Los Angeles – Britney Spears wants her fans to know that their prayers have helped her during a difficult time.
“I am so blessed that you care enough about me to be concerned and will continue to live in this brighter state with all of you by my side during this trying time,” she wrote in the letter posted Wednesday on her website.
“We are all the lights of the world and we all need to continually inspire others and look to the higher power,” she added. “You are all in my prayers. Godspeed.” Her publicist did not immediately return an e-mail seeking comment.
The pop princess recently performed what were believed to be her first public concerts in nearly three years. Her musical comeback comes amid a tumultuous time in which she divorced aspiring rapper Kevin Federline, had a series of run-ins with the paparazzi and checked into rehab.
New York – Kathy Hilton hopes young people will learn from her 26-year-old socialite daughter, Paris, who is facing 45 days in jail for violating her probation.
“We can only hope that something positive will come from all of this. Hopefully, young people who look up to people like Paris will learn from this,” Hilton said in a statement read Wednesday on ABC’s “The View” by co-host Barbara Walters.
Kathy Hilton called her Tuesday night and offered the statement, Walters said.
New York – Bono is grappling with a new version of the unforgettable fire, and it has nothing to do with his band’s 1984 album: The rocker-activist is embroiled in a flap over fireplaces at his Manhattan apartment building.
The U2 frontman has told co-op board members at the stately San Remo that smoke from other residents’ fireplaces is wafting into the penthouse duplex he shares with his family, The New York Times reported.
The building’s fireplaces have long-standing problems, said Leni May, the wife of board member Peter May.
“Bono was so nice,” she said. “He said, ‘Listen, whatever I can do to get these things working, but it’s emptying into my apartment and I can’t have smoke like that.”‘ The singer told the board that one of his four children has asthma, Leni May said.
The building’s board banned the use of fireplaces to study the issue, raising the ire of some owners whose units include them, the Times said.
Principle Management, the company that manages U2, said the singer was raising a safety concern, not a personal peeve.
“This is not a Bono issue,” a Principle Management representative said. “It’s a building issue. It’s about health and safety regulations.” The 1930 building on Central Park West has had several other celebrity residents, including Dustin Hoffman and Diane Keaton. The building’s board famously said no to Madonna when she tried to buy an apartment there in 1985.
Bono bought his apartment from Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs, said the listing broker, Roger Erickson, a senior managing director at Sothebys International Realty.
Bono, whose real name is Paul Hewson, and his wife, Ali Hewson, also have homes in Dublin, Ireland, and in the south of France.
The singer, 47, has become prominent in politics as well as rock.
He was in Germany this week to push for more aid to Africa from the world’s biggest industrial countries.
New Smyrna Beach, Fla. – David Faustino, who played Bud Bundy on the TV series “Married with Children,” was arrested on marijuana and disorderly intoxication charges.
Police said they spotted Faustino, 33, and his wife, Andrea, 31, at an intersection late Friday night. Faustino reportedly tried to climb out the car window, then opened the door.
The actor tried to walk away when police confronted the couple, authorities said. The officer smelled alcohol on Faustino’s breath and found a plastic bag with a gram of marijuana in his pocket, police said.
Faustino was booked into Volusia County jail and released Saturday.
Volusia County court records did not list an attorney for Faustino. A telephone message left after hours by The Associated Press with the actor’s public relations firm was not immediately returned.
Faustino filed for divorce in February from his wife in Los Angeles, citing irreconcilable differences.
“Married With Children” ran on the Fox network from 1987 to 1997.
New York – Lindsay Lohan and her mother have been sued by a freelance photographer who claims the “Georgia Rule” actress hit him with a car in the West Village.
Photographer Giovanni Arnold claims he “sustained severe and permanent personal injuries” when he was struck by the BMW on March 13 on Ninth Avenue between 12th and 13th streets.
Arnold suffered injuries to both knees and was “still getting medical treatment,” his lawyer, Marc Mauser, said Tuesday. He said Arnold was seeking unspecified monetary damages “for his pain and suffering and his lost wages.” Robert Stephan Cohen, a lawyer for Lindsay Lohan and her mother, Dina, was in a meeting Tuesday and wasn’t immediately available for comment, his office said.
The complaint claims the Lohans were “negligent, careless and reckless” with the vehicle.
The lawsuit, filed last Thursday, says the BMW was owned by Dina Lohan and that her daughter was driving it with her permission.
Arnold was reportedly among several photographers trailing the 20-year-old actress from a nightclub to the Hotel Gansevoort in the Meatpacking District.
Lohan reportedly told the New York Post in March that one of the photographers jumped on the hood of the car, accidentally knocking Arnold down.
According to Mauser, Arnold was in front of the BMW when Lohan put it in reverse and then in drive, throwing him on the hood and then the ground. He said the actress stopped to check on Arnold before leaving.
The Lohans have 30 days to respond to the lawsuit, filed in state Supreme Court in the Bronx, the borough where Arnold lives.
