Rachael Harris remembers walking into her Notes from the Underbelly audition thinking “I won’t get this role.” Not because she didn’t have the comedic background to play career-minded Cooper in the new ABC hit, but because of her petite physique. “I’m 5’1” and clearly this woman is 6 foot and a model.” Luckily, she grabbed the attention of producer and director Barry Sonnenfeld as soon as she walked in the room. “I said ‘hello’ and he said ‘You have a weird voice,’” she explains laughing. “I was like ‘Oh, I think that’s good for Barry because Barry is so crazy.”

Fast forward to the present and the Daily Show alum is doing what she does best, keeping audiences laughing as part of Notes Wednesday night ensemble. Her character Cooper, a divorce lawyer, is forced to deal with two expectant couples including stars Lauren (Jennifer Westfeldt) and Andrew (Peter Cambor) and their friends Julie (Melanie Deanne Moore) and Eric (Sunkrish Bala), while friend Danny (Michael Weaver) provides the bachelor perspective.

Hollywood.com caught up with Harris to find out more about what to expect from a show about expecting.

Hollywood.com: Cooper’s personality is so much about her quick-witted delivery. What prepared you most for that part of the role?
Rachael Harris: I think that my favorite comedians have always been like Betty White and Teri Garr and Madeline Kahn and those women tended to be understated in their deliveries in my opinion. I was on The Best Week Ever and we always gave sort of witty comments, I would hope. It certainly didn’t come from my parents!

HW: Do you relate to one of the female characters more than the others, Lauren the hesitant and confused mother-to-be, ever-optimistic and also pregnant Julie or career driven Cooper?
RH: Wow, I would have to say I can relate to all three of them and that’s not just to say that. My husband and I are in the middle of trying to decide when we want to have a child and we’ve gone back in forth like “Do we?” So in that regard I can really relate to Jen Westfeldt’s character. Then I am a bit of an optimist so I really relate to Julie, but then as far as Cooper goes I like to think that I’m very direct and I do get annoyed easily.

HW: The audience can relate to many of the scenes in the show. Have you ever figured out a friend was pregnant over a coffee order?
RH: Yes, I did that with my very best friend … we went out to lunch and we were eating and she had a decaf ice tea or something and it was just a little too off and I was like, I had known she had been trying to get pregnant, but it had been over a year, so I said “Are you pregnant?” She’s like “Yes, but you cannot tell anyone. I just found out a couple of days ago.” So I can completely relate to it.

HW: You used to do improv with the Groundlings comedy troupe, do you get the chance to ad lib at all these days?
RH: Actually my favorite thing is to have a scripted show that allows you to improvise within that script. That way you can say “Hey, can I do this line this way?” That’s what was great about Stacy [Traub] and Barry is they would say “Yes, say it however it is going to be funniest. Funny trumps writing” … It is really the best because then you can really make it your own in the moment.

HW: Comedy has been your focus on stage, television and in the movies, would you consider a dramatic role?
RH: Absolutely. I started out thinking I was going to go to Broadway and do nothing but ‘night Mother … my professor said “I think you should investigate comedy more. I think you are funny,” so when I went to L.A. and did the Groundlings I was like “I get it” because I loved it so much … but I am completely comfortable doing drama and would love to do it.

HW: You’ve worked with some of the funniest guys in showbiz, including Steve Carell, Will Ferrell and Jon Stewart. What’s it like working with comedic geniuses?
RH: You know what’s great about all three of them is that they are all very serious about comedy [laughs]. I like it because they are very professional and very particular. These are very naturally gifted men in my opinion, but they are also perfectionists and they will do it until they get it right. They are always open to trying new things. The thing about Steve is he really is one of the nicest people I’ve ever worked with and whether you are a crew member or you are Morgan Freeman he treats everyone the same and he is genuinely interested … I didn’t work with Jon as much as I worked with Will and Steve just because of the nature of the show. I think they all genuinely care about the people that work with them and … just that they can come up with anything funny on the spot. Will can make anything funny, like “I’m going to open up the fridge and get a bottle of water out.”

