Cell phones don’t cause cancer, huge study says -

Cell phones don’t cause cancer, huge study says

Findings on 420,000 people in Denmark give gadget a clean bill of health
Mario Tama / Getty Images file
Cell phones beam radiofrequency energy that can penetrate the brain’s outer edge, which has raised questions about cancers of the head and neck, brain tumors or leukemia. Most research has found no risk.

WASHINGTON - A huge study from Denmark offers the laagsdhfgdf reassurance that cell phones don’t trigger cancer.

Scientists tracked 420,000 Danish cell phone users, including 52,000 who had gabbed on the gadgets for 10 years or more, and some who started using them 21 years ago.

They matched phone records to the famed Danish Cancer Registry that records every citizen who gets the disease �" and reported Tuesday that cell-phone callers are no more likely than anyone else to suffer a range of cancer types.

The study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, is the largest yet to find no bad news about the safety of cell phones and the radiofrequency energy they emit.

No end to the debate
But even the lead researcher doubts it will end the debate.

“There’s really no biological basis for you to be concerned about radio waves,” said John Boice, a Vanderbilt University professor and scientific director of the International Epidemiology Institute in Rockville, Md. “Nonetheless, people are.”

So Boice and colleagues at Copenhagen’s Danish Cancer Society plan to continue tracking the Danish callers until at least some have used the phones for 30 years.

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This so-called Danish cohort “is probably the strongest study out there because of the outstanding registries they keep,” said Joshua Muscat of Pennsylvania State University, who also has studied cell phones and cancer.

Reassurance ... for now
“As the body of evidence accumulates, people can become more reassured that these devices are safe, but the final word is not there yet,” Muscat added.

Cell phones beam radiofrequency energy that can penetrate the brain’s outer edge, raising questions about cancers of the head and neck, brain tumors or leukemia. Most research has found no risk, but a few studies have raised questions. And while U.S. health officials insist the evidence shows no real reason for concern, they don’t give the phones a definitive clean bill of health, either, pending long-term data on slow-growing cancers.

For the laagsdhfgdf study, personal identification numbers assigned to each Dane at birth allowed researchers to match people who began using cell phones between 1982 and 1995 with cancer records.

Among 420,000 callers tracked through 2002, there were 14,249 cancers diagnosed �" fewer than the 15,001 predicted from national cancer rates. Nor did the study find increased risks for any specific tumor type.

� 2007 . .

Retailers roll out low-cost health services - Personal Finance

Attention shoppers: Flu shots in aisle five

More retailers roll out low-cost health care services
Vanessa RichardsonContributor

Vanessa RichardsonContributor•document.write('')E-maildocument.write('');Lorie Vick of Orlando, Fla., had originally stopped at her local CVS drugstore to buy contact-lens solution, but then she saw signs for flu shots. She walked to the back of the store and saw the offer came from MinuteClinic, a mini-healthcare center next to the medicament counter that offered cures for minor ailments ranging from allergies to warts. Fifteen minutes later, Vick got her shot, and the next day she brought her teenage son Tim back for his.

"It would have taken twice or three times as long waiting at my doctor’s office, so this is great," Vick said.

Tim agreed and added, "You can look at more stuff here."

More people are heading to their local drug store instead of their family doctor for medical checkups. Establishments like MinuteClinic, Take Care and RediCare are taking up more space in major retail stores to diagnose, treat and write prescriptions for patients with common illnesses.

MinuteClinic, the nation’s largest operator of retail clinics, has 116 stores in 17 states and boasts of seeing more than 600,000 patients since it started in 2000. It was purchased by CVS last July. Other major retailers, eager to boost profits and customer share, are following suit. Target, Kroger, Wal-Mart and Walgreen are partnering with more than a dozen clinic operators to open thousands of in-store health care centers in the next two years.

Because many clinics just lease space in their stores, retailers don’t expect to make money from the health clinics themselves but rather from increased customer traffic before and after appointments.

They also increase retailers’ emphasis on health care, said Michael Polzin, spokesman for Walgreens, which will have TakeCare clinics in 60 stores by year’s end. "The medicament makes up two-thirds of our revenue so we consider ourselves a healthcare retailer anyway. These clinics add to our reputation of being more convenient and accessible to customers."

