M.I.A. music video "Born Free," elicits strong online response

M.I.A. music video "Born Free," elicits strong online response

If singer/rapper M.I.A.'s purpose was to get people talking about her new single "Born Free," she succeeded.

The Sri Lankan-born artist debuted the graphic video on Monday. Immediately, fans took to social media to debate its scenes of military force, violence and brutality.

"M.I.A. is a provocateur and someone who tries to rile people up in a variety of ways," said Saul Austerlitz, author of "Money for Nothing: A History of the Music Video from the Beatles to the White Stripes."

"I think one of the main routes that she takes to that end is the political, and this video has a lot of political resonances, things like Guantanamo, the Iraqi insurgency and the Taliban all sort of jumbled together and rebranded."

The almost nine-minute video for the song from her upcoming album includes nudity as well as scenes of brutality. Directed by filmmaker Romain Gavras, the video revolves around the rounding up of red-headed young men by a group of military commandos.

Fire destroys hundreds of homes in slum near Manila

Fire destroys hundreds of homes in slum near Manila

A massive fire destroyed about 600 homes Sunday in a shantytown outside the Philippines capital, displacing some 2,500 families, fire officials said.

The fire started at about 4 p.m. (4 a.m. ET) in the slum near Manila and was under control four hours later, said fire officials in Quezon City, a Manila suburb. There were no reports of casualties from the blaze. Five firefighters suffered minor injuries.

The fire has wreaked an estimated $10 million in damages, officials said.

Oil rig explosion, setting stage for a big spill

Oil rig explosion, setting stage for a big spill

NEW ORLEANS – A deepwater oil platform that burned for more than a day after a massive explosion sank into the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, creating the potential for a major spill as it underscored the slim chances that the 11 workers still missing survived.

The sinking of the Deepwater Horizon, which burned violently until the gulf itself extinguished the fire, could unleash more than 300,000 of gallons of crude a day into the water. The environmental hazards would be greatest if the spill were to reach the Louisiana coast, some 50 miles away.

Crews searched by air and water for the missing workers, hoping they had managed to reach a lifeboat, but one relative said family members have been told it's unlikely any of the missing survived Tuesday night's blast. The Coast Guard found two lifeboats but no one was inside. More than 100 workers escaped the explosion and fire; four were critically injured.

Carolyn Kemp of Monterey, La., said her grandson, Roy Wyatt Kemp, 27, was among the missing. She said he would have been on the drilling platform when it exploded.

"They're assuming all those men who were on the platform are dead," Kemp said. "That's the last we've heard."

Jed Kersey, of Leesville, La., said his 33-year-old son, John, had finished his shift on the rig floor and was sleeping when the explosion occurred. He said his son told him that all 11 missing workers were on the rig floor at the time of the explosion.

Lightning electrifies volcano ash

Lightning electrifies volcano ash

The Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH-lah-yer-kuhl) volcano continues to produce spectacular visual effects. Photographers have captured images of lightning, seemingly erupting directly from the volcano. The bolts may look like Hollywood special effects, but they're very much the real deal. No CGI required. But as LiveScience reports, they're also still a "bit of a mystery."

Sandra Asked to Return Razzie Statue

Sandra Asked to Return Razzie Statue

The co-founder of the Razzie Awards has taken to the media to ask Sandra Bullock to return the award she won last month for Worst Actress.

"We are ready to take the unprecedented step of asking a winner to return a Razzie," John Wilson, the awards co-founder, told the UK's Telegraph newspaper.

Lest you think this gesture has anything to do with her recent personal-life strife, think again: the Razzie judges haven't changed their mind about Bullock's performance in "All About Steve" - they just want the actual trophy back.

It seems they got so caught up in the moment that instead of giving Bullock the intentionally cheap (it's worth a whopping $4.79), spray-painted replica of the award that all winners receive, the Razzies organizers say they inadvertently handed Bullock the original 30-year-old award. Given its age and rarity, the original has much more value as a collector's item.

