and (kind of) explained what the heck that non-medical term referred to.
Nick Cannon said doctors in Aspen, Colo., where he was vacationing with wife Mariah Carey and their twin babies at the beginning of the New Year, originally thought he had acute mountain sickness. Doctors then thought he had kidney stones, he said. After ruling that out, they believed he had an infection.
“It was a lot more serious. They found out that my kidneys weren’t functioning well,” Cannon explained, adding that he put “mild” in front of “kidney failure” so the public wouldn’t think he needed a transplant.
Nick Cannon said he still must undergo a few more procedures but is feeling much better. He said that he saw a different, more nurturing side of his diva-tastic wife during his hospitalization and that their marriage improved as a result of his illness.
He did not elaborate further on the cause of his ailment.
Stern and Cannon also discussed their NBC talent show, how Cannon splits the bills with Carey and the time Cannon made out with Lindsay Lohan. (“She was more attracted to me,” Cannon said.)
Appeasing shareholders who had blasted the Internet pioneer for pursuing an ineffective personal vision and impeding investment deals that may have transformed the struggling company.
Yang's abrupt departure comes two weeks after Yahoo appointed Scott Thompson its new CEO, with a mandate to return the once-leading Internet portal to the heights it enjoyed in the 1990s.
Wall Street views the exit of "Chief Yahoo" Yang as smoothing the way for a major infusion of cash from private equity, or a deal to sell off much of its 40-percent slice of China's Alibaba, unlocking value for shareholders.
Shares of Yahoo gained 3 percent in after-hours trade.
"Everyone is going to assume this means a deal is more likely with the Asia counterparts," Macquarie analyst Ben Schacter said. "The perception among shareholders was Jerry was more focused on trying to rebuild Yahoo, than on necessarily on maximizing near-term shareholder value."
"It certainly seems things are coming to a head as far as realizing the value of these assets."
Yang - who is severing all formal ties with the company by resigning all positions including his seat on the board of directors - has come under fire for his handling of company affairs dating back to an aborted sale to Microsoft in 2008.
The company did not say where Yang was headed, or why he had suddenly resigned. CEO Thompson offered few clues in a memo to employees obtained by Reuters following the announcement.
"I am grateful for the support and warm welcome Jerry provided me in my early days here. His insights and perspective were invaluable, helping me to dig deeper - more quickly than I could have on my own - into some of the key elements of the company and how it operates.
Yang and co-founder David Filo, both of whom carry the official title "Chief Yahoo," own sizable stakes in the company. Yang owns 3.69 percent of Yahoo's outstanding shares, while Filo owns 6 percent, as of April and May 2011.
CHIEF YAHOO ... NO LONGER
In a letter to Yahoo's chairman of the board, Yang said he was leaving Yahoo to pursue "other interests outside of Yahoo" and was "enthusiastic" about Thompson as the choice to helm the company.
Yang, 43, is also resigning from the boards of Yahoo Japan and Alibaba Group Holdings.
Respected in the industry as one of the founding figures of the Web, Yang has come under fire from investors, and to some extent within the company's internal ranks, over the years.
"Lots of people think he holds up innovation there with old ideas and (is) slow to decide; and that he's not an innovator himself for being at such a high level," said one former Yahoo employee.
"People have very high expectations for founders. Everyone wants a Steve Jobs," the employee said, referring to Apple's co-founder who brought the company back from near death and transformed it into the world's most valuable tech company.
Some analysts say the Yahoo board's indecision stems in part from Yang's sway in the company. Disillusioned by the company's flip-flopping, they warn that the rest of the board remained much the same as the one that rejected Microsoft's $44 billion bid in 2008 - an ill-advised move in hindsight.
"Jerry Yang was certainly an impediment toward anything happening," said Morningstar analyst Rick Summer.
"This is a company that's been mired by a bunch of competing
interests going in different directions. It was never clear what this board's direction has been."
In 2008 when Yang was CEO, Yahoo rejected an unsolicited takeover bid from Microsoft Corp worth about $44 billion. Its share price was subsequently pummeled by the global financial crisis and its current market value stands at about $20 billion.
More recently, Yang and Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock have incurred the wrath of some major Yahoo shareholders for their handling of the "strategic review" the company was pursuing, in which discussions have included the possibility of being sold, taken private or broken up.
"I had thought that Jerry Yang was a lifer at Yahoo," said Susquehanna analyst Herman Leung. "Without him on the board, this could smooth a potential transaction. What that transaction is, is any of our guesses right now."
' littlest fan may also be her biggest inspiration.
The actress took home the Golden Globes award for her starring role in "My Week With Marilyn" at Sunday night's awards ceremony, and the first person on her thank-you list was daughter Matilda, 6.
"I consider myself a mother first and an actress second, and so the person I most want to thank is my daughter, my little girl, whose bravery and exuberance is the example that I take with me in my work and in my life,"
Michelle Williams
said upon receiving her statuette.
