IHT Rendezvous: Stark Numbers Reveal the Scale of Elephant Killings

HONG KONG — The past couple of years has seen a stream of news about elephant killings and increasingly massive ivory seizures, a stream so relentless that it has become numbing.

A study released on Wednesday, however, still has the power to shock. Over the past eight years or so, according to the study, 11,000 elephants have been killed by poachers in the western African state of Gabon, where the Minkébé National Park once held the continent’s largest forest elephant population. Two-thirds of the park’s elephant population has been wiped out since 2004.

“The situation is out of control. We are witnessing the systematic slaughter of the world’s largest land mammal,” said Bas Huijbregts, head of the Central African strand of WWF’s global campaign against illegal wildlife trade, Wildlife Conservation Society, which conducted the study with the WWF and the Gabonese National Parks Agency, said the data represented trends across all remaining forest elephant strongholds in the region, and pointed to a “regional crisis.”

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, in central Africa, is believed to have between 7,000 and 10,000 elephants — less than 10 percent of its population 20 years ago.

In the Central African Republic, which had as many as 80,000 elephants in the mid-1980s, the numbers are now down to just a few thousand as poachers are taking advantage of the political instability in the country to hunt the creatures.

And last year, hundreds of elephants were killed for their tusks in Cameroon, another western African nation.

Moreover, the Gabon slaughter has taken place in a country that had been thought to be less badly hit by poaching than other parts of Africa.

As my colleague Jeffrey Gettleman reported last year, Gabon’s government, blessed with billions of dollars of oil money, has made many of the right moves to protect its animals, setting aside chunks of land for national parks, and even lighting a pyramid of 10,000 pounds of ivory on fire to make the point that the trade was reprehensible.

As I wrote last year, demand for ivory from China is the leading driver behind the illegal trade, compounded by improved transport, trade links and a rise in the presence of Chinese nationals in Africa. And although the Chinese authorities are helping with awareness campaigns, what is really needed is on-the-ground enforcement, to help trace and combat the activities of Chinese middlemen in the illicit trade, experts have said.

For the crisis to be comprehensively addressed, Mr. Huijbregts of the WWF commented Wednesday, “the international intelligence community needs to get involved in this fight as soon as possible, in order to identify, track and put out of business these global criminal networks, which corrupt governments, erode national security and hamper economic development prospects.”

Unless the governments of the region and demand countries treat this issue as an international emergency, he said, “we cannot rule out that, in our lifetime, there will no longer be any viable elephant populations in Central Africa.”

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Rihanna & Chris Brown Go from the Courthouse to the Studio Together

By Maggie Coughlan

02/07/2013 at 12:15 PM EST

Chris Brown (far left) and Rihanna (right) at Brown's court hearing

Splash News Online

That's one way to stand by your man.

Rihanna attended boyfriend Chris Brown's court hearing in Los Angeles on Wednesday – and later stepped out with him after a late night in the studio.

Brown, 23, was charged with failing to complete his community service after domestically abusing Rihanna, 24, in 2009. Joined by Brown's mother, Joyce Hawkins, and two other women, Rihanna sat stoically as the judge discussed Brown's case.

Then, hours later, the couple was photographed leaving a recording studio together in Brown's Porsche around 4:30 a.m., after having spent five hours together inside.

Following the assault in 2009, the couple parted ways. But in a recent issue of Rolling Stone, the "Diamonds" singer revealed they rekindled their romance.

"Even if it's a mistake, it's my mistake. After being tormented for so many years, being angry and dark, I'd rather just live my truth and take the backlash. I can handle it," she said.

But Rihanna insists that things are "different now."

"We don't have those types of arguments anymore. We have each other. We know exactly what we have now, and we don't want to lose that," she told the magazine.

Rihanna and Chris Brown

RACHPOOT / XPOSUREPHOTOS.COM

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Southern diet, fried foods, may raise stroke risk

Deep-fried foods may be causing trouble in the Deep South. People whose diets are heavy on them and sugary drinks like sweet tea and soda were more likely to suffer a stroke, a new study finds.

It's the first big look at diet and strokes, and researchers say it might help explain why blacks in the Southeast — the nation's "stroke belt" — suffer more of them.

