Kristen Stewart for M le Monde June 2012
The People – M le Monde profiles the cast of the upcoming “On the Road” film– Kristen Stewart, Garrett Hedlund and Sam Riley for the magazine’s June issue.
Photographed by Steven Pan (Management Artists), the actors all pose for a series of intense portraits styled by Emilie Kareh. / Hair by Giannandrea, Makeup by Jillian Dempsey
First the Wall Street Journal said the next iPhone will have a four-inch screen, then Reuters agreed, and now Bloomberg’s sources are saying the same thing. Bloomberg are also reporting, however, that Steve Jobs was closely involved with the design process.
In some ways that’s a little surprising because, back in 2010, Jobs famously criticized large phones. He didn’t think anybody would ever want to carry a big phone, going as far as saying that “no one’s going to buy” one. The market has since proved him wrong and, if we’re to believe Bloomberg’s reporting, clearly Jobs had changed his mind before his death in October last year.
With so many reports floating around about Apple’s shift to a four-inch screen, it’s beginning to seem inevitable. If you’re a small-screen fan, now might be a good time to brace yourself. More here.
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LOS ANGELES: Donna Summer, whose music dominated the 1970s disco era, died of cancer on Thursday at age 63, leaving a legacy of hit singles like “Love to Love You Baby,” “Last Dance” and “Bad Girls.”
Summer, who won five Grammys and sold more than 130 million records worldwide, died surrounded by her family in Naples, Florida, publicist Brian Edwards said.
Edwards said she died of cancer but he declined to comment on a report from celebrity website TMZ.com that she had been diagnosed with lung cancer.
“Early this morning, surrounded by family, we lost Donna Summer Sudano, a woman of many gifts, the greatest being her faith. While we grieve her passing, we are at peace celebrating her extraordinary life and her continued legacy,” the singer’s family said in a statement.
Summer, known as the queen of disco, had three children and married twice. Her second husband, musician Bruce Sudano, was at her bedside, Edwards said.
She began her career in Germany where she performed in productions of the shows “Hair” and “Porgy and Bess” and worked as a studio session singer.
But it wasn’t until 1975 that she found fame with the moaning vocals and grinding beat of “Love to Love You Baby” that was a huge, but controversial, hit in European nightclubs.
Summer followed up with a string of other disco tunes in the 1970s and into the mid-1980s, including “Last Dance,” “Hot Stuff,” “Bad Girls,” “I Feel Love” and her cover version of the ballad “MacArthur Park,” which was her first No. 1 record in the United States in 1978.
In 1983, she scored a massive hit with “She Works Hard for the Money,” as she sought to branch out of the disco genre.
Summer’s recording career declined in the 1990s, but she sang at Nobel Peace Prize concert in Norway in 2009 in honor of Nobel laureate, U.S. President Barack Obama.
Her family asked on Thursday that fans make donations in Summer’s honor to the Salvation Army. (Reuters)
Spears had barely wrapped up an appearance in New York confirming she is joining the singing contest before the celebrity knives were out, raising the question of how well the singer, who went through a public meltdown in 2007, can handle all the newfound attention.
Her dress, nails, shoes, legs and figure have all come in for scrutiny – most of it negative – in a taste of what may come when the show returns to TV in September for two nights a week over four months.
The New York Daily News ran photos of the “Toxic” singer’s “bloody picked fingernails”. It also showed a close-up of her thighs, commenting that she “appeared in a short white mini dress that showed off her famous pop star legs – and what looks to be a bit of cellulite.”
Spears, famed for raunchy dance routines and music videos in her heyday, is now 30-years-old and a mother of two. Outside her sell-out global concert tours, she has been largely shielded from the media since a career and personal breakdown in 2007 that resulted in her affairs being handed over to her father.
Mary Fischer at The Stir on website cafemom.com, said the singer was “a hot mess” in the cream dress she wore for her New York appearance on Monday before Fox TV network executives and advertisers.
“She might as well have just thrown on a nightgown or racy piece of lingerie. She would’ve achieved the same effect (showing off the fact that she’s shed a bit of weight and gotten her groove back), but she wouldn’t have looked like she was trying so hard,” Fischer said.
She suggested Spears should take a tip from Prince William’s wife and style icon Kate Middleton who “is the definition of being chechi without revealing too much skin.”
DAZZLING RING, LUMPY LEGS
Celebrity magazine Us Weekly was more excited by Britney’s three carat diamond engagement ring, estimated to be worth about $90,000, that boyfriend Jason Trawick slid on her finger in December.
But some readers weren’t dazzled by the ring and focused on Spears’ fashion. Kathleen Tandy commented on the magazine’s website that although Britney looked good in the second, purple dress she wore for photos on Monday “she looked like straight-up trailer trash” in the cream outfit.
