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By SHARON FINK
Published July 8, 2005

WAY TO KILL THOSE COUPLE RUMORS, PART I: In an ongoing show of togetherness that would have even the closest "good friends" scrambling for alone time about now, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have traveled to Ethiopia with each other for Jolie's adoption of a second child.

The noncouple-couple were there Thursday to pick up the baby girl, said Tesfeye Berhu, manager of the private agency involved, to the Associated Press.

The two also were in the country last week for Jolie to file adoption papers. But, People magazine's Web site says, Jolie wants it known that she is doing the adopting by herself, and not with the child-craving Pitt.

Jolie, who has a 3-year-old adopted son, Maddox, from Cambodia, has met the 10 conditions for adopting in Ethiopia, Hadosh Halefom, head of the country's state-run agency, told the AP. "The two most important are economic capabilities and check with the police."

The girl is an orphan less than a year old, Hadosh said. Jolie told People that she has named her Zahara Marley Jolie.

And because a good rumor is hard to give up, odds are this won't kill the pregnancy one that Jolie has been denying for weeks, either.

WAY TO KILL THOSE COUPLE RUMORS, PART II: Be advised that the pictures of Pitt's ex-wife-in-progress, Jennifer Aniston, and Vince Vaughn on the covers of Us and Star magazines (pictures, we should note, competing with People's Brad and Angie cover shot) are from the set of the movie Aniston and Vaughn were filming in Chicago.

Aniston's people have denied that their client and Vaughn are involved. Vaughn was reported doing the same thing Monday at the London premiere of his new movie, Wedding Crashers.

"Jennifer's . . . very vulnerable right now and has been through a really hard time," Vaughn said in a story in London's Daily Mirror.

If Aniston has your sympathies during this hard time but you don't know how to properly express them, pick up a "Team Aniston" T-shirt at the Papaya store in Tampa's University Mall.

JUST BECAUSE IT'S TOTALLY SELF-SERVING DOESN'T MEAN IT'S BAD ADVICE: Yes, when a woman is pregnant, everyone else thinks he or she is entitled to dispense advice.

Take Britney Spears (please). Reported medical problems with her pregnancy prompted Dr. Holly Phillips, a real doctor who also sometimes plays one on TV, to have her PR people send an e-mail to media outlets saying she would be happy to provide expert commentary on Spears' health needs, even though she has no connection to the singer.

The e-mail says that Spears could be having a high-risk pregnancy and "may need to be put on "pelvic rest,' which may include full-time bed rest and no sex," e-mails Phillips, who has been on CNN, the Fox News Channel and Today.

She says sex is a concern because Spears said in her recent UPN reality show, Chaotic, that she and her husband, Kevin Federline, have sex three or four times a day.

LET'S RECAP: May 2005: Tom DeLay, majority leader of the House of Representatives, says Law & Order: Criminal Intent slurred him when a character made a snarky reference to him in an episode about the killing of a federal judge. July 2005: President Bush asks former Republican senator Fred Thompson to shepherd his upcoming Supreme Court nominee through the Senate. That would be Fred Dalton Thompson, an actor before he was a senator who is back in the profession playing district attorney Arthur Branch in the Law & Order franchise.

Sharon Fink can be reached at 727 893-8525 or fink@sptimes.com

[Last modified July 8, 2005, 01:03:16]