Blacks were five times more likely than whites to have the Southern dietary pattern linked with the highest stroke risk. And blacks and whites who live in the South were more likely to eat this way than people in other parts of the country were. Diet might explain as much as two-thirds of the excess stroke risk seen in blacks versus whites, researchers concluded.

"We're talking about fried foods, french fries, hamburgers, processed meats, hot dogs," bacon, ham, liver, gizzards and sugary drinks, said the study's leader, Suzanne Judd of the University of Alabama in Birmingham.

People who ate about six meals a week featuring these sorts of foods had a 41 percent higher stroke risk than people who ate that way about once a month, researchers found.

In contrast, people whose diets were high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish had a 29 percent lower stroke risk.

"It's a very big difference," Judd said. "The message for people in the middle is there's a graded risk" — the likelihood of suffering a stroke rises in proportion to each Southern meal in a week.

Results were reported Thursday at an American Stroke Association conference in Honolulu.

The federally funded study was launched in 2002 to explore regional variations in stroke risks and reasons for them. More than 20,000 people 45 or older — half of them black — from all 48 mainland states filled out food surveys and were sorted into one of five diet styles:

—Southern: Fried foods, processed meats (lunchmeat, jerky), red meat, eggs, sweet drinks and whole milk.

—Convenience: Mexican and Chinese food, pizza, pasta.

—Plant-based: Fruits, vegetables, juice, cereal, fish, poultry, yogurt, nuts and whole-grain bread.

—Sweets: Added fats, breads, chocolate, desserts, sweet breakfast foods.

—Alcohol: Beer, wine, liquor, green leafy vegetables, salad dressings, nuts and seeds, coffee.

"They're not mutually exclusive" — for example, hamburgers fall into both convenience and Southern diets, Judd said. Each person got a score for each diet, depending on how many meals leaned that way.

Over more than five years of follow-up, nearly 500 strokes occurred. Researchers saw clear patterns with the Southern and plant-based diets; the other three didn't seem to affect stroke risk.

There were 138 strokes among the 4,977 who ate the most Southern food, compared to 109 strokes among the 5,156 people eating the least of it.

There were 122 strokes among the 5,076 who ate the most plant-based meals, compared to 135 strokes among the 5,056 people who seldom ate that way.

The trends held up after researchers took into account other factors such as age, income, smoking, education, exercise and total calories consumed.

Fried foods tend to be eaten with lots of salt, which raises blood pressure — a known stroke risk factor, Judd said. And sweet drinks can contribute to diabetes, the disease that celebrity chef Paula Deen — the queen of Southern cuisine — revealed she had a year ago.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, drugmaker Amgen Inc. and General Mills Inc. funded the study.

"This study does strongly suggest that food does have an influence and people should be trying to avoid these kinds of fatty foods and high sugar content," said an independent expert, Dr. Brian Silver, a Brown University neurologist and stroke center director at Rhode Island Hospital.

"I don't mean to sound like an ogre. I know when I'm in New Orleans I certainly enjoy the food there. But you don't have to make a regular habit of eating all this stuff."

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Police on high alert after ex-LAPD cop's alleged serial shootings

Authorities across Southern California were on high alert Thursday morning as a massive manhunt was underway for an ex-Los Angeles police officer sought in connection with a double homicide and the shootings of three police officers, one of whom was killed.

Local, state and federal authorities are involved in the search for Christoper Jordan Dorner, 33, who threatened "unconventional
and asymmetrical warfare" against police in an manifesto posted on his Facebook page.

Dorner also threatened more than two dozen people -- including police officials -- in his manifesto. Officers from around Southern California have been deployed
to protect those people. In some cases, police said, those at risk have relocated for their safety.

PHOTOS: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer

 LAPD Chief Charlie Beck is expected to hold a news conference at
10 a.m.

When asked if police felt they were under attack, Riverside Police Lt. Guy Toussaint said: “Based on the circumstances of the
shooting, yes I do.”

Hours after authorities announced they were looking for Dorner in connection with a double homicide in Orange County, the search intensified after three police officers were shot in Riverside County and Dorner was identified as a possible suspect.