Cheap, convenient health care
The clinics are typically small, with one or two exam rooms, and are staffed by board-certified nurse practitioners or physician assistants, but usually have a physician's oversight. At Take Care clinics, for example, doctors review 10 percent of patient charts and visit clinics once a month. Clinics can treat anyone over the age of 18 months, but if an ailment is too serious, such as asthma or diabetes, clinics refer patients to a local doctor or emergency room.

No appointments are required, they are open evenings and weekends and visits often take no more than 15 minutes. If the wait is still too long, some clinics give out pagers so people can shop while waiting.

Patients know ahead of time what they’ll pay for their cure because prices are posted outside each center. For those with health insurance, MinuteClinic charges the office co-pay indicated on the insurance card; those paying out of their own pocket are charged between $49 and $59 per cure. That compares favorably that to a standard doctor’s visit, which could cost over $100.

Live Vote

Would you visit a medical clinic in a retail store?

Even though most Americans have yet to see these mini-clinics in their corner drugstores, those who have are pleased with the speedy, inexpensive care. A Harris Poll of 2,200 people found that while only 7 percent of respondents had visited a clinic, 89 percent of them were happy with the care they got.

Vicki Partridge paid $39 for a pregnancy agsdhfgdfing at an Early Solutions clinic in Taylor, Mich.,  during her lunch hour. She had gone there for pinkeye cure a month prior, so the nurse practitioner pulled up her files, saw that she had insurance and was allergic to penicillin. Partridge was in and out within 30 minutes, less time than it would have taken round-trip to her doctor’s office. "It was so worth not having to go through the hassle of making an appointment, and it was probably cheaper," she said.

CONTINUED: The future of medicine?1 | 2 | Next >

Steer clear of road rage on your commute - Mental Health

Road rage can churn in the calmest of hearts

Here??�s how to keep your blood pressure in check on your next commute
Ben Grefsrud / msnbc.com
By By Patrick Enright contributor

David Stallings isn't the kind of person you'd expect to succumb to road rage. He is calm and mild mannered, a longtime Zen Buddhist. Plus, he's professionally dedicated to safe transportation ??" he works for Seattle's Metro Transit.

But years ago, while trapped in traffic in his truck, he happened across his daughter's white plastic toy ray gun, complete with flashing lights. On a whim, he surreptitiously used it to zap a car that had just cut him off.

"I thought, 'Well, that's kind of satisfying,'" he says. The satisfaction lasted a year. Then, "it dawned on me that I was sort of giving vent to some of the same [aggression] that I was condemning."

Road rage and roadway congestion are familiar scenarios for millions of American drivers, and they're not getting any better. A 2006 Transportation Research Board report noted that congestion is increasing in intensity, extent and duration. Average one-way travel time for commuters in 2000 was 25.5 minutes, three minutes more than in 1990.

Certainly anecdotal reports of aggression behind the wheel are increasing. Consider the case of the Raleigh, N.C., driver who allegedly circled the block and ran down a pedestrian who had dared to yell at him to slow down. Or the driver who ran a fellow motorist off the road in Peoria, Ariz., for talking on his cell phone. Or the off-duty Detroit police officer facing charges for allegedly firing shots at an SUV driver who had accidentally hit his Dodge Magnum. And those are just incidents from the past few months.

Fight or flight
Exact figures for incidents of road rage are hard to come by, partly because the behaviors are difficult to define precisely. A 2002 survey done by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that 40 percent of drivers felt other drivers had become more aggressive in the past year, compared with 30 percent who felt that way in 1997.

Normally, when stress becomes overwhelming, experts suggest taking a break from the situation or setting aside time to exercise. But in a car, your options are limited. Seething? Don't forget to breathe-Get comfortable by loosening tight clothing or rolling down the window.-Distract yourself ??" listen to calming music or an audiobook.-Take a series of slow, deep breaths to reduce anger and stress.-Don't assume the worst, and realize that every driver makes mistakes.-Think of the big picture; an extra five minutes won't kill you. Driving aggressively might.-Treat other drivers with the same common courtesy you'd expect in the grocery aisle.

"Stress is a fight-or-flight reaction," says New York psychologist Carol Goldberg. "If [people] can't flee, like they're stuck in a traffic jam, they fight and get road rage."

