The ‘Sleepy Hollow’ star – who battled eating disorder anorexia after she was catapulted to fame – couldn’t stand seeing herself in a mirror because she had such low self-esteem about her looks and figure.

Ricci – who shot to fame when she was just 10 after starring in ‘Mermaids’ alongside Cher, Winona Ryder and Bob Hoskins – explained: “For years, I hated myself. I covered the mirrors in my house. I literally couldn’t have a mirror in my room.”

Even though she has got over her body issues, Ricci, 30, still doesn’t like to see her reflection in a mirror.

She added: “I still can’t sit in a restaurant or someplace where I can catch my reflection. I get so paranoid.”

One role that helped her deal with her body hang-ups was her part in 2007 film ‘Black Snake Moan’ – in which she starred opposite Samuel L. Jackson and had to appear for most of the movie in only her underwear.

She explained: “For that, I needed to lose any self-consciousness because I feel sometimes you can see that in a nude scene.”

Ricci’s latest project sees her voice a character in new animated film ‘Alpha And Omega’.

She can also be seen in ‘After.Life’ with Liam Neeson and ‘Bel Ami’ alongside Uma Thurman and Robert Pattinson later this year.

At least 32 youths aged 14 to 20 have been shot dead at a party in Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez, prosecutors said today.

Chihuahua state prosecutors spokesman Fidel Banuelos said gunmen in three cars drove up to a house party in the border city across from El Paso, Texas, around 11pm last night and began shooting.

Mr Banuelos said that at least 15 people were wounded, the youngest a 9-year-old child said to be gravely injured.

Police found 70 bullet casings from assault weapons typically used by drug gangs.

The attackers escaped, and there have been no arrests.

Last Sunday, gunmen stormed two homes in Ciudad Juarez, killing seven at a party and two more in another house nearby. Police have not named any suspects.

Weekly earnings in the public sector fell by 4.4% compared to the same three month period in 2009, reflecting changes in pay rates announced in December’s Budget.

Private sector wages fell 0.7%.

The largest decreases were in the Education and Transport sectors.

The Hollywood heartthrob is keen to get ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides’ director Rob Marshall to direct him on the project, which he is looking to develop a script on with producers Infinitum Nihil, Vulture blog reports.

‘The Thin Man’ tells the story of Nick Charles, a detective who gives up his job when he marries a wealthy socialite, ending up an alcoholic.

However, he is drawn back for one last job investigating a murder, and he takes his wife along with him.

However, Marshall is already in talks to work a movie based on the musical theatre show ‘Wicked’ – a prequel to ‘The Wizard of Oz’ focusing on the lives of the Wicked Witches – which has a script already prepared, meaning ‘The Thin Man’ could be some way off going into production.

Depp, 47, is currently filming ‘Pirates’ but has no other projects coming up having wrapped on ‘The Tourist’ with Angelina Jolie earlier this year.

Two teenage students were accidentally shot dead during a police weapons demonstration in India.

A constable demonstrating how to load an assault rifle accidentally pressed the trigger and killed a 16-year-old and a 13-year-old.

Police were showing their arsenal to students in an effort to improve public relations, said Andhra Pradesh state police chief K. Arvinda Rao.

Villagers in Velurpad, 150 miles east of Hyderabad, protested and demanded to know why the gun was loaded during the event.

Rao said the incident was being investigated and disciplinary action taken. The state has offered the victims’ families each a half-million rupees (€7,980)

The ‘Kitchen Nightmares’ star has reportedly given Chris Hutcheson the chop as CEO of his company Gordon Ramsay Holdings (GRH) – meaning he no longer has a say in the day-to-day running of the business.

However, Chris, aged 62, will remain a shareholder in the business.

The hot-headed chef’s wife Tana is said to be “distraught” at the split between her father and 43-year-old Ramsay, and is terrified it will tear the family apart.

One insider told the Daily Mail newspaper: “It’s no secret that Gordon and Chris have had a very fiery relationship over the years.

“It’s incredibly difficult for Tana as she is right in the middle of it.”

Gordon linked up with Chris when he was a 27-year-old chef and said their meeting was his “first real break”.

Chris became his mentor and business partner and for the past 12 years the pair have had a well-known “fiery” relationship.

Insiders claim the last 18 months has added pressure to their relationship, because the multi-million-pound enterprise suffered badly during the UK’s credit crunch.

At one point the firm was on the brink of bankruptcy but is now said to be on the straight and narrow after Ramsay’s restaurants doubled profits in the 11 months to the end of August to £4.2m (€4.7m).

While some insiders claim there are “no hard feelings” between the pair, other sources claim the split came after a series of rows.

A source told the Daily Mirror: “It’s been a rough 18 months. The firm has been through the wars and just about emerged on the other side – but not without taking its toll on the pair’s friendship.”

A spokesperson last night confirmed the split saying: “We would like to thank Chris for all his efforts and support in helping to build and grow GRH over the last 12 years.”

HONG KONG: the Hang Seng index closed down 207.2 at 23556.5.

SINGAPORE: the Straits Times index closed down 13.1 at 3179.2.