Ex-LAPD cop tried to steal boat, flee to Mexico, authorities say

Freeway signs urged motorists to call 911 if they saw the suspect's vehicle as officers patrolled the streets near one of the Riverside County crime scenes with rifles at the ready. Los Angeles was put on a citywide tactical alert and California Highway Patrol issued a "blue alert" for nine Southern California counties warning Dorner was considered "armed and extremely dangerous."

The first shooting occurred about 1:30 a.m. Thursday in Corona, where two Los
Angeles Police Department officers providing protection for
someone mentioned in Dorner's manifesto, officials said. One
officer suffered a graze wound to the head during a shootout and Dorner fled
the scene, police said.

A short time later, two Riverside officers were shot at the corner of Magnolia Avenue and Arlington
Avenue in
Riverside. Toussaint said the officers were
sitting at a red light when they were ambushed. One was killed, the
other was still in surgery Thursday morning.

Ex-LAPD officer threatened to kill in online manifesto

There was no indication the officers were "actively seeking Dorner," Toussaint said.

“Our
officers were stopped at an intersection at a red light when they were
ambushed," he said. "Because of the close proximity to the timeline, we believe there is a
strong likelihood that former LAPD Officer Christopher Dorner was involved in
our incident.”

In the online manifesto, Dorner specifically named the father of
Monica Quan, the Cal State Fullerton assistant basketball coach who was
found dead Sunday in Irvine along with her fiance, Keith Lawrence.

Randy Quan, a retired LAPD captain, was involved in the review
process that ultimately led to Dorner’s dismissal. A former U.S. Navy
reservist, Dorner was fired in 2009 for allegedly making false
statements about his training officer. In the manifesto, he complained that Randy Quan and others did not fairly represent him at the review hearing.

“The violence of action will be high .... I will bring unconventional
and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform whether on or off
duty," Dorner wrote.

As authorities swarmed the area, two officer-involved shootings occurred in Torrance after police came across vehicles they thought might be Dorner's.

The first Torrance incident occurred about 5:20 a.m. in the 19500
block of Redbeam Avenue in Torrance, Lt. Devin Chase said. That incident involved
Los Angeles police detectives from the Hollywood division, sources said.

Two people were struck by gunfire and transported to an area hospital with unknown injuries, Chase said. No officers were injured.

The second incident, which involved Torrance police officers,
occurred at Flagler Lane and Beryl Street about 5:45 a.m. No injuries
were reported in that incident.

Chase said both incidents involved vehicles matching the description of the one sought in connection with Dorner.

"Now it appears neither of them are directly related," Chase said. "In both of them, officers believed they were at the time."

Authorities said they believe Dorner attempted to steal a boat from an elderly man about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday
at the Point Loma Yacht Club in San Diego, hours before the shootings in
Riverside County.

The boat owner reported being accosted by a burly man who tied him up, threatened
him with a gun and said he wanted the boat to flee to Mexico.

PHOTOS: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer

But while they were trying to get underway, a rope became entangled
in the propeller and the boat was inoperable, authorities said.

The suspect fled the scene and the boat owner was unharmed.

About 2 a.m., a citizen reported finding property belonging to Dorner
on a street near Lindbergh Field, not far from the scene of the
attempted boat theft. The property included a briefcase and Dorner's
LAPD badge.

ALSO:

Riverside police 'ambushed' by shooter, official says

Police shoot two in Torrance in search for ex-LAPD cop

Manhunt underway for ex-LAPD officer suspected of shooting 3 cops

— Andrew Blankstein, Kate Mather, Phil Willon and Tony Perry

Read More..

Clashes Erupt in Damascus, Shattering Lull, as Prospects for Talks Dim

Goran Tomasevic/Reuters

A building in the Damascus suburb of Zamalka was hit by a mortar shell fired by the Syrian Army on Wednesday.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian insurgents attacked military checkpoints and other targets in parts of central Damascus on Wednesday, antigovernment activist groups reported. The fighting shattered a lull there as prospects for any talks between the antagonists appeared to dim, a week after the opposition coalition leader first proposed the surprise idea of a dialogue aimed at ending the war.

