Britney & Jason's Love Story in 6 Sweet Shots





From a snuggle in the surf to a surprise engagement, see the former couple's most romantic moments








Credit: Kevin Mazur/Wireimage



Updated: Friday Jan 11, 2013 | 07:00 AM EST
By: Cara Lynn Shultz




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Flu season puts businesses and employees in a bind


WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly half the 70 employees at a Ford dealership in Clarksville, Ind., have been out sick at some point in the past month. It didn't have to be that way, the boss says.


"If people had stayed home in the first place, a lot of times that spread wouldn't have happened," says Marty Book, a vice president at Carriage Ford. "But people really want to get out and do their jobs, and sometimes that's a detriment."


The flu season that has struck early and hard across the U.S. is putting businesses and employees alike in a bind. In this shaky economy, many Americans are reluctant to call in sick, something that can backfire for their employers.


Flu was widespread in 47 states last week, up from 41 the week before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. The only states without widespread flu were California, Mississippi and Hawaii. And the main strain of the virus circulating tends to make people sicker than usual.


Blake Fleetwood, president of Cook Travel in New York, says his agency is operating with less than 40 percent of its staff of 35 because of the flu and other ailments.


"The people here are working longer hours and it puts a lot of strain on everyone," Fleetwood says. "You don't know whether to ask people with the flu to come in or not." He says the flu is also taking its toll on business as customers cancel their travel plans: "People are getting the flu and they're reduced to a shriveling little mess and don't feel like going anywhere."


Many workers go to the office even when they're sick because they are worried about losing their jobs, says John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an employer consulting firm. Other employees report for work out of financial necessity, since roughly 40 percent of U.S. workers don't get paid if they are out sick. Some simply have a strong work ethic and feel obligated to show up.


Flu season typically costs employers $10.4 billion for hospitalization and doctor's office visits, according to the CDC. That does not include the costs of lost productivity from absences.


At Carriage Ford, Book says the company plans to make flu shots mandatory for all employees.


Linda Doyle, CEO of the Northcrest Community retirement home in Ames, Iowa, says the company took that step this year for its 120 employees, providing the shots at no cost. It is also supplying face masks for all staff.


And no one is expected to come into work if sick, she says.


So far, the company hasn't seen an outbreak of flu cases.


"You keep your fingers crossed and hope it continues this way," Doyle says. "You see the news and it's frightening. We just want to make sure that we're doing everything possible to keep everyone healthy. Cleanliness is really the key to it. Washing your hands. Wash, wash, wash."


Among other steps employers can take to reduce the spread of the flu on the job: holding meetings via conference calls, staggering shifts so that fewer people are on the job at the same time, and avoiding handshaking.


Newspaper editor Rob Blackwell says he had taken only two sick days in the last two years before coming down with the flu and then pneumonia in the past two weeks. He missed several days the first week of January and has been working from home the past week.


"I kept trying to push myself to get back to work because, generally speaking, when I'm sick I just push through it," says Blackwell, the Washington bureau chief for the daily trade paper American Banker.


Connecticut is the only state that requires some businesses to pay employees when they are out sick. Cities such as San Francisco and Washington have similar laws.


Challenger and others say attitudes are changing, and many companies are rethinking their sick policies to avoid officewide outbreaks of the flu and other infectious diseases.


"I think companies are waking up to the fact right now that you might get a little bit of gain from a person coming into work sick, but especially when you have an epidemic, if 10 or 20 people then get sick, in fact you've lost productivity," Challenger says.


___


Associated Press writers Mike Stobbe in Atlanta, Eileen A.J. Connelly in New York, Paul Wiseman in Washington, Barbara Rodriguez in Des Moines, Iowa, and Jim Salter in St. Louis contributed to this report.


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Prominent porn producer suing L.A. County over new condom law









One of the nation's most prominent pornography producers is suing Los Angeles County in federal court to overturn a new law requiring actors to wear condoms during filming.


The suit by Vivid Entertainment, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, says the 1st Amendment's protection of free expression was violated after 57% of L.A. County voters approved the condom-porn measure during the Nov. 6 election.


"The exercise of 1st Amendment freedoms cannot be limited by referendum," the suit said. The ordinance stands "as an unconstitutional prior restraint upon protected expression."





