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The View" co-host Sherri Shepherd is adding a primetime starring role to her resume with a comedy series on Lifetime.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – "The View" co-host Sherri Shepherd is adding a primetime starring role to her resume with a comedy series on Lifetime.

The cable network has picked up the comedy pilot "Sherri," ordering 12 episodes.

Shepherd is expected to announce the pickup on the ABC talk show Tuesday morning. She will continue her duties on "View" while starring on the Lifetime series.

The sitcom, loosely based on Shepherd's experiences, centers on a woman who deals with her husband's infidelity by allowing her husband's girlfriend and their child to move in with them.

The cast also includes Tammy Townsend ("Lincoln Heights"), Kali Rocha ("Grey's Anatomy"), Elizabeth Regen ("The Black Donnellys") and Kate Reinders ("Ugly Betty").

"Sherri" was one of three comedy pilots Lifetime was considering, along with "Alligator Point," starring Cybill Shepherd, and an untitled project starring Valerie Bertinelli.

With the order for "Sherri," the other two are not going forward.

NEW YORK – Even if the world had been applauding Jack Bauer at the season's end of "24," he couldn't hear them. He was last seen hospitalized in a coma. Infected by a bioweapon targeting America, counter-terrorist hero Jack had taken the hit while trying

NEW YORK – Even if the world had been applauding Jack Bauer at the season's end of "24," he couldn't hear them.

He was last seen hospitalized in a coma. Infected by a bioweapon targeting America, counter-terrorist hero Jack had taken the hit while trying to save his fellow citizens. Then, woozier and sweatier by the hour, he managed to foil the terrorists.

By Monday's finale of the Fox thriller "24," all Jack wants is — no, not a Medal of Freedom or an attaboy from a grateful nation — but to die in peace.

That's not going to happen. He's Jack Bauer, he's played by series star Kiefer Sutherland, and the series has plenty of life left in it. No wonder Jack's daughter, Kim, arrives at his bedside and demands experimental surgery for him that involves taking stem cells from her body — surgery that Jack had nixed hours earlier.

"I'm sorry, Dad," says Kim (Elisha Cuthbert) to her unconscious father, "but I'm not ready to let you go."

The series' high-rev, pretzel-twisty 24-hour-real-time season ended with a double episode that spanned from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m.

It brought some welcome closure to the raging question of, "What's the deal with Tony Almeida?"

Tony had been a loyal, key associate of Jack's at the L.A.-based Counter Terrorism Unit. But he was believed dead two seasons ago. Now here he was at the start of the seventh season in Washington, D.C., with Carlos Bernard reprising the role, shockingly risen from the grave and hooked up with the bad guys.

Or so it seemed. But soon viewers learned Tony was only pretending to support this dastardly force, aiming to bring it down from within.

Or so it seemed. Then viewers got the strong impression he really did support the evildoers, which made him the mortal enemy of Jack and all good Americans.

But that still wasn't quite it. In the finale, Tony disclosed to Jack he had had one simple, nonpolitical obsession: to rise through the ranks of the multilayered crime organization to reach the isolated man at the top, Alan Wilson. Tony wanted to earn himself a face-to-face meeting with the boss — then kill him for murdering Tony's wife years ago.

"Everything you've done today is for personal revenge?!" Jack gasped in his final confrontation with Tony, whereupon a spirited debate in situational ethics inconveniently unfolded.

"It's about justice!" Tony argued.

"Justice! You killed innocent people!"

"I did what I had to do to get Alan Wilson here," seethed Tony. "And now, he's gonna die."

"You kill Alan Wilson, and no one's ever gonna know the full extent of his conspiracy."

Jack had a point. Wilson had turned out to be an even bigger demon than Jonas Hodges, the villainous military contractor played deliciously by Jon Voight as the season's showcase baddie. But Hodges was blown to pieces in a car a few episodes ago, an attack set in motion by the president's chief of staff as payback for Hodges killing her brother. Making matters worse, the chief of staff was the president's daughter.