Michelle Williams
, 31, beat out other A-listers like Charlize Theron and Jodie Foster to take home the prize for her spot-on portrayal of the late Hollywood legend.
And, according to the actress, she couldn't have done it without the help of her young daughter.
"I want to say thank you for sending me off to this job every day with a hug and a kiss," she said during her speech. "I couldn't have done it any other way."
This is Michelle Williams' first Golden Globes win — she was nominated for her turns in both "Blue Valentine" and "Brokeback Mountain."
Michelle Williams has previously said that she often dreams about "quitting acting" and "walking away and becoming a laundress or a sous chef or maybe writing other people's love letters for a living."
Luckily for audiences, however, Michelle Williams is thus far looking to continue her work in Hollywood — thanks in great part to Matilda's support and patience.
"It makes me so excited to come home at night," the actress said of spending time with her daughter, thanking her "for suffering for six months of bedtime stories, where all the princesses were read aloud in a Marilyn Monroe-sounding voice."
(MLK ). was introduced as “the moral leader of our nation.”
Today, nearly 50 years later, the moral courage and conviction of Dr. King’s words seem to ring out as resonant as ever from every exalted valley, from hill and mountaintop — and from the modern prominent perch that is Google’s search homepage.
MARTIN LUTHER KING GOOGLE DOODLE: MLK ‘Dream’ logo celebrates civil-rights leader’s birthday
Google celebrates today’s
Martin Luther King
“Day of Service” holiday with a logo that features the preaching civil-rights leader — and that’s ringed with the inspiring words of that 1963 speech. Speaking with the Lincoln Memorial as resonant backdrop, King sonorously intoned: “ I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
One of those “four little chidren” —
Martin Luther King
III — is now president of the King Center, which today is making 200,000 of the Nobel Prize winner’s documents available for the first time online, atTheKingCenter.org (the project includes notes from that March of Washington speech).
Today’s “Google Doodle” was created by the Harlem-born artist and author Faith Ringgold , a professor emeritus at UCSD and “story quilter” whose first book, “Tar Beach,” received the Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration.
Ringgold’s children’s books include “My Dream of Martin Luther King,” and her Doodle fittingly depicts several young faces.
The Doodle also includes the words “We shall overcome someday.” Not only did King deliver those words in speeches, of course, but the protest song “We Shall Overcome” became an anthem of the civil-rights movement — sung even by folk singer Joan Baez during that 200,000-strong “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.”
The Google Doodle’s figures are also joined by the red, white and blue ribboning of unity — a visual symbol that speaks to King’s calls for brotherhood and equality.
Dr. King’s March on Washington speech invokes the word “dream” nearly a dozen times, like a call-to-action echo. “For the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., dreaming was not optional,” Post columnist Gene Robinson wrote last week. “It was a requirement of citizenship to envision a fairer, more prosperous nation no longer shackled by racism and poverty. It was a duty to imagine a world no longer ravaged by senseless wars.
“His famous speech was less an invitation to share his epic dream than a commandment.”
Dr. King was born in Atlanta on Jan. 15, 1929, but his holiday is observed on third Monday of January. Martin Luther King Jr. Day began in 1976 — 18 years after his death by an assassin’s bullet in Memphis — but has only been celebrated in all 50 states since 2000.
As a Baptist minister who valued the teachings of Gandhi, King preached nonviolence as he helped lead the Montgomery (Ala.) bus boycott in 1955 and became president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. (In 2010, a Google Doodle honored civil-right figure Rosa Parks, whose refusal to surrender her seat spurred the boycott.)
In 1964, King became the youngest person ever to be honored with the Nobel Peace Prize, which he received for his work to end racial discrimination and segregation.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Jr. memorial in Washington opened to the public last fall. Last week, responding to a Post editorial and the subsequent fallout, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar gave the National Park Service 30 days to decide on a new version of a truncated quote that reportedly was shortened to fit on the memorial (a change said to be supported by Martin Luther King III). The line, in an over-aggrandizing fashion, currently misreads: “I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.”
The holiday weekend is marked by countless tributes. On Sunday, wreaths were placed at the memorial and onlookers reportedly sang “Happy birthday.” On the eve of the holiday, the first family paid tribute as they attended Washington’s Zion Baptist.
Because the King holiday is also a national Day of Service, there are volunteer efforts across the country. Some of them may be found at All for Good and The Post’s site The Root DC.
Dr. King did not reach the mountaintop that he envisioned, but as Faith Ringgold depicts on Google today, the preached with a dream traveled many miles to illuminate the rest of the way.
, established in 1994, is meant to be a day of personal action in Dr. King’s memory – as its boosters say, a day on, not a day off.
