New York, New Jersey, Connecticut News: Reports

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Wednesday, 11 January 2012

Halle Berry engaged to Olivier Martinez, reports say

Halle Berry is engaged to French actor Olivier Martinez, reports say.

The 45-year-old Oscar-winning actress and Martinez met on the set of the movie "Dark Tide" around the summer of 2010 and have been photographed together several times at celebrity events and in public since then. Berry has been married twice before and has a daughter from a previous relationship.

On Wednesday, January 11, People and Us Weekly magazines quoted a spokesperson for the jewelry designer Gurhan as saying that Martinez gave Berry a diamond-and-emerald engagement ring. Their representatives had no immediate comment about the report.

Earlier this month, Berry was photographed wearing a a gold ring with what appeared to be an emerald stone. The picture was posted on the website of Marie Claire magazine.

Berry and Martinez, who turns 45 on Thursday, have been linked romantically for more than a year. The two were photographed kissing in September 2010. Since then, they have been spotted together in places such as Paris and the Spanish island of Majorca and were spotted at a Cirque du Soleil show and restaurant in Los Angeles earlier this week.

Berry has been married twice before and has a 3-year-old daughter, Nahla, with ex-boyfriend Gabriel Aubry. The actress and David Justice, a baseball player were married for more than four years in the 1990s. Berry then wed singer Eric Benet in 2001. They divorced almost four years later.

Berry has one child - a 2-year-old daughter named Nahla, whose father is the actress' ex-boyfriend Gabriel Aubry, a model.

Martinez, known for his role in films such as "Unfaithful" and "Taking Lives," dated singer Kylie Minogue for four years before they broke up in 2007.

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Beyonce and Jay-Z welcome baby girl, say reports

Beyonce and Jay-Z welcomed a daughter, baby-bumping the music power duo to a trio Saturday night.

According to a report by E! News, sources confirmed the singer gave birth via scheduled C-section at Lenox Hill hospital in New York.

The baby's name was originally reported by E! as Ivy Blue. The New York Daily News says the girl's name is Blue Ivy.

Update: 9:00 a.m. Actress Gwyneth Paltrow confirmed the baby's name as Blue Ivy when asked by a follower on Twitter.

"RT @Sparrow_Teague @GwynethPaltrow is it ivy blue, or blue ivy? so confused..It's Blue Ivy Carter," Paltrow wrote.

The actress previously sent out a Tweet welcoming the baby saying, "Welcome to the world Blue! We love you already."

Spokespeople for both Beyonce and Jay-Z have not commented on the birth or the name of the child.

Beyonce's sister Solange Knowles shared her first thoughts of the new baby early Sunday morning tweeting, "The most beautiful girl in the world."

The couple's close friend and music mogul Russell Simmons celebrated the new arrival by tweeting, "congrats to my good friends Beyonce and Jay-Z."

Rihanna also gave a shout on Twitter, "Welcome to the world princess Carter! Love Aunty Rih."

The 30-year-old singer announced her pregnancy during the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards in August. During her 2011 MTV VMA performance she told the audience, "I want you to feel the love that's growing inside me." At the end she opened her sequined tuxedo jacket and rubbed her stomach, to the delight of the crowd.

It is the first child for the singer, who is married to 41-year-old rapper Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter. The couple got married on April 4, 2008. The nuptials were so secret that no photos or video from the event were released. The couple got married with a close circle of 40 friends and family members after dating for six years.

Rumors that the pop star had given birth in December sparked a Twitter frenzy , but the craze was never backed up by any evidence.

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Thursday, 29 December 2011

Russell Brand and Katy Perry ditch wedding rings amidst split reports

Katy Perry and Russell Brand haven't commented on reports that they're having marriage problems, but they have both been photographed without their wedding rings.

Perry spent Christmas in Hawaii with friends while Brand was in his native England. People magazine obtained photos of Perry and Brand, sans wedding rings -- Perry was spotted frolicking in the ocean over the weekend, while Brand was seen walking in London on Thursday.

According to the Us Weekly, the pair had a "massive fight" before deciding to spend the holidays apart. The weekly claims that Perry was previously planning to join Brand in England, with her family in tow, before the argument occurred

Neither Perry nor Brand has addressed the reports.

Earlier in the month, the singer took to her official Twitter page to shoot down rumors that she is divorcing Russell Brand and/or is pregnant.

