Taylor Swift won the hearts of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, residents at a concert Friday - not just with her voice, but also with her generosity.

The 18-year-old country sensation announced onstage in the flood-beleaguered town that she’s donating $100,000 to the local Red Cross.

“The people in this town have been through so much loss this year, and my heart goes out to them,” Swift tells PEOPLE. “They’ve stood by me, they gave me a sold-out show. You’ve got to pay it forward in life - that’s all I did in Cedar Rapids.”

“Taylor was going to cancel the concert, thinking few people could attend, but the mayor of Cedar Rapids asked her to carry on,” said a source close to the singer.

Swift is no stranger to philanthropy: Earlier this summer, the singer donated her merchandise sales from the CMA Music Festival to the Nashville Red Cross. In January, she also donated a brand-new pink pickup truck - her 18th-birthday gift from her record label - to a youth camp for children with serious medical conditions.

Also, it was revealed Friday that Swift was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist.

Her next album, Fearless, is due out Nov. 11.

Did Selena Gomez and Nick Jonas kiss and tell - by accident.

The teen stars haven’t acknowledged a relationship, but in separate magazine articles their stories of a first-date kiss are strikingly similar.

“While we were slow dancing, my crush and I had our first kiss,” Gomez, 16, tells Twist magazine in its September issue. “I said, ‘I don’t kiss on the first date.’ Then he said, “Well, I never really play by the rules.”

And Jonas, 15, tells Girl’s Life magazine in its June/July issue: “On one date, the girl said to me, ‘I don’t kiss on the first date.’ So I said, ‘I don’t follow the rules.’ Ooooh! It was so good!”

That doesn’t seem to faze Gomez, who gushes over her unnamed “crush” saying, “I’d never been treated that nicely. I ended up dating the guy for awhile.”

• Reporting by SHARON COTLIAR

Angie Everhart’s boyfriend was arrested Thursday in West Hollywood for investigation of spousal battery following an “incident” between the two that caused minor injuries, police say.

The unidentified man was booked by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on the misdemeanor charge.

“There was an incident involving Angie Everhart and her boyfriend,” says sheriff’s Sgt. Scott Wolf. “He was gone from the location of the incident before deputies arrived. There were minor injuries but they did not require medical attention. He was subsequently booked for misdemeanor spousal battery.”

Everhart, 38, has had her own problems with authorities. In May, she was formally charged with DUI following her arrest for allegedly rolling past a limit line at a stop sign. She later pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of misdemeanor reckless driving, KCBS-TV reported.

• Reporting by EUNICE OH

Elizabeth Edwards says her husband John “made a terrible mistake” by having an affair, but coping with the revelation was “oddly made somewhat easier” by her battle with cancer.

“None of these (problems) has been easy,” she writes on the political blog Daily Kos. “But we have stood with one another through them all. Although John believes he should stand alone and take the consequences of his action now, when the door closes behind him, he has his family waiting for him.”

Elizabeth, 59, says her husband, 55, told her about the affair two years ago - months before her breast cancer returned.

She says she wanted to keep it a “private matter” because it would be even more difficult to deal with on a public stage.

But, she adds, “Because of a recent string of hurtful and absurd lies in a tabloid publication, because of a picture falsely suggesting that John was spending time with a child it wrongly alleged he had fathered outside our marriage, our private matter could no longer be wholly private.”

She encouraged people to watch her husband’s ABC news interview Friday.

“Admitting one’s mistakes is a hard thing for anyone to do, and I am proud of the courage John showed by his honesty in the face of shame,” she writes. “The toll on our family of news helicopters over our house and reporters in our driveway is yet unknown. But now the truth is out, and the repair work that began in 2006 will continue.”

She concludes with a plea for privacy, saying, “I ask that the public, who expressed concern about the harm John’s conduct has done to us, think also about the real harm that the present voyeurism does and give me and my family the privacy we need at this time.”

