We know the movie's not for everybody," Jodie Foster said over breakfast not long ago, referring to her third directorial feature, "The Beaver."
The comedy-drama stars Mel Gibson as Walter Black, a suburban family man whose paralyzing depression leads to a personality split: A blunt-talking, Cockney-accented beaver puppet becomes his alter ego and coping mechanism, much to the amusement and consternation of his family and co-workers — and eventually to his own horror.
"The film has a strange tone to it," said Foster, who co-stars as Walter's befuddled wife. "It's challenging for an audience because it starts out on a light note and has a very high-concept tone in some ways, and little by little it sort of becomes darker fairly quickly."
The unusual premise is certainly one marketing challenge (the film's initial concept leaned more heavily on the comedy, with Steve Carell attached at one point). And there is, obviously, the dilemma of Gibson himself, who has become persona non grata to audiences turned off by his well-publicized temper and a string of bad acts.
WASHINGTON -- Holed up in a compound in Pakistan, Osama bin Laden was scheming how to hit the United States hard again, according to newly uncovered documents that show al-Qaida plans for derailing an American train on the upcoming 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Details of the plan emerged Thursday as some of the first intelligence was gleaned from the trove of information found in bin Laden's residence when Navy SEALs killed the al-Qaida leader and four of his associates. They took his body and scooped up computers, DVDs and documents from the compound where U.S. officials think he had been living for as long as six years.
The confiscated materials reveal the rail attack planning as of February 2010. One idea outlined in handwritten notes was to tamper with an unspecified U.S. rail track so that a train would fall off the track at a valley or a bridge. Counterterrorism officials said they believe the plot was only in the initial planning stages, and there is no recent intelligence about any active plan for such an attack. The FBI and Homeland Security issued an intelligence bulletin with details of the plan to law enforcement around the country. The bulletin, marked "for official use only," was obtained by The Associated Press.
Other intelligence pulled from the compound represented a terrorist wish list but has revealed no specific plan so far. Some documents indicated a desire to strike the U.S. with large-scale attacks in major cities and on key dates such as anniversaries and holidays. But there never was any sign that those were anything more than ambitions, said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the intelligence.
Even before the raid, intelligence officials for years had warned that al-Qaida was interested in attacking major U.S. cities on prominent dates on the American calendar. Since bin Laden's death, authorities have warned of the possibility of revenge attacks.
A statement posted on militant websites Friday, apparently issued by al-Qaida leadership, gives the group's confirmation that bin Laden is dead and threatens retaliation against Americans. "Soon, God willing, their happiness will turn to sadness," it said, "their blood will be mingled with their tears."
Monday's raid by helicopter-borne SEALs was fraught with risk, sensationally bold and a historic success, netting a man who had been on the run for nearly a decade after his terrorist organization pulled off the devastating Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. During the raid, the SEALs met far less resistance than the Obama administration initially described. The commandos encountered gunshots from only one man, whom they quickly killed, before sweeping the house and shooting others, who were unarmed, a senior defense official said in the latest account.
The New York Times and Washington Post reported Thursday on their websites that a CIA surveillance team had been watching bin Laden's residence from a rented house near the compound for months. The agency declined to comment on the reports.
President Barack Obama visited New York's ground zero on Thursday during a somber and understated event where he avoided mentioning bin Laden by name.
The U.S. account of what happened inside bin Laden's Abbottabad compound is so far the only one most Americans have. Pakistan has custody of the people rounded up afterward, including more than two dozen children and women. Differing accounts purporting to be from witnesses have appeared in Pakistani and Arab media, and on the Internet.
Intelligence analysts have been reviewing and translating the material seized from the compound, looking for information about pending plots and other terror connections. In light of the intelligence indicating al-Qaida was considering an attack on a U.S. railway, the FBI and Homeland Security told local officials to be on the lookout for clips or spikes missing from train tracks, packages left on or near the tracks and other indications that a train could be vulnerable.
"While it is clear that there was some level of planning for this type of operation in February 2010, we have no recent information to indicate an active ongoing plot to target transportation and no information on possible locations or specific targets," Thursday's warning to law enforcement said.
Homeland Security spokesman Matt Chandler said, "This alleged al-Qaida plotting is based on initial reporting, which is often misleading or inaccurate and subject to change." He said the government has no plans to issue an official terror alert because of it.