Some antigovernment activists described the resumption of fighting, which had lapsed for the past few weeks, as part of a renewed effort by rebels to seize control of central Damascus, the Syrian capital, although that depiction seemed highly exaggerated. Witness accounts said many people were going about their business, while others noted that previous rebel claims of territorial gains in Damascus had almost always turned out to be embellished or unfounded.

Representatives of the Military Council of Damascus, an insurgent group, said that at least 33 members of President Bashar al-Assad’s security forces in Damascus had surrendered, while others had fled central Al Abasiyeen Square, and that other forces had erected roadblocks on all access streets to the area to thwart the movement of rebel fighters.

Salam Mohammed, an activist in Damascus, described Al Abasiyeen Square as “on fire,” and a video clip uploaded on YouTube showed a thick column of black smoke spiraling over the area while the sound of shelling could be heard. A voice is heard saying the shelling had started a fire. The Local Coordination Committees, an anti-Assad activist network in Syria, also reported gunfire in nearby streets.

Firas al-Horani, a military council spokesman, said fighters of the Free Syrian Army, the main armed opposition group, were in control of Al Abasiyeen Square. He also said, “The capital, Damascus, is in a state of paralysis at the moment, and clashes are in full force in the streets.”

It was impossible to confirm Mr. Horani’s assertions or the extent of the fighting because of Syrian government restrictions on foreign news organizations. But Syria’s state-run media said insurgent claims of combat success in Damascus were false. “Those are miserable attempts to raise the morale of terrorists who are fleeing our valiant armed forces,” said SANA, the official news agency.

Deadly violence also was reported in the Homs Province town of Palmyra, the site of a notorious prison where Mr. Assad’s father, Hafez, ordered the summary execution of about 1,000 prisoners during an uprising against his family’s grip on power in the 1980s.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group with a network of contacts inside Syria, said two booby-trapped cars exploded near the military intelligence and state security branches, killing at least 12 members of the security forces and wounding more than 20. The observatory said government forces deployed throughout Palmyra afterward, engaging in gun battles with insurgents that left at least eight civilians wounded in the cross-fire.

SANA also reported an attack but said it was caused by two suicide bombers who had targeted a residential part of the town, killing an unspecified number of civilians.

The new mayhem came as discord appeared to grow within the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, the umbrella anti-Assad group, over a proposal made on Jan. 30 by Sheik Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, its leader, to engage in talks with Mr. Assad’s government aimed at ending the nearly two-year-old conflict, which has left more than 60,000 people dead. Although Sheik Khatib’s proposal contained a number of conditions, it broke a longstanding principle that Mr. Assad must relinquish power before any talks can begin.

Many of Sheik Khatib’s colleagues grudgingly agreed to go along with the proposal after it had been made, but critical voices have been rising, especially among the coalition’s more militant elements.

In a new video uploaded on YouTube, a cleric from the Nusra Front, an anti-Assad Islamist militant group that the Obama administration has classified as a terrorist organization, said in a prayer speech that brute force against Mr. Assad and his disciples was the only solution.

“We will cut their heads, we swear to kill them all, and they will see our worst war,” said the cleric, who spoke in Libyan-accented Arabic at a mosque in the contested northern city of Aleppo, holding a sword in his right hand. “No for the negotiations, no for the talks, no retreat in a jihad for God’s sake.”

Hania Mourtada reported from Beirut, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Karam Shoumali contributed reporting from Antakya, Turkey.

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Leighton Meester Is Dating Adam Brody

By Julie Jordan

02/06/2013 at 12:45 PM EST

Adam Brody and Leighton Meeste

Henry S. Dziekan III/Wireimage

It looks like Leighton Meester is getting a taste of Orange County, Calif.

The former Gossip Girl star, 26, who has been an N.Y.C. staple, is dating former The O.C. star Adam Brody, 33, sources confirm to PEOPLE.

Reps for the actors have not commented, and both have kept their private lives out of the spotlight over the years.

In 2010, Meester briefly addressed her "really hard" split from Sebastian Stan, saying, "I was really sad when it ended, but that's what taught me a lot about myself and love and life – and that's good."

