Bono said Saturday that Africa must keep working to stop malaria, which kills more than 1 million people a year, many of them young children on the continent. “In the 21st century, we have Africans using modern technology to find its own solutions to deadly malaria,” the U2 frontman said during a visit to A to Z Textile Mills in Tanzania, which makes insecticide-treated bed nets to keep mosquitoes away.
It was a one-two encounter between Axl Rose and Tommy Hilfiger. The rocker and the designer capped a Thursday evening out at a new club called The Plumm in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood with midnight fisticuffs. “There was an issue between the two of them,” said Plumm owner Noel Ashman.
The scuffle reportedly started after the Guns N’ Roses frontman moved the drink of Hilfiger’s girlfriend, Dee Ocleppo. According to the 44-year-old singer, Hilfiger, 55, smacked him in the arm and told him to put the drink back. “He just kept smacking me,” Rose said. Rose was there to play a surprise set for “Rent” actress Rosario Dawson for her 27th birthday party.
Vandals toppled a wooden statue of the King of Western Swing. Now he has to wear a sling. “We came in (Wednesday) morning, and he was laying on his back with his arm broken off,” said Clair Devers of the Lone Star Music store in Gruene, Texas, home of the 8-foot-tall carving of Bob Wills by local musician Doug Moreland. Gruene is about 30 miles north of San Antonio. The music store and a radio station offered a $500 reward for information leading to an arrest.
One of the founding members of the legendary Motown group the Supremes will undergo heart bypass surgery today after being hospitalized with chest pains last week, her publicist said. Mary Wilson, 62, remained hospitalized Friday after being rushed to the hospital by a family member Tuesday, complaining of chest pains, according to her publicist, Jay Schwartz, in Los Angeles. Wilson suffers from hereditary high cholesterol, Schwartz said.
The Daily Princetonian says Nobel laureate Toni Morrison plans to retire from her Princeton University professorship. The news comes just as the New York Review of Books named Morrison’s 1987 novel “Beloved” the best American fiction of the past 25 years. “It is a happy occurrence that at the very moment that professor Morrison has decided to retire she should have received this honor, one that is so richly deserved,” said Edmund White, director of the university’s creative- writing program.
Some biographers say Elvis Presley’s life was like a circus. Now it is – literally. CKX, which owns Elvis Presley Enterprises, has made a deal with Cirque du Soleil to create a series of performances based on the King. The Canada-based troupe will also create a bunch of multi media, interactive museums called Elvis Experiences. The Cirque shows will take about 18 months to develop.