HW: You recently worked on a comedy with Steve called Evan Almighty. What character did you play?
RH: I played Markie Parkington one of six reporters that were reporting while Evan was building the ark. I was the one who has the entertainment bent … I was trying to be like an Entertainment Tonight reporter, but there was no entertainment value. There were no celebrities, so I would say things like “What does Hollywood think about Evan building this ark? We’ll check in with Danny Bonaduce and Hank Azaria right after this.” She was over the top and I wore an orange cone colored suit that was pretty fierce. That was an amazing shoot because we were in Virginia for over eight weeks and saw the most exotic animals while working on that set.

HW: You worked on the Daily Show with Steve, what was it like to team up again?
RH: Steve is so good. I’m gushing, he’s really one of my favorite comedic actors and I shouldn’t even say comedic, he is just one of my favorite actors … we did a segment [on The Daily Show] called “We Love Showbiz” and he was brilliantly funny and so nice. We did a pilot together later. We did Andy Richter’s pilot the Lunchbox Chronicles together and he just killed me he was so funny. He is so nice and I just gush about him, so really this should be the Rachael Harris gushes about Steve Carell interview!

The head of the International Monetary Fund says the world needs to prepare for the next economic crisis, even as it begins to recover from the worst recession since the Great Depression.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, speaking to business students at a Johannesburg university Tuesday, expressed concern that recovery could mean leaders will feel less pressure to pursue such reforms as tightening regulation and supervision of financial markets.

Strauss-Kahn says he cannot not predict the timing or the nature of the next crisis, but that he is sure it will come.

Strauss-Kahn is on an African tour that started in Kenya and will take him to Zambia from South Africa.

Jack Nicholson Dead, Jack Nicholson is considering being picked to death by vultures when he dies.

The 72-year-old actor has become fascinated with the traditional sky burials carried out by some Native Americans which involve the deceased’s body being hung from a tree or wooden scaffold and being left for scavengers.

He told German TV channel Tele 5, “I’ve had several ideas. Once I thought it would be nice to be buried under a large statue that is at least ten metres high. Then I liked the nature of the Indians who haul their bodies up into the trees so that they are eaten by the birds.”

Although Nicholson is undecided about the fate of his remains, one thing he is certain about is he does not want to be laid to rest in a coffin.

He said, “I will probably end up in a crematorium as I’m too claustrophobic for a coffin.”

Even though he’s been thinking about his funeral, Nicholson insists he isn’t scared of death and feels as though he has achieved everything he wanted to in his life.

The Oscar winner, who starred in ‘The Bucket List’ with Morgan Freeman, about two terminally ill patients who escape from a cancer ward to fulfil their remaining life ambitions said, “I remember a wonderful conversation I once had with my fellow actor John Gielgud. He said he had made a schedule with things he would like to do before he dies… travel the entire world, learn how to cook, but he found that nothing was as appealing as acting. I agreed with him.”

Native Americans would have sky burials because they believe after death the souls of the dead lingered in the air and watched over the tribe until it was time for their soul to move on to the afterlife.

By raising the bodies up high the belief was the soul could exit its’ mortal constraints faster.

SYDNEY : Australia on Tuesday said there was no evidence the murder of an Indian man in Melbourne was racially motivated, as it downplayed the impact of the killing on ties between the nations.

The death of 21-year-old Nitin Garg, who was stabbed fatally in the abdomen as he walked to work at a hamburger restaurant on Saturday night, follows a string of crimes against Indian nationals in Australia.

The murder has received wide press coverage in India, with one newspaper describing Garg’s death as proof “that the issue of racist attacks on the Indian community needs to be addressed by the Australian authorities.”

But Australia’s Acting Foreign Minister said while the murder was an emotional issue, there was nothing to suggest the killing was a race attack.

“It is an unfortunate — very unfortunate — circumstance, but the police have continued to reaffirm the fact that there is no evidence that this is a racially based attack,” Simon Crean told reporters.

