It's just to say 'We still like you Hugh' and he made a mistake but mistakes can be forgiven

It's just to say, 'We still like you Hugh', and he made a mistake, but mistakes can be forgiven." Another argued in true American fashion, "Everybody knows who he is now. I mean, it's really going to do a lot for him."Grant's friend and Nine Months co-star, Tom Arnold, explained on the Today show that the actor "was embarrassed. He knows he made a huge mistake" but as long as Arnold has known him "nothing like this has ever come up It was a human mistake and he's taken responsibility for it. I think his honesty will serve him well."Trailers for his new film have been receiving hoots of laughter for a scene, now cut, in which he is arrested and photographed with a booking board similar to the pictures released by the Los Angeles police after his arrest.Not all commentators are being so kind. If not for Elizabeth Hurley, Hugh Grant would be another "faceless schlub," writes Ron Rosenbaum in the new issue of American Esquire.Grant is now due to appear on CNN's Larry King Live, the Kathy and Regis Show and various other talk shows.

The premiere of Nine Months is now Hollywood's hot-ticket event.. LIZ SEARL Thieves broke into the home of Terry and Brenda Benson, the pounds 20m winners of the National Lottery, in what police say could have been an attempt to steal the family's winning ticket. The Benson family was celebrating the win in London when burglars broke in through the patio doors of their home in Hull, and searched the property. When they returned yesterday afternoon, Mr Benson, 61, and his 56-year- old wife discovered that the thieves had stolen jewellery of sentimental value.Mr Benson has offered a reward for the safe return of the jewellery including a pearl necklace he bought his wife for their 30th wedding anniversary. An identity bracelet which belonged to Mrs Benson's late mother was also stolen.Mr Benson said: "These people are just low-life I would call them animals but animals are better than that Animals are nice. The burglary could have happened any time to anyone - rich and poor - but to come back to this is just horrendous."Neighbours who had been aware of two strangers in the street late on Monday night did not call police because they assumed the men were reporters. Police believe that some householders may have disturbed the thieves by switching on lights in their homes when they heard the thieves at about 2am yesterday.Speaking about the impact of the win and the family's immediate plans, Mr Benson said: "It all really has not sunk in yet. We're not thinking of this as an amount of money, we just know it is a lot and we also know it will change our lives.

Obviously I will be going to see the lads at work but I don't think we'll be going to the ex-servicemen's club this Saturday. I think it will be a quiet night in."The family formed an occasional syndicate, paying pounds 12 for lottery tickets whenever they got together. Terry Benson came up with the winning line by noting down numbers on cranes at the foundry where he works.. STEVE CONNOR Science Correspondent What happens in the intimacy of people's sexual relations in the remaining years of the second millennium will be critical in determining the maximum number of people living in the world by the middle of the next century.Demographers say the world's population will peak in about 50 years but they cannot put an exact number on it, only that it will be between 7.9 billion and 11.9 billion - nearly twice the present 5.7 billion.Although birth rates are slowing, the number of births will continue to rise as children enter their reproductive years. The availability of contraceptives and their cultural acceptance will largely determine the family size of these new reproductive recruits.According to the United Nations' State of the World Population report, published yesterday, the world population is increasing by 86 million each year. This annual increase is likely to remain until 2015.Nafis Sadik, executive director of the UN Population Fund, says the world's population will reach a plateau in the middle of the next century.

The actual total reached depends on how well we do in the next decade in implementing the programme of action of the Cairo population conference last year.This envisages spending about $17m in 2000, increasing to $21bn by 2015, on family planning in the developing world.Although worldwide contraceptive use has increased five- fold since 1969, availability in the developing world continues to be varied. Dr Sadik, an obstetrician, said death during childbirth was between 15 and 50 times greater for women in the developing world than in the West. Half a million women die as a consequence of pregnancy and childbirth, mainly because of the unavailability of contraceptives.The UN Population Fund estimates that 350 million couples worldwide lack access to ''a full range of modern family planning services'' and 120 million more women would use contraceptives if they were available, affordable and acceptable.Dr Sadik welcomed the Pope's letter of ''apology'' to women, published yesterday, but criticised the Vatican's continued reluctance to accept the contraceptive rights of women. Until such rights were given attention, she said, the only role for women in many societies would be reproduction.. JOHN ARLIDGE Scotland Correspondent A group of right-wing Scottish businessmen is to launch a bid to buy the Scotsman newspaper, it was revealed yesterday. The move was greeted with dismay by opposition MPs who bitterly condemned the move.After Thomson Regional Newspapers put the Edinburgh-based broadsheet up for sale on Monday, Professor Ross Harper, a leading Glasgow Tory, revealed that a group of right-wing Scottish businessmen had written to the company "to register their interest". The consortium planned to launch a multi-million pound bid for the 180-year-old title, he said.Labour and the Scottish National Party criticised the move.

George Robertson, the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, said it was a "crude attempt to buy a political mouthpiece in Scotland which threatens the Scotsman's reputation for editorial independence and impartiality". Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, said: "Any paper which peddled the same anti-Scottish views as the Conservatives would go down the plug hole as fast as Tory fortunes in Scotland."Mr Harper, former President of the Scottish Conservative Association, insisted the consortium had been formed to ensure that the Scotsman and Thomson's other titles in Edinburgh and Aberdeen remain in Scottish hands. "It would be a tragedy for these papers if they were to be signed over to a multi-national company which did not have the interests of Scotland at heart," he said.Alarmed by the party's slump north of the border in recent years, Scots Tories, who complain that Scottish newspapers are pro-Labour, have sought to buy media influence. Seven years ago Mr Harper was part of another consortium which tried unsuccessfully to wrest control of the Glasgow Herald from its then owners, Lonrho.Although Mr Harper conceded yesterday that most of the business leaders behind the new initiative were Conservatives, he rejected suggestions that they were trying to create a Tory title "That's nonsense. Nobody is going to put up millions of pounds just to give the Tory party free publicity. A handout for any political party would simply not sell." If the group won control of the title, editorial independence and balance would be guaranteed, he said.Journalists at the paper, who say they are "stunned" by Thomson's decision to sell its local titles throughout the UK, yesterday issued a statement calling on any new owner to "secure the independence of Scotland's national newspaper".. Aung San Suu Kyi's release after almost six years under house arrest in Rangoon is as surprising as it is welcome.