Steven Hirsch, Vivid's founder and co-chief executive officer, said in an interview: "We will fight for our right to express ourselves as we please."


Paul Cambria Jr., the lead attorney on the case, said Measure B infringes upon how directors make films. "Let's assume that we're filming an adult movie and it was taking place in the swashbuckler times. All of a sudden, Captain Jack slips on a condom.


"Obviously, that would basically destroy the movie, because it would be fake. Obviously, people would know that couldn't have happened then," Cambria said.


Supporters of the condom-porn measure say Measure B does not violate the 1st Amendment. They say it is a health and safety measure aimed at protecting porn performers from contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.


"This is not a free speech issue. This is a workplace safety issue," said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "If they want to digitally remove a condom" from the final cut of a film, "there's no issue."


Hirsch said such special effects are "cost-prohibitive and it puts me in a place where we're not on a level playing field" with other adult-film performers based outside of the county.


Measure B requires that porn producers purchase public health permits to film in the county, and mandate condom use as a condition of that permit. The ordinance took effect in December, but the county has not decided how to enforce the law.


Hirsch said he wanted to overturn the measure to allow the porn performers and producers to remain in Los Angeles.


California is one of only two states — the other is New Hampshire — where state high courts have prohibited the prosecution of porn producers under anti-prostitution laws. Los Angeles is a world leader in the production of adult films.


"This is where they work, this is where they live, this is where our families are. And there's no reason we should have to move," Hirsch said.


The suit also argues that only the state, rather than the county, has the ability to impose occupational safety and health standards.


Weinstein cited a legal opinion by the state's Division of Occupational Safety and Health in 2011 saying that a municipal government may enact its own public health standards.


Hirsch said that after Measure B went into effect, Vivid suspended filming within Los Angeles County.


County officials did not respond to a request for comment.


ron.lin@latimes.com





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Visit by Google Chairman May Benefit North Korea





BEIJING — As a work of propaganda, the images that North Korea circulated this week showing Google’s executive chairman, Eric E. Schmidt, touring a high-tech incubation center are hard to beat.







Adrian Bradshaw/European Pressphoto Agency

Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, at left wearing a tie, and former Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico spoke to reporters in Beijing on Thursday after returning from North Korea.







With former Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico at his side, Mr. Schmidt, who is fond of describing the Internet as the enemy of despots, toured what was presented as the hub of the computer industry in one of the world’s most pitiless police states. Both men gazed attentively as a select group of North Koreans showed their ability to surf the Web.


It is unclear what the famously hermetic North Koreans hoped to accomplish by allowing the visit. But the photos of the billionaire entrepreneur taking the time to visit the nation’s computer labs were bound to be useful to a new national leader whom analysts say needs to show his people that their impoverished nation is moving forward.


It will matter little, those experts say, that the visitors were bundled against the cold, indoors — a sign of the country’s extreme privation — or that the vast majority of North Koreans have no access to computers, much less the Web beyond their country’s tightly controlled borders.


The men’s quixotic four-day trip ended Thursday much the way it began, with some analysts calling the visit hopelessly naïve and others describing it as valuable back-channel diplomacy at a time when Washington and Pyongyang are not on speaking terms (again).


“I’m still spinning my wheels to figure out a plausible motivation for why they went,” said Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea specialist at the International Crisis Group.


Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Richardson insist they accomplished some good — showing the world has not forgotten the plight of an American detained in the North, and at least trying to nudge the tightly sealed nation a bit closer to the fold of globally connected nations.


“As the world becomes increasingly connected, their decision to be virtually isolated is very much going to affect their  physical world, their economic growth and so forth,” Mr. Schmidt told reporters after arriving at Beijing International Airport. “We made that alternative very, very clear.”


The unofficial visit, however, raised hackles in Washington, and provided rich fodder for commentators and comedians. Even before the Americans left Pyongyang, someone created an account on Tumblr, the popular social blogging site, called “Eric Schmidt looking at things,” that parodied sites (themselves parodies) featuring the country’s leaders earnestly inspecting livestock, soldiers or leather insoles. (Mr. Schmidt is shown looking intently at computer screens, “the back of a North Korean Student,” and Mr. Richardson.)