On Monday, the FBI and Homeland Security warned law enforcement officials around the country that bin Laden's death could inspire retaliatory attacks in the U.S., and terrorists not yet known to the intelligence community could be operating inside the country.
The transportation sector -- including U.S. railways -- continue to be attractive targets for terrorists. In the past few years, U.S. officials have disrupted other terror plots that targeted rails, including a 2009 plan to bomb the New York City subway system.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she's urged the homeland security secretary to increase the country's threat level while the material seized from bin Laden's compound is reviewed.
"I continue to question the secretary's decision not to increase the threat level," said Collins, the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
There has been a long-lived bit of Apollo moon landing folklore that now appears to be a dead-end affair: microbes on the moon.
The lunar mystery swirls around the Apollo 12 moon landing and the return to Earth by moonwalkers of a camera that was part of an early NASA robotic lander – the Surveyor 3 probe.
On Nov. 19, 1969, Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean made a precision landing on the lunar surface in Oceanus Procellarum, Latin for the Ocean of Storms. Their touchdown point was a mere 535 feet (163 meters) from the Surveyor 3 lander -- and an easy stroll to the hardware that had soft-landed on the lunar terrain years before, on April 20, 1967. [Video: Apollo 12 Visits Surveyor 3 Probe]
The Surveyor 3 camera was easy pickings and brought back to Earth under sterile conditions by the Apollo 12 crew. When scientists analyzed the parts in a clean room, they found evidence of microorganisms inside the camera.
In short, a small colony of common bacteria -- Streptococcus Mitis -- had stowed away on the device.
The astrobiological upshot as deduced from the unplanned experiment was that 50 to 100 of the microbes appeared to have survived launch, the harsh vacuum of space, three years of exposure to the moon's radiation environment, the lunar deep-freeze at an average temperature of minus 253 degrees Celsius, not to mention no access to nutrients, water or an energy source. [Photos: Our Changing Moon]
Now, fast forward to today.
NASA's dirty little secret?
A diligent team of researchers is now digging back into historical documents -- and even located and reviewed NASA's archived Apollo-era 16 millimeter film -- to come clean on the story.
As it turns out, there's a dirty little secret that has come to light about clean room etiquette at the time the Surveyor 3 camera was scrutinized.
"The claim that a microbe survived 2.5 years on the moon was flimsy, at best, even by the standards of the time," said John Rummel, chairman of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) Panel on Planetary Protection. "The claim never passed peer review, yet has persisted in the press -- and on the Internet -- ever since." [Coolest New Moon Discoveries]
The Surveyor 3 camera-team thought they had detected a microbe that had lived on the moon for all those years, "but they only detected their own contamination," Rummel told SPACE.com.
A former NASA planetary protection officer, Rummel is now with the Institute for Coastal Science & Policy at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C.
Rummel, along with colleaguesJudith Allton of NASA’s Johnson Space Center and Don Morrison, a former space agency lunar receiving laboratory scientist, recently presented their co-authored paper: "A Microbe on the Moon? Surveyor III and Lessons Learned for Future Sample Return Missions."
Poor space probe hygiene
Their verdict was given at a meeting on "The Importance of Solar System Sample Return Missions to the Future of Planetary Science," in March at The Woodlands,Texas, sponsored by the NASA Planetary Science Division and Lunar and Planetary Institute.
"If 'American Idol' judged microbiology, those guys would have been out in an early round," the research team writes of the way the Surveyor 3 camera team studied the equipment here on Earth. Or put more delicately, "The general scene does not lend a lot of confidence in the proposition that contamination did not occur," co-author Morrison said.
For example, participants studying the camera were found to be wearing short-sleeve scrubs, thus arms were exposed. Also, the scrub shirt tails were higher than the flow bench level … and would act as a bellows for particulates from inside the shirt, reports co-author Allton.
Other contamination control issues were flagged by the researchers.
In simple microbiology 101 speak, "a close personal relationship with the subject ... is not necessarily a good thing," the research team explains.
All in all, the likelihood that contamination occurred during sampling of the Surveyor 3 camera was shown to be very real.
A cautionary tale
On one hand, Rummel emphasized that today’s methods for handling return samples are much more effective at detecting microbes.
However, the Surveyor 3 incident back then raises a cautionary flag for the future.
