FAIRFIELD, New Jersey (Reuters) – Raging waterways caused dramatic flooding on Monday across New Jersey, as the state’s death toll rose to seven as rivers and creeks rose from the force of Hurricane Irene.

The New Jersey Office of Emergency Management said the state had registered seven deaths related to Irene.

FAIRFIELD, New Jersey (Reuters) – Raging waterways caused dramatic flooding on Monday across New Jersey, as the state’s rivers and creeks rose from the force of Hurricane Irene.

Fairfield, a town 25 miles west of New York City that is surrounded on three sides by the curving Passaic River, was in danger of becoming an island, said Armando Fontoura, the Essex County sheriff and the county emergency management coordinator.

By Christine Kearney

SOUTHAMPTON, NY. (Reuters) – The typically crowded streets of Long Island’s posh Hamptons resort towns were quiet and many of the island’s East End mansions shuttered tight on Saturday, awaiting a likely battering from Hurricane Irene.

Some 400,000 people in coastal towns along Long Island, including another popular resort, Fire Island, were under evacuation orders ahead of the storm, officials said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – It’s still very early. In fact, it’s not yet awards season in Hollywood, but already movie fans might have their first bona fide contender for this year’s best actor Oscar.

Briton Dominic Cooper gives what critics are calling a brilliant performance in dual roles of the brutal, sadistic Uday Hussein — the son of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein — and his emotionally conflicted body double, Latif Yahia, in new movie “The Devil’s Double.”

By Christine Kearney

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – British actress Rachel Weisz won an Oscar for her role in “The Constant Gardner,” playing a passionate activist whose husband sets out to discover the truth behind her murder.

Now, in “The Whistleblower,” she portrays real-life law enforcement officer Kathy Bolkovac, who went to Bosnia on a peacekeeping mission and discovered U.N. officials and others colluding with contractors in human trafficking.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – For whistleblower Kathy Bolkovac, life hasn’t exactly turned out like it did for Erin Brockovich.

Some audiences seeing a new film, “The Whistleblower” based on former international law enforcement official Bolkovac, might think justice was served as she battled government organizations to expose human trafficking in Bosnia.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Ryan Gosling claims that after his last film, the moody “Blue Valentine,” it took him several months to “acclimate out of the experience” and he paid a visit to the doctor.

“He wrote me a prescription and I looked at it and it said, ‘Do a comedy’,” the 30-year-old Canadian actor said, adding the story he has been repeating to reporters while promoting his new comedy, “Stupid, Crazy, Love,” is absolutely true.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Katy Perry believes keeping “good people around” helps her deal with the pressures of being one of the world’s biggest pop stars, which currently has her on a global concert tour and taking part in her first movie.

As the music world mourns the death of British singer Amy Winehouse, Perry told Reuters she is not tempted by the hedonistic lifestyle that has helped fuel the demise of talented performers before her.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Beyonce Knowles has had it all before turning 30, yet is still humbled by what she calls “the biggest opportunity of my life” — the lead role in Clint Eastwood’s remake of the film, “A Star Is Born.”

The singer and burgeoning actress, whose fourth solo album “4″ debuted at No. 1 on pop charts after its release in June, told Reuters she felt lucky to have landed the iconic role previously played by Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sapphire’s first book became the unlikely Oscar-winning movie “Precious,” but the author isn’t expecting more Hollywood gold from her follow-up novel which features harrowing passages of rape and sexual abuse.

Her first novel, “Push,” about an obese, illiterate, sexually abused, Harlem teenage mother nicknamed “Precious”, catapulted to No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list after the film version became an unlikely success — 13 years after her the book’s 1996 release.