Country Music Star Buck Owens Dies at 76

Country Music Star Buck Owens Dies at 76

By GREG RISLING, Associated Press Writer
3 hours ago

LOS ANGELES - Singer Buck Owens, the flashy rhinestone cowboy who shaped the sound of country music with hits like "Act Naturally" and brought the genre to TV on the long-running "Hee Haw," died Saturday. He was 76.

Owens died at his home in Bakersfield, said family spokesman Jim Shaw. The cause of death was not immediately known. Owens had undergone throat cancer surgery in 1993 and was hospitalized with pneumonia in 1997.

His career was one of the most phenomenal in country music, with a string of more than 20 No. 1 records, most released from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s.

They were recorded with a honky-tonk twang that came to be known throughout California as the "Bakersfield Sound," named for the town 100 miles north of Los Angeles that Owens called home.

"I think the reason he was so well known and respected by a younger generation of country musicians was because he was an innovator and rebel," said Shaw, who played keyboards in Owens' band, the Buckaroos. "He did it out of the Nashville establishment. He had a raw edge."

Owens, elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996, was modest when describing his aspirations.

"I'd like to be remembered as a guy that came along and did his music, did his best and showed up on time, clean and ready to do the job, wrote a few songs and had a hell of a time," he said in 1992.

An indefatigable performer, Owens played a red, white and blue guitar with fireball fervor. He and the Buckaroos wore flashy rhinestone suits in an era when flash was as important to country music as fiddles.

Among his biggest hits were "Together Again" (also recorded by Emmylou Harris), "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail," "Love's Gonna Live Here," "My Heart Skips a Beat" and "Waitin' in Your Welfare Line."

And he was the answer to this music trivia question: What country star had a hit record that was later done by the Beatles?

"Those guys were phenomenal," Owens once said.

Ringo Starr recorded "Act Naturally" twice, singing lead on the Beatles' 1965 version and recording it as a duet with Owens in 1989. The song, by Johnny Russell and Voni Morrison, tells of a poor soul who foresees a movie career playing "a man who's sad and lonely, and all I gotta do is act naturally. ... Might win an Oscar, you can never tell."

In addition to music, Owens had a highly visible TV career as co-host of "Hee Haw" from 1969 to 1986. With guitarist Roy Clark, he led viewers through a potpourri of country music and hayseed humor.

"It's an honest show," Owens told The Associated Press in 1995. "There's no social message _ no crusade. It's fun and simple."

Owens himself could be rebellious, choosing among other things to label what he did "American music" rather than country.

"I took a little heat," he once said. "People asked me, `Isn't country music good enough for you?' "

He also criticized the syrupy arrangements of some country singers, saying "assembly-line, robot music turns me off."

After his string of hits, Owens stayed away from the recording scene for a decade, returning in 1988 to record another No. 1 record, "Streets of Bakersfield," with Dwight Yoakam.

He spent much of his time away concentrating on his business interests, which included a Bakersfield TV station and radio stations in Bakersfield and Phoenix.

"I never wanted to hang around like the punch-drunk fighter," he told The Associated Press in 1992.

He had moved to Bakersfield in 1951, hoping to find work in the thriving juke joints of what in the years before suburban sprawl was a truck-stop town on Highway 99, between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area.

"We played rhumbas and tangos and sambas, and we played Bob Wills music, lots of Bob Wills music," he said, referring to the bandleader who was the king of Western swing.

"And lots of rock 'n' roll," he added.

Owens started recording in the mid-1950s, but gained little success until 1963 with "Act Naturally," his first No. 1 single.

Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. was born in 1929 outside Sherman, Texas, the son of a sharecropper. With opportunities scarce during the Depression, the family moved to Arizona when he was 8.

He dropped out of school at age 13 to haul produce and harvest crops, and by 16 he was playing music in taverns.

He once told an audience, "When I was a little bitty kid, I used to dream about playing the guitar and singing like some of those great people that we had the old, thick records of."

Owens' first wife, Bonnie Owens, sometimes performed with him and went on to become a leading backup singer after their divorce in 1955. She had occasional solo hits in the '60s, as well as successful duets with her second husband, Merle Haggard.

One of her two sons with Owens also became a singer, using the name Buddy Alan. He had a Top 10 hit in 1968, "Let the World Keep on a-Turnin'," and recorded a number of duets with his father.

In addition to Buddy, he is survived by two other sons, Michael and John.

___

On the Net:

http://www.buckowens.com

http://www.countrymusichalloffame.com/

Donald Trump's Wife Gives Birth to a Boy

Donald Trump's Wife Gives Birth to a Boy

By Associated Press
Mon Mar 20, 1:01 PM

NEW YORK - Donald Trump has a new apprentice. The billionaire developer announced Monday on national television that his wife, Melania Knauss Trump, had given birth 20 minutes earlier to a boy.

"Everyone's perfect," Trump said in a telephone interview on MSNBC's "Imus in the Morning."

