The photographer who gave Britney Spears a lift to her Studio City home after she abandoned her car with a flat tire Monday night has detailed their brief ride together, saying the pop star spent most of the ride sending text messages.

“She broke out her cell phone and was sending text messages the entire time,” the pap, who works for photo agency x17, says on their Web site.

He also says the singer put on Timbaland’s “Shock Value,” got quiet when asked about spending time with Adnan Ghalib, and that she invited the photographer inside once they reached her house.

At one point during the ride, the photographer snapped his fingers and said to Spears: “Hey, girl, are you alright?” then told her not to worry. Spears’s reaction? She laughed, according to the account.

Inside her reportedly immaculate home, Spears told the photographer “don’t be lame” when he asked permission to snap her photo.

Later Monday night, Spears and her assistant, Carla, had dinner in a room at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, then stayed the night at the nearby Peninsula Hotel.

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As the Golden Globes became the first awards-show casualty in the Hollywood writers strike, the Critics’ Choice Awards fared better Monday – and with no picket lines in sight, that meant an all-star showing, from Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie to George Clooney and Katie Holmes.

The 13th annual awards, handed out by the Broadcast Film Critics Association, are not covered by Writers Guild contracts, so unlike the Globes (and other upcoming awards shows), the Critics’ Choice Awards were not impacted by the writers’ strike.

So the A-listers showed up to party and celebrate the night’s winners. No Country for Old Men was named best picture, with its oddly coiffed bad guy, Javier Bardem, winning best supporting actor.

Other big winners: Daniel Day-Lewis earned best actor (and a standing ovation) for his performance in There Will Be Blood, Julie Christie was named best actress for Away from Her, Amy Ryan was named best supporting actress for Gone Baby Gone (Ben Affleck’s directorial debut), and teen-pregnancy comedy Juno was named best comedy.

Inside the auditorium, it was a laid-back party scene: A goateed Pitt got cozy with Jolie (who was nominated for A Mighty Heart), while Sean Penn, Eddie Vedder and Catherine Keener all mingled at the Into the Wild table (Penn’s film led with seven nominations).

The writers’ strike was still definitely on the minds of everyone, with winners and presenters sending their support while urging both sides to return to the table.

“When the strike happens, it’s not just writers [affected],” Clooney said onstage. “Our hope is that all the players will lock themselves in a room and not come out until they finish. We want this to be done. That’s the most important thing.”

Comedian Eddie Izzard provided his own chilling example of awards-show writing during the strike.

“Okey dokey from WGA came during teatime, so some speechy talk not so good as other mans,” he said. “This was wrote in toilet, so only first draft and a bit la-la.”

Clooney also delivered the inaugural Joel Siegel Award (named after the late ABC movie critic) to Ocean’s Thirteen costar Don Cheadle for his humanitarian work.

Here’s a rundown of the night’s winners:

Best Picture
No Country for Old Men

Best Comedy
Juno

Best Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood

Best Actress
Julie Christie, Away from Her

Best Supporting Actor
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone

Best Acting Ensemble
Hairspray

Best Young Actor
Ahma Khan Mahmidzada

Best Young Actress
Nikki Blonsky, Hairspray

Best Director
Ethan and Joel Coen, No Country for Old Men

Best Writer
Diablo Cody, Juno

Best Composer
Jonny Greenwood, There Will Be Blood

Best Song
“Falling Slowly,” Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova, Once

Best Foreign Language Film
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Best Animated Feature
Ratatouille

Best Family Film
Enchanted

Best Documentary
Sicko

Best Picture Made for Television
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

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Nicole Kidman and husband Keith Urban are expecting their first child, her rep confirms.

“The couple are thrilled,” Catherine Olim says in a statement.

For Kidman, 40, this will be her third child. She and her former husband, Tom Cruise adopted two children during their marriage: Isabella, now 15, and Connor, 12.

As for where Kidman and Urban, 40, who will be a first-time parent, may bring up their impending arrival, the couple, though both from Down Under, purchased a farm near Leipers Fork, Tenn., a half-hour southwest of Nashville, in 2007.

