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."
Jan 13 to Jan 19 Yang Jen-huang (楊仁煌) recalls being slapped by his father when he asked about their Sakizaya heritage, telling him to never mention it otherwise they’ll be killed. “Only then did I start learning about the Karewan Incident,” he tells Mayaw Kilang in “The social culture and ethnic identification of the Sakizaya” (撒奇萊雅族的社會文化與民族認定). “Many of our elders are reluctant to call themselves Sakizaya, and are accustomed to living in Amis (Pangcah) society. Therefore, it’s up to the younger generation to push for official recognition, because there’s still a taboo with the older people.” Although the Sakizaya became Taiwan’s 13th
Earlier this month, a Hong Kong ship, Shunxin-39, was identified as the ship that had cut telecom cables on the seabed north of Keelung. The ship, owned out of Hong Kong and variously described as registered in Cameroon (as Shunxin-39) and Tanzania (as Xinshun-39), was originally People’s Republic of China (PRC)-flagged, but changed registries in 2024, according to Maritime Executive magazine. The Financial Times published tracking data for the ship showing it crossing a number of undersea cables off northern Taiwan over the course of several days. The intent was clear. Shunxin-39, which according to the Taiwan Coast Guard was crewed
China’s military launched a record number of warplane incursions around Taiwan last year as it builds its ability to launch full-scale invasion, something a former chief of Taiwan’s armed forces said Beijing could be capable of within a decade. Analysts said China’s relentless harassment had taken a toll on Taiwan’s resources, but had failed to convince them to capitulate, largely because the threat of invasion was still an empty one, for now. Xi Jinping’s (習近平) determination to annex Taiwan under what the president terms “reunification” is no secret. He has publicly and stridently promised to bring it under Communist party (CCP) control,
One way people in Taiwan can control how they are represented is through their choice of name. Culturally, it is not uncommon for people to choose their own names and change their identification cards and passports to reflect the change, though only recently was the right to use Indigenous names written using letters allowed. Reasons for changing a person’s name can vary widely, from wanting to sound more literary, to changing a poor choice made by their parents or, as 331 people did in March of 2021, to get free sushi by legally changing their name to include the two characters
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