Composer Menotti dies at 95

Rome – Gian Carlo Menotti, who composed a pair of Pulitzer Prize-winning operas and founded the Spoleto arts festivals in Italy and the United States, died Thursday at a hospital in Monaco. He was 95.

“He died pretty peacefully and without any pain. He died in my arms,” said his adopted son, Francis Menotti, by telephone from Monte Carlo.

The Italian composer won Pulitzers for a pair of the 20th century’s more successful operas: “The Consul,” which premiered in 1950 in Philadelphia, and “The Saint of Bleecker Street,” which opened at New York’s Broadway Theater in 1954. “The Consul” also earned him the New York Drama Critics Circle award as the best musical play of the year in 1954.

He also wrote the Christmas classic “Amahl and the Night Visitors” for NBC, which was broadcast in 1951 and may have been the first opera written for television.

Sienna Miller says life will make sense with motherhood

New York – Sienna Miller is an actress and a fashion icon. Still, there’s one more title she’d like to have: mother.

“I can’t wait,” she says in Life magazine’s upcoming issue. “In a world where you’re encouraged to have your universe revolve around yourself, suddenly it doesn’t. I know I want that because I have way too much love to give. If I have a child, it can all go there. Life, I think, will suddenly make sense.”

In the new film “Factory Girl,” the 25-year-old Miller stars as rich party girl and Andy Warhol muse Edie Sedgwick. She’s also acted in the films “Casanova,” “Layer Cake” and “Alfie.”

Her on-and-off relationship with dashing ex-fiance Jude Law, 34, made her an overnight celebrity. She reportedly broke off their engagement in 2005 after he publicly apologized for cheating on her following reports that he had a fling with the nanny of his three children.

“What makes me sad (is) that there was a loss of innocence on my part,” she says. “I was blinded by being a romantic person. I sort of feel like, ‘What if I never love that vulnerably and that openly again?’ But I feel like I’m really strong. I feel like I grew up. People have made a huge deal of it.”

Man apologizes for murder he committed at age 11

Detroit – A 21-year-old man freed from custody for a murder he committed at age 11 has apologized to the victim’s family, with help from Oprah Winfrey.

Nathaniel Abraham, who lives in Bay City, traveled to Chicago with the intent of appearing on Winfrey’s TV show. But the taping was canceled at his attorney’s request.

Hours before the taping, Abraham met in Winfrey’s private office with the family of murder victim Ronnie Greene Jr., 18, whom Abraham shot with a rifle in 1997.

Abraham attorney Daniel Bagdade watched the exchange and said Winfrey “kind of mediated the apology.”

“It was very riveting. Nate’s story was not on camera today. We ended up doing the apology in Oprah’s office. It was incredible. It was absolutely incredible,” Bagdade told The Detroit News.

Winfrey’s Harpo Production Co. said Bagdade revoked Abraham’s consent to appear on Winfrey’s show.

Abraham was 13 when an Oakland County jury convicted him of second-degree murder. He finished serving his juvenile sentence Jan. 18.

Britney, K-Fed to continue joint custody of children

Los Angeles – Britney Spears and Kevin Federline will continue to share custody of their two young sons this month, following the terms of a January custody agreement, Federline’s attorney confirmed Thursday.

That agreement has been temporarily extended for February, said publicist Michael Sands, speaking on behalf of Federline’s attorney, Mark Vincent Kaplan.

Spears, 25, agreed last month to temporary joint custody of 1-year-old Sean Preston Federline and almost 5-month-old Jayden James Federline.

Per the terms of that agreement, Federline, 28, will continue to be allowed to visit the children at Spears’ home from noon to 4 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Whitney Houston wants to speed pace of divorce

Orange, Calif. – Whitney Houston wants to fast-track her divorce from Bobby Brown.

The singer, who filed divorce papers in October, requested a default judgment in a document filed Dec. 28 in Orange County Superior Court.

A checked box on the two-page document indicates that there are “no issues of division of community property” in the divorce.

The document was obtained by the CelebTV.com Web site, which reported it Thursday.

Houston, 43, has asked for custody of the couple’s 13-year-old daughter, Bobbi Kristina, and that Brown, 37, be allowed visitation rights.