Vietnamese police will formally charge British glam rocker Gary Glitter with child molestation and drop an additional charge of child rape, his Vietnamese lawyer said on Monday. Police have said medical tests on girls who alleged they had had sex with the 1970s rock icon, who was arrested last month, led them to look into the more serious charge of raping children which can carry the death penalty.
A judge on Friday ordered hip-hop artist Foxy Brown handcuffed to her seat in court until she apologized for sticking out her tongue during a hearing stemming from the rapper's arrest last year on assault charges. The recording star, whose real name is Inga Marchand, was in court to plead guilty to disorderly conduct in a deal with prosecutors that would require her to perform 10 days of community service.
Actress Laura Dern, star of such films as Rambling Rose and Jurassic Park, has married her longtime boyfriend, singer-songwriter Ben Harper, Us Weekly magazine reported last week. The couple, who began dating in 2000 and have two children together, son Ellery, 4, and daughter Jaya, 1, were wed on Thursday in a sunset ceremony attended by more than 150 friends and family at a private home in Los Angeles, according to the magazine's Web site.
Pop star Cyndi Lauper will make her Broadway debut next year in The Threepenny Opera, playing the prostitute Jenny in the satirical musical about a highwayman and his sweetheart. The role of Jenny was originally slated to be played by Sopranos star Edie Falco, but she dropped out earlier this month and opened the way for Lauper -- best known for such 1980s hits as Girls Just Want to Have Fun and Time after Time.
David Letterman once had a woman stalk him for five years and now he has a female fan accusing him of sending coded messages to her over the airwaves. And he also has a New Mexico judge who has issued a restraining order for him to stop. Lawyers for Letterman this week asked for the restraining order to be thrown out, saying, "The claims made are obviously absurd and frivolous."
The bones of the late British broadcaster Alistair Cooke were stolen by a crime ring that snatched body parts to sell for transplant procedures, according to reports in two New York newspapers last week. Citing sources close to an investigation by the Brooklyn district attorney's office, the Daily News said Cooke's bones were snatched before his cremation and sold for more than US$7,000 to two tissue processing companies.
Argentine soccer great Diego Maradona was detained at Rio de Janeiro airport on Thursday after he tried to force his way onto a flight that he was late for, police and a Brazilian airline said. Police held Maradona, 45, for several hours in the morning before releasing him. He boarded a flight to Buenos Aires on Thursday afternoon.
Nine months after she was arrested on charges of methamphetamine possession in Los Angeles, Filipino superstar Nora Aunor was enrolled on Friday in a court-supervised drug treatment program. A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge formally sanctioned her participation in the diversion program, which requires Aunor, 52, to undergo at least 12 months of outpatient substance abuse treatment in order to clear her record.
Actor Brad Renfro, former child star of such films as The Client and Tom and Huck, was arrested in a skid-row drug sweep by Los Angeles undercover detectives rounding up suspected heroin buyers, police said on Friday. Renfro, 23, was one of 14 people detained on suspicion of attempting to buy heroin during Thursday's sting operation by the Los Angeles police department, said spokesman Lieutenant Paul Vernon.
Lawyers for Michael Jackson and a key creditor are in talks to keep the pop star from defaulting on US$200 million in loans secured by his prized stake in the Beatles' song catalog, an attorney for the singer said on Monday. A default on the loans, was due yesterday which would allow the Fortress Investment Group to seize Jackson's 50-percent interest in the Beatles publishing rights valued at some US$500 million.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby