Who's in
Swank kicks off global race for clean water
Hilary Swank kicked off a round-the-world run on Friday to raise awareness of the world's 1.1 billion people who lack access to clean drinking water.
As part of the Blue Planet Run, 20 runners will log more than 24,000 km over 95 days. Each participant will run 20 km at a time.
Just before the first runner left the UN lawn, the two-time Academy Award winner said: "Making safe drinking water available is everyone's problem, and it's a problem it will take everyone to solve."
Nearly one in every six inhabitants of planet Earth do not have access to drinking water, according to the UN.
The runners will cross 16 countries, starting in the US before flying to Europe from where they will head to Beijing before flying to Japan, then back to the US.
'The Rock' separates from his wife
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has split with his wife of 10 years. The 35-year-old pro wrestler-turned-action star announced his separation from wife Dany Garcia Johnson in a statement to People magazine on Friday.
"We've been fortunate enough to spend the last 17 years together as a couple and look forward to spending the rest our lives together as best friends and business partners," the statement said. "We will continue to advance and manage our business interests, our philanthropic efforts and most importantly, the raising of our child together."
Garcia Johnson is the CEO of a wealth management firm. The pair have a 5-year-old daughter, Simone Alexander.
Johnson has appeared in the films Walking Tall, The Mummy Returns and The Scorpion King. He recently finished shooting a movie based on the television show Get Smart that stars Steve Carell.
O'Donnell: Memoir won't be vindictive
Rosie O'Donnell (pictured second from left) has had "an interesting year," she confided on Sunday, and a lot of it will be in her new book, Celebrity Detox, coming this fall.
Speaking at a breakfast gathering at BookExpo America, the publishing industry's annual national convention, O'Donnell said her long-delayed memoir on fame will not be "vindictive" or "mean-spirited," but will offer a candid look at her very public life, including her brief, battling stint on The View.
"It is, in fact, a drug," she said of fame and spoke of seeing peers so radically, and scarily, transformed by celebrity that they looked like victims of "crystal meth".
O'Donnell, looking healthy but tired on a Sunday morning, noted that her book was supposed to come out a few years ago, but she decided it wasn't ready then, not quite "cooked". Her time on The View convinced her she was ready to start baking again. She called the book "half blog", half "straight" writing.
Last month, O'Donnell ended an eight-month tenure on The View that lifted the show's ratings and, perhaps, the blood pressure of show creator Barbara Walters. O'Donnell feuded with Donald Trump and frequently had snippy exchanges with the more conservative Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
Agencies
(China Daily 06/05/2007 page18)