Mr. Wilson explained the confusion to the Telegraph: "As Sandra was in such a rush after winning Worst Actress she ran off with the original handmade prototype which has been present at ceremonies since the 1980s."

Bullock famously showed up to accept her Worst Actress award for her role in the box-office bomb, "All About Steve," bringing with her hundreds of "Steve" DVDs and promising to return the award if the Razzie judges changed their minds after watching the movie. The next day, Bullock won the Best Actress Oscar for "The Blind Side," making her the only person ever to win both an Oscar and a Razzie in the same year.

Ugly brawl mars MMA fight on TV

Ugly brawl mars MMA fight on TV

Jake Shields defended his Strikeforce middleweight title belt on Saturday night, beating UFC veteran Dan Henderson in five rounds, but the fighting did not end when the bell rang.

As Shields was being interviewed for the CBS viewing audience, Jason "Mayhem" Miller interrupted him, asking for a rematch. Shields' teammate, Strikeforce lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez, took offense to Miller stealing Shields' big moment, and pushed Miller. Shields and Melendez's teammates got in on the action. Strikeforce champ Nick Diaz and his brother, UFC fighter Nate Diaz, were both seen fighting Miller as CBS announcer Gus Johnson tried to end the fight by yelling, "Gentlemen, we're on national television."

Once the brawl broke up, Shields apologized, saying that this was out of character. Shields is known as a mild-mannered man out of the cage, and as he didn't instigate the melee, he doesn't deserve much of the blame.

But that doesn't mean there isn't plenty of blame to go around. Miller shouldn't have interrupted Shields' as he celebrated defeating one of his heroes in MMA.

Miller, the host of MTV's "Bully Beatdown," looks for the spotlight. He and Shields have a longtime beef with one another, and he shouldn't have been there. But Melendez had no business pushing Miller, and the Diaz brothers definitely had no business punching and kicking Miller while he was on the ground.

MMA is a relatively new and growing sport, and it has had very few chances to be on prime-time, network television. The fighters involved in the melee should be ashamed of themselves, as they have now given every opponent of MMA more reason to hate the sport. Instead of focusing on the gentlemanly way most fighters act after a bout has ended -- shaking hands, congratulating each other and each other's fight teams -- fans new to MMA will remember only that a few fighters couldn't let it drop when the final bell rang.

Air travel 'faces days of chaos'

Most major European airports have been closed as a plume of volcanic ash drifts south from Iceland across the continent, bringing travel chaos.

Air traffic suspensions are now in force in more than a dozen countries in an unprecedented move.

UK air traffic control said "current forecasts show that the situation is worsening throughout Saturday".

Thousands of travellers are stranded and airlines are losing an estimated $200m each day.

"The knock-on effect of the volcanic ash plume over northern Europe is likely to disrupt European airspace for several days," said the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (Canso), a global association of air traffic control companies.

"Traffic will have to be reorganised and rerouted and flights replanned, all on a dynamic and quite unpredictable basis," it said in a statement.

Many countries and airlines have grounded fleets amid fears that the ash - a mixture of glass, sand and rock particles, drifting from 5,000ft (1,500 metres) - could be catastrophic to aircraft.

In some of the biggest disruption in commercial aviation history, a swathe of northern European sky was empty of aircraft on Friday.

About two-thirds of the 28,000 daily flights in the affected zone were cancelled, while only half the usual number of flights between Europe and North America operated.

2 'Idol' contestants sent home; 7 stay still to compete

2 'Idol' contestants sent home; 7 stay still to compete

LOS ANGELES – "American Idol" viewers were cruel to Andrew Garcia and Katie Stevens.

The 24-year-old musician from Moreno Valley, Calif., and the 17-year-old high school student from Middlebury, Conn., received the fewest viewer votes Wednesday on the Fox singing contest.

