Pitt is working with Global Green USA, a national environmental organization, on a competition to choose ecologically sound designs for rebuilding neighborhoods in post-Katrina New Orleans. Last week, he got his first up-close look at the devastation that remains almost a year later.

Pitt and his partner, Angelina Jolie, have three children, 6-week-old Shiloh, 18-month-old Zahara and 4-year-old Maddox. Jolie, 31, has traveled the globe as a U.N. goodwill ambassador.

''Best thing I ever did,'' he said. ''You know, you can write a book, you can make a movie, you can draw, paint a painting, but having kids is really the most extraordinary thing I've ever taken on.

A 19-year-old former employee of Christie Brinkley's husband, Peter Cook, says he hired her and seduced her with lavish gifts, then attempted to woo her back with repeated notes and phone calls after she broke off the affair.

The interview appeared less than a week after Brinkley, the 52-year-old supermodel, announced through publicist Elliot Mintz that she and Cook, her fourth husband, had separated. They married in 1996 and have a daughter.

Bianchi's attorney, Joseph Tacopina, told the Post that the pair had a sexual relationship that spanned about one year. Speaking to The Associated Press, the lawyer described the couple's relationship as consensual, but claimed Cook's role as employer and his gifts of a car, money and jewelry could possibly constitute sexual harassment.

Mintz said he had no comment on Bianchi's claims, which emerged in press reports Monday, though he told the Post he did not believe Brinkley and the teenager had met.

Brinkley is ''just a woman who at this moment is completely preoccupied with the protection of her children, trying to isolate them from all of this coverage, and trying to heal,'' he said.

Tacopina said that Bianchi, an aspiring singer, quit her job at Cook's firm within a few months after she started in May 2005 because, Tacopina said, she felt uncomfortable.

''Being put in the position that (Cook) put her in, which was to be financially dependent on him... as long as she provided sex -- that's the relationship that the law frowns upon when you're an employer and an employee,'' he said.

In a long article, Winfrey, 52, and King converse about their 30 years of friendship and ''four-times-a-day phone calls.'' King, who hosted ''The Gayle King Show'' in 1997, is an editor of O, the Oprah Magazine.

GRETNA, La. (AP) -- The rapper who once went by the stage name of C-Murder has been released from home confinement as he awaits a retrial on a second-degree murder charge.

Corey Miller's participation in a home-monitoring program was a burden on the Gretna Police Department, which runs the program in Jefferson Parish, State District Judge Martha Sassone said Thursday.

Miller, 35, had been under house arrest since March 20 after posting a $500,000 bond. He is charged in the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old boy on Jan. 12, 2002, during a fight at a now-closed nightclub in Harvey.

A jury convicted Miller, who faced a mandatory life prison sentence without parole, but a judge tossed the conviction after ruling that prosecutors hid the criminal backgrounds of some state witnesses from the defense.

Under the judge's order, Miller can move freely in Jefferson and Orleans parishes, but must be home from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. He is barred from drinking alcohol and going to bars, and visitors to his residence are restricted.

Prosecutors had asked to send Miller back to jail, saying he had violated terms of home confinement several times. Authorities said Miller moved out of range of monitoring equipment for long periods, a contention that the defense challenged.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- Sting and Kanye West were the main attractions at this week's Stockholm Jazz Festival, one of the city's biggest annual music events.

The festival, which features 41 concerts, runs Tuesday through Saturday. West will perform Thursday, with Sting set to perform Friday as part of his Broken Music Tour.

Some 25,000 people are expected to attend the outdoor concerts on the small island of Skeppsholmen in downtown Stockholm. Other featured acts include Miriam Makeba, Kenny Garrett, the Neville Brothers and Maceo Parker.

Organizers said a smaller jazz festival will be held in Stockholm next month to raise money for the New Orleans Musicians' Clinic, an emergency fund that helps musicians in post-Katrina New Orleans.

HONG KONG (AP) -- Director Chen Shizheng says his upcoming movie, ''Dark Matter,'' starring Meryl Streep and Aidan Quinn, will explore U.S.-China relations on a personal level.

The film is the story of a Chinese physics student in the U.S. Streep plays the student's wealthy patron and Quinn plays a professor, according to a story published Sunday in the South China Morning Post.

''Friends of mine who come to the U.S. are either pro-American or anti-American, but they can't find the right balance,'' the Chinese director, who is based in the U.S., was quoted as saying.

Chen said of his collaboration with Gorillaz: ''We hit it off well. We understand what it's about and we understand its fundamental dimensions.

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