The boy has been named Barron William Trump, said Knauss Trump's spokeswoman, Courtney Houghton.

In a statement on her Web site, the new mom said the youngest Trump weighed in at 8 1/2 pounds and was 21 inches long.

"I continue to stay young, right? I produce children, I stay young," said the 59-year-old Trump. The baby is Trump's fifth child and his wife's first.

Knauss Trump, 35, was in labor for eight hours, said Trump.

Trump also called in to "Live with Regis and Kelly" on Monday. Regis Philbin and his wife, Joy, were Trump's guests at Florida club Mar-a-Lago on Saturday evening. They parted without realizing what was in store for Trump, who soon flew back to Melania in New York.

"When I left you, I had no news of this at all," Trump said, explaining the baby was over a week early.

The tycoon's first wife, Ivana Trump, is the mother of Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric, who are all in their 20s. Preteen Tiffany is the daughter of Trump's second wife, Marla Maples.

Calls to a Trump spokeswoman went unanswered Monday morning.

Knauss Trump is a Slovenian-born model who has appeared in numerous print ads and on the covers of Vogue and British GQ magazines. Trump's reality show "The Apprentice," is in its fifth cycle.

The couple married in January 2005.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Hamilton: I have cancer

Hamilton: I have cancer

Former Truck Series champ out of truck after Friday's race at AMS
By Ryan Smithson, NASCAR.COM
March 17, 2006
04:57 PM EST (21:57 GMT)

HAMPTON, Ga. -- Bobby Hamilton has never been one to wear his emotions on his sleeve, but even he had a hard time holding back tears when he announced on Friday that he has been diagnosed with neck cancer.

But Hamilton retained the tears -- and his humor.

"It's called head-and-neck cancer. I don't have anything wrong with my head, but [Ken] Schrader said a lot of people would doubt that," said Hamilton.

Hamilton, 48, will begin radiation and chemotherapy treatment on Monday at Vanderbilt Medical Center in his hometown of Nashville, Tenn. He had a tumor removed from his neck on Feb. 8, and said Friday his blood count is normal.

"I have always been sort of a survivor," said Hamilton, who emerged from a difficult Nashville upbringing to become a four-time winner in NASCAR's top division. "I was on the street when I was 13, 14 years old, ending up doing what I did and got a chance to race with the best racecar drivers in the world."

Hamilton considered racing while undergoing treatment, but when he starting studying the side effects, he changed his mind. He will instead focus on treatment and promoting cancer awareness.

"I want to use what little bit of celebrity status I have left and try to promote the awareness of this disease," Hamilton said. "Out of respect for everyone I race against, I didn't think it was fair for my competitors to even think there was a problem."

His son, Bobby Hamilton Jr., will drive the No. 18 Dodge for the remainder of the season, but the elder Hamilton said that he is aiming to return to racing by November. He will continue to attend races as a truck owner.

"I am going to have to be in bad shape not to be there," said Hamilton. "I feel out of place if I am not around it. It is going to have to be about death for me not to be there, and I don't foresee that happening."

Hamilton Jr. will step into the truck next month at Martinsville.

"The situation to come back home and race is exciting, but the way the situation turned out just sucks," said Hamilton Jr. "It is not what we want to experience, but it is what we are dealt with."

Ironically, Hamilton went to his dentist with wisdom tooth pain last fall, but even after the tooth was removed, the swelling in his neck didn't recede. As a result, Hamilton credits the tooth pain with saving his life.

Despite the grim diagnosis, Hamilton was defiant, labeling himself as a "survivor, not a victim," and he said that he will do everything possible to show up at the track as a truck owner.

"I will be back. I am not quitting. I am not that damn weak," he said

Book by Johnny Cash's 1st Wife Coming Out

Book by Johnny Cash's 1st Wife Coming Out

By Associated Press
16 minutes ago

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The first Mrs. Johnny Cash had a line to walk, too, and before she died last year she told about it in a book that will be published early next year.

"I Walked the Line," by Vivian Liberto Distin, is slated to arrive Valentine's Day 2007, it was announced Wednesday by Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster.

The book's title plays off Cash's hit song, "I Walk the Line," which he wrote about Vivian. The same title was used for the recent Golden Globe-winning movie that focused on Cash's romance with his second wife, singer June Carter Cash.

The book is based on thousands of letters exchanged by the couple before their marriage while he was overseas with the Air Force, co-writer Ann Sharpsteen said.

"The letters really reveal the real man, unclouded by drugs. Letters were his dreams, fears, a variety of subjects, fidelity, alcohol, faith. It's like reading someone's diary," Sharpsteen said.

The couple divorced in 1966 after 13 years.

Kathy Cash, one of Johnny and Vivian's daughters, said her mother visited her father in 2003 to tell him she wanted to do the book.

"He said, `Vivian, if anyone on this whole earth should write a book it should be you,'" Kathy Cash said.

