Heather Donahue chronicles her journey from starring in the cult classic to growing marijuana in her memoir, “Growgirl,” in stores now. She tells Marlow Stern about her path to pot.
FLYING HIGH: Phillips Trust Westpac Rescue pilots Dan Harcourt, left, and Loren Haisley never know where their job will take them next.
WELCOME BACK, AMERICAN IDOL
THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY BEGINS WITH A TWO-NIGHT PREMIERE WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18 AND THURSDAY, JANUARY 19;
AUDITIONS CONTINUE WITH A SPECIAL BROADCAST SUNDAY, JANUARY 22
FOLLOWING THE NFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME ON FOX
Hollywood Rounds Begin Thursday, February 9
Performance Challenge Airs Wednesday, February 22
Semifinalists Revealed Thursday, February 23
Semifinalists Perform Tuesday, February 28 and Wednesday, February 29
Americas Vote Reveals Finalists Thursday, March 1
The incredible journey is about to begin as AMERICAN IDOL, Americas No. 1 show, returns for its remarkable 11th season. Featuring host Ryan Seacrest and returning judges Randy Jackson, Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler, AMERICAN IDOL is set to return with a two-night event showcasing the nations most extraordinary talent Wednesday, Jan. 18 and Thursday, Jan. 19. Auditions will continue with a special, extended primetime broadcast of AMERICAN IDOL Sunday, Jan. 22 (10:00 PM ET/7:00 PM PT), following the NFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME (6:00 PM-CC ET live/3:00 PM-CC PT live) on FOX.
The shows judges – Jackson, Lopez and Tyler – traveled to Savannah, Aspen, Galveston, Pittsburgh, Portland, San Diego and St. Louis in search of contestants with the raw talent and potential to become the next AMERICAN IDOL. Auditions continue on Wednesday, Jan. 25 and Thursday, Jan. 26; Wednesday, Feb. 1 and Thursday, Feb. 2; and Wednesday, Feb. 8 on FOX.
The contestants who impress the judges will head to Hollywood and be put to the ultimate test during the Hollywood Rounds, airing Thursday, Feb. 9; Wednesday, Feb. 15; and Thursday, Feb. 16.
On Wednesday, Feb. 22, those who make it through Hollywood must then take the Performance Challenge, where they face the judges one last time before the top male and top female semifinalists are revealed on Thursday, Feb. 23.
The judges have their say after every performance, but its the viewing public that determines who will advance to the next round of the competition and who will go home. In the milestone 400th episode, airing on a special night, Tuesday, Feb. 28, the first group of semifinalists will take the stage to sing for Americas votes.
The following night, Wednesday, Feb. 29, the remaining semifinalists will perform. The competition takes an intense turn on the LIVE results show Thursday, March 1 as Americas vote reveals the first set of finalists, then those that remain will have one last chance to perform for the judges who will round out the 2012 AMERICAN IDOL finalists with their wild card picks.
The following week, the competition heats up when the finalists take the stage on Wednesday, March 7. One finalists journey will end as Americas vote is revealed on Thursday, March 8.
All AMERICAN IDOL episodes begin at 8/7c unless otherwise noted.
RECAP
Wednesday, Jan. 18 Season Premiere, Part 1
Thursday, Jan. 19 Season Premiere, Part 2
Sunday, Jan. 22 Auditions Episode (Special Broadcast)
(10:00 PM ET/7:00 PM PT)
Wednesday, Jan. 25 Auditions Episode
Thursday, Jan. 26 Auditions Episode
Wednesday, Feb. 1 Auditions Episode
Thursday, Feb. 2 Auditions Episode
Wednesday, Feb. 8 Auditions Episode
Thursday, Feb. 9 Hollywood Round, Part 1
Wednesday, Feb. 15 Hollywood Round, Part 2
Thursday, Feb. 16 Hollywood Round, Part 3
Wednesday, Feb. 22 Performance Challenge
Thursday, Feb. 23 Semifinalists Announced
Tuesday, Feb. 28 Semifinalists Perform/
400th Episode (Special Broadcast)
Wednesday, Feb. 29 Semifinalists Perform
Thursday, March 1 Results Show; Finalists Announced and
Judges Wild Card Picks Revealed
(ET live/PT tape-delayed)
Wednesday, March 7 Finalists Perform
Thursday, March 8 Results Show; First Elimination
(ET live/PT tape-delayed)
Visit americanidol.com for all of your AMERICAN IDOL news.
