Judd rides Santa Train; all aboard are helping out

Judd rides Santa Train;all aboard are helping out
KINGSPORT, Tenn. -- Naomi Judd will be riding the 63rd annual Santa Train today, helping deliver 15 tons of goodies and gifts to the children of Appalachia.
Donated by Jacksonville, Fla.-based CSX Transportation and loaded with food and toys secured by grocer Food City of Abingdon, Va., the train trip kicks off the holiday season with a 110-mile trek to 15 communities in eastern Kentucky and Virginia.
The train arrives back in Kingsport in time for Santa to join the Christmas parade this afternoon.
Judd, best known for her Grammy-winning duets with her daughter, Wynonna, also is the author of three children's books. She will have plenty of copies of her latest offering, "Gertie the Goldfish and the Christmas Surprise," to give away.
A camera crew from her new television show, "Naomi's New Morning," will be tagging along. The show premieres Nov. 27 on the Hallmark Channel.
Reeve: I'm beating odds,and tumor is shrinking
NEW YORK -- Dana Reeve, who announced three months ago that she has lung cancer, said Thursday she is responding well to treatment and that her tumor is "shrinking and shrinking and shrinking."
Reeve, 44, won worldwide admiration for the support of her husband, "Superman" star Christopher Reeve, who was paralyzed in a horse-riding accident in 1996 and died last year. She announced her lung cancer diagnosis in August.
"I'm beating the odds and defying every statistic the doctors can throw at me," Reeve told the audience at a fund-raiser for The Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation on Thursday evening.
At the gala, the Christopher Reeve Spirit of Courage Award was awarded to husband and wife Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Dana Reeve succeeded her husband as chair of the foundation, which he founded. The event raised $2 million, a foundation spokeswoman said.
kJolie puts spotlighton orphan crisis
WASHINGTON -- Actress Angelina Jolie used her star power Thursday to draw attention to a new law assisting the world's orphans and to push for funding.
The law, the Assistance for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children in Developing Countries Act, was signed recently by President Bush. It directs the government to evaluate the effectiveness of U.S. assistance aimed at the more than 143 million orphans living in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Caribbean.
But the law still needs to be backed up by $340 million in funding, said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif. That's about one-tenth of what the U.S. is expected to devote to the global AIDS crisis this year.
Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, has adopted two foreign orphans, a Cambodian son and an Ethiopian daughter.
Today's birthdays
Actor Alan Young is 86. Talk-show host Larry King is 72. Talk-show host Dick Cavett is 69. Fashion designer Calvin Klein is 63. Sportscaster Ahmad Rashad is 56. Actress Kathleen Quinlan is 51. Actress Glynnis O'Connor is 50. Newscaster Ann Curry is 49. Actress Allison Janney is 45. Actress Meg Ryan is 44. Actress-director Jodie Foster is 43. Rhythm-and-blues singer Lil' Mo is 28.