BLOGS in TOPBLOG

THE ‘Sex and the City’ girls were out in force last night to support flame-haired Cynthia Nixon as she was honoured with a courage award for her work as a role model for gay young people.

The four glamourous women looked united as they posed outside the event and the sight of their dresses and shoes set fans’ of the Manhattan show’s hearts racing as the build up to the movie continues.

Pay disputes between Sarah Jessica Parker (43) Kim Cattrall (51) Kirsten Davis (43) and Cynthia (41) had initially poured cold water on plans for the movie of the cult TV show that ended after six series.

But now with just six weeks until the movie’s release, fans won’t have to wait much longer for their final fix of complicated love stories and high fashion.

Last night’s event could be seen as a dress rehearsal for the premier with all four women glamming up.

Cynthia, who plays highpowered lawyer Miranda Hobbes, was given the ‘2008 Point Courage Award’ for her role in the gay community.

DATING

The actress ended her 15- year relationship to father of her children Danny Mozes in 2003 and finally came out.

The mother of two has been dating an education activist Christine Marinoni for the last four years.

Cynthia said, “I’m in a fantastic relationship. It’s been about four years. I’m in love with (Christine) because she’s her. If she were a man, would I be in love.”

The actress said she’s delighted to be seen as a role model for young people.

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TAMPA, FLA—Former middle school English teacher andconvicted sex offender Debra Lafave, sentenced to three years of house arrest followed by seven years of probation after pleading guilty to having sexual relations with a 14-year-old male student will spend the last three months of house arrest on probation. At a hearing Tuesday, Circuit Court Judge J. Rodgers Padgett ruled that Lafave would be released from house arrest on July 11. She had been arrested in June 2004 after the boy’s mother had called police to report that Lafave was having sex with her son. She pleaded guilty in November 2005 to two felony counts of lewd and lascivious battery.Lafave, 27, who has completed two years and four months of house arrest, will now be on straight probation which is less restrictive and doesn’t require her to wear a monitoring bracelet.

Lafave had been arrested in December after Child Protective Services and Lafave’s probation officer conducted an investigation based on information that Lafave was allegedly having contact with a female teenage co-worker at Danny Boy’s Restaurant in Ruskin. They had worked together since approximately October 2006.

Lafave was charged with having discussed non-work related issues with the girl, who has since turned 18, such as family problems, friends, high school, personal life, boyfriend issues and sexual issues.Padgett had ruled that while she violated her probation by talking with the co-worker about her personal life, her actions were neither “willful nor substantial” and she was not penalized. 4-08-08

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WANT to be an instant babe or chick magnet? Just tell your date you’re an actor, nurse or personal trainer.

Australia’s sexiest jobs list shows we like our women kind and buff, and our men beefy with a wallet to match.

For women, acting is the hottest job on the block, a poll of more than 500 singles for dating site RSVP revealed today.

The celebrity appeal of hotties such as Angelina Jolie has seen actors knock perennial favourite nurses off the top spot.

Musicians, personal trainers and doctors also look good on paper to the typical single fella.

But you can forget finding the way to a man’s heart through his stomach the least sexy occupation a woman can be is chef.

Other jobs that make a woman a dating dud are firefighter, tradeswoman and banker.

Men in uniform staged a sex-appeal resurgence this year, making up lost ground on metrosexuals and pen-pushers.

Firemen were the number one he-man hotties for the second year running, followed by the appeal of the tradies’ tool belt, ahead of chief executives, musicians and professional athletes.

“Women basically said it’s a return to the brawny male, of being able to fix things at home,” RSVP marketing director Lija Jarvis said.

“We’re not so caught up in the suit and the metrosexual.

“Women were finding power sexy again. There were many comments about ‘I just want to find a guy who is successful and comfortable and willing to look after me to be a tennis wife’.”

But don’t believe everything you hear, with one in four singles found to lie about what they do for a living.

Lying to get laid is common: Almost one in four singles told fibs about their job to impress a date.

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American Airlines announces hundreds of flight cancellations in order to inspect wire bundles on its MD-80 planes — the same issue that stranded thousands of the carrier’s passengers last month. The cancellations could extend later into the week.

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Kansas’ comeback was stirring in the NCAA Tournament final, but AOL’s Jim Armstrong says that Memphis clearly wilted under the pressure and put itself in the dubious company of the all-time biggest chokes in sports.

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LG is going into full tease mode, releasing an image capturing the angles of what’s to be the next model in its Black Label line. The details are few, but the mobile pictured above is a lithe slider set for worldwide release over the summer and third quarter of the year. It’s slim and dark (a stark contrast to the gold and gaudy ‘Ironman’ phone), with a case made of nearly indestructible carbon fiber and a touchscreen of glass (reinforced for pocket duty). On the back, it packs a five-megapixel camera with a little flash, the thinnest phone with such offerings.

Nothing else is known at this point, including when exactly it will be hitting the U.S., what it will cost, or what name or model number it will have, but you can be sure we’ll be keeping an eye out for it.

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Unlike the Koreans, the Japanese are preparing to embrace our new robot overlords. In fact the Japanese are preparing to hand over their jobs to a mechanical work force. The Machine Industry Memorial Foundation, a Japanese think tank, says that by 2025 robots could be filling 3.5 million jobs formerly filled by a human.

This isn’t necessarily bad thing for friends across the Pacific. It seems that much of Japan’s population is getting older. In fact researchers expect to see a drop in the Japanese work force of about 16 percent by 2030, and filling positions as citizens retire is just part of the problem. The number of elderly people in the country is ballooning, and caring for these citizens may be one of the major industries that robots play an important role in.