The accounting graduate’s death prompted an angry response in India, with Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna describing the murder as a “crime on humanity” and saying it would “certainly” affect ties between the two countries.

But Crean, who is trade minister, said Australian officials had been in contact with the Indian High Commission in Canberra as he downplayed the impact on bilateral ties between the growing trading partners.

Asked whether the issue would hurt relations, Crean said: “I doubt very much that it will.”

In India, the Mail Today said Garg’s murder showed that Australian police needed to do more to stop violence against Indians.

“The police claim that it is too early to describe the attack as racist, but there are enough indicators that it is most likely to have been motivated by the victim’s national origins,” it said in an editorial.

The paper ran a cartoon depicting an Australian policeman wearing a pointed white hood associated with the US racist group the Ku Klux Klan. The officer was shown saying “We are yet to ascertain the nature of the crime.”

Apple Cup 2009 Score, We know all the reasons why the Cougs are going to kill on Saturday – Washington has improved considerably and has Jake Locker, while the Cougs are terrible and horrible game on the road .

Looking for a reason why the Cougs might actually be able to stay within the estimated 24-point difference tomorrow? Here is the best I could find.

For all the problems we have on defense, I argue that the biggest problem Cougs’ is the general, there is the nature of the offense. WSU is currently an average of 4.2 yards per game, tied for 117th nationally. To stay in a game, simply must be able to score some points, both for the obvious reason that we need to score points to win, but also to give your defense a fighting chance to stay fresh.

Our three main offensive performances – in terms of yards per game – were against Cal, Stanford and Hawaii. In fact, here’s a look at how we did against the four worst defenses we have faced:

The Santa Clause 2 is a 2002 film and the sequel to the 1994 film, The Santa Clause. All the principal actors from the first film reprise their roles. According to Box Office Mojo, the film cost around $65 million to make and had domestic (U.S.) box office receipts approaching $140 million.

The film has received a G rating from the MPAA, unlike its first film, which was rated PG. The film was followed by another sequel, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, made in 2006.
Santa Clause 2 (Widescreen Edition)

Cast of The Santa Clause 2
Tim Allen     Santa Claus/Scott Calvin/Toy Santa
Elizabeth Mitchell     Carol Newman
David Krumholtz     Bernard the Arch-elf
Eric Lloyd     Charlie Calvin
Judge Reinhold     Dr. Neil Miller
Wendy Crewson     Laura Miller
Spencer Breslin     Curtis
Liliana Mumy     Lucy Miller
Danielle Woodman     Abby the Elf
Aisha Tyler     Mother Nature
Peter Boyle     Father Time
Jay Thomas     Easter Bunny
Kevin Pollak     Cupid
Art LaFleur     Tooth Fairy
Michael Dorn     Sandman
Victor Brandt     Reindeer
Bob Bergen     Comet (voice)
Kath Soucie     Chet (voice)
Molly Shannon     Tracy

Reviews on Amazon.com
Considering how lame this sequel could have been, The Santa Clause 2 makes for a pleasant holiday diversion. It’s got the familiar smell of Disney marketeering, and more than a few parents will object to this further embellishment of the St. Nick legend, but Tim Allen’s amiable presence provides ample compensation. As a divorced dad who inherited the jolly man’s job in The Santa Clause, Allen now faces another Yuletide challenge. According to the “Missus Clause” in his North Pole contract, he can’t continue to be the real Santa until he gets married. As luck and five credited screenwriters would have it, Allen falls for the Scrooge-y principal (Elizabeth Mitchell) of his son’s school, while a phony, power-hungry duplicate Santa wreaks havoc on the North Pole’s overworked elves. It’s all as sweet as spiced eggnog, with that warmed-over feel of a mandated sequel, but the Christmas spirit does prevail with the sound of sleigh bells and Allen’s rosy-cheeked ho, ho, ho! –Jeff Shannon
Santa Clause 2 (Widescreen Edition)

After a high scoring draw at Ahmedabad, India and Sri Lanka have moved onto Green Park in Kanpur for the second Test which begins tomorrow. Batsmen on both sides have ran into form and the onus now lies on the bowlers to take 20 wickets atleast this time. Harbhajan Singh and Muttiah Muralitharan could be feeling most of the heat in this Kanpur Test after a below par results at Ahmedabad.