This was a sticky situation for President Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones) when her daughter confessed. But, being highly principled, the grief-stricken Mom saw no choice. Olivia (Sprague Grayden) was handed over to the authorities.

Next season, maybe President Taylor will still be in power and continue to be haunted by this scandal.

Maybe Alan Wilson (played by Will Patton) will also still be on the scene. He wasn't killed in the finale. Nor was Tony, whose act of vigilante justice Jack was able to stop. Spiteful and raging, Tony was taken into custody.

Both could be giving Jack new headaches when he comes out of that coma for another challenging day. Until then, with another viewer-pleasing "24" season concluded, he could use some down time.

the impoverished nation to burnish the international body's image there

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The U.N. will name Bill Clinton its special envoy to Haiti, his spokesman said Monday, in a move that could capitalize on the ex-president's years of involvement with the impoverished nation to burnish the international body's image there.

An official announcement is expected from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Tuesday, Clinton spokesman Matt McKenna said.

U.N. peacekeepers have provided the only real security in Haiti since 2004, and are helping training the country's under-equipped national police force to retake control eventually. But protesters and some Haitian lawmakers denounce the international troops as an occupation force and have called for them to leave.

Clinton himself is popular among many of Haiti's poor, however, for using the threat of military force to oust a dictatorship in 1994. U.S. Army troops and Marines then quickly arrived to pave the way for the return of elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had been deposed in a coup.

Aristide was later ousted again in a 2004 rebellion and flown into exile aboard a U.S. plane. Some Haitians still hope for his return.

This March, Clinton toured the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince with the U.N. chief to encourage investment after a year that saw a food crisis, destabilizing riots and four devastating tropical storms.

The following month, he attended a donors conference in Washington that resulted in pledges of $324 million for the struggling country. Haiti is the hemisphere's poorest nation and been mired for decades in political and social turmoil.

Because of his marriage to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, State Department lawyers must approve and review some of Clinton's international activities under an agreement between the U.S. Senate and the Clinton Foundation, which works in Haiti on a number of issues including health care, AIDS, the environment and economic development.

Officials said the State Department is aware of the appointment but could not immediately say if its lawyers have signed off on it. U.N. officials did not immediately comment.

Haiti does not currently have a special U.N. envoy, and it is not clear what Clinton's duties will be. The Miami Herald, which first reported the appointment, said he will be expected to visit the Caribbean country — a two-hour flight from Miami — at least four times a year.

Clinton visited Haiti as president in 1995 and again in 2003. Hillary Rodham Clinton has also visited several times, most recently for an April meeting with President Rene Preval en route to the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad.

Dozens of countries urged the World Health Organization to change its criteria for declaring a pandemic

GENEVA – Dozens of countries urged the World Health Organization to change its criteria for declaring a pandemic, saying the agency must consider how deadly a virus is — not just how far it spreads across the globe.

Fearing a swine flu pandemic declaration could spark mass panic and economic devastation, Britain, Japan, China and others asked the global body on Monday to tread carefully before raising its alert. Some cited the costly and potentially risky consequences, such as switching from seasonal to pandemic vaccine, even though the virus so far appears to be mild.

Although no formal changes were made Monday, WHO said it would listen to its members' requests.

"It's certainly something we will look at very closely," said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, WHO's flu chief.

The alert for swine flu is now at phase 5, which means the virus is spreading unchecked inside at least two countries in a single region. Under the existing rules, phase 6 indicates outbreaks in at least two different regions of the world and that a pandemic is under way.

"We need to give you and your team more flexibility as to whether we move to phase 6," Britain's Health Secretary Alan Johnson told WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan, a public health veteran who has made combatting the outbreak her top priority since the new virus appeared in North America last month.

Chan warned that swine flu could pose a grave threat to humanity even though the fatality rate is low, with 76 known deaths out of 8,829 confirmed cases in 40 countries. That total does not include Greece, which reported its first confirmed case on Monday.