"We need to be orders of magnitude more careful about contamination control than was the Surveyor 3 camera-team. If we aren't, samples from Mars could be drowned in Earth life upon return, and in all of that 'noise' we might never have the ability to detect Mars life we may have brought back, too," Rummel said. "We can, and we must, do a better job with a Mars sample return mission."
Winner of this year's National Space Club Press Award, Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines and has written for SPACE.com since 1999.
After President Barrack Obama announced his decision to not released the dead photos of Osama bin Laden, federal authorities warn the public not to click on email and Facebook messages claiming to offer images and videos of the Al Qaeda leader.
Since the killing of bin Laden on Sunday, e-mail and Facebook messages spread like wildfire containing malwares and computer viruses that aim to get the user’s personal information and worst, his credit card number.
This tactic has been used by hackers in the past using big news events like the Japan Earthquake as well as popular personalities like Justin Bieber as click baits.
Osama Bin Laden's wife revealed she did not leave their luxury lair for five years, Pakistani investigators confirmed to reporters on Thursday.
Amal al-Sadah, 29, was the youngest wife of the Al Qaeda leader, and was shot in the leg during the raid when she reportedly rushed towards the Navy SEALs invading the compound.
She told her captors that Bin Laden was still conscious when she was shot, and that her 12-year-old daughter told her he had been shot to death, according to the BBC.
Now in custody of the Pakistani military along with the other survivors of the raid, al-Sadah has provided key details that illuminate the terrorist's secret life while in hiding from the U.S. government.
The U.S. is reportedly in a tense back-and-forth with Pakistan over the opportunity to question al-Sadah.
According to some reports, she told investigators she did not leave a single room in the five years they lived in the compound, while other questioning has revealed Bin Laden split his time between only two different rooms, including the one in which he was shot to death.
"He used two rooms on one of the floors," Asad Munir, a former Pakistani intelligence officer, told ABC News. "He never went anywhere."
Bin Laden had five wives and 20 children, one of whom was also reportedly killed in the attack.
His wife's statements come as confirmation that Bin Laden had been sitting still for the last five years, rather than on the run as widely believed.
The U.S. government is now examining a trove of information taken from the Pakistani compound where he was killed, including hard drives and computer files that revealed terror plots in the works.
Though President Obama decided against releasing a photo of Bin Laden's dead bodies, graphic images of the other people killed in the raid were released by Reuters this week.
The battle against Al-Qaeda continues despite Osama bin Laden's death, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday on her first foreign visit since the US raid that killed him.
"Let us not forget that the battle to stop Al-Qaeda and its affiliates does not end with one death. We have to renew our resolve," Clinton said at a joint press conference with Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.
"The death of bin Laden deals a significant strategic blow to Al-Qaeda," she said, adding: "His ideology of hatred and violence is thankfully being rejected in what we see going on in the Middle East and Africa."
"Our resolve is even stronger following bin Laden's death because we know it will have an impact on those who are in the battlefield in Afghanistan."
She described the 38 minute duration of the operation to kill bin Laden, which she followed in real time alongside President Barack Obama and other senior officials at the White House, were "the most intense" of her life.
"His death will make our country and the world safer. We are builders not destroyers," she added.
Marie Osmond really took that "something old" maxim to heart at her surprise Wednesday wedding.
Not only did the entertainer, 51, remarry her first husband Stephen Craig -- she also wore the same wedding dress she donned a their first trip down the aisle back in 1982!
A new pic reveals Osmond resplendent at her do-over wedding with Craig (father to her son Stephen, now 28), which took place at the Las Vegas Mormon temple on Wednesday.
PHOTOS: Check out these classic royal wedding dresses
"I can't breathe, but I'm in it," Osmond told Entertainment Tonight.
"I had a dress all designed [for this wedding] and when it showed up it was not [right]. I was so sad, I was actually kind of in tears...I was cleaning out my garage and all of a sudden this box showed up in this pile of stuff ...and it was this dress and it was five days ago. I'm not kidding. Isn't that crazy?"
She and Craig first split up in 1985.
PHOTOS: Most unforgettable celebrity weddings
It's the third marriage and the second husband for Osmond, who married music producer Brian Blosil in 1986. She and Blosil had seven children together (two biological, five adopted).
Osmond's romantic news comes on the heels of a devastating 2010: In Februar y 2010, her son Michael Blosil committed suicide at age 18 by jumping from the eighth floor of his L.A. apartment building.
In fact, Osmond chose May 4 as her wedding day because it was the birthday of both Michael and her late mother.
