Royal baby arrives: Duchess Kate gives birth to a boy

It's a boy for Prince William and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge.

The former Kate Middleton gave birth to the couple's first child, a son, on Monday afternoon at a London hospital.

The birth was announced via a formal press release issued by Kensington Palace, which stated that the duchess "was safely delivered of a son" at 4:24 p.m., local time, weighing 8 lbs., 6 oz.

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"The Duke of Cambridge was present for the birth," the statement added. "The Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Harry and members of both families have been informed and are delighted with the news."

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Britain's royal baby arrives

Mother and son are both doing well, the palace said, and will remain in the hospital overnight.

"We could not be happier," Prince William said via a palace spokesperson. He will be spending the night at the hospital with his wife and new baby.

A palace source tells CBS News that William was with the duchess throughout her labor, and called the queen, Prince Charles, Prince Harry and the Middletons with the news.

In a statement, Charles said he and wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, are "overjoyed" by the baby's birth.

"Grandparenthood is a unique moment in anyone's life, as countless kind people have told me in recent months, so I am enormously proud and happy to be a grandfather for the first time and we are eagerly looking forward to seeing the baby in the near future," he said.

A bulletin containing details of the birth was taken by car to Buckingham Palace and placed on an easel at the palace gates for the public to see. Initially, officials had planned to place the bulletin on the easel before issuing the news electronically, but changed course shortly before the birth was announced.

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David Cameron: "Wishing the royal couple well"

"Right across the country and indeed right across the Commonwealth people will be celebrating and wishing the royal couple well," Prime Minister David Cameron told waiting reporters in front of 10 Downing Street. "It is an important moment in the life of our nation but I suppose above all it's a wonderful moment for a warm and loving couple who got a brand new baby boy. It's been a remarkable few years for our royal family -- a royal wedding that captured people's hearts, that extraordinary and magnificent Jubilee and now this royal birth, all from a family that have given this nation so much incredible service, and they can know that a proud nation is celebrating with a very proud and happy couple tonight."

The royal couple's child will officially be known as His Royal Highness Prince [Name] of Cambridge.

The title follows the dukedom bestowed on William by his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, on his wedding day in 2011. Earlier this year, the queen issued a royal decree allowing this royal baby -- and all of William and Kate's children -- to be titled prince or princess. The decree said "that all the children of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales should have and enjoy the style, title and attribute of royal highness with the titular dignity of Prince or Princess prefixed to their Christian names or with such other titles of honour."

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Prince William and Kate

The world may have to wait considerably longer to learn the baby's name -- the royal family will reveal it in an official statement in the coming hours or days. Harry's name was made public on the day he was born. It took about a week for the palace to reveal William's name, and nearly a month before their father's name was uttered outside of palace walls.

Prince William was with his wife when she was brought by car from Kensington Palace to St. Mary's Hospital in London before 6 a.m. local time in the early stages of labor.

Kate gave birth in the hospital's private Lindo Wing, where Princess Diana gave birth to William in 1982 and Harry in 1984.

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Britain prepares for royal baby

The new baby -- the first for William and Kate, who married in 2011 after a long courtship -- will be third in line to the British throne, behind Prince Charles and William. William is second in line, right behind his father, Prince Charles. The baby moves ahead of Prince Harry, who's now fourth in line.

Plenty of excitement has surrounded the royal birth. In the days leading up to the big day, reporters and photographers from the four corners of the globe staked out St. Mary's Hospital. The Royal Mint has minted 2,013 silver coins bearing a shield of the Royal Arms, to be given to newborns who share their birthday with the third in line to the British throne. Souvenirs and commemorative memorabilia are expected to flood Britain's stores.

Buzz has been building ever since the royal couple revealed the baby news on Dec. 3, 2012, with the following statement: "Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are very pleased to announce that The Duchess of Cambridge is expecting a baby. The Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall and Prince Harry and members of both families are delighted with the news."

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Kate, Duchess of Cambridge

At that time, the Duchess of Cambridge was suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum, a potentially dangerous type of morning sickness in which vomiting can be so severe that no food or liquid can be kept down. She was admitted to King Edward VII Hospital in London the same day the pregnancy was announced. Three days later, Kate was photographed leaving the hospital, alongside William, holding a bouquet of flowers.

From January into the spring, Kate made several public appearances as the world watched her baby bump grow. She attended a horse race, formally named a cruise ship and paid an official visit to Windsor Castle. In June, she withdrew from her public duties to get ready for the birth.

The former Kate Middleton and William became engaged in October 2010 during a trip to Kenya and were married in a lavish ceremony at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-207_162-57594857/royal-baby-arrives-duchess-kate-gives-birth-to-a-boy/

Michael Moore Divorce: Couple Worth $50M, Together for 21 Years

Michael Moore, the documentary filmmaker, reportedly filed for divorce from his wife of 21 years last month, and it could turn into a multimillion-dollar legal battle.