"This virus may have given us a grace period, but we do not know how long this grace period will last," Chan said. "No one can say whether this is just the calm before the storm."

Japan reported the largest jump from just four cases over the weekend to more than 170 cases, health officials said Tuesday. Most involved teenagers who had not traveled overseas.

Spain and Britain have the highest numbers of cases in Europe, reporting 103 and 101 cases, respectively.

A pandemic announcement would likely have severe economic consequences: It could trigger expensive trade and travel restrictions such as border closures, airport screenings and quarantines.

Governments also fear mass panic, social disruption and overwhelmed health systems. Extraordinary measures such as large-scale pig slaughters like the recent one in Egypt could be taken, even if they aren't scientifically justified.

Mexico, which has suffered the most deaths and virtually shut down its economy for several days in response to the outbreak, urged WHO to reconsider its pandemic scale.

"People don't understand what 4, 5 or 6 means," Mexico's Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova told reporters. "They think that when you go to a higher level things are worse."

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told The Associated Press she wanted more information on the proposal before taking a position, but she was impressed how many countries supported it. Still, in a speech to the assembly she noted that each day 26,000 children will die from poverty and preventable diseases. Swine flu is a long way from causing that kind of devastation.

So far the virus appears to be mild, though scientists are concerned that many of the more severe symptoms have turned up in younger people, especially in Mexico. Flu is normally most dangerous to babies and the elderly.

WHO chief Chan noted that the disease could combine with other flu strains, including the lethal H5N1 bird flu virus which hasn't spread much among humans.

The signal for starting pandemic vaccine production has yet to be given, but it is essential that countries use their stockpiles of drugs wisely, she said. WHO has said two anti-viral drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza, have been effective against the new swine flu.

"It is absolutely essential that countries do not squander these precious resources through poorly targeted measures," Chan said.

Chan and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon are scheduled to meet with senior representatives of pharmaceutical companies Tuesday to discuss the vaccine question. The U.N. declined to name the companies but major vaccine producers include Sanofi-Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline and Baxter International.

Key issues include: how soon can a pandemic vaccine be produced, and how much of it will be available to each country. Many governments, including Britain, have already signed large advance orders, potentially depriving poorer countries of a chance to buy their own stock.

t may be riskier on the lungs to smoke cigarettes today than it was a few decades ago

WASHINGTON – It may be riskier on the lungs to smoke cigarettes today than it was a few decades ago — at least in the U.S., says new research that blames changes in cigarette design for fueling a certain type of lung cancer.

Up to half of the nation's lung cancer cases may be due to those changes, Dr. David Burns of the University of California, San Diego, told a recent meeting of tobacco researchers.

It's not the first time that scientists have concluded the 1960s movement for lower-tar cigarettes brought some unexpected consequences. But this study, while preliminary, is among the most in-depth looks. And intriguingly it found the increase in a kind of lung tumor called adenocarcinoma was higher in the U.S. than in Australia even though both countries switched to so-called milder cigarettes at the same time.

"The most likely explanation for it is a change in the cigarette," Burns said in an interview — and he cited a difference: Cigarettes sold in Australia contain lower levels of nitrosamines, a known carcinogen, than those sold in the U.S.

That's circumstantial evidence that requires more research, he acknowledged.

But anti-smoking advocates are citing the study as Congress considers whether the Food and Drug Administration should regulate tobacco, legislation that would give the agency power to decide such things as whether to set caps on certain chemicals in tobacco smoke.

Smokers once tended to get lung cancer in larger air tubes, particularly a type named "squamous cell carcinoma." Then doctors noticed a jump in adenocarcinoma, which grows in small air sacs far deeper in the lung. Initial studies blamed introduction of filtered, lower-tar cigarettes. When smokers switched, they began inhaling more deeply to get their nicotine jolt, pushing cancer-causing smoke deeper than before.