The move has been flagged for some time and it is understood that IBM will try to redeploy as many of the affected workers as possible.

Police broke through barricades around French fuel depots today as the government took a tough line with strikers threatening to bring the country to a halt.

With no sign that workers protesting over plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 were relaxing their action, riot officers forced them away, restoring petrol to areas where pumps were dry.

President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered all fuel depots forcibly reopened and vowed that he would “carry the retirement reform through to the end.” Despite France’s tolerance for a long tradition of strikes and protest, official patience appeared to be waning after weeks of actions that have caused traffic chaos, cancelled flights, thrown public transport into chaos and halted fuel supplies.

With about a quarter of the country’s 12,000 filling stations empty, authorities stepped in overnight to force open three fuel depots blocked by striking workers for days.

At one site in the western town of Donges, police formed a corridor along the road leading to the depot to allow trucks to pass in and out.

Interior minister Brice Hortefeux warned that the blockades threatened emergency services and could have grave consequences for the entire French economy and public health and safety.

However around 70 ships were still waiting in waters outside Marseille because oil terminals there were blocked by strikers.

After months of largely peaceful disruptions, some protests erupted into scattered violence this week. But Sarkozy vowed that his party would pass the reform in a Senate vote expected tomorrow.

Meanwhile protesters waving red flags temporarily blocked the main road leading to one of two terminals at Orly Airport.

The protests halted traffic to the airport and some passengers walked hundreds of yards along an emergency lane to get there, dragging suitcases behind them. In one terminal, screens showed that 10 of 52 flights were cancelled.

At Charles de Gaulle airport north of Paris, the nation’s biggest, protesters sang the French national anthem before pushing through a police barricade.

The CGT Transport union says protests also closed the Clermont-Ferrand airport in the south and disrupted airports in Nice and Nantes.

Over the past week, 1,423 people have been detained for protest-related violence and 62 police officers injured.

Brice said he had ordered police to look at video surveillance to find more law breakers, suggesting further arrests could be ahead.

In the Paris suburb of Nanterre about 100 students blocked the school entrance and part of the road, while a “tranquility team” of about 30 adults in special red jackets sought to keep things calm.

Then about 100 other youths arrived and started darting through the town streets, smashing store windows and throwing stones. Some store owners lowered metal blinds to avoid looting.

The pavements were littered with glass from bus shelters and illuminated signs that had been smashed yesterday. All the vehicles were removed from the street in front of the school, because a car had been torched there the day before.

“We try to protect local residents and the mother passing by with children, we try to control the traffic to avoid that young people get hit, because this is not in the interest of the demonstration,” said Elisabeth Guerrier, a social worker trying to act as a mediator in the conflict.

In the city of Lyon, new clashes broke out with rioters running in small groups down different streets, throwing projectiles and setting off flares. At least 700 police officers were deployed, and some responded with tear gas and cordoned the rioters off. A gendarme helicopter circled overhead at low altitude. A delivery truck was set ablaze.

Students plan new protests tomorrow, with a demonstration in Paris hours before the Senate votes on the retirement measure.

Strikes also continued today at the SNCF national rail network, and one in three TGV high-speed trains was cancelled.

In Marseille 150 members of the civil security service – which includes firefighters – intervened to collect heaps of rubbish piled up after days of strikes by bin men.

No buses ran in the city because unions blocked the main depot.

In an e-mail sent to Microsoft employees, chief executive officer Steve Ballmer announced the change, saying Ozzie will stay with Microsoft for an undefined transition period.

Mr Ballmer said the company is not looking for a replacement.

He said Ozzie – whose title translated into the company’s top technical thinker – plans to concentrate on “the broader area of entertainment where Microsoft has many ongoing investments” before he leaves.

As for his post-Microsoft employment, Ballmer said Ozzie has “no plans at this time”.

He joined the company in 2005 as its chief technical officer when Microsoft bought his collaboration software company, Groove Networks.

Already respected for his work with web computing, Ozzie was asked to figure out how Microsoft could survive the sea change toward software being delivered online.

Mr Ozzie, 54, came up with the idea for and helped build out Windows Azure, Microsoft’s system for building and using software over the internet.

Wes Miller, an analyst for independent research group Directions on Microsoft, said that Ozzie has long pushed for Microsoft to “run at a much faster pace than they may honestly be comfortable with at their age”.

It is hard to tell if Ozzie was frustrated with the pace of change and wanted to leave, or was asked to step down, Mr Miller said.

In the 1980s, Ozzie was at Lotus Development, where he led work on Lotus Symphony, a precursor to Microsoft’s Office package, and Lotus Notes, which let people form groups to share documents and e-mail.

Notes’ success prompted IBM to buy Lotus for $3.5bn in 1995.

Ozzie then started Groove to refine his idea of “groupware” that lets multiple people collaborate.

Groove made it possible for people to work together on the same virtual sketchpad, view the same video or edit documents simultaneously, all while chatting by text or voice.

This expertise made Ozzie a natural replacement for Gates as the mastermind of Microsoft’s broad software strategy.