The book helped Distin find closure, her co-author said.

"She had never gotten over Johnny, so it was a journey of healing," Sharpsteen said.

Cash died in 2003.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Ol' D.W. 'unretires' for Martinsville Busch race

Ol' D.W. 'unretires' for Martinsville Busch race

From Team Press Release
March 16, 2006
09:17 AM EST (14:17 GMT)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Darrell Waltrip will race brother Michael's No. 99 Aaron's Chevrolet at the Busch Series race under the lights at Martinsville Speedway on July 22.

In an announcement made during the final moments of a Darrell Waltrip Roast benefiting the Boys' and Girls' Club of Tennessee, Darrell's wife Stevie gave her permission to let her husband run the Busch Series' first visit to Martinsville since 1994.

"The Aaron's ad campaign has been a lot of fun for me over the years, but I seriously thought I would never get to race that car," Waltrip said.
"I really appreciate Michael and Aaron's and, of course, my wonderful and supportive wife Stevie, for giving me this opportunity."

Darrell Waltrip completed what he called his "One and Done" race in the Craftsman Truck Series last October at Martinsville.

"When we let the fans vote on whether or not to let D.W. race the No. 99 Aaron's Dream Machine, the response was definitely in favor of letting him drive it," Aaron's Sales & Lease Ownership president Ken Butler said. "I have a great respect for Darrell Waltrip and what he has accomplished in his career, including his 13 previous Busch series wins. We are honored to have him represent Aaron's behind the wheel in Martinsville."

Tests Show Milosevic Died of Heart Attack

Tests Show Milosevic Died of Heart Attack

By ANTHONY DEUTSCH, Associated Press Writer
47 minutes ago

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - A heart attack killed Slobodan Milosevic in his jail cell, the U.N. war crimes tribunal said, citing preliminary findings from Dutch pathologists who conducted a nearly eight-hour autopsy Sunday on the former Yugoslav leader.

The tribunal said pathologists had determined that "Milosevic's cause of death was a 'myocardial infarction.'"

Found dead in his cell Saturday morning, the 64-year-old Milosevic had suffered from heart ailments and high blood pressure, and his bad health caused numerous breaks in his four-year, $200 million trial before the tribunal.

Some wondered if suicide might have been an out for the man accused of causing wars that killed 250,000 people during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. And a legal adviser said Milosevic feared he was being poisoned.

Earlier, the chief U.N. prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, had said claims that Milosevic committed suicide or was poisoned were "just rumors."

"You have the choice between normal, natural death and suicide," she told reporters at the tribunal, where Milosevic had been standing trial for more than four years on 66 counts of war crimes and genocide in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo during Yugoslavia's violent breakup in the 1990s.

Milosevic's body was to be delivered to his family by Monday, according to the tribunal and an official in Serbia-Montenegro. But there was disagreement among relatives about whether he should be buried in his homeland of Serbia or in Russia, where his wife and son live in exile.

In Serbia, Milosevic loyalists burned candles in memory of their fallen hero at branches of his Socialist Party. Elderly women sobbed and kissed his photographs adorned with black cloth, while nationalists signed condolence books declaring him a defender of "Serb honor."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would have none of that, calling Milosevic "one of the most malign forces in Europe in quite a long time."

"Some feel that they wish there had been the opportunity to bring him to justice and to have the final verdict of history be in the courts, but I think the final verdict of history about Milosevic is pretty clear," Rice said after visiting Chile.

A pathologist sent by Serbia observed the autopsy at the Netherlands Forensic Institute, an agency of the Dutch Justice Ministry.

Tribunal spokeswoman Alexandra Milenov said the autopsy revealed Milosevic had been suffering from two heart conditions. Asked if poisoning could have caused the heart attack, Milenov said it was too early to draw conclusions.

She said the inquiry into Milosevic's death was continuing, with a final report expected to be released within days.

Outside the tribunal's offices, Milosevic's legal adviser showed reporters a six-page letter that he said the former leader wrote the day before his death claiming traces of a powerful drug used to treat leprosy or tuberculosis had been found in his bloodstream.

Zdenko Tomanovic said Milosevic was seriously concerned. "They would like to poison me," he quoted Milosevic as telling him.

A Dutch state broadcaster, NOS, said later that an adviser to the tribunal confirmed such a drug was found in a blood sample taken in recent months from Milosevic. The report said the adviser, who was not identified, said the drug could have had a "neutralizing effect" on Milosevic's other medications.

Doctors found traces of the drug when they were trying to determine why Milosevic's medication for high blood pressure was not working, the NOS report said.

Milosevic had appealed unsuccessfully to the war crimes tribunal last December to be allowed to go to a heart clinic in Moscow for treatment. He repeated the request as late as last month.

In Belgrade, Rasim Ljajic, human rights minister for Serbia-Montenegro, said Milosevic's remains would be handed over to the former leader's family by Monday. His comments were confirmed by the tribunal.

