It’s a boy for Alicia Keys and her husband, music producer/rapper Swizz Beatz.
A representative for Keys said she gave birth to Egypt Dean last Thursday night in New York.
It is the first child for the 29-year-old superstar and the fourth child for Beatz, whose real name is Kaseem Dean. The couple was married on July 31. (PA)
Rare stamps of Audrey Hepburn may fetch £ 350,000
A mint-condition sheet of 10 stamps portraying Audrey Hepburn, a coy smile on her face and a long, black cigarette holder dangling from her lips, is expected to fetch at least £350,000 at a charity auction in Berlin.
Auctioneer Andreas Schlegel said he has received interest from four serious bidders. Two thirds of the auction proceeds will go to the Audrey Hepburn Children’s Fund, and one third to Unicef Germany.
The sale will be a profitable outcome for a botched series of 14 million stamps that should have been destroyed. They show the Belgian-born actress in her most famous role as the ebullient Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. (PA)
Jackson sets The Hobbit filming date
It’s time to celebrate again in Middle Earth.
Peter Jackson is set to direct The Hobbit, the two-part prequel to the popular Lord of the Rings trilogy and start shooting in February, Warner Bros said yesterday.
The films, based on JRR Tolkien’s books, had been delayed by union issues and the continuing restructuring of flailing Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which owns half the project.
Jackson, who directed the Rings trilogy, had originally hired Guillermo del Toro to direct, but Del Toro left the project in May because of delays after working on the project for nearly two years. (PA)
Mayor arrested after purse snatch in LA
A suburban Los Angeles mayor has been arrested after a purse-snatching incident and a wild ride through streets with a woman clinging to his sport utility vehicle.
Lt Ariel Duran of San Gabriel police said Albert Huang was in custody on suspicion of felony assault, felony robbery and misdemeanour battery after his arrest on Friday.
He said the 35-year-old mayor had been arguing with the woman over money in a car park when he took the woman’s purse and got into his sports utility vehicle.
Investigators said the woman was standing on the running board and reaching through the passenger window when Huang sped away, reaching speeds of 45 mph for more than a quarter of a mile.
The woman’s name and her relationship to the mayor were not released. (PA)
Obesity costs soar
Nearly 17 per cent of US medical costs can be blamed on obesity, according to new research that suggests the nation’s weight problem may be having close to twice the impact on medical spending as previously estimated.
One expert said past estimates probably underestimated the costs and said the new study – which places obesity-related medical costs at around £105 billion – was probably closer to the truth.
The new research was done by John Cawley of Cornell University and Chad Meyerhoefer of Lehigh University and was released last week. (PA)
Rape figures shock
The UN’s top envoy in Congo said more than 15,000 people were raped in the volatile eastern region last year.
Roger Meece, who heads the world body’s peacekeeping mission in Congo, told the UN Security Council that the scale of the security problem, including sexual attacks, was “enormous”.
According to the UN Population Fund, there were 17,507 sexual violence attacks in Congo in 2009 – including more than 9,000 in North and South Kivu, which have been at the centre of the conflict in the east. The fund said the scale of rapes and sexual violence had not diminished this year. (PA)
Eight killed in Russian floods
Floods in southern Russia have killed eight people and forced the evacuation of at least 160 others, authorities said yesterday.
Two days of heavy rains in the Krasnodar region caused a mountain river to burst its banks, sending torrents of water down the mountains onto villages.
Local emergency ministry spokesman Roman Kravchenko said three of the eight killed were elderly people trapped in their houses. Two more were found dead in a sewer hole.
People were evacuated from their homes last Friday, Kravchenko said. Many are heading back to their homes today to take stock of the damage.
Officials said heavy rain also caused mudslides in the mountains, blocking several sections of the North Caucasus railway. (PA)