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Bill Cosby to pay for 2 kids' educations

Comedian Bill Cosby, who recently said black children are "going nowhere" because they don't know how to read and write, is paying for college for two top high school graduates who support themselves.

Cosby read a story in the Republican of Springfield about Loren M. Wilder and Jimmy L. Hester, who are also black. They went to three colleges in a tour arranged by Cosby, and selected Hampton University in Hampton, Va., after visiting the campus on Tuesday. "This is all about your careers, your lives," Cosby told the teens.

Wilder was 14 when his mother was jailed for dealing drugs, and Hester left home at 15 after years of fighting with his mother. Both moved from place to place before getting an apartment together this winter with another student from Putnam Vocational Technical High School.

Cosby in May upbraided some blacks for their grammar and accused them of squandering opportunities the civil rights movement gave them. He shot back Thursday, saying his detractors were trying to hide the black community's "dirty laundry."

A longtime observer of the Tampa Bay arts scene has left the Tampa Tribune. Joanne Milani, who wrote about the visual arts and theater for more than a decade, resigned from the newspaper last week. Contacted on Thursday, she had no comment. Editor and vice president Frank Denton said he planned a nationwide search to fill the position. "We're always looking at ways we might improve our arts and entertainment coverage," Denton said.

Musician David Bowie underwent an emergency angioplasty to open a blocked heart artery in Germany and is recuperating, his spokesman said.

Doctors discovered the blockage after the 57-year-old Bowie sought treatment after performing in the German town of Scheesel on June 25, said spokesman Julian Stockton.

A pinched nerve was initially cited as the cause of shoulder pain that forced Bowie to shorten a June 23 performance in Prague and to cancel the remainder of a European tour.

Stockton did not specify the date of the procedure. Bowie left the clinic in Hamburg, Germany, early this week and is now with his family in New York.

Stockton quoted Bowie as saying, "Can't wait to be fully recovered and get back to work again. . . . I won't be writing a song about this one."

British pop star George Michael has decided to close a fans' chatroom on his official Web site after messages accused him of being old, overweight and lazy, reports Agence France-Presse. The 41-year-old said he had been upset to see the forum "packed full of negative comment."

Some visitors to the chatroom at www.georgemichael.com had accused the musician of looking past his best, and of not sufficiently promoting his album, Patience, the first new work in eight years. Michael, born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, said he had had enough. "I'm afraid that, having visited the forums on a regular basis over the past few months, simply to see how you guys thought the album/interviews/promotion were going, I have decided to close them down," the message read.