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Millionaire socialite Paris Hilton has jumped into the US election campaign, calling Republican candidate John McCain a “wrinkly white-haired guy” and offering her own energy policy.

The blonde Hilton, dressed in a leopard print swim suit and gold pumps, jokingly declared her own candidacy in a video posted on the Web site Funny or Die, saying: “I want America to know that I’m, like, totally ready to lead.”

She was responding to a television ad by McCain, 71, that used her image to attack Democratic rival Barack Obama.

The 27-year-old socialite said McCain’s use of her in the ad, which sought to undermine Obama by likening his popularity to her celebrity, had effectively put her in the race for the top US office.

Pretending to take time off from reading a travel magazine as she leaned back on a lounge chair, Hilton insinuated herself into the hot issue between Obama and McCain — how to solve the US energy crisis.

“We can do limited offshore drilling with strict environmental oversight while creating tax incentives to get Detroit making hybrid and electric cars,” Hilton simpered, drawing on suggestions from both candidates.

Hilton, a tabloid favorite who gained fame from a notorious home-made sex tape, offered to paint the White House pink and threw down the gauntlet to McCain and Obama.

“I’ll see you at the debates, bitches,” she said.

Hilton’s mother, a McCain donor, had lambasted as a complete waste of money the Republican candidate’s advertisement using her daughter’s image.

“It is a complete waste of the country’s time and attention at the very moment when millions of people are losing their homes and their jobs. And it is a completely frivolous way to choose the next President of the United States,” she wrote on the political Web site Huffington Post.

The daughter of the “King of Rock ’n’ Roll” Elvis Presley is pregnant with twins, her spokeswoman said last week.

Lisa Marie Presley, 40, angrily confirmed her pregnancy in March after the publication of paparazzi photos that showed her expanding waistline.

Presley married her fourth husband Michael Lockwood, a musician and her producer, in January 2006 in Japan. Her two children, age 19 and 15, are from her first marriage to Danny Keough.

Presley was also married to “King of Pop” Michael Jackson for a year-and-a-half, and was then married briefly to actor Nicolas Cage in 2002.

Elvis was also a twin; his brother Jesse Garon died at birth in 1935.

The world’s biggest-selling heavy metal group Metallica will unveil their latest album next month, their Web site said last week, in what promises to be the biggest release this year for hard-rock fans.

Following up on their last album St Anger, released in 2003 to largely disappointing reviews, the new record Death Magnetic is to be distributed worldwide on Sept. 12.

“Without doubt, the biggest metal event this year is going to be the release of Metallica’s new album,” said magazine Metal Hammer in June in a positive pre-release review of six tracks on the album.

On a sadder note, comedian and actor Bernie Mac, who had been hospitalized for pneumonia, died on Saturday at a Chicago area hospital, his spokeswoman said.

Publicist Danica Smith confirmed the death in a statement but gave no further details.

Mac, 50, was reported to have been in stable condition on Thursday and his release from the hospital was expected in weeks. Smith had said Mac’s bout with pneumonia was unrelated to his previous diagnosis of a chronic tissue inflammation, called sarcoidosis, which has been in remission since 2005.

Mac was best known for his roles in the Ocean’s Eleven trilogy and other films, including Guess Who and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.

His US television sitcom The Bernie Mac Show, which ran for five seasons until 2006 on the Fox network, earned Mac two Emmy and two Golden Globe nominations.

Mac first achieved national prominence after joining the Kings of Comedy stand-up tour in 1997 with Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley and Cedric the Entertainer, tapping into an underserved market for middle-class blacks.

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