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 sombrely 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-calibre semiautomatic gun when the bus was stopped shortly after a Manhattan concert on July 22, 2007. His lawyer had previously disputed the gun was the rapper's, in part by questioning the reliability of a highly sensitive DNA test that prosecutors said tied him to the weapon.
State Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon warned Lil Wayne that he wouldn't be able later to withdraw the plea, as some people try to do.
"I'm not one of those people," said the rapper, who sat in court in jeans and a hooded parka. He pulled up the hood and didn't speak as he left the courthouse with members of his entourage, who piled into four black SUVs. He's due back in court Dec. 15 before his sentencing date, which has yet to be set.
He had faced at least 3 1/2 years in prison if convicted of the original weapons-possession charges against him.
Lil Wayne, 27, also is scheduled for trial in Arizona in March on felony drug possession and weapons charges stemming from a January 2008 arrest at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint. He has pleaded not guilty in that case.
In March, an Atlanta judge dismissed felony drug charges against Lil Wayne. His lawyer had said the rapper wasn't staying in the hotel room where police said the drugs were found in 2006.
Over the past two years, Lil Wayne - born Dwayne Carter - has emerged as the best-selling figure in music. His "Tha Carter III" topped all album sales in 2008 with 2.8 million copies sold off of such hits as the No. 1 smash "Lollipop." His Grammys include last year's best rap solo performance award, for "A Milli."
A rapper since he was a teen, Lil Wayne exploded in popularity thanks to his voluminous output on the mixtape circuit and collaborations with other artists. He currently has the No. 1 song in the country with Jay Sean, "Down."
While his lyrics sometimes are laced with violence, he's more known for clever wordplay and risque material.
The relationship between chronicling crime and living it has long been an issue in rap. Some of the genre's big names - including Tupac Shakur, Lil' Kim, Beanie Sigel, Shyne, Mystikal and C-Murder - have done a few months to several years behind bars for crimes committed after they became famous.
T.I., another of rap's top sellers, reported to a federal prison in May for his conviction on weapons charges. He's expected to serve a year and a day.
While some rappers haven't regained their chart status after prison or jail, Shakur became even more popular, and T.I. remains popular on the radio.
Police pulled over Lil Wayne's tour bus shortly after it left a concert venue, saying they had seen and smelled marijuana smoke wafting out the door when it was parked.
After ordering roughly a dozen or so other people off the bus, police found a freshly showered Lil Wayne in his boxer shorts in a bedroom at the back of the bus. Police said that as an officer approached, the rapper tossed away a Louis Vuitton bag containing the gun.
The Miami-based rapper wasn't licensed to carry a gun in New York, prosecutors said.
The Manhattan District Attorney's office said small amounts of DNA found on the gun connected it to Lil Wayne. Defence lawyer Stacey Richman had raised questions about the relatively new technique, used to derive the results from DNA samples that can consist of fewer than roughly 16 human cells.
A hearing on the method's level of scientific acceptance started Wednesday and had been expected to continue for days. After Lil Wayne's guilty plea, both prosecutors and Richman stressed that they stood by their contrasting positions on the technique.
But, Solomon said, "The issue is not going to be decided in this courtroom, in this case."
Meanwhile, another platinum-selling rapper, Ja Rule, still faces gun-possession charges stemming from his separate arrest after playing the same July 2007 show as Lil Wayne. Ja Rule, known to the court as Jeff Atkins, has pleaded not guilty. He has a court date next month.
Police say the man stole some beer from the beverage cart on the plane and tried to hide the evidence by flushing the empty can down the toilet.
Airport Communications Officer Jenelle Turpin says the pilot made the decision to land in Kelowna and call in the Mounties.
When the plane landed the RCMP took one man away in handcuffs, while questioning two others before releasing them.
The plane then continued on its flight.
This is ridiculous! Good thing I was not on that flight!
Jennifer Valdivia, 12, holds the record-setting baseball after it was returned this week to her. She'd have to sue to get the ball back.
This is the story of a baseball and the big leagues, of a young girl, a slugger and a lawsuit. It's about another stain on America's pastime -- commercialism colliding with a kid's innocent joy.
Jennifer's big catch was the 200th home run for Ryan Howard, an All-Star for the Philadelphia Phillies. The 29-year-old first baseman achieved the milestone faster than any player in Major League history, in his 658th career game, 48 fewer games than the previous record.
The ballclub wanted to give the ball to its star player. And that's where things got complicated.
BEAUFORT, S.C. - Officials say an alligator bit off part of a golfer's arm as he leaned over to pick up his ball at a private course.
The man, who is in his 70s, was retrieving his ball from a pond when the 10-foot (3-meter) alligator bit him at Ocean Creek Golf Course in Beaufort County. The gator pulled the golfer into the pond and ripped off his arm in the struggle. His golf partners were able to free him.
Wildlife workers killed the alligator and retrieved the arm in the hopes it might be reattached.
The man has not been identified. He was being treated at the Medical University of South Carolina, but officials there would not release any information about him.
A call to the golf course was not immediately returned.
Some gators are really desperate. Take a look at that one above trying to get into a house!
My President was only in office from the 20th January to the 1st of February. How did he get the prize. The deadline for the Nobel Peace nomination is February 1st 2009. Maybe it's what he did before that. The election campaign and transition team work was excellent.Giving President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize is a "premature canonization" and an "embarrassment" to the process of designating a laureate, a presidential historian says.
"The jury is still out as to what his presidency is going to add up to," Fred Greenstein, author and professor of politics emeritus at Princeton University, told FOXNews.com.
"It's more of an embarrassment to the Nobel process."
President Obama said Friday he was "most surprised and deeply humbled" to win the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, adding that he accepts the honor as "a call to action to confront the common challenges of the 21st century."
In a brief statement in the White House Rose Garden on Friday, the president said he does not "view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments," but rather as a recognition of goals he has set for the United States and the world.
"I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many transformative figures that have been honored by this prize," he said.
Obama will go to Oslo in December to accept the honor, which includes a $1.4 million award, Norway's prime minister said.
The results are the basis of a new book, "The Michael Jackson Tapes: A Tragic Icon Reveals His Soul in Intimate Conversation." Boteach joined CNN's Larry King in an interview aired Monday night that painted the pop star as a lonely, injured soul who craved adoration and love but was too damaged to find it.
Boteach's recordings also revealed Jackson's relationships with various family members and celebrities -- some of which were warm, others tense and others painful and dysfunctional.
When Jackson was recording his tapes, Madonna was not held in high esteem.
"She is not a nice person," Jackson told Boteach. Jackson revealed how he and Madonna had bickered about where they would socialize.
"Madonna laid the law down to me before we went out. [She said] I am not going to Disneyland, OK? That's out," Jackson said. "I said, 'I didn't ask to go to Disneyland.' She said, 'We are going to the restaurant. And afterwards, we are going to a strip bar.'
"I said, 'I am not going to a strip bar, where they cross dress. ... I am not going to there. If that's how it is, forget this whole thing. ... Afterwards, she wrote some mean things about me in the press. And I wrote that she is a nasty witch, after I was so kind to her," Jackson said.
King asked Boteach whether Jackson's opinion might have moderated on Madonna, especially in light of her warm comments at his memorial service.
"Well, let's be very fair to Madonna," Boteach said. "These comments by Michael were said about his experiences with Madonna years and years ago, when she had an extremely testy public image. She was the Material Girl, the bad girl. And I think Michael was reacting to that."
Jackson had much more loving things to say about celebrity pal Brooke Shields and ex-wife Lisa Marie Presley.
"[Brooke] was one of the loves of my life. I think she loved me as much as I loved her," Jackson said. "You know, we dated a lot." Below is Madonna's speech during the MTV VMA awards honoring Michael.
The renamed "Kate Plus Eight" begins Nov. 2. It will continue to focus on the lives of the young Gosselin twins and sextuplets but with a deeper focus on Kate's role as a single mother.
TLC says Jon Gosselin will continue to appear on the show, but less often.
The couple made their separation official on an episode that aired in June. TLC says they are in divorce proceedings.
The series, which airs Mondays at 9 p.m. Eastern, premiered in 2007.
Upstairs is where the cooking school and the cool cafe is.
My recipes and artwork.
Me making fortune cookies.
Cooking chinese foods. I made those spring rolls.
Watermelon cooking day.
BTW, my mom is a pharmacist downstairs there. They taught us kids how to cook chinese food and also cooking with watermelon. See the pictures of my chef adventures above. You can go to loblaw.ca to register your kid as classes are year round. There is a $20 or tinier fee but employee's kids are free. Yay!