The Green Park in Kanpur in general has been a batting paradise but every now and then the Curator had to come up with pitches that are tailor made to suit India. A turning track this time could prove to be a problem for India as they are up against Sri Lanka which has three world class spinners in Murali, Herath and Mendis. The pitch is already talked of taking turn from the third day or so. What it would need is better pace and bounce compared to the one at Ahmedabad so that the batsmen have lesser time to adjust when they do not pick the variations off the bowlers’ hands.

Toss will play a crucial factor in this Test and it is important that the team batting first has to make most by piling up the big scores and control the game thereafter. Sri Lanka are going to make one change atleast with fast bowler Dammika Prasad breaking down with a hamstring injury. The replacements for him could be Dilhara Fernando or Nuwan Kulasekara. There is enough pressure on Sangakkara to bring in Ajantha Mendis and there are only two ways to go about it – Sri Lanka play with just one pacer in Chanaka Welegedara and have three spinners or the other way is to drop Rangana Herath and replace him with Mendis.

The homeside could remain unchanged because of the nature of the wicket. Amit Mishra could still be retained despite a rank bad show in the first Test. Ideally India should bank on a pace attack against Sri Lanka and have Sreesanth to add fire along with Zaheer and Ishant. The Sri Lankan batsmen have shown that they are not so good at handling the short pitch stuff and at the same time have proved that they can toy with the spinners even in their sleep.

Live Scores along with Ball by Ball Commentary of this 2nd Test at Kanpur can be followed at www.cricketmove.com.

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Tiny moon feeds mega-ring around Saturn:-PARIS: Stunned astronomers have discovered a new mega-ring around Saturn and believe its genesis is a small, distant moon of the giant planet.

Phoebe, a Saturnian satellite measuring only 214 kilometres (133 miles) across, probably provides the record-breaking tenuous circle of dusty and icy debris, they report on Thursday in Nature, the weekly British science journal.

The largest ring identified so far in the Solar System, the circle starts about six million kilometres (3.7 million miles) from Saturn and extends outwardly by another 12 million kms (7.4 million miles), within the orbit of Phoebe.

A trio of US astronomers led by Anne Verbiscer of the University of Virginia used NASA’s orbiting Spitzer telescope in February this year to get a close look at space in Phoebe’s neighbourhood.

“This is one supersized ring,” Verbiscer was quoted by NASA as saying.

“If you could see the ring, it would span the width of two full moons’ worth of sky, one on either side of Saturn.”

Until now, the champion planetary rings in the Solar System were so-called “gossamer rings” surrounding Jupiter, the Solar System’s largest planet, and Saturn’s E ring.

Phoebe’s ring is far fainter than both, and appears to comprise dust from rocks bashed off the little moon by interplanetary debris or other particles.

The ring could also explain the mystery of Iapetus, Saturn’s bizarre two-tone, black-and-white moon, the team suggest.

Migrating dust from the ring could spiral into Iapetus, coating one side of it with a dark material that, over the life of the Solar System, could be metres (many feet) thick.

“Astronomers have long suspected that there is a connection between Saturn’s outer moon Phoebe and the dark material on Iapetus,” said one of the trio, Douglas Hamilton of the University of Maryland.

“This new ring provides convincing evidence of that relationship.”

The other side of Iapetus is turning progressively whiter, just as the other half is becoming darker.

There is a so-called thermal segregation theory to explain this.

It suggests that the dark side of Iapetus, by absorbing more sunlight, is able to warm sufficiently to cause local water ice to evaporate.

The vapour then circulates to condense on the nearest cold spot, on the icy, bright side of the moon.

As a result, the dark side loses its surface ice, and thus becomes darker, while the bright side accumulates ice, and gets brighter.

