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In the news
Compiled from Times wires Hip-hop artists to meet againThe Russell Simmons-founded Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, which held its first national summit last June, has finalized plans for a West Coast summit Thursday in Beverly Hills, Calif. The conference is intended to lay the groundwork for a second national summit, tentatively scheduled for June. Among the focuses Thursday will be political empowerment (Mario Velasquez, executive director of "Rap The Vote," will speak about voter mobilization); the success of parental advisory labels on hip-hop albums; and hip-hop's relationship with federal regulatory agencies. Among those scheduled to attend are Death Row label head Suge Knight, Dr. Dre and L.A.-based rapper the D.O.C. Simmons is sending a videotaped message. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan will deliver the keynote address, as he did at June's event. Man nasty to Miss JacksonSomeone got past Janet Jackson's velvet rope. While the singer was performing Wednesday night at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y., a 19-year-old man was breaking into her dressing room, police said. Mario Backman of Manhattan was charged with third-degree burglary after Jackson's managers found him inside her dressing room, said Detective Sgt. John Giambrone, a Nassau County police spokesman. Backman took some stuffed animals, an FDNY cap and correspondence, police said Thursday. He was was released without bail and ordered to return to court Monday. Actors union under fireThe Department of Labor is investigating the bungled national elections of the Screen Actors Guild, the Hollywood Reporter says. The probe could settle the voting dispute if the department makes a judgment about the validity of a rerun election, the trade paper reported. Melissa Gilbert, who played Laura Ingalls Wilder on Little House on the Prairie, narrowly defeated Rhoda star Valerie Harper for the presidency in November. But a union committee led by Wonder Years star Fred Savage overturned the results last month and called for a new election because of printing errors on some ballots and an irregular deadline for New York voters. The squabble has left the union in disarray and fraught with internal bickering. Gilbert will remain president through April, when results of the follow-up election are expected. TV notesFelicity will end its run on the WB in May when the show's characters graduate from college, Zap2it.com reported Friday. The show, on hiatus while the WB tries out Glory Days in its time slot, will return March 20. The 11 remaining episodes will air consecutively, capped by a two-hour finale. . . . MTV will have a global town forum with Secretary of State Colin Powell at 8 p.m. Thursday. MTV networks in the United States, India, the Middle East, Italy, United Kingdom/Ireland, Brazil, Russia and elsewhere are hosting the 60-minute special, which will be taped that morning. Young people at MTV locations around the world will ask Powell questions via satellite. Powell will be in Washington. . . . Nathan Lane has signed on to a CBS comedy project titled Life of the Party, about a one-time TV star who wins a seat in Congress.
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From the wire |
