Eminem, wife split again

Detroit – Eminem’s dysfunctional relationship with wife Kim has hit another low – he has filed divorce papers, less than three months after remarrying her.

“There has been a breakdown in the marriage relationship to the extent that the objects of matrimony have been destroyed and there remains no reasonable likelihood that the marriage can be preserved,” according to the filing, which was made in Macomb County on Wednesday on behalf of Marshall Bruce Mathers III, Eminem’s real name.

The filing also states that the 33-year-old rapper and his wife signed a prenuptial agreement a week before their Jan. 14 wedding ceremony in Rochester. It doesn’t describe the specifics of the prenuptial agreement, other than to say that “the property of the parties should be divided in accordance with” the agreement.

It also says that Kim Mathers is not pregnant and that Eminem is seeking joint custody of their 10-year-old daughter, Hailie Jade Scott.

Kim Mathers’ attorney, Michael J. Smith, said the filing caught his client off-guard.

“It comes to us as somewhat of a surprise. But we have to deal with it, and we will deal with it,” he said. “I was at their wedding. It’s very unfortunate that he filed for divorce.”

Writer’s block

New York – J.K. Rowling, well into her seventh and final “Harry Potter” book, says the writing is going fine despite one annoying obstacle: the lack of paper.

“Why is it so difficult to buy paper in the middle of town?” the author, a resident of Edinburgh, Scotland, lamented in a diary entry posted Wednesday on her Web site, www.jkrowling.com.

“What is a writer who likes to write longhand supposed to do when she hits her stride and then realizes, to her horror, that she has covered every bit of blank paper in her bag? Forty-five minutes it took me, this morning, to find somewhere that would sell me some normal, lined paper. And there’s a university here! What do the students use? Don’t tell me laptops, it makes me feel like something out of the eighteenth century.”

From Carthage to Caribbean

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic – Vin Diesel has chosen the Dominican Republic as a location for his movie “Hannibal,” about the third-century conqueror who led an elephant-riding army across the Alps in an assault on Rome.

Diesel will direct and star in the title role of the film based on Ross Leckie’s fictionalized memoir of the Carthaginian leader.

The crew of “Hannibal” will film in the Caribbean nation for a month, Juan Carlos Benzant, a producer with the Dominican company Trabucazo Films, said Tuesday.

Scenes will also be shot in Spain and California.

Live in Red Square

New York – Eric Clapton will close the European leg of his world tour with his first concert in Moscow’s Red Square.

Clapton’s solo tour, which opens May 5 in Le Cannet, France, will travel through 14 countries, including England, Germany, Italy and Norway.

His performance in Moscow is set for Aug. 3, it was announced Tuesday. The 61-year-old rocker will follow in the footsteps of artists such as Paul McCartney, Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo who have performed at the historic Red Square.

Cruise: Father a bully, coward

New York – Tom Cruise says his father was abusive and that school, where he faced other bullies, was difficult, in an upcoming issue of Parade magazine.

“He was a bully and a coward,” the 43-year-old actor says of his father, Thomas Cruise Mapother III. “He was the kind of person where, if something goes wrong, they kick you. It was a great lesson in my life – how he’d lull you in, make you feel safe and then, bang!

“For me, it was like, ‘There’s something wrong with this guy. Don’t trust him. Be careful around him.’ There’s that anxiety.”

In 1974, when Cruise was 11, his parents divorced. Cruise’s mother, Mary Lee, moved her family to Louisville, Ky., her hometown, the magazine says in its April 9 issue.

Ten years later, Cruise says he reunited with his father, who was in the hospital dying of cancer. “When I saw him in pain, I thought, ‘Wow, what a lonely life,”‘ Cruise says. “He was in his late 40s. It was sad.”