frank Micelotta/ Getty Images By now, you’ve probably seen the video of Miley Cyrus allegedly smoking salvia from a bong , and you’re probably wondering whether she might face legal repercussions as a result of the clip. According to organizations on either side of the ongoing war over drug legalization, the answer is no. “[The video] might be embarrassing to her, but it does not put her in any legal risk,” Keith Stroup, legal counsel at the marijuana advocacy group NORML, told MTV News on Friday (December 10). “At the moment, [salvia] is not illegal in California, so even if she walked out on the street and smoked it in front of police, she couldn’t be arrested. And the video of her smoking isn’t enough to get her in trouble, because there’s no proof she wasn’t smoking tobacco.” “Salvia is a drug of concern,” said Michael Sanders, a spokesperson for the Drug Enforcement Agency. “We are taking steps to look further into it, but for right now, it is not a schedule-one narcotic.” Under the Controlled Substance Act, U.S. drug policy assigns narcotics into five different “schedules” — marijuana is a schedule-one drug, as it has “a high potential for abuse … [and] no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States,” cocaine is a schedule two, etc. — which are determined by two federal agencies: the DEA and the Food and Drug Administration. The DEA does not currently list salvia, an herb that, when smoked, provides a powerful psychoactive punch, though several states have made it illegal. In California, where the Cyrus video was allegedly shot, it is illegal to provide salvia to minors; however, it is legal for them to possess it. Since the Cyrus video was not only allegedly shot in California but was also done so five days after her 18th birthday (according to TMZ), the pop star wasn’t breaking any laws. Though, as Stroup put it, all of that may change soon. “Until recently, [salvia] was perfectly legal, frankly because no one paid attention to it. It’s only after a little attention was paid to it in the media that states begin passing legislation about it,” he said. “Drug policy in this country is, by a large part, based on a social response or a political response, but the bottom line is, they don’t want people getting high.” Related Artists Miley Cyrus

Go here to see the original:
Miley Cyrus Isn’t Breaking The Law In Bong Video, Experts Say

Comments Off on Miley Cyrus Isn’t Breaking The Law In Bong Video, Experts Say

Posted in Celebrities, Gossip, Hollywood, Music

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Mounting State Debts Stoke Fears of a Looming Crisis

Posted on December 5, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on Mounting State Debts Stoke Fears of a Looming Crisis

The State of Illinois is still paying off billions in bills that it got from schools and social service providers last year. Arizona recently stopped paying for certain organ transplants for people in its Medicaid program. States are releasing prisoners early, more to cut expenses than to reward good behavior. And in Newark, the city laid off 13 percent of its police officers last week. Yuki Scott, right, watched her daughter and other children one Friday last May in Hawaii, because the school year was shortened by 17 days. While next year could be even worse, there are bigger, longer-term risks, financial analysts say. Their fear is that even when the economy recovers, the shortfalls will not disappear, because many state and local governments have so much debt — several trillion dollars’ worth, with much of it off the books and largely hidden from view — that it could overwhelm them in the next few years. “It seems to me that crying wolf is probably a good thing to do at this point,” said Felix Rohatyn, the financier who helped save New York City from bankruptcy in the 1970s. Some of the same people who warned of the looming subprime crisis two years ago are ringing alarm bells again. Their message: Not just small towns or dying Rust Belt cities, but also large states like Illinois and California are increasingly at risk. Municipal bankruptcies or defaults have been extremely rare — no state has defaulted since the Great Depression, and only a handful of cities have declared bankruptcy or are considering doing so. But the finances of some state and local governments are so distressed that some analysts say they are reminded of the run-up to the subprime mortgage meltdown or of the debt crisis hitting nations in Europe. Analysts fear that at some point — no one knows when — investors could balk at lending to the weakest states, setting off a crisis that could spread to the stronger ones, much as the turmoil in Europe has spread from country to country. Mr. Rohatyn warned that while municipal bankruptcies were rare, they appeared increasingly possible. And the imbalances are so large in some places that the federal government will probably have to step in at some point, he said, even if that seems unlikely in the current political climate. “I don’t like to play the scared rabbit, but I just don’t see where the end of this is,” he added. Story continues here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/us/politics/05states.html?src=me&ref=us http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/12/05/us/05states_graphic2/05states_gra… added by: ThatCrazyLibertarian

Comments Off on Mounting State Debts Stoke Fears of a Looming Crisis

Posted in Celebrities, Hot Stuff, News

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Top secret American spy plane returns to Earth after seven months… but U.S. still won’t say what it was doing in space

Posted on December 4, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on Top secret American spy plane returns to Earth after seven months… but U.S. still won’t say what it was doing in space

