The daily dish... a spicy serving of celebrity news
Rapper going to jail ...
In the midst of a career surge that has made him one of rap’s biggest stars, Lil Wayne is bracing for a year behind bars after pleading guilty Thursday in a two-year-old gun case.
A glum Lil Wayne said little as he admitted illegally having a loaded gun on his tour bus in 2007, moving to end a case that had churned along as he collected Grammys and gold records. He’s expected to get a year in jail at his sentencing, set for February.
The plea, which came as he boasted the country’s No. 1 pop song, makes Lil Wayne the latest in a long line of rappers to face incarceration after topping the charts.
Arguably rap’s most popular artist, Lil Wayne somberly answered his
judge’s questions with “yes, sir” and “no, sir” as he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of attempted criminal possession of a weapon.
He acknowledged he had a loaded .40-caliber semiautomatic gun when the bus was stopped shortly after a Manhattan concert July 22, 2007.
He’s due back in court Dec. 15 before his sentencing date, which has yet to be set.
Weathering a change ...
WKBW-TV meteorologist Mike Randall will move Monday from weeknights to the early mornings in a swap with Aaron Mentkowski, according to industry sources.
Channel 7 has been running mysterious promos recently promising something new in the mornings.
Randall’s move appears to be designed to give a shot in the arm to “Eyewitness News This Morning,” which has been a poor third locally at 6 a.m. with co-anchors Bridget Blythe and Mentkowski.
The station may feel it needs a new reason to get viewer sampling after Channel 2’s hiring of John Beard to co-anchor “Daybreak.” On Wednesday, Channel 4 was first at 6 a.m. with a 6.4 rating (representing 6.4 percent of area households), with Channel 2 second with a 5.9 and Channel 7 third with a 2.8.
The move actually would be a return to the mornings for Randall, who 20 years ago worked the station’s inaugural 6:30 a.m. newscast with former anchor Ann Edwards.
—Alan Pergament
Travolta case mistrial ...
A judge in Nassau, Bahamas, has ordered a mistrial in the case of an alleged extortion attempt against John Travolta, and a top court official said Thursday a new trial is not likely to start before next year.
Senior Justice Anita Allen said Wednesday night she was reluctantly ordering a new trial because a politician announced that one of the defendants would be freed, giving the appearance of an improper leak from the jury room.
Bahamas Chief Magistrate Roger Gomez said that the new trial is not likely to start until early 2010 because the court’s calendar is full through the rest of this year.
Ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne and his attorney, politician Pleasant Bridgewater, were accused of demanding $25 million from Travolta to keep them from releasing private information about the death of Travolta’s 16-year-old son, Jett, at the family vacation home in Grand Bahama on Jan. 2. They denied the allegations.
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