Police: Ex-girlfriend Triggers Bomb Hoax, A SWAT team – with guns drawn – boards the plane and apprehends the traveling salesman. Police: Angry Ex-Girlfriend Triggered US Airways Bomb Hoax, A bomb hoax in Philadelphia that turned a Dallas-bound flight around and led to a full-scale SWAT response was apparently triggered by a spiteful ex-girlfriend who telephoned authorities to say her former beau was aboard the US Air flight armed with liquid explosives, police told ABC News.

According to authorities, Christopher Shell, a salesman in his 20′s who travels between Philadelphia and Dallas, had no explosives and is cooperating with authorities. He appears to have been the victim of a cruel joke.

When asked how Shell reacted when police took him off the plane, Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Joseph Sullivan said at a news conference, “He was obviously very alarmed as I would be if heavily armed police entered a plane to take me off…he was certainly stunned.”

However, in an unlikely coincidence, Shell had been sped through security by a friend at the airport and posted a message to his Facebook page that getting through security had been a breeze.

The note would have been innocuous in any other circumstance, officials said. In the context of the phoned-in threat alarms went off and bomb techs, cops, FBI agents and K-9 dogs descended on the flight and conducted a full search.

The ex-girlfriend and a man believed to be a current boyfriend are now in custody, sources said. According to sources, they appear to have perpetrated the hoax bomb threat and are being questioned by federal authorities in Philadelphia. Neither the FBI nor the U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia would comment. No charges have been brought against anyone at this time, sources say.

Lame Game Franchises That Just Won’t Die, One Wii series has bombed over and over with critics, but still sold more than 3 million copies. The worst game franchises they keep making games for, Despite good intentions, bad games happen. What’s really astonishing, though, is when a bad game gets a sequel, followed by another one.And another. And another.

How do game franchises continue to exist despite critical drubbings and, often, sales that don’t begin to compare to the haul of other titles that never see a second chapter?

The reasons are often budgetary. The games that critics (and most gamers) can’t stand cost virtually nothing to make, so they’re profitable even with minimal sales. Or in some cases, they started strong and built a loyal following of players who are so conditioned to buying each new release that they don’t realize how much the quality has suffered over the years.

And when it comes to quality, you won’t find much left in these seven troubled franchises. But you’ll find plenty of quantity.

As Kotaku recently pointed out, the four previous games in this lousy Wii mini-game series have a combined Metacritic average of 31. That’s humiliating. But the series has sold over 3 million copies, which has earned it a new installment for the Wii U.

Game Party originated at Midway, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment scooped it up (along with more valuable assets), and with the launch of the new platform, the publisher knows that parents are going to be looking for family-friendly software to go with it.

CSI might be one of the biggest television franchises of the past 12 years, but as a video game series it belongs in the morgue.

Ubisoft released the first one in 2003, though the series peaked in 2006 when CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: 3 Dimensions of Murder got a not-terrible Metacritic score of 67. Since 2010, though, scores have hovered in the high 30s and mid-40s, with some titles just being entirely ignored by critics. Most recently, the series made the shift to iOS, bringing bad mystery gaming to a whole new audience.

‘SNL’ Cast Member Gets Choice Role, The show fills out its campaign-season ticket by picking Taran Killam to parody a key candidate. ‘SNL’ player Taran Killam cast as Paul Ryan, The final piece is in place for the presidential race on “Saturday Night Live.”

“SNL” cast member Taran Killam will be playing GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan.

The question of who had won this key role was answered Saturday when the NBC comedy show returned for its season premiere. Killam appeared in a sketch as Ryan, attempting to clarify his past athletic achievements.

Killam is beginning his third season.

Earlier, “SNL” executive producer Lorne Michaels said Jay Pharoah would take over the role of President Barack Obama from Fred Armisen. Pharoah made several appearances as Obama on Saturday’s show.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a younger incarnation of Bruce Willis’ hitman killer in new film ‘Looper,’ the young actor has revealed receiving praise from his on-screen older self was the highlight of the shoot. ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ actor was astounded when the ‘Die Hard’ star said good things about his abilities on set. According to Contact Music, Joe said of Mr Willis: ”He’s a very understated guy, which I admire.

