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Affleck and Garner married

Hollywood heartthrob Ben Affleck has married his girlfriend actress Jennifer Garner, who is expecting their first child, at a secret ceremony in the Caribbean, US Weekly reported. The pair of stars, who have been dating for around a year, tied the knot in the idyllic Turks and Caicos islands last Wednesday and are expecting their baby before the end of the year, the publication said. Oscar-winning Goodwill Hunting screenwriter and actor Affleck, 32, popped the question to Garner in April and reports that she was pregnant first surfaced in May.

Backstreet boy arrested for drunk driving

Backstreet Boys singer Nick Carter has been slapped with a US$1,200 fine and ordered to attend an alcohol education course after pleading guilty to drunk driving, prosecutors said. The 25-year-old heartthrob frontman of the famed boy band was also put on three years' probation and had his driving privileges restricted for 90 days, according to Orange County Deputy District Attorney Tate McCallister. Carter's attorney entered a standard first-time guilty plea on the musician's behalf last week, McCallister said. The singer was arrested in Orange Country, southeast of Los Angeles, on March 5 and charged with drink driving. "Nick Carter deeply regrets the current situation," his publicist Juliette Harris told E! Entertainment News. "He is on doctor-prescribed medication and was unaware of its interaction possibilities."

`Bad boy' Bobby Brown to hit airwaves Ozzy-style

Diva Whitney Houston's "bad boy" husband Bobby Brown is taking a cue from singers including Ozzy Osbourne and Britney Spears by taking to the airwaves with his own reality television series. Being Bobby Brown, which premieres Thursday on the US Bravo channel, follows the turbulent Brown, his superstar wife and their extended family over the course of six months as they battle their very public woes. Brown was one of the hottest rhythm-and-blues acts in the late 1980s and early 90s, but has become better known as the husband of the star of "bodyguard" and for his frequent brushes with drugs and the law. Bravo said the show would "demystify Brown's relationships" with Houston, their 11-year-old daughter, Bobbi Kristina, his two children from previous relationships and his brother Tommy, Bobby's personal manager.

Ronald Reagan named `Greatest American'

US television viewers handed Ronald Reagan the title of "Greatest American" ahead of legendary president and national savior Abraham Lincoln and civil rights trailblazer Martin Luther King Jr. Reagan, who died last year at the age of 93, headed a list of 25 contenders sorted by votes of 3 million viewers in a live finale to the Discovery Channel/AOL Greatest American campaign. Supporters credit Reagan, dubbed "The Great Communicator" who served as president from 1981 to 1989 with winning the Cold War and restoring American morale after a string of foreign policy reverses. Opponents, however, contend that Reagan's legacy has been boosted artificially by supporters since he left office.

Warner Bros settles over `Dukes of Hazard'

Hollywood's Warner Bros studios will pay US$17.5 million to settle a breach-of-copyright lawsuit that threatened to block the release of its Dukes of Hazzard movie. The 11th-hour agreement by the movie powerhouse to fork out the huge sum to film producer Robert Clark came after a judge barred the studio from releasing its US$55-million movie on Aug. 13 unless the case was settled, industry publications said. Clark had claimed that Warners had infringed on the copyright of his obscure 1974 film Moonrunners, which became the basis of the hit Warner television series, The Dukes of Hazzard, which led to the upcoming feature.

Chinese calligrapher dies at 93

Chinese intellectuals and art connoisseurs are mourning the passing of master calligrapher Qi Gong (啟功) at the age of 93, state media reported last Friday. "His passing is a great loss to China, and to the world of traditional art and calligraphy," Wu Shuqing, a leading art critic, was quoted as saying by the China Daily. Qi, whose family was from the Manchu minority, died Thursday. He was revered for more than half a century as one of the foremost calligraphers in China.

Da Vinci work revealed with infrared

A previously unknown work by Leonardo da Vinci has been discovered. The National Gallery in Britain owns it. Visitors will never be able to see it. The Guardian reported that the drawing of a kneeling woman, one arm folded, the other outflung, emerged when an infrared camera was trained on Leonardo's Madonna of the Rocks, in the first scientific study of the 500-year-old painting. Visible beneath layers of paint, the sketch was probably intended as a Madonna gazing down on a sleeping infant, which was never drawn. Rachel Billinge, the researcher who led the National Gallery project, said the quality of the drawing was "beautiful -- it was all coming together to make a wonderful picture." Madonna of the Rocks was commissioned by the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception in 1483 as an altarpiece for a chapel in Milan. Scholars believe that when Leonardo sought a bonus and was refused, he sold the painting to another client. (It is now at the Louvre.) The Confraternity continued to demand an altarpiece. Leonardo began a different painting, and scholars believe the Confraternity insisted on a Madonna of the Rocks, so in 1508 he delivered a second version, held today by the National Gallery.
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