Entertainment News
May 9, 2008YONKERS, New York - Singer Mary J. Blige is establishing a foundation to help women develop careers and gain self-confidence.
Blige, whose current album is "Growing Pains," and Steve Stoute, who founded a youth-oriented brand consulting firm, say they're setting up the Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now.
LOS ANGELES - She's not just fast. She's very fast.
Meet Daphne, the speedy new character on NBC's "Heroes," who plans to give the show's superhumans - especially time traveller Hiro and his sidekick, Ando - a run for their money when she debuts on the popular NBC series' upcoming third season, which went back into production last week.
ATLANTA - Even though Raven-Symone can now add movie producer to her long list of accomplishments, some people still perceive her as just a little girl.
But the former "That's So Raven" star is trying to show she's graduated from the child phenom role and has more substance to her than the animated character that's still endlessly shown, via reruns, on the television screen.
CHICAGO - Jury selection began Friday in the child pornography trial of Grammy-winning singer R. Kelly, who is accused of having sex with a girl as young as 13 on videotape.
Cook County Circuit Court Judge Vincent Gaughan outlined the 14-count indictment against the R&B superstar to potential jurors who packed into the courtroom. Gaughan refused to allow reporters to view the jury selection. A court official said there were not enough seats.
GENEVA - An icy, pear-shaped 38-carat diamond that belonged to the only daughter of Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis went on display in Geneva on Friday.
The stone Christina Onassis wore on a pendant necklace, which is to be auctioned June 11 in London, has been valued at between $3.5 million and $4.3 million.
LOS ANGELES - Near as Lee Pace can tell, the best way to scare audiences away is to tell them how good something is.
"I think people are really cautious about important movies," said Pace, who stars in "The Fall," opening Friday. "If you're told, 'There's an important movie coming out,' people would rather chew glass than go see it."
NEW YORK - Rapper Foxy Brown has pleaded guilty to menacing a neighbour with her cell phone last year. She avoided jail based on time already served.
The two women got into a fight July 31, 2007, over Brown blasting her car stereo outside their Brooklyn apartment building.
TORONTO - Here are the top 10 television programs in Canada, with viewer numbers, for the week of April 28-May 4:
LOS ANGELES - A judge has reinstated a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by the family of slain rapper Notorious B.I.G., reversing an earlier decision to dismiss the case.
U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper threw out the lawsuit March 21 after determining the family missed a state deadline for bringing a claim against the city and two former police officers. The lawsuit was originally filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, then moved to federal court.
ROME - Italy has reached an agreement with a U.S. museum for the return of artifacts that Rome says have been looted or smuggled out of the country, art officials said Friday.
Under the deal the Cleveland Museum of Art will return 16 artifacts to Italy, the Culture Ministry said, without giving details.
LOS ANGELES - Nothing ever seems to change in the stormy love-hate relationship between Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood.
The characters created by Harrison Ford and Karen Allen in 1981's "Raiders of the Lost Ark" are back at it with "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," due out May 22.
LOS ANGELES - Another Canadian has become a big name at the Playboy Mansion.
Jayde Nicole is Playboy's 2008 Playmate of the Year. The 22-year-old brunette bombshell is featured in a ten-page nude pictorial in Playboy's June issue that comes out this week.
TORONTO - Renowned Canadian playwright Judith Thompson unveils what she calls one of the most "creatively gratifying" stage productions of her 30-year career this weekend.
But she didn't write it, nor did she come up with the initial concept. It was soap maker Dove that first hatched the idea for "Body & Soul," which sees 13 Canadian women - aged 45 to 78 - going onstage to tell their own stories of racism, abuse, cancer, motherhood, immigration and divorce, among other things.
TORONTO - George Stroumboulopoulos has been quietly amassing a devout Internet following that reaches beyond Canada's borders with his low-key CBC talk show, "The Hour."
The show has been getting millions of hits on YouTube since the public broadcaster started showcasing its content on the video-sharing site last fall. A Facebook group devoted to "The Hour" has members from as far afield as Australia and New Zealand.
NEW YORK - After all this time, you don't associate Jeff Probst with traffic gridlock, yowling sirens, or office towers crowding the sky.
It's not that Probst seems out of place in a metropolis like New York. It's just that, after 16 seasons hosting CBS' "Survivor," he's more readily identified with various brands of wilderness half-a-world away.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Eddy Arnold, whose mellow baritone on songs like "Make the World Go Away" made him one of the most successful country singers in history, died Thursday morning, days short of his 90th birthday.
Arnold died at a care facility near Nashville, said Don Cusic, a professor at Belmont University and author of the biography "Eddy Arnold: I'll Hold You in My Heart." His wife of 66 years, Sally, had died in March, and in the same month, Arnold fell outside his home, injuring his hip.
LOS ANGELES - Madonna's "Sticky & Sweet" tour will make three Canadian stops, beginning in Toronto on Oct. 18.
It moves to Montreal Oct. 22 and Vancouver Oct. 30. The tour begins Aug. 23 in Cardiff, Wales, with stops in major European markets through September before hitting North America Oct. 3 in East Rutherford, N.J.
NEW YORK - Carly Simon was worried about preserving her voice as she rehearsed for her first public performance of tunes from her new CD, but she couldn't restrain herself as she got swept away singing the sexy title song, "This Kind of Love."
Tall and slender, her blond hair flowing, she gently swayed her body and snapped her fingers to the beat of the samba-inspired melody, singing passionately about making love on moonlit beaches.
