Jessica loses her voice

Jessica loses her voice
NEW YORK -- Talk about bad timing. At the start of a media blitz to support her new album, "A Public Affair," Jessica Simpson is on vocal rest.
"It is true that she has indeed lost her voice," Simpson's publicist, Rob Shuter, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "She's been ordered to rest. ... She can talk, she can croak out a few sentences. She sounds a little off, but, you know, she can't sing."
Simpson, 26, fell ill Friday and has "a strain, a bruise on her vocal cord," Shuter told the AP.
She canceled a spot on CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman" this week, Shuter said. She is to perform on NBC's "Today" show Friday.
"She's trying," Shuter said. "Everybody is hoping and keeping their fingers crossed."
Costner visits 'Coasties'
ALAMEDA, Calif. -- Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher visited a U.S. Coast Guard station to promote their new film, "The Guardian," about two Coast Guard swimmers who rescue fisherman and boaters from dangerous ocean waters.
Costner told the assembled "Coasties" during the first stop of a planned multistate tour of Coast Guard stations that actors "are not nearly as impressive in person as we seem to be on film."
"We get to portray these men and women who are often tougher than we are, men and women who are often smarter than we are, and in the case of 'The Guardian,' we are talking about men and women with the personal courage to put themselves in danger in a way I don't know I would," the 51-year-old actor-director said Monday.
"The Guardian" is set for release Sept. 29.
Today's birthdays
Country singer Kitty Wells is 87. Actor Bill Daily is 78. Actress Elizabeth Ashley is 67. Cartoonist R. Crumb is 63. Skier Jean-Claude Killy is 63. Actress Peggy Lipton is 59. Comedian Lewis Black is 58. Actor Timothy Bottoms is 55. Actor Michael Chiklis is 43. Country singer Sherrie Austin is 35. Actress Cameron Diaz is 34. Rock musician Matt Taul (Tantric) is 28. Rock singer-musician Aaron Barrett (Reel Big Fish) is 26. Tennis player Andy Roddick is 24.