Senior staff members of the UN nuclear agency have concluded in a confidential analysis that Iran has acquired “sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable” atom bomb.

The report by experts in the International Atomic Energy Agency stresses in its introduction that its conclusions are tentative and subject to further confirmation of the evidence, which it says came from intelligence agencies and its own investigations.

But the report’s conclusions, described by senior European officials, go well beyond the public positions taken by several governments, including the United States.

Two years ago, US intelligence agencies published a detailed report concluding that Tehran halted its efforts to design a nuclear weapon in 2003. But in recent months, Britain has joined France, Germany and Israel in disputing that conclusion, saying the work has been resumed.

A senior US official said last week that the United States was re-evaluating its 2007 conclusions.

The atomic agency’s report also presents evidence that beyond improving upon bomb-making information gathered from rogue nuclear experts around the world, Iran has done extensive research and testing on how to fashion the components of a weapon. It does not say how far that work has progressed.

The report, titled “Possible Military Dimensions of Iran’s Nuclear Program,” was produced in consultation with a range of nuclear weapons experts inside and outside the agency. It draws a picture of a complex program, run by Iran’s Ministry of Defense, “aimed at the development of a nuclear payload to be delivered using the Shahab 3 missile system,” Iran’s medium-range missile, which can strike the Middle East and parts of Europe. The program, according to the report, apparently began in early 2002.

If Iran is designing a warhead, that would represent only part of the complex process of making nuclear arms. Engineering studies would have to turn ideas into hardware. Finally, the hardest part would be enriching the uranium that could be used as nuclear fuel – though experts say Iran has already mastered that task.

While the analysis represents the judgment of the nuclear agency’s senior staff, a struggle has erupted in recent months over whether to make it public. The dispute pits the agency’s departing director, Mohamed ElBaradei, against his own staff and against foreign governments eager to intensify pressure on Iran.

ElBaradei has long been reluctant to adopt a confrontational strategy with Iran, an approach he considers counterproductive. Responding to calls for the report’s release, he has raised doubts about its completeness and reliability.

Last month, the agency issued an unusual statement cautioning it “has no concrete proof” that Iran ever sought to make nuclear arms, much less to perfect a warhead. On Saturday in India, ElBaradei was quoted as saying that “a major question” about the authenticity of the evidence kept his agency from “making any judgment at all” on whether Iran had ever sought to design a nuclear warhead.

Even so, the emerging sense in the intelligence world that Iran has solved the major nuclear design problems poses a new diplomatic challenge for President Barack Obama and his allies as they confront Iran.

US officials say that in the direct negotiations with Iran that began last week, it will be vital to get the country to open all of its suspected sites to international inspectors. That is a long list, topped by the underground nuclear enrichment center under construction near Qum, that was revealed 10 days ago.

Iran has acknowledged that the underground facility is intended as a nuclear enrichment center, but says the fuel it makes will be used solely to produce nuclear power and medical isotopes. It was kept heavily protected, Iranian officials said, to ward off potential attacks.

Iran said last week that it would allow inspectors to visit the site this month. In the past three years, amid mounting evidence of a possible military dimension to its nuclear program, Iran has denied the agency wide access to installations, documents and personnel.

In recent weeks, there have been leaks about the internal report, perhaps intended to press ElBaradei into releasing it.

The report’s existence has been rumoured for months, and On Friday, more detailed excerpts appeared on the Web site of the Institute for Science and International Security, run by David Albright, a nuclear expert. In recent interviews, a senior European official familiar with the contents of the full report described it to The New York Times. He confirmed that Albright’s excerpts were authentic. The excerpts were drawn from a 67-page version of the report written earlier this year and since revised and lengthened, the official said; its main conclusions remain unchanged.

“This is a running summary of where we are,” the official said. “But there is some loose language,” he added, and it was “not ready for publication as an official document.”

Most dramatically, the report says the agency “assesses that Iran has sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device” based on highly enriched uranium.