So how can you keep from succumbing to blood-pressure-raising fury when you're crammed behind the wheel? These tips from experts can help you change your body and your mind:

Get comfortable. Gerry Matthews, a psychology professor at the University of Cincinnati who has studied driver behavior, says driver comfort "plays into driver fatigue and there's a close relationship between fatigue and stress. Stress makes you fatigued and fatigue makes you stressed." Adjust the temperature so you're not too warm, loosen your tie or other tight-fitting clothing and make sure your seat is positioned so you're relaxed to avoid the physical tension that comes with stress.

Distract yourself ??" but only a little. "Instead of honking your horn and trying to find shortcuts and giving everybody the finger, you could say, 'Look, I'm going to use this time productively,'" suggests Dr. Paul Rosch, president of the American Institute of Stress. Listening to soothing music, audiobooks or foreign-language tapes is a way for drivers to block out the annoyance of traffic. But be careful. As Matthews points out, talking on a cell phone, hands-free or not, "is distracting and dangerous when driving."

Breathe deeply. You don't need to be an expert in meditation to benefit from deep breathing. Rick Waranch, a part-time psychology faculty member at Johns Hopkins University, recommends simply taking seven or eight slow breaths per minute from the diaphragm, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth.

Don't make assumptions. It's easy to think that the guy in the BMW cut you off maliciously, but that doesn't mean it's true. Social psychologists have a name for this kind of assumption: the fundamental attribution error. It's our tendency to ascribe behavior too much to underlying personality traits and too little to the particular situation. Maybe the Beemer driver is a doctor rushing to surgery to save a life. Assuming the worst will only add to your stress. Also, remember you're equally prone to mistakes. One study Matthews cites asked people to rate their own driving safety and the skills of other drivers. The result? "People overestimate ??� their driving ability," says Matthews.

Think of the big picture. Does it really matter if your 15-minute drive takes you 20 minutes, or if you let in that merging SUV? Rational thinking is difficult when you're seeing red, but with practice, it's doable. Waranch has helped several patients suffering from driving-related stress. "It's largely convincing yourself that it's pretty stupid to [drive aggressively], that it's unhealthy, and that it's not going to serve any purpose," he says.

Be self-aware. Knowing what triggers stress in you is key to reducing it, Matthews says. Accepting that other drivers are beyond your control can improve your attitude. It's also good to recognize that driving a car conveys a false sense of invulnerability and adds a degree of anonymity that can make the best of us behave less than graciously. Applying the common courtesy you'd exhibit in the grocery-store checkout line while on the road can make driving in traffic less confrontational and even collaborative.

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For Stallings, the toy gun wasn't the answer. His Buddhist leanings made breathing exercises a natural solution.

"It's a way not only to let [the irritation] go but to feel engaged ??� in a positive way," he says. "All you have to do is just kind of turn a corner."

Patrick Enright is a Seattle-based freelance writer and editor whose work has appeared in , Mr. Showbiz, Wall of Sound, Movies.com and Seattle Weekly.

? 2007

Microsoft role complicates ‘$100 laptop’ - Tech News & Reviews

Microsoft role complicates ‘$100 laptop’

Company says it's uncertain whether it can fit Windows on the machines
Anja Niedringhaus / AP
Co-Founder and Chairman of the MIT Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Nicholas Negroponte shows off the '$100 laptop' at a news conference.

By By Brian Bergstein

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - One of the most ambitious aspects of the "$100 laptop" project for schoolchildren in developing countries is the machines' open-source software platform, designed to be intuitive for kids.

That's why many people were taken aback last week when the founder of the nonprofit laptop project, Nicholas Negroponte, announced that buyers of the machine will be able to add Windows, the ultimate in proprietary software.

( is a joint Microsoft - NBC Universal venture.)

However, Microsoft Corp. says it's uncertain whether it can fit Windows on the laptops. Will Poole, who heads Microsoft's emerging-markets group, says the limited storage space (recently upped to 1 gigabyte of flash memory) and other original elements on the One Laptop Per Child program's "XO" computer aren't welcoming for Windows.

"I don't know how to get the thing to run on less than 2 gigs," he said. Plus, at least 10 custom drivers �" which tell an operating system how to interact with hardware �" need to be designed, Poole said.

Why does this matter? Because One Laptop Per Child is still negotiating with several governments to finalize orders for at least 3 million of the machines, the level at which the project's mass-distribution plans kick in.

