Serena Williams: Emotions won out

NEW YORK -- Serena Williams says her emotions got the best of her when she berated the chair umpire during her loss to Samantha Stosur in the U.S. Open final.
"My emotions did get the best of me this past weekend when I disagreed with the umpire," Williams tweeted Wednesday. "It has been a long road to get back to the US Open this year, and I am thankful to have had such a great two weeks in New York."

Williams' tweet came two days after she was cited for a code violation and fined $2,000 for verbally abusing chair umpire Eva Asderaki.

Facing a break point while serving in the first game of the second set Sunday night, Williams hit a forehand that she celebrated with a yell of "Come on!"

Asderaki applied the hindrance rule, noting the scream came while Stosur reached out and got a racket on the ball. Asderaki awarded the point to Stosur.

That set Williams off on a series of insults directed at the official, reminiscent of her tirade on the same court when she berated and brandished her racket at a line judge who called a foot fault in the 2009 semifinal against Kim Clijsters.

Anderson Cooper, Gloria Vanderbilt Address Carter Vanderbilt Cooper's Suicide

It's been more than two decades since Anderson Cooper's brother Carter Vanderbilt Cooper flung himself from the 14th-floor terrace of his family's NYC penthouse apartment.

In a rare interview, Anderson, 44, sat down with his mom, Gloria Vanderbilt, and recalls that tragic day in 1988 when Carter, then 23, took his own life.

"When he went … I thought he was going to come back, but he didn't," Vanderbilt, 87, remembers in the one-on-one conversation that airs Monday on Anderson's syndicated talk show. "He let go, and there was a moment when I thought I was going to jump over after him."

But the former fashion designer says Anderson, who was 21 at the time, gave her a reason to continue living.

"I thought of you and it stopped me from [jumping]," Vanderbilt tells her son, whose eyes brim with tears.

Although it is rare to hear Anderson or his mom speak publicly about their family tragedy, Vanderbilt wrote a book in 1997 called A Mother's Story, in which she discusses the medicine allergy she believes caused her son to make the spontaneous decision to kill himself.

"The fatal loss stripped me bare," Vanderbilt says in the book of losing Carter, a seemingly confident Princeton graduate.

Mom Fights Girl, 12, on Long Island: Cops

A Long Island mom has been arrested and charged with allegedly encouraging two 12-year-old girls to duke it out during a dispute outside an elementary school -- and then participating in the fight herself.

Daphne Melin of Shirley has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child and attempted assault.

Mary Jones, 11, goes to school with the two girls.

She said she saw "hair tugging and ripping and pushing and then the mom just started beating up the girl."

Police said the fight on Sunday lasted several minutes.

Melin "spit in the girl's face and then grabbed her by the hair and kneed her in the head several times," Suffolk police said.

Melin said her daughter was the victim of cyber-bullying and that she was getting no help from the school, so she took the matter into her own hands.

Sofia Vergara Talks Transexual Body, Gay Friends

 She's one of the most photographed women in Hollywood, with a body and bust line that is practically its own character in every project she's in, but if you ask Sofia Vergara, she's all (former) man.

The "Modern Family" Emmy nominee sat down for an interview with The Advocate, and amongst the gay-themed many topics she touched on, she mentioned "Grilled," a direct-to-DVD film she made in which she plays a post-op transsexual.

"I look like a transsexual anyway," she responded when asked if it was a difficult role to play. "I’m a woman, but I’m super-exaggerated with my boobs, my ass, my makeup, and my accent. When I get ready for an event, I always look at myself in the mirror and say, 'I look like a transvestite!' I love it."

Vergara, who will star in the Farrelly Brothers' revival of "The Three Stooges," be part of the ensemble in "New Year's Eve" and featured in this year's big screen adaptation of "The Smurfs," also says that, unlike many actresses, she's happy to stay in her wheelhouse: making people laugh.

Kara Kennedy Allen, Daughter of Former Senator, Dies at 51

Kara Kennedy Allen, the daughter of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, died Friday while at a Washington-area health club. She was 51.  

Her death was reported by her brother, Patrick, the former Representative from Rhode Island, who told The Associated Press that “she’s with dad.” Their father died in August 2009.

Ms. Allen, the eldest of Mr. Kennedy’s children, led a more private life than most Kennedys of her generation. She was a shy person, who was able to go out in public without being recognized. But she also traveled with her father from time to time; in 1984, she went with him to a refugee camp in Ethiopia during a famine.

In 2003, Ms. Allen developed lung cancer, which some doctors deemed inoperable. But she found surgeons who were willing to proceed, and her cancer went into remission. In 2009, she accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom on his behalf of ailing father.