"First I'm pregnant & then I'm divorced. What am I 'All My Children'?! #ericakane #pshhh #ifihadadollarforeverytime," Perry wrote, referring to the soap opera character played by Susan Lucci on the long running series.

Brand also denied the divorce rumors on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" earlier in the month.

"There are always rumors, aren't there? In the end you have to just not engage with Internet technology," he said. "Which is difficult because a lot of the nude women websites I quite enjoy!"

"I've treated the whole Internet now as if it's a wicked little liar," he added. "Yeah. I am really happily married."

Perry, 27, and Brand, 36, were married on October 23, 2010 in a traditional Hindu ceremony in Rajasthan, India, where Brand also proposed to the singer. The two began dating in September 2009 after the singer performed on the MTV Video Music Awards that were hosted by Brand.

Brand also talked about his desire to start a family. "I really would like one," he told DeGeneres about having children. "I love those little babies in the beginning. They're so lovely at that bit."

Though Brand is looking forward to having children eventually, Perry has had to deny rumors that she is already pregnant. In November, the singer laughed off rumors that she was expecting telling "The Insider" that the bump people saw in her tight-fitting dress at the American Music Awards was from too much fast food.

"I like In-N-Out Burger and Taco Bell and if you want to make that pregnant that's your problem," she told the entertainment program. "I still love drinking alcohol so not yet."

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Thursday, 12 May 2011

Consumer Reports: The dark side of Facebook

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Facebook's easy connection to friends and family has revolutionized staying in touch, but it has a dark side. A just-released Consumer Reports survey shows that in the past year more than 5 million American households experienced problems on Facebook, including virus infections and identity theft.

The survey of more than 2,000 online households found many kids are at risk, too. More than 5 million kids younger than 11 have Facebook accounts, even though 13 is the minimum age that Facebook allows. And the survey found most of their parents did nothing to monitor their child's Facebook activities. The survey also found that 1 million children were victims of cyber bullying.

If you have a preteen using Facebook, be aware that parents can delete the account by going to Facebook's privacy-policy page and clicking on a link to fill out the "Report an Underage Child" form.

In order to protect your child whatever his or her age, it's important to supervise Facebook use. Become your child's friend and check his or her profile regularly. Also, connect your child's Facebook account with your e-mail so that you see incoming messages.

Facebook users of all ages should use privacy settings. But one in five active members had not used those settings, according to Consumer Reports' survey.

To set them, go into your account's privacy settings and indicate "Friends Only." It's also important to use the privacy settings on the apps and websites linked to your account. If you connect your Facebook account to another site, you're allowing that site access to a lot of your personal information unless you block it.

The Consumer Reports survey reveals other troubling facts about Facebook, including almost one in three people have "friends" they are not completely comfortable with and 6 percent admitted to having a friend who makes them uncomfortable about their safety or their family's. In April, Facebook established new ways to report bullying online. You can report the problem to Facebook, block the person who posted it, or contact help.

Consumer Reports has no commercial relationship with any advertiser or sponsor appearing on this Web site.

consumer reports, facebook, consumer news, sade baderinwa

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Tuesday, 10 May 2011

Consumer Reports: Rating the biggest names in diets

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Summer is coming, and so is the push to get in shape. Consumer Reports just rated seven of the biggest names in diets: Jenny Craig, Slim-Fast, Weight Watchers, the Zone, and Nutrisystem, as well as the Ornish and Atkins diets.

Consumer Reports rated each diet on nutritional quality and looked at published studies to find out how much weight people lost on these diets and how well they were able to stick to them.

Weight Watchers recently revised its system that assigns points to every food you eat. It now puts even more emphasis on filling, good-for-you foods such as lean protein, fruits, and vegetables. But research on the program hasn't been published yet.

The high-fat Atkins diet got the lowest score for nutrition from Consumer Reports. And Slim-Fast, with its branded shakes and breakfast and lunch bars, had the worst long-term dropout rate.

Far better was Jenny Craig, which consists of prepackaged meals supplemented with fruits, vegetables, and other foods. It beat out all the other diets and had excellent nutrition and a very low dropout rate, based on a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. More than 90 percent of participants were able to stay on the diet for at least two years, and they lost an average of 8 percent of their starting weight.

Jenny Craig's annual membership fee is $400, although there are often special deals. The fee includes weekly counseling sessions, but the packaged food costs extra.

Consumer Reports has no commercial relationship with any advertiser or sponsor appearing on this Web site.

consumer reports, consumer news

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