Others were less kind. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, took to Twitter to call the self-appointed delegation “useful idiots,” and John R. Bolton, a former United Nations ambassador, said the delegation was unwittingly feeding the North Korean propaganda mill as it sought to burnish the credentials of Kim Jung-un, the nation’s leader, who is in his 20s.


“Pyongyang uses gullible Americans for its own purposes,” Mr. Bolton wrote in The New York Daily News.


The State Department said it did not think the timing of the visit was “particularly helpful,” given efforts by the United States to rally international support for tougher sanctions following North Korea’s recent launching of a rocket that intelligence experts say could help in the development of missiles that could one day reach the United States.


As if on cue, the North Korean news media hailed the visit by “the Google team” — which included Jared Cohen, who leads Google’s think tank — highlighting their visit to the mausoleum where Mr. Kim’s grandfather and father lie in state. There, Mr. Richardson and Mr. Schmidt “expressed admiration and paid respect to Comrade Kim Il-sung and Comrade Kim Jong-il,” the North’s main party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said.


Choe Sang-Hun contributed reporting from Seoul, South Korea, Claire Cain Miller from San Francisco, and Edward Wong from Beijing.



This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 11, 2013

An earlier version of this article paraphrased incorrectly State Department comments about the visit to North Korea by Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Richardson. The Department said it did not think the timing of the visit was “particularly helpful.” It did not call the visit “not particularly helpful.”



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Audrey Hepburn: Remembering the Private Legend















01/10/2013 at 07:35 PM EST







Audrey Hepburn with her son, Luca Dotti, in 1985


Audrey Hepburn Childrens Fund


She captivated the world with her doe-eyed beauty, but behind the Givenchy glamour, there was an Audrey Hepburn few people knew.

She thought her nose too big, her feet too large and her neck too long. She loved to shop for groceries (but not clothes), didn't wear makeup at home, never went to the gym and enjoyed two fingers of Scotch every night. 

"She was not this ethereal creature," says Robert Wolders, 76, the Dutch actor who was her companion for the last 13 years of her life. "She was an earthy woman with a ribald sense of humor."

What Hepburn had, adds Wolders, "was more than beauty. It was this extraordinary mystique."

Hepburn left Hollywood at age 34 at the height of her fame, moving into a 1732 farmhouse in Tolochenaz, a small Swiss village, where she found happiness raising two sons and purpose in her charity work for UNICEF. 

Two decades after her death from abdominal cancer at 63 on Jan. 20, 1993, her children and her last love remember the Audrey they adored. 

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Flu season strikes early and, in some places, hard


NEW YORK (AP) — From the Rocky Mountains to New England, hospitals are swamped with people with flu symptoms. Some medical centers are turning away visitors or making them wear face masks, and one Pennsylvania hospital set up a tent outside its ER to deal with the feverish patients.


Flu season in the U.S. has struck early and, in many places, hard.


While flu normally doesn't blanket the country until late January or February, it is already widespread in more than 40 states, with about 30 of them reporting some major hot spots. On Thursday, health officials blamed the flu for the deaths of 20 children so far.


Whether this will be considered a bad season by the time it has run its course in the spring remains to be seen.


"Those of us with gray hair have seen worse," said Dr. William Schaffner, a flu expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.


The evidence so far points to a moderate season, Schaffner and others say. It looks bad in part because last year was unusually mild and because the main strain of influenza circulating this year tends to make people sicker and really lay them low.


David Smythe of New York City saw it happen to his 50-year-old girlfriend, who has been knocked out for about two weeks. "She's been in bed. She can't even get up," he said.


Also, the flu's early arrival coincided with spikes in a variety of other viruses, including a childhood malady that mimics flu and a new norovirus that causes vomiting and diarrhea, or what is commonly known as "stomach flu." So what people are calling the flu may, in fact, be something else.


"There may be more of an overlap than we normally see," said Dr. Joseph Bresee, who tracks the flu for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


Most people don't undergo lab tests to confirm flu, and the symptoms are so similar that it can be hard to distinguish flu from other viruses, or even a cold. Over the holidays, 250 people were sickened at a Mormon missionary training center in Utah, but the culprit turned out to be a norovirus, not the flu.


