Socialite Nicole Richie, whose rail-thin appearance in recent photos has stoked tabloid speculation of an eating disorder, has checked into a treatment facility to address her inability to gain weight, her publicist said.
“She is working with a team of doctors and specialists whose focus is nutrition,” spokeswoman Nicole Perna said in a statement. “It is important to Nicole that she achieves this goal in a healthy way as this is not a treatment for an eating disorder.”
Richie, the 25-year-old daughter of singer Lionel Richie, has publicly acknowledged her obvious loss of weight in recent months, telling Vanity Fair magazine: “I know I'm too thin right now. ... I'm not happy with the way I look.”
And she told People magazine that “stress” over the breakup with her former fiance had briefly affected her eating habits. But she has vehemently denied as “rumor” media reports suggesting she suffered from an eating disorder.
Her admission to the unidentified facility has forced a delay in production of the latest installment of her popular TV reality show, A Simple Life, producers said.
Also making news last week was rapper and actor Snoop Dogg, who was arrested after airport police said they found a gun and marijuana in his car.
The 35-year-old rapper, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, was arrested on Thursday at the Burbank airport near Los Angeles by police who had stopped him for leaving his car too long in the passenger loading area, a Burbank police spokesman said.
Broadus, one of the biggest names on the West Coast hip-hop scene, was booked and released on US$35,000 bail and was expected to make his first court appearance today.
Meanwhile prosecutors in Orange County, south of Los Angeles, are considering whether to file charges against the rapper for trying to bring a collapsible police baton on board a plane last month.
Orange County Sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said security staff at John Wayne airport spotted the baton in a computer bag before Broadus took a flight to New York.
Broadus has said the baton was a prop in a video he was to make in New York and he was unaware it was illegal to take it on a plane.
Snoop Dogg, who has a previous conviction for cocaine possession, made his recording debut in the early 1990s as a protege of Dr Dre. He played a drug dealer turned informant in the 2004 movie Starsky and Hutch.
And now for the latest episode in Madonna's adoption saga.
The father of the 13-month-old Malawian boy the singer is trying to adopt insisted Friday that he supports her, and criticized human rights activists here who want the courts to review the process.
“I am surprised what these guys are up to,” Yohane Banda told journalists outside the courtroom where a hearing on the human rights group's challenge was held Friday. “Me and my family agreed with the adoption. I just want these people to leave my son alone.” The Human Rights Consultative Committee, a coalition of 67 Malawian rights groups, has petitioned the court to make sure no Malawian laws were broken in the adoption process, and to make the committee a party to the adoption so it can help assess Madonna's fitness as a mother.
Judge Andrew Nyirenda held a closed, 90-minute hearing on Friday. He then set another hearing for Nov. 13 to allow lawyers for the committee to submit additional arguments on why the adoption process should be reviewed and why the committee should be a party.
Typically, prospective parents are required to undergo an 18-month evaluation period in Malawi. But the judge who granted an interim custody order on Oct. 12 said the issue of residence is not specified in the laws. David Banda was taken to London, where Madonna has a home and where a social worker will check on him for the next 18 months.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built
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