Everyone loved that Emma Watson, cute British pixie, had decided to hole herself up in Providence and spend a few years at Brown. But now the Harry Potter actress and blossoming starlet has announced on her website that she's taking some time off from school to focus on promoting the final Harry Potter movie and to work on other film projects.
It's been close to a year since Arizona passed SB-1070 — the anti-immigration law that encourages racial profiling and can land a cop in jail if they don't do it — and several states were supposed ride the wave of hate and pass similar bills. But, as Muzaffar Chishti from the Migration Policy Institute told the Los Angeles Times, "Now I think reality has set in."
Remember the 23-year-old monk in Bhutan who was arrested for carrying chewing tobacco into the country from India under Bhutan's tough new anti-tobacco law? According to the Independent, Sonam Tshering was sentenced yesterday to three years in prison. A little harsh, no? After the verdict he cried, and told reporters, "I should be punished, but the penalty could have been lighter. I wasn't aware about the act." The court ruled that he should be jailed for not paying duties on the tobacco, and that the country's new law "represents the popular will of the people."
With a backlash brewing against the incessant media coverage of Charlie Sheen's breakdown, Sheen has made an uncannily savvy move: He's announced he's going to Haiti on a humanitarian mission with his buddy Sean Penn, who has practically been living there since the earthquake struck more than a year ago:
Egyptians, still flush with victory in their street protests, were thrilled by an announcement even more exciting than the news that Mubarak was stepping down: According to Egypt's new tourism minister, Egypt had invited Oprah to broadcast a show from Cairo's Tahrir square and had accepted, "without hesitation."
Even though head designer John Galliano was fired for an anti-Semitic tirade earlier this week, Dior still had to show its fall/winter collection at Paris Fashion Week today. CEO Sidney Toledano addressed the crowd before the presentation, saying, "What has happened over the last week has been a terrible and wrenching ordeal for us all. It has been deeply painful to see the Dior name associated with the disgraceful statements attributed to its designer. However brilliant he may be."
A new investment in Facebook by the venture capital firm General Atlantic puts Facebook's worth at $65 billion. Just last month, Facebook was valued at a measly $50 billion by Goldman Sachs. What happened in a month to make Facebook worth $15 billion more? They probably saw Mark Zuckerberg chilling with Obama and figured there was nothing to lose.
New York Times editor Bill Keller spoke in front of the New York Press Club last night in Manhattan. In addition to all of the talk about journalism and the future of the paper and various and sundry dry matters like that (including an unsatisfactory rehashing of the Raymond Davis debacle that gave no indication that Keller had any second thoughts about the way he handled the story), did he get a chance to send a zinger towards Rupert Murdoch and Fox News?
Today we heard some bulllllshit from presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, all about how Barack Obama isn't a real American because he hates Britain for what it did to Kenya and plus there was a statue that he didn't like or something. Huckabee is crazy! How crazy? Look at this previously unpublished statement a commenter unearthed.
PayPal ditched Wikileaks last December because, the company falsely claimed, its "activities were deemed illegal in the United States." The whole thing caused something of a stir. But look! As the Atlantic Wire reports, you can now use PayPal to donate money to Julian Assange's legal defense fund, which is prominently advertised on Wikileaks' web site, and which Assange can use to fund "non-profit bodies which have freedom of speech or freedom of information as a principal aim." Hmmm—I know of one of those that could use some money.
