Courteney Cox’s FX show, Dirt, will not be renewed for a third season. She broke the news at the “A Time for Heroes” Celebrity Carnival by saying, “It just got canceled.” However, she adds that she and hubby David, who she co-produced the show with, have other tricks up their sleeve. She dished, “We’re developing all kinds of stuff right now. We’ll producing more stuff together, for sure.” On a side note, Cox recently said her BFF Jennifer Aniston is doing good these days, and the two have been enjoying time together with and without Jen’s flavor of the week, John Mayer.
Mark Wahlberg, 37, is going to be a daddy for the third time. He and longtime girlfriend Rhea Durham, 29, have two other children, daughter, Ella, 4 and son Michael, 2. “When the kids are good, we want eight or nine. When they’re bad, we [want] to stop at three,” Wahlberg said Monday while promoting his new movie, The Happening. Wahlberg didn’t say when the baby is due, but he said that having a family is “awesome . . Hectic at times, but a lot of fun.” He also revealed the pressures of fatherhood. “My fear is failing as a father, as a friend, as a son. I have a lot of responsibility and a lot of people counting on me. And I know God has put me in this position to put back and try to create some opportunities for some others, show kids there is another way.”
Jay Leno is reaching out to “Tonight” show alum Ed McMahon as he faces foreclosure on his Beverly Hills home. “Everybody loves Ed. Jay and others on the show are discussing how they can help him,” Leno’s rep told the NY Daily News. Reportedly, McMahon’s public money troubles have prompted help from fans of Johnny Carson’s former sidekick, including several endorsement offers. “A lot of people have shown generosity,” says Howard Bragman, McMahon’s rep. “Things are going to work out.”

fashion.ie

If you’re on Windows, hold down the control key and press the F5 key. Mac:apple+r. Linux:f5
HOUSTON — Stanford senior David Sender did just enough on the pommel horse to edge Jonathan Horton for the overall title at the U.S. gymnastics championships Saturday.
His 13.75 gave Sender 180.7 points for the two-day meet, a mere 0.25 ahead of Horton, who was fourth in the world last year.
Lakewood’s Alexander Artemev finished sixth with 178.150 points while Denver’s Guillermo Alvarez (177.950) was seventh.
Paul Hamm, who broke the fourth metacarpal in his right hand Friday, was named to the national team along with his twin brother, Morgan, who had another strong showing Saturday, winning the floor exercise title and finishing third on both vault and high bar.
Joining the Hamms on the national team are: Sender, Horton, Artemev, Alvarez, Joseph Hagerty, David Durante, Kevin Tan, Raj Bhavsar, Sean Golden, Justin Spring, Tim McNeill and Yewki Tomita.
All are eligible to compete at the Olympic trials, which begin June 19 in Philadelphia. Scores from nationals and trials will be weighted and combined to help select the six-man squad for Beijing.
Tsonga is out of French Open
PARIS — Australian Open runner-up Jo-Wilfried Tsonga withdrew from the French Open because of an injured right knee.
Nicolas Kiefer of Germany and Fabio Fognini of Italy also withdrew a day before the clay-court major begins.
• Top-seeded Nikolay Davydenko won the Hypo Group International for a third time, beating defending champion Juan Monaco 6-2, 2-6, 6-2 in Poertschach, Austria.
Johns Hopkins, Syracuse in final
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Johns Hopkins ended Duke’s lacrosse season for the third time in four years and spoiled the last chance for the players stained by a stripper scandal to leave with an NCAA title.
Kevin Huntley scored four goals in Johns Hopkins’ 10-9 victory over top-seeded Duke, and put the Blue Jays in Monday’s championship game against Syracuse. The Orange beat Virginia 12-11 in double overtime in the other semifinal.

