Cover boy Jamie Oliver wants to change the way we eat
Superstar chef — and this weekend’s cover boy — Jamie Oliver is on a mission to teach people how to become healthy eaters. Continuing the campaign he started in his native England, Oliver is now bringing his new book Jamie’s Food Revolution to the U.S. Associate editor. T.J. Walter caught up with the affable English chef when he was on his way to Huntington, W.Va. — 2009’s most unhealthy city in America — and the site of Oliver’s new, 6-week ABC primetime series airing this spring. Speaking bluntly about how Americans and Brits alike are in battle with obesity and overall bad health, Oliver says that, in most of the research he has done, America and England have many of the same problems and the solution is a simple one for most people: learn how to cook for yourself. In this week’s cover story, Oliver offers nine easy steps that can radically change the way you eat and save you money. Plus, you can pose a food challenge or question to Oliver, who is going to answer one reader's query in an upcoming issue.
November 06, 2009
Jill Biden pens a Veterans Day essay
Just as Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, was writing a story for us about how they were coping with their son Beau’s deployment in Iraq, a glorious thing happened: He came home. Jill did what any responsible journalist who gets caught in the news would do — she retooled her story. The quite moving result is in this weekend's issue, just in time for Veteran’s Day. Beau, 40, who is now weighing a run for the U.S. Senate to fill his dad’s open seat, served in Iraq for a year.
Photo courtesy of the White House
October 16, 2009
Top TV stars promote Make A Difference Day
Some of your favorite TV shows this week will be
sending the message that volunteering is cool, but if you’re a USA WEEKEND
follower you already know that. Still, we realize the power of celebrity and we want to make next Saturday the biggest Make A Difference Day yet, so we asked four popular stars from some of the hottest shows on TV to pose for this weekend’s cover and inspire you with tales of their own charitable work.
CSI: N.Y.'s Hill Harper, Castle's Nathan Fillion, Dollhouse's Eliza Dushku and
Heroes' Hayden Panettiere all took the time to have some fun at our photo shoot, as well as talk about why and how they support their own
volunteer efforts.
Read about them all below. If you want to find a Make A Difference Day effort near you, click here, or go to makeadifferenceday.com.
September 15, 2009
Remembering Patrick Swayze
Just four years ago, before Patrick Swayze got sick, I interviewed him in connection with USA Weekend's 20th anniversary and the release of a video he and wife, Lisa Niemi, made called One Last Dance. I re-read that piece this morning, recalling how lively he was on the phone the day we talked. Swayze, who died Monday of pancreatic cancer, was at home on his ranch in California's San Gabriel mountains and he made life there sound like heaven. He loved riding his horses, being in the outdoors, sharing all of it with his close friends and family and dancing often with his wife, to whom he was married an amazing 34 years. Today, he is being remembered for his work — from his first notice in North and South, the 1985 miniseries based on John Jakes' best seller to his iconic Dirty Dancing — all of which is appropriate and comforting for fans. But I think I'll remember Swayze for that 2005 conversation. He told me then that he was looking for more mature roles, a wish he got with A&E's series The Beast. And he was pleased that dancing was becoming cool; he had coached Dancing With The Stars contestant John O'Hurley to his near win that year. He also said something wise about celebrity that is applicable beyond that world and seems worth sharing today: "There are times you're hot and times you're not and times
you're hot again." Want to share your remembrance of Patrick Swayze? Please post them below.
Photo by Chuck Nodes
August 11, 2009
Rebels remembered
Rebel Without A Cause was the featured movie last night at "Screen on the Green" here in Washington, D.C. It's a summer tradition, where a giant movie screen is placed outdoors on the national mall where people can watch wonderful classics for free. Today, James Dean fans can find a new two-disc video set, James Dean: The Fast Lane, for sale where videos are sold. It includes such little-seen footage as a 1950 Pepsi commercial, made when Dean was 19. The same company, Infinity Entertainment Group, also has an unauthorized Michael Jackson tribute DVD coming Sept. 1....
As for an authorized MJ movie, look for Sony Pictures' This Is It on Oct. 30. It's a look at the concerts Jackson was preparing for when he died and includes high-def footage from the rehearsals at L.A.'s Staples Center...
Speaking of Michael Jackson (pictured at left in his heyday), his autopsy is done but hasn't been released at the request of the LAPD, who have an investigation ongoing. Today, authorities are searching a Las Vegas pharmacy as part of that investigation. The web site TMZ.com says it believes the coroner's report will show Jackson died "at the hands of another." And the poor man still is not buried.
June 22, 2009
Bon Jovi and Matthew McConaughey also in SF
First lady Michelle Obama is all the buzz here in San Francisco but she isn't the only celebrity talking about service and good works here today. Among the other high profile speakers conference goers will hear from are Maria Shriver and husband, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (who was a USA WEEKEND fitness columnist some years ago), plus rocker Jon Bon Jovi (at right) and actor Matthew McConaughey, who represent the Entertainment Industry Foundation, but who also have foundations of their own. Bon Jovi will play a set and McConaughey will introduce a video about EIF's plans for an unprecedented campaign using television shows and personalities we know well to promote volunteerism beginning in October. Stay tuned to the blog for more on that effort as they talk details.