The Machine Industry Memorial Foundation doesn’t see robots completely replacing humans, but allowing people the time to focus on more important things. Robots could clean house, monitor the health of the elderly, bathe them, read to your kids, and of course, deliver you a beer.

Researchers expect 40 percent of Japan’s population to be over 65 by the year 2055, making the robot workforce a pressing concern.

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(April — A doctor mistakenly gave Kylie Minogue the all clear when she had actually had breast cancer, the Australian singer told Ellen DeGeneres yesterday.

A nervous-looking Minogue told DeGeneres that she had never publicly discussed the misdiagnosis before, but was inspired to speak out after an earlier guest on the show, U.S. presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton, emphasized how vital early breast cancer detection is.

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SAINI SUNPURA, India (April - A baby with two faces was born in a northern Indian village, where she is doing well and is being worshipped as the reincarnation of a Hindu goddess, her father said Tuesday.

The baby, Lali, apparently has an extremely rare condition known as craniofacial duplication, where a single head has two faces. Except for her ears, all of Lali’s facial features are duplicated - she has two noses, two pairs of lips and two pairs of eyes.

“My daughter is fine - like any other child,” said Vinod Singh, 23, a poor farm worker.

Lali has caused a sensation in the dusty village of Saini Sunpura, 25 miles east of New Delhi. When she left the hospital, eight hours after a normal delivery on March 11, she was swarmed by villagers, said Sabir Ali, the director of Saifi Hospital.

“She drinks milk from her two mouths and opens and shuts all the four eyes at one time,” Ali said.

Rural India is deeply superstitious and the little girl is being hailed as a return of the Hindu goddess of valor, Durga, a fiery deity traditionally depicted with three eyes and many arms.

Up to 100 people have been visiting Lali at her home every day to touch her feet out of respect, offer money and receive blessings, Singh told The Associated Press.

“Lali is God’s gift to us,” said Jaipal Singh, a member of the local village council. “She has brought fame to our village.”

Village chief Daulat Ram said he planned to build a temple to Durga in the village.

“I am writing to the state government to provide money to build the temple and help the parents look after their daughter,” Ram said.

Lali’s condition is often linked to serious health complications, but the doctor said she was doing well.

“She is leading a normal life with no breathing difficulties,” said Ali, adding that he saw no need for surgery.

Lali’s parents were married in February 2007. Lali is their first child.

Singh said he took his daughter to a hospital in New Delhi where doctors suggested a CT scan to determine whether her internal organs were normal, but Singh said he felt it was unnecessary.

“I don’t feel the need of that at this stage as my daughter is behaving like a normal child, posing no problems,” he said.

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Larry Ellison, the billionaire head of Oracle Corp., spent at least $200 million to build a house on his 23-acre Silicon Valley estate south of San Francisco.

When San Mateo County tax officials valued the residence, a reproduction of a 16th-century Japanese emperor’s country house, at $166 million, Ellison protested. He argued, through his attorney, that the property was so elaborate no one else would pay that much for it.

After more than two years, Ellison won his case before a county appeals panel, receiving a $3 million tax refund. Now local schools and parents are the ones protesting.

“He’s essentially taking money away from the education of the kids of this county,” said Maren Christensen, 46, parent of a second-grade student at Ormondale school in Portola Valley, California, near the town of Woodside, where Ellison’s estate is located.

The Portola Valley School District estimates it will lose as much as $300,000 from its $10 million budget because of the decision.

“For us, it’s the worst case scenario,” said Tim Hanretty, assistant superintendent. “We’ll survive. This community and school district will rally.”

The school district, with more than 700 students, probably will have to cut six non-teaching jobs from its 120-person staff because of the ruling, Hanretty said.

$25 Billion

Ellison, Oracle’s 63-year-old chief executive officer, is the world’s 14th-richest person, with a net worth of $25 billion, according to Forbes Magazine.

William Bennett, Ellison’s lawyer in the appeal, and Deborah Hellinger, a spokeswoman for Redwood City, California- based Oracle, didn’t return messages seeking comment.

California schools already face budget cuts. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger earlier this year proposed to trim spending by as much as 10 percent from all state agencies to fill a deficit that reached as high as $16 billion in February, caused by the loss of tax revenue amid the worst housing slump in the U.S. in 26 years.

The state’s top education official said an estimated 20,000 teachers and school support staff may lose their jobs as a result.

In its ruling, the San Mateo county assessment appeals board reduced the taxable value of the property belonging to Ellison by $100 million. After that decision, at the existing rate of 1 percent property tax, Ellison would owe $646,770 for tax year 2005, the year he appealed the value of his home through his Octopus Holdings LP.

Fielding Complaints

“Legally, Larry Ellison had every right to do what he did, but it would have been nice if he considered the impact to the Portola Valley School system,” said Angela Schillace, 40, who has two school-aged children in the area.

The school district is trying to make up for the loss of money by asking a local foundation to donate unallocated funds, leaving some jobs unfilled, and exploring cost-saving measures with other area schools. In addition to state-wide cutbacks, the school will face an increase in the enrollment of kindergarten students next year, requiring more teachers to handle the class load, Hanretty said.

While San Mateo County’s Board of Supervisors is fielding complaints from residents, there’s nothing it can do, said Bill Chiang, a spokesman for its president, Adrienne J. Tissier. “This whole thing has little to do with the board,” he said. “It’s not something we allow or don’t allow.”

Residents have called expressing emotions ranging from “upset to outrage,” said Richard Gordon, a member of the board of supervisors.

“Perhaps Mr. Ellison would like to be directed to one of the school foundations” to make a donation, Gordon said.

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