Selena Gomez and friends visit Grand Mosque

Also, Hindu groups want PK banned; Modern family star engaged; Driver in Lopez crash charged; Scorsese film is year’s most-pirated; and Saved by the Bell star in court on stabbing charge.

the Instagram photo of Selena Gomez, centre front, with a group of friends at the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. Courtesy of Dev Windsor, Instagram

The singer Selena Gomez and the reality-television star Kendal Jenner visited the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi yesterday with a group of friends, including the models Gigi Hadid and Devon Windsor, and Hadid’s boyfriend Cody Simpson. The group posted several photos of their visit on Instagram, showing the women wearing abayas. Jenner also wore a veil over her face. They are part of a group of 16 young celebrities who are visiting the UAE over New Year. Tomorrow, they will set off on a New Year’s Day desert safari. – The National staff

Hindu groups want PK banned

The Bollywood film PK, which has already made more than 200-crore rupees (Dh115.32m) at the Indian box office, has angered Hindu groups in the country. The Rajkumar Hirani film, which stars Aamir Khan as an extraterrestrial visitor to Earth, makes a strong case for secularism as part of its storyline. Activists from the Hindu groups Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad, who have accused the actor of "ridiculing Hindu gods" and want PK banned, disrupted a screening of the film in the northern Indian city of Agra on Sunday. The cinema's management filed a complaint with the police. Reacting to the controversy, the actor Boman Irani, who also stars in the film, said: "People may agree or disagree, but then they have to respect it because we are also respecting their view." – IANS

Modern family star engaged

Modern Family star Sofia Vergara is planning to tie the knot with fellow actor Joe Manganiello. Colombian-born Vergara, 42, America's highest-paid television actress, has been dating the 38-year-old star of the TV show True Blood and the movie Magic Mike for six months, since breaking off a relationship with the businessman Nick Loeb. A spokesperson for Vergara, who plays Gloria Delgado on the Emmy-winning American sitcom, has yet to confirm People magazine's report that the couple got engaged over Christmas in Hawaii. – AFP

Driver in Lopez crash charged

A Las Vegas man has been charged with drink-driving after he crashed into Jennifer Lopez’s Rolls-Royce in Malibu, California. Prosecutors said that Robert John Reitz, 53, had been charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, at nearly twice the legal blood-alcohol limit. He faces up to six months in jail and a US$1,000 (Dh3,670) fine if convicted. The singer-actress was at a traffic light on the Pacific Coast Highway with her two children and the actress Leah Remini, who was driving the car, in September when a pickup truck hit her vehicle from behind. No one was hurt. – AP

Scorsese film is year’s most-pirated

Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street and Disney's smash-hit animated fairy tale Frozen were the two most pirated films of 2014. The list of this year's 20 most illegally downloaded movies was compiled by the piracy tracker Excipio based on torrent downloads. Scorsese's latest was illegally downloaded more than 30 million times, closely followed by Frozen with just more than29.9m, followed by RoboCop with just under 29.9m (the combined total of the 2014 reboot and the 1987 original). Sandra Bullock's stranded-in-space drama Gravity was downloaded 29.3m times and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was illegally downloaded 27.6m times. – AFP

Saved by the Bell star in court on stabbing charge

Dustin Diamond, the actor who played the nerdy Screech in the 1990s television high school comedy show Saved by the Bell, appeared in a Wisconsin courtroom on Monday after posting bail on charges that he stabbed a man during a bar fight on Christmas Day. Diamond, who had spent the weekend in jail, posted the US$10,000 (Dh36,730) bail before his hearing in Ozaukee County Circuit Court. He is charged with second-degree reckless endangerment, disorderly conduct and carrying a concealed weapon. Defence lawyer Thomas Alberti requested reduced bail and a jury trial for Diamond, 37, who did not speak. "Dustin has complete faith in the justice system," Alberti said outside the courtroom. The complaint says Diamond and his fiancée got into a tussle with two men and a woman at a bar in Port Washington, where Diamond lives, last Thursday night. Diamond told police he accidentally stabbed one of the men while trying to defend his fiancée. The man was not seriously injured. Police say officers found a switchblade. Diamond's next court hearing is scheduled for January 5. – AP