Me and Constable Wendy Drummond, PR Spokeswoman for Toronto Police
Doing a side interview (Exclusive--LOL) with CTV
Due to the bad Toronto city strike, no garbage has been picked up in Toronto for 30 days and most city services are closed including our summer camps and community centers. I have not been twittering either. Some of you even saw me on TV at my news conference side show during the late Jarvis St Remy monthly news conference. I spoke out too in my own mini press conference complete with a speech for the Mayor. CP24 showed it every 15 mins! I straight out told CTV and CBC news we kids are fed up! Read my full statement below and in the Bloor West newspaper article. Video Coming!"MY NAME IS KJ THE KID REORTER. I LIVE IN THE JANE AND WILSON AREA WHERE A LOT OF TEENS AND GROWN UPS SHOOT A LOT. WE NEED TO STOP THIS VIOLENCE TODAY! MAYOR MILLER HELP US! PLEASE OPEN THE SUMMER CAMPS. LET US END THE CITY STRIKE. WE KIDS HAVE NOTHING TO DO. WE ARE ROAMING AROUND THE PLAYGROUNDS AT OUR APARTMENTS. THE CITY EVEN SHUT DOWN THE WATER AT THE WATERPARK AND WE NEED OUR COMMUNUTY CENTERS OPEN. HELP US MAYOR MILLER SO THAT WE KIDS DO NOT GET CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE OF SOME SHOOTING GANGS. TO ALL KIDS IN TORONTO, SAY NO TO GANGS, DRUGS AND GUNS. LIKE MY SHIRT, SAY YES TO CRIMESTOPPERS!"
I have been in shock all week but figured I could look at the great memories instead. My mom, my grandma and even grandpa all have their own memories. Twitter shut down and what a day that was on June 25th 2009.
The dreaded Canadian winter
I WILL BE TWITTERING MY ENTIRE SUMMER OF 2009. stay tuned. City camps are closed now due to the city strike. Follow me at Twitter.com/kjkidreports I always have that Teletoon CD first for the summer line up. My mom will call Publicist Kate Dickson at Bay Street for the latest one. Also it's concert season and mom and I are looking for sound check interviews. See all her past media passes? I got all A's and B's and mom got me Canada Wonderland passes!!! Student of the month and week twice and all kinds of honors.
Foxnews.com reports that a mother whose son was abducted 27 years ago has been reunited with him after tracking him down on Facebook. Avril Grube feared she would never see Gavin Paros again when his father snatched him when he was just three-years-old and fled Britain.
But amazingly the pair have had been reunited after Avril's sister logged on to the social networking site and found him 1,000 miles away in Hungary.
After swapping messages, the 62-year-old mum was overjoyed when he announced he would immediately come to England to see her.
They have now held an emotional reunion and Gavin, 30, has already pledged to move his own family here to live permanently.
Avril, who is now anxiously waiting to meet Gavin's three children and her grandchildren for the first time, said: "It is wonderful to be able to see my son after almost 30 years.
"It is the happiest day of my life, there are almost no words possible to describe it."
"They came into our classroom and told us Victoria was dead!.".....a kid and classmate of Victoria Stafford on TV today......R.I.P
Michael Thomas Rafferty, 28, and Terri-Lynne McClintic, 18, were arraigned on the charges and abduction charges in a Woodstock, Ont., court. Documents suggest the murder took place on or around April 8, the day the eight-year-old girl known as Tori went missing from outside her school.
The developments were clearly devastating to Tori's father Rodney Stafford, who said he was awaiting more details from police.
"I don't know where to go from here," said Stafford, who was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Tori that read "Daddy's Little Girl."
McClintic, a stocky brunette whose hair was tied in cornrows, also faces charges of helping Rafferty elude authorities.
Rafferty pulled his shirt over his head to cover his face as he was led into the courthouse. He cried during the proceeding, while McClintic was more stoic.
As Rafferty was led by police from the courthouse after his appearance, Tori's uncle Rob Stafford approached him and spat out an expletive.
The relationship between the two accused was unclear, but there are reports the pair is known to one or both of Tori's parents.
A search for the girl's remains was reportedly underway in a rural area of Guelph, about an hour east of Woodstock. A police helicopter was on standby in the region marked with farmers' fields, ponds and wooded areas.
Police were to hold a media briefing at 3 p.m. with more details.
Reached at a home in Woodstock, a woman who identified herself as McClintic's grandmother sobbed as she said she was estranged from the woman's mother Carol and her grandchildren.
"(Carol) was a stripper and she knew the wrong people and she wasn't treating Terri-Lynne right."
She said she felt "just horrible" about the arrests.
"It's breaking my heart."