Weapons based on the principle of implosion are considered advanced models compared with the simple gun-type bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima. They use a blast wave from a sphere of conventional explosives to compress a ball of bomb fuel into a supercritical mass, starting the atomic chain reaction and progressing to the fiery blast. Implosion designs, compact by nature, are considered necessary for making nuclear warheads small and powerful enough to fit atop a missile.

The excerpts of the analysis also suggest the Iranians have done a wide array of research and testing to perfect nuclear arms, like making high-voltage detonators, firing test explosives and designing warheads.

The evidence underlying these conclusions is not new – some of it was reported in a confidential presentation to many nations in early 2008 by the agency’s chief inspector, Ollie Heinonen.

Iran maintains that its scientists have never conducted research on how to make a warhead. Iranian officials say any documents to the contrary are fraudulent.

But in August, a public report to the board of the IAEA by its staff concluded that the evidence of Iran’s alleged military activity was probably genuine.

It said “the information contained in that documentation appears to have been derived from multiple sources over different periods of time, appears to be generally consistent, and is sufficiently comprehensive and detailed that it needs to be addressed by Iran with a view to removing the doubts” about the nature of its nuclear program.

The agency’s tentative analysis also says that Iran “most likely” obtained the needed information for designing and building an implosion bomb “from external sources” and then adapted the information to its own needs.

It said nothing specific about the “external sources,” but many intelligence agencies assume that Iran obtained a bomb design from AQ Khan, the rogue Pakistani black marketer who sold Iran machines to enrich uranium. That information may have been supplemented by a Russian nuclear weapons scientist who visited Iran often, investigators say.

NEW DELHI: With recent Chinese incursions creating anxiety in India, national security adviser MK Narayanan has convened a high-level meeting of
top officials on Thursday to formulate an appropriate response to what is widely seen as Beijing’s hostile posturing.

The meeting, to be chaired by Narayanan, is likely to be attended by cabinet secretary KM Chandrasekhar, defense secretary Pradeep Kumar, home secretary GK Pillai and foreign secretary Nirupama Rao.

The chiefs of the three armed forces and the Intelligence Bureau are also expected to attend the meeting which will scrutinies the nature of Chinese incursions and its larger ramifications for bilateral relations.

The meeting comes after reports about a high-profile war game, involving 50,000 troops, launched by the Chinese army that is aimed at improving Beijing’s ability to deploy troops in Tibet whenever reinforcements are required.

In response, the Indian Army has mobilised its troops to forwards posts in Jammu and Kashmir and along the northeastern border with China in an exercise named Operation Alert, a senior defence official said on Wednesday.

Although the government has publicly tried to downplay the incursions as routine incidents that occur due to differences in perception about the Line of Actual Control (LAC), there are anxieties that repeated incursions are meant to signal Beijing’s hardening of stand on the border issue.

It’s a way to put India on the defensive in the boundary negotiations, said a reliable source, who did not wish to be named.

The incursions also come at a time when Beijing has expressed its objection to the proposed visit of Tibetan exiled leader Dalai Lama to Tawang, in India’s northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh which is claimed in its entirety by Beijing.

There was a media report about two Indian soldiers getting injured in firing by Chinese troops in Sikkim recently. But the Indian government denied it.

India and China have held 13 rounds of boundary negotiations which are led by Narayanan and Chinese vice foreign minister Dai Bingguo to resolve the boundary dispute in accordance with political parameters and guiding principles finalised over three years ago. But there has been little progress in talks with both sides reiterating their stated positions.

What has worried the strategic establishment in India is the timing of recent Chinese incursions which follows a string of apparently hostile postures from Beijing over the last year. China tried to block India’s quest for global nuclear trade in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in September last year, a development that cast a shadow over bilateral ties for some time.

More recently, China tried to block a developmental loan for India at the Manila-based Asian Development Bank on grounds that a part of it was meant for Arunachal Pradesh. Put together, these developments have revived the spectre of China being the principal security threat to India despite rapidly expanding trade and investment between the two countries.