She is watched round the clock by photographers, chased at high speed and friends fear for her mental stability. After a year of erratic behavior in the glare of the press spotlight she both shuns and invites, pop star Britney Spears has some observers comparing the celebrity media frenzy surrounding her with what Britain's Princess Diana faced and some voice concern about her safety.
Four photographers were arrested for reckless driving after a late night car chase of pop star Spears on the outskirts of Los Angeles, police said on Thursday. Los Angeles police spokeswoman Sara Faden said the four were among a group of paparazzi seen driving at high speed in the Mission Hills area of the city around 11:30pm on Wednesday on the trail of the troubled singer.
Young US actress Lindsay Lohan is to carry out part of her community service sentence imposed last year for drunk-driving in a morgue, court officials said Friday.
PHOTO: AP
Lohan, 21, was sentenced in August to one day in jail, 10 days of community service and given a three-year suspended sentence after twice being arrested and pleading guilty to driving over the limit.
During a hearing in a Beverly Hills court late Thursday, Lohan's lawyer Blair Berk revealed she would spend two days working in a morgue and two in a hospital emergency room.
Lohan, who starred in The Last Show, Mean Girls and Freaky Friday, was arrested July 24 in Santa Monica, California. She later checked into the exclusive Cirque Lodge Treatment Center in the state of Utah for a two-month detoxification program.
PHOTO: AP
"It was a sobering experience," Lohan told OK! magazine in October in her first interview after leaving the center.
Across the globe, a popular Malaysian rock singer has been banned from appearing on television entertainment programs for three months after he sparked an uproar by baring his chest during a live TV concert, reports said yesterday.
Faizal Tahir - one of Malaysia's most exuberant stage performers - stripped off his jacket, undershirt and belt and flung them into the audience at a Jan. 13 concert in Kuala Lumpur. The moves revealed a bright red Superman logo painted on his chest.
PHOTO: AP
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission slammed Faizal's premeditated stunt as "insensitive'' to viewers and Malaysian culture, the New Straits Times said.
"It is a serious offense in a live entertainment program,'' the commission was quoted as saying in a statement.
Malaysia's government has strict guidelines for entertainers, who must cover up from chest to knee onstage. Jumping, hugging, kissing and throwing objects at the audience are prohibited.
Comic actor Eddie Murphy and his new wife Tracey Edmonds have split up just two weeks after their romantic wedding in French Polynesia, People magazine reported on Wednesday. The star of Shrek and Dreamgirls and Edmonds, a film producer, exchanged their vows on a private island off Bora Bora on Jan. 1.
Allan Melvin, a character actor known for appearances in such TV staples as The Phil Silvers Show, All in the Family and The Brady Bunch, has died, the Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday. Melvin succumbed to cancer on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles, the paper said, quoting his wife, Amalia. He was 84.
Suzanne Pleshette, the beautiful, husky-voiced film and Broadway theater star best known for her role as Bob Newhart's sardonic wife on television's long-running The Bob Newhart Show, has died, said her attorney Robert Finkelstein. She was 70.
Pleshette, who underwent chemotherapy for lung cancer in 2006, died of respiratory failure yesterday evening at her Los Angeles home, said attorney and family friend Robert Finkelstein. She was 70.
"The Bob Newhart Show, a hit throughout its six-year run, starred comedian Newhart as a Chicago psychiatrist surrounded by eccentric patients. Pleshette provided the voice of reason.
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