Moore, 59, filed a divorce complaint with the Antrim County Circuit Court June 17, citing that his marriage to Kathleen Glynn had broken down with "no reasonable likelihood that the marriage can be preserved," according to MLive.com.

Moore and Glynn were married Oct. 19, 1991, in their hometown of Flint, Mich. The couple has no children.

Moore earned his estimated $50 million net worth by making documentaries such as "Bowling For Columbine" and "Fahrenheit 911," which Glynn helped produce.

Moore's complaint for divorce seeks a temporary order and judgment dissolving the marriage and restraining both parties from selling or transferring the couple's assets to others, including stocks, bonds, limited liability companies, real estate, household furniture, and works of fine art, MLive.com reported.

http://www.newsmax.com/newswidget/michael-moore-divorce-50m/2013/07/19/id/516040?promo_code=125BD-1&utm_source=125BDTelegraph_Media_Group&utm_medium=nmwidget&utm_campaign=widgetphase1

JOURNALIST HELEN THOMAS DIES AT 92

WASHINGTON (TheBlaze/AP) — Helen Thomas, the irrepressible White House correspondent who used her seat in the front row of history to grill nine presidents – often to their discomfort and was not shy about sharing her opinions, died Saturday. She was 92.

Longtime White House correspondent Helen Thomas has died at the age of 92. (AP)

Thomas, who died at her apartment in Washington, had been ill for a long time, and in and out of the hospital before coming home Thursday, according to a friend, Muriel Dobbin.

Thomas made her name as a bulldog for United Press International in the great wire-service rivalries of old, and as a pioneer for women in journalism.

She was persistent to the point of badgering. One White House press secretary described her questioning as “torture” – and he was one of her fans.

Her refusal to conceal her strong opinions, even when posing questions to a president, and her public hostility toward Israel, caused discomfort among colleagues.

In 2010, that tendency finally ended a career which had started in 1943 and made her one of the best known journalists in Washington. On a videotape circulated on the Internet, she said Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home” to Germany, Poland or the United States. The remark brought down widespread condemnation and she ended her career.

Later that year, she said in a speech that “Congress, the White House and Hollywood, Wall Street are owned by the Zionists.”

“No question, in my opinion,” Thomas said at a conference in Dearborn, Mich. on anti-Arab bias. “They put their money where their mouth is. … We’re being pushed into a wrong direction in every way.”

In January 2011, she became a columnist for a free weekly paper in a Washington suburb, months after the controversy forced her from her previous post.

In her long career, she was indelibly associated with the ritual ending White House news conferences. She was often the one to deliver the closing line: “Thank you, Mister President” – four polite words that belied a fierce competitive streak.

Her disdain for White House secrecy and dodging spanned five decades, back to President John Kennedy. Her freedom to voice her peppery opinions as a speaker and a Hearst columnist came late in her career.

The Bush administration marginalized her, clearly peeved with a journalist who had challenged President George W. Bush to his face on the Iraq war and declared him the worst president in history.

After she quit UPI in 2000 – by then an outsized figure in a shrunken organization – her influence waned.

Thomas was accustomed to getting under the skin of presidents, if not to the cold shoulder.

“If you want to be loved,” she said years earlier, “go into something else.”

There was a lighter mood in August 2009, on her 89th birthday, when President Barack Obama popped into in the White House briefing room unannounced. He led the roomful of reporters in singing “Happy Birthday to You” and gave her cupcakes. As it happened, it was the president’s birthday too, his 48th.

Thomas was at the forefront of women’s achievements in journalism. She was one of the first female reporters to break out of the White House “women’s beat” – the soft stories about presidents’ kids, wives, their teas and their hairdos – and cover the hard news on an equal footing with men.

She became the first female White House bureau chief for a wire service when UPI named her to the position in 1974. She was also the first female officer at the National Press Club, where women had once been barred as members and she had to fight for admission into the 1959 luncheon speech where Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev warned: “We will bury you.”

The belligerent Khrushchev was an unlikely ally in one sense. He had refused to speak at any Washington venue that excluded women, she said.

Thomas fought, too, for a more open presidency, resisting all moves by a succession of administrations to restrict press access.

“People will never know how hard it is to get information,” Thomas told an interviewer, “especially if it’s locked up behind official doors where, if politicians had their way, they’d stamp TOP SECRET on the color of the walls.”

Born in Winchester, Ky., to Lebanese immigrants, Thomas was the seventh of nine children. It was in high school, after working on the student newspaper, that she decided she wanted to become a reporter.