Milosevic's older brother, Borislav, suggested to Serbia's Beta news agency that he should be buried "in his own country, as he's a son of Serbia."

But the late leader's wife, Mirjana Markovic, and their son, Marko, could be arrested if they returned to Serbia for a funeral. They want Milosevic buried in Moscow, where they live, Beta said.

Milosevic's daughter, Marija, disagreed with both sites. She said the burial should be in Montenegro, at the family grave in the town of Lijeva Rijeka. "He's not a Russian to be buried in Moscow," she told Beta, adding that she would not attend a Moscow funeral.

Milosevic, the first sitting head of state to be indicated for war crimes, was arrested early in 2001 after being forced from power when Serbs grew tired of the hardships brought by the Balkans conflicts.

Despite the lengthy proceedings, his death means there will be no judicial verdict on his alleged crimes.

"It is a great pity for justice that the trial will not be completed and no verdict will be rendered," Del Ponte said. His death "deprives victims of the justice they need and deserve."

In Serbia's U.N.-administered Kosovo province, Ferdone Qerkezi, 52, wept with rage, cursing Milosevic for eluding justice by dying. Her husband and four sons died in a 1999 crackdown by Serb forces.

"He should have been dragged through streets of towns and thrown into a bottomless pit so no one could ever find him," she said. "For what he has done to us, there is no punishment on earth that befits him."

"No matter his death, he should be sentenced," Qerkezi said, her eyes red. "His family should not be able to see him even dead in the next 500 years."

While some Serbs spent Sunday mourning Milosevic, others marked the third anniversary of the slaying of a key Milosevic foe: the charismatic Zoran Djindjic, who headed the pro-democracy movement that toppled Milosevic and engineered his handover to the U.N. court for trial.

Hundreds gathered in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad handing out recordings of Djindjic's speeches and urging passers-by to "remember the best Serbia ever had."

Bosko Djokovic, a 35-year-old Belgrade teacher, called it "poetic justice" that Milosevic died on the eve of the anniversary. The Serb strongman "was responsible for Djindjic's death, and he ultimately paid for that," Djokovic said.

Milosevic was the sixth war crimes suspect from the Balkans to die at The Hague. A week earlier, convicted Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic killed himself in the same prison. He had been a star prosecution witness against Milosevic.

Milosevic's trial was the longest and most expensive of the cases before the tribunal, which has spent about $1 billion in total, experts say.

___

Associated Press writers Bruce Mutsvairo in The Hague; Katarina Kratovac and Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Serbia-Montenegro; and Fisnik Abrashi in Djakovica, Serbia-Montenegro, contributed to this report.

Ex-Yugoslav Leader Milosevic Dies in Cell

Ex-Yugoslav Leader Milosevic Dies in Cell

By ANTHONY DEUTSCH and DUSAN STOJANOVIC, Associated Press Writers
52 minutes ago

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Former Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic was found dead in his prison cell Saturday, abruptly ending his four-year U.N. war crimes trial for orchestrating a decade of conflict that killed 250,000 people and tore the Yugoslav federation asunder. He was 64.

A leader of beguiling charm and cunning ruthlessness, the man reviled by the United States as "the butcher of the Balkans" was a hero to many Serbs despite losing four wars and impoverishing his people in the 1990s while trying to create a "Greater Serbia" linking Serbia with Serb-dominated areas of Croatia and Bosnia.

Milosevic apparently died of natural causes, according to the U.N. tribunal that was trying him on 66 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. His chronic heart ailments and high blood pressure had caused numerous long recesses.

His death came nearly five years after he was arrested by Serb authorities and extradited to The Hague as the first sitting head of state ever to be indicted for war crimes.

It meant there would be no judicial verdict for the leader accused of ethnic massacres and other atrocities in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo and was sure to increase criticism of the tribunal for what has been a long, expensive and ultimately wasted proceeding.

The trial, which began in February 2002, will be terminated, tribunal spokeswoman Alexandra Milenov said.

The chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, expressed regret, saying she believed she would have won a conviction.

"I also regret it for the victims, the thousands of victims, who have been waiting for justice," Del Ponte told Swiss Television DRS while visiting her native Switzerland.

Former President Clinton, whose administration confronted Milosevic's regime, also lamented that no verdict would be reached.

"I am sorry that his trial will not be completed, and that he did not acknowledge and apologize for his crimes before his death. Nevertheless, his capture and trial will serve as a reminder that egregious crimes against humanity will not be tolerated," Clinton said in a statement released by his office in New York.

Milosevic was accused of being behind a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against non-Serbs during the wars that erupted as the Yugoslav federation began breaking apart in 1991, and his death was cheered by many in the Balkans.

"Finally, we have some reason to smile. God is fair," said Hajra Catic, who heads an association of women who lost loved ones when ethnic Serb troops slaughtered 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the eastern enclave of Srebrenica in 1995.

In Serbia, where many people praised Milosevic for trying to preserve Serb dominance, supporters declared his death a "huge loss."