denverpost.com

The decision to ban Tickle Me Archuleta's whacko stage dad from rehearsals has dominated American Idol since late last week, overshadowing The Top 3 and next week's finale. The rumors about Little David's papa turned out to be true, and the crap hit the fan last week when Daddy Dearest switched up the lyrics for Stand By Me to include lines from Sean Kingston's Beautiful Girls , which samples the classic song. The producers had told him this was not allowed because the show didn't have clearance, but David A. sang it anyway during the live show costing AI untold dollars in royalties.
Not that it matters at this point. It's definitely a David Archuleta vs. David Cook finale, so I hope Syesha Mercado is packing her bags. Tonight's show was merely a formality. The Top 3 sang three songs — one chosen by the judges, one of their choice and one selected by the producers. It was, in a word, boring.
David Archuleta: Paula picked Billy Joel's ballad And So It Goes and he knocked this one out of the park. It would turn out to be Squinty Elmo's best performance of the night. What's up with the Members Only jacket and skinny tie? Is that back in fashion? I got a closet full. David's choice was Chris Brown's With You. Hilarious! Hearing the little puppy sing about kissing and hugging a girl, not to mention calling her "my boo" had me rolling on the floor. Simon accurately described it as a "chihuahua trying to be a tiger." Awkward and skeevy are more like it. The producers selected Dan Fogelberg's Longer , a 70s soft rock ballad that has enough schmaltz to put the average listener into a coma. For a show trying to be hip, the producers proved they are a bunch of oldsters who not only don't have their finger on the pulse of today's youth, but may not have a pulse themselves.

tvfan.ew.com

Singer Duffy sits next to a clear blue swimming pool on a hotel rooftop patio, the sun setting behind her blond bouffant. She takes a sip of her drink, widens her blue eyes and grins.
“Just like the movies!” she exclaims about the setting — repeating a waiter’s observation.
It all does seem just like the movies, and a long journey for an ambitious gal raised in a tiny town in North Wales who now lives in London. Just hours earlier, she performed her ‘60s-inspired hit “Mercy” for the first time on U.S. television, singing her heart out for a taping of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” A day earlier, she played to a sweaty crowd at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in the California desert. Her album “Rockferry” — already a chart-topping smash in England — made its U.S. debut Tuesday.
The 23-year-old — born Aimee Anne Duffy, but known simply as Duffy — is one of several young female singers from the United Kingdom descending on the United States.
Amy Winehouse, whose double-platinum U.S. debut “Back to Black” album won five Grammys earlier this year, and fellow London crooner Lily Allen’s critically acclaimed debut, “Alright, Still,” may have jump-started this so-called British Invasion. But Duffy and others such as chart-topper Leona Lewis, Adele, Kate Nash, Laura Marling, Estelle and Amy MacDonald are mapping out their own paths from Europe to the United States, and the women are all unique.
Still, some have dubbed them the “new Amys.”
Duffy sighs at the comparisons.
“I kind of want to be left alone a little bit, with that. I want to hide. I prefer to be not known than to be known as something completely wrong,” Duffy told The Associated Press during an interview at a Los Angeles-area hotel.

accesshollywood.com

PITTSBURGH — A newlywed couple spent the night in separate jail cells — she in her wedding gown — after police said they brawled with each other, then members of another wedding party, at a suburban Pittsburgh hotel.
The fight started Saturday night after a reception when he knocked her to the floor with a karate kick in the seventh-floor hallway of a Holiday Inn — and escalated when she attacked two guests from another wedding party who came to her aid, police said.
The melee moved to an elevator and then to the lobby, where the couple threw metal planters at the two good Samaritans, causing minor injuries, police charged.
“It was pretty wild,” Ross police Sgt. Dave Syska said.
Dentist David W. Wielechowski, 32, of Shaler, and Christa Vattimo, 25, had married a month earlier in the Bahamas but repeated their vows Saturday at a reception for 150 guests. They were checking into their room when the argument began, police said.
Police arrived to find the dentist lying on the lobby floor and his bride, seemingly highly intoxicated, screaming.
Authorities charged each with simple assault, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct, and the bride with an additional count of public intoxication. They face a May 7 preliminary hearing.
A district judge considered issuing a restraining order against Wielechowski, but his new bride declined the measure.
The couple declined comment upon their release Sunday morning.
She left with her father, still dressed in her white gown.
Wielechowski left alone, sporting a swollen eye, tuxedo pants, a bloody T-shirt and one shoe.