PHOTOS: Couples who are better together
She gushed to ET about her surprising wedding. "Everything has been perfect and we just both can't believe it. We're so happy, and you know how you just know when something's right?
Stephen] has been there for me and he's just my best friend, you know, and loves my kids."
Navy SEALs Who Captured, Killed Osama Bin Laden Return to United States
The elite Navy SEAL fighters responsible for capturing and killing Osama bin Laden returned to the United States today. Before their return, a trove of information seized by the SEALS arrived at a FBI laboratory.
The SEALs, members of elite Team Six, arrived at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, D.C., sources told ABC News.
The arrival of the military members comes amid news that President Obama will not release photos of Bin Laden's corpse. Obama administration officials believe the photos could pose a national security risk and endanger Americans living in the United States and abroad.
Watch "KILL SHOT: THE STORY BEHIND BIN LADEN'S DEATH," a special "20/20" Friday at 10 p.m. ET.
A trove of information seized in the 40-minute raid that left Bin Laden dead arrived at an FBI laboratory in Quantico, Va., between Monday night and Tuesday, sources told ABC News. At least five computers, 10 hard drives and more than 100 digital media items, including disks, DVDs and thumb drives, traveled more than 7,000 miles to the FBI facility.
Tom Weber/Getty Images
A soldier is shown in this file photo. The... View Full Size
Tom Weber/Getty Images
A soldier is shown in this file photo. The Navy SEALS team that conducted the operation that brought down Osama bin Laden was the legendary Team Six, aka DevGru, or the "Naval Special Warfare Development Group," flown into Pakistan by helicopter teams from the 160th Special Operations Air Regiment, part of the Joint Special Operations Command. Osama Bin Laden Dead: SEALs' Stealth Helicopter Watch Video
Was Osama Bin Laden Ready to Run? Watch Video
Osama Bin Laden Death Photo Debate Watch Video
In addition to the digital media and paper documents, the Navy SEALs also took guns and a number of other items from the Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound. Those guns have been checked for fingerprints, which will be run through a huge intelligence database that culls fingerprints from terrorist safe houses and the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.
DNA evidence was taken from some of the killed and wounded who were guarding Bin Laden.
"We want to know who has been there and where else they may have been," one official said.
Duplicates of this data will be given to a special interagency task force at the CIA's counterterrorism center.
Of all the equipment that the SEALS took into and out of Bin Laden's sprawling compound in Abbottabad, the one thing they didn't have was a tape measure to help in identifying the terrorist. One SEAL was forced to lie down next to the corpse of Bin Laden to approximate his height, sources told ABC News.
Bin Laden appeared to be ready to run at any time with money and phone numbers stitched into his clothes when the SEALs found him on an upper floor of his compound.
Bin Laden's clothing had 500 euros and two phone numbers sewn into it, sources told ABC News. Analysts are tracing those phone numbers and going through each computer seized, running keyword searches using words like "explosives" or "weddings." Weddings is a word often used by al Qaeda to signify a bombing.
"There's a lot we have to go through, some encryption, some coding. It's in another language. It's in Arabic, so there's a lot to go through before we really find out what we have, but remember small pieces of information can be critically important," said Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
At a briefing on Capitol Hill, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said that some of the information seized has already been reviewed by her agency.
As the material is examined, analysts will look to see if more individuals should be added to the terrorist and no-fly watchlists.
"The material that was seized will be reviewed by an interagency team -- CIA, Justice, other intelligence agencies and other law enforcement agencies are all contributing people and machines. ... As we glean information from that material we will make appropriate determinations about who would be added to the watchlist and no-fly list," said Attorney General Eric Holder at Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing today.
Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek, Miranda Kerr, Fergie, and Freida Pinto attended the Met Costume Institute Gala in New York honoring designer Alexander McQueen.
Ashley Greene, Orlando Bloom, John Legend, Diane Kruger, Jessica Alba, Nicole Richie and Kanye West turned out for Monday night's event, as well.
Also on hand were Kate Hudson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Madonna and Rihanna.
The gala celebrated an exhibit called "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty," which opens Wednesday at Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art and runs through July 31.
The British designer took a mix of cocaine, tranquilizers and sleeping pills before he hanged himself in February 2010.
He committed suicide shortly after the death of his mother. He was 40.
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. intelligence officials believe Osama bin Laden made a propaganda recording shortly before his death and expect that tape to surface soon.
