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Farm bill expanding subsides, food stamps passes Senate

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Friday approved a $286 billion farm bill with an election-year expansion of subsidies for growers and food stamps for the poor.

The bill, passed on a 79-14 vote, expands subsidies for wheat, barley, oat, soybeans and several other crops and creates new grants for vegetable and fruit growers.

It also increase loan rates for sugar producers, extends dairy programs and provide more dollars for renewable energy and conservation programs to protect environmentally sensitive farmland over the next five years.

President Bush has threatened to veto the legislation, saying it costs too much and should instead be cutting subsidies at a time of record-high crop prices. He also has threatened to veto a House version passed in July.

White House opposition and criticism from fiscal conservatives has so far had little impact on the politically popular bill.

Farm-state senators deflected several attempts to derail the bill and reduce government payments to large growers. Still, even some from farm country acknowledged the bill doesn’t do enough to trim the government’s massive subsidy programs.

Senate Agriculture Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, had hoped to take significant steps to reduce subsidies but was blocked by Southern lawmakers on the committee who favor current law. Southern crops such as rice and cotton are more expensive to produce than corn, wheat and most other crops grown around the country.

Harkin had said earlier he wanted to reduce direct payments to farmers, which are paid regardless of crop yield but opposition to the idea was fierce among farmer interest groups. Harkin eventually dropped the plan.
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Anderlecht fined for fan behavior

NYON, Switzerland — Anderlecht have been fined 18,000 euros for the improper conduct of their supporters during last week’s UEFA Cup Group G game with Tottenham.

The Belgian side were punished by the disciplinary arm of European football’s governing body after spectators threw missiles onto the field of play during the December 6 game in Brussels.

Tottenham midfielder Didier Zokora appeared to be struck by lighter thrown from the crowd, while goalkeeper Paul Robinson also picked up a metal rod which he handed to the fourth official after the final whistle of the 1-1 draw at the Constant Vanden Stock Stadium.

Anderlecht had already been fined for crowd disturbances during a Champions League qualifier this season against Fenerbahce.

Zokora claimed afterwards that he was targeted as he used to play for Anderlecht’s rivals Genk at the start of his career, yet he also had cause for celebration as the point earned Tottenham a place in the knockout stages of the competition.

Meanwhile, Italian side Lazio were also fined the same amount for the racist conduct of their supporters at the Champions League Group C tie against Werder Bremen in Germany on October 24. E-mail to a friend

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Julie Christie: Awards make me anxious

SANTA MONICA, California (AP) — Julie Christie jokes that she comes out of seclusion to do a movie about once a decade. And just about as often, the Academy Award-winning actress earns an Oscar nomination for the effort.

The same could happen with Christie’s remarkable performance as a woman succumbing to Alzheimer’s in Away From Her. The Oscar buzz began more than a year ago when the movie debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival, continued after the movie hit theaters last May, and remains as strong as ever with the Golden Globe nomination she received Thursday.

A best-actress Oscar winner as a model who sleeps her way to the top in 1965’s Darling, Christie quickly became choosy about films. Yet she found plum roles that earned her two more nominations, for 1971’s McCabe Mrs. Miller and 1997’s Afterglow.

A homebody who prefers to stay on her small farm in Wales, the 67-year-old Christie dreads the thought of being back in Oscar contention.

Deep anxiety. Huge anxiety, Christie said of the awards rigamarole, which drags on for months until the Oscars finally are handed out February 24.

In an interview with The Associated Press at a luxury beach-front hotel, Christie described how out of place she feels when publicists and awards handlers plot strategy to keep her in the minds of voters for the Oscars and other film honors.

It’s like, ‘You may have to go to Mars and pretend to be a Martian,’ Christie said. I think, oh, I don’t know any Martians. Can you give me some rules? And you’re told, ‘No, you’ve just got to make up how to be like a Martian, and you must not be discovered.’ So the moment anyone says the word Oscar, the anxiety sets in.

The O-word was inevitable for Christie’s performance in Away From Her, the directing debut of actress Sarah Polley, who adapted the screenplay from Alice Munro’s story The Bear Came Over the Mountain.

Christie plays Fiona, a woman whose long, sometimes shaky marriage to a once-adulterous but now steadfast husband, Grant (Gordon Pinsent), goes into decline as her memory fades from Alzheimer’s.

