Actress Scarlett Johansson has confirmed her engagement to a French journalist.
Johansson’s engagement to Romain Dauriac was confirmed by her spokesman in Paris yesterday. No date has been set for their wedding.
Johansson, 28, whose marriage to actor Ryan Reynolds ended in 2010, is generally reluctant to talk about her private life, but has explained what she does and does not want in a relationship.
“I don’t like jealous behaviour,” she told Marie Claire magazine.
“It’s really unattractive because it shows a sort of insecurity.”
The US actress was promoting her new movie, Under the Skin, at the Venice Film Festival when the large diamond ring on her left hand started getting attention. (AP)
New museum that verges on the bizarre
Romania has opened a museum in a military building where former Communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena were tried and executed for genocide during the country’s 1989 revolt.
The museum in Targoviste, where Ceausescu spent the last two days of his life, aims to show the dictator’s final moments.
Ceausescu ruled Romania with an iron fist for 25 years. Visitors can see metal plates he and his wife ate on, the beds they slept in and a tiny improvised courtroom where they faced a hastily conducted trial.
The place where they were fatally shot on Christmas Day 1989 is also on show. (PA)
Record fruit salad
The University of Massachusetts celebrated the start of the new academic year with a world record fruit salad weighing more than seven tons, mixed in a 15-foot diameter swimming pool.
It included 20 varieties of apples, 19 of melon, peaches, bananas, oranges and berries as well as more exotic fruits including quince, passion fruit and rambutan.
A Guinness Books of World Records representative certified the record. (PA)
‘Idiot’ threatened Cleveland police
A man who threatened police officers in Cleveland has been ordered by a court to stand outside a police station with a sign describing himself as an idiot.
Richard Dameron must stand outside for three hours each day for a week. He was convicted of threatening officers in emergency calls.
The judge who sentenced him previously made a woman wear an “idiot” sign in public for overtaking a stationary school bus. (PA)
Muslims in protest against Miss World
Muslim hard-liners have resumed protests against the Miss World beauty pageant, as organisers insisted the event will go ahead this weekend on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.
In Jakarta, the capital, about 1,000 members of the hard-line Islamic group Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia rallied outside the building housing the local organiser of the contest.
Protests were also held in the Sumatran cities of Medan and Pekanbaru, as well as Makassar in Sulawesi.
Demonstrators gathered at local council buildings, calling on the government to revoke the permit for the contest. (AP)
Legendary nightspot urinals up for sale
Music fans will have to spend more than a penny if they want to get their hands on a unique piece of memorabilia which has come up for sale – the urinals from legendary nightspot The Haçienda.
The Manchester club, which closed in 1997, played host to gigs by stars including Madonna and New Order as well as being central to the rise of acid house music.
Mike Shepherd, who is selling the loos as well as his extensive collection of posters and records from the time, said he ended up owning them almost by accident. He said: “There was an auction of The Haçienda back in 2001. I couldn’t go but a friend of mine went and I gave him a couple of hundred quid and asked him to get me something substantial and that’s what he got me.” (PA)