foxnews.com

Smoltz struck out Felipe López in the third inning, Smoltz’s fourth strikeout of the game, to reach the mark. He finished with 10 strikeouts for the second straight start.
Smoltz (3-1) allowed a run and five hits in seven innings. Still, his earned run average rose 22 points to 0.78. He got no run support from an offense that came into the game leading the National League with a .286 average.
brEWERS 9, CARDINALS 8 Gabe Kapler singled home Gabe Gross with the winning run with one out in the 12th inning and Milwaukee overcame another blown save by Eric Gagné, beating visiting St. Louis. After the game, the Brewers announced Gross had been traded to the Rays in a deal for the minor league pitcher Josh Butler. It was a fitting end to a wacky game that included the Cardinals’ Albert Pujols playing second for the first time in his big league career.
REDS 8, DODGERS 1 Jerry Hairston Jr. had four hits in his debut as Cincinnati’s leadoff hitter, and Adam Dunn and Brandon Phillips each homered for the host Reds.
ASTROS 11, PADRES 7 Kaz Matsui’s two-run single in the eighth lifted Houston over visiting San Diego. Jake Peavy allowed four earned runs, matching the total for his four previous starts combined.
PIRATES 3, MARLINS 2 Xavier Nady’s two-run single completed a three-run rally as host Pittsburgh ended a six-game losing streak.
PHILLIES 8, ROCKIES 6 Pat Burrell’s bases-clearing double with one out off Manny Corpas in the ninth inning lifted visiting Philadelphia over Colorado.
RED SOX 7, ANGELS 6 Dustin Pedroia’s tiebreaking R.B.I. double in the eighth inning helped host Boston rally for its sixth consecutive victory after ace Josh Beckett was scratched from the game with a stiff neck. David Pauley, recalled from Class AAA, gave up five runs on seven hits in four and a third innings.

nytimes.com

brADENTON, FLA. — Toronto Blue Jays centre fielder Vernon Wells has big expectations when the bases are full and pint-sized shortstop David Eckstein comes to the plate."You load the bases for Eck, he’s going to hit a homer," Wells said. "The little fellow can hit a ball a long ways. The little fellow comes through."
© Copyright 2008 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
globeandmail.com and The Globe and Mail are divisions of CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc., 444 Front St.

theglobeandmail.com

Cooking shares the connective thread of music and travel. Like a good song or a colorful postcard, recipes are shared through friends and generations. Unless you were a fan of rumaki. This sense of community explains why cooking videos have sprung up on YouTube, Chowhound and other Web sites. People are hungry to share their secrets. But can you learn to cook through YouTube? I found it somewhat difficult.
It’s not like those early morning cable TV workouts where you simply roll out a mat in your living room and count along with young women in bikinis doing calisenthics along South Beach.
Cooking through YouTube requires the viewer to step up to the plate and keep his or her eye on the ball.
“Cooking on YouTube is an emerging trend that’s heating up,” said YouTube spokesman Spencer Crooks from YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, Calif. “A vibrant community is sharing recipes and exchanging techniques. Chefs interact with the viewers where people leave comments. There’s a single place to turn for everything from knife techniques to cooking an omelet in a Ziploc bag.”
I made jambalaya for my YouTube experiment. Cajun cooking allows for improvisation, great background music (Clifton Chenier, Lil’ Band of Gold), Mountain Dew chasers and good companionship.
I used my 1984 version of Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen cookbook as a safety template. I embellished with my own ideas and stuff I found on YouTube. This was like re-configuring the Louisiana Purchase.
I came across the three-part series “New Year’s Eve Jambalaya Cooking” on YouTube. It was not very inspiring. The kitchen appeared to be a mess and the droll woman in the background sounded like she was stoned, calling the chef “dude” and asking, “What’s going on here now?”
The worst part was that most ingredients were not introduced. The video’s saving grace: posts by viewers suggesting to add chorizo sausages, pork, blackeyed peas, kidney beans, stock, carrots/onions/ chickpeas and so on.