Both failed to wow the judges with Elvis Presley tunes Tuesday. Stevens received a mixed reaction to "Baby What You Want Me To Do," while Garcia was lambasted for "Hound Dog."

"I'm glad I've been through what I've been through," Garcia said after his dismissal.

Stevens and Garcia were both sent packing on the double-elimination episode because the judges saved 26-year-old personal trainer Michael Lynche of Queens, N.Y., last week. "Idol" host Ryan Seacrest revealed that Lynche, who impressed the panel Tuesday with a low-key rendition of "In the Ghetto," was not one of the bottom-three vote getters on Wednesday.

Garcia was ousted at the beginning of the show, but Stevens didn't learn her fate until after performances from two past "Idol" contestants. Brooke White, the seventh season's fifth-place songstress, crooned Presley's "If I Can Dream" with model-singer Justin Gaston. Adam Lambert, the eighth season's runner-up, performed his own "Whataya Want From Me."

"If you want to win this competition, you've got to wake up," Lambert advised.

The other finalists remaining in the competition are Crystal Bowersox, 24, of Toledo, Ohio; Lee Dewyze, 24, of Mount Prospect, Ill.; Aaron Kelly, 17, of Sonestown, Pa.; Siobhan Magnus, 20, of Marstons Mills, Mass.; Casey James, 27, of Fort Worth, Texas; and Tim Urban, 20, of Duncansville, Texas.

The top seven singers will tackle inspirational tunes next week.

A 6.9 magnitude quake strikes China

A 6.9 magnitude quake strikes China

A magnitude of 6.9 earthquake struck China's Qinghai province Wednesday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

The quake hit at 7:49 a.m. local time (7:49 p.m. ET). The epicenter was about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northwest of Qamdo, Tibet. Qinghai borders the autonomous regions of Tibet and Xingjiang and the provinces of Gansu and Sichuan.

USGS also recorded two strong aftershocks -- of magnitudes 5.2 and 5.3 -- within half an hour of the quake.

Residents and witnesses near the epicenter reported casualties and collapsed buildings, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency. No other details were immediately available.

Poles expressed their grief over president's death

Poles expressed their grief over president's death

Poland's government moved swiftly Sunday to show that it was staying on course after the deaths of its president and dozens of political, military and religious leaders, even as tens of thousands of Poles expressed their grief over the plane crash in Russia that shocked the country.

New acting chiefs of the military were already in place and an interim director of the central bank was named Sunday, with work running as usual, said Pawel Gras, a government spokesman.

It was a rare positive note on a day wracked by grief for the 96 dead and laced with reminders of Poland's dark history with its powerful neighbor. The Saturday crash occurred in thick fog near the Katyn forest, where Josef Stalin's secret police in 1940 systematically executed thousands of Polish military officers in the western Soviet Union.

President Lech Kaczynski and those aboard the aging Soviet-built plane had been headed there to honor the dead. A preliminary analysis showed the plane had been working fine, a Russian investigator said.

Tens of thousands of Poles softly sang the national anthem and tossed flowers at the hearse carrying the 60-year-old Kaczynski's body Sunday to the presidential palace after it was returned from Russia's Smolensk airport, the site of the crash.

The coffin bearing the president's remains were met first by his daughter Marta, whose mother, the first lady, Maria Kaczynska, also perished in the crash. She knelt before it, her forehead resting on the coffin.

Search continues for the miners missing in blast at West Va.

Search continues for the miners missing in blast at West Va.

MONTCOAL, W.Va. – Grieving relatives began burying victims of the Upper Big Branch coal mine disaster Friday as crews neared a refuge chamber deep underground where they had faint hope that survivors might be awaiting rescue.

It was their fourth try to find the four miners missing since Monday's explosion killed 25 others in the nation's worst underground disaster since at least 1984. During the previous rescue attempt, searchers were forced to withdraw by dangerous gases and the risk of fire or explosion.

