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The Golden Globe-nominated star is set to play a prince in Universal's medieval-themed comedy Your Highness. Franco will reunite with a couple of Pineapple Express pals, costar Danny McBride and director David Gordon Green, according to Variety. Your Highness chronicles two haughty princes who go on a quest to save their family and kingdom from the clutches of an evil magician. Filming kicks off in Ireland in July.

HORTON FOOTE, the award-winning playwright and screenwriter known for his scripts for "To Kill A Mockingbird," "Tender Mercies," "The Trip to Bountiful" and "The Young Man From Atlanta," died in Hartford Wednesday. He was staying with his daughter, an actor with Hartford Stage. (ROSS TAYLOR / HARTFORD COURANT / January 13, 2009)

"Right away, she got into the boxes and into the magic contraptions to learn the stuff, and she's so excited about this tour and all the elements that are in it," illusionist-comedian Ed Alonzo, "the Misfit of Magic" (and former Saved by the Bell diner owner) who will be doing a number with Spears on her Circus tour, tells E! News.

New concept art just released for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in the Universal Orlando Resort.

Paging Erin Brockovich! There's mercury in our water soda pop! High-fructose corn syrup doesn't just deliver a jolt of sweetness to thousands of processed food items consumed by tens of millions of Americans each day. It also may add a touch of mercury, a powerful neurotoxin that may not be safe to consume at any level. That's the message of two separate studies published last month. The first, led by a former FDA researcher named Renee Dufault and published in the peer-reviewed Environmental Health Journal, found mercury in nearly half of high-fructose corn syrup samples collected in 2005. Dufault had alerted her superiors about the finding in 2005 and got no response, she told me in a recent interview. She began the process of publishing her research after retiring from the FDA last year. The other study, conducted by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, found traces of the toxic heavy metal in one-third of HFCS-containing products its researchers pulled off of supermarket shelves last year. I wrote about the studies when the first media reports came out. Since then, I've been shocked at the official silence. While the researchers haven't proven conclusively (nor have they claimed to) that the vast array of products containing HFCS are imparting damaging levels of mercury to the people who consume them, their findings raise serious and troubling questions -- ones that aren't, from what I can tell, being looked into by any public-health agency.

BritneySpears.com was on set of the 'If You Seek Amy' video shoot last week and Britney's dancers Willie, Jay and Luke gave us an exclusive sneak peek at the choreography from the video. This video was shot in the bedroom where one of the super hot scenes from the music video was filmed. You'll have to wait for the video to premiere to see the whole routine, but this should whet your appetite for now.

No matter how much your partner pleads, you can't substitute time in the sack for time on the treadmill. However, certain sex positions do work a woman's muscle groups -- some so much, in fact, that you might not be able to make it to the gym the next day.

Nickelodeon has announced the nominees for its 22nd Annual Kids' Choice Awards and Katy Perry is in the running for Favorite Song! Miz Perry's I Kissed a Girl is up against Rihanna's Don't Stop the Music, Kiss Kiss by Chris Brown and Beyonce's Single Ladies. The younger generation is very open minded.

Move over floppy-haired faux nerds: ABC's new series, Better Off Ted, is bringing the real comedic heat, pairing the reliably funny Portia de Rossi with robot mice. Definitely a step in the right direction.

We all love to eat, but the ugly reality is that some foods can make you sick. We're not talking about salmonella here; none of what's listed below should send you directly to the hospital with a debilitating illness, though Jeremy Piven recently claimed to have mercury sickness from a diet too rich in sushi. While the verdict is still out on Piven’s poisoning, certain foods, when eaten too frequently, can pose a very real health risk over time (especially if you are thinking of having a baby or if you are feeding a small child). The dangers of these foods range from PCBs in certain fish, to large trace amounts of pesticides on fresh fruit and veggies. This past year, the National Institutes of Health even linked long-term pesticide exposure to diabetes. To avoid these health risks, we came up with a list of ten foods to beware, both for your health and for the health of the environment.

High-fructose corn syrup rose from obscurity to ubiquity starting in the late 1970s, borne up by an informal public-private partnership between grain-processing giant Archer Daniels Midland and the federal government. For me, HFCS is at best a highly processed, lavishly subsidized, calorie-heavy, nutritional vacuum. recently visited a public high school in Boone, N.C. The main hall literally hummed with machines peddling variations on Coca-Cola's formula for success: fizzy water with artificial flavor, artificial color, added caffeine, and a jolt of HFCS. Other machines displayed snack "foods" tarted up with HFCS. Why are we feeding our kids this crap, again? Now comes news that makes even an HFCS cynic like me do a spit-take over my home-brewed morning coffee. Turns out that HFCS is commonly tainted with mercury -- a highly toxic substance -- according to a peer-reviewed report published by Environmental Health

Project Censored specializes in covering the top stories which were subjected to press censorship either by being ignored or downplayed by the mainstream media each year. Project Censored is a research team composed of more than 200 university faculty, students, and community experts who annually review between 700 and 1,000 news story submissions for coverage, content, reliability of sources, and national significance. The top 25 stories selected are submitted to a distinguished panel of judges who then rank them in order of importance. The results are published each year in an excellent book available for purchase at their website, amazon.com, and most major book stores.

VASSALBORO, Maine (AP) — A one-time motel in a small central Maine town could soon be offering an eye-opening way to start the day — topless coffee shop waitresses. The Vassalboro Planning Board on Tuesday will consider a business permit request for a topless coffee shop on busy Route 3.

Most of you who read The Heavy Stuff (THS) know the word Fortean - and, in this listing - THS brings the dozen or so links we carried on our Squidoo site this year that had a fortean twinge. No, the list this year does not include any fish falling out of the sky - but does include hairy frogs and unicorn deer.

UPDATE: Madonna Show Will Go On Despite Stage CollapseA day after the news broke that Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears will reunite and join Madonna on stage in Los Angeles, TMZ reported that a part of the show stage was damaged in transportation.Ryan Seacrest broke the news on 102.7 KIIS-FM Thursday with mid-day DJ Sisanie that tonight's Los Angeles leg of the Sticky and Sweet tour would continue on as scheduled. LISTEN | Ryan breaks the news on KIIS-FM Los Angeles.A press release issued by Madonna's camp stated, "there was damage to the top of the stage which has created several lighting and technical issues for the highly anticipated show scheduled for tonight at Dodger Stadium."Madonna was given the option to postpone the show but declined stating, "Even though my stage roof was damaged and some lights and effects aren't working, I want to do the show anyway because I don't want to disappoint my fans."Click here to purchase tickets!

Kurt Cobain may have been wrong: a British study suggests fish feel pain (big surprise, right?) -- and higher feelings remain a possibility. According to the global Emo movement, lots of animals already have deep, soulful feelings... at least two-dimensional macro animals.

A centre in Miami called The Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species, or TIGERS has trained it’s tame tigers to swim with people in a specially designed pool. Personally I prefer the idea of swimming with Tigers to swimming with Dolphins, those smiles creep me out. Having said that I would worry that I might end up being little more than a light snack and a gory video clip on Youtube.

In celebration of the groundbreaking sitcom's milestone, we asked the creative team -- from Roseanne Barr and John Goodman and the rest of the cast to staff writer Joss Whedon -- to share their memories.

The Sun is now in the quietest phase of its 11-year activity cycle, the solar minimum - in fact, it has been unusually quiet this year - with over 200 days so far with no observed sunspots. The solar wind has also dropped to its lowest levels in 50 years. Scientists are unsure of the significance of this unusual calm, but are continually monitoring our closest star with an array of telescopes and satellites. Seen below are some recent images of the Sun in more active times. (21 photos total)