Bai Ling (白靈) has copped a plea in her shoplifting case.
The actress was charged earlier this week with petty theft for trying to take a pack of batteries and two Star magazines worth US$16.22 from a store at Los Angeles International Airport.
In the plea deal requested by her attorney, she agreed Wednesday to plead guilty to disturbing the peace and to pay a fine and penalties totaling US$700, city attorney spokesman Frank Mateljan said.
PHOTO: AP
The misdemeanor infraction "carries the same penalty as petty theft," Mateljan said.
In a message posted on her blog, the actress proclaimed "I am innocent" below a photo of herself with her thumb up.
"Theft dismissed! Yes! This is it! All the darkness went away," she wrote.
PHOTO: AP
The actress, who has appeared in such films as The Crow and Anna and the King, was arrested on Feb. 13 after she was detained by a store employee who summoned police.
She later told E! News that she was having an "emotionally crazy" day because she and her boyfriend broke up right before Valentine's Day.
Kelly Rowland has gotten a little more "bustylicious."
Rowland, who sang Bootylicious with Beyonce in the group Destiny's Child, said that she had plastic surgery in October to bring her "from an A-cup to a B-cup."
"I was sick of not fitting into my tops," she says. "There was this one really hot House of Dereon top - I just wanted to fill that out!" Rowland says that top complements her new curves: "I put it on and I looked so good! I'm so happy. I feel complete," said Rowland, who has released two solo albums.
A leukemia patient in dire need of a bone marrow transplant has found a donor after Grammy Award-winning singer Rihanna publicized her case, People magazine reported.
Lisa Gershowitz Flynn, a 41-year-old lawyer and mother of two small children, was diagnosed last November with acute myelogenous leukemia, a fast-growing cancer of the blood and bone marrow. People.com said last month that doctors had told Flynn she needed to find a marrow donor within four to six weeks.
Flynn has said she was touched by Rihanna's efforts on her behalf.
Lisa Marie Presley wanted to keep her pregnancy private, but felt she had to say something when photos of her looking heavier were ridiculed in the news media.
"After being the target all week of slanderous and degrading stories, horribly manipulated pictures and articles in the media, I have had to show my cards and announce under the gun and under vicious personal attack that I am in fact pregnant," the 40-year-old singer wrote on her MySpace page.
Britney Spears' father will retain broad control of the troubled pop singer's financial and business affairs until at least July 31, court sources said on Thursday.
A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Superior Court said the court on Wednesday extended Jamie Spears' control over the 26-year old singer's estate, but declined to provide details.
Off the record, on the QT and very hush, hush, the trial of a Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano, who counted A-list stars among his clients, is stirring fears of what secrets might crawl out of the woodwork.
"The PI to the stars" went on trial on Wednesday on 110 counts of illegal telephone tapping and racketeering with four co-accused.
Eyebrows raised among the rich and famous in 2006 when he was charged.
Gossipmongers started salivating on Wednesday as prosecutors unveiled a list of potential witnesses, including Sylvester Stallone, Keith Carradine, Chris Rock and Farrah Fawcett.
Former football star O.J. Simpson won't be tried on armed robbery and kidnapping charges until September.
District Judge Jackie Glass on Friday said she didn't want to delay the trial but felt she needed to push it back to Sept. 8 to give prosecutors time to analyze and enhance tape recordings and other evidence and provide the results to defense attorneys.
A young Brazilian woman on Thursday night embraced Bob Dylan onstage at a concert, wresting a smile and a few words from the normally reserved singer.
Dylan was performing an encore at his second show in Sao Paulo when the woman rushed the stage. Three bouncers whisked her away.
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
April 21 to April 27 Hsieh Er’s (謝娥) political fortunes were rising fast after she got out of jail and joined the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in December 1945. Not only did she hold key positions in various committees, she was elected the only woman on the Taipei City Council and headed to Nanjing in 1946 as the sole Taiwanese female representative to the National Constituent Assembly. With the support of first lady Soong May-ling (宋美齡), she started the Taipei Women’s Association and Taiwan Provincial Women’s Association, where she
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
It is one of the more remarkable facts of Taiwan history that it was never occupied or claimed by any of the numerous kingdoms of southern China — Han or otherwise — that lay just across the water from it. None of their brilliant ministers ever discovered that Taiwan was a “core interest” of the state whose annexation was “inevitable.” As Paul Kua notes in an excellent monograph laying out how the Portuguese gave Taiwan the name “Formosa,” the first Europeans to express an interest in occupying Taiwan were the Spanish. Tonio Andrade in his seminal work, How Taiwan Became Chinese,