Become a fan of AMERICAN IDOL on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AmericanIdol. Follow the series on Twitter @AmericanIdol and join the discussion at #AmericanIdol. Also, follow host Ryan Seacrest at @RyanSeacrest, and follow the judges: @yo_randyjackson; @JLo; and @iamstevent.
AMERICAN IDOL is produced by 19 Entertainment, a division of CKX, Inc. and FremantleMedia North America, Inc. The series is created and executive-produced by Simon Fuller, CEO, XIX Entertainment, and executive-produced by Cecile Frot-Coutaz, CEO, FremantleMedia North America, Inc.; Ken Warwick, Executive Producer, FremantleMedia North America, Inc.; and Nigel Lythgoe, CEO, Nigel Lythgoe Productions. AMERICAN IDOL has been No. 1 among Adults 18-49 for the past eight consecutive seasons.
This will be the seventh season of the reality show after BBA 1, BBA 2, BBA 3, Big Brother Allstars, Big Brother Revolution and the recent Big Brother Amplified which saw Zimbabwe’s Wendall Parson and Nigeria’s Karen Igho walking away with $200 000 each.
Entry for the new season is expected to be open to the public this month. Coca-Cola remains the main sponsor of the show.
“We are announcing the new season very early so people interested in participating can consider taking part in this incredible journey. That decision is the first step on a road that may well lead right to the Big Brother house,” said Mnet Africa managing director Biola Alabi.
According to series executives, viewers can once again get set for drama, action and entertainment with twists and turns galore from the reality TV powerhouse that continues to draw widespread audience interaction and some of the most entertaining personalities on African television.
Alabi added: “This show is definitely a high-demand production that draws and entertains audiences from the beginning to the end.
While the basics are the same, every season is different from previous ones. Reinvention is crucial and I can confirm this year we are doing something that has never been done before in the history of Big Brother Africa.”
Mnet said the entry criteria for aspiring housemates had changed and there would be only one winner as compared to last year’s edition which had two winners.
BBA is a television show in which a group of people live together in a large house, isolated from the outside world, but continuously monitored by television cameras.
Each series lasts for around three months (91 days) and there are usually 12 participants drawn from different countries in Africa. The housemates compete for a cash prize by avoiding periodic evictions from the house.
Over the years Zimbabwe has been represented by Tapuwa Mhere, Bertha Zakeyo, Munya Chidzonga, Itai Makumbe, Kristal Culverwell, Vimbai Mutinhiri and Wendall Parson. Parson was the first Zimbabwean to win the show.
Big Brother Africa is produced for Mnet by Endemol South Africa and is screened live throughout the show in 47 African countries on DStv.
GREENFIELD – Its a 400-mile commute Sergei Ivantchev makes twice a week to and from the Greenfield duplex that he and his wife have shared with their two daughters as well as his parents since 1998.
But the trip, to the Waterville, New Brunswick, Canada, hospital where the 47-year-old Greenfield transplant works as an anesthetist, is just a small part of the journey hes made since leaving his home country of Moldova.
Ivantchev had already successfully completed six years of medical school after college before he and his wife, Lucia who had chemistry training and worked in a perfume factory left the Moldovan capital, Chisinau, with their baby daughter. Their adventure, which included a hastily-arranged 1992 Cuban vacation on an Aeroflot flight and their defection from the former Soviet republic during a refueling stop in Gander, Newfoundland, is described in Ivantchevs new self-published memoir, The Journey.
Team mates congratulate Australias Ben Hilfenhaus for taking the wicket of Indias captain MS Dhoni during the second cricket Test, at the Sydney Cricket Ground. (Reuters)
Jakadrien Turners lies last year to authorities in Texas – including adopting an alter ago and claiming she was from Colombia – set off a harrowing journey that, according to posts on a Facebook page featuring photographs of her, she seemed to later regret.
By Friday, the troubled teenager was finally back in the United States, after being arrested and then deported to a country that shed never been in before. It was a months-long escapade that has her family asking questions about how she got to the South American nation and what happened to her while there.
Jakadriens journey began April 2, 2011, in a Houston, Texas, shopping mall where the 15-year-old was arrested for shoplifting a white shirt, black vest and jeans. It was a petty crime that turned out to be the first step in her changing her identity.
Home gt;gt; Reality Television , Inspiration gt;gt; Style Will Show Giuliana Rancics Breast Cancer Journey From The Beginning!
Weather and ice permitting, its hoped a commemorative party will be ashore at Cape Denison on Thursday, January 12, 100 years to the day that Mawson and a small team of men first set up camp to overnight ashore.