The tribunal said a guard at the U.N. jail in suburban Scheveningen found Milosevic's body between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. Saturday. The timing of his death was not released. An autopsy will be conducted Sunday by Dutch officials — with a pathologist from Serbia-Montenegro in attendance.

Milosevic's older brother, Borislav, said the family did not trust the tribunal to carry out an impartial autopsy.

He also blamed the tribunal for his brother's death because it rejected his request to get medical treatment in Russia, which offered assurances that Milosevic would be returned to finish his trial.

"All responsibility for this lies on the shoulders of the international tribunal. He asked for treatment several months ago, they knew this," Borislav Milosevic told The Associated Press in Moscow, where he lives. "They drove him to this as they didn't want to let him out alive."

Zdenko Tomanovic, the defendant's legal adviser, told Serbia's independent B-92 radio from The Hague that Slobodan Milosevic had complained that "someone wants to poison" him. Tomanovic later told state Serbian TV that Russian experts would be permitted to attend Sunday's autopsy.

The White House said it was waiting for more information.

"We have seen the news that Slobodan Milosevic has died in his prison in The Hague," spokesman Blair Jones said. "We do not have all the details yet."

There was no comment from Milosevic's wife, Mirjana, who often was characterized as a power behind the scenes during her husband's autocratic rule and has been in self-imposed exile in Russia since 2003. Their son, Marko, also lives in Russia, and their daughter, Marija, lives in Montenegro.

Milosevic's trial and Saddam Hussein's war crimes proceeding in Iraq were widely seen as together constituting the most important legal test for the international community since German and Japanese leaders were tried after World War II.

Both trials drew stiff criticism over frequent interruptions and the ability of the defendants to use the courtroom as a stage to launch vitriolic anti-Western diatribes. Reveling in the spotlight, Milosevic insisted on being his own defense lawyer.

He was able to stay as the Serbs' leader for 13 years despite a crumbling economy and increasing international isolation. He once described himself as the "Ayatollah Khomeini of Serbia," assuring his prime minister, Milan Panic, that "the Serbs will follow me no matter what."

Ivica Dacic, a ranking Socialist Party official, said in Belgrade that Milosevic's death was a "great loss for Serbia, for the entire Serb nation and for the Socialist party."

"Milosevic was carrying out not only his own defense but also the defense of Serb honor," Dacic said. "The entire country must thank him for this."

But in the end, his people abandoned him: first in October 2000, when he was unable to convince most Yugoslavs that he had staved off electoral defeat by Vojislav Kostunica, and again on April 1, 2001, when he surrendered after a 26-hour standoff to face criminal charges.

"It is a pity he didn't live to the end of the trial to get the sentence he deserved," Croatian President Stipe Mesic said.

Milosevic was born in Pozarevac, a factory town in central Serbia best known as the home of one of the country's most notorious prisons.

His father was a defrocked Orthodox priest and sometime teacher of Russian. His mother also was a teacher. Both committed suicide.

In high school, he met his future wife, the daughter of a wartime communist partisan hero. She also was the niece of Davorjanka Paunovic, private secretary and mistress of Josip Broz Tito, the communist guerrilla leader who seized power in Yugoslavia at the end of World War II.

Milosevic graduated from law school in 1964 and joined the Communist Party. The party put him in various business positions, and in 1983 he was appointed director of a major state-run bank. He became friends with several Western figures, including former U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger and banker David Rockefeller.

He also befriended Ivan Stambolic, who became leader of the Communist Party in Serbia in 1984. Stambolic picked Milosevic for the powerful post of party leader in the capital, Belgrade.

When Stambolic was elevated to Serbia's presidency in 1986, Milosevic succeeded him as Serbian communist boss.

A year later, Stambolic sent Milosevic to Kosovo, where ethnic Serbs were demanding protection from the province's ethnic Albanian majority. During a meeting of local Serb leaders, hundreds of angry Serbs gathered outside and demanded the leadership hear their grievances.

Milosevic faced the crowd and delivered a fiery speech, telling them: "Nobody has the right to beat you."

Those words shattered the myth of ethnic "brotherhood and unity" that had been the slogan of Tito's communist regime — and transformed Milosevic into a Serb hero.

Months later, in September 1987, he publicly accused his old friend Stambolic and others of anti-communist and anti-Serbian policies during a party meeting televised nationally. All were forced to resign in a de facto coup.

In 1989, Milosevic became president of Serbia in an election widely considered rigged. His rise alarmed the other peoples of the Yugoslav federation — Slovenes, Croats, Macedonians, Albanians and others.

In 1991, Croatia and Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia. Milosevic sent tanks to Slovenian borders, triggering a brief war that ended in Slovenia's secession.

But ethnic Serbs in Croatia, encouraged by Milosevic, took up arms. Milosevic responded by sending the Serb-led Yugoslav army to intervene, triggering a conflict that killed at least 10,000 people.