To ease Grant’s pain, Fiona checks herself into an institution while she still retains most of her faculties. But she deteriorates so quickly that she no longer recognizes Grant, who suffers through quiet jealousy as his wife transfers her affections in a flirtation with another aging patient.

Christie remains as luminous as in her Darling days, radiating the effervescence of the woman Fiona once was even amid her mental decline.

Did the role make Christie consider her own mortality?

It might have, but I think a lot already about my own mortality. It made me think much more practically. Thinking about your mortality is an extremely practical thing to do, Christie said. It made me think, I’ve got to get down to some really serious thinking when I write my will about what I want to happen and what not happen.

I would never do what Fiona did, I’m pretty sure. I wouldn’t have the guts. … I can’t see many people having the fiber or the backbone to actually check themselves into an institution in order to save the pain of the person they love. I think I’d rather take pills, myself. Why bother with institutions? It costs money. Somebody’s got to pay for it.

Christie already had firsthand experience with Alzheimer’s. With people living longer nowadays, acquaintances and parents of many of her friends developed the disease, she said.

A dear friend of mine in Wales, a farmer, she was about 80 years old. She was my neighbor. She taught me a lot about farming, like how you call a pig when you’ve lost the pig. The noise you make, Christie said. Anyway, she eventually got ill in this way, and I spent some time with her. Quite intense time. She was in a home.

Convincing Christie to take the role was a challenge for Polley, who first read Munro’s story flying home to Canada from Iceland, where she had just finished the 2002 film No Such Thing, in which Christie had a small part.

Polley immediately imagined Christie as Fiona. But Christie has made as much of a career turning down films as she has acting.

After Darling and her followup, Dr. Zhivago, Christie started declining high-profile offers in favor of smaller, less commercial films such as Fahrenheit 451 and Far From the Madding Crowd.

As the years passed, Christie became less and less inclined to work and found fewer parts that interested her.

I knew it would be difficult, because she’s not the most ambitious of actors in the world, and she’s not that interested in working all the time, Polley said. She really liked the script and spent about two months really agonizing over it, then gave a very definite, ‘No.’

It took months of arm-twisting before Christie finally agreed, and once she did, it kind of became clear why it’s so hard to get a yes out of her, Polley said. Because she gives all of herself to what she does. Once she said yes, she was more committed than anybody.

Christie continues to take small parts in such films as Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Troy and Finding Neverland, saying the workload is slight and the paychecks help cover the upkeep of her centuries-old farm.

Polley and Christie share a desire to do interesting, unusual work, which generally means staying away from Hollywood.

It’s been a kind of greed and a kind of egotism, but it’s not necessarily wanting to avoid the Hollywood thing, but in fact, it incorporates wanting to avoid the Hollywood thing, because the Hollywood thing is so inevitably not original, Christie said. It’s avoiding non-originality, so that means you’re really down to a very small choice.

Christie now has nothing on her schedule and said she’s in no hurry to go back to work.

I might never make a film again. Maybe that 10-year thing won’t happen, Christie said. Or maybe it’ll be 40 years and the call will come in, and I’ll have just had my heart attack and go, ‘God, I missed it.’ E-mail to a friend

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Who is the best celebrity autograph signer?

NEW YORK (AP) — Want an autograph from Johnny Depp? Chances are, he’ll sign something for you — and not be a jerk about it.

The 44-year-old actor is the most gracious celebrity — for the third year in a row — on Autograph magazine’s annual list of the 10 Best and 10 Worst Hollywood Signers.

Depp is ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ on film, and Johnny and the Signing Factory in person, the magazine said.

Though soft-spoken and laid-back, [Depp] likes to talk to fans and get to know them while signing, New York autograph dealer Anthony Risi explains in the December issue, now on newsstands. He’ll sign more than one item when he has time, too. Watch Depp muse on his murderous new movie

The magazine said editors compiled input from autograph-collecting judges based in Europe, New York and California in ranking the celebs.

Matt Damon is second on the list, followed by George Clooney, Jack Nicholson, Rosario Dawson, John Travolta, Katherine Heigl, Jay Leno, Dakota Fanning and Russell Crowe — wait, Russell Crowe?