It's unclear whether the tape is audio or video, but a U.S. official says that intelligence indicates it's already working its way through al-Qaida's media pipeline. The official said the timing was coincidental and there's no indication he knew U.S. forces were bearing down on him.
A new recording from bin Laden would provide a final word from the beyond grave for a terrorist who taunted the U.S. with recorded propaganda for years. It could also provide fodder to those who insist he is still alive.
Meantime, two Pentagon officials say the at-sea burial of Osama bin Laden was videotaped and that it probably will be publicly released soon.
The officials said photos of the body prior to its disposal in the North Arabian Sea on Monday also may be released.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because decisions on releasing the materials were pending.
It was not clear whether the firefight in which U.S. forces are said to have shot bin Laden to death was videotaped.
John Brennan, the White House counterterrorism chief, told reporters that the administration was still deliberating on release of the material. Making it public might satisfy those who would otherwise doubt that it was bin Laden who was killed.
Osama bin Laden was killed Sunday in an mansion in an affluent part of a city north of Islamabad, Pakistan's capital city.
The man behind the Sept. 11 attacks, thought by some to be living in a cave, who had eluded capture for more than a decade, was killed after U.S. forces raided his compound, which was located in a part of Abbottabad that is home to many "retired military," an administration official told reporters Sunday.
Administration officials called it “an extraordinarily secured compound,” adding U.S. intelligence officials' first assessment is it likely was built specifically to hide bin Laden.
It was “custom-built to hide someone of significance,” an administration official said.
The U.S. operation that killed the al Qaeda leader was months in the making, with a terrorist detainee providing a clue that became the big break sought after by American intelligence officials.
Intelligence officials began working on new intelligence that eventually led them to bin Laden last fall after a detainee in U.S. custody provided the nickname of a courier who U.S. officials believed might lead them to the terrorist leader.
U.S. intelligence officials were looking for individuals who might have “personal contact” with bin Laden, one official said.
One of the couriers “flagged” for close scrutiny “had our constant attention,” the administration official said. Terrorist detainees provided the man’s “nickname” and identified him “as one of the few al Qaeda couriers trusted by bin Laden.”
Osama bin Laden is dead. On Sunday, May 1, President Obama announced that U.S. forces operating in Pakistan had killed the head of al-Qaida, and a new chapter in world history began.
For nearly 10 years -- ever since Sept. 11, 2001 -- al-Qaida's leader has loomed like a specter over our lives. He's been the "black swan" circling the rooftop. The bogeyman in the closet. A 6'5" unknown, frightening a market that famously abhors uncertainty.
And now he's gone.
The bin Laden effect
It's hard to overestimate bin Laden's effect on our world. This being the Fool, I'm going to leave the discussion of political, security, and diplomatic implications to the journalists at CNN, et al. Today, I'll just sketch out a few potential changes for U.S. investors.
You can draw a pretty direct line of correlation from bin Laden's 9/11 attack to the implosion of the American airline industry, and the disappearance of Northwest Airlines and Continental as independent entities, transformed and merged into Delta and United Continental. His influence continues today, in the form of long lines of unhappy travelers milling about U.S. airports -- shoeless, water-bottleless, and irradiated. While not solely responsible for the airlines' periodically reporting $1 billion-losing quarters, he's not exactly blameless.
On the other hand, bin Laden also arguably helped create industries. Airport security, for example. Would X-ray scanner American Science & Engineering (Nasdaq: ASEI ) have any name recognition without bin Laden? I doubt it. Would General Electric (NYSE: GE ) have bothered to buy bomb-screener InVision, but for the security threats revealed by 9/11? Hard to be sure, but probably not -- it later sold the division, even with bin Laden still on the loose.
But now he's gone. So now what?
Investing post-bin Laden
I'm typing this column before market-open on Monday, but I'll take a wild guess that when trading begins we'll see some market euphoria over the removal of at least one "unknown" from Mr. Market's bogeyman closet. Don't take it as signaling some immediate big trend, however.
As the president counseled last night, America must remain vigilant against revenge attacks by bin Laden backers seeking to avenge their leader's fall. The 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 is just around the corner, and I expect nerves will remain jangled for the next several months at least.