Brody most famously dated O.C. costar Rachel Bilson. They split in 2006, and the actor most recently publicly courted screenwriter Lorene Scafaria in 2011.

Meester and Brody reportedly became close after costarring in the film The Oranges.

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Critics seek to delay NYC sugary drinks size limit

NEW YORK (AP) — Opponents are pressing to delay enforcement of the city's novel plan to crack down on supersized, sugary drinks, saying businesses shouldn't have to spend millions of dollars to comply until a court rules on whether the measure is legal.

With the rule set to take effect March 12, beverage industry, restaurant and other business groups have asked a judge to put it on hold at least until there's a ruling on their lawsuit seeking to block it altogether. The measure would bar many eateries from selling high-sugar drinks in cups or containers bigger than 16 ounces.

"It would be a tremendous waste of expense, time, and effort for our members to incur all of the harm and costs associated with the ban if this court decides that the ban is illegal," Chong Sik Le, president of the New York Korean-American Grocers Association, said in court papers filed Friday.

City lawyers are fighting the lawsuit and oppose postponing the restriction, which the city Board of Health approved in September. They said Tuesday they expect to prevail.

"The obesity epidemic kills nearly 6,000 New Yorkers each year. We see no reason to delay the Board of Health's reasonable and legal actions to combat this major, growing problem," Mark Muschenheim, a city attorney, said in a statement.

Another city lawyer, Thomas Merrill, has said officials believe businesses have had enough time to get ready for the new rule. He has noted that the city doesn't plan to seek fines until June.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials see the first-of-its-kind limit as a coup for public health. The city's obesity rate is rising, and studies have linked sugary drinks to weight gain, they note.

"This is the biggest step a city has taken to curb obesity," Bloomberg said when the measure passed.

Soda makers and other critics view the rule as an unwarranted intrusion into people's dietary choices and an unfair, uneven burden on business. The restriction won't apply at supermarkets and many convenience stores because the city doesn't regulate them.

While the dispute plays out in court, "the impacted businesses would like some more certainty on when and how they might need to adjust operations," American Beverage Industry spokesman Christopher Gindlesperger said Tuesday.

Those adjustments are expected to cost the association's members about $600,000 in labeling and other expenses for bottles, Vice President Mike Redman said in court papers. Reconfiguring "16-ounce" cups that are actually made slightly bigger, to leave room at the top, is expected to take cup manufacturers three months to a year and cost them anywhere from more than $100,000 to several millions of dollars, Foodservice Packaging Institute President Lynn Dyer said in court documents.

Movie theaters, meanwhile, are concerned because beverages account for more than 20 percent of their overall profits and about 98 percent of soda sales are in containers greater than 16 ounces, according to Robert Sunshine, executive director of the National Association of Theatre Owners of New York State.

___

Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

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Woman drugged girl, use her in hard-core porn, police allege

This post has been corrected. Please see below for details.

A North Hills woman who authorities allege plied a young girl with crack cocaine and photographed her having sex with an older man was indicted Tuesday on federal charges of producing child pornography and child sex trafficking.

Letha Montemayor Tucker was named Tuesday in a four-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury. If convicted of all the charges, Tucker would face a mandatory minimum federal prison sentence of 10 years and could get up to life in prison, authorities said.

The charges come a month after authorities sought the public's help in the investigation by releasing photographs of a man and woman depicted in a set of widely circulated child pornography photos. 

Tips started pouring in immediately after the photos were released, investigators said.

Tucker, who goes by the name Butterfly, was located about 10 hours after the release of the photos and taken into custody, said Claude Arnold, special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations in Los Angeles, a division of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The alleged victim, who was about 12 years old when the photos were taken, was located within a week of the case going public, Arnold said. She is an adult now and is cooperating with authorities, he said. In addition to photographing the girl having sex with the man, authorities say, Tucker also committed sex acts with the victim.

Authorities are still trying to identify the man in the photographs.  

The photos were part of a child pornography collection known as the "Jen Series." The 40-some photos were first discovered by investigators in the Chicago area in 2007. Investigators say images in the series have been reported about 300 times and have been found on computers across the country.