The couple, who have been married 18 months, wed, after a yearlong courtship, on June 25, 2006, in a candlelit ceremony at Sydney, Australia’s Cardinal Cerretti Memorial Chapel on St. Patrick’s Estate at Manly. Guests at the black-tie event included Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman, Naomi Watts and Rupert Murdoch.

Before the couple even started dating, Kidman made her desire for more children clear. In April 2005, she told reporters that her biological clock was ticking. “I have got hormones running through my system,” she said. “That is why I sit wriggling, saying I want to have a baby.”

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It looks like Jamie Lynn Spears is hitting the books.

The 16-year-old pregnant star was photographed in Kentwood, La. on Friday carrying a GED book, used to study for a high school equivalency degree.

Spears, who announced last month that she’s expecting a baby, was pictured outside a building that houses both the Tangipahoa Parish School System Adult Education Center, which is a GED preparation site, and the Title I Parent Center, which teaches parents how to help their children learn reading skills.

The star of Nickelodeon’s Zoey 101 previously attended the prestigious Park Lane Academy in McComb Miss., which she had been going to off-and-on for years, depending on her filming schedule. (She studied with tutors while in Los Angeles.)

Just before Thanksgiving of 2007, Spears enrolled at the school full time, saying that she had completed her filming, according to a school staffer. But after Thanksgiving, Spears said she was needed back in Los Angeles. The source says that if Spears had tried to stay, she likely would have been expelled for being pregnant. The school had no official comment.

Spears has been keeping a low-profile since she announced she is expecting a child – and hasn’t been photographed since her big sister, Britney Spears, suffered a meltdown last week.

However, two weeks before Jamie Lynn revealed her pregnancy, she was seen buying several pregnancy-related items, a source says.

Spears picked up a pregnancy calendar, the well-known book What to Expect When You’re Expecting and a sonogram frame, according to a clerk at the Brookhaven, Miss., baby boutique Expectations.

“It was just random things – she was in here with one of her girlfriends,” says the clerk, who asked not to be named. “It was about two weeks before it hit the news that she was having a baby. She hasn’t been back. She’s probably laying low.”

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The Golden Globe Awards have become a victim of the writers’ strike.

Organizers said Monday they’ve officially abandoned the televised formal ceremony this Sunday and will replace it with a press conference announcement of the winners.

“We are all very disappointed that our traditional awards ceremony will not take place this year and that millions of viewers worldwide will be deprived of seeing many of their favorite stars celebrating 2007’s outstanding achievements in motion pictures and television,” Hollywood Foreign Press Association president Jorge Camara said. “We take some comfort, however, in knowing that this year’s Golden Globe Award recipients will be announced on the date originally scheduled.”

The drastic move is in response to the Screen Actors Guild pledge that its members would not cross picket lines by the Writers Guild of America, effectively leaving the show without any stars.

Instead of the lavish ceremony, the HFPA, which sponsors the awards, will now announce the winners at an hour-long press conference broadcast on NBC.

“The 65th Annual Golden Globe Awards NBC telecast and champagne dinner in the Beverly Hilton’s International Ballroom is officially canceled,” the HFPA said in a statement.

The writing had been on the wall that, despite the best efforts of the network and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the ceremony was in jeopardy. On Friday it was reported that the nominated actors would not cross the Writers Guild picket lines to attend the ceremony.

In terms of Globe nominations, Atonement led the list of movies in competition, with seven.

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Dr. Phil McGraw is telling Britney Spears that she is not too far gone to turn her life around.

“You can make this okay,” the TV therapist, who at the request of her family briefly visited Spears while she was in the hospital, says in a message to the pop star that is posted on ETonline.com. “Your family loves you. You may not always agree with what they say, with what they do but they’ve loved you when you weren’t lovable. Turn to the people that love you and listen. You have two children and you are the one in this world to protect them. There is no sacrifice that [your mother Lynne] won’t make for you, and there is no sacrifice that your father won’t make. They are the people that want nothing from you, and everything for you.”