Three months later, Bosnia-Herzegovina declared its independence. Milosevic bankrolled a Bosnian Serb rebellion, triggering a war that killed an estimated 200,000 people before a U.S.-brokered peace agreement was reached at Dayton, Ohio, in 1995.

Milosevic's term as Serbian president ended in 1997 and the constitution prevented him from running again. However, he exploited legal loopholes to have parliament name him president of Yugoslavia, which then included only the republics of Serbia and Montenegro.

But it was Kosovo, his springboard to power, that finally set the stage for his downfall.

In February 1998, Milosevic sent troops to crush an ethnic Albanian uprising there, drawing sanctions from the United States and its allies. In 1999, after Milosevic refused to sign a Western-dictated peace accord, NATO conducted 78 days of airstrikes on Yugoslavia.

Before Milosevic gave in and handed over the province's administration to the United Nations in June 1999, the U.N. tribunal charged him and four top aides with war crimes and crimes against humanity in Kosovo. It later broadened the charges to include genocide.

Milosevic sought to hold on to power by pushing through a constitutional change in July 2000 to permit the election of president by popular vote rather than parliament. But he misjudged his popularity, and Yugoslavs exhausted by years of war and upheaval backed Kostunica in the election.

The Milosevic-controlled election commission tried to force a runoff, but hundreds of thousands of people converged on Belgrade, setting off a daylong riot on Oct. 5, 2000. The police and army refused to intervene, and Milosevic conceded defeat the following day.

He remained sequestered in an opulent villa in Belgrade until his arrest in April 2001. He was extradited to The Hague that June.

Proceedings are continuing against 72 war crimes suspects. Tribunal figures show 47 of them are at the detention unit where Milosevic died, and the rest have been freed until their trial begins.

The most prominent suspects — former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his top military officer, Ratko Mladic — remain at large.

___

Associated Press reporter Dusan Stojanovic contributed to this report from Belgrade, Serbia-Montenegro.

Did you hear: Mary Hart in running to fill Today show co-host opening?

Rumor has it that Entertainment Tonight's Mary Hart is a shoo-in to be the new co-host on the Today show after soon-to-be departing host Katie Couric switches networks to CBS after her contract with NBC expires in May. Hart, 55, who is also currently finishing up a five-year contract signed in 2001 with Entertainment Tonight that will expire this year would bring with her respectable reputation a huge following, professionalism, and her famous liveliness to morning television.

Hart, who has anchored the show for two decades, signed a new long-term deal, giving her more than $5 million annually, said Joel Berman, president of Paramount Domestic Television, whose company produces the program.

Prior to the five-year contract that was renewed, Hart's deal with Paramount gave her an option to anchor the show for life. Upon sealing her last deal, the two parties agreed to renew on a five-year basis.

The contract also allows Hart to take a more creative role in possible "ET" spin-offs, including a children-oriented project and a celebrity homes show.

Hart joined the 25-year-old newsmagazine program in 1982 during its second season. She was the co-host of the canceled daytime talk show, The Regis Philbin Show.

Entertainment Tonight has ranked among the top five syndicated shows in ratings, and tied "Oprah" as the highest-rated syndicated program among women 25 to 54 in 2000.

Jann Carl would likely succeed Hart at the anchor desk at Entertainment Tonight.


The Couric Countdown

By J. Max Robins -- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/28/2005
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6286862.html?display=Breaking+News&referral=supp


The drumbeat is getting louder and louder in the halls of CBS, signaling that Katie Couric is going to leap over to the network this spring when her NBC contract runs out. For the past year, CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves has been quietly wooing Couric to be Dan Rather's replacement as anchor of CBS Evening News. But now the talks are being conducted with a new urgency.

Until recently, the job had been a tough sell, even for a salesman's salesman like Moonves. The news division was in disarray in the aftermath of Rather's discredited 60 Minutes report last year about President Bush's National Guard service, and it couldn't have strengthened Moonves' hand with Couric that Andrew Heyward remained in his job as CBS News president for months, even as rumors of his impending departure swirled.

With Heyward's recent exit and the naming of network sports-division chief Sean McManus to replace him, CBS becomes a much more attractive home for Couric.

The Today star has said in recent interviews that she plans to make a decision by the end of the year whether to stay at NBC or pursue other options, which means Moonves and McManus know they have a limited window to lure Couric into their camp. (And they know that leaving temporary Evening News anchor Bob Schieffer in place much longer is soon going to look like the result of sheer indecisiveness.)

Word inside CBS News is that Viacom is committed from the very top to spend the money needed to reinvigorate a franchise that has become a threadbare operation in recent years, particularly in comparison with the news outfits at NBC and ABC.

Obviously, NBC has been trying to persuade Couric to renew her deal well before it expires—but without success. That only feeds the chatter that she still hasn't made up her mind. According to sources inside CBS, Moonves and McManus are working hard to quickly put a new face on the beleaguered news division and make it look like a place with growth potential. Nothing would send that message more clearly than landing A-list talent like Couric.

