Ah, supernatural love: "Harry Potter" and "Twilight Saga" actor Jamie Campbell Bower and his "Potter" co-star Bonnie Wright have announced that they are engaged.



Jamie Campbell Bower and Bonnie Wright


The very private couple has been together since 2009, but didn't let the public know until February 2010. Bower confirmed the engagement recently when talking with The Daily:

"I'm engaged. I'm very happy," said Bower. "It's a wonderful, wonderful time."

As for planning the wedding, we're in the dark again. The only thing Bower said was, "We are, but I won't say when and I won't say where … or how."

And we're not really sure what that means.

But surely with the flick of a wand, these two could have the wedding together in no time.

Gates: U.S. to use Predator drones in Libya

Gates suggested that the unmanned Predator missions may have already begun. He said he believed that the first flights were launched Thursday but were called back due to poor weather.

"The president has said that where we have some unique capabilities, he is willing to use those," Gates said. "And I think that today may in fact have been their first mission."

Gates said the Predator drones offer a "modest contribution" to NATO efforts to support rebels fighting embattled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces there, though Gadhafi is not a specific target.

Unmanned aerial vehicles offer more precise targeting, because their low-flying capability allows for better visibility, "particularly on targets now that have started to dig themselves into defensive positions," Gates said.

He said the drones are needed for humanitarian reasons, and they have capabilities that larger aircraft such as A-10s and C-130s cannot provide.

Vice Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. James Cartwright said the added precision is necessary because forces loyal to Gadhafi "nestle up in crowded areas" to maximize civilian casualties.

"It's very difficult to identify friend from foe," Cartwright said, noting that the drones facilitate identification of individuals on the ground.

Remote Predator operators are now permitted to strike Gadhafi's defense missions, including air defense, missile and radar sites. Predator strikes are also authorized for civilian protection and can hit Gadhafi's troops, military installations and equipment in the field.

The U.S. employed the use of unmanned drones early in the NATO campaign, but they were intended for surveillance only and not authorized to fire.

President Barack Obama has approved the use of armed Predator drones in Libya, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday.

Peanuts on planes protected by law

Last year, the Department of Transportation asked the public about a possible peanut ban on planes and other measures it said it was considering to address severe allergies among fliers.

It presented three options for debate: a complete ban on serving peanuts on planes, a ban on serving them when a passenger requests a peanut-free flight in advance, or a requirement for peanut-free buffer zones around severely allergic passengers who make advance requests.

The agency also solicited public input on health risks and the idea of maintaining current practice.But when the new rules concerning issues from airline fees and bumping to tarmac delays were announced Wednesday, the department said it won't take on the peanut issue because of a 12-year-old law blocking the agency from tampering with peanut policy without more scientific study.

"The Department is prohibited by law from restricting the serving of peanuts aboard aircraft unless a peer-reviewed study determines that serving of peanuts causes severe reactions among airline passengers. There has been no such peer-reviewed study, so we declined to take action at this time," it said in a statement.

It seems the agency was hoping the climate was right for change. It cited the law in the original proposal in June when it asked the public to weigh in, adding, "this specific congressional ban on our involvement in this issue has not appeared recently in any legislation" before outlining possible alternate peanut policies for airlines.

The department said Wednesday that it wasn't proposing regulations but wanted to give the public an opportunity to comment on whether a peer-reviewed study should be conducted.

Although the government can't impose peanut restrictions for airlines, some carriers have developed their own policies for allergy sufferers. Some no longer serve peanuts and may create peanut-free buffer zones. But Delta, American and other airlines note on their websites that they can't guarantee peanut-free flights.

That lack of certainty had allergy sufferers and parents with children with peanut allergies weighing in enthusiastically in support of a national policy banning peanuts on planes.

"My 6 year old has severe peanut and tree nut allergies and I am very fearful to put him on a plane," Donna Marie Noga wrote in a comment posted on regulations.gov, a site tracking federal rules, proposed rules and public comments.

More than 2,100 comments were logged in response to all of the passenger protections presented, "the vast majority of which were related to the proposal to address peanut allergies in air travel," according to a Department of Transportation summary of comments.

Most of the comments on peanuts were from consumers who favored a total ban, according to agency documents. Peanut trade groups were against a ban, as were some airlines and airline industry groups.

But it seems the agency was out of bounds with its peanut planning.

Less than three weeks after the department posted its policy considerations in June, it issued a clarification citing the 1999 law with the conclusion, "we will comply with this requirement."

The final rule issued Wednesday echoes that sentiment. So, no relief for peanut allergy sufferers in this round of passenger protections.

The final rule announced Wednesday is available at the regulations.gov website, docket DOT-OST-2010-0140.

Packets of peanuts are in no danger of disappearing completely from airplanes. In a nutshell, there's a law protecting them.

The pesticides, known as organophosphates, are commonly sprayed on food crops and can be found in trace amounts on berries, green beans, and other fruits and vegetables sold in stores. The pesticides have also been used in homes and gardens, although their indoor use has been widely restricted due to safety concerns.

Organophosphates, which kill pests by attacking the nervous system, have previously been linked to developmental delays and attention problems in young children who were exposed in the womb. Now, researchers in two different locations have found that a child's IQ tends to decrease in proportion to the mother's exposure while pregnant.

One of the studies followed hundreds of mostly Latino mothers and children in California's Salinas Valley, a center of commercial agriculture. Many of the women were farmworkers, or had family members who worked on farms.