• Reporting by SANDRA SOBIERAJ WESTFALL

After repeated denials that he was involved in an extramarital relationship, former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has confirmed that he indeed did have an affair with 44-year old Rielle Hunter, though he denies that he loved her.

Speaking to ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff in an interview scheduled to air Friday on Nightline, Edwards cited the timing of Rielle’s baby’s birth, on Feb. 27, 2008, as proving he is not the father, because the affair with Hunter had ended, he said. He has not submitted to a paternity test.

Former campaign aide Andrew Young has claimed paternity of the child.

The source says that Edwards never displayed any behavior that was inappropriate during his campaign. “Not at all. He didn’t have a wandering eye,” says the source. “But he’s very good at compartmentalizing. Whether something’s going on in his family, or on the staff, he’d be able to turn around, go on stage and give a brilliant speech. So maybe he just compartmentalized those emotions.”

Worked on Documentaries

Friends of Hunter tell ABC that she and Edwards, 55, met in 2006 at a New York City bar, and that she received $114,000 from his political action committee to produce Web site documentaries for the Edwards campaign, despite her lack of experience.

Edwards said the affair started after she was employed and that Hunter accompanied him around the U.S. and to Africa. He also said his wife, Elizabeth, and other family members became aware of the relationship in 2006. Edwards stresses that his wife’s cancer was in remission when he began the affair.

Edwards’s wife, Elizabeth, 59, is battling breast cancer, first diagnosed in 2004. After initial treatment, Elizabeth Edwards announced last year that her cancer had returned and is incurable.

A friend of Elizabeth’s, who has been in regular contact with her over recent weeks, tells PEOPLE: “She actually is okay. I’m pretty impressed by how she’s handling it. And her health is stable.”

When the National Enquirer first reported an affair between Edwards and Hunter affair on Oct. 11, the Edwards camp and the politician himself, as well as Hunter, vehemently denied the story.

Recently the story resurfaced. “That’s tabloid trash. They’re full of lies,” Edwards replied when asked about the report at a news conference in Houston July 23. “Not true, completely unfounded and ridiculous.”

Hotel Rendezvous True

Edwards now admits that the Enquirer reporting was true about him visiting with Hunter last month at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. He said his wife was unaware of that rendezvous.

Since becoming a mother, reports ABC, Hunter has assumed aliases and resided in various expensive homes in both in North Carolina and, more recently, in Santa Barbara, Calif.

In regard to anyone’s paying Hunter reputed hush money, Edwards denied anything coming from him, but said he could not vouch for his friends or campaign supporters. He says he will look into any possible financial arrangements that might have taken place.

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Former Sen. John Edwards, who has admitted to having an extramarital affair with 44-year old Rielle Hunter, released an official statement Friday.

In it, Edwards, 55, vows to take a paternity test to establish whether or not he is the father of Hunter’s child, as has been speculated about in the press.

Read the complete statement:
In 2006, I made a serious error in judgment and conducted myself in a way that was disloyal to my family and to my core beliefs. I recognized my mistake and I told my wife that I had a liaison with another woman, and I asked for her forgiveness. Although I was honest in every painful detail with my family, I did not tell the public. When a supermarket tabloid told a version of the story, I used the fact that the story contained many falsities to deny it. But being 99 percent honest is no longer enough.

It is inadequate to say to the people who believed in me that I am sorry, as it is inadequate to say to the people who love me that I am sorry. In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic. If you want to beat me up

I have given a complete interview on this matter and having done so, will have nothing more to say.

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• Back in 2004, PEOPLE introduced John Edwards’s greatest asset: his wife Elizabeth
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• From prostitution rings to illicit interns, read more about sex scandals

Arriving in Las Vegas late Wednesday night, Ryan Phillippe and his Stop Loss costar and girlfriend Abbie Cornish hunkered down in a one-bedroom suite at The Palazzo Resort Hotel Casino as the couple celebrated Cornish’s turning 26 - with Phillippe seemingly determined to make this her best birthday ever.

Starting the day lounging in a private cabana at Tao Beach, the duo dined on sushi and fruit before heading to the Canyon Ranch Spa for even more relaxation.