suntimes.com

Whitesnake’s adaptation of “Day Tripper,” the curse of the upbeat song, cooliosis, and other highlights you may have missed.
posted March 25, 2008
Obsessive analysis of American Idol.
posted March 11, 2008
Emo mullets, girl-on-girl photos, and other news you may have missed.
posted March 11, 2008
How Idol insinuates itself into pop-music history.
posted May 24, 2007
Blogging the new season of American Idol.
That’s a lot of Beatles songs. Don’t get me wrong, I was psyched when I heard that American Idol finally acquired the performing rights from Sony/ATV. But four hours, 23 solos, two medleys, and a Katharine McPhee/David Foster collaboration later, I’m ready to let the singers get back to their regular Idol fare. It wasn’t all bad—though it’s maybe not their thing. The Top 12 worked the hard-won Lennon-McCartney songbook two weeks ago in some innovative and fairly satisfactory ways. And then the producers couldn’t just “Let It Be,” so there was a second Beatles night last week (this time including songs by the Other Beatles!). Has this ever happened before—two successive weeks of the same theme? The answer is no, and now we know why.
While it did provide a second chance to a few who faltered the first time, the reverse situation prevailed. Chikezie, who turned out my favorite performance during Lennon-McCartney night, tried unsuccessfully to replicate the success the following week. His bluegrass-cum-Little Richard rendition of “She’s a Woman” had been lively and so full of sh-sh-sh-showmanship that it drew rave reviews from the judges and sent Ryan running around the stage in a Beatlemaniacal frenzy. But his second attempt at the country vibe, an odd dual-tempo arrangement of “I’ve Just Seen a Face,” found Chikezie trying to board the instrument-playing bandwagon with an ill-advised harmonica solo—it was pretty much just that ingressive-egressive thing your toddler does with his Fisher Price model.

slate.com

EBENSBURG — A Blacklick Township waterline project should be underway in May and design work for other sewer and water initiatives are being lined up to follow, Cambria Redevelopment Authority officials said last week.
The authority awarded a $133,530 low bid, one of 18 submitted, to Glenn Hope-based Norman G. Diehl Contracting to extend one mile of waterline to homes on Bethel Road that currently rely on wells.
‘‘These people are having trouble with gas in their wells,’’ said Redevelopment Director Larry Custer, noting that six homes will connect to the line.
While funding to do the work was allocated to remedy the health issue, the new waterline also will open up opportunities for others to build near the line and connect, Custer said.
The project, which involves adding two fire hydrants, is expected to take about two months and wrap up this summer.
Meanwhile, the authority awarded design work for three other projects, including two in Jackson Township and one in Washington Township to Cresson-based Hegemann & Wray Consulting Engineers.
The plans are a necessary step, Custer said, to get the sewer and water projects under construction by 2009.
n More than a mile of 6-inch waterline will be added along Chickaree Hill Road and 1,800 feet of line along Wagner Road, a project that will provide water to at least 26 homes. Funding is in place to pay for the project, Custer said.
n Less than a half-mile of new sewer line will be extended along Loraine Road in Jackson, where 18 properties will connect. Jackson Township is using its Community Development Block Grant funding for 2007 and 2008 to foot its portion of the bill, estimated at $320,000.
n In Washington Township, 2,500 feet of old waterline will be replaced along Memorial Drive, the second phase in the Lilly coal area project. The redevelopment authority has earmarked $80,000 in 2008 grant money to wrap up the project.
A storm collection system also will be built in Sidman, Adams Township, a project that will require 2,000 feet of sewer lines, Custer said. Design work on that project was awarded to Westmoreland County-based Morris Knowles & Associates.
Custer said the projects could be ready for bid later this year.
Mirror Staff Writer David Hurst is at 946-7457.

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