When the women were pregnant, the researchers tested their urine for several chemical by-products of organophosphates -- a standard means of gauging exposure. The mothers with the highest levels of by-products, known as metabolites, had children whose IQs at age 7 were seven points lower, on average, than the children whose mothers had the lowest levels of exposure. (The average score is 100.)

"That's not unlike the decreases we see in children with high lead exposure," says the senior study author, Brenda Eskenazi, Ph.D., a professor of epidemiology and maternal and child health at the University of California, Berkeley. "It's equivalent to performing six months behind the average."

The children's own metabolite levels were not linked to their IQs, however, which suggests that prenatal -- rather than childhood -- exposure is largely responsible for the trend, Eskenazi says. Organophosphates, which pass from the mother to fetus through the placenta and umbilical cord, may be more damaging to developing fetuses than to children, the study notes.

Similar trends are likely to be found outside farming communities, the researchers suggest. While the average metabolite levels of the pregnant women in the study were substantially higher than the national average, as many as 25% of pregnant women in the general population have levels above the study average.

Moreover, the findings are echoed by a second study released today, which was conducted in New York City and followed 265 black and Dominican mothers and children from low-income families.

In that study, researchers measured levels of the organophosphate chlorpyrifos in the women's umbilical cord blood. Chlorpyrifos, which has since been banned for indoor use, was still commonly used as a residential pesticide when the women were pregnant.

Using the same IQ test as the California study, the researchers found that when the children were 7, the IQs of those with the highest exposure in the womb was roughly three points lower, on average, than those with the lowest prenatal exposure.

The joint findings are strengthened by the differences in the locations, study participants, and methods used to measure pesticide exposure, says Bruce Lanphear, M.D., a professor of health sciences at Simon Fraser University, in Vancouver, British Columbia. "Because the results are so consistent, we're more confident that the results are not spurious," says Lanphear, who was not involved in the research.

In both studies, the researchers sought to cancel out other factors that can affect a child's IQ. They controlled for the mother's education and income, and observed the stimulation provided by the child's home environment. The California study also factored in the mother's exposure to lead and toxic flame retardants.

Experts aren't sure how organophosphates might interfere with fetal brain development, although they do know that in insects the pesticides slow the breakdown of acetylcholine, an important neurotransmitter.

"There have been a lot of studies that indicate that there are probably other mechanisms," says the senior author of the New York City study, Robin Whyatt, DrPH, a professor of clinical environmental health sciences at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

Genes may play a role, in fact. In the third study, which also looked at children in New York City, researchers found that the association between organophosphate exposure and developmental delays was more pronounced in children whose mothers had a certain genetic variant that influences an enzyme that breaks down organophosphates.

The three studies appear in the April 21 issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. All three were funded by grants from the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, among other sources.

The average exposure to organophosphates is lower today than it was when these studies began a decade ago. Now that the indoor use of organophosphates has been all but eliminated, the main sources are direct exposure to commercial agriculture and the traces found on supermarket produce.

Eskenazi stresses, however, that pregnant women should not stop eating fruits and vegetables. "It's absolutely important that they have an adequate diet in terms of the health of their child," she says.

Still, she adds, "It's important that people wash their fruits and vegetables really, really well -- and that means even fruit with a peel on it. It should be washed before you peel it."

Children whose mothers are exposed to high amounts of certain pesticides while pregnant appear to have lower IQs than their peers when they reach school age, according to three government-funded studies released today.

Sony has a couple of sweet, sweet numbers to report with regard to sales of its gaming hardware. The PlayStation 3, that venerable old powerhouse of console gaming, has surpassed 50 million units shipped around the globe, while the PS Move controller introduced late last year has also kept pace and rounded its own milestone with eight million units shipped. We say "shipped" in spite of Sony calling these sales, because what Sony reports are sales to retailers, not end users (the company calls 'em "sell-in numbers"), so they're not directly comparable with retail sales of the competition. Still, numbers are numbers, and these are pretty big ones. Full PR after the break.

Big B

This week, the director Ashutosh Gowariker and his leading lady Deepika Padukone of Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey recorded an episode of KBC. Abhishek opted out, although this is a crucial release for him.

Apparently, there was much behind-the-scenes maneuvering to convince Abhishek to occupy the hot seat in front of his iconic dad-host. Abhishek refused to budge.

Says a source, "Both the channel personnel and the crew of Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey felt getting Abhishek and his dad on the same platform would be great publicity for Abhishek's film. Abhishek wouldn't relent. They finally went on the show without him."

In fact, the channel's plans to bring the entire Bachchan parivar for the grand finale on December 9 has also fallen through. According to sources, the Big B thwarted the plans of getting his family on the show by throwing the rule-book at the channel. They finally had to make the finale a Sholay special featuring the Big B with Dharmendra.

Says Sony Entertainment's CEO Ajit Thakur, "We were indeed in advanced talks with the Bachchan family to come on the show. However, it finally didn't work out. Even Abhishek is missing in the episode featuring his colleagues for the promotion of their film."

Argues Big B, "As per the rules and regulations of the company that owns the original rights of KBC, relatives of the anchor are not permitted to participate in the show. There's a signed contract in this regard."

However, the channel's personnel argue that the contract rules don't apply to special episodes of KBC.

Says the source, "We were very keen to have the family on the show. But the Bachchans don't want anyone to say they're using the show to promote their family."