BLACKJACK AT HARD ROCK HOTEL IN LAS VEGAS AFTER GETTING CAUGHT COUNTING CARDS

What happens in Vegas sure didn't stay in Vegas for Ben Affleck. The actor was reportedly caught counting cards during a game of blackjack in Las Vegas on April 29.

The 41-year-old actor was in Sin City with his wife Jennifer Garner when he was approached by security after they spotted the Argo actor reportedly counting cards.

Despite reports the actor is now banned the hotel entirely, a source tells Us Weekly the actor was banned only from playing blackjack, but allowed to play other games.

KERRY WASHINGTON GIVES BIRTH TO BABY GIRL WITH HUSBAND NNAMDI ASOMUGHA

It's a girl for Kerry Washington and retired NFL player Nnamdi Asomugha.

A birth certificate released Friday shows the couple's daughter Isabelle Amarachi Asomugha was born around 5 p.m. on April 21 in Los Angeles. The parents haven't

announced the baby publicly. Washington's publicist Amanda Silverman said no statement was available.

Washington is the Emmy-nominated star of the ABC series "Scandal." The show's third season was cut short after the 37-year-old actress became pregnant.

Asomugha, a former cornerback with the Oakland Raiders, Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers, announced his retirement last year.

BREAKING: Passenger Tries to Enter Cockpit of Virgin Australia in Bali, Indonesian TV Reports

Passenger Tries to Enter Virgin Australia Jet's Cockpit: Report

A passenger tried to enter the cockpit of a commercial jet before it landed in Bali, Indonesian TV reported Friday.

The Virgin Australia plane was flying from Brisbane to Denpasar Airport on the resort island. Citing a transport official, Indonesian TV reported that the pilot had called the incident a "hijack."

An Indonesia air force spokesman also told The Associated Press that the plane was believed to have been hijacked.

Plate on a budget "Pork chops"

So for dinner today I made Pork chops and vegetables with some mushrooms.  This whole meal cost me $1.94 to make.

I have found that it's easy to eat a well balanced diet on the cheap.

Did you know that you can buy a variety of frozen vegetable for $1 at several big grocery stores?  They have a couple of different brands to choose from.

For instance at Ralph's I love these two brands $1 each.  They also have frozen rice.

I know Ralph's also have specials on meet from time to time.  So I usually buy that meat and freeze what I don't use in small freezer bags.  This week they had pork chops on sale, and there was only one bag left, so I took that one.  The original price was $9.06, however I paid $5.79  for 4 pork chops. What a deal.

Just a few tips on finding good protein deals and vegetable deals.

Lollapalooza lineup announced: Eminem, Outkast top 2014 Lollapalooza Artist

Eminem and Outkast will headline a diverse lineup of more than 130 acts at this year's three-day Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago, Jane's Addiction lead singer and Lollapalooza founder Perry Farrell announced Wednesday.

The lineup also includes recent Grammy darling Lorde, rockers Kings of Leon and Arctic Monkeys and electronic dance music stars Calvin Harris and Skrillex.

"Every year you're shooting to have just an incredible bill that people will look at and say, 'I'm there,'" Farrell said in an interview. "The music is going to entertain them and do wonders for their heart and so is the city."

This year marks the festival's 10-year anniversary in Chicago's lakefront Grant Park. This year acts will perform on eight stages from Aug. 1-3. The full lineup is available on Lollapalooza's website.

Last year's lineup included The Cure, Mumford & Sons, The Killers and Nine Inch Nails. Eminem last played Lollapalooza in 2011.

"He's on top of his game and he's doing a great show," Farrell said. "His live show is incorporating really well-made video and guest appearances."

Outkast announced earlier this year that they were coming off hiatus and performing more than 40 festival dates in 2014.

Pop fans will be excited for Lorde, whose hit "Royals" won song of the year and best pop solo performance at this year's Grammy Awards.

"She's got a love affair going with her audience," Farrell said. "They scream and howl for her."

Farrell works each year to curate a lineup. This year he said it wasn't that difficult because so many acts want to play Lollapalooza.

"It has become the gig to get," he said. "Getting all that excitement built around your band. People are throwing themselves at us."

This year's lineup continues the festival's efforts at attracting international acts. Artists from Australia, Chile, Ireland and South Africa will perform.

Last year's festival sold out at 100,000 visitors a day, or 300,000 over the three-day event. Three-day passes sold out on Tuesday. One-day passes go on sale Wednesday morning.

Elton John, Kanye West and Jack White will headline this summer's Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. OutKast will also headline the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in April along with Arcade Fire and Muse at the festival that plays over two weekends in Indio, Calif.

THE LAPD IS ARRESTING VENICE MUSIC LOVERS FOR HAVING DRUM CIRCLES

For Los Angeles locals, Venice has always been a both cheery and dirty daycation spot. The beach is filled with decades-old locals who are mostly leathery hippies, peacefully maintaining it as their own, plus a permanently homeless population just looking for a grassy spot to get drunk and nap.