Crowe, who has a history of throwing temper tantrums, ranked among the worst signers on last year’s list. But in a turnaround, the magazine said, the 43-year-old actor started treating fans great, signing, taking pictures and chatting them up.

Will Ferrell is deemed the worst celebrity signer, followed by Tobey Maguire, Joaquin Phoenix, William Shatner, Renee Zellweger, John Malkovich, Julie Andrews, Bruce Willis, Teri Hatcher and Scarlett Johansson.

However, keep in mind that even the best signers don’t sign sometimes, the worst sometimes do, and that just because they’re on the worst list doesn’t mean they’re bad people, the magazine said.
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Clemens denies steroid use

(CNN) — A lawyer for Roger Clemens strongly denies the seven-time Cy Young Award winner used steroids to pump up his body and his pitching statistics.

Clemens, considered a shoo-in for the Baseball Hall of Fame someday, was prominently featured in the report on performance-enhancing drugs that former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell released Thursday.

Roger Clemens adamantly, vehemently, and whatever other adjectives can be used, denies that he has ever used steroids or … improper substances, Clemens’ attorney, Rusty Hardin said Thursday.

He is really, really concerned and upset that he has been named in this report. It’s based on the allegations, apparently, of a trainer that he’s had in the past. … That’s not a standard someone should be held out in public to have done something as serious as using steroids in baseball. Watch Hardin critique report

The report says Brian McNamee, a former Toronto Blue Jays strength coach, testified that Clemens received injections of the steroid Winstrol in Clemens’ Toronto, Ontario, apartment in 1998.

McNamee injected Clemens approximately four times in the buttocks over a several-week period with needles that Clemens provided, the report said. It said Clemens’ pitching improved during that time.

During this period of improved performance, Clemens told McNamee that the steroids ‘had a pretty good effect’ on him, the report said.

The report said McNamee also injected Clemens with testosterone and human growth hormone after Clemens moved to the New York Yankees in 2000.

Roger has been repeatedly tested for these substances and he has never tested positive, Hardin said in a statement. There has never been one shred of tangible evidence that he ever used these substances and yet he is being slandered today.

Hardin told reporters that Clemens had not been given the opportunity to defend himself.

It’s not right to put somebody in a report with this kind of allegation and lack of proof, because there’s nothing he can do to combat it, Hardin told reporters.

He’s not being charged with anything, he has just been smeared with something.

Hardin said his client was outraged that his name is included in the report based on the uncorroborated allegations of a troubled man threatened with criminal prosecution.

Mitchell said he did what Major League Baseball asked of him.

I did what I was asked to do as fairly and as thoroughly and as accurately as I could, Mitchell said Friday on CNN’s American Morning.

Mitchell said he had enough witness reports, checks and admissions to justify going public with players’ names.

I think it’s quite wrong to say there’s no concrete evidence, he told CNN. There’s several hundred pages of evidence.

Mitchell said he invited everyone named in the report to meet with him before the report was issued, but almost all declined.

Don Fehr, president of the Major League Baseball Players Association, said Thursday the union was not consulted. That left us no choice but to represent our members in this inquiry, he said, as any union would protect its members in the face of possible sanctions.

He said the association did not tell players not to cooperate with the investigation, but advised them on the legal lay of the land and suggested they retain their own counsel.

Many players are named. Their reputations have been adversely affected, probably forever, even if it turns out down the road that they should not have been, Fehr said.

After a Cabinet meeting on Friday, President Bush — former owner of the Texas Rangers — weighed in on the Mitchell report.

Like many fans, I’ve been troubled by the steroid allegations. I think it’s best that we not jump to any conclusions on individual players, he said in the White House Rose Garden.

Steroids have sullied the game, and players and the owners must take the Mitchell report seriously; I’m confident they will, Bush said. And my hope is that this report is a part of putting the ’steroid era’ of baseball behind us.

He noted the influence that professional athletes have on young people.

I urge those in the public spotlight, particularly athletes, to understand that when they violate their bodies they’re sending a terrible signal to America’s young.

In The New York Times, Hardin said innocent players would be smeared with the guilty.

He has thrown a skunk into the jury box, and we will never be able to remove that smell, Hardin told The Times.
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