Still, Couric's dance with CBS could simply be a negotiating tactic to get NBC to sweeten her estimated $15 million annual salary. After all, she has deep roots at the network: Couric has been at NBC News for 16 years and has a long history with NBC Universal Television Group President Jeff Zucker, going back to their time together at Today in the early '90s.

Meanwhile, since new Today executive producer Jim Bell was installed last April, the show has stabilized—ratings are down 2% in total viewers compared with last fall, but the long push by arch-rival ABC's Good Morning America to supplant Today as the dominant wake-up show seems to have stalled.

Ironically, the fact that Today has seemingly righted itself may provide a rationale for Couric to take flight. Better to leave when you're still on top, this thinking goes, than when it looks like you're jumping before being pushed.

Since her pal Zucker left in 2000, Couric has lived through three executive producers and has taken more than her fair share of media abuse, culminating in a particularly vicious Alessandra Stanley piece last April in The New York Times that charged “America's girl next door has morphed into the mercurial diva down the hall.”

Couric pals say the public pummeling took its toll, and the lure of helming a nightly newscast that would let her exercise more-serious journalistic chops might be too enticing to resist.

Last August, talking about a possible move, Couric, who turns a young 49 in January, told the New Yorker that, when things are going well at Today, she has “one of the best jobs in television.” But she added, “At the same time, everybody needs recharging.” My educated guess? Come summer, don't be surprised to see Couric charged-up about her new job.

E-mail comments to bcrobins@reedbusiness.com

This story is still developing.


Joyce Comments: I think NBC may just be calling Couric on her bluff by tempting Mary Hart to replace her as her contract also runs out at the same time. Couric has been a drag on Today since she last re-signed and is replaceable with Hart who would be a breathe of fresh air to the show.

Mary Hart, Onstage And Off The Ever-perky Tv Host Entertains Tonight In Atlantic City.

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20150919070126/http://articles.philly.com/1988-07-27/news/26236649_1_mary-hart-miss-south-dakota-entertainment-tonight-hostess

By Karen Heller, Inquirer Staff Writer

Posted: July 27, 1988

NEW YORK — Mary Hart eats chocolate!

Mary Hart drinks wine!

And sometimes, when Mary Hart is alone in her kitchen and drops something heavy on her foot, she abandons her usual "gosh" and "golly" and "oh, my goodness" and actually swears!

But not often.

Oh, Mary, Mary, Mary. Not since Mary Tyler Moore has a television star been so sweet, so lively, so buoyant.

Go ahead, say it. Call the Entertainment Tonight hostess perky.

David Letterman did so relentessly, goading her almost nightly for six months, and did our Mary mind? "Wow! You couldn't ask for better publicity, now could you?" she said yesterday, sitting, with perfect posture, in the Plaza Hotel's Oak Room restaurant. "Well, if you look at being perky as emphasizing the positive side of life then, gosh, I'm perky."

Tonight she opens a six-night engagement at Atlantic City's Resorts International with Mr. Warmth, Don Rickles. (What is it about Mary and these bitter men?)

Her Atlantic City act, she contends, is much different from the show she performed in Las Vegas in April. "This time I wanted to do something that was much more me. More pop. More Broadway. More everything!" she said.

There was the just the slightest suggestion that, just perhaps, the Vegas show may have oh-so-briefly wiped that toothpaste smile from her pretty face - even if she did break down and cry when she arrived in her limo and saw her name all big and bold on the marquee.

The new 40-minute set features 10 songs, two male dancers, a five-piece band and four costume changes. For the record, they are an "ET outfit" - a black leather skirt and sweater; a flesh-colored, bugle-beaded dress; a frilly hot-pink number, and a black negligee-style dress with a jacket. It should come as no surprise that all the outfits are short.

Hart has replaced all the Vegas songs, save one. That would be "The Sound of Music."

"You know, I put the song in the Vegas act as a gag," said Hart, wearing a pink floral suit, bubble-gum-pink nail polish and a stash of diamonds on her neck, finger and wrist. "But then, my gosh, the audience just broke out in applause. I thought maybe they were missing the point, but then I realized this was really me!"

Atlantic City is important in the charmed and lively history of one Mary Hart. Born in Chamberlain, S. D. (population 1,800), Hart was asked to run in the Miss South Dakota pageant, but her father steadfastly refused permission. ''At 18, I was gosh-darned if he was going to tell me what to do, so I immediately signed up, and three months later I was in Atlantic City." That was 1971, and for her talent she sang the Beatles songs "Yesterday" and ''Something."

Alas, she did not win, but was selected as one of the 10 finalists.

After college, she worked on a Sioux Falls talk show while teaching high school English, Sunday school and - you guessed it - serving as a cheerleading coach.

