Jennifer Aniston Speaks Out On Engagement Rumors

...Aniston told People she was moved to speak once the reports were picked up widely by mainstream media.

"I don't feed into that," she said of the steady stream of rumors about her personal life. "We [her friends] don't talk about it. We don't hash it out because it's not true. The only reason I'm saying something is because if we're listening to the news, we're supposed to be believing in the news…Tabloids are going to lie all the time. You're prepared for that. But it's the news. And you think, 'Well, we need to trust what our newscasters are saying when we have this horrific situation that's actually taking place in the world, I mean, we are getting reported the truth, right?"

"The American people need to believe [the news]," Aniston says. "Please. Get it together. So that's all."

"Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe today that we are not safer with his capture, don't have the judgment to be President, or the credibility to be elected President. No one can doubt or should doubt that we are safer -- and Iraq is better -- because Saddam Hussein is now behind bars."

-Senator John Kerry (Democrat, Massachusetts)
Speech at Drake University in Iowa
December 16, 2003

In an exclusive appearance on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos", Senator John Kerry, D-Mass., blasted fellow Democrat Senator Joe Lieberman for continuing his bid in the Connecticut Senate race despite a narrow loss to newcomer challenger Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary earlier this month.

"I'm concerned that (Lieberman) is making a Republican case," Kerry told ABC News, accusing the 2000 Democratic vice presidential candidate of "adopting the rhetoric of Dick Cheney," on the issue of Iraq. Kerry continued, "Joe Lieberman is out of step with the people of Connecticut," insisting Liberman's stance on Iraq, "shows you just why he got in trouble with the Democrats there." Kerry called the Connecticut Senator's Independent bid a "huge mistake" and applauded businessman-turned-politician as "courageous" for challenging Lieberman on the war. Of his own views on Iraq, Kerry stated forthrightly, "The course of this country in Iraq is making the world more dangerous."

Critics' Voices Become a Whisper

Who says critics don't matter anymore? The new trailer for Paramount's upcoming numskull comedy "Jackass: Number Two" is full of quotes from reviews of the first movie. There's just one tiny twist: The studio uses the vitriolic reviews attacking the first film ("A disgusting, repulsive, grotesque spectacle" says an aghast Richard Roeper) to promote the new picture.

With a sly, leering note of triumph, the narrator intones: "Unfortunately for them, we just made 'Number Two.' "

All in all, it's been a rotten tomato of a summer for America's embattled film critics. "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" broke box-office records left and right, despite a yowling chorus of negative reviews. M. Night Shyamalan cast Bob Balaban as a persnickety film critic in "Lady in the Water," then gleefully killed him off, allowing a snarling jackal-like creature to do the dirty deed.

Sony Corp. chief Howard Stringer, asked after the huge opening of "The Da Vinci Code" why the studio kept reviewers away from the film until the last possible moment, merrily quipped, "Nobody ever built a statue to a critic."