Read my Mind

The first batch of the 12 of the American Idol top 36 performed live on Tuesday night, and the results? Well, they were mixed.

Given a seemingly bottomless song selection - the theme was “hits from the Billboard Hot 100,” meaning everything from Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You” to Eminem’s “Crack a Bottle” was fair game - the dozen hopefuls on display last night mostly chose to play it safe, and the results ran the gamut from “triumphant” to “utterly and completely disastrous.”

In the former category, you can count pint-size Alexis Grace, who belted out a soulful rendition of Aretha Franklin’s “Never Loved a Man” that earned her comparisons to a former Idol champ, Kelly Clarkson. Then Danny Gokey closed the night with a take on Mariah Carey’s “Hero” that had the studio audience - and the judges - cheering wildly. Ricky Braddy and Michael Sarver also received high marks for their versions of Leon Russell’s “A Song for You” and Gavin DeGraw’s “I Don’t Wanna Be.”

You can file the performances by Casey Carlson, Stevie Wright and Stephen Fowler under “disastrous.” Carlson, the button-cute former bikini model, winked her way through a karaoke-fied version of the Police’s “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,” a performance that left Idol judges agape. Wright, a 17-year-old with a husky set of pipes, decided to go “younger,” taking on Taylor Swift’s “You Belong to Me” and failing spectacularly. Fowler performed Michael Jackson’s classic “Rock With You,” a move that left judges questioning his song choice and his chances at survival.

Everyone else was somewhere in between. Normally dramatic Tatiana Del Toro unveiled her demure side with a controlled version of Whitney Houston’s “Saving All My Love for You,” a decision that left judges praising her pipes but questioning her identity as an artist. Brent Keith tried to remain loyal to his country roots by singing James Aldean’s “Hicktown,” a performance the judges deemed “forgettable.” Ann Marie Boskovich fell victim to the same criticism after her take on Carole King’s “Natural Woman.” Jackie Tohn was dubbed “entertaining” after a spastic performance of Elvis Presley’s “A Little Less Conversation” (judges were split on her Lycra pants). And Anoop Desai - Randy’s favorite “Noop Dogg” - tackled Monica’s “Angel of Mine” with mixed results, striking a balance between gawky crooner and smooth loverman.

The top male and female vote-getters - plus the next-highest vote-getter, regardless of gender - will be the first three to move on to the top 12.

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT, Philippines - The Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) said Friday that Federal Express will still have a maintenance component here and will be on standby until April this year.

In a press conference, SMBA administrator Armand Arreza clarified that Thursday night’s operations were “the beginning of the transition for the move to China.”

“Last night was the last full operations. They will still have standby operations up to the end of April. They have been testing their hub at Guangzhou for the last two months,” Arreza explained.

Earlier, employees of Federal Express said the Thursday to Friday flights were the last flights of the Subic hub which has been operating for more than 13 years here.

Around 500 hundred employees will be affected by the move of Fedex to China. They, however, clarified that the international courier giant will still service the Philippines through the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in Manila.

The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency deemed the so-called “Alabang Boys” arrested in September buy-bust operations flight risks, and insisted on Sunday on keeping them in custody.

“We cannot release them because there is a possibility that they might fly out of the country. There are no hold-departure orders against them,” PDEA spokesperson Derrick Carreon told the Philippine Daily Inquirer over the phone on Sunday.

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez’s directive for a reinvestigation of the case, after it was dismissed dismissed by state prosecutors of the Department of Justice, has also nullified the release order for Richard Santos Brodett, Jorge Jordana Joseph and Joseph Ramirez Tecson signed by two prosecutors on Dec. 2, according to Carreon.

This was contrary to the statement of Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño, who earlier said that the suspect did not have to be detained during a reinvestigation of the case.

Zuño also added that an arrest warrant would be issued against the three should the new panel of prosecutors find probable cause to recommend their trial.

“The ball is already in the court of the Department of Justice. We will not release the three boys unless Secretary Gonzalez says so,” Carreon firmly said.

He also pointed out that the justice secretary has already ordered his agencies to stop the release of the three until he would say otherwise.

The move to reinvestigate the case stemmed from “intelligence reports” received by antinarcotics agents that “P50 million changed hands” for the release of the three young men still under the agency’s custody.

Brodett, Joseph and Tecson were collared on Sept. 20 in operations four hours apart in Ayala Alabang, Muntinlupa City and the south gate of Araneta Center in Quezon City for carrying ecstasy, cocaine and marijuana.

According to the PDEA, some 60 tablets of ecstasy– common among rich cliques, packets of marijuana and sachets of cocaine were found when the group was arrested in the buy-bust operations.

Carreon also said that PDEA Director Dionisio Santiago, who was being implicated in the alleged bribery, welcomed the investigation “so we could get to the bottom of this.”

“The director has vowed full cooperation in the investigation. He also believes that anyone who received bribes–whether from PDEA or from the DOJ– must go to jail,” he added.

