A host of celebrities have created a send-up of California's recently-passed Proposition 8, which effectively bans gay marriage in that state.

NEW YORK -- Odetta, the folk singer with the powerful voice who moved audiences and influenced fellow musicians for a half-century, has died. She was 77.

NEW ORLEANS---- It was a bittersweet moment for Brad Pitt, walking through the Lower 9th Ward neighborhood where families were preparing to spend their first holidays since Hurricane Katrina.

LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Zoo has been working for years on its new ŇPachyderm Forest,Ó a $42 million exhibit designed to give elephants the space they need to beat the blues of captivity.

LOS ANGELES---- Tom Hanks wants to attend President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration even if he doesn't get a front-row seat. Or any seat at all.

SALT LAKE CITY---- Gary Coleman has pleaded no contest to a disorderly conduct charge stemming from a September incident at a bowling alley.

THE TERRORIST ATTACKS last week in Mumbai, India, where it is estimated that 172 people were killed and about 240 wounded, serve as a grim reminder that fanatics bent on killing and destruction are hard to detect and sort out.

Actor Freddy Rodriguez got a bit ''verklempt'' as he talked about his new film, ''Nothing Like the Holidays,'' which was celebrated at a Chicago premiere Monday night at the Music Box Theatre.

LOS ANGELES---- Mario Lopez is in negotiations to once again host the Miss America pageant.

"Without a Trace" co-star Roselyn Sanchez has gotten married at a historic fort in Puerto Rico in front of Eva Longoria Parker and 250 other guests.

LOS ANGELES -- He is the face of Gucci, the star of one of the most talked-about films of the year and the man who singlehandedly tried to off Spider-Man.

Gov. Bill Richardson hosted a star-studded dinner party last weekend at New Mexico's governor's mansion to thank moviemakers and celebrities, including George Clooney, Kevin Spacey and Paul Sorvino, for shooting films in the state.

ATLANTA -- In his hit ''Whatever You Like,'' rapper T.I. offers iced Patron tequila and stacks of money to the lady in his life.

Elisabeth Sladen had a good long ride through time and space as reporter and Doctor's assistant Sarah Jane Smith in the mid-1970s in the BBC's long-running science fiction favorite "Doctor Who."

In his 40-year career, Chicago actor Danny Goldring has often played various gumshoes, thugs and mobsters.

President-elect Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, said their young daughters will still have to do chores in the White House and won't get out of doing homework just because they're the president's children.

HAPPY TURKEY DAY: Today is the day that folks around the country (if you're lucky) will sit down to eat and talk turkey. During these economic hard times, we should embrace and help one another as much as possible. Thanksgiving is only one day . . . but folks still have to eat and survive the other 364 days of the year. So with that said, read on:

Mariah Carey refused to drink Champagne on Wednesday -- because of the time of day, she said, not because of a baby.

Another star of "How I Met Your Mother" is on her way to becoming a mother herself.

LOS ANGELES---- Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, the reality-TV couple whose on-again, off-again relationship has been chronicled by MTV's ''The Hills'' and celebrity magazines, appear on the Wednesday cover of Us Weekly with the headline ''Heidi & Spencer Elope!''

We've heard it before, but folks inside Whitney Houston's circle of pals again insist the on-the-rebound diva and ex-husband Bobby Brown may be getting back together.

How did Pete Wentz and wife Ashlee Simpson-Wentz end up giving their baby boy the middle name Mowgli?

TV's variety-show genre basically dried up after the 1970s, and although some recent reality competitions -- ''Dancing with the Stars,'' ''American Idol,'' ''America's Got Talent'' -- share some DNA with variety shows, few celebrities have attempted a variety-show revival.