McGraw, a longtime Spears family friend, had planned to do a show about Britney’s condition and “the very serious issues surrounding this case. [But] because the Spears situation is too intense at this time, and out of consideration to the family, I have made the decision not to move forward with the taping at this particular time,” he announced Monday.

Still, he advises via Entertainment Tonight, “She needs to be in treatment, she needs to be in in-patient care for a period of time. Is she having a rough time right now? Yes she is. Why? I’m not really going to go into that at this point. But I can tell you this is a good person and I truly believe she’ll get back to being a good person.”

As for the criticism McGraw has encountered over his stepping into the Britney situation, particularly in the tabloids and on blogs, he hurls the brick right back.

“They are waiting for her next meltdown. These are the people that are stalking her and they want to criticize me for trying to help her, for trying to bring help to her in cooperation with the family that loves her. Get real,” he says. “Somebody needs to step up and get this young woman in to some quality care – and I do not apologize one whit, not one second, for trying to make that happen.”

Expanding upon the statements released earlier, McGraw said of Spears on Monday’s The Insider and, later, on Entertainment Tonight, “What I’m hoping is to get her some help.”

Of the star’s general situation, McGraw, who likened getting into visit Spears at Cedar-Sinai Medical Center to getting into Fort Knox, says, “She needs less publicity, not more … She doesn’t need to be on television. She needs to be in treatment, she needs to be in in-patient care for a time.”

Spears, 26, was hospitalized early the morning of Jan. 4 under California’s “5150 Hold,” in which she was deemed a danger to herself or others and could be held for 72 hours for evaluation. But Spears left the hospital on Saturday, well before the 72 hours. Patients can be released early if doctors determine they no longer require treatment or evaluation.

McGraw said what he witnessed visiting Spears in Cedars-Sinai will remain private.

“People forget about Britney for all the time she was a young, talented, delightful woman,” said McGraw. “Is she having a rough time right now? Yes, she is. Why? I’m not really going to go into that at this point.”

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As news of Britney Spears’s latest problems became public, horrified family and friends watched the drama unfold along with the rest of the world. After a day of constant media attention, several of them spoke out, expressing concern for Britney, her family and her two sons.

“It was very upsetting yesterday, just worrying about it all day,” says Britney’s aunt, Linda Brandon-Kjos. “We’re all just hoping and praying she’s fine. She’s a sweet, sweet girl and people aren’t seeing that side of her.”

“She’s got to be reaching out for something and no one knows what it is,” adds former dance teacher Renee Donewar. “It is so sad that the people that are close to her can’t reach through to her.”

Doreen Seal, the mother of Jason Alexander, the man Britney married for 55 hours in 2004, expressed some reservations that the latest event was a turning point. “She has not hit rock bottom,” Seal says. “She needs help. If she doesn’t get help, I don’t think anybody wants to see the way this will end.

“When she was younger, she had her friends, her cousin and for the longest time, she had [ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake],” continues Seal. “Now, she has nobody.”

“All I can say is that Britney is a very sick girl,” says another family source. “The tragic thing is that Britney genuinely loves her children and would never knowingly put them in harm’s way. Her mental instability is getting in the way of her making proper judgment and it’s extremely unfortunate. Her family’s taking this situation very seriously though. I just hope people can respect the fact that she needs help and keep the harsh criticisms to themselves.”

Other friends offered support, but no advice. Britney’s former assistant, Felicia Culotta, simply says, “My heart and prayers are with her and her family.”

Many members of her family are handling the latest news stoically. Spears’s grandfather, June Austin Spears, says, “We’re doing all right,” before adding, “I’m going fishing tomorrow morning.”

Residents of Spears’s hometown of Kentwood, La., had differing reactions to Britney’s erratic behavior.

“I think she’s just a normal person,” says Kentwood Realtor Tissie Gorman. “I can’t see nothing bad about her.”

Another Kentwood resident disagrees. “[Britney] is going backward instead of forward. She’ll never get her children now. I wonder if she really wants her children.”

Many residents want Britney to know that she still has hometown support. “Everyone in Kentwood is praying for Britney,” says a friend of Jamie Spears’s. “We just want her to get better and come home.”

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