People, January 5, 2006
Haiti names hip-hop’s Wyclef Jean ‘roving ambassador’PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Wyclef Jean has been named a roving ambassador for Haiti, the foreign minister announced Thursday.The 34-year-old hip-hop star will promote development in the country and represent Haiti at various events abroad, said Foreign Affairs Minister Reynald Clerisme. President Rene Preval chose Jean for the honourary position as a way to boost the image of an impoverished country that is struggling to restore stability after a violent rebellion in 2004. “We have so much to recover from with our bad reputation. With Wyclef, we can gain a lot,” Clerisme said.
Jean, a Haitian citizen who lives in the United States, wasn’t immediately available for comment. His Yele Haiti foundation promotes arts, education and sports as a way to bring jobs and development to Haiti.
He grew up in poverty but left Haiti for the US at age nine. Jean later won fame with The Fugees and as a solo performer.
On the Net: Wyclef Jean: http://www.wyclef.com/
Yele Haiti: www.yele.org/
“She has brought a new vitality to this show and the ratings prove it,” Walters said of O’Donnell, who is on vacation this week. When she returns, Walters said, “We will all welcome her back with open arms.”
Walters also took a moment to try to smooth things over with The Donald, who got all riled up when O’Donnell said on The View that he had been “bankrupt so many times”.
“ABC has asked me to say this just to clarify things, and I will quote: ‘Donald Trump has never filed for personal bankruptcy. Several of his casino companies have filed for business bankruptcies. They are out of bankruptcy now,”’ Walters said.
In a phone interview with The Associated Press, Trump said he appreciated that Walters “did a retraction” and claimed the show’s “ratings are up because of people like me.”
“Barbara fully understands what Barbara told me,” he said. “At the same time, she can’t say that because she has to work with the woman. But she won’t be working with her long. I mean, that thing will explode because Rosie’s wacko.”
O’Donnell and Trump have been feuding since he announced last month that Miss USA Tara Conner, whose title had been in jeopardy because of underage drinking, would keep her crown.
Trump is the owner of the Miss Universe Organisation, which includes Miss USA and Miss Teen USA.
The 44-year-old outspoken moderator of The View, who joined the show in September, said Trump’s news conference with Conner had annoyed her “on a multitude of levels” and that the twice-divorced real estate mogul had no right to be “the moral compass for 20-year-olds in America”.
Trump fired back, calling O’Donnell a “loser” and a “bully,” among other insults, in various media interviews.Whitney Houston’s gear to be auctionedNEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Few people can sing like Whitney Houston. But next week, anyone with some spare cash can dress like the Grammy winner, right down to one of her black velvet bustiers, and croon into one of her microphones.Those items and more than 300 others from a 1999 world tour, including grand pianos, drum kits and a forklift, will be auctioned Tuesday in an effort to cover unpaid storage fees on the gear and clothing, said Jeffrey Campisi, a lawyer for Speed of Sound, a company that has been tending to the equipment.
The tour gear, which includes speakers, amplifiers and a vintage barber chair along with designer clothes, has been stored in Irvington since the tour, Campisi said. Speed of Sound went to court in May after not receiving payments from Houston’s company, Nippy Inc., for a year. The company is now owed $175,000 to $200,000, Campisi said.
He could not estimate what the auction might bring, but said any excess money will go to Nippy. Nippy lawyer Michael J. Connolly referred a reporter to Houston spokeswoman Nancy Seltzer, who didn’t immediately return a call Wednesday.
In recent comments to newspapers, Seltzer has said the auction is being held to dispose of outdated equipment and costumes that are no longer needed.
Houston, 43, a Newark native, is divorcing singer Bobby Brown after 14 stormy years of marriage. Some of his music awards will be on the same auction block.
The home that Brown, 37, and Houston once shared in Alpharetta, Georgia, near Atlanta, went on the market in November. She avoided a sheriff’s sale of her New Jersey mansion after falling more than $1 million behind on the mortgage and accumulating $83,000 in unpaid taxes. A deal has been reached on the mortgage and the taxes on the ten-acre Mendham estate have been paid, Morris County authorities said.
Houston has been living in Los Angeles, working on an album. The auction Tuesday will be at the Irvington warehouse, but gawkers beware: It will cost $100 to enter the building.
On the Net: A.J. Willner Auctions:
www.ajwillnerauctions.com/
Whitney Houston: www.whitneyhouston.com/Teri Garr recovering after surgery to repair aneurysmLOS ANGELES (AP) — Teri Garr is recovering from surgery to repair an aneurysm she suffered at her home on December 21, her publicist said.Doctors expect the actress, 58, to make a full recovery, Heidi Schaeffer said. Garr, who also suffers from multiple sclerosis, is alert and talking, Schaeffer added. Garr has appeared in dozens of films and television shows, including “Friends,” “Young Frankenstein” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”.Croc Hunter’s wife handed death tapeSYDNEY (AP) — Authorities gave the video of “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin’s fatal encounter with a stingray to his family and destroyed all copies to prevent the grisly footage from being made public, an Australian state coroner said.Irwin, 44, died on September 4 after being stabbed in the chest by the stingray’s poisonous barb while filming a documentary on the Great Barrier Reef off the Queensland coast.
Queensland State Coroner Michael Barnes said authorities gave the original video to his wife, Terri, in late December and destroyed other copies.
“The footage has been the subject of widespread media interest and it was wholly appropriate that we took all possible steps to ensure something of such a personal and tragic nature did not fall into the wrong hands,” Barnes said in a statement. “This is in line with the wishes of the Irwin family.”
Police made a small number of copies of the video to assist their inquiry into the cause of Irwin’s death, but they were kept under tight security throughout the investigation, the coroner’s office said.
Speculation had been rife that footage of Irwin’s death could eventually be posted on the Internet. Calls to the Irwin family’s Australia Zoo were not immediately returned, but in an interview with US television last September, Terri Irwin, originally of Eugene, Oregon, said the video should never see the light of day.
“What purpose would that serve?” she told ABC’s Barbara Walters, adding that she herself had not seen the video.
Irwin’s friend and business partner, John Stainton, has seen the film. He told Walters he never wants to see it again and doesn’t want anyone else to see it, either. “It’s just a horrible piece of film tape,” he said.
The death of the exuberant television entertainer and conservationist set off an unprecedented outpouring of grief.
Soprano Alison Trainer sues hotel after bedbugs bit herNEW YORK (AP) — An opera singer has sued the Hilton Hotels Corp. for $6 million, complaining she suffered 150 bites from bedbugs on her arms, chest, neck and face when she stayed in one of its hotels in Arizona.Soprano Alison Trainer claimed she was bitten at Phoenix’s Hilton Suites between November 20 and November 26, and said the bites were a “horrific” experience that left her afraid to sleep in a bed, caused her to lose weight and made her uncomfortable about her physical appearance.
“She looks like a piece of wood that has been attacked by termites,” said Trainer’s attorney, Kenneth J. Glassman.
Court papers say Trainer noticed the bugs on November 26 and reported “brutally conclusive proof” of the infestation to hotel officials.
“She noticed the itching and the blood on the sheets right away, but she didn’t know that this was being caused by bedbugs,” Glassman said, explaining why Trainer stayed in the hotel for six nights.
Despite the bites on her face, Trainer, who has appeared several times with the New York City Opera, the Phoenix Symphony and other music companies around the nation, has kept her singing commitments since the bedbug attack, Glassman said.
