Emma's symbolic hairstyle

Emma's symbolic hairstyle

Emma Watson cut her hair cut short to mark entering a 'new phase' in her life.

The 'Harry Potter' star - who plays Hermione Granger in the series, which completed shooting on its final film earlier this year- has recently had a drastic new short crop and admitted it was a symbolic gesture, to mark her leaving her character behind.

She told the Daily Mail newspaper: 'I'm 20 now, so I'm not a child any more. I've been on Harry Potter for ten years now, so I felt the need to mark the end of it in some way - I needed some way to say to myself, 'Right, you're entering a new phase of your life now'. I needed a change, and that's what the haircut is about.'

Emma, who played Hermione from the age of nine, added her father was initially worried about her new look, but that her pixie-like hairdo has since grown on him.

How do I use the Blogger Reading List?

How do I use the Blogger Reading List?

The Headlines: Actress Lindsay Lohan sentenced to 90 days for violating probation

The Headlines: Actress Lindsay Lohan sentenced to 90 days for violating probation

Actress Lindsay Lohan sentenced to 90 days for violating probation

Actress Lindsay Lohan sentenced to 90 days for violating probation

Actress Lohan was ordered Tuesday to serve 90 days in jail for missing alcohol counseling sessions in violation of her probation.

The judge also ordered Lohan to spend 90 days in a drug and alcohol rehab program after her jail term is completed.

The actress must begin serving her sentence on July 20, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Marsha Revel said.

After Revel ruled that Lohan had violated her probation in a 2007 drunken driving conviction by missing weekly alcohol counseling sessions, Lohan began sobbing as she addressed the court. "I did do everthing that I was told to do and did the best I could," she said.

Coffee shop 'Central Perk' hits Beijing

Coffee shop 'Central Perk' hits Beijing

Beijing, China -- It looks like Ross and Rachel's favorite hang out: the big orange couch, the oversized coffee mugs, the neon signage and bricks, and even the guitar on which Phoebe strummed "Smelly Cat."

Except this "Central Perk" is neither in New York City nor on the set of "Friends" in Los Angeles. It is thousands of miles away, tucked in the heart of bustling downtown Beijing on the 6th floor of a non-descript office building.

"When I watched 'Friends', I always wondered whether there was really such a coffee shop because I would definitely become a frequent customer," said Du Xin, who opened the cafe in March. "But I didn't find one. So, I decided to open a 'Central Perk' on my own."

A loyal and dedicated fan of the sitcom, Du scrutinized thousands of pictures of the show's set, watched endless reruns of the sitcom, and spent five months laboring over furniture designs with manufacturers in Beijing to create his uncanny replica.

Despite the massive popularity of "Friends" in China, the café's location was initially a liability.

Actress: Brittany Murphy's husband found dead

Actress: Brittany Murphy's husband found dead

L.A- Police say the husband of deceased actress Brittany Murphy has been found dead, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Sgt. Louie Lozano of the Los Angeles Police Department tells the paper that screenwriter Simon Monjack was found dead Sunday night at his home in the Hollywood Hills.

Lozano says that the cause of death was still unknown as of late Sunday and officers were still at the scene investigating.

The report comes five months after the death of his wife. The Los Angeles County coroner's office ruled that Murphy died of pneumonia complicated by an iron deficiency, anemia and multiple drug intoxication.

Coroner's officials say Murphy had gone into sudden cardiac arrest because of "drug intake," and her Dec. 20 death was classified as an accident.

Charice: The next Celine Dion

Charice: The next Celine Dion

She's only 4-foot-9, but Charice has a towering voice. When she applies her vocal pipes to a Whitney Houston ballad, she makes it look as easy as tying her shoelaces.

"She's incredible," says her producer and mentor, Grammy-winner David Foster. A veteran at nurturing new artists, he likens Charice's star power to another talent he helped discover. "It's like the first time I saw Celine Dion. It's exactly the same to me."

Even Dion is paying attention to the teen. In 2008, she invited Charice on stage at Madison Square Garden in New York for a duet of her hit song "Because You Loved Me." Charice, who has idolized Dion since she was 4, was only 16 at the time.

Last week, Charice celebrated her 18th birthday (we interviewed her a couple of weeks beforehand) by releasing her self-titled debut album in the United States.

She may have gotten her start singing power pop ballads in local contests in her native Philippines (which later translated to key performances for Oprah and Ellen), but her album has a more youthful, dance-pop feel. The lead single "Pyramid," featuring singer Iyaz, is in the No. 1 spot on Billboard's dance chart.

Nameless terrorists now CIA target

Nameless terrorists now CIA target

CIA had to know a militant's name before putting him up for a robotic targeted killing. Now, if the guy acts like a guerrilla, it's enough to call in a drone strike.