It means you know he’s being honest.” ”But we were doing a scene where we were yelling at each other and between takes he said, in his off-the-cuff manner, ‘Ah, you sound like me.’” ”That was a moment of glorious victory for me. I kept it cool, I didn’t want to embarrass myself, but I was grinning ear to ear on the inside.” Aw! The 31-year-old star spent three hours every day in makeup to get him looking more like Bruce, including having a prosethic nose fitted and his eyebrow ‘realligned’.

Joseph also studied Bruce’s acting tecnique meticulously by watching his films and studying his voice and body language, to ensure his portrayal was accurate: ”I watched his movies a lot, but I focused on the recent ones. I was less interested in coming off like a young Bruce – I was interested in matching him now.”

Matt Lauer And Natalie Morales, Here’s a story that might betray the impeccable teacup manners that master co anchor Matt Lauer likes to keep carefully hidden underneath his well placed tea cup- that his wife Annette Roque suspects that her husband has had an affair with Today show team member Natalie Morales, that he even has a child with her and that she was on the verge of seeking a divorce until she changed her mind at the last hour. Yet what has made all of this news equally more poignant is the revelation that if Matt Lauer was found in any way to promote the rising of Natalie Morales to co anchor after Ann Curry’s departure that would be the afternoon that she would seek a legal divorce. Charming indeed…

dailymail.co.uk: A source close to Lauer’s wife Annette Roque told the The National Enquirer: ‘When she heard about Ann getting the boot, the first thing she told Matt was that she didn’t want him cozying up any closer to Natalie.

‘In fact, Annette drew a line in the sand and said if he pushed show bosses to make Natalie his new co-host, she’d divorce him.

‘Annette knows Matt is the key to the Today franchise and his bosses will put whoever he wants in the co-host chair.’

Could this all be true Matt? You have the power to make or break co anchors? What about the power to make or break your own personal affairs?

Lauer, who is said to have signed a $25million deal earlier this year to stay with Today, was accused of having an affair with Ms Morales when they were covering the Winter Olympics in Italy in 2006.

Though he denied claims, they were enough to prompt a then-pregnant Annette to file for divorce – which she later withdrew.

However two years later, rumors abound that Lauer was the father of one of Ms Morales’ children. She is married to Joe Rhodes and the couple have two children together.

Annette lives in the couple’s $3.5million house in the Hamptons with their three children. Lauer only sees them at weekends.

Only sees her on the weekends? Possibly has a child with another woman? Could this all be true or just the imagination of a jittery wife who watches her husband like a hawk. But why does she watch her husband like a hawk? Could it be something to do with Matt’s impeccable teacup manners?

Magic Mike Reviews, Steven Soderbergh is doing something that some of our finest old-time directors used to do, the Howard Hawkses, the William Wellmans. He’s not trying to make a few great movies. He’s trying to make a whole lot of good movies, in lots of genres, and to make them better than anybody else. And the result is that Soderbergh is going to end up directing more great movies by accident than his colleagues will by trying.

Which brings us to “Magic Mike,” a mix of comedy and drama that takes place in the world of male stripping. If it falls short of greatness, it’s not by much – and it could end up growing with the years. At the very least, it is exceptional and one of the best and most original pictures to come along in 2012.

It stars red-hot Channing Tatum in the title role, and if ever there was a movie sure to solidify an up-and-coming star’s place in the public’s affections, it’s this one. Tatum has steadiness and strength, a reflective quality that makes you think he cares, and the hint of a smile that lets you believe he doesn’t think he’s all that much, not really. He has that double thing going on that male stars need: Women will say, “Ooh, him,” and men will think, “That is a real guy.”

He also has enough moves – backflips, gyrations and fluid pelvic undulations – that he could become the world’s premier stripper tomorrow, if he wanted to take a pay cut.

The story revolves around a friendship between the 30ish Mike and a 19-year-old kid, Adam (Alex Pettyfer), that he meets on a construction job. The kid needs money, so Mike brings him to the strip club to do menial work. But lucky Adam happens to have a six-pack, and next thing you know he’s in the rotation and living the life – with all the awakened, rapacious hunger and common sense that we associate with teenage boys.

“Magic Mike” brings the viewer into that world, just as it brings Adam, and shows a life of nonstop fun and laughs. It’s a safe bet that, after seeing this movie, young men all over America will start doubling down on the sit-ups. Every night, there’s a performance, followed by a party, followed by at least one woman coming home with our young hero. In this life, a king-size bed is a practical necessity. (San Francisco Chronicle)