The victim "didn't even know these images were out there," Arnold said.

An arraignment for Tucker is scheduled Feb. 13.

For the record, 6:06 p.m.: A previous version of this post gave the incorrect job title for Arnold.

ALSO:

Chris Brown case raises tough questions for Virginia authorities

L.A. supervisors approve task force to examine 'maternity hotels'

Amid molestation scandal, archdiocese mulls over $200-million fund-raiser

-- Hailey Branson-Potts

Photo: Letha Montemayor Tucker, 52, of North Hills is led away by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after her arrest on suspicion of child pornography Jan. 3. Credit: Associated Press

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China Issues Plan to Narrow Income Gap

HONG KONG — The Chinese government on Tuesday issued a long-awaited plan to narrow the gulf between rich and poor, offering broad vows to lift the incomes of workers and farmers and choke off corrupt wealth but few specific goals to rein in the nation’s wide inequality.

The proposal was mired for months in an internal dispute about whether to aggressively scale back the rising salaries and benefits of some officials working for state-owned business and banks. The document that emerged from the discussions is filled with commitments to deal with that issue and other sources of public concern about the gap between the incomes of residents of dirt-poor villages and those living in privileged urban enclaves.

“There are some stark problems in income distribution that need urgent solving,” said the plan, which was issued on the central government’s Web site. “Chiefly, there remain quite large disparities in urban-rural development and incomes, income allocation is poorly ordered, and there are quite serious problems with invisible and unlawful sources of income.” The document was drafted by the National Development and Reform Commission and other central agencies.

The income distribution plan was one of the initiatives promised by the departing Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, who leaves office in March. But it also underscores the extent to which the country’s new generation of leaders under Xi Jinping has also promised to expand state spending on health care, education and social welfare.

Mr. Xi, who was appointed Communist Party chief in November and is set to become state president in March, has said he wants to accelerate economic changes in the spirit of Deng Xiaoping, who began the process of transforming China into a more modern economy after decades of rule by Mao Zedong. But in the process of introducing market forces in China, such changes have starkly widened income disparities.

Since Mr. Xi took office, Chinese news media have reported on a succession of officials who have been accused of siphoning bribes and public money into their pockets. The income plan, however, does not offer specific new initiatives to reduce corruption.

Beyond a general commitment to eliminate sources of illegal income, the plan says that officials must abide by already announced rules to report earnings and assets to superiors. Many experts, however, have said such rules are ineffective without public disclosure as well.

Average disposable annual income for Chinese urban residents in 2012 was the equivalent of about $4,000, an increase of 9.6 percent after taking inflation into account. Average rural net income was just under $1,300 per person, a rise of 10.7 percent after adjusting for inflation, the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics announced in January.

The bureau also said that in 2012 China’s Gini Coefficient, a widely used index of income inequality, was 0.474, slightly higher than levels of inequality in the United States, where income disparity has widened sharply in recent decades and now stands as one of the highest among advanced industrial nations. But some economists have said China’s measure is actually much higher, when illicit and poorly reported sources of wealth are taken into account.

“Deepening reform of the income distribution system is an extremely arduous and complex task of systemic engineering,” the new plan says. “It cannot be achieved in one step.”

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Bridget Jones Is Back: Helen Fielding to Release New Novel in November

02/05/2013 at 12:30 PM EST

Renée Zellweger in Bridget Jones's Diary

Everett

Bridget's back – and better than ever?

It's been 14 years since readers last heard from frumpy, lovelorn, calorie-counting Bridget Jones, memorably played on film by Renée Zellweger.

Now author Helen Fielding is readying a brand-new Jones novel, but don't expect her lovable protagonist to be exactly the same this time around.

According to a press release about the book obtained by the New York Times, the book will take place in present day London and "represents a totally new phase in Bridget's life."

Considered by some to be a possible Fielding alter-ego, the author explains: "My life has moved on and Bridget's will move on, too."

The new, currently untitled book will be released by Alfred A. Knopf in November, and it's the follow up to 1996's Bridget Jones's Diary and 1999's Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason.

What do you think Bridget has been up to in the years that passed? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Read More..