It's another sign of that a once-limited, once-covert program to off senior terrorist leaders has morphed into a full-scale -- if undeclared -- war in Pakistan. And in a war, you don't need to know the name of someone on the other side before you take a shot.

Across the border, in Afghanistan, the rules for launching an airstrike have become tighter than a balled fist. Dropping a bomb from above is now a tactic of last resort; even when U.S. troops are under fire, commanders are reluctant to authorize air strikes.

In Pakistan, however, the opposite has happened. Starting in the latter days of the Bush administration, and accelerating under the Obama presidency, drone pilots have become more and more free to launch their weapons.

Justin Ridiculed for 'German' Mistake

Justin Ridiculed for 'German' Mistake

The Internet is in a tizzy over an interview in which teen dream Justin Bieber appears to not be familiar with the word "German."

In the interview, a talk show host from New Zealand asks the 16-year-old a few true-or-false questions, including the query "True or false: 'Bieber' is German for basketball."

Bieber gets confused over the word "German," and the interviewer repeats it.

After this back-and-forth, Bieber says he doesn't know what the TV host means, and finally gives up on the question, proclaiming: "We don't say that in America."

It seems obvious that Bieber was simply perplexed by the interviewer's thick Kiwi accent (which the host himself points out). Or perhaps he was just annoyed at being asked an inane question.

Bieber offers his own explanation, via Twitter. "I thought this interviewer in NZ said 'Jewman' instead of 'German' people think I don't know what German is?"

Either way, the video has gone viral as blogs have ridiculed Bieber for exactly that as he did actually read the cue card that seems to say the word 'German.' One such blog, The Huffington Post, had to amend its post making fun of Bieber when it found an interview the singer did in Germany way back in August, in which he talks about his German great-grandfather and even counts to ten in the language.

Bieber mentions that interview on Twitter, saying "I count in GERMAN and translate my own name. Guess I know what German is. Guess home schooling is working out. Do your research next time b4 making a lame attempt at hating on a 16 year old."

Security slip let suspect on a plane

Security slip let suspect on a plane

WASHINGTON – The no-fly list failed to keep the Times Square suspect off the plane. Faisal Shahzad had boarded a jetliner bound for the United Arab Emirates Monday night before federal authorities pulled him back.

The night's events, gradually coming to light, underscored the flaws in the nation's aviation security system, which despite its technologies, lists and information sharing, often comes down to someone making a right call.

As federal agents closed in, Faisal Shahzad was aboard Emirates Flight 202. He reserved a ticket on the way to John F. Kennedy International Airport, paid cash on arrival and walked through security without being stopped. By the time Customs and Border Protection officials spotted Shahzad's name on the passenger list and recognized him as the bombing suspect they were looking for, he was in his seat and the plane was preparing to leave the gate.

But it didn't. At the last minute, the pilot was notified, the jetliner's door was opened and Shahzad was taken into custody.

After authorities pulled Shahzad off the plane, he admitted he was behind the crude Times Square car bomb, officials said. He also claimed to have been trained at a terror camp in Pakistan's lawless tribal region of Waziristan, according to court documents. That raised increased concern that the bombing was an international terror plot.

Shahzad, a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen, was charged Tuesday with terrorism and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in Saturday evening's failed Times Square bombing. According to a federal complaint, he confessed to buying an SUV, rigging it with a homemade bomb and driving it into the busy area where he tried to detonate it.

Obama says stopping oil spill could take many days

Obama says stopping oil spill could take many days

VENICE, La. – No remedy in sight, President Barack Obama on Sunday warned of a "massive and potentially unprecedented environmental disaster" as a badly damaged oil well in the Gulf of Mexico spewed a widening and deadly slick toward delicate wetlands and wildlife. He said it could take many days to stop.

Obama flew to southern Louisiana to inspect forces arrayed against the oil gusher as Cabinet members described the situation as grave and insisted the administration was doing everything it could. Then he took a 15-mile helicopter ride over marshlands and estuaries to a coastal area, but high winds prevented the craft from going out to the 30-mile oil slick caused by as much as 210,000 gallons of crude gushing into the Gulf each day.

The spill threatened not only the environment but also the region's abundant fishing industry, which Obama called "the heartbeat of the region's economic life." As of now, it appeared little could be done in the short term to stem the oil flow, which was also drifting toward the beaches of neighboring Mississippi and farther east along the Florida Panhandle. Obama said the slick was 9 miles off the coast of southeastern Louisiana.

Those who live and work in the region braced for the economic impact on fishing and tourism. In front of a cabin and RV park in Boothville, along Louisiana Highway 23, was a plywood sign pleading: "Obama Send Help."

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.