Gov. Joe Manchin promised families they should have answers by midnight.

"They just want to take their fathers and their husbands and their sons and their uncles, they want to take them home," he said. "They just want to bring them home."

Rescuers hoped the miners might have made it to the chamber stocked with food, water and enough oxygen for several days.

Late Friday, officials said their fourth try to check the chamber was progressing better than previous ones and crews were within 2,000 feet of where they needed to be. They expected an answer by midnight and said they hoped to start recovering bodies even if no one was in the chamber, an expandable box activated by opening a door and pulling a lever.

"We are praying for a miracle," President Barack Obama said in Washington.

Of the 25 confirmed dead, 18 bodies remained inside the mine.

"We believe that without any unforeseen problems ... (we) will be able to bring some finality to it tonight," Manchin said.

About a dozen people huddled around a television set at a pizza place near the mines to listen to Manchin speak, and many flashed smiles Manchin said he anticipated the rescue mission would end soon.

"We just keep hoping we'll have closure soon — good or bad, as long as it ends soon," said Sarah James, a 23-year-old whose husband is a surface miner.

Former Sex Pistols' manager McLaren has died at 64

Former Sex Pistols' manager McLaren has died at 64

LONDON – The former manager of the Sex Pistols and one of the seminal figures of the punk rock era, Malcolm McLaren, died Thursday, his son said. He was 64.

Joe Corre his father died of an aggressive form of cancer in Switzerland, declining to give the exact location.

"He was the original punk rocker and revolutionized the world," Corre told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "He's somebody I'm incredibly proud of. He's a real beacon of a man for people to look up to."

McLaren is best known for his work with the Pistols, whose violence, swearing, and antiestablishment antics shocked Britain and revolutionized the music scene. The band's chaotic career owed much to their manager's talent for self-promotion.

"Without Malcolm McLaren there would not have been any British punk," said music journalist Jon Savage, who wrote "England's Dreaming" — which chronicles the history of the group.

But McLaren, an art school dropout, was first known for his fashion, and the infamous clothes shop he opened on London's King's Road with his girlfriend Vivienne Westwood in 1971.

Sandra Bullock say's 'There is no sex tape'

Sandra say's 'There is no sex tape'

Sandra Bullock has broken her silence during her marriage crisis, denying an Internet report there's a sex tape with her and husband Jesse James.

"There is no sex tape," she says in a statement to PEOPLE on Tuesday. "There never has been one and there never will be one."

Until now, Bullock, 45, had not commented, remaining in seclusion since reports surfaced that James, 40, allegedly had cheated on her with at least four other women.

Bullock has been in touch with a close circle of friends, including comedian George Lopez, who visited her for a second time on Monday.

She spoke out in response to an online report that James possesses a graphic sex tape which he could possibly use as leverage in a divorce case.

Mine "blast" in West Virginia 12 were killed

Mine "blast" in West Virginia 12 were killed

Twelve miners died Monday and more than a dozen were unaccounted for after an explosion erupted inside an underground mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia, the mine's parent company said.

Another 21 miners were injured in the blast at the Upper Big Branch Mine, according to Michael Mayhorn, emergency dispatcher for Boone County, which was called in to assist in the response.

The explosion apparently occurred during an afternoon shift change, witnesses and officials said.

At least 20 ambulances and three helicopters were dispatched from surrounding counties, and the state medical examiner was heading to the scene, Mayhorn said. At least one miner was evacuated by helicopter, according to Mayhorn.

Don Blankenship, the chief executive officer of Massey Energy Co., which oversees the mine, said in a statement that the company is "working diligently on rescue efforts."

"Our prayers go out to the families of the miners," he said. "We want to assure the families of all the miners we are taking every action possible to locate and rescue those still missing."

The explosion happened about 4:30 p.m. at Massey Energy's Performance Coal Co. mine in Whitesville, West Virginia, 30 miles south of Charleston, West Virginia.