As many Americans know, the King commemoration is an unusual holiday in a number of respects. It’s one of only three federally authorized celebrations of individuals, the others being Washington’s Birthday and Columbus Day. It’s the newest US holiday, created in 1983. It’s been bolstered for 2012 by the opening of the new King memorial on the National Mall in Washington.
But here’s something many citizens may not know: It is really two holidays in one.
There’s the overall King Day, set in ’83 when President Reagan signed a bill putting it in federal law. And there’s the
, established when President Clinton signed the King Holiday and Service Act of 1994. King Service Day is meant to be a day of personal action in Dr. King’s memory on or near his holiday – as its boosters say, a day on, not a day off. It’s promoted by the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency that also runs AmeriCorps and similar initiatives.
Last year in Philadelphia, for instance, computer professionals got together to donate used PCs to city families who lacked Internet access. In Washington, President Obama and his kids helped paint a middle school. In Des Moines, Iowa, members of Habitat for Humanity built 25 sheds for needy homeowners.
Many cities have organized King Service Day efforts. Philadelphia may be the most notable example: This year organizers expect to attract 85,000 volunteers to some 1,300 projects.
But if your city isn’t doing that, or if you don’t live in a city, you can go to the official King Service Day website (mlkday.gov), enter your Zip Code, and find projects that are asking for volunteers.
Or organize your own. Plant trees in your neighborhood. Organize a book drive. Write letters to troops (the King website has tips on what to say and where to send them).
As King himself said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’ ”
is located in Midway, Utah and is up for grabs— It will go to one lucky winner later this year.
The sweepstakes kicked off December 29 and will accept applications through February 17 at 5 p.m., where United States residents over 21 years old can enter for the chance to win the luxury home. Applicants will also enter for a chance to win other prizes.
“Starting today, viewers can enter twice daily for a chance to win the spectacular 2012
HGTV Dream Home
,” stated HGTV December 29.
“The
HGTV Dream Home
Giveaway 2012 will offer fans the chance to win a spectacular custom-built home in Midway, Utah, a 2012 GMC® Terrain® and $500,000 cash. The giveaway prize package, valued at more than $2 million, will be awarded to one lucky viewer in March,” stated HGTV. “Until then, online users can see a photo gallery and a 360-degree virtual tour at HGTV.com. On Monday, January 2, at 1 p.m. ET/PT, HGTV will unveil the fully-furnished modern western ranch house, designed to appeal to outdoor enthusiasts during the one-hour special, HGTV Dream Home 2012.”
The dream home is “Located in one of the hottest areas for outdoor aficionados,” it’s ”Nestled on the banks of the Provo River,” and “offers easy access to incredible Deer Valley and Park City, home of the Sundance Film Festival.”
It comes as the 16th HGTV Dream Home and is around 4,000 square feet. It reportedly features five covered decks with connecting boardwalks, an outdoor living room and hot tub, and a changing room with fishing accessories. Inside, the house includes three bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms, an entertainment room and a chef’s kitchen.
Ever watch an awards show for hours, waiting for something interesting to happen, only to be disappointed? And even more disappointed because you knew that would happen?
In any case, it's safe to say that Ricky Gervais will at least appear to have some fun as host of the
tonight. Whether or not this will relieve boredom is yet to be seen.
Gervais, a Globe winner for "The Office" in 2004, has hosted the awards ceremony for the past two years. Last year he was rumored to have angered the Hollywood Foreign Press, some actors, or both, and has said/joked that he only returned as host because of the idea that he wouldn't be asked back. The British comedian is known for braising Hollywood stars while they squirm in their seats, chuckle, or over-laugh to make it seem as though they're not too offended when the camera zooms in for a reaction.
It's a style Robert Downey Jr. facetiously called "hugely mean-spirited with mildly sinister undertones" at last year's Globes, when Gervais squarely placed Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie and their panned-yet-nominated movie "The Tourist" on his dartboard. Also targeted were the "mature" ladies of "Sex and the City 2" ("I saw one of you in an episode of 'Bonanza'!") and Bruce Willis, who Gervais introduced as "Ashton Kutcher's dad." As for Downey Jr., Gervais began by listing the actor's movies, then said most would know him better from stints at "the Betty Ford clinic and Los Angeles County Jail."
Like most of the other stuff, not a stretch. (Except Kim Cattrall's first IMDB credit was for 1975. "Bonanza" ended in 1973.)
"What can I say about our next two presenters?" began Gervais, introducing two more actors. "The first is an actor, producer, writer and director whose movies have grossed over $3 and a half billion at the box office. He's won two Academy Awards and three
Golden Globes
for his powerful and varied performances, starring in such films as 'Philadelphia,' 'Forrest Gump,' 'Castaway,' 'Apollo 13' and 'Saving Private Ryan.' The other ... is Tim Allen."
Come back to see how Gervais fares this year. We'll be live-blogging his jokes starting at 8 p.m., when the NBC broadcast begins, from opening monologue through goodnight salute.
