Senegalese singer Ndour calls for more famine aid (AP)

DADAAB, Kenya – Senegalese singer Youssou Ndour says African artists should take the initiative to help families affected by famine in the Horn of Africa.

Ndour said Tuesday he hoped to help African artists raise funds through their performances. He said he had received the support of U2 frontman Bono.

Ndour visited northern Kenya's sprawling Dadaab refugee camp on Tuesday. Most of the more than 400,000 refugees there are Somalis fleeing the country's 20-year-old civil war and encroaching famine.

The U.N. says over 12 million people in the Horn of Africa, including parts of Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and Uganda, are affected by the drought and are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance.

Only Somalia is affected by famine. Its civil war prevents aid agencies from reaching families in need.

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Kim Kardashian wedding prompts 22 calls to police (AP)

LOS ANGELES – Kim Kardashian's weekend wedding kept the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office busy.

Officer Drew Sugars says the Saturday evening ceremony brought 22 calls into the station, mostly complaints from neighbors about loud music and helicopters overhead.

Sugars says seven deputies were hired to provide supplemental security at the nuptials, which were held at a private estate in Montecito, Calif.

No citations were issued, and no arrests were made.

Kardashian's marriage to professional basketball player Kris Humphries was filmed for a forthcoming TV special.

It is the first marriage for the 26-year-old athlete and the second for the 30-year-old reality star, who appears on E!'s "Keeping Up with the Kardashians."

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Andy Dick calls Howard Stern a "money-grubbing Jew" (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Andy Dick, no stranger to stirring controversy and alienating large groups of people, called shock jock Howard Stern a "shallow, money-grubbing Jew," Tuesday.

The comedian fired against Stern on the "Greg Fitzsimmons Show," calling the radio host a "big fat hook nose," and "miserly."

Dick claims he still hasn't been paid for "The S*** Show," a program he has hosted for several years on Stern's Sirius Radio channel, Howard 101, starting in 2006.

"For two years I did the show and never got paid," the comedian complained.

Stern shot back after a caller informed him of Dick's rant, saying that Dick's career has been dotted with anti-Semitism.

"So good, Andy's true colors come out. I'm not surprised by it, I'm used to it. It's just typical," Stern said.

"Andy's run out of friends," Stern added. "You're not getting paid a dime because your show sucks, a**-wipe ... Stop blaming the world for your problems. Make yourself valuable, stop looking for the handouts waiting for the Jew to give a job."

Dick is no stranger to prejudice -- the comedian was forced to apologize for using the N-word during a 2006 comedy show in Los Angeles.

In 2010, Dick was detained in Huntington, W.V. after reportedly grabbing men's crotches in a bar. In 2008 he was arrested in Riverside County on suspicion of pulling down the top of a teenage girl in a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant.

A cast member of last season's "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew," Dick was also arrested in May at a Temecula, Calif. restaurant for "disorderly conduct."

In 2007, Jimmy Kimmel had him forcibly removed from the set of his ABC late-night show after Dick repeatedly touched Ivanka Trump's hair and legs.

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Rapper could face charges tied to flash mob calls (AP)

LOS ANGELES – A rapper could face criminal charges after a tweet from his account incited a telephone flash mob that overwhelmed the emergency phone system at one of busiest stations of the Los Angeles County sheriff's department, the agency said Saturday.

The sheriff's department alleges The Game tweeted the Compton station's phone number Friday and told his 580,000 followers to call the number if they wanted an internship.

Phones at the southeast Los Angeles County station started ringing at 5:23 p.m. Friday, and the lines were jammed by hundreds of calls for more than two hours, prompting authorities to bring in additional help. Many callers hung up as soon as someone answered, while others asked deputies about a music internship.

During that time people with legitimate issues that included a missing person, spousal abuse and two robberies were also trying to call in, department spokesman Steve Whitmore said.

Sheriff's Capt. Mike Parker said that when authorities finally figured out what had happened, he sent two tweets to the rapper asking him to take down the number. Instead, Parker said, The Game posted that his account had been hacked and also tweeted that it was an accident.

"Yall can track a tweet down but cant solve murders!" the tweet said. "Dat was an accident but maybe now yall can actually do yall job !!!!"

A call and email to The Game's publicist, Greg Miller at Big Hassle Media, was not immediately returned.

The rapper finally took down the number around 11 p.m. Friday after a third request from Parker, who took particular issue with the accusation that deputies are not doing their job.

"Under the LA county sheriffs we've reduce homicides in Compton by over 50 percent in recent years and crime is down in Compton, but it's particularly helpful when the public can contact us," Parker said Saturday in a phone interview with The Associated Press. "This incident was the social media equivalent of going into a crowded movie theater and shouting 'Fire!'"

Investigators will document what happened, how many calls flooded the station, the rapper's tweets and other information, and will turn it over to the district attorney's office next week, Parker said. The rapper could face charges of maliciously disrupting or impeding communications over a public safety radio frequency, obstruction of justice or other charges related to delaying a peace officer from doing their job.

