4VF News – Daily News Channel

In a rare display of editorial originality, Kate Middleton graces the covers of New Idea, Woman’s Day and the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly this week.

Naturally, details of Prince George’s first birthday were of foremost importance, accompanied in New Idea by a somewhat alarming age-progression image of what the “feisty, frolicking little prince” might look like aged 18.

Photos of George and his parents staring wistfully at butterflies were followed in New Idea by details of the Duchess of Cambridge’s ironclad bond with sister Pippa.

The mag also gave details of a rumoured third baby for Australasian power couple actress Nicole Kidman and singer Keith Urban, who recently celebrated their eighth wedding anniversary.

Woman’s Day took a slightly fresher royal angle, reporting the Duchess of Cambridge would meet the reigning queen of Hollywood, Angelina Jolie, at Malta’s 50th Independence Day celebrations in September.

The duchess was relegated to an inset on the cover of the New Zealand Women’s Weekly, with broadcaster Hilary Barry taking out the prime spot with her “family secret” – an ominous, wartime scar on her grandfather’s leg.

Also in the mag, Labour leader David Cunliffe and his 90-year-old mother, Barbara, gave a heartwarming, whitebait fritter-laden interview at her Timaru home.

Clad in a yellow turtleneck, Mrs Cunliffe said she knew her son was destined for greatness when she observed him perform in a school operetta as a 9-year-old.

“He was the lead and he had to deliver all of his lines in a musical rhythm,” she said. “Indeed, the play was so successful they had to do it for a second night. From that point on, I became known as ‘David Cunliffe’s mother’.”

The Mana Party’s newest candidate, former Labour MP Georgina Beyer, gave an exclusive interview to Woman’s Day.

The “trailblazing transsexual” recounted her current battle with kidney disease, which involves four-times-daily dialysis, and said her decision to stand for Mana wasn’t hard.

“I got a phone call last Tuesday from Hone’s assistant saying, ‘Look, we would love you to run’,” she said. “I thought about it overnight … and I wasn’t going to let my health situation get me down.”

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– Stuff

Australian Federal Police officers who handcuffed Lily Allen at Gold Coast Airport as part of an Instagram prank gone wrong are now the subject of an internal investigation.

The 29-year-old British singer landed at the Queensland airport on Sunday afternoon before her headline performance that night at Splendour In The Grass near Byron Bay, in northern NSW.

After stepping off the Qantas flight she was greeted by fans and several Federal Police officers, one of whom broke protocol by obliging Allen’s request to be put in handcuffs for a photo.

The snap of the fake arrest, posted on Allen’s Twitter account to her near 4.8 million followers, shows the pop star kneeling down with her head bowed as one officer holds her cuffed hands behind her back.

A police spokesman confirmed Allen was being escorted through the terminal when the photo was taken, adding that the incident is now subject to “internal processes”.

“At her request, the members involved placed open handcuffs on Ms Allen for a photo opportunity,” the spokesman said this morning.

“It appears the members involved were caught up in the moment and standard protocols were breached.”

The image, which was captioned “#uhoh”, garnered more than 7700 likes on Instagram and hundreds of retweets before it was taken down.

Allen, who performed at sideshows in Melbourne and Sydney last week, dazzled the North Byron Parklands crowd on Sunday night wearing pink neon hot pants, a matching cropped neon top with a zip-up the front and a multicoloured fringed kimono.

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– AAP

Amid the costumes and fantasy of this weekend’s Comic-Con convention, a group of young women drew widespread attention to a very real issue – allegations of sexual harassment at the annual comic book convention.

Geeks for CONsent, founded by three women from Philadelphia, gathered nearly 2600 signatures on an online petition supporting a formal anti-harassment policy at Comic-Con.

Conventioneers told Geeks for CONsent they’d been groped, followed and unwillingly photographed during the four-day festival.

Meanwhile, what Geeks for CONsent and others regarded as blatant objectification continued at this year’s convention. Scantily clad women were still used as decoration for some presentations, and costumed women were described as “vaguely slutty” by panel moderator Craig Ferguson. When Dwayne Johnson made a surprise appearance to promote Hercules, 10 women in belly-baring outfits stood silently in front of the stage for no apparent reason.

Groping, cat-calling and other forms of sexual harassment are a larger social issue, not just a Comic-Con problem. And many comics and movies still portray women as damsels in distress. But Geeks for CONsent says things are amplified at the pop-culture convention where fantasy and character costumes play such a large role.

“It’s a separate, more specific issue within the convention space,” said Rochelle Keyhan, 29, director of Geeks for CONsent. “It’s very much connected (to the larger problem) and it’s the same phenomena, but manifesting a little more sexually vulgar in the comic space.”

“Comic-Con has an explicit Code of Conduct that addresses harassing and offensive behaviour,” said Comic-Con International in a statement to The Associated Press. “This Code of Conduct is made available online as well as on page two of the Events Guide that is given to each attendee.”