And with the computers' price now up to $175 ($100 is the long-term goal), some officials might want Windows as a potential backup if the machines' alternative interface doesn't capture children's fancy as envisioned.

"We have had requests from government officials who are looking at that device, to ask us if it can run Windows," Poole said.

Negroponte seemed to deliver a definitive yes to that question: "We will run Windows," he said last week. Asked for elaboration, a spokesman for Negroponte wrote in an e-mail: "He was stating a fact �" not a hope or a desire."

But Poole said the answer should have been maybe: "I cannot make any promises," he said. "There's work still to be done. People should not bank on having Windows."

For his part, Negroponte wasn't touting Windows itself as much as user choice. He stressed the educational theories behind his project's original interface, which is open-source so as to let children tinker with it. He also said government ministers had not really been asking him about Windows on the machines, citing Egpyt as a rare exception. But he acknowledged that the potential to run Windows could reduce the risk for some buyers.

"He's playing to some purchasing minister somewhere," said Wayan Vota, who directs the Geekcorps international tech-development organization and follows the laptop project closely at his OLPCNews blog. Vota added that he hopes no XO buyers switch to Windows, because he believes Microsoft's software would be unable to utilize many of XO's innovations, including its radical power-saving capabilities and wireless networking functions.

Complicating the mix is an emerging little computer for the developing world from Intel Corp. _ the Classmate PC, which can run Windows or Linux. Intel expects its price to fall below $250 by the middle of the year and just signed a deal to sell 700,000 Classmates in Pakistan _ one of the countries that One Laptop Per Child hopes to reach.

Meanwhile, Microsoft recently announced a $3 Windows "starter edition" package for international governments that subsidize student computers.

After Negroponte's comments last week, representatives from his group objected to ' description that the nonprofit was "working with" Microsoft so Windows could run on the computers. Spokesmen for the project insisted that Microsoft was acting on its own accord, and that Microsoft got "beta" versions of the XO computers just like a lot of other companies have.

"OLPC has no working relationship with Microsoft nor does Microsoft get any special cure," said a statement from One Laptop's president for software and development, Walter Bender. "They are just another software company interested in the project. OLPC is aware that Microsoft wants to create a Windows platform for the laptop, but OLPC is not involved in that project in any way."

Certainly, Negroponte's and Poole's differing reports about Windows on XO indicate the camps are not exactly on the same page. But it's unclear whether they are as distant as the public-relations statement would hold.

Negroponte told a Linux convention in April 2006 that he had been discussing with Microsoft how Windows could run on the computers �" which is why he was displeased when Bill Gates pooh-poohed the laptop effort.

Click for related content'$100 laptop' to cost $175Microsoft extends XP supportReview: Vista, Microsoft's new Windows

More recently, Negroponte has been quoted as saying the laptops got an SD port �" where Secure Digital cards can be inserted, expanding the memory available �" so Windows could work. (Bender contradicted that, saying the SD port was added to provide extra space for photos taken with the computer's camera.)

"It is true that we have been working together," Microsoft's Poole said. "We have been having active, high-level conversations going on two years now."

Copyright 2007 . .

Doctors, insurers ask, ‘Who are you?’ - Nightly News with Brian Williams

More doctors, insurers asking, ‘Who are you?’

Medical identity theft, on the rise, can threaten lives as well as wallets
NBC VIDEO•Medical ID theft creates concerns
April 3: Medical ID theft is on the rise in the United States, and there’s more to be worried about than just the financial ramifications. NBC’s Anne Thompson reports.

Nightly News

By By Anne Thompson and Alex JohnsonNBC News

Anne ThompsonChief environmental correspondent•ProfileAndrew Brooke’s family knew something was screwy when they got a collection notice for unpaid bills for treatment of his work-related back injury, which included large prescriptions of the controlled painkiller Oxycontin.

“I’m looking at this bill, and I’m looking at my 3-week-old baby that can’t even hold his head up, and it’s just a sense of outrage,” said Andrew’s father, John Brooke, of Bothell, Wash., a suburb of Seattle.

Likewise, Jo-Ann Davis knew there was a mistake when a cop greeted her at the medicament where she had gone to pick up a prescription in early 2005.

“I’ve never even had a speeding ticket,” said Davis, a veterinary technician from Moon, Pa., near Pittsburgh.