Following the arrest of the three, parties allegedly close to them worked to secure their release order from the DOJ. This “intelligence report” reached the PDEA office even before it received a copy of the release order 17 days after state prosecutors ruled to dismiss the case on Dec. 2.

“What took place between Dec. 2 and Dec. 19 is suspicious,” said Carreon. “They junked the case on the ground of lack of probable cause. But what else needs to be established when it was a buy-bust operation?”

Residents of Pastrana town in Leyte were jolted by magnitude-5.1 earthquake Friday morning, as state seismologists said they expect damages due to the tremor and warned of possible aftershocks.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said the earthquake occurred at 6:44 a.m. and was felt at intensity 6 in Pastrana town, and was also felt at various intensities at parts of Leyte, Northern and Eastern Samar, and Cebu provinces.

Phivolcs said that the quake, which was of tectonic origin, was felt at intensity 5 at Ormoc City and Palo in Leyte and at intensity 4 at La Paz , Dulag, and Abuyog, also in Leyte.

Residents of Mahaplag town in Leyte, meanwhile, felt the tremor at intensity 3 while in Cebu City , Catarman town in Northern Samar, and Borongan, Eastern Samar, it was recorded at intensity 2.

Angelina Jolie turned heads at the Screen Actors Guild Awards last Sunday, and it wasn’t just because she was her usual stunning self. It turns out Angie was wearing her Max Azria gown — a cornflower blue creation — backward!

Did a spurned stylist tell her to wear it the wrong way round? Or was the “Changeling” star too busy caring for her newborn twins that she didn’t realize her mistake?

(left to right) The front of Angelina’s Max Azria dress (Jason Merritt/Getty Images), the back (Steve Granitz/WireImage.com), and a model from Azria’s Spring 2009 collection (Scott Gries/Getty Images)

Neither, according to Jen Rade, who styles the starlet. Rade told Usmagazine.com that Jolie reversed the gown on purpose to make it “more blouson.” For those of you who do not parle Francais, “blouson” is the French word for blouse. The end result was a bit too bland for my taste, and rather reminiscent of another Max Azria dress she wore to the Critic’s Choice Awards just a few weeks earlier. Had she worn her gown the right way round, Angelina would have shown more skin but less of her distracting tattoos!

For some reason, the sexy actress has favored billowy blouson gowns with cinched waists this awards season. I just hope she takes a break from the trend come Oscars next month. She may be a mother of six, but she doesn’t need to look matronly.

To hear more about Angelina’s fashion choice, watch this report from E! News Daily. And to see more of Angelina’s red carpet looks, check out Yahoo! Movies’ Fashion Report Card, and click here for complete coverage of the 66th Annual Academy Awards.

Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States on Jan. 20, 2009. The son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas, he was the first African-American to ascend to the highest office in the land.

He was also the first new president since terrorists attacked New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, the first to use the Internet to decisive political advantage, the first to insist on handling a personal smartphone while in the White House. So striking was the novelty of his rise that he embraced it himself: as a candidate he called himself “a skinny kid with a funny name” and the theme for his campaign was “change.”

It was a theme with deep resonance for a country enmeshed in what was widely believed to be the worst downturn since the Great Depression. Abroad, many challenges loomed: the war in Iraq, the worsening conflict in Aghanistan, the repercussions from Israel’s broad assault on Gaza, the threat of terrorism and the increasing signs that the economic woes that began on Wall Street had spread across the global economy.

Mr. Obama arrived at the White House with a resume that appeared short by presidential standards: eight years in the Illinois State Senate, four years as a senator in Washington. He had managed to wrest the Democratic nomination from a field of far more experienced competitors, most notably Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom he outlasted in what became an epic primary battle. And he defeated Senator John McCain, the Republican of Arizona, by an electoral margin of 365 to 173, while outpolling him by more than eight million votes.

During the campaign, Mr. Obama laid out a set of large promises that were solidly within the traditional agenda of the Democratic Party, with plans to offer health insurance to all and reduce carbon emissions at the top of the list. At the same time, he proposed moving toward what was sometimes called a post-partisan landscape, appealing to voters of all stripes to come together. As he took office, voters seemed cautiously optimistic, with high hopes for the Obama presidency mixed with a sense that complicated problems would take years to resolve.

Republicans attributed Mr. Obama’s victory primarily to a dismal trifecta: the cratering economy, an incumbent president, George W. Bush, with near-record disapproval ratings and a series of stumbles by Mr. McCain’s campaign. But even his opponents acknowledged that Mr. Obama had run a remarkable campaign, highly disciplined in its message, relentlessly focused on building a field organization that was second to none and unprecedentedly successful in fundraising, particularly over the Internet.