Burns' study, presented at a meeting of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, took a closer look. He compared smoking behaviors of different age groups over four decades — how much they smoked, when they started, when they quit — and how cancer-risk changed.

The risk of squamous cell carcinoma stayed about the same over those years, Burns found. But adenocarcinoma rose. It makes up 65 percent to 70 percent of newly occurring U.S. lung cancer cases, but no more than 40 percent of Australia's lung cancer, he said.

While the nation's total lung cancer cases have inched down as the number of smokers has dropped in recent years, the study suggests an individual smoker's risk of getting cancer is higher.

It's well known that cigarettes differ from country to country, because of different tobacco crops grown locally and smokers' varying tastes. Nitrosamines are a byproduct of tobacco processing and levels vary for several reasons, including differences in curing practices.

Australian cigarettes contain about 20 percent of the nitrosamine content of U.S. cigarettes, making the chemical a prime suspect, concluded Burns, who has been scientific editor of several surgeon general reports on tobacco.

That doesn't rule out a role for deeper inhaling, cautioned Dr. Michael Thun of the American Cancer Society: "There's several strong suspects in the lineup. They may have acted in combination."

Philip Morris USA spokesman David Sutton called the study speculative and hard to evaluate until it's published in a medical journal, something Burns plans to do.

Still, Philip Morris, which supports FDA tobacco regulation, began taking steps with its growers in 2000 that have yielded "significantly lower" nitrosamine levels in recent years' supplies, Sutton said.

Be careful in assuming lower-nitrosamine cigarettes are less lethal, said Dr. Neal Benowitz of the University of California, San Francisco, a well-known tobacco expert. Lung cancer is only one of tobacco's many risks — it causes heart disease and other killer diseases, too.

"If you reduce someone's (lung cancer) risk by 10 percent, that's not really meaningful for an individual," he said. "The goal still is to get them to stop."

British football star and Hollywood tough guy Vinnie Jones smiled and mouthed "thank you" to a jury that

SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota (AFP) – British football star and Hollywood tough guy Vinnie Jones smiled and mouthed "thank you" to a jury that found him not guilty Friday of assault charges.

Jones was arrested for punching Juan Trevino-Barrera shortly after the man's friend smashed Jones over the head with a beer mug during a brawl over a game of pool in the small city of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

He told the jury that he was "driven by fear" and acting in self-defense when he saw Barrera approach him as he made his way to the bathroom to wash the blood off his face.

"My nose was hanging off. You could have put a quarter in it," he testified.

Security video shows Jones punched Barrera, 24, three times before Barrera threw him to the ground.

Barrera, who also has a civil suit against Jones for damages and lost wages, acknowledged in court Thursday that he sold his story to a tabloid and stood to get more money if Jones was convicted.

He was also recently convicted on drug charges.

"We came here today and told the truth, and the people of Sioux Falls saw through that. They saw through Barrera and his antics," Jones said after the verdict was read.

"I stood up for myself that night and I stood up for myself today," Jones said.

"And justice has prevailed."

After the verdict was read, Jones met with jurors outside the courtroom, thanked them and signed autographs. At least one autograph read, "Be good. Vinnie Jones."

One juror said she felt Barrera's story changed too much between what he told police, the tabloids and the jury.

"He back-pedaled a lot, and contradicted himself a lot," Kim Westendorf told AFP.

After a football career in which he developed a brutal "hard man" reputation, Jones debuted as an actor in "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels." His other film credits include "Snatch" and "Gone in Sixty Seconds."

When asked if he would like to return to South Dakota, Jones said, "Hopefully, if the wife lets me. Maybe straight to the lodge this time."

Barack Obama warned Democrats in Congress against making

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama warned Democrats in Congress against making a partisan cause out of the Bush administration's harsh interrogation tactics.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is ignoring him — loudly — and the party, from the president on down, may pay the price.

So far, it's Pelosi who's suffered the greatest harm.

It may never be resolved exactly when she first learned that waterboarding had been used against terror suspects — in 2002 when she was the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee or five months later after she became her party's leader.

