Will Smith staged 'reality check' dinner for Tyrese Gibson

TRANSFORMERS director MICHAEL BAY called in pal WILL SMITH to share a few words of wisdom with his star TYRESE GIBSON after the actor/singer made a series of errors on the set of his blockbuster.

Gibson refuses to go into detail about what he did to upset the moviemaker, but it led to a tense dinner table showdown with Smith, during which the Men in Black star lectured his protege on how to make it Hollywood.

The Fast & the Furious 6 star tells news show Access Hollywood, "The first dinner that me and Will had, I called it the reality check dinner... I probably ran from the dinner table about 15 times during this conversation because he was dropping such heavy jewels (of wisdom) on me. It was crazy.

Mermaids do not exist, U.S. government agency confirms

(CNN) - One of John Athanson's earliest memories is seeing mermaids at Weeki Wachee Springs, the "City of Live Mermaids."

Today, the 47-year-old is the public relations manager for Weeki Wachee Springs State Park, and has been for 10 years.

The park north of Tampa, Florida, hosts shows year-round involving women dressed as mermaids. It bills itself as "a magical entrance into a mysterious blue underwater world of mermaids, manatees, turtles and bubbles."

"If you ask me, (mermaids) do exist," Athanson said Thursday. "They exist, and they exist right here in Weeki Wachee."

He was responding to the U.S. government's fresh announcement to the contrary.

Mermaids do NOT exist, agency assures Americans after TV show prompts questions from viewers

The question as to whether mermaids are real or not was recently put to rest as a U.S. scientific agency confirmed the sea creatures do not exist.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have confirmed that there is no evidence that the half-human, half-fish beings are a genuine living species.

The agency made a statement last week clarifying that the sea species is not real after they received a few calls following a fictional Animal Planet show called Mermaids: The Body Found that confused some viewers as fact.

Twelve things you don't need to pay for

Good at cooking or baking and want to learn a language for free? Try a skill swap. Photograph: Image Source/Alamy

One of the best ways to save money is to never pay for anything you can get for free. Here are 12 things that you could end up paying for but don't need to.
1. Reclaiming PPI

There are a multitude of companies offering to help you claim your money back if you have been a victim of payment protection insurance mis-selling. Most of these firms will take a percentage of whatever compensation you may be eligible for – usually 25% – and on top of that there can be other charges. If you do the legwork yourself it won't cost you anything, except perhaps the price of a postage stamp. Our guide on how to reclaim PPI can help you determine whether to make the claim yourself.

END OF THE WORLD POSTPONED

  

YUCATAN – Mayan scholars have updated their doomsday prophecy. The world will end in 2015, not 2012.Oops…. They made a mistake. There’s good news for those who were fearing the 2012 Mayan apocalypse. They counted wrong. The world is not going to end in December 2012. Instead, it’s going to end on September 3, 2015. Update your daily planners!

A new critique, published as a chapter in the new textbook “Calendars and Years: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient and Medieval World” argues that the accepted conversions of dates from Mayan to the modern calendar are off. This coupled with a new book, “We Are All Going To Die In 2015″ by Fritz Barnkopf are rewriting the Mayan doomsday playbook that has been popularized in our culture over the last ten years.