As if dwindling concert ticket sales weren't bad enough, pop's 'tough' girl Avril Lavigne was just involved in a brawl outside Hollywood's Roosevelt Hotel that left her black and blue.
What started off as a romantic night out with her boyfriend, former Prince of Malibu reality star, Brody Jenner, took a nasty turn for Lavigne.
"I got attacked by 5 people last night out of nowhere," the 27-year-old Belleville, Ont. native tweeted after the incident. "Not cool. My face is f—ed... So not ok to be abusive to others. Violence is NEVER the answer."
It's not clear what started the brouhaha, but shortly after 12:30 a.m., someone attacked Lavigne, who was left with a "black eye, bloody nose, hair ripped out, scratches, bruises and cuts."
Jenner came to the rescue, only to get a bottle in the face. Cue the tweet: "Just got (out) of the hospital with a new scar on my face."
Needless to say, police are investigating.
Who said Hollywood is all glamour? Come back up North, Avril. We won't punch your lights out or tear out your hair, promise.
"
It's a sad state of affairs for midwives and the expectant moms hoping to use their services. In Orangeville, Ont. midwives are staging a march to bring awareness to their battle to integrate their practice at Headwaters Health Care Centre.
“The midwives still don’t have privileges for their entire practice at the hospital,” said co-director of Where’s My Midwife?, Maria Radonicich.
Although the hospital has approved two midwives, with a third in the works, it's much too little, too late. Expecting moms like Amanda Stephen wind up driving as far as 45 minutes to another hospital to get midwifery-led care. Moms-to-be are increasingly opting for midwifery care for the extra attention midwives provide before and after birth.
Where’s my Midwife?, an international organization, hopes to raise awareness of the “lack of support” for midwifery services at Headwaters Health Care Centre and other hospitals like it.
Even at hospitals like Toronto's Mount Sinai, the cap on the number of births per midwife hasn't budged in years. Others restrict the number of midwives who can work from their facility.
It's a catch-22 for Ontario midwives who are more in demand than ever yet unable to meet that growing demand due to hospital restrictions.
“We hope the hospital will see that the community is upset, and wants access to midwives,” Radonicich explained. “Women shouldn’t have to get in a car and drive in snow and God knows what in the wintertime when they have a hospital right down the street.”
The march will take part on 10 a.m. on Saturday, 12 November, beginning at the Midwives of Headwater Hills Broadway office and ending to the town's hospital. The march will be filmed by The One World Birth Project as part of an upcoming documentary slated for release in summer 2012.
The usually peaceful Norway was under siege on Friday, and seemingly at the hands of one man. 32-year-old organic farm owner Anders Behring Breivik claimed his action were "atrocious but necessary".
In his first statement following the attacks, Breivik admitted to massacring at least 85 young people at a Labour Party summer camp. Hours earlier that same day, he bombed buildings in Oslo's government district, killing seven.
While the nation mourns, police are still investigating the crimes to see whether Breivik acted alone.
Though his motives remain a little unclear, Breivik made no secret of his hatred of what he called "cultural Marxists" and Norway's left-leaning politics.
Disguised in a police uniform, the tall blond Norwegian picked off victims, forcing youngsters to scatter on Utoeya island, northwest of the capital or to swim toward the mainland.
"I heard screams," said 18-year-old Labour Party youth member Erik Kursetgjerde. "I heard people begging for their lives and I heard shots. He just blew them away...
"I was certain I was going to die," admitted Kursetgjerde. "People ran everywhere. They panicked and climbed into trees. People got trampled."
If all violence is senseless, then it is even more so when directed at young people and children.
Printer-friendly version