Hart moved on to Iowa and Oklahoma, and married and divorced before arriving in Los Angeles in 1979. "Oh, I was like everyone else, all the other starving actors, looking for work, being turned down, trying acting or broadcasting, anything, getting nothing, just about running out of money, really down to my last quarters, and then I landed the job co-hosting PM Magazine out there."

So, how long did all this take, Mary?

"Seven months."

Hart co-hosted another talk show with Regis Philbin before she joined Entertainment Tonight six years ago. (She wasn't the first hostess, as ET diehards recall; that distinction belongs to Dixie Whatley.) Today, the show is seen on 163 stations and in 10 to 12 million homes nightly. Locally, it is seen on Channel 10 weeknights at 7:30 p.m.

And what a nifty job it is! Hart used to do a fair amount of reporting, but now she's mostly in the studio with co-host John Tesh, reading the news about various celebrities. There isn't one thing she doesn't like about the job. Well, maybe one.

"I'm never thrilled about divorces and personal problems," she said. ''Gee, that's sure not fun."

The show hasn't just made Hart a star, it's made stars of both her legs as well. Her agent had them insured at Lloyd's of London for $1 million - each.

Does that mean each time she nicks her knee shaving, she collects a cool $60,000? Does it mean that her paycheck is cut in half every time she wears pants on the show?

"I can wear anything I want, it's just I think skirts are more appropriate for the job. Actually, off the air I wear pants all the time. I wear jeans a lot," said Hart, her $2 million legs tucked under the table.

Hart is honest about them, too. "I always thought they were my strongest physical attribute, I just didn't think they would become an institution," she said.

Right now, Mary Hart is a curious breed of '80s star - famous for her legs and being perky and reading news about celebrities. She has one year left in her ET contract. If it came to a choice between entertainment broadcasting and entertainment, she'd pick the latter. She's hoping Atlantic City will help tip the scales. (Her tour will bring her back to the area, to Valley Forge Music Fair, in December.)

"I'd love to do movies like Romancing the Stone. I love action- adventures."

Series television? Something along the lines of Scarecrow and Mrs. King and, appropriately enough, Hart to Hart. And who does she admire of all the big music entertainers?

"You name it. The Pointer Sisters, Manhattan Transfer, Whitney Houston, Natalie Cole. My gosh, she's talented. I've always loved Judy Garland. And I also like Gloria Estefan."

She bit into a piece of bread, looking as if she thought she'd named them all. But no!

"Oooohh-oooohh," Hart said, eagerly chewing away so she could politely articulate her exuberant thought with an empty mouth. "How could I forget?" she said, arms outstretched.

"Barry Manilow! I just love Barry Manilow!"

Pay attention: W right on Dubai by Richard Cohen

Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/395244p-335106c.html



New York Daily News
Originally published on February 27, 2006

There are times when President Bush sorely disappoints. Just when you might expect him to issue a malapropistic explanation, pander to his base or simply not have a clue about what he is talking about, he does something so right, so honest and, yes, so commendable, that - as Arthur Miller put it in "Death of a Salesman" - "attention must be paid." Pay attention to how he has refused to indulge anti-Arab sentiment over the Dubai ports deal.

Would that anyone could say the same about many of the deal's critics. Whatever their concerns may be, whatever their fears might be, they would not have had them, expressed them or have seen them in print had the middle name of the United Arab Emirates been something else. After all, no one goes nuts over Germany, the country where some of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists lived and attended school.

To overlook the xenophobic element in this controversy is to overlook the obvious. It is what propelled the squabble and what sustains it. Bush put his finger on it right away. "What I find interesting is that it's okay for a British company to manage some ports, but not okay for a company from a country that is a valuable ally in the war on terror," he said last week. "The UAE has been a valuable partner in fighting the war on terror." It is a long way from a terrorist haven.

Somewhere in the White House, a political operative must have slapped his head in consternation as Bush made that remark. The politic thing for a President with a dismal approval rating (about 40%) would have been to join with the critics, get ahead of the anti-Arab wave and announce that he, too, was concerned about the deal. Instead, the White House stuck to its guns.

That Bush has done this should come as no surprise. He refuses to pander to anti-immigration forces and, shortly after 9/11, if you will remember, he visited Washington's Islamic Center. He reassured American Muslims and the worldwide Islamic community that neither America nor its government was waging war on an entire people.

America has many friends in the Arab world. You can go to Saudi Arabia, for instance, and talk "American" at a dinner party - banter about the Redskins or California real estate prices or, of course, politics. The region is home to many people who have gone to school in the United States and admire it greatly. They are not the majority, by any means, but they are important and influential - and they are being slowly alienated by knee-jerk insults and brainless policies that reflect panic and prejudice.

The true security cost of the Dubai deal has already been inflicted.

Maybe because Bush is a Bush - son of a President who got to know many Arabs - or maybe because he just naturally recoils from prejudice, his initial stance on this controversy has been refreshingly admirable. Whatever the case, the President has done the right thing.

Attention must be paid.