In the news

Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times,
published November 9, 2001

Maher a pessimist

Bill Maher said he expects his late-night talk show won't be around much longer.

The host of ABC's Politically Incorrect said his criticism of the U.S. military after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has hurt his relationship with the network.

"Could we keep working together? Yeah, but there'd still be that tension and that conflict," Maher told Talk magazine for its December/January issue. "After this whole thing, I'm not expecting to be here after my contract runs out in 2002 -- if we make it that long."

On his Sept. 17 show, Maher said: "We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building -- say what you want about that, it's not cowardly."

Maher later apologized "to anyone who took it wrong" and said his comments were aimed at political leaders.

TV notes

ABC's broadcast TV premiere ofSaving Private Ryan on Sunday will include an uncut, uncensored version of the brutal opening D-Day scene. The network said it would air strict viewer advisories before the movie, which is scheduled for 8 p.m. . . . Frasier star Kelsey Grammer wants to deal with the terrorist attacks in an episode. Frasier executive producer David Angell and his wife, Lynn, died in one of the four crashed planes. "To completely ignore it, I think might be a mistake," Grammer said.

Music notes

Aerosmith postponed another show, Thursday night in Philadelphia, as singer Steve Tyler's throat problems continued, Billboard.com said. That was the sixth show postponed or canceled because of Tyler's troubles. The band is at the Ice Palace on Nov. 27. . . . R&B singer Jill Scott recently married longtime friend Lyzel Williams in Hawaii, a spokeswoman for the singer told Launch.com. The spokeswoman said she could not offer further details. Scott sings about Williams on her debut album, Who Is Jill Scott?: Words And Sounds, Vol. 1, on the song He Loves Me (Lyzel In E Flat). ... Nathan Lane, plagued by vocal problems, is back in The Producers, but he has reduced his schedule to six performances a week from eight for the next two weeks on the advice of his doctor. . . . Violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter has decided to cut short her U.S. tour, saying air travel in the country makes her anxious. After three Carnegie Hall concerts this week, Joshua Bell will continue the East Coast leg of the tour with the Trondheim. . . . Norio Ohga, chairman of the board of Sony Corp. and an avocational conductor, was hospitalized Wednesday after he collapsed during a concert he was conducting with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra at the Beijing Music Festival. Sony said Ohga, 71, was "tentatively diagnosed as having a light (brain) hemorrhage."

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