With a name like Porsha, this shouldn't be a surprise. The Real Housewives of Atlanta star Porsha Williams was pulled over for speeding and subsequently arrested for driving on a suspended license in Atlanta. The police took Williams, 33, to jail, where she posted a $1,726 bond and was released, but Williams claims she had a good excuse for zipping down the highway. "I was headed to visit my grandfather who is very ill with cancer in the hospital, and I was pulled over," she said in a statement. "I was wrong for speeding absolutely and apologize for putting anyone at risk. I tried to explain the situation to the officer and show him that all my paperwork was in order, but he refused. Handcuffs are not comfortable or a good look for anyone." This is Williams' second arrest this year. In April, she was charged with battery after fighting with Real Housewives of Atlanta costar Kenya Moore during the show's reunion episode.
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Actresses are no strangers to plastic surgery, but some are tight-lipped about just what they've had done. Not Kaley Cuoco. "I had no boobs! And it really was the best thing ever," she says. "I always felt ill-proportioned. My implants made me feel more confident in my body. It wasn't about trying to be a porn star or wanting to look hot and sexy."Cuoco-Sweeting also opens up about her landmark contract for her hit CBS show, for which she now makes $1 million an episode. "All I think about is what it means for my family... and knowing there is security for all of us," she says. "My parents spent 16 years hauling my butt to LA for audition after audition. Every day they were helping me learn my lines, dropping me off, waiting for me, picking me up, giving me pep talks when I didn't get the jobs, taking me to tennis and horseback riding lessons. I remember always hoping I could help take care of them because they took such good care of me. Knowing I'll be able to just brings tears to my eyes."
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Lindsay Lohan was hit with some unfortunate news while on her holiday vacation. The 28-year-old actress revealed recently that she has been diagnosed with Chikungunya, a rare, untreatable virus that is spread through mosquitos. The virus causes sudden onset fever, which usually lasts two to seven days, and joint pain that last weeks, months and sometimes years. Following her run in David Mamet's Speed the Plow in London, Lohan had been vacationing in French Polynesia. However, she isn't letting the diagnosis completely dampen her spirits. "In good faith with good people. I refuse to let a virus [affect] my peaceful vacation be safe and happy on the new year all," she captioned a selfie the following day.
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Sean Penn & Charlize Theron got engaged this past November while visiting Paris. The couple "decided to take their relationship to the next level," a source told the magazine. Theron, 39, and Penn, 54, first stepped out together a year ago in December 2013. It's been quite easy for the couple to keep their engagement under wraps since there is reportedly no engagement ring. This would be the third marriage for Penn, who was married to Madonna for four years and to Robin Wright for 14 years. Theron has never been married before and has spoken out about her feelings against a typical marriage. "Let's put it this way: I never had the dream of the white dress. And watching other people getting married? I think it's beautiful for them, but to be quite honest, usually I'm sitting there just devastated," she told vogue in June. "It's supposed to be this night of celebrating love, and all you see is a couple separated all night making sure everybody else is okay. It just looks like a lot of work. And as you get older, you start sifting through the stuff that really matters."
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One little-noticed 50th anniversary date in 2014 was that of September 22. In 1964, that was the date of the premiere of NBC's "The Man From U.N.C.L.E," the series that brought the secret agent craze of the mid-1960's to the small screen. A half-a-century later, the super-secret spying-for-good United Network Command for Law and Enforcement (U.N.C.L.E.) lives on among a new generation of fans who watched its four seasons and 105 episodes on YouTube.
With eight motion pictures made of past episodes of the series, Hollywood is now in the process of casting a new film version of "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." with Tom Cruise originally cast as American agent Napoleon Solo and Armie Hammer as his Russian partner Illya Kuryakin. (Earlier this year, Cruise left the project, leaving producers of "U.N.C.L.E." in search of a new Solo). In its heyday, U.N.C.L.E. spawned board games, novels, comic books and various imitations. A sister series, "The Girl From U.N.C.L.E." came later, and the detergent Glad was pitched by (you guessed it!) "The Man From GLAD." As former George W. Bush White House speechwriter and "Investor’s Business Daily" columnist Tom McArdle recalled: "I grew up knowing who Napoleon Solo was before I knew who Napoleon Bonaparte was." Series star and active Democrat Robert Vaughn, who played agent Solo, once recalled spending a weekend at the "Hickory Hills" (Virginia) home of friend Robert Kennedy to discuss RFK's presidential campaign in 1968. The bedrooms of the Kennedy children, he noticed, were plastered with posters of Solo and Kuryakin.
But U.N.C.L.E. also raised serious political questions over who was running the super-secret crime fighting organization and who had authority over agents of different nationalities. Each week, fans of all ages watched the adventures of Solo (whose name was originated by James Bond's creator Ian Fleming) and Kuryakin as they battled evil operatives of varying stripes. These ranged from a Castro-like female guerrilla leader (played by Margaret Cordova) plotting to steal a U.S. jet and nuclear warhead to help her brother seize power in a Latin American country to the sinister Madame Gervais Revel (played by Anne Francis), widow of the reputed intelligence chief of France's nationalist "Secret Army" (OAS) that had tried to assassinate Charles de Gaulle.
U.N.C.L.E. agents even thwarted a deranged German scientist who had kept Adolf Hitler in suspended animation for 20 years and attempted to revive him. Most of the time, however, Solo and Kuryakin dueled with THRUSH, a mysterious international crime syndicate that seemed to be a hybrid of the Mafia and the ISIS terrorists. According to novelizations of the series, THRUSH stood for Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and for the Subjugation of Humanity. Many considered the series a parable about the Cold War. Press releases about the upcoming "U.N.C.L.E." film project bill it as a movie based on the "Cold War drama" of the '60's.
But Solo and Kuryakin never took on any agents of the KGB or subversives from any Iron Curtain country. Kuryakin, some viewers assumed, was a former KGB operative who "turned." No episode verifies this or much else about the "U.N.C.L.E" agents or their British chief, Alexander Waverly (British actor Leo G. Carroll). "U.N.C.L.E. is an organization consisting of agents of all nationalities," went the opening narration, "it's involved in maintaining political and legal order anywhere in the world." Just who or what determines that "political and legal order" was never explained. "[The Man From U.N.C.L.E.] bothered conservatives and people who took seriously constitutional questions about U.S. sovereignty," M. Stanton Evans, conservative author, lecturer, and teacher, told Newsmax. "The whole idea of agents from different countries working for international law enforcement organizations raised a number of concerns, especially since they came from a such a hit series."
The closest that the show's writers came to hinting who was behind U.N.C.L.E was the opening scene, which featured the New York skyline and always prominently focused on the United Nations building, although U.N.C.L.E. headquarters was actually in the East 40s, with its agents' entrance in the little-noticed Del Floria's tailor shop.
"I loved the show as a kid and even own the complete series on DVD," said Hans von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. "But the show was completely unrealistic in having a Russian agent as a major character at a time when the Soviet Gulag was filled with political prisoners. The complete failure of the UN and its domination by undemocratic governments shows just how foolish the idea of a secret international organization fighting a secret crime organization such as THRUSH was at a time when the worst criminals in the world were the Communist leaders of Russia and China, not any private crime group or mob operation." Where THRUSH and the critics of the series failed to finish off U.N.C.L.E., the third season of the series effectively did, known to aficionados as "the silly season," Season Three brought in David Victor succeeding Rolfe as executive producer and a battery of new writers who ratcheted up the "spy spoof" and self-parody nature of the series.
In one episode, Solo finds himself dancing with a gorilla. When the U.N.C.L.E. team apparently started to deal with communists, their job is not to stop them but to guard a Chairman Georgi Koz of a unnamed European state as he seeks to learn about capitalism by playing Santa Claus at Macy's. Even the rock duo Sonny and Cher got into the act during "the silly season. We had a fight scene and I forgot to pull my punches with Bob Vaughn and flattened him," Sonny Bono recalled to this reporter in 1995 when he was a Republican U.S. Representative from California. "He wasn't very happy with me."
Fans were furious with "U.N.C.L.E" and its ratings plummeted. Nervous producers recanted, fired and replaced the writers, and the show reverted to its more sober approach to intrigue and espionage. But it was too late. On January 15, 1968, Solo, Kuryakin, and Mr. Waverly frustrated THRUSH for the last time and the series was over. But not quite, in 1983, the made-for-TV movie "The Fifteen Years Later Affair" brought Solo and Kuryakin out of comfortable retirement to grapple with a reconstituted THRUSH. Mr. Waverly had long since died (as did actor Carroll) and was replaced as head of U.N.C.L.E. by another British actor, Patrick Macnee of "The Avengers" fame. It is unclear when the proposed movie will be completed. One thing appears a good bet: that the next "Man From U.N.C.L.E" will be discussed, debated, and a subject of considerable political discourse, just as the first version was when it premiered 50 years ago.
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Haven't seen The Interview yet? Now there's more ways to check out one of the year's most controversial films. Sony announced on Wednesday that it has reached an agreement with several cable providers to distribute the film via Video-on-Demand. The film will be available on Bright House Networks, Comcast, Cox Communications, Time Warner Cable, Charter Communications, Cablevision, AT&T U-verse TV, Verizon FiOS and DIRECTV. The film, which was first released to stream on Dec. 24, will also be accessible through VUDU and Walmart's digital VOD service. The Interview will be available beginning Wednesday in select markets and roll out to different areas throughout the weekend. Beginning Thursday, the comedy will also be available through the PlayStation Network. "We have always sought the widest possible distribution for The Interview, and want to thank our new partners for helping us make that happen," Michael Lynton, Chairman and CEO of Sony Entertainment, said in a statement. So far, The Interview has grossed $3.3 million in theaters as of Dec. 30. As of Saturday, the movie has pulled in more than $15 million online.