From Day 1, volunteers lined up to join the search, plastering storefronts, street lamps and car windshields with flyers describing the petite blond girl with large blue eyes.
Early in the investigation, police released a video capturing the young girl in the company of a mystery woman around the time she disappeared.
That footage, of Tori walking away with a woman in a white puffy coat - seemingly without struggle - was followed by a police composite sketch of a female suspect.
On Easter Sunday, more than 1,000 people attended a candlelight vigil. One week after Tori went missing, others filled scores of purple balloons - her favourite colour - with helium and inserted information scrolls inside, releasing them into the sky at a popular park.
Tori's mother Tara McDonald began holding daily news conferences outside her home to keep the story in the media spotlight.
Thanks to Constable Scott Mills (above) with my mom of Toronto Crimestoppers for showing my video. It's only a suggestion for missing kids to be found. One day I was with my 18 and 22 year-old brothers in the mall and we got separated, I went to the Apple store where they have free internet, logged on Twitter and updated my status. My mom saw it at home and called my brothers on the cell phone. Twitter WORKED for us that day. They were at the mall security office. Eaton Center Mall is the biggest mall downtown Toronto. I like the Apple, the Sony and the Disney stores.
Oh no! There goes the Canadian Bacon! Canadian officials say that the pigs may have caught the flu from a human.Canadian officials on Saturday said they have quarantined pigs that tested positive for the virus -- scientifically known as 2009 H1N1 -- at an Alberta farm in what could be the first identified case of pigs infected during the recent outbreak. They said the pigs may have been infected by a Canadian farmer who recently returned from a trip to Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak that has sickened nearly 660 people. Can someone tell us if we can safely eat our egg mcmuffins?
Thank you Mr Nathaniel and Mr Victor. Every kid must strive for the best in themselves daily. So many awards, I will keep my standards high daily. Special thanks to my teacher Mrs Meagan Wise!!!
A Michigan high school is investigating allegations that one of its teachers berated and belittled a student for taking part in what the teacher considered an unacceptable activity: reading FOXNews.com. A young man who identified himself only as Mitchell, an 18-year-old senior at Traverse City West Senior High School, called in to Rush Limbaugh's radio show Thursday and said he was yelled at in front of his classmates for reading the "wrong" news.
The teacher of his video production class saw what he was looking at and "proceeded to give me a 10-minute lecture on why I can't read FOX News ... and that I can only listen to BBC and other news venues," the student said.
James Feil, superintendent of Traverse City Area Public Schools, told FOXNews.com that any attempts to pressure students politically would go against his schools' policies.
"It would be inappropriate. I would clearly tell you that is not something that we would do anything to indoctrinate students here," he said. "That would clearly be a violation of our policies and guidelines, written or non-written."
Traverse City West principal Joe Tibaldi declined to comment about the inquiry he was leading, but school officials said the student hadn't violated any computer-use rules in his class. Read the rest....on FoxNews.com!
and is showing no signs of slowing down, London’s Daily Mail reported.
You're never too old,” Calman told the newspaper. “The body is a remarkable instrument. It can stretch and stretch, and get better all the time.”
Calman is the author of three yoga books including one called, “Yoga for Arthritis.”
“I'm proof that if you keep at it, you'll get there,” she told the Mail. “I can do more now than I could 50 years ago.”
And Calman is keeping at it — teaching up to 11 yoga classes a week.
NEW YORK — After nearly 40 years as a nurse, Lucille Nassery had no problem identifying the sounds coming in the window from Fifth Avenue. Those were definitely the sounds of childbirth.
"There's a certain kind of sound that comes from women who are about to deliver. It's not just a typical scream. It's a whole-body scream," she said Friday, hours after she ran to peer down at an SUV parked hastily in front of Mount Sinai Medical Center. A distraught man circled the vehicle, looking for help, and a very pregnant woman lay across the front seat, howling. More....
Seven-year-old Alexandria Jenkins is in the second grade and attends public school at a computer in her family's living room. She's a student at the Georgia Virtual Academy, an online K-8 grade school.
On a recent day, the lesson was about synonyms. Alexandria's teacher, Danyelle Lynch, was 50 miles away, but could be heard over the Jenkins' computer speaker.
Lynch asked, "What did we say synonyms are?"
Speaking into a microphone, Alexandria answered, "Synonyms are same."
The mom and kid in this story are friends with my mom. The kids uncle is Mr Tre Maxie, mom's friend at the TuPac Foundation.