Earlier, Comic-Con spokesman David Glanzer told the Los Angeles Times that “anyone being made to feel uncomfortable at our show is obviously a concern for us.” He said additional security was in place this year, including an increased presence by San Diego Police.

Keyhan’s focus on Comic-Con began with a movement launched in her hometown called HollabackPhilly, to help end public harassment against women and members of the LGBT community. She and her colleagues developed a comic book on the subject in hopes of engaging middle- and high-school students, which is what brought them to Comic-Con.

Costuming, or cosplay, is a big part of the popular convention, with male and female fans dressing as their favourite characters, regardless of gender. A man might wear a Wonder Woman outfit, and a woman could dress as Wolverine. Keyhan and her colleagues – all in costume – carried signs and passed out temporary tattoos during the convention that read, “Cosplay does not equal consent.”

In addition to Comic-Con’s Code of Conduct, Geeks for CONsent wants the 45-year-old convention to adopt a clearly stated policy and says staff members should to be trained to handle sexual harassment complaints.

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“It makes it feel safer for the person being harassed to report it and also for bystanders who witness (inappropriate behaviour),” Keyhan said.

Toni Darling, a 24-year-old model who was dressed as Wonder Woman, said the issue goes way beyond Comic-Con.

“I don’t think it has anything to do with cosplay or anything to do with costumes,” she said. “People who are the kind of people who are going to take a photo of you when you’re not looking from behind are going to do that regardless, whether you’re in costume or not.”

Still, she’d like to see an advisory in the Comic-Con program against surreptitious photography, and a clearer statement from Geeks for CONsent. She found some fans were afraid to take photos, even when she was posing at a booth on the showroom floor.

“The kind of behaviour that needs to be modified,” she said, “is somebody taking a photo of you bent over while you’re signing a print.”

Kim Kardashian apparently no longer smiles in photos at the request of her husband Kanye West.

The American star became a household name thanks to her reality TV show Keeping Up with the Kardashaians, which follows her and her family as they go about their day-to-day lives.

Kardashian

It has been a long time coming, but The Mentalist star Simon Baker predicts that this season, fans will finally get to know the identity of serial killer Red John.

The countdown is on for the showdown between Patrick Jane and Red John. And The Mentalist star Simon Baker promises that viewers will get their answers sooner rather than later in the sixth season.

“At the end of last season, I sat down with (creator) Bruno Heller and we made a decision to ramp things up,” Baker reveals.

“If you watch this season, it’s been highly serialised and driving towards a result of that Red John storyline, and I think creatively within a series TV show, I don’t know too many shows where the spine of the story has really been the idea of catching someone and seeking revenge.

“It’s bold creatively to kind of catch the guy half-way through a season, and then attempt to reinvent the show in some way,” he adds. “But I also think it’s been interesting and creatively invigorating.”

At the end of last season, Patrick Jane whittled down his suspect list to seven:

RED JOHN SUSPECTS
1. BRET STILES: Visualize leader, played by Malcolm McDowell.

Peter Jackson walked through crowds at Comic-Con without a single person recognising him.

Not because fans had forgotten the famous director’s Lord of The Rings film trilogy but because he chose to get into the spirit of the day and go incognito – donning the disguise of an evil jester.

Later, Jackson posted the reveal on his Facebook page: “I had a fun day at Comic-Con walking among you all,” he wrote. “Did anyone see the Evil Jester Some of you did because you asked him to pose for pics! Cheers, Peter J.”

One photo even features Jester Jackson pointing at a man holding a bag for The Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies – which will be released in theatres December 17.

It’s the reason Jackson is attending the San Diego Comic-Con, taking part in a panel for the final film in the fantasy trilogy.

The cast and crew from the final instalment of The Hobbit trilogy showed off the first trailer for the fantasy film at the pop-culture convention, as well as a blooper reel from both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies.

Daniel Radcliffe has also been unmasked, the Harry Potter star dressed as Spider-Man to avoid being mobbed by fans at the event.

Last year, Doctor Who’s Matt Smith wore a Homer Simpson mask, and The Big Bang Theory’s Johnny Galecki dressed in Princess Leia’s Bounty Hunter costume.

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– Stuff

Commando Steve Willis may be a professional tough guy, but his secret fears nearly drove him to flee his TV career and return to the army.

The Biggest Loser’s hardman has revealed to S he was so afraid of his own feelings after blocking them for 10 years in the military, that normal emotions “nearly broke me”.

After leaving the Australian Special Forces in 2004, Willis slowly adapted to civilian life. But when he made his 2007 debut in

There’s a game television chat show hosts play when they have Morgan Freeman on as a guest.

That voice, they say, can make anything sound interesting, and Freeman, being a good sport, obliges, reading names from the phone book or a news item about the inclusion of “twerking” in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Everyone laughs, the producers high five each other for their wit and originality and the presenter reminds us that