Photo by Todd Plitt
June 19, 2009
Who's News this week? Lindsay Lohan, for one
Lindsay Lohan is always news, but read my Who's News column in the magazine this weekend to get Lilo's latest professional doings. Also this week we talk to:
• Thea Andrews, the Entertainment Tonight reporter who can't think of any other job she'd rather do.
• The incredible Trudie Styler, actress, activist and wife of Sting, who produced the new movie, Moon.
• Anton Yelchin, who is featured in two of summer's biggest movies. (You have to read to find out which ones.)
• CBS correspondent Jim Axelrod, who is often asked about his relationship to Obama adviser David Axelrod.
Want to get your question in my Who's News column? Click here.
June 16, 2009
Michelle Obama talks volunteerism in D.C.
First Lady Michelle Obama has been making a splash on the international stage, but here in Washington, D.C. she's been an active community member who has invited D.C. school children to help plant a garden, visited schools to read to kids, spoken at a high school graduation ceremony, and more. Tuesday, the first lady was the speaker at the Greater D.C. Cares Business & Nonprofit Philanthropy Summit and Awards luncheon so I sent our latest staff addition, intern Steve Thompson, to the event to give us an insider's view on how the wife of the president rolls. Here's his report:
"Getting inside the event was not as easy as it sounds. After all, Mrs. Obama has celebrity status with government protection. I, and the 25 other members of the press who were at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown D.C. for the event, had to arrive at least an hour and 35 minutes before the first lady was set to take the stage. After a check of my media credentials (a card with my goofy smile and the word 'intern' in bold red letters) and a search of my bag (which I mainly use for carrying copious amounts of Orbit gum), I had the pleasure of standing spread eagle in front of a Secret Service agent so he could give me a full body scan with a hand-held metal detector. I felt like an unwanted relative at the family reunion. We were then led down a smelly back stairwell into a ballroom full of neatly set tables. I skipped breakfast and it was all I could to do to not snag a roll from one of the bread baskets. A few rows of chairs were reserved for us at the back of the room, caged in by a velvet rope. It was definitely not preferred seating.
"Many members of the press are old time pals so they could pass the time by chatting while we sat there to wait, and wait. I, however, passed the time by sending text messages to my old time pal Alex in between failed attempts to raise my BrickBreaker score. Unlike most celebrities, the first lady has security that even controls when you go to the bathroom. If I needed to use the facilities, or even leave my seat, I had to be escorted by a White House staffer named Ann, who was about 105 pounds of anal retentive. The first lady wasn't the only speaker but those who preceeded her got nowhere near the attention Mrs. O commands. When the President and CEO of Greater DC Cares introduced her, all eyes were on the stage, and the first lady strode onto it to a standing ovation. Sporting a hot pink shirt and a black and white cardigan, she smiled but seemed embarrassed that everyone was standing for her and quickly told everyone to please sit down. A proponent of service to others, she spoke to the audience about the need for volunteerism — a theme she is expected to call upon again next week when she addresses a national convention on volunteering in San Francisco. At the end of her speech, Mrs. Obama took time to shake hands with attendees. Then, in a flash (literally, there were flashing lights around her), she was ushered away."
Photo by Richard Termine
June 03, 2009
Efron on 'Entourage', Miley stays with 'Hannah'
E! Online is reporting today that Zac Efron will appear on Entourage when it returns in July. The High School Musical cutie is one of a number of stars who will do some guest spots on the HBO show. Also among them is Autumn Reeser, formerly of Fox's The O.C., who talked with our Brian Truitt last week....Meanwhile, Chace Crawford — an Efron look-alike and heartthrob of Gossip Girl — will play the Kevin Bacon part in a remake of Footloose and Bacon's wife Kyra Sedgwick says Crawford has some very big dancing shoes to fill. Sedgwick will be back on TNT Monday in her hit show The Closer where this season's theme is change. We got that from Sedgwick's on-screen husband Jon Tenney as well as her right hand man Corey Reynolds....Uh-oh. Talk about bad luck. Shawn Johnson and Mark Ballas, winners of the most recent Dancing With The Stars competition, opened the boxes with their separate mirror ball trophies to find them broken....Have you heard that singer-actress Jennifer Hudson is pregnant? The Chicago Tribune got the details after a baby shower friends gave Hudson last weekend in Chicago. She's engaged but not yet married. ... And speaking of children, is it just me or does anyone else think that Kate Gosselin — the already overexposed mom in Jon & Kate Plus 8 — has an exhibitionist tendency given her beach wear (an orange bikini) for her North Carolina vacation with the children?...Miley Cyrus has resigned with Disney so there will be fresh episodes of Hannah Montana early next year. I have to go alert my 7-year-old niece.
Photo courtesy USA TODAY
May 28, 2009
'ER' star welcomes a new baby boy
Parminder Nagra, who we will be featuring on our upcoming June 12-14 Who’s News page, gave birth to a son, Kai David Singh Stenson, on May 19. It’s the 33-year-old ER star’s first child with husband James Stenson. Nagra spent six seasons on the NBC medical drama, which ended its 15-year-old run last month, and also starred alongside Keira Knightley in Bend It Like Beckham.
Photo by Spiros Poros
