Singer Amy Winehouse, the jazz-pop diva best known for a hit song describing her refusal to go to drug rehab, entered a treatment facility last week to tackle her narcotic addition.
The announcement came just days after the 24-year-old was pictured in British tabloid The Sun apparently inhaling fumes from a small pipe. Police have launched an inquiry into the matter.
"Amy decided to enter the facility today after talks with her record label, management, family and doctors," Universal Music Group said in a statement.
PHOTO: AP
"She has come to understand that she requires specialist treatment to continue her ongoing recovery from drug addiction," the statement said.
Winehouse, who is nominated for six Grammy Awards for her acclaimed Back to Black album, seems to be as famous for her drug problems as for her music. Since the album's US release last year, she has canceled a slew of appearances amid reports of drug use.
The album's most popular song, Rehab, references her struggles, and is a defiant anthem against entering a treatment facility.
Rap music mogul Marion "Suge" Knight has been named by police as a member of a notorious gang in a crime-plagued suburb of Los Angeles.
Knight, best known as the co-founder of the rap label Death Row Records, was one of some 200 people named as members of the Mob Piru street gang in a crackdown by authorities in the city of Compton, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Knight, who was raised in Compton and spent five years in prison, said that including his name on the list of gang members was a "publicity stunt" by police.
"This is crazy," Knight told the newspaper. "I'm a 42-year-old businessman, not a gang member. I don't even live in Compton anymore. This injunction lists people who are already in jail - and at least one guy who is long dead."
"I am engaged ... to Barack Obama," Scarlett Johansson joked in an interview. "My heart belongs to Barack, and that is who I am currently, finally, engaged to."
Johansson, who showed her support for the Democratic presidential candidate at the Iowa caucus earlier this month, was really just deflecting a question about rumors she might be engaged to actor-beau Ryan Reynolds.
The 23-year-old also talked about the warm welcome she received while visiting troops stationed in the Persian Gulf last week. "Everybody that I met there was so incredibly friendly and polite and genuine and generous," she said. "They were so, so sweet. I mean, I was just amazed." Johansson said some people ripped patches off their jackets as gifts and handed her challenge coins from their military units. One Marine offered up his St Christopher medal.
Lil Wayne was arrested on three felony drug charges after federal agents said they found illegal drugs, including cocaine, on his charter bus at a checkpoint in southwestern Arizona.
A Border Patrol dog alerted agents to the presence of illegal drugs on the bus, said Drug Enforcement Administration spokeswoman Ramona Sanchez. Among what a search yielded: nearly 114g of marijuana and just over 28g of cocaine, as well as drug paraphernalia.
Officials also found a .40-caliber pistol registered to the performer, who has a concealed weapons permit in Florida. Authorities are looking into whether he violated any weapons laws in Arizona.
Former British pop singer Gary Glitter, jailed in Vietnam for child molestation, is considering moving to Hong Kong after his release, a report said Sunday.
The 63-year-old - jailed for three years in 2005 for molesting girls aged 11 and 12 - has asked his Vietnamese lawyer Le Thanh Kinh about the possibility of a new life in the city, the Morning Post said, quoting unnamed friends of Kinh.
Glitter - whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd - is set for release in August, when he will be deported back to the UK.
But he told Kinh he wants to return to Asia as soon as possible, the report added.
Glitter began thinking about Hong Kong 13 months ago after a meeting about life in the UK with British police and a sex offences specialist at his prison in Thu Duc, the source said.
"It wasn't a happy encounter. He said afterwards he didn't like the sound of it at all, and it made him determined never to settle back in the UK," a friend of Kinh told the English-language paper.
Kihn denied Glitter had spoken to him about moving to Hong Kong, and said "it is not clear where he will go after his release."
Following the shock complete failure of all the recall votes against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers on July 26, pan-blue supporters and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were giddy with victory. A notable exception was KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), who knew better. At a press conference on July 29, he bowed deeply in gratitude to the voters and said the recalls were “not about which party won or lost, but were a great victory for the Taiwanese voters.” The entire recall process was a disaster for both the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The only bright spot for
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