The U.S.'s first unmanned re-entry spacecraft landed at an airfield today, seven months after it was launched.The X-37B's exact purpose remained shrouded in secrecy when it touched-down at at Vandenberg Air Force Base on the California coast 130 miles north west of Los Angeles. LINK : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1335526/X-37B-secret-unmanned-… added by: GoldenHeart

Comments Off on Top secret American spy plane returns to Earth after seven months… but U.S. still won’t say what it was doing in space

Posted in Celebrities, Hot Stuff, News

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Taylor Swift and Jake Gyllenhaal: A Timeline Of Their Romance

Posted on December 3, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on Taylor Swift and Jake Gyllenhaal: A Timeline Of Their Romance

Five weeks and many lattes later, we look back on the budding romance between the country superstar and the A-list heartthrob. By Jocelyn Vena Taylor Swift and Jake Gyllenhaal Photo: Getty Images Five weeks and many coffee-runs later, Taylor Swift and Jake Gyllenhaal appear to be the real deal. The couple have been spotted across the country, grabbing lattes and canoodling. And the latest issue of US Weekly proclaims the pair are “in love.” So MTV News decided to look back on how the budding romance got started. It all kicked off in late October when Swift and Gyllenhaal stopped by “Saturday Night Live” in support of that night’s host, Swift’s bestie, Emma Stone. Swift and Gyllenhaal followed the hangout session with a lunch date in Brooklyn , where they were also joined by Stone. Shortly after that first sighting, Swift sat down with Ellen DeGeneres and danced around the rumors, saying only, “I’m always optimistic about love.” Then in early November, Jake and Taylor were spotted in Big Sur, California, lounging by a pool and getting sundaes at McConnell’s ice cream shop. One source said, “Taylor laughed at everything Jake said,” and added that the pair seemed “happy” and “friendly.” What initially appeared to be a casual fling seemed to heat up as rumors hit the Net in mid-November that Gyllenhaal had rented a private jet to fly Swift out to the U.K. to hang out while he promoted “Love and Other Drugs.” That date, however, was far more costly than a few scoops of ice cream as it reportedly cost the Hollywood heartthrob more than $150,000. Still, Gyllenhaal’s “Other Drugs” co-star Anne Hathaway brushed off the romance rumors. For Thanksgiving, Taylor and Jake returned to Brooklyn, where they spent the weekend visiting Jake’s sister, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and husband Peter Sarsgaard. Maggie later said spending the holiday with the pop star was “great.” The new couple then headed to Nashville, where they were repeatedly spotted, yes, getting coffee and strolling arm in arm. While Swift continues to remain mum on the subject, she recently gave a review of Gyllenhaal’s latest flick, describing “Love and Other Drugs” as “a good movie.” When pressed for more details about Jake, she said, “I write in great detail about my personal life, but I don’t talk about it.” What do you think of Taylor and Jake dating? Do they make a good couple? Tell us in the comments! Related Artists Taylor Swift

See the rest here:
Taylor Swift and Jake Gyllenhaal: A Timeline Of Their Romance

Comments Off on Taylor Swift and Jake Gyllenhaal: A Timeline Of Their Romance

Posted in Celebrities, Gossip, Hollywood, Music

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Octomom Told to Pay Up or GTFO By New Year’s

Posted on December 3, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on Octomom Told to Pay Up or GTFO By New Year’s

The man who holds the note to Octomom’s house is once again saying how he’s fed up with her games, and now wants her to pay $450,000 by January 1. Plus interest, natch. Amer Haddadin says he’s been more than understanding when Nadya Suleman fell behind in making her monthly payments, but, well, enough is enough. Octomom can run, but she … wait, she can run? A $450,000 balloon payment has been looming over the mother of 14 for months … it becomes due every time she falls behind on California mortgage payments. Amer, who planned to publicly shame her the last time this happened, only to have her scrape together the cash last minute, says she’s fallen behind once again. Guy served Octomom’s lawyer with a letter demanding Nads pay the full $450,000 balance plus interest by December 31 or get out of her La Habra home. She scraped up the cash last time somehow … can she do it again?!?

