Erykah Badu faces a disorderly conduct charge for her nude music video shoot in downtown Dallas’ Dealey Plaza, officials announced Friday.
Badu, a Dallas native and
neo-soul singer, performed a walking striptease in front of tourists and pedestrians during the March 13 shoot for her Window Seat music video. The performance ended with a nude Badu acting out receiving a fatal gunshot to the head at the spot where former US president John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.
Sergeant Warren Mitchell said on Friday that the decision to cite Badu for disorderly conduct — a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to US$500 — came after witness Ida Espinosa, 32, offered a sworn statement to police
on Thursday.
“After much discussion, we feel that these charges best fit her conduct. She disrobed in a public place without regard to individuals and small children who were close by,” Mitchell said.
He said a citation would be mailed to the singer.
Also in trouble with the law is Stanley Howse, a rap artist from the group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, who was arrested during an Ohio concert on 12-year-old charges that he roughed up his mother with a gun.
Howse, 36, whose stage name is Flesh-N-Bone, was in jail Monday, a day after he was taken into custody during a show in the group’s hometown of Cleveland.
Sheriff’s spokesman John O’Brien said deputies didn’t wait until after the show because Howse seemed to notice them, invited audience members to the stage and tried to slip out. He was arrested backstage.
O’Brien says Howse was wanted on domestic violence and felonious assault charges. The rapper is accused of striking his mother with a gun in 1998, leaving a 2.5cm gash on her head.
Oscar winner Anna Paquin came out as bisexual on Thursday in a video campaign for gay rights advocates, surprising the True Blood star’s fans and causing the organization’s Web site to crash.
The actress’ message came in a celebrity-laden public service announcement for the Give a
Damn campaign, a Web-based
anti-discrimination effort backed by singer Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors Fund.
“I’m bisexual,” Paquin said, before adding that “one hate crime is committed approximately every hour of every day in this country.”
Paquin last year confirmed that she is engaged to her boyfriend and True Blood co-star Stephen Moyer.
Lauper, Whoopi Goldberg, Elton John and Sharon Osbourne were among the other stars who appeared in the message.
“I’ve come to realize equality means a lot to people who don’t have it and that, as a straight person, I have a responsibility to stand up for gay and transgender people each and every day,” Lauper said in a statement.
Paquin’s disclosure came as a surprise to fans of her work on television and in the movies.
Aged 11 she won an Oscar for best supporting actress in 1993’s The Piano.
Since 2008, the Canadian-born Paquin has played a telepathic person in vampire TV series True Blood on cable network HBO.
British band The Libertines, which broke up in 2004 and includes troubled singer Pete Doherty in its lineup, performed on Wednesday, ahead of an appearance at the Reading Festival in August. Doherty, who famously dated supermodel Kate Moss and has been in and out of court for a string of drug and driving-related offences, appeared with Carl Barat and John Hassall at a press conference in a north London pub.
Lawyers for Michael Jackson’s doctor on Thursday asked a California court not to revoke his medical license because he would be unable to defend himself on charges of involuntary manslaughter in the King of Pop’s death.
California’s attorney general last month asked the Los Angeles Supreme Court to suspend Conrad Murray’s medical license in California, in view of the “reckless” way he administered drugs that made him “a danger to
the public.”
The doctor, who could face up to four years in prison if convicted, acknowledged giving the anesthetic propofol to Jackson following the singer’s “repeated demands/requests” for the drug.
Murray’s lawyers argued that if he is barred from practicing medicine in California, where he no longer does since Jackson’s death on June 25, he would “be unable to practice medicine in Texas and Nevada,” where he
also works.
“His ability to pay for his own defense depends almost entirely on his ability to continue to treat patients
in Nevada and Texas,” they added in the plea.
Last week saw the appearance of another odious screed full of lies from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian (肖千), in the Financial Review, a major Australian paper. Xiao’s piece was presented without challenge or caveat. His “Seven truths on why Taiwan always will be China’s” presented a “greatest hits” of the litany of PRC falsehoods. This includes: Taiwan’s indigenous peoples were descended from the people of China 30,000 years ago; a “Chinese” imperial government administrated Taiwan in the 14th century; Koxinga, also known as Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功), “recovered” Taiwan for China; the Qing owned
In Taiwan’s politics the party chair is an extremely influential position. Typically this person is the presumed presidential candidate or serving president. In the last presidential election, two of the three candidates were also leaders of their party. Only one party chair race had been planned for this year, but with the Jan. 1 resignation by the currently indicted Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) two parties are now in play. If a challenger to acting Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) appears we will examine that race in more depth. Currently their election is set for Feb. 15. EXTREMELY
Jan. 20 to Jan. 26 Taipei was in a jubilant, patriotic mood on the morning of Jan. 25, 1954. Flags hung outside shops and residences, people chanted anti-communist slogans and rousing music blared from loudspeakers. The occasion was the arrival of about 14,000 Chinese prisoners from the Korean War, who had elected to head to Taiwan instead of being repatriated to China. The majority landed in Keelung over three days and were paraded through the capital to great fanfare. Air Force planes dropped colorful flyers, one of which read, “You’re back, you’re finally back. You finally overcame the evil communist bandits and
They increasingly own everything from access to space to how we get news on Earth and now outgoing President Joe Biden warns America’s new breed of Donald Trump-allied oligarchs could gobble up US democracy itself. Biden used his farewell speech to the nation to deliver a shockingly dark message: that a nation which has always revered its entrepreneurs may now be at their mercy. “An oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms,” Biden said. He named no names, but his targets were clear: men like Elon Musk
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