"Public safety was absolutely compromised," Parker said. "We were delayed in responding to calls."

The Game is a California-based rapper whose real name is Charles Louboutin, the sheriff's office said in a release.

His 2005 debut album, "The Documentary," entered the charts at the top and sold 586,000 units in the first week, according to his website. The rapper, who grew up in Compton, has collaborated with famed rappers including Dr. Dre, Kanye West and 50 Cent.

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Chief of struggling NBC calls on Ferrell, Hayes (AP)

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt is drawing on Will Ferrell, Sean Hayes and other proven talent to help turn around the fourth-place network's fortunes.

The former Fox and Showtime executive says he's being "very aggressive" about making new development deals after joining NBC late last year, including one with Ferrell's production company. For former "Will & Grace" star Hayes, there's a new NBC sitcom in the works.

"Law & Order" creator Dick Wolf is developing a new firefighter drama for the network.

Greenblatt told the Television Critics Association on Monday that "The Biggest Loser," "America's Got Talent" and other reality shows remain important to NBC, but he'd like to rebalance the schedule with "scripted shows that become lasting hits."

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Professor calls Prince Charles, others "snake-oil salesmen" (Reuters)

LONDON, Jul (Reuters) – A leading professor of complementary medicine accused Britain's heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles and other backers of alternative therapies on Monday of being "snake-oil salesmen" who promote products with no scientific basis.

Edzard Ernst, who is stepping down from his post as Britain's only professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University, also said a long-running dispute with the Prince about the merits of alternative therapies had cost him his job -- a claim Prince Charles's office denied.

"Almost directly, Prince Charles has managed to interfere in my professional life and almost managed to close my unit," Ernst told reporters at a briefing.

A spokeswoman for Prince Charles told Reuters the royal heir was not involved in the dispute with Ernst and that she would not respond to professor's comments about snake-oil salesmen.

Ernst's complementary medicine research unit at Exeter's Peninsula School of Medicine had been threatened with outright closure, but the university has now offered it a reprieve and says it is seeking a successor to Ernst to lead it.

"It looked as though I had to go, and that was the price for the unit to continue," Ernst said. "I pay the price gladly as it is a small price to pay for the unit to continue."

Ernst said that during his 18 years of researching the efficacy of hundreds of different types of alternative medicine -- from acupuncture, to herbal remedies, to homeopathy and chiropractic therapy -- he has found that "snake-oil salesmen and pseudo-science are ubiquitous and dangerous."

Asked whether he included Prince Charles in that category, he said, "yes."

He said Prince Charles, a long-time advocate of alternative and integrated medicine and sustainable agriculture, was one of the main obstacles to allowing proper scientific analysis of the efficacy of complementary therapies.

Referring to the prince's Duchy Originals food company as "dodgy originals" he said the firm's promotion of a "detox" tincture made from artichoke and dandelion was an example of how the prince peddled scientifically unproven therapies.

In 2009 Ernst accused Prince Charles of "outright quackery" for promoting the detox tincture and other such products "under the banner of holistic and integrative healthcare."

The 62-year-old prince founded Duchy Originals in 1990 to promote organic food and farming, with profits going to charity.

Duchy Originals describes the product as "a food supplement to help eliminate toxins and aid digestion" and a spokeswoman for the firm said it had no comment about Ernst's remarks.

Ernst's dispute with Prince Charles dates back to 2005, when the professor was asked to look at a report by an economist, Christopher Smallwood, who was investigating whether alternative remedies were cost-effective and should be offered more widely on Britain's taxpayer-funded National Health Service (NHS).

Ernst objected to the report and decided to voice his concerns before it was published. In one section, the report said the NHS could save billions of pounds if some doctors could switch from prescribing conventional medicines to offering alternative therapies. "That was so unspeakable to me that I had to speak out," Ernst said.

Ernst was accused in a letter from an adviser to Prince Charles, Michael Peat, of having breached a confidentiality agreement on the report and an investigation was launched. Ernst was cleared of wrongdoing, but he says he had by that time lost the support of his institution and its commitment to raise more funding for his work.

A spokeswoman for Prince Charles said he "had no knowledge that a letter was being sent to the University of Exeter by Sir Michael Peat about Edzard Ernst's breaching of confidence of the Smallwood report in 2005" and was not involved in the dispute.

Ernst and his team have run many clinical trials and published more than 150 so-called meta-analyses of other studies into complementary and alternative medicines.

He says he has identified around 20 such therapies which "demonstrably demonstrate more good than harm" including the herbal remedy St John's Wort for the treatment of mild depression, hypnosis for the relief of labor pain, and hawthorn for the treatment of congestive heart failure.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Myra MacDonald)

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Hugh Hefner's 25-year old fiancee calls off wedding (AFP)

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – Hugh Hefner's 25-year-old fiancee, Crystal Harris, has called off their California nuptials, the 85-year-old founder of Playboy has announced in a Twitter posting.

"The wedding is off," Hefner tweeted Tuesday. "Crystal has had a change of heart."