Ever since the gangs of the 90s were priced out by techies and "creative professionals" creeping in from neighboring white-bread Santa Monica and yacht-bred Marina del Ray, there’s been a calm, commercial peace with the police, allowing the street vendors to hawk their handmade wares.

Unfortunately, the anything-goes, free-love vibe also attracts drug addicts and loud party boys looking to get fucked up, with no regard for cleanliness or spiritual enlightenment via drumming.

New ordinances on vending and excessive noise have ended in a series of violent altercation between cops and locals at the infamous weekend drum circle. The most recent was on Sunday.  

The drumming was just picking up at 4:20.  Concentric circles of decreasing levels of involvement defined their participants. The final circle consisted of vulture-like SUVs in slow orbit around the celebration.  Asked if they expected a bigger police presence than normal: “Oh, yeah,” Officer Mark said. “Last week, people got drunk and high and started throwing bottles at us when we shut down the drum circle.”

The relatively recent noise ordinance allows the LAPD to stop the drumming, but in doing so it effectively pushes the crowd off the beach, despite their right to stay until midnight, sans “excessive noise." Mark continued, “Now, you’re not allowed to smoke weed or drink alcohol, and you’re definitely not allowed to throw glass at police officers.”

The latest ordinances—and the increased police force—were bolstered by a wealthy community looking to preserve the cultural epicenter they’d paid through the nose to live in, missing the point that the original community existed solely because of a lack of such ordinances. Hippies, performance artists, street vendors, and that guy on roller skates playing Hendrix see curfews and permits as antithetical to their very existence.

The previous lack of a police presence hinged on the cooperation of Venice’s residents, the ringleader of which appeared to be an older orange-ish gentleman with long white hair and a matching beard. He was standing on an upturned metal barrel waving a “Peace to All Nations” flag, dancing and occasionally fist-bumping with similarly tanned locals.

The 66-year-old "Eagle Soaring Chief" of Venice Beach wore a security officer badge on his tattered, open shirt. He looked like he’d been ripening in the sun for the past 12 years.

As a self-appointed ambassador to the people, the Chief says he's earned the right to peacefully regulate “his” beach, working with the locals to take care of problems the police either can’t or won’t deal with. “If they don’t like it, I’ll ban them from the beach. The police can’t ban people; I can,” the Chief of the Beach told me.

“I’ve been here for 66 years; [the police] just showed up six days, six minutes ago. I don’t blame them, and hey, I don’t want alcoholics on this beach either. I don’t want drug addicts on this beach. If I catch anybody fighting it—see my teeth?  That’s why they’re all knocked out, sir.”

The Chief explained that the previous week’s altercation was the result of three “knucklehead” drummers nobody knew, and that the police crackdown was in response to three plastic bottles thrown from the boardwalk, not glass.

Despite the encroaching presence of the LAPD, many of the locals seemed content with their presence, as it meant fewer drug addicts and troublemakers, although they too seemed oblivious to the effects of increased regulation.

For the next few hours till sundown, the crowd doubled in size, splitting into two interconnected circles. The Chief wandered around, smiling and laughing. Every hour another SUV would pull up to the crowd and empty a few officers onto the sand.

With 20 minutes to go, a half dozen officers surrounded the officer in charge, Sergeant Brian Gura. I asked him how many he had prepared, and he gestured toward the boardwalk: “Enough. We want to avoid a repeat of last week.”

Lining the boardwalk must have been at least 30 officers ready to grab the incoming crowd if things got ugly. As the sun dipped into the water, the cops on the beach piled into their cars and turned on the Christmas lights, driving slowly and deliberately towards the crowd.

The Chief waved toward the drummers and sliced his hand through the air as if to say, “We’re done!” A few other regulars did the same, and about half the crowd dispersed toward the boardwalk.

In Surprise Meeting, China’s President Greets Michelle Obama

First Lady Michelle Obama received an unscheduled greeting today from the President of China at the end of her first full day in the country, a place which President Obama has said he wants to “rebalance” US foreign policy.

But the first lady is not engaging in any formal talks on issues such as human rights or global politics. Her trip to China is purely for cultural reasons.

President Xi Jinping welcomed the first lady and disclosed he had spoken to President Obama by phone a few days ago and confirmed the two presidents are scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting next week in Europe.

“I cherish my sound working relationship and personal friendship I have already established with your husband, and we stay in close touch through meetings, phone conversations and correspondence,” President Xi Jinping said.

Michelle Obama, along with her daughters and mother, spent the first of five days in China visiting schools with Xi’s wife, Madam Peng Liyuan, a popular Chinese singer. The first lady said she is focusing on education and cultural exchanges as she tours the capital Beijing and the interior cities of Xi’an and ChengDu.

At an English language high school in Beijing, the Obama women watched a robotics class, tried their hand at Chinese calligraphy and engaged in a little ping-pong diplomacy — the kind that opened relations with the United States more than a generation ago. They also toured the legendary Forbidden City with Madam Peng.