After graduating from Detroit’s Wayne University (now Wayne State University), Thomas headed straight for the nation’s capital. She landed a $17.50-a-week position as a copy girl, with duties that included fetching coffee and doughnuts for editors at the Washington Daily News.

United Press – later United Press International – soon hired her to write local news stories for the radio wire. Her assignments were relegated at first to women’s news, society items and celebrity profiles.

Her big break came after the 1960 election that sent Kennedy to the White House, and landed Thomas her first assignment related to the presidency. She was sent to Palm Beach, Fla., to cover the vacation of the president-elect and his family.

JFK’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, complained that he learned of his daughter Luci’s engagement from Thomas’s story.

Bigger and better assignments would follow for Thomas, among them President Richard M. Nixon’s breakthrough trip to China in 1972.

When the Watergate scandal began consuming Nixon’s presidency, Martha Mitchell, the notoriously unguarded wife of the attorney general, would call Thomas late at night to unload her frustrations at what she saw as the betrayal of her husband John by the president’s men.

It was also during the Nixon administration that the woman who scooped so many others was herself scooped – by the first lady. Pat Nixon was the one who announced to the Washington press corps that Thomas was engaged to Douglas Cornell, chief White House correspondent for UPI’s archrival, AP.

They were married in 1971. Cornell died 11 years later.

Thomas stayed with UPI for 57 years, until 2000, when the company was purchased by News World Communications, which was founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, leader of the Unification Church.

At age 79, Thomas was soon hired as a Washington-based columnist for newspaper publisher Hearst Corp.

A self-described liberal, Thomas made no secret of her ill feelings for the final president she covered – the second President Bush. “He is the worst president in all of American history,” she told the Daily Breeze of Torrance, Calif.

Thomas also was critical of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, asserting that the deaths of innocent people should hang heavily on Bush’s conscience.

“We are involved in a war that is becoming more dubious every day,” she said in a speech to thousands of students at Brigham Young University in September 2003. “I thought it was wrong to invade a country without any provocation.”

Some students walked out of the lecture. She won over others with humorous stories from her “ringside seat” to history.

In March 2005, she confronted Bush with the proposition that “your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis” and every justification for the attack proved false.

“Why did you really want to go to war?” she demanded.

When Bush began explaining his rationale, she interjected: “They didn’t do anything to you, or to our country.”

“Excuse me for a second,” Bush replied. “They did. The Taliban provided safe haven for al-Qaida. That’s where al-Qaida trained.”

“I’m talking about Iraq,” she said.

Her strong opinions finally ended her career.

After a visit to the White House, David Nesenoff, a rabbi and independent filmmaker, asked Thomas on May 27, 2010, whether she had any comments on Israel. “Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine,” she replied. “Remember, these people are occupied and it’s their land. It’s not Germany, it’s not Poland,” she continued. Asked where they should go, she answered, “They should go home.” When asked where’s home, Thomas replied: “Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else.”

The resulting controversy brought widespread rejection of her remarks. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs called them “offensive and reprehensible.” Many Jews were offended by her suggestion that Israelis should “go home” to Germany, Poland and America since Israel was initially settled in 1948 by Jews who had survived or escaped Hitler’s attempt to kill all the Jews in Germany, and many in neighboring conquered countries.

Within days, she retired from her job at Hearst.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/07/20/journalist-helen-thomas-dies-at-92/

NCAA football celebrity Johnny Manziel just wants to 'play football'

HOOVER, Ala. — When the circus ended, a jet whisked the rock star off to Los Angeles for

the ESPYs.

"Just another day," Johnny Manziel said several times during his appearance Wednesday at SEC media days.

And although the hot, controversial topic was how he spent last weekend — for almost three hours, the Texas A&M quarterback fielded dozens of questions on the hows and whys of his premature exit from the prestigious Manning Passing Academy — the entire event seemed like a continuation of a seemingly nonstop victory tour that began when the Texas A&M quarterback won the Heisman Trophy last December.

CHRISTINE BRENNAN: Enough with the Johnny Football obsession

RELATED: Manziel feels like Bieber

Manziel, 20, disputed accounts that he was asked to leave the camp early. He deflected questions about whether he'd been drinking alcohol, saying several times there were "social events" associated with the camp. He said he simply overslept when he missed scheduled events last Saturday morning. He said he couldn't be reached by camp officials because his cellphone died. Was he hung over?

"That's absolutely untrue," he said.

Manziel was unapologetic about an offseason filled with extracurricular activities, and yet said several times he wanted to continue to live "like a normal, 20-year-old college kid." Never mind that as he spent the morning trailed by a considerable entourage, tracked by an even larger media contingent, he compared himself with LeBron James – and also, with Justin Bieber.