Don't expect to see X-ray security machines disassembled and packed into shipping boxes at JFK and LAX right away, for instance. Nor is now the time to short defense contractors. After all, Lockheed Martin's (NYSE: LMT ) F-35 fighter jet and General Dynamics' (NYSE: GD ) LCS warship were never much use in spelunking for al-Qaida in the caves of Waziristan before. They'll be no less useful now that bin Laden is dead. If you watched the president's speech, you no doubt noted the absence of any "Mission Accomplished" banner, or declarations that U.S. troops will be coming home for Christmas.
To the contrary, with the Arab spring in full swing, Libya heating up, and al-Qaida crippled, it's entirely possible that we'll see more U.S. military activity in the Middle East, rather than less. For years, Predator drones, Boeing (NYSE: BA ) ScanEagles, Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC ) Global Hawks, and Textron (NYSE: TXT ) Shadows flew over the Middle East and monitored movements on the ground, trying to find the answer to "Where in the world is Osama bin Laden?" These same aircraft could very well be retasked to harrying al-Qaida now that it's on the ropes. Far from demanding a "peace dividend" from the military-industrial complex, now that Public Enemy No. 1 is eliminated, we could find Washington rewarding its success.
Foolish final thought
These, as I say, are the immediate implications of bin Laden's demise. But here at the Fool, we're all about long-term investing, and long-term thinking. On that score, I wax optimistic.
Sunday saw the removal of one small but significant impediment to market confidence. It removed a reason for oil prices to be quite so high as they are. It diminished the risk to air travel and airline stocks. For defense investors, it sounded the opening note in a debate over "Why are we still in Afghanistan … now that Osama bin Laden is dead?" And I believe it advanced the date of our withdrawal by several months, if not years.
Because on Sunday, the world just got a little bit safer, for investors and … for everyone, really. For this we can all be thankful.
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A royal descendant of the Italian noblewoman said to be the model for the Mona Lisa has insisted her remains should be left in peace as art historians began searching for her tomb.
Natalia Strozzi, whose parents are close friends of Prince Charles and Tony Blair, spoke out as the team of cold case investigators began examining a 500-year-old church for the grave.
"I can't believe this is happening - it's just not possible. Why can't they leave my ancestor poor Lisa alone?" the Daily Mail quoted Strozzi as criticising the hunt at St Orsola church in Florence.
"What do these people think they can achieve or add to our knowledge of Da Vinci by digging up her bones which I think is an act of sacrilege and completely inopportune. We know that when she died she was actually exhumed and reburied later at St Orsola so why dig her remains up again?" she asked.
"Why do these people insist on wanting to find her bones?" she added.
Led by Prof Silvano Vinceti, the archaeologists hope the dig will lead to the discovery of the resting place of Lisa del Giocondo, who is said to be the woman behind Mona Lisa's enigmatic smile.
Historians have long believed Lisa is the woman behind what is one of the most recognisable images in the world, which was painted 500 years ago by Renaissance master Leonardo Da Vinci.
A million people pack London streets (Updates with appearance in Aston Martin, crowd of one million)
By Mike Collett-White and Michael Holden
LONDON, April 29 (Reuters) - Britain's Prince William and Kate Middleton married at Westminster Abbey on Friday in a sumptuous show of British pageantry that attracted a huge world audience and breathed new life into the monarchy.
One million well-wishers watched military bands in black bearskin hats and household cavalrymen in shining breastplates escorting the beaming couple in a 1902 open-topped state landau carriage after the ceremony.
The newly-weds then appeared on the balcony of Queen Elizabeth's Buckingham Palace in central London where they sealed their union with two kisses before a jubilant, cheering crowd who waved flags and banners.
"The monarchy is like our Hollywood, the movies, for us," said Californian Diane Weltz, who treated her daughter Samantha to a trip to London for her 21st birthday.
Middleton, who wore a laced ivory coloured dress with a train for the ceremony, became the first "commoner" to marry a prince in close proximity to the throne in more than 350 years.
The 29-year-old, whose mother's family has coal mining roots, has brought a sense of modernity to the monarchy and helped restore popularity to an institution tarnished by the death of William's hugely popular mother Princess Diana in 1997.
Fans from Asia to the United States camped overnight outside the abbey to catch a glimpse of the future king and queen, whose marriage has fuelled a feel-good factor that has briefly lifted Britain from its economic gloom.
More than 8,000 journalists descended on London and the ceremony was streamed live on YouTube, ensuring what experts expect will be one of the biggest global audiences ever.