Devils’ center Stephen Gionta will be sidelined indefinitely after he suffered a broken hand against Pittsburgh on Monday night, coach Lou Lamoriello said. "He blocked a shot. Broken hand," Lamoriello told reporters after the game. "He'll see a specialist and then we'll determine what the results are. The X-rays showed a break." Gionta, in his fifth season with New Jersey, has three goals and three assists this season. He has 32 points in 165 career games.
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Jazz’s Alec Burks will undergo left shoulder surgery, he will be out for the remainder of the season. The Jazz guard was averaging 13.9 points, a career-high 4.2 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game this season, but could not play with the same abandon that typified his play his first two years because of pain. "Alec's long-term health has been our top priority throughout this process, and although it is unfortunate that we will be without his services on the court the rest of this season, we commend Alec's commitment and continued effort to play through considerable pain to this point," said Jazz General Manager Dennis Lindsey.
Burks, who signed a four-year contract extension in October, has missed the past two games because of the shoulder injury. Shoulder pain has dogged him since his collegiate days at Colorado but this season he has left several games to seek treatment in the locker room. Until this point, Burks had always opted to play despite any discomfort. "Alec has been tough. He's played through a lot of it. But now it's just the right thing to do," Utah coach Quin Snyder said. "It will leave a hole for sure and there's no one else we have that can do the things Alec can do. We just need the other guys to step up now." Burks had previously missed two games after he hurt the shoulder against Denver on Dec. 1 and had been treating the injury with physical therapy. The 6-foot-6 shooting guard, the 12th overall selection in the 2011 draft, will have surgery on Wednesday at the University of Utah. "After continued consultation with our medical staff, Alec and his representation, we have unanimously agreed that it would be most prudent for Alec to have this procedure performed now in order to ensure that he will be healthy and ready for the start of next season," Lindsey said. Rookie Rodney Hood will take Burks' place in the starting lineup.
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The Cavaliers have been granted a disabled player exception valued at almost $5 million in the wake of Anderson Varejao’s season ending Achilles injury. the Cavaliers learned Wednesday from the league office that they have received the DPE worth nearly $4.9 million after Varejao was felled by the tear in his heel. The Cavaliers, whose frustrating months-long search for frontcourt reinforcements has been well-documented, can now use the exception to sign one player or trade for a player on a one-year contract whose salary does not exceed that amount. The DPE expires March 10. It should be noted, though, that Cleveland has already been scouring the trade market with a similar trade exception valued at $5.3 million, which it created in late September by trading veteran guard Keith Bogans to Philadelphia in a three-team swap. The Cavs have been pursuing a number of centers dating back to the summer.
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Edinson Volquez watched the Royals make their surprising run to the World Series this past autumn and thought to himself, "Maybe I want to be a part of things there." Volquez finalized a $20 million, two-year contract that includes a mutual option for the 2017 season and was announced during a brief news conference at Kauffman Stadium. The right-handed Volquez, coming off one of the best seasons of his career with Pittsburgh, will make $7.5 million this season and $9.5 million next season. The option year would be worth $10 million and carries with it a $3 million buyout. "I want to be here and help the team win some games, the way they did last year," Volquez told reporters. "We did in Pittsburgh, too, but Kansas City went a little bit farther. They almost won the World Series. Why not do it here?" Volquez fills the last big hole by taking James Shields’ spot in the rotation. Shields became a free agent and it was unlikely the Royals would be able to keep him.
"We know full-well we'll have to continue to make adjustments on our roster. It's not a push-button club, it never was," Royals general manager Dayton Moore said recently. "But right now we feel like we're in a good position to start spring training and to start the season." Volquez was an All-Star for Cincinnati in 2008, going 17-6 with a 3.21 ERA. But he struggled with injuries and inconsistency the next few seasons, and started bouncing around the league. He spent 2012 and part of the 2013 season with the Padres, finished up that season with the Dodgers, and then joined Pittsburgh last season, where he seemed to resurrect his career. The 31-year-old Volquez went 13-7 with a career-best 3.04 ERA, and his 2-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio was among the best of his career. Volquez also ended the season with a career-best 18 straight scoreless innings, and had a 1.08 ERA in September. Volquez was 9-1 with a 1.85 ERA after June 23, spanning his final 17 starts. "I was really aggressive, attacking the hitter, in the strike zone, getting ahead of the count," Volquez explained. "And I controlled a little more my emotions."
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