The party plans to lay a time capsule and raise the Australian flag near Mawsons wooden huts to mark the groundbreaking 1911-14 expedition.
The Adelaide-based geologist and his men landed in sunny weather but were only able to take ashore one boatload of supplies before a blizzard set in and they were forced back to the ship.
Australian National University historian Tom Griffiths, who is aboard the Aurora Australis, said that despite continuing bad weather, Mawson determined they would camp on January 12 and within three weeks they had built the two sturdy huts that stand to this day.
Professor Griffiths said Mawson soon realised they had landed in one of the windiest places on the planet at sea level, with harsh katabatic winds regularly blowing at speed off the polar plateau.
Mawson and 17 other men overwintered in the huts after the Aurora left to drop another overwintering team further west before returning to Australia.
When winter was over, teams left on sledges to explore the new land.
Mawson was the lone survivor of the far eastern sledging journey after young British army officer Belgrave Ninnis fell down a crevasse and Swiss expeditioner Xavier Mertz succumbed to illness and exhaustion on the gruelling return journey.
Mawson made it back to the huts after a month-long, lone journey in appalling conditions and had to spend another winter on the ice with a relief party after missing the returned Aurora by only hours.
Professor Griffiths told AAP that Mawsons story of survival against the odds was overwhelmed at the time by the global outpouring of grief over the deaths of British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his party on their return from the South Pole.
He said the public became captivated by the tragedy of Scotts expedition while Mawson returned alive, making his story less newsworthy.
Prof Griffiths said Australians did not know enough about Mawsons ordeal or the achievements of his expedition which put scientific and geographic exploration ahead of the race for the pole.
He said just as Australians remember the landing at Gallipoli in 1915 as a critical moment in Australian identity, Mawsons landing at Cape Denison should also be remembered as the act of a new nation with new-found nationalism following federation.
BEIJING, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) — On Sept. 1, 1944, a radio signal was detected and captured on the western coast of the United States. Datelined Yanan, Xinhua, it travelled more than 12,000 km from a small cave in west China.
The message was soon handed to senior officials in Washington, who learned the latest happenings in the war against Japan in China and changed their views on the situation.
By sending its first long-distance English-language radio signal, the Xinhua News Agency successfully made its overseas debut and started to communicate with the outside world.
Sixty-seven years later, a draft of Xinhuas first radio message can be found in the archives of the Federal Communications Commission in Maryland.
At the same time, in the New York Times Square, Xinhua has bought space on a prominent billboard, flanked by ads for Coca-Cola and Samsung. The billboard features a LED sign, 60 feet high by 40 feet wide, that advertises Xinhuas news services to visitors in the square.
The 80-year-old agency has moved from the caves of Yanan to modern buildings in Chinas capital, serving up a 24-hour stream of multilingual news and information in a wide variety of forms.
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
Xinhua was founded as the Red China News Agency on Nov. 7, 1931, marking the beginning of a long and arduous journey to international renown.
Xinhua became a state news agency when the Peoples Republic of China was founded in 1949. In 1954, just after the Geneva Conference, it was decided to build the agency into an international agency, as requested by the central government, said Yang Yi, former vice president of Xinhua.
Xinhua established its first foreign branch in 1948, in the Czech Republics capital of Prague. The location was chosen because of its proximity to Europe. Wu Wentao served as one of its first correspondents.
At that time in China, the war of liberation was in a critical stage, and the Communist Party of China (CPC) had withdrawn from its headquarters in Yanan, which raised some doubts in east Europe, Wu wrote in his memoir. The international community was very curious about the progress of Chinas liberation, he wrote.
Wu and his colleagues wrote stories for the party papers of several east European countries, like the Rude Pravo in the Czech Republic, to explain the situation in China at that time.
Following Prague, new branches in London and Pyongyang were established. By 1965, the agency had established 51 overseas branches and employed local correspondents in 32 countries.
Xinhua started to stand on its own feet in covering international events and exerting its influence in the early 1950s, when China emerged on the global stage after the war to resist US aggression and aid Korea and a series of international conferences.
In 1954, Xinhua reporters attended the agencys first major international event, the Geneva Conference, during which the worlds leading powers gathered to find a way to unify Korea and discuss the possibility of restoring peace in Indo-China.
Xinhua was responsible for covering the event and published commentaries, features and reviews, according to Yang Yi, a reporter who covered the event.
Xinhuas reports were then regarded as a barometer that reflected the stance of the Chinese government, Yang said.
It was in Geneva that foreign countries started to learn about China. They got interested and wanted to know more. And China got to know the world better as well, he said.
