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Rugby-mad Crowe offers to buy Sydney club
DPA

Sydney, Sep 17 (DPA) Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe has made a multimillion-dollar bid to buy the South Sydney rugby league club, news reports said Saturday.

Crowe, 41, made the offer in tandem with friend and businessman Peter Holmes, Australia's ABC Radio reported.

South's chairman Nick Pappas confirmed the offer, saying the struggling club was honoured to be in talks with the pair.

"They're looking at this together and we've been speaking to them together and we're very excited and very honoured, I should say, that Peter and Russell are talking to us about proposals that would entrench the club as a Sydney club forever," Pappas told a local television station.

Indo-Asian News Service

Spielberg's 'Munich' leads race for next Oscar
Indo-Asian News Service

Los Angeles, Sep 17 (IANS) Steven Spielberg's terrorist drama "Munich" and Ang Lee's controversial "Brokeback Mountain" have emerged as the front runners for Best Film at the 2006 Oscars.

The latest release from top movie industry odds site GoldDerby.com, suggests the two epics will compete with war film "Jarhead", George Clooney's turn in political thriller "Syriana" and "Memoirs Of A Geisha" for the top Academy Award.

According to Internet Movie Database, site editor Tom O'Neil, a top US critic and awards expert, is convinced it will be Spielberg's movie - about the hunt for the killers of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics - that will claim the big prize. 

He says: "It's the lead pony in this upcoming Oscar derby." 

O'Neil and his online critics consortium, favour Tommy Lee Jones to beat Jake Gyllenhaal ("Jarhead"), Heath Ledger ("Brokeback Mountain"), Philip Seymour Hoffman ("Capote") and Joaquin Phoenix's turn as Johnny Cash ("Walk The Line") to the Best Actor prize for his role in "Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada".

GoldDerby.com's experts also predict Charlize Theron will be up for her second Best Actress Academy Award for her role of a victimized miner in "North Country". Theron will compete with Judi Dench ("Mrs. Henderson Presents"), "Desperate Housewives" star Felicity Huffman ("Transamerica"), Diane Keaton ("The Family Stone") and Ziyi Zhang ("Memoirs Of A Geisha") for the award. 

Spears, Federline delighted with new arrival
Indo-Asian News Service

Los Angeles, Sep 17 (IANS) Britney Spears and husband Kevin Federline have officially announced the birth of their first son together on the pop star's website. 


According to Internet Movie Database, the proud parents have expressed their happiness with a picture of them kissing against a backdrop of blue balloons and a message thanking loyal fans for all their support. 

Spears and Federline welcomed Preston Michael Spears Federline into the world on Wednesday when the Toxic singer underwent a Caesarian section at a California hospital. 

Spears writes: "We are ecstatic to announce the birth of our son! Everyone is happy, healthy and doing wonderful. Thank you for all your love and well wishes!!" 

Blues legend B.B. King plans to carry on with Lucille
By Gisela Ostwald

New York, Sep 17 (DPA) Blues great B.B. King does 300 performances in a "good year", about half the number he once did. Having turned 80, he says he'll keep doing it as long as the public wants to hear him sing and play.

With his beloved guitar Lucille, King plays the blues exactly as he heard them while growing up in the Mississippi Delta.

Earlier this month, millions of American television viewers were able to experience the genius of the 'King of the Blues' in a live fundraising concert for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

King said since Hurricane Katrina, he's lost touch with several friends and relatives.

Several stars including Elton John, Sheryl Crow and Gloria Estefan, paid tributes to him in a newly released album, "B.B. King & Friends - 80" on his birthday Friday.

The Library of Congress in Washington has named him the recipient of a living legend medal and Mississippi is honouring him with B.B. King Day.

Only one thing comes before his guitar - right sex with the right woman - King says in his biography "B.B. King: A Life with the Blues".

King has 15 children, each one fathered with a different woman, none of whom was ever his wife.

"I always had a good relationship with the mothers of my children, before, during and after," King said. 

Although he still loves the women, he turns to Lucille when he needs company.

Although blues, the basis for jazz, is King's life, he always felt somewhat inadequate as he watched other musicians he admired, including Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Charlie Parker, move on to become jazz artistes.

Being a blues singer is like being black two times, King says in his biography.

"Blues is simple music and I'm a simple man," he says.