Medical providers, it turned out, thought Andrew and Davis were other people. Their medical identities had been stolen.

These are not isolated incidents: In a report last year, the World Privacy Forum found that the number of Americans identifying themselves in government documents as victims of medical identity theft had nearly tripled in just four years, to more than a quarter-million in 2005.

Motives for medical identity theft can vary. Some thieves, as in these cases, are seeking controlled medications. Others are seeking federal money. A case that wrapped up in January in Southern California illustrates just how sophisticated such operations can be.

Five health care providers pleaded guilty to stealing more than $900,000 in 2003 by luring hundreds of elderly Vietnamese patients to a fake medical clinic in Milpitas, where they would offer free checkups. According to prosecutors, they would copy the patients’ Medicare records and then use the information to bill the government for phantom services.

Click for related coverageRead the full World Privacy Forum report (PDF)Check your records: State-by-state guide

Steep costs on money and lives
Of all the forms of identity theft, misappropriation of your medical records is among the most damaging. It’s not just the financial toll �" if your medical identity is stolen, erroneous entries can turn up in your records, which could end up killing you.

Get your medical records

All hospitals and most doctors have a release form you can use to request your records. Because state laws differ on how long such records must be archived, call the office to make sure your records still exist.

You can have your records sent to yourself or directly to a health care professional. If you do have the records sent to a health professional, let him or her know to expect the files.

In many cases, a letter may be all you need. It should include:

-Your birthdate-Your full name (including any information about name changes)-When you were seen -The specific information you want

Source: GeneticHealth.com

“If someone shows up in an emergency room and this has happened to them, they could receive improper treatment, and that is a real problem,” said Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, a nonprofit research group.

For example, if an identity thief presents himself at the hospital in your name and is identified as having a different blood type, that blood type ends up registered in your medical history, with potentially disastrous consequences if you end up in a serious accident.

Or suppose you apply for a new job. Even if you’re fit as a fiddle, you could still fail a pre-employment medical screening or be rejected for company-provided health insurance because of the inaccurate presence of an ailment in your medical history that you don’t have.

It is also the most difficult type of identity theft to fix after the fact, because victims have limited recourse. Dixon found that medical identity theft typically leaves a trail of false information in medical records that can plague victims for years, because even if you manage to correct your records in one place, it’s almost impossible to track down everywhere they have been disseminated across the networks of medical providers, insurers and government agencies.

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Too many roadblocks
Five states �" California, Florida, Nevada, Arkansas and Delaware �" have recently passed or are considering laws to address breaches of medical information, but the privacy forum still recommends that everyone check his or her medical records for accuracy.

Live survey

Are you confident your records are safe?

Georgetown University’s Center on Medical Rights and Privacy maintains a state-by-state guide to checking your records. But if you find an error, trying to correct it can be a complex and sometimes fruitless task.

Alex JohnsonReporter•Profile

The federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, requires health care providers and insurers to give you access to your medical records and to give you a copy of their privacy practices. If your records are wrong, the act gives providers and insurers as long as 90 days to respond, but if they disagree with you, they don’t have to do anything.

Moreover, HIPAA doesn’t require medical providers and insurers to remove incorrect information; in fact, it says that if incorrect information leads to inappropriate treatment, the bad information should not be removed from your records, in order to preserve a paper trail.

CONTINUED: Authorities slow to prosecute1 | 2 | Next >

More weekend stroke patients die - Heart Health

Weekend stroke patients have higher death risk

14 percent increase may be tied to lack of expertise, resources, experts say

DALLAS - If you have a stroke, try to have it between Monday and Friday.

A Canadian study released on Thursday found that patients hospitalized for the most common kind of stroke on weekends had a higher death rate than those admitted on weekdays.

The “weekend effect” has been identified before in other conditions such as cancer and pulmonary embolism.

But this is the first major study to look at it in relation to ischemic stroke, which is caused by a clot that blocks blood flow in an artery in or leading to the brain.

“If the ‘weekend effect’ occurs in a socialized health care system (like Canada’s), it is likely that the effect may be larger in other settings,” said Dr. Gustavo Saposnik, director of the Stroke Research Unit Division of Neurology at the University of Toronto and lead author of the study.

The study, published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association, looked at all ischemic stroke hospital admissions in Canada from April 2003 to March 2004.