Flu is a major contributor, though, to what's going on.


"I'd say 75 percent," said Dr. Dan Surdam, head of the emergency department at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, Wyoming's largest hospital. The 17-bed emergency room saw its busiest day ever last week, with 166 visitors.


The early onslaught has resulted in a spike in hospitalizations. To deal with the influx and protect other patients from getting sick, hospitals are restricting visits from children, requiring family members to wear masks and banning anyone with flu symptoms from maternity wards.


One hospital in Allentown, Pa., set up a tent this week for a steady stream of patients with flu symptoms. But so far "what we're seeing is a typical flu season," said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital, Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest.


On Wednesday, Boston declared a public health emergency, with the city's hospitals counting about 1,500 emergency room visits since December by people with flu-like symptoms.


All the flu activity has led some to question whether this year's flu shot is working. While health officials are still analyzing the vaccine, early indications are that it's about 60 percent effective, which is in line with what's been seen in other years.


The vaccine is reformulated each year, based on experts' best guess of which strains of the virus will predominate. This year's vaccine is well-matched to what's going around. The government estimates that between a third and half of Americans have gotten the vaccine.


In New York City, 57-year-old Judith Quinones skipped getting a flu shot this season and suffered her worst case of flu-like illness in years. She was laid up for nearly a month with fever and body aches. "I just couldn't function," she said.


But her daughter got the vaccine. "And she got sick twice," Quinones said.


Europe is also suffering an early flu season, though a milder strain predominates there. Flu reports are up, too, in China, Japan, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Algeria and the Republic of Congo. Britain has seen a surge in cases of norovirus.


On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC. That's an estimate — the agency does not keep a running tally of adult flu deaths each year, only for children. Some state health departments do keep count, and they've reported dozens of flu deaths so far.


Flu usually peaks in midwinter. Symptoms can include fever, cough, runny nose, head and body aches and fatigue. Some people also suffer vomiting and diarrhea, and some develop pneumonia or other severe complications.


Most people with flu have a mild illness and can help themselves and protect others by staying home and resting. But people with severe symptoms should see a doctor. They may be given antiviral drugs or other medications to ease symptoms.


Flu vaccinations are recommended for everyone 6 months or older. Of the 20 children killed by the flu this season, only two were fully vaccinated.


___


AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng in London contributed to this report.


___


Online:


CDC flu: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm


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Restored funding for prescription drug-monitoring program urged









California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris on Thursday called on Gov. Jerry Brown to restore funding to a prescription drug-monitoring program that health experts say is key to combating drug abuse and overdose deaths in the state.


Harris' appeal to restore funding to CURES, as it is known, follows an article in The Times last month that reported that the system, once heralded as an invaluable tool, had been severely undermined by budget cuts and was not being used to its full potential.


The CURES database contains detailed information on prescription narcotics, including the names of patients, the doctors prescribing the drugs and the pharmacies that dispense them. The system was designed to help physicians detect "doctor-shopping" patients who dupe multiple physicians into prescribing drugs such as OxyContin, Vicodin and Xanax.








Harris' request followed Brown's unveiling of a proposed $97.7-billion budget, which projects a surplus — a feat that has been accomplished only one time in the last decade. With California's fiscal condition improving, Harris said it was up to the state to make sure the money was "spent wisely."


"This includes smart investments that benefit Californians, such as restoring funding for the state's prescription drug-monitoring program," she said in a statement.


Brown's office had no comment.


The governor's budget does increase Harris' Department of Justice general fund allocation by 4.5% to $174.3 million, but it does not earmark money for CURES. Harris could seek legislative authority to spend some of her budget on the program.


"We are going to have a discussion on the funding and where the money will come from," said Lynda Gledhill, a spokeswoman for Harris.


CURES is the nation's oldest and largest prescription drug-monitoring program and once served as a model for other states. Today, it has fallen behind similar programs elsewhere. CURES data could be used to monitor physicians whose prescribing puts patients at risk. But it is not.


The U.S. Centers for Disease Control recommends that states use such data to keep tabs on doctors, and at least half a dozen states do so.


