As a superstar Tom Cruise vaunts his romance with actress Katie Holmes, but Americans are extremely sceptical about whether the feted relationship is true love or an extravagant publicity stunt.
As the Top Gun heart-throb, 42, makes a series of giddy public appearances to proclaim his new love for the 26-year-old actress, fans and media suspect the much-publicized affair has more to do with the upcoming release of two new films starring Cruise and Holmes.
An unscientific poll by People magazine indicated that 63 percent of readers believe the romance is a publicity stunt, while only 37 percent believe the pair are genuinely in love.
PHOTO: AP
"Through all the changes that have swept Hollywood over the years, one thing still endures: strategic love," said a columnist in the New York Times this week.
The coupling of stars to create ballyhoo for a movie, burnish an actor's image, create a name or distract attention from other relationships may not be as common as when the movie studios tightly controlled stars' careers through the 1950s, some publicists and film industry experts assert.
As it happens, Cruise is the star of Steven Spielberg's big-budget War of the Worlds, due for release on June 29, while Holmes, coincidentally, is set to make her big-screen debut in Batman Begins,which opens June 15.
The twice-married Cruise, whose
storied marriage to Australian star Nicole Kidman collapsed in 2001, gave an extraordinary performance as a smitten lover on US television queen Oprah Winfrey's show this week.
In the appearance, an uncharacteristically emotive and exuberant Cruise repeatedly jumped up and down on a sofa, laughed uproariously, threw his hands in the air and yelled: "I'm in love! I'm in love!"
Jackson's latest video
A videotape of the first police interview with Michael Jackson's young accuser can be shown to jurors at his child molestation trial, the judge ruled on Thursday, setting the stage for another face-to-face meeting between the pop star and the 15-year-old boy.
Defense lawyers say if prosecutors show the videotape, in which the boy tells of sexual abuse by Jackson, they will call him back to the witness stand for cross-examination -- along with his mother, a psychologist who interviewed him before police, and the family's then-attorney, Larry Feldman.
Jolie and Pitt didn't do it
Movie sex symbol Angelina Jolie poured cold water on the rumors of a romance with leading man Brad Pitt, telling Marie Claire magazine in an upcoming issue that the two are not intimate. "Absolutely not," the star of the upcoming action flick Mr & Mrs Smith, in which Pitt co-stars, told Marie Claire when asked if she had sex with Pitt.
New American idol
Nearly 30 million viewers tuned in to see country singer Carrie Underwood crowned the latest winner on Fox television's American Idol,capping the most watched season yet for the prime-time talent contest.
The two-hour Idol finale topped the last night of the 2004 to 2005 TV season with 29.4 million viewers overall, including about 15.8 million aged 18 to 49 -- the young-adult audience most coveted by advertisers, Nielsen Media Research reported on Thursday.
Paper, Stiller, Rock
They are old friends who normally praise one another, but when Chris Rock and Ben Stiller don animal hides for their new animated movie Madagascar, the gloves come off. "I don't really admire Ben," said Rock, smiling broadly when asked what he likes best about Stiller's comedy.
Motley Crue fights ban
Motley Crue has sued NBC in Los Angeles federal court, accusing the network of banning the heavy metal band from its television programs to curry favor with federal regulators cracking down on indecency.
Motley Crue, best known for 1980s hits like Girls, Girls, Girls,was banned from appearing on NBC after its lead singer, Vince Neil, used a profanity during a New Year's Eve broadcast of last year on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, according to court papers.
Pavarotti
Italian opera star Luciano Pavarotti will bring his tenor voice to a global anti-poverty campaign, using his concerts in Ireland this week to urge his audiences to back the cause, a UN official said Thursday.
Pavarotti has offered to show, during his concerts Thursday and Saturday, several short films on the Millennium Development Goals "to call on his audiences to take action to reach the targets" of the campaign, said Eveline Herfkens, UN chief Kofi Annan's executive coordinator for the campaign.
The films will also be shown at more than 40 concerts during his global farewell tour this year and next. Pavarotti has been a UN "Messenger of Peace" since 1998.
In 2000, UN members agreed to the Millennium Development Goals of slashing poverty in half by 2015.
"We are the first generation that can end poverty," Herfkens said.
`Star wars' and the pirates
US law enforcers said on Wednesday that they have shut down a computer network that distributed illegal copies of Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith before it appeared in movie theaters. Federal agents executed 10 search warrants and seized the main server computer in a network that allowed people to download nearly 18,000 movies and software programs, including many current releases, the FBI and Homeland Security Department said.
Ajay Verma, a consultant gastroenterologist at Kettering general hospital in Northamptonshire, says our gut is a “complex machine.” “It is constantly providing us with the nutrition we need, initially to grow and develop, and then for us to survive, thrive and repair from injury and illness.” How can we keep it functioning well? Put simply: “Make sure what you put into it is balanced, and that you clear out its waste products adequately,” Verma says. “In a general gastroenterology clinic, the most common conditions we see are irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), gastroesophageal reflux disease, inflammatory bowel disease and constipation,” says Nisha
The arithmetic is straightforward and uncomfortable. By the end of 2025, Taiwan had committed itself to a 50-30-20 electricity mix — half natural gas, 30 per cent coal, 20 per cent renewables. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’s (MOEA) own monthly energy reports tell a different story. Natural gas reached 47.8 per cent of generation last year. Coal stood at 35.4 per cent, comfortably above its target ceiling. Renewables came in at 13.1 per cent, well short of the 20 per cent Taipei had pledged a decade earlier. Installed renewable capacity reached roughly half of the 12 gigawatts (GW) the government
Taiwan’s drone exports are taking off, fuelled by the war in Ukraine, as Taiwanese companies seek a stake in the fast-growing global market for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Low-cost drones used for reconnaissance and strikes are in high demand as governments around the world boost defense spending in the face of intensifying conflicts. A relative new player in the increasingly competitive industry, Taiwan’s pitch is to be an “Asian hub” for the production of UAVs and components free of Chinese materials, or “non-red.” That means its UAVs can be up to three times more expensive than their Chinese competitors, like the world’s biggest
There are shadowy cabals plotting to sell out Taiwan to be annexed by China, by invasion if necessary. Fortunately, they are buffoons. In 2019, former Bamboo Union gangster and founder of the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP), Chang An-le (張安樂, colorfully known as “White Wolf”), led a protest at the Legislative Yuan against comments made by then-premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) that in the event of an attack by China, he would never surrender, but would protect the nation by fighting to the end, even if he only had a broom. Chang had party members bring a wooden casket that they
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