Hefner had asked Harris to marry him during a party last Christmas Eve.

A ceremony had been planned for Saturday at Hefner's Playboy Mansion, a luxurious Gothic-style mansion in Beverly Hills.

The wedding would have been Hefner's third.

Harris did not explain why she dumped Hefner, except to say on her Twitter account that the decision came after "much deep reflection and thought" and that she continues to have the "utmost respect for Hef."

Harris's initial Twitter comment on the breakup was more enigmatic: "There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth," she tweeted. "Not going all the way, and not starting."

According to the gossip website TMZ.com, anonymous sources at the Playboy Mansion said the couple had argued on the phone over the weekend and that Harris was no longer living in the house.

Harris also tweeted that she hoped the media would give the formerly betrothed couple the "privacy we deserve during this time."

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Frey calls Winfrey interview 'personal car crash' (AP)

CHICAGO – Author James Frey tells Oprah Winfrey that if he could do it again he would have "been honest" in promoting his book "A Million Little Pieces."

Frey appeared on Monday's episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show," more than five years after Winfrey accused him on live television of lying in the book. Winfrey called it "the biggest controversy" in her show's history.

Winfrey chose Frey's substance abuse story "A Million Little Pieces," for her book club in September 2005, making it a million-seller.

Frey acknowledged on Winfrey's show in January 2006 that he lied in the book. Winfrey told him she felt duped and that he had betrayed millions of readers.

Frey told Winfrey on Tuesday that he's never seen that interview and called it a "personal car crash."

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Face transplant patient says daughter calls him "handsome" (Reuters)

BOSTON (Reuters) – The recipient of the nation's first facial transplant made his debut public appearances on Monday, saying he soon will go home to Texas to be with his young daughter and might attend college.

Dallas Wiens, 26, had most of his facial features burned off by contact with a high-voltage wire in 2008 and underwent a 15-hour procedure two months ago to replace his face.

Since the transplant, Wiens said, the most rewarding moment came when he was reunited with his preschool daughter.

"She was amazed. She actually said, 'Daddy, you're so handsome,'" Wiens said at a news conference at Brigham and Women's, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, where a team of more than 30 medical experts replaced his nose, lips, skin, muscles of facial animation and nerves in March.

"To me the face feels natural. It feels as if it has become my own," said Wiens, of Fort Worth, Texas.

Prior to the transplant, he could not smell, had trouble breathing and underwent more than 20 surgeries in Dallas.

When the transplant brought back his sense of smell, Wiens said the first scent he encountered was hospital lasagna.

It smelled delicious, he said.

Wearing dark sunglasses, Wiens spoke slowly but clearly. He is blind and his face droops slightly to one side, but his beard is growing back and he has a full head of hair.

In addition to his news conference, Wiens appeared on Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America."

His disfiguring accident occurred in November 2008 when he was working as a contractor. Helping paint a church, he was riding high on a cherry picker that struck a power line.

Wiens said that once home, he might attend college.

Over the next six to nine months he will be working to regain his facial muscle function and sensation in parts of his face, doctors said.

"Every step of the way was amazing," Wiens said. "It just felt like learning how to do everything over again but in a very real, very good way."

Doctors at Brigham and Women's performed the nation's second full face transplant in April on Mitch Hunter, 30, of Indiana, who suffered a severe shock from a high voltage electrical wire following a car accident in 2001.

Charla Nash, a Connecticut woman mauled by a chimpanzee in 2009, is on a waiting list for the surgery, the hospital said.

The world's first full face transplant was done in Spain in 2010.

(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Jerry Norton)

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Liz McClarnon party update: Liz calls heat. AW

Aw. So this morning we bought you the news that we'd tried and failed to get into Liz McClarnon's 30th birthday party last night (as you do), only to be thwarted by the PR would had said we could come down in the first place. Embarrassing.

Well it seems even Liz would have been happy for us to be there, the lovely lady herself has just been on the phone to us to say the following,
 
"I've only just heard about what happened last night and I'm so sorry. I love heat magazine and you would have been more than welcome to come and join the party. I wish I'd known about this at the time so I could have sorted it out. I owe you a very large glass of wine next time I see you!"
 
What. An. Actual. Sweetheart. Appaz Mrs.PR pants who represents the restaurant the event was held at and not McClarnon herself didn't even check with Liz and her gang if we'd be alright to pop in and say hi (eat some cake). OOPS. Bit awkward.
 
P.S Sorry to Liz for any offence caused to you personally, we were just jealous we couldn't get to join in the fun, we'd got our best shoes on and everything.

P.P.S We're definitely up for wine, let's split the cost and take a bottle.

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Charlie Sheen Calls Denise Richards a 'Kidnapper' and 'Dog Thief'

Any good will that existed between Charlie Sheen and his ex-wife Denise Richards may be gone.

The troubled actor tweeted insults about Richards earlier this morning.

"We must bombard with Warlock Napalm, that traitor and loser whore #DUH-neese POOR-ards. a vile kidnapper and now dog thief. hate," he wrote on his account, which has more than 3 million followers.


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