Read the original:
Octomom Told to Pay Up or GTFO By New Year’s

Comments Off on Octomom Told to Pay Up or GTFO By New Year’s

Posted in Celebrities, Gossip

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

NASA Discovers New Form of Life

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on NASA Discovers New Form of Life

Hours before their special news conference today, the cat is out of the bag: NASA has discovered a completely new life form that doesn't share the biological building blocks of anything currently living in planet Earth. This changes everything. At their conference today, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. Instead of using phosphorus, the bacteria uses arsenic. All life on Earth is made of six components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Our DNA blocks are all the same. But not this one. This one is completely different. Discovered in the poisonous Mono Lake, California, this bacteria is made of arsenic, something that was thought to be completely impossible. While she and other scientists theorized that this could be possible, this is the first discovery. The implications of this discovery are enormous to our understanding of life itself and the possibility of finding beings in other planets that don't have to be like planet Earth. No details have been disclosed about the origin or nature of this new life form. We will know more today at 2pm EST but, while this life hasn't been found in another planet, this discovery does indeed change everything we know about biology, and in the astrobiology of the Milky Way and beyond: The universe suddenly becomes alive with potential life forms in the trillions of possible planets in galaxies known and unknown. And that's without counting yesterday's announcement on the discovery of a massive number of red dwarf stars, which may harbor trillion of Earths. http://gizmodo.com/5704158/nasa-finds-new-life added by: pjacobs51

Comments Off on NASA Discovers New Form of Life

Posted in Celebrities, Hot Stuff, News

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Heather Locklear Hospitalized — Bacterial Infection

Posted on December 1, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on Heather Locklear Hospitalized — Bacterial Infection

Filed under: Heather Locklear , Nurse! Heather Locklear is currently hospitalized in California after coming down with a bacterial infection … TMZ has learned. Locklear’s rep confirms … the actress is now on antibiotics and will be released from the hospital later today. Heather had just… Read more

See the original post here:
Heather Locklear Hospitalized — Bacterial Infection

Comments Off on Heather Locklear Hospitalized — Bacterial Infection

Posted in Celebrities, Gossip, Hot Stuff

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Rihanna, Chris Brown Tweet About 2009 Assault

Posted on November 29, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on Rihanna, Chris Brown Tweet About 2009 Assault

‘People won’t stop asking about it!’ Rihanna complains on Twitter. By Jayson Rodriguez Rihanna and Chris Brown in 2008 Photo: Frank Micelotta/ Getty Images Chris Brown and Rihanna have moved on from their rocky relationship, and the two singers took to Twitter over the weekend to urge their fans and the media to get onboard. The messages started when a fan of Rihanna’s asked the singer to avoid speaking about her relationship with Brown, which ended in February 2009 after Brown assaulted Rihanna on the eve of the Grammy Awards. Rihanna was more than open to responding to the inquiry. “AGREED! People won’t stop asking about it! It’s f—in’ annoying! Nobody wants to relive that, but some ppl can’t respect that!” she wrote . “I get it,” Rihanna continued in her next message . “They wanna raise awareness to young girls! But it ends up just making me look bitter, pitiful, spiteful and angry!” Since Brown and Rihanna’s altercation, which left her battered and bruised and him on probation and sentenced to 180 of community labor, which he’s already completed, the two have been ordered to stay away from each other by a California judge. They’ve each sat down in various interviews to discuss the night in question, with Brown visiting Larry King and MTV News’ Sway Calloway, and Rihanna opening up to Diane Sawyer. Each, however, has moved on. Rihanna is dating baseball player Matt Kemp and Brown has regained his pop culture footing following a heartfelt Michael Jackson tribute during the BET Awards . Brown also sent a message to his and Rihanna’s fans on Twitter asking that “Team Breezy” and the “Rihanna Navy” make nice with each other. “Y’all starting to sound extremely childish! #teambreezy and #rihannanavy It’s pointless,” he wrote. “Love team breezy & thank you rihannanavy for supporting ya girl.” Related Videos Chris Brown And Rihanna: The Aftermath Related Photos Rihanna And Chris Brown: A Photo Timeline Related Artists Chris Brown Rihanna

See more here:
Rihanna, Chris Brown Tweet About 2009 Assault

Comments Off on Rihanna, Chris Brown Tweet About 2009 Assault

Posted in Celebrities, Gossip, Hollywood, Music

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Will California Rush to Mine Gold Again?

Posted on November 28, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on Will California Rush to Mine Gold Again?

photo: goldrushfieldtrips.com California has a history rich in gold, but despite sky high prices, the gold mining industry doesn’t seem positioned for a revival in the state. The price of gold is more than $1363 an ounce, causing some folks in areas near historic lodes to clamor for a renewed mining industry in California. But cultural attitudes have shifted, and residents concerned about the environmental impacts and effects on tourism seem more inclined to preserve mining as a relict of the past. … Read the full story on TreeHugger

Go here to see the original:
Will California Rush to Mine Gold Again?

Comments Off on Will California Rush to Mine Gold Again?

Posted in Hot Stuff, News

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,