As part of spending cuts aimed at maintaining the state's solvency amid a deep recession, Brown gutted the Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, which ran CURES, in 2011, shortly after Harris succeeded him as attorney general. Harris kept the program alive with about $400,000 in revenue from the Medical Board of California and other licensing boards. But it is down to one employee and has no enforcement capacity.


State officials have estimated it would cost about $2.8 million to make CURES more accessible and easier to use, and $1.6 million more per year to keep it running. However, officials say the program — with little or no additional financial resources — could now be used to identify potentially rogue doctors.


Bob Pack, an Internet entrepreneur, has advocated using CURES more vigorously to track reckless physicians and pharmacies as well as doctor-shopping patients. He became active on the issue after a driver high on painkillers and alcohol struck and killed his two young children in the Bay Area suburb of Danville in 2003.


Pack, who helped design an online portal to give physicians and pharmacists immediate access to CURES, said he was happy to see Harris ask Brown to restore funds for the program.


"But that's only a request," he said. "No one knows if that's really going to happen. Meanwhile, doctors are continuing to over-prescribe and thousands of Californians are dying from prescription drug overdoses. I hope this … has some bite to it."


An aide to Harris said restoring the CURES program is a high priority.


"She's committed to fixing the database and making it as strong as possible," said Travis LeBlanc, special assistant attorney general. "When we have limited resources and in a budget crunch, we need to focus our resources and use it in smart, efficient ways, and [CURES] is one of those," he said.


lisa.girion@latimes.com


scott.glover@latimes.com


Times staff writer Hailey Branson-Potts contributed to this report.





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IHT Rendezvous: Rescuing China's Bears From Bile Farms, One by One

BEIJING — Some had wounded faces and bloodied paws. Some were angry after years of mistreatment.

But six Asiatic black bears now have a chance at a life of dignity after being rescued on Wednesday from a Chinese bile farm by Animals Asia, an animal rights group, and the Chinese government’s State Forestry agency.

The bear rescue will continue for a few days as the animals are settled into their new home at a shelter outside Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, which now houses nearly 150 bears, You can follow it on Animals Asia’s Twitter feed with the hashtag #newyearrescue.

Here’s a latest tweet:

Today’s story is a happy one, though it’s part of the bigger, sadder picture of how thousands of bears are “farmed” for their bile here in China, often in excruciatingly painful conditions. Some are caged as cubs, and grow up crooked; physical injury and emotional trauma is the norm.

Rendezvous readers have debated passionately about bear bile farming before. It’s common in China and Vietnam, where it is illegal. While the Chinese government is taking action against some bear farms, it’s not illegal here if farms have licenses for it. About 10,000 bears are believed to be caged for their bile in China and a couple thousand in Vietnam. It’s a lucrative trade, with bile prized by the Chinese traditional medicine industry for a range of cures. As my former colleague, Mark McDonald, summed it up:

“Bear bile is prized in traditional Chinese medicine for its alleged ability to relieve muscle aches, joint pains, fever, migraines and hangovers, as well as being a curative for impotence, gallstones, cirrhosis, even cancer. Synthetic compounds are just as effective for many of these ailments, but many Asians, especially Chinese and Vietnamese men of a certain age, favor fresh bile.”

Your consensus, readers, was that it’s a horrific practice, despite arguments made by the Chinese traditional medicine industry that bile farming is “humane,” as Fang Shuting, the head of the Chinese Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said: “The process of extracting bear bile is like turning on a tap: natural, easy and without pain,’’ Mr. Fang said. “After they’re done, the bears can even play happily outside. I don’t think there’s anything out of the ordinary! It might even be a very comfortable process!”

As Mark wrote: “Wildlife biologists vehemently disagree, saying the needle sticks, catheterization and repeated draining of the gall bladder creates infections and leakage, which can lead to peritonitis and septicemia. ‘An excruciating death,’’ said one scientist.”

Revulsion is growing among ordinary Chinese, too. “I don’t believe it at all that extracting bile is as easy and comfortable as Fang said. Why doesn’t he extract the bile from his body in the same way to prove it?” one wrote on Sina Weibo, the microblog site, Mark reported.

But today I want to tell you about a spot of light in the night.

