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Britney Spears beats Rihanna to be highest-paid female musician of 2012

The X Factor USA judge beat Taylor Swift and Rihanna to take the crown as revealed by Forbes, despite not releasing any new music or going on tour this year.

© WENN / Adriana M. Barraza

© WENN / FayesVision

Spears is said to have earned $58m (£36m) from May 2011 to May 2012, with the bulk of the earnings coming from her latest platinum-selling album Femme Fatale and her most recent tour, which ran from June to December 2011.

Taylor Swift finished in second place with $57m (£35.3m), with her tour taking in over $1m (£620,000) a night. She also had endorsements with CoverGirl and Sony, while her album Red shifted 1.2m copies in its opening week.

© Ken McKay/Thames/Rex Features

© WENN

Rihanna is in third place with $53m (£32.8m), thanks to her busy touring schedule and big hits including 'We Found Love' and 'Diamonds', alongside endorsements including Vita Coco and Nivea.

Last year's winner Lady GaGa drops to fourth place with $52m (£32.2m), while Katy Perry completes the top five with $45m (£27.9m).

The list was compiled from record sales, touring, endorsements, merchandise sales and other similar ventures. Management fees, legal costs and taxes are also retracted.

Only eight of the musicians rank in the top 25 highest-paid musicians overall.

Elsewhere, Madonna earned $30m (£18.6m) in the time period, while Beyoncé claimed $40m (£24.8m).

Dr Dre, Roger Waters and Sir Elton John topped the overall list by Forbes, which was revealed last month.


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Out of the chaos and horror emerged an incredible act of selflessness and bravery by one teacher who spent her final moments trying to protect her young students from harm. 

Victoria Soto, 27, a first-grade teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., ushered her students into a closet, and in so doing placed her body between them and the assailant. 

"She was found huddled over her children, her students, doing instinctively what she knew was the right thing," her cousin Jim Wiltsie tells ABC News. 

"I'm just proud that Vicki had the instincts to protect her kids from harm," he continued. "It brings peace to know that Vicki was doing what she loved, protecting the children, and, in our eyes, she's a hero." 

Soto was among the six adults, all women, killed in the Friday morning massacre that also took the lives of 20 children – 12 girls and eight boys. The gunman, identified as 20-year-old Adam Lanza, took his own life. His mother was also found killed in a different location. 

RELATED Principal Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung Was Loved By Kids

"It doesn't surprise me at all she would do this," Sabeena Ali, the parent of a girl who was in Soto's class two years ago, tells PEOPLE. 

Ali calls Soto a "vibrant woman who loved the kids and would be with the kids and spend time with them and sit on the floor with them." 

Two years later, her daughter – now a third-grader – still idolized the teacher. 

"Every day there was some new Miss Soto story we had to listen to: 'This is what she did, this is how wonderful she was today,'" says Ali. "She would bring in snacks for the kids and do special days." 

Teaching was always what Victoria Soto had aspired to do, following in an aunt's footsteps, her sister Carlee Soto told the Today show on Sunday. Students "just brought a smile to her face, always," she said. "She would come home with stories of what the kids did that day and how they were progressing so well, and how they would just make her laugh." 

At a memorial held Saturday night in Soto's hometown of Stratford, mourners wore green ribbons – her favorite color – while her family has been wearing green scarves to honor the young educator. 

"She loved those students more than anything," Carlee Soto said, "and she didn't call them her students; she called them her kids." 

NEWS/

Taylor Swift Kisses Harry Styles Before Romantic English Getaway—Watch the Video

Unlike Lindsay Lohan, Taylor Swift did jet across the Atlantic Ocean with her preferred member of a popular British boy band.

But before she and One Direction's Harry Styles annoyed off the rest of his mates by taking her private plane to London and leaving them to fly—egad!—commercial, the pair enjoyed the sidelines at Z100's Jingle Ball in New York while not onstage performing themselves.

So far, so good, but Taylor says she doesn't know how to make a relationship last

And, it turns out that a resourceful amateur videographer managed to capture some footage of the cute couple boppin' along to B.o.B's "So Good." We can see Taylor, clad in a super-festive glittery top, excuse herself for a moment—and plant a big kiss on Harry before walking away.Afterward, you can see Harry throwing his arms playfully around an older gent he knows and continuing to enjoy the music. (Alas, there's no way to say for sure if he was blushing.)

In the meantime, there were no lasting hard feelings between Taylor and One Direction. After their show Saturday night at London's O2 arena, she joined them on their tour bus for a three-and-a-half-hour ride to Manchester, where they performed Sunday night on the finale ofThe X Factor  U.K.

And the honeymoon phase continues: Taylor and Harry were at a restaurant today in Derbyshire, in the English countryside, having dinner with two other people. An eyewitness tells E! News that the pair were "the nicest people ever," and "just seemed normal...like they were a couple, but not all over each other, obviously."

Apparently, they had dining on their minds.

"They were meeting friends to get something to eat," a source told E! News. "They came in for dinner last night and stayed for a couple of hours."

Twitter

The obliging pair also posed for pictures with an adoring fan, who tweeted that she was the "happiest person alive!!!" after meeting Harry and Taylor.

One Direction Cover Billboard as Artist of the Year

Billboard One Direction have been selected as the Artist of the Year by Billboard, and in celebration of that honor, the boys cover the new issue of the music trade. The mag got a few minutes with each member, discussing how they felt about...

Justin Bieber is the King of Twitter

Justin Bieber is on track to become the most followed person on Twitter. The teenager can now boast just over 16 million followers. There’s only one person standing in his way when it comes to social media domination – the one and onlyLady Gaga.

The superstar even tweeted a thankyou to his fans yesterday after they pointed out the milestone ‘ nothing is impossible. NEVER SAY NEVER!! …thank you and all 16 MILLION BELIEBERS! LOVE U!’  That should help him get another million followers!

Lady Gaga is the most popular person on Twitter with 17.5 million followers. But she did join the site a year before Justin. The singer has been tweeting since March 2008. The Bieb didn’t jump on board until March 2009.

But if Gaga wants to keep her title as Queen of Twitter she’ll have to rally more of her little monsters. The Beliebers want to get their boy to top spot!

It’s a long way down to the third most popular tweeter – that’s singer Katy Perry with 13.4 million followers. Although her figures are set to soar after announcing her divorce from Russell Brand. Experts say there will be more interest in her account as fans check in to see who she’s dating.

Number four is reality TV darling Kim Kardashian. The most popular of the Kardashian sisters has an impressive 12.2 million devotees on the site. Khloe Kardashian has less than half that with 5.6 million followers…while Kourtney Kardashian trails with 4.7 million.

Rounding out the top five is Britney Spears. Who’s fast closing in on Kim K. The singer has 12.1 million followers after really embracing the site in the last 12 months.