After taking in Cirque Du Soleil’s O at Bellagio, Phillippe and Cornish were spotted walking hand in hand to dinner at an intimate corner table at Tao Las Vegas, where they were seen snuggling and kissing throughout the meal.

And there was more, with Phillippe leading the birthday girl to a VIP skybox at Tao’s nightclub that overlooked the main dance floor. Sipping Grey Goose cocktails, the duo danced - and kissed - the night away, except for the moment when Cornish unbuttoned Phillippe’s shirt and started pouring ice down his chest.

“They really are cute together,” a source said.

Lisa Marie Presley announced she’s expecting twins - and now she’s baring her baby bump in a new photo spread in the September issue of Marie Claire.

The reason for exposing herself in this spread? Presley says she’s firing back against people who, early in her pregnancy, posted unflattering photos of her and just accused her of having a large, unhealthy appetite.

“They want me to be him,” she tells the magazine, referring to her father, Elvis Presley. “It’s like they can’t wait.”

Presley claims “the tabloids were going so far as to alter photos. I could never figure out why they went to all that trouble to make me look fat.

“There are at least six other famous women pregnant right now who aren’t getting picked on,” she says in the interview. “But they’re all over me. It’s like there is a campaign to demean me.”

The singer, who is expected to give birth in the fall, has two teenage children, Riley, 19, and Benjamin, 15, with ex Danny Keough. The twins are the first children for Presley and husband Michael Lockwood.

But Presley remains defiant when it comes to the fat-talk. “I am 5′ 3,” she says. “If I gain five pounds it shows.”

“I am trying to grow another human being,” she adds. “Besides, I’m 40! I’m lucky to even be able to do this.”

Taking stock of her life - and her pregnancy - Presley tells Marie Claire in the issue out Aug. 12 that she’s growing emotionally as well.

“We’re all going to screw up,” Presley says. “The important thing is, do you learn from it and not do it again? Can you make it better in the future? Can you change?

“I am in a happy place now,” she says. “But it took a lot to get here. I wasn’t always who I am now.”

In a new blog post, Lisa Marie Presley, who is expecting a baby, says she’s “feeling unusually well” these days - and also addresses an apology issued Friday by Britain’s Daily Mail.

“I miss you as much as you miss me, I miss being on the road!” writes the singer on her MySpace Celebrity blog. “I’m feeling unusually well and happy being pregnant thank you. (For those who have asked).”

Presley and her husband, MichaelLockwood, will welcome their first child this fall. The singer also has two teenagers, daughter Riley, 18, and son Benjamin, 15, with ex Danny Keough.

Presley’s lawyers sued for libel after the newspaper published a photo of Presley, dressed down and without makeup, eating with friends in Los Angeles. As part of the settlement, the newspaper printed this apology: “On March 4 we published a photograph of Lisa Marie Presley while she was dining

with friends. We suggested she might have an unhealthy appetite similar to

her late father. We now accept that the suggestion is untrue and apologize

to Ms. Presley for any distress caused.”

Presley says she’ll donate “anything else that comes from %26#91;the lawsuit%26#93;”

to the Presley Charitable Foundation, which is building the New Presley

Place in New Orleans.

She also reveals that she is at work on a third album and is “writing with many different people.”

She’s (almost) back!

A year after her embarrassing performance at the Video Music Awards , Britney Spears returned to the MTV stage this week to tape a promotional video for this year’s ceremony.

“Britney looked really good,” says a source. “It was improvisational questions and answers with %26#91;host%26#93; Russell Brand just like %26#91;other promo guest stars%26#93; LL Cool J and Pete Wentz did. Russell joked about there being sexual tension, and Britney shot back, ‘I don’t feel the tension’. The other joke was about no one knowing who Russell was so she called him by the wrong name. LL called him Russell Bland and Britney called him Russell Brown.”

The shoot also included a 9,000 pound elephant. Says the source, “The joke of the whole thing is ‘there is an elephant in the room’.”