Texas A&M Aggies quarterback Johnny Manziel waits to go onto the set of ESPN during the 2013 SEC football media days at the Hyatt Regency. Marvin Gentry, USA TODAY Sports

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The immediate comparison was with another former SEC quarterback who drew similar attention at media days the summer after he won the Heisman. But not even Tim Tebow created this kind of spectacle. Longtime SEC radio voice Paul Finebaum called Johnny Manziel's appearance the "biggest moment in SEC media day history," and if it was hyperbole, it still covered a lot of ground. Although the annual event is largely canned and Manziel's latest controversy seems mostly manufactured, at least in the moment it was hard to argue. This was, too:

"There's no more talk after this," Manziel said. "Let's play football."

When kickoff arrives, we'll finally begin to find out what impact, if any, Johnny Football's offseason will have on the field, if those were red flags or just overwrought adults. "My offseason will have no effect on this season," Manziel insisted.

SKY-HIGH EXPECTATIONS

After setting records and upsetting Alabama in 2012 en route to an 11-2 season and becoming the first freshman to win the Heisman, expectations have skyrocketed. Expectations for Texas A&M are similar — assuming the Aggies' best player is ready to get back to work.

The entire scene was incredibly different than last summer. When Aggies coach Kevin Sumlin participated in his first SEC media days, Manziel was a relative unknown who hadn't even won the starting job. The theme then was how A&M would possibly compete in its new league. And now? "It's a great time to be at Texas A&M," Sumlin said. "There's a lot of expectations on our program. For us, that's a good thing."

HIGHLIGHTS: JOHNNY FOOTBALL'S CAREER AT A&M

Manziel (2) stiff arms Alabama defensive back Deion Belue.  John David Mercer, US PRESSWIRE

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That includes, Sumlin said, Manziel's newfound celebrity status. And as for the main topic Wednesday, Sumlin said Manziel has "made some mistakes," but defended him.

"Is he perfect? No," Sumlin said. "I think he's done some things he's not very proud of, has made some poor decisions. He's made some good decisions. Unfortunately, the poor decisions are the ones that are really publicized."

Seemingly everything about Manziel's offseason got publicized. His online classes. His courtside seats at NBA games and visits with LeBron and other stars. His spring break in Cabo. His round of golf at Pebble Beach. And his tweet last month – apparently, after he got a parking ticket – that "(expletive) like tonight is a reason why I can't wait to leave college station…whenever it may be."

Aggies head coach talks about QB Johnny Manziel's maturity.

Manziel's premature departure from the Manning camp, where he was a counselor, became a controversy at least in part because of timing. It was the most recent incident suggesting Manziel's goal of "enjoying life to the fullest" might have been overachieved. Four days later, he faced 1,200 credentialed reporters and ESPN's giant amplifier. Manziel said he was aware of some public backlash, but if his offseason pursuits maybe seemed too much like his playing style – barely controlled chaos – he didn't appear to care.

"Crazy is a good way to describe how others see it," he said. "For me, it's been fun working out, living life and just enjoying it."

'I'M NOT TEBOW'

And Manziel, who said he's traded voicemails with Tebow, noted: "I'm not Tebow. I'm different in many ways."

But he admitted to mistakes, saying although some things were "blown out of proportion ... I've tried not to make the same mistake twice."

Manziel drew a parallel to the weeks last season between the Heisman ceremony and the Cotton Bowl, when people watched him vigorously enjoy his newfound celebrity — and then saw him dismantle Oklahoma. And he said he did not believe he had lost his teammates' trust in his ability to lead the team.

"Absolutely not," he said. "These guys know where my head is at and where my heart is at."

Texas A&M QB Johnny Manziel discusses his wild offseason and the upcoming season during his time with the media.

Across the room, Texas A&M offensive tackle Jake Matthews said fame hadn't changed Manziel.

"You're not gonna see me doing any of the stuff he does," Matthews said. "I'm a little more of a laid-back guy. But I've got all my faith in Johnny. I know he's gonna be a great player. I know he's gonna be ready for the season. He's just so competitive, he loves playing so much, he puts so much pressure on himself, he wants to be the best.

"I know he wouldn't do anything to mess that up."

Manziel said he was eager to get back to football — and to shut down the extracurricular activity: "The season's coming up, so everything changes during the season. All that goes away."

Then, when all the interviews were finished, he left for Los Angeles and the red carpet. A couple of hours later, via Twitter, came some praise, one star to another.

"@Drake: You handled yourself well today. Proud of you brother!"

Manziel, who hadn't tweeted in a full month, retweeted it.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2013/07/17/ncaa-football-celebrity-johnny-manziel-just-wants-to-play-football/2536915/