Here’s what a journalist who witnessed a bear arriving at the rescue wrote:

“The Asiatic black bear gave a deep growl and struggled in a rusty cage only just bigger than her giant body, as rescue workers from the Animals Asia bear sanctuary fed her fruit to soothe her shattered nerves, and examined her body for signs of sores or bleeding.” (Full disclosure — this reporter is my husband, Clifford Coonan, the Irish Times China correspondent.)

Jill Robinson, the founder of Animals Asia, was there, organizing and watching.

“What we have here are six highly traumatised bears from an illegal bear bile farm here in Sichuan province,” Clifford quoted her as saying. “One of the bears has bile leakage, and others have the stereotypical head injuries from bashing the bars of their cages. But it’s such a relief to have them here.”

Around the world, on Twitter and through video, people were watching, too.

Here’s a tweet from the actor Peter Egan, of “Downton Abbey” and “A Perfect Spy” fame, and an animal rights supporter.

As a member of Animals Asia wrote in an email to Rendezvous: watching the bears arrive “was exciting and sad in equal measure.” Exciting because it was the start of a new life for six; sad, because they need treatment and help, and because there are so many more out there.

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Three top U.S. wireless carriers to embrace BlackBerry 10






LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Three of the top U.S. cellphone carriers signaled this week that they would support Research In Motion’s BlackBerry 10 products, the first of which are due to be unveiled Jan 30, offering a hopeful sign for RIM’s comeback effort.


Executives at Verizon Communications , AT&T Inc and T-Mobile USA all said they are looking forward to the devices, which will be crucial for RIM’s chances of regaining lost ground from rivals such as Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics .






“We’re hopeful its going to be a good device,” Lowell McAdam, chief executive of Verizon Communications, majority owner of the biggest U.S. mobile service Verizon Wireless.


“We’ll carry it,” McAdam said in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.


BlackBerry 10 is RIM’s next-generation mobile operating platform and it is preparing to launch new smartphones later this month. Word that major carriers will offer the devices is good news for RIM.


RIM, which once commanded the lead in the smartphone market, has rapidly lost ground to Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s line of Galaxy products, especially in North American and European markets, as customers abandon its aging BlackBerry devices.


It has been testing the new BlackBerry 10 devices with carriers so they can assess their compatibility with networks.


No. 4 U.S. mobile provider T-Mobile USA, a unit of Deutsche Telekom , also plans to carry the new BlackBerry 10.


“We’re extremely optimistic that it’s going to be a successful product and our business customers are extremely interested in it,” Chief Executive John Legere said.


AT&T has promised to support the BlackBerry 10 platform, according to Chief Marketing Officer David Christopher, but he would not discuss specific devices.


However, AT&T handset executive Jeff Bradley made it clear that the No. 2 U.S. mobile operator would carry the phone.


“It’s logical to expect our current (BlackBerry) customers will have the best BlackBerry devices to choose from in the future,” Bradley said.


(Reporting By Sinead Carew; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Sandra Bullock Honored at People's Choice Awards for New Orleans Support









01/09/2013 at 10:45 PM EST







Sandra Bullock at the People's Choice Awards


Jason Merritt/Getty


Sandra Bullock took home big honors for her work in the Big Easy Wednesday night.

The People's Choice Awards crowned the Oscar-winning actress the favorite humanitarian for her career-spanning philanthropic efforts, including her dedication to New Orleans's Warren Easton Charter High School

"I'm not at all being modest when I say I'm not doing anything compared to what they do on a daily basis," Bullock, 48, told the crowd gathered at Los Angeles's Nokia Theatre.

Just six months after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, the actress showed her support by adopting the school, which sustained $4 million in damages during the storm. She donated hundreds of thousands of dollars for renovations, telling PEOPLE years later that she "felt such a profound need to do something for them."

Her generosity helped the charter school – the first public high school for boys in Louisiana – afford renovations, new band uniforms, athletic equipment and a new health clinic in a city that's close to her heart. After all, she adopted her son, Louis, from New Orleans in 2010 and also has a home in the Garden District.

She pointed to the tireless dedication of the school's students, teachers and tough principal. "I've seen her," she joked. "Yeah, you don't want to go into that office."

Bullock then gave a shout-out to her son, who was sick as home, she said.

"[The students] compete, but they never cut each other down," she added. "And all that happens not because it's easy, but because they do not allow themselves any other option than to succeed."

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