“We had a wonderful first day here in Beijing,” the first lady said. “We had an opportunity to meet with students, I tried my hand at ping pong — not so good. And our visit to the Forbidden City is one that we will never forget. Being able to see my mother, who doesn’t get to travel internationally often, walk through that ancient city, and to see her excitement and wonder is a moment that I will treasure forever.”

President Obama is traveling to Asia next month, but he is skipping China — stopping instead in Japan, South Korea, and two countries postponed from a cancelled trip last fall, The Philippines and Malaysia, which is currently managing the search for the missing Malaysian Air jetliner 370.

President Obama plans to visit China this fall for the annual APEC Economic summit.

3 Children Starving, 1 Chained to Floor in Filthy House in California!

Three starving children — including one who was chained to the floor to prevent her from getting food — were found last month in the squalid home of a Northern California couple, authorities said.

2 of the children were adopted.  Why adopt if you're not gonna love the children.  Throw them under the Jail.

All three — two boys and a girl — were taken into protective custody, and one was hospitalized, Monterey County Sheriff Scott Miller said Friday.

Authorities discovered them in the Salinas, Calif., home on March 14 after two of the young people missed appointments, according to several published reports.

"It was a particularly heinous case," Miller told the Monterey Herald. The children had "hardly eaten for months."

The boys are 3 and 5 years old, and the girl is 8, authorities said, and they all exhibited bruises and signs of other physical as well as emotional abuse.

The girl, who appeared to have suffered the most extreme abuse, was chained to the floor to prevent her from getting any food, they said.

"It seems that the little girl was the major target of this abuse," Miller continued, adding that she looked "like a concentration camp victim."

The girl was in the hospital for about five days, he said, and seemed "traumatized."

There was evidence that she was may have been put in the closet as well as that she was sometimes shackled at the ankle and at other times by a collar around her neck, Miller said.

Eraca Dwan Craig, 31, and Christian Jessica Deana, 44, were both arrested at the scene on suspicion of felony child cruelty, false imprisonment and other charges.

The women, who are domestic partners, do not appear to have criminal records in Monterey County. They were both arraigned in Monterey County Court on Tuesday and are scheduled for a preliminary hearing on March 28.

Authorities said the women seemed to be making preparations to leave before they were arrested.

Investigators found little food inside the home, which was cluttered and dirty, according to reports.

The girl and the older boy were adopted children, and the younger boy is the biological son of one of the women, Miller said.

NBC's 'Last Comic Standing' names new judges Roseanne Barr, Keenen Ivory Wayans and Russel Peters

NBC's relaunch of its stand up competition "Last Man Standing" has named its judges and its new host.

Comedian and actor JB Smoove will front the show as its new host.

Roseanne Barr ,Keenen Ivory Wayans, and Russel Peters have signed on as judges for the Wanda Sykes-produced show.

It will premiere on Thursday, May 22 at 9 p.m.

"We are ready to bring back the funny with this relaunch of 'Last Comic Standing,' and can't wait to discover the next great stand-up," said NBC's alternative and late night programming president Paul Telegdy in a statement. "With Keenen, Roseanne and Russell set as our new judges, JB as host and Wanda, Page and Javier at the helm, there will be plenty of laughter all summer."

From Universal Television along with Sykes and Page Hurwitz's Push It Productions, this is the first project Sykes and Hurwitz are doing for Universal Television in a production deal.

This will be the eighth season of the show, which has been off the air since 2010.

Hold Me in Contempt by Wendy Williams

Move over 50 Shades, there’s a new romance in town. Superstar Wendy Williams brings on the heat in her first ever, no-holds-barred, down and dirty, romance novel.

Kimberly Kind is trying to get beyond her roots. A successful, beautiful, smart lawyer, she’s finally finding direction in her life and getting out of the streets. But a terrible accident threatens to throw her carefully laid plans off course. Now Kim’s hiding a huge secret… one that could threaten everything.

Enter King. A perfect mix of Justin Timberlake and David Beckham, the man oozes sex and has more swagger than anyone Kim’s ever met. Their chemistry is off the charts. But after passion-filled nights, the intensity of their emotions takes both of them by surprise.

Love was not supposed to be an option. Now it’s the only thing holding them together. When their pasts come back with a vengeance, can love possibly be enough?

Book Description

Superstar Wendy Williams brings on the heat in her first-ever, no-holds-barred, down-and-dirty romance novel

Kimberly Kind is trying to get beyond her roots. A successful, beautiful, and smart lawyer, she's finally finding direction in her life and getting off the streets. But a terrible accident threatens to throw her carefully laid plans off course. Now Kim's hiding a huge secret . . . one that could jeopardize everything.

Enter King. A perfect mix of Justin Timberlake and David Beckham, the man oozes sex and has more swagger than anyone Kim's ever met. Their chemistry is off the charts. And after passion-filled nights, the intensity of their emotions takes both of them by surprise.

Love was not supposed to be an option. Now it's the only thing holding them together. When their pasts come back with a vengeance, can love possibly be enough?