Britain’s Sun newspaper said “Britney looked better than she has in years,” when she stepped out in New York. But elsewhere in the tabloid, reporters said her cream mini-dress “hugged her lumpy legs. A pair of tight ankle-strapped heels cut off her pins even more.”
Elsewhere, Spears’ legs were seen as either toned, bruised, dimpled or fat in hundreds of fevered online debates, where the former pop princess was compared (mostly unfavorably) to the demurely-dressed Demi Lovato, 19, who is also joining “The X Factor.”
But the “Baby…One More Time” singer also had plenty of defenders.
“I don’t care for Britney, but seriously what is with all the fat comments? I’d love to see what some of you guys look like or your spouses…” wrote HuffingtonPost.com user Goldie Treasure..
“The only thing that looks kind of weird is her knee, but whatever on that. Christina (Aguilera) and Britney are not little 17 yr old pop princesses anymore they are women in their 30′s with kids, cut them some slack.” (Reuters)
NEW YORK: Jennifer Lopez has topped the annual Forbes list of the 100 most powerful celebrities in the world, taking over from fellow pop singer Lady Gaga and beating out media mogul Oprah Winfrey.
The 42-year-old singer, actress and dancer, who rose up through the entertainment world ranks from her humble birthplace of the Bronx, New York, surprisingly jumped from 50th place on last year’s list that measures power by entertainment related earnings, media visibility and social media popularity.
Forbes estimated Lopez’ earnings in the past 12 months at $52 million, and her top ranking is powered by her lucrative gig as a judge on popular television show, “American Idol,” a new clothing line at Kohl’s, a top-selling fragrance and millions of Twitter and Facebook followers. She also just announced her first upcoming world tour, joined by Enrique Iglesias.
Winfrey, who has admitted struggling with her OWN TV network after ending “The Oprah Winfrey Show” syndicated TV chat show last year after 25 years, kept her No. 2 slot from last year, earning an estimated $165 million.
Canadian pop star Justin Bieber, 18, also stayed at No. 3 where he debuted last year, earning $55 million, with Forbes reporting he has become a serious investor whose portfolio includes music streaming service Spotify.
Pop star Rihanna landed on the list for the first time with estimated earnings of $53 million due to hits in the past year such as “We Found Love,” and “Talk That Talk,” while also landing lucrative endorsement deals with the likes of Nivea and Vita Coco, Forbes said.
Dropping four places from last year, Lady Gaga was ranked No. 5, earning $52 million, while new “The X Factor” judge Britney Spears returned to the list after a one-year hiatus landing at No. 6, earning an estimated $58 million helped by a successful tour.
Kim Kardashian was also a notable newcomer at No. 7. She earned $18 million – the lowest amount in the top ten – but attracted ample media attention for her splashy wedding and divorce. Pop singer Katy Perry landed at No. 8.
Rounding off the top ten was Tom Cruise at No. 9 with the comeback success of his “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” movie that earned nearly $700 million at the global box office, and Steven Spielberg’s various ventures in TV and movies earned him an estimated $130 million to place him at No. 10.
British singer Adele entered the list at No. 24 after a record-equaling six Grammy haul and returning to live performing after surgery on her vocal chords.
Among big names to drop off the list was Charlie Sheen after his “Two and a Half Men” exit. His replacement on the show, Ashton Kutcher debuted on the list at No. 51.
The collective earnings power of the top 100 dropped slightly in 2012, with this year’s crop earning a collective total of $4.4 billion, down from $4.5 billion in 2011. (Reuters)
Kristen Stewart for Elle UK 2012
Kristen Stewart goes to the garden for the June issue of British Elle magazine. Lensed by David Slijper and styled by Anne-Marie Curtis, Kristen wears designs from Valentino, Rochas, Cristopher Kane, Miu Miu and others.
The Sun’s rays power virtually all vegetative growth on the face of the Earth, or at least they used to. A new discovery by a team at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany will coerce plants into growing in total darkness.
Sunlight actually does more than simply provide plants with metabolic energy—it also activates photoreceptor cells called Phytochromes that, in turn, switch on physical processes like germination and blossoming. The study, which was just published in The Plant Cell journal, has devised an alternative means of jump-starting these same processes—relying on chemicals rather than the sun. The team discovered that feeding the substance “15Ea-phycocyanobilin” to seedlings chemically activates the same photoreceptors that natural light would, inducing the same development as those in a control group that were grown normally.
This discovery of course is still far from commercially viable but, if it does pan out, Tilman Lamparter, the director of the study, believes that it could have vast applications throughout the agriculture and research sciences. “Blossoming of flowers or development of the photosynthesis system may be controlled much better in the future,” Lamparter told R&D Mag. “These findings would be of high use for agricultural industry in the cultivation of flowers or biomass production, for instance.” More here.