SEALED WITH KISSES
The crowd entered into the festive spirit on a day when threatened rain failed to materialise by wearing national flags, masks of the couple and even fake wedding dresses and tiaras.
"It should have been me!" shouted nurse Jo Newman, 27, dressed as a bride and clutching a bouquet of plastic roses.
Hundreds of police officers, some armed, dotted the royal routes in a major security operation. Plain clothes officers mixed with the masses who were packed behind rails to watch the couple seal their marriage with one sheepish kiss, then another.
World War Two and modern warplanes flew over the waving royals before they headed inside for a champagne reception for 650 guests in the palace's 19 opulent state rooms.
The couple made a surprise appearance in an open-top vintage Aston Martin owned by the prince's father with the licence plate "JU5T WED" trailing balloons to travel the short journey to St. James's Palace in another informal and crowd-pleasing gesture.
They will return to Buckingham Palace for a more intimate dinner and party for 300 close friends and family.
Their honeymoon starts on Saturday and the venue has been kept virtually a state secret. When that is over, speculation is bound to turn to when Middleton becomes pregnant.
The exuberance of royal fans was not shared throughout Britain. For some, the biggest royal wedding since Diana married Charles in 1981 was an event to forget, reflecting divided opinion about the monarchy.
In the economically depressed northern city of Bradford, for example, businessman Waheed Yunus said: "It's two young people getting married. It's as simple as that. It happens throughout the whole world every single day.
"There are much more pressing issues. There are much more important things going on in the world."
The marriage between William, 28, and Middleton, dubbed "Waity Katie" for their long courtship, has cemented a recovery in the monarchy's popularity.
A series of scandals involving senior royals, Britain's economic problems and Diana's death after her divorce from Prince Charles led many to question the future of the monarchy.
But Middleton's background, William's appeal, the enduring adoration for his mother and a more media-savvy royal press team have helped to restore their standing with the wider public.
A Daily Mail survey showed 51 percent of people believed the wedding would strengthen the monarchy in Britain, compared with 65 percent who said the marriage between Prince Charles and divorcee Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005 would weaken it.
However, while Queen Elizabeth, 85, exercises limited power, and is largely a symbolic figurehead in Britain and its former colonies, critics question the privileges she and her family enjoy, particularly at a time when the economy is so weak.
The monarchy officially costs the British taxpayer around 40 million pounds ($67 million) a year, while anti-royalists put the figure at closer to 180 million pounds.
DRESS DESIGNER UNVEILED
Middleton's dress, the subject of fevered speculation for months in the fashion press, was a traditional ivory silk and satin outfit with a lace applique and flowing train.
It was designed by Sarah Burton of the Alexander McQueen label, named after the British designer who committed suicide.
The bride wore a tiara loaned by the queen and the diamond and sapphire engagement ring that belonged to Diana, who was divorced from Prince Charles in 1996, a year before her death in a car crash in Paris aged just 36.
The royals' cool reaction to Diana's death contrasted with an outpouring of public grief and marked a low point for the family. Some questioned whether the institution, a vestige of imperial glory, had outlived its unifying role in a modern state divided by partisan politics and regional separatism.
About 5,500 street parties will be held across Britain, in keeping with tradition, although they will be more common in the more affluent south of England than in the poorer north.
Bells pealed loudly and trumpets blared as 1,900 guests earlier poured into the historic abbey, coronation site for the monarchy since William the Conqueror was crowned in 1066. The abbey's bells will ring out for three full hours.
The queen, other royals, Prime Minister David Cameron, David and Victoria Beckham, the footballer-pop star couple, and singer Elton John were among famous guests at the abbey. Elton John sang "Candle in the Wind" at Diana's funeral in the abbey.
They joined 50 heads of state as well as friends, charity workers and war veterans who know the prince from his military career in what commentators said was a more progressive snapshot of modern Britain than previous royal weddings.
Middleton has been given the title Her Royal Highness, The Duchess of Cambridge, after the queen made her grandson William the Duke of Cambridge to mark the marriage.
William could face a long wait for the throne. His grandmother Queen Elizabeth shows little sign of slowing down at 85 and his father Charles is a fit and active 62-year-old. (Additional reporting by Paul Sandle, Matt Falloon, Jodie Ginsberg, Keith Weir, Paul Casciato, Peter Griffiths, Tim Castle William Maclean and Marie-Louise Gumuchian; editing by Peter Millership.