In the weeks after the election, the Obama team tried to bring the same level of focus to the transition, moving rapidly to name a large roster of nominees to posts large and small. He dipped deeply into the pool of Clinton-era officials, beginning with his former rival, naming Mrs. Clinton to be his secretary of state. While he resisted calls to involve himself publicly in many of the pressing issues of the moment, declaring repeatedly that “we only have one president at a time,” Mr. Obama began negotiations with congressional leaders on a massive economic stimulus package and hit the road for campaign-style events to build support for the $825 billion bill introduced by the House on Jan. 15, 2009.

Two boxing analysts believe Manny Pacquiao has enough in his arsenal to bring down Ricky Hatton in their May 2 superfight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Michael Koncz, Pacquiao’s Top Rank coordinator, and Matchroom Sports Ltd. Managing director Eddie Hearn said in a 24 Oras report that they chose Pacquiao based on the reigning World Boxing Council (WBC) lightweight champion’s skills.

Koncz said Pacquiao’s speed would again be a factor in the match.

“Manny’s hand speed is faster than Hatton, but more importantly, Manny’s ring presence is better. Hatton is a one-dimensional fighter, and he is going to come straight forward. And Manny is maturing as a boxer,” Koncz said.

Hearn, meanwhile, believes Pacquiao will try to tire International Boxing Organization (IBO) welterweight title holder Hatton.

“Hatton will come forward, come forward, and Manny will pick him off and soak him up. (By) eight, nine, 10 rounds when Ricky is tired that is when Manny’s strength really comes through,” Hearn said. “That is when he’ll push him on the back ropes and I’m not sure Ricky will going to take more.”

Hearn expects an exciting match between the two fighters.

“Both fighters have huge hearts, huge courage, and huge talent,” he said. “They will both come forward and be aggressive. Both fighters will never give in.”

With the fight still three months away, Pacquiao is savoring his time with his family and friends before plunging into another eight weeks of hard training to prepare for his megabout against Hatton.

A person was confirmed dead while dozens others were injured after an explosion hit a fireworks factory in Trece Martires City in Cavite province Thursday morning.

In an interview on dzBB radio, Trece Martires City police head Superintendent Reynaldo Galang said at least one body was found while more than 20 were rushed to the hospital.

“One dead body and more than 20 nadala sa hospital (More than 20 were brought to the hospital),” Galang said, adding that several people were seen crawling out of the factory, which he said was “destroyed” by the blast.

Earlier, Trece Martires Vice-Mayor Alvin Mojica said at least 50 people were rushed to the hospital.

Mojica said the incident occurred before 11 a.m. at the Starmaker fireworks factory at a “secluded” area in Conchu village.

“Sa tingin ko mga 50 na itong nasa hospital … Wala pang ma-retrieve sa loob ng building (I think at least 50 have been brought to the hospital. No one has been retrieved from inside the factory),” Mojica said in an interview on dzBB radio.

He said the site of the incident is near the Governors Drive and is located only 2.5 kilometers from the City Hall, but is far from any residential area.

Mojica said thick smoke prevented firefighters from getting inside the factory. Those injured were from around the building, he added.

But he said the factory had no derogatory safety track record prior to the incident.

Doctor Nelson Soriano of the General Emilio Aguinaldo Hospital said at least 19 of the injured were brought there. “Mga lacerations but we are expecting the worst. Allegedly may empleyado sa loob ng factory (The initial batch of patients had lacerations but we are expecting the worst. Allegedly there were employees inside the factory),” he said.

For her part, Cavite provincial health officer Vilma Diez said at least 32 were rushed to the provincial hospital, one of them in critical condition. The others were treated for lacerations.

Ashlee Simpson-Wentz has a bone to pick with those who say her sister is looking a bit meatier than usual.

“I am completely disgusted by the headlines concerning my sister’s weight,” Simpson wrote Tuesday on her website. “A week after the inauguration and with such a feeling of hope in the air for our country, I find it completely embarrassing and belittling to all women to read about a woman’s weight or figure as a headline on Fox News.”

Sure enough, Fox’s website reported today that Jessica Simpson shocked fans Sunday at Radio 99.9 Kiss Country’s Chili Cookoff in Pembroke Pines, Fla., with her “noticeably fuller figure” and had apparently “eased up on her fitness regimen a bit.”

Hmmph, says Ashlee.

“All women come in different shapes, sizes, and forms and just because you’re a celebrity, there shouldn’t be a different standard,” the younger Simpson sis continued.

“Is this something you would say to your wife, daughter, mother, grandmother, or even a friend? I seriously doubt it. How can we expect teenage girls to love and respect themselves in an environment where we criticize a size 2 figure? Now we can focus on the things that really matter.”

Well, some of us can.

In response to the hullabaloo caused by, at worst, a pair of unflattering high-waisted jeans, Simpson’s former trainer told Extra that Jessica Simpson is perfectly healthy and “has curves where a woman needs to have curves.

“We all go a little bit up and a little bit down,” Hollywood trainer Harley Pasternak said. “But she’s healthy. She’s still sexy. She’s still a beautiful woman. And I have no problem with the way she looks. I think if more people looked the way she looks now, the country would be a lot healthier.”