Navratilova diagnosed with breast cancer
New York — Tennis great Martina Navratilova has been diagnosed with a noninvasive form of breast cancer and her prognosis is considered excellent.
Navratilova said in a phone interview Wednesday that a routine mammogram in January found a lump, and a biopsy the following month determined it was ductal carcinoma in situ, or DCIS. The nine-time Wimbledon women’s singles champion had a lumpectomy in March and will start six weeks of radiation therapy next month.
“It was such a shock for me,” Navratilova said. “It was my 9/11.”
According to the National Institutes of Health, more than 50,000 women each year are diagnosed with DCIS, in which abnormal cells haven’t left the milk duct to penetrate breast tissue. It’s removed because it is a risk factor for developing invasive cancer. Only about 2 percent of DCIS patients die of breast cancer in the next 10 years.
Navratilova said she initially wanted to keep her diagnosis quiet, but decided she could help others by going public. She will do a Web chat today in her role as the AARP’s Health and Fitness Ambassador, when she hopes not only to teach participants but to learn from them.
Bristol Palin to teens: ‘Pregnancy can wait’
New York — Bristol Palin says that if girls knew how tough it was to be a mom, they’d think twice about having sex.
The 19-year-old daughter of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says she has chosen to practice abstinence herself, until marriage.
Palin gave birth to a son, Tripp, in December 2008 and says she “wasn’t prepared at all” for the dramatic changes in her life since then.
“I don’t think anyone realizes how difficult it really is until you actually have a screaming baby in your arms and you’re up all night,” said Palin.
“It changes literally every aspect of your life, and if girls realized how hard it was to be a teen mom, they would think twice about having sex without the proper education and proper knowledge.”
Fox protests school budget cuts with comedy
Los Angeles — Megan Fox and her sometime boyfriend, actor Brian Austin Green, are protesting California school budget cuts in a new video online.
In a video posted Wednesday on the comic Web site FunnyorDie.com, Fox urges viewers to “call, write and annoy the governor until he cries for his mommy.”
She says more than $17 billion has been cut from state educational programs over the past two years, and Green says the “terminators in Sacramento” plan to cut another $2.5 billion.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said last month that budget cuts have caused a 17 percent jump in the number of school districts facing financial uncertainty.
French first lady brushes off infidelity rumors
Paris — Carla Bruni-Sarkozy on Wednesday dismissed as “insignificant” rumors of infidelity by her and her husband, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and brushed off theories that lies were planted in a plot to bring down the glamorous couple.
She said in an interview with Europe 1 radio that she and Sarkozy “have turned the page” and suggested the media to do the same.
The rumors started in early March by appearing on the blog of a French Sunday newspaper. The rest of the French media initially took a don’t-touch approach, even though some foreign newspapers, notably British, published the rumors. They alleged that both the first lady, a former top model, and the president were having affairs.
The reports made headlines in France last weekend with interviews by Sarkozy’s lawyer and a top aide close to the first lady who both held out the possibility that the rumors were part of a plot aimed at “destabilizing” the presidential couple.
But on Wednesday, Bruni-Sarkozy said: “For me and my husband these rumors are insignificant. ... There is no plot. There is no vengeance. There is nothing. We have turned the page.”
Clancy’s ‘Dead Or Alive’ set for December release
New York — Tom Clancy’s next novel will be an all-star reunion.
The author is bringing together such favorite characters as Jack Ryan and John Clark for “Dead or Alive,” a thriller set in the post-Sept. 11 age of terrorism.
Publisher G.P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA), announced Wednesday that it plans a first printing of 1.75 million copies when the book comes out in December.
Clancy is known for such best-sellers as “The Hunt for Red October” and “Patriot Games.”
Jackson portrait up for auction online
Los Angeles — An over-the-top portrait of Michael Jackson is going up for auction online.
The eBay.com auction of the fantastical 50-by-40-inch painting by Australian artist Brett-Livingstone Strong will launch Wednesday evening, the portrait’s owner said Tuesday.
Titled “The Book,” the colorful work is reportedly the only painting for which the King of Pop ever posed. It depicts Jackson, clad in a Renaissance-era red velvet jacket, seated amid a sweeping checkerboard floor underneath a magically translucent curtain at his Neverland Ranch.
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