It found that about a quarter of the 26,676 patients admitted to 606 hospitals over that time period were brought in on Saturdays and Sundays.

“After adjusting for age, gender and other medical complications, researchers found that patients admitted on the weekend had a 14 percent higher risk of dying within seven days of admission compared to patients admitted during the week,” the American Heart Association said in a statement.

The “weekend effect” was even greater when patients went to a rural hospital instead of an urban one, and when the doctor in charge was a general practitioner instead of a specialist, it said.

Researchers said the higher death risk might be linked to a relative lack of resources or expertise in hospitals during weekends. But they did not elaborate and said more study was needed.

Click for related contentProven methods to cut your heart attack riskSouped-up CT scan speeds up diagnosis

No one with stroke-like symptoms should hesitate to seek medical cure on weekends, they added.

“Although the differences in weekend admission found in this study may be real, the potential benefits of obtaining early cure would well outweigh the risk of waiting,” said Dr. Larry Goldstein, chair of the Stroke Council of the American Heart Association.

if (window.Health_StrokeQA) { displayApp(Health_StrokeQA); }

Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.

Siegfried & Roy to tell all - Gossip: The Scoop

Siegfried & Roy ready
to let cat out of the bag

Plus: Ashlee Simpson a new
acid-reflux spokesperson?
NBC / AP file
Is America ready for "Siegfried & Roy: The Book"?

By By Jeannette Walls

Siegfried and Roy are ready to tell all.

Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn, the hugely popular big cat tamers who were sidelined when Horn was mauled by a tiger last year, are secretly shopping around their joint memoir.

“They’re meeting with top publishers in the coming weeks,” says one insider. “It’s all very hush-hush, but apparently, they’re going to tell everything about their private and professional lives. We’re very excited about it.”

The source says the bidding will probably be in the seven-figure range.

Spokesmen for Siegfried and Roy didn’t return calls.

An ad for Ashlee?
Frank Micelotta / Getty ImagesAt least some people are pretty pleased with Ashlee Simpson’s lip synching debacle: the makers of medication for acid-reflux disease.

The teen crooner, explaining why she didn’t sing live on Saturday Night Live, said on the Today Show that her voice was hoarse because she had been suffering from “severe acid reflux.” And that makes marketers of acid reflux medications such as Nexium and Prevacid quite happy.

“Somebody of her high profile helps raise the profile of the disease,” David Albaugh of AstraZeneca �" makers of Nexium, the widely advertised “purple pill” �" told The Scoop. “Obviously, it’s good to have improved and increased awareness of acid reflux.”

“We believe that celebrities who talk about their experience with certain health conditions, such as acid reflux in this case, can help educate people on important health issues, as well as motivate people to talk to their doctors and get properly diagnosed and treated,” a spokeswoman for TAP, the company that makes Prevacid, e-mailed The Scoop in a statement. “We wish Ashlee Simpson the very best on her road to relief from acid reflux.”

RELATED STORIESAshlee Simpson busted for ‘SNL’ lip-synchingWalls: Simpson paying lip service to realitySimpson goes live at Radio Music Awards

Both companies, however, said that they have no plans at this time to ask Simpson to become their acid-reflux celebrity spokeswoman.

Notes from all over
Kevin Winter / Getty ImagesTom Cruise has a not quite impossible mission: he wants to climb Mount Everest. “That’s been a dream of mine,” the actor said at the American Film Institute, reports Zap2it.com. “I’m not a great climber, but I enjoy it.” Cruise also said he’d love to do a musical, and admits that he still sometimes sings and boogies in his underwear, like he did in “Risky Business,” saying that he calls it his “dance of freedom.”   . . . Hugh Grant joked about Julia Roberts’ “very big mouth” to Oprah Winfrey. “Literally, physically, she has a very big mouth,” Grant said of his “Notting Hill” co-star. “When I was kissing her I was aware of a faint echo.” When Winfrey defended Roberts as “one of the nicest people I ever met,” Grant deadpanned, “I wouldn’t go that far.”  . . .  Madonna used the F-word at her rabbi’s book party. The spiritual girl, speaking at the London launch for Rabbi Michael Berg’s “Becoming Like God,” at one point snapped at the crowd, “Turn those f----- mobile phones off.”

document.write("");Jeannette Walls Delivers the Scoopdocument.write(''); Mondays through Thursdays on

� 2006