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Rapper Busta Rhymes was refused entry into the UK last week, according to the promoter of a Busta Rhymes charity concert.

Rhymes was detained at London City Airport on Thursday by immigration officers, who said their refusal was based on “unresolved convictions” in the US, said Stephen Greene of Orange RockCorps.

The promoter said Rhymes, whose real name is Trevor George Smith Jr, had been allowed into the UK twice before this year. The performer was in custody while RockCorps challenged the decision.

Rhymes performed at the Royal Albert Hall on Friday night after winning a court order allowing him to stay in the country.

US rap star Ludacris, who had agreed to perform in Rhymes’ place, suffered his own misfortune when a fire destroyed a pool house at his home outside Atlanta on Wednesday night.

Fulton County Fire Department spokesman Gregory Chambers says a relative was in the basement of the main residence when the fire started and was not injured.

Chambers says the fire was put out within 30 minutes but destroyed the pool house, which he says is larger than most homes.

The fire was being investigated but the cause was not immediately identified.

It’s official: Clay is gay.

Finally confirming what many people already knew, the cover of the latest People magazine shows Clay Aiken — the former talent show contestant-turned-multiplatinum singer — holding his infant son, Parker Foster Aiken, with the headline: “Yes, I’m Gay.” The cover also has the quote: “I cannot raise a child to lie or hide things.”

The baby’s mother is Aiken’s friend and record producer Jaymes Foster.

Aiken, who gained fame as the runner-up on American Idol in 2003, rarely addressed the frequent rumors about his sexuality. In an interview with the Associated Press two years ago, he said: “I don’t really feel like I have anybody to answer to but myself and God and the people I love.” Aiken recently released the CD On My Way Here and made his Broadway debut this spring in Monty Python’s Spamalot.

In other news, Johnny Cash will speak to his fans from beyond the grave with a previously unreleased recitation that will be available as part of a new documentary examining Cash’s views on the US.

In I Am The Nation, the deep-voiced singer personifies the country with references to important events and people in American history.

The recording was discovered in Cash’s personal belongings after his death. It will be released as part of Johnny Cash’s America, a documentary airing Oct. 23 in the US on the Biography Channel. The companion DVD/CD package on Legacy Recordings will be available on Oct. 28.

The documentary features interviews with Bob Dylan; Al Gore; Snoop Dogg; Sheryl Crow; Steve Earle; Kris Kristofferson; Loretta Lynn; Merle Haggard; US Senator Lamar Alexander; Tim Robbins; Vince Gill; Cash; his sister, Joanne; and his children, John Carter Cash and Cindy Cash.

In the film, Cash, who was outspoken on social issues, discusses the political process and the two parties.

“The whole film and soundtrack are poignant for what’s going on in the political climate right now,” said Charlie Dougiello, a spokesman for the project.

There must be something in the in the Kununurra water.

Oscar-winning actress Nicole Kidman said swimming in Australian Outback waterfalls may promote fertility and might have contributed to her unexpected pregnancy over the past year.

The 41-year-old Aussie, who gave birth to daughter Sunday Rose in July, said she and six other women who swam in the waters of a small Outback town during production of the epic romance Australia fell pregnant.

“I never thought that I would get pregnant and give birth to a child, but it happened on this movie,” Kidman told The Australian Women’s Weekly in an exclusive interview for the magazine’s 75th anniversary edition, released on Wednesday.

“Seven babies were conceived out of this film and only one was a boy. There is something up there in the Kununurra water because we all went swimming in the waterfalls, so we can call it the fertility waters now.”

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