But the Democrats' claim to the moral high ground on the issue has been blemished by her explanation this week that in early 2003 she shifted her attention to winning political control of the House and didn't wage a protest against what she now calls torture.

She says the CIA and the Bush administration misled her about when the waterboarding, which simulates drowning, began. But Republicans don't have to fight that battle. They only have to keep the focus on her, and they have done that well — as evidenced by her multiple attempts to explain herself.

Americans already know the ending to this movie that's being played backward: Detainees were waterboarded, head-slammed, face-slapped, stripped naked and deprived of sleep. If the public isn't outraged already, will hearings to show who did what in the Bush administration gain converts?

And what of former Vice President Dick Cheney's contentions? He says harsh interrogations yielded information that stopped attacks. If that's shown to be true, people may end up thanking Cheney, although he had a setback Thursday. The CIA denied his request to declassify memos that he says would prove him right.

Before this political saga is finished months from now, both sides will score points and Democrats will have their good days. An internal Justice Department report, soon to be completed, may recommend disciplinary action against one or more of the Bush attorneys who wrote memos concluding the interrogation tactics were legal.

That certainly would be grist for Democrats in future hearings.

But it doesn't eliminate the danger signs.

A Senate hearing this week, the first on the interrogations since Obama's warning last month, broke along party lines within seconds.

Democrats called a witness — former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan — who testified with considerable drama from behind a screen to hide his identity.

He said al-Qaida senior operative Abu Zubaydah clammed up under rough interrogation by CIA contractors. Soufan insisted that Zubaydah gave up valuable information about "dirty bomb" terrorist Jose Padilla when his team used a non-threatening approach to gain his confidence and outwit him.

But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., pointed out that Soufan wasn't present for the rougher tactics and said he didn't know the whole story.

Bush administration documents released by the Justice Department say Zubaydah, who was waterboarded 83 times, and Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, waterboarded 183 times, gave up critical information because of the technique.

Last month, Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, told employees in a memo that interrogations that included waterboarding had secured useful intelligence. Blair later issued a public statement that said it was not known whether the same information could have been obtained without harsh techniques — the same position Obama has taken when asked.

An incident at a news conference by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., showed just how nervous the Democrats have become.

Asked whether hearings on the Bush policies would open the door for an inquiry into Pelosi's intelligence briefings, Hoyer responded: "What was said and when it was said, who said it, I think that is probably what ought to be on the record as well."

After the news conference, he and aides called some reporters — who thought he was referring to Pelosi — to assure them the comment only meant the investigations should look at the Bush interrogation policies.

But the biggest sign that the effort could backfire politically came from President Obama.

On April 21, addressing congressional proposals for a bipartisan commission to study the interrogations, the president said: "I do worry about this getting so politicized that we cannot function effectively and it hampers our ability to carry out critical national security operations."

If Obama is right, Democrats could be perceived as harming national security. That would be a major stumble that could give the Republicans an issue in next year's congressional elections.

Natalie Portman isn't one to Milk a rumor for publicity.

Los Angeles (E! Online) – Natalie Portman isn't one to Milk a rumor for publicity.

The 27-year-old actress is firmly denying rumors that she and reigning Best Actor Sean Penn are an item.

"Sean Penn is a friend and colleague," the star of the upcoming New York, I Love You said in a statement to Extra Friday. "The reports that we are romantically involved are completely untrue. I normally do not respond to rumors about my private life, however, this repeatedly fabricated story has forced me to do so."

And the rumors have been out there—a tabloid report that the May-December duo were canoodling in a West Hollywood bar barely two weeks after Penn, 48, filed for a legal separation from his wife of 13 year, Robin Wright Penn, metamorphosed into full-fledged "they're together" stories.

We know that Penn and Portman served on the 2008 Cannes Film Festival jury together, but otherwise... only anonymous sources are claiming to know anything else.

Portman split up with folk-rock singer Devendra Banhart last fall.

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