IN THE NEWS
Minnelli is Beastly - The Beastie Boys Vindicated - Madonna on War

Liza Minnelli is suing her former bodyguard for $250,000 for breach of contract following reports that the bodyguard, M`Hammed Soumayah, is suing the star, claiming she beat him.

Minnelli is also suing her estranged husband David Gest for allegedly stealing 2 million dollars from her, as the pair is embroiled in a bitter divorce suit. Meanwhile Gest has filed an additional lawsuit alleging that the singer also beat him. So violently in fact, that he continues to suffer from severe head injuries. He is seeking 10 million dollars in damages.
The couple married a little over two and a half years ago, at a star studded ceremony featuring Michael Jackson as the Best Man and Elizabeth Taylor as the Maid of Honor.

The Beastie Boys have won their long-running battle over the use of a sample in their song Pass the Mic, which included three notes of music from flautist James Newton`s Choir in their 1992 track.

Although the group paid a licensing fee for the sample, Newton claimed his copyright had been infringed.

However, the US Court of Appeal has upheld its original decision that the group did not have to pay an additional fee to license the underlying composition

The Beastie Boys are regarded as early pioneers of sampling music, which is now a standard practice among musicians.

Madonna has said the United States should withdraw its troops from Iraq immediately.

She said in an interview on BBC2 Radio: "I just don`t want American troops to be in Iraq, period."

Madonna, now based in the UK, caused some controversy last year with the video for her song American Life, which some critics called "anti-Bush".

She withdrew the video as the war in Iraq broke out, but later blamed a feeling of "lynch-mob patriotism" for her decision.

The 46-year-old said: "Global terror is everywhere. Global terror is down the street, around the block. Global terror is in California. There`s global terror everywhere and it`s absurd to think you can get it by going to one country and dropping tons of bombs on innocent people."

Regarding the recent Presidential election, she said that the concept that Americans had voted for George Bush because of moral issues was "spin".

Claiming, the US is "becoming very divided" and that "People are becoming very polarized” the superstar continued saying, "We have people who don`t want to think, and who just want to guard what is theirs, and they`re selfish and limited in their thinking and they`re very fearful in their choices."

<< Back to News