The cause of the explosion was not immediately known, but methane gas has been blamed in several deadly mining accidents in recent years, including the 2006 explosion at the Sago mine, also in West Virginia, that killed 12 people. Five miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, were killed five months later in a methane gas explosion in Kentucky Darby Mine No. 1.

A 7.2 magnitude quake in Mexico kill's two and injured 100

A 7.2 magnitude quake in Mexico kill's two and injured 100

A 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck northwest Mexico's Baja California on Sunday, rattling Arizona and southern California, and leaving at least two dead and 100 injured in Mexico, authorities said.

At least one person was killed in a building collapse in Mexicali, Mexico, according to the assistant director of civil protection in Tijuana. The other victim died when he ran from his residence into the street and was hit by a car, said Alfredo Escobedo, Mexico's director of civil protection.

All 100 injuries are concentrated in Mexicali, Escobedo said.

In California and Arizona, there were no immediate reports of injuries and only limited reports of damages.

The quake struck at 3:40 p.m. (6:40 p.m. ET) about 110 miles east-southeast of Tijuana, Mexico, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Pictures from Mexicali, a major metropolitan area and the capital of Mexico's Baja California state, showed sides ripped off buildings, telephone poles toppled, roads cracked and supermarket aisles strewn with food that had fallen off shelves.

The entire city has lost power, according to Alan Sandoval, Tijuana's assistant director of civil protection.

Erin Andrews getting death threats

Erin Andrews getting death threats

Erin Andrews has been getting death threats in a stream of e-mails to a media outlet, an attorney for the ESPN reporter and "Dancing with the Stars" contestant said Friday.

Attorney Marshall Grossman said that the media outlet, which he did not identify, had received at least a dozen e-mails since September threatening Andrews and passed them to her representatives Thursday.

The e-mails were at first sexual, but the most recent were explicitly violent and "threatened Erin with murder," Grossman said. They also had details about location and method.

The messages discuss the case of Michael David Barrett, who was sentenced last month to 2 1/2 years in federal prison for secretly shooting nude videos of the ESPN reporter.

"He refers to Barrett in his e-mail in a way to make clear to us that situation had some influence," Grossman said, but added that the man appeared to have no ties to Barrett.

The FBI has been notified, Grossman said. He said the man's identity is known to law enforcement and is believed to live on the East Coast. An e-mail message left for an FBI spokeswoman was not immediately returned.

Andrews is not yet seeking a restraining order but has asked ABC to beef up its security on "Dancing with the Stars," Grossman said.

Private security also has been hired to protect Andrews and her family.

Andrews has no plans of quitting the show.

"She's not the type to be easily threatened," Grossman said. "She has every intention to meet her obligations."

'True Blood' Star Anna Paquin Reveal she's Bisexual

'True Blood' Star Anna Paquin Reveal she's Bisexual

Hot on the heels of Ricky Martin's announcement on his personal blog that he's gay, "True Blood" star Anna Paquin used an unusual medium of her own to announce that she is bisexual.

Alongside celebrities such as Elton John, Clay Aiken, and Wanda Sykes, Paquin declared her sexual orientation in a public service announcement for Cyndi Lauper's Give a Damn Campaign, which promotes equality for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community.

Paquin follows an interesting trend of celebrities forgoing the traditional "coming out" People magazine interview -- à la Clay Aiken and Lance Bass -- and instead controlling the message themselves. Ricky Martin buried his announcement at the bottom of an otherwise banal blog post, and now Paquin is using her announcement to drive attention to a cause she supports. So much attention, in fact, that servers at wegiveadamn.org crashed shortly after the news broke of Paquin's statement.

The Give a Damn campaign is part of Cyndi Lauper's True Colors Fund (named after her popular 1986 song and album). Lauper is currently promoting the cause during her turn on the Donald Trump-judged show "Celebrity Apprentice."