King had many admirers in the music world, among them Eric Clapton and John Mayall, and John Lennon once said he would like to play the guitar like King.

King made his guitar sing with powerful strokes driven from his wrist when he went to Memphis, Tennessee, in the late 1940s and was hired as the "Blues Boy" by a radio show. The moniker was eventually shortened to the initials B.B.

The title "King of the Blues," which he bestowed on himself with the album of the same name, is something he's had since he won a Grammy in 1987, and no one would dispute it today.

Without B.B. King the blues might never have shaken off its image as music for poor blacks living in the ghetto. Traditional blues fans, however, can't fully forgive him for crossover recordings such as "Riding With the King", a 2000 album he did with Clapton. They say such productions are pandering to average musical tastes.

This doesn't bother King at all. He puts on shimmering scarves, ties his bow tie and fastens his belt before he goes on stage, creating an image far from that of a cotton picker.

"Why shouldn't I play in opera houses?" King asks. "You can be happy and rich and still have plenty of blues."

Indo-Asian News Service

Moss reacts angrily to cocaine claims
Indo-Asian News Service

Los Angeles, Sep 17 (IANS) Supermodel Kate Moss responded angrily when a daily confronted her about photographs purportedly showing her snorting cocaine. 

A British newspaper Thursday published snaps of Moss purportedly taking the hard drug in a recording studio with her singer boyfriend Pete Doherty's band Babyshambles, Internet Movie Database reported.

But when the Daily Mirror approached the couple in New York, she told reporters angrily to go away.

According to the Daily Mirror, the pictures show Moss chopping the white powder into lines with a credit card and snorting it through a rolled up 5 pound note. 

Law and Miller together again?
Indo-Asian News Service

Los Angles, Sep 17 (IANS) There is speculation that the romance between Jude Law and Sienna Miller is back on after the two were spotted at London's The Savoy hotel. 

According to Internet Movie Database, the pair was photographed coming out of the Wyndham's Theatre holding hands after Miller's performance in "As You Like It", before they sped off to the glitzy hotel. 

An onlooker told London newspaper the Evening Standard: "The two of them came out looking very relaxed and happy, hand in hand. When they left she looked really coy but pleased and he basically looked very happy with himself - like he'd finally won her back. Jude whisked her off to the Savoy."

'Desperate Housewives' hoping to win Emmy
DPA

Los Angeles, Sep 17 (DPA) The American television industry is set for its biggest night of the year Sunday when the annual Emmy awards honour the royalty of US living rooms.

Hosted by Ellen DeGeneres, the three-hour spectacular is taking place in the shadow of Hurricane Katrina and after years of declining viewer ship.

Executives of CBS, which is broadcasting the ceremony, are hoping that the high profile of major hits like "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" could bump up ratings for the awards show. Recent years saw the leading contenders come from cable channels like HBO rather than the more free broadcast networks ABC, NBC, Fox and CBS.

"This has been an amazing year for broadcast television; all the water cooler talk has been about broadcast shows," said CBS vice president Jack Sussman. "I believe this is probably the largest number of first-time nominees in all the major acting categories, and that's good for television, good for broadcast television and good for the Emmys."

Schwarzenegger announces re-election bid
DPA

San Diego (US), Sep 17 (DPA) California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has officially announced his bid for re-election next year despite recent polls showing a majority of Californians turning against him.

The former action movie star and world champion body builder Friday said that he was implementing the lessons of perseverance that he learnt in the sports world as he continued his efforts to reform California's political system.

"I'm going to follow them," the Republican governor told a supporters' rally here. 

"I'm not in there for three years. I originally got into this to finish the job. I'm in there for seven years. Yes I will run for governor next year again."

Political analysts said Schwarzenegger made the announcement over a year before next November's election in order to shore up his declining support ahead of three ballot measures that he is putting to voters in the mid-term elections Nov 8.

The announcement came after a non-partisan field poll earlier this month found that only 36 percent of voters in America's most populous state would support a re-election bid, with 56 percent opposing it.

The numbers represented a sharp reversal from a February poll, when 56 percent of respondents said they would vote the Republican governor in for a second time. Schwarzenegger sensationally won a snap recall election in 2003 by cutting across party lines in the Democratic leaning state to oust sitting governor Gray Davis.
 
Indo-Asian News Service