ESTEFAN BOOK TO FEATURE HER PET DOG
Meet the latest celebrity children’s author: Gloria Estefan. And don’t forget her dog, Noelle.
“I don’t think too much is known about the affinity that I feel for animals. I have a very real connection with them and although I’ve had many pets, especially dogs, I have found a new and very unique connection with my 2-year-old English Bulldog, Noelle,” the Grammy-winning singer said Monday in a statement issued by her New York publisher, HarperCollins, which plans to release the book in both English and Spanish next year.
“She came to be a part of our family quite by accident and has brought us unforgettable experiences that I hope to share with the readers of my book based on her real-life experiences. I hope Noelle will bring the readers as much joy and surprise as she has brought into the lives of everyone who has met her.”
According to HarperCollins, the currently untitled book “will center on the life and adventures of an intrepid bulldog named Noelle who doesn’t feel like she fits into the new and mythical land she now calls home.”
WICKED STAR, HUSBAND THREATENED
Idina Menzel, star of the Broadway musical Wicked, and her husband, actor Taye Diggs, have received threats because of their interracial marriage.
The couple was the focus of at least three letters last week in which bodily harm was threatened, the New York Post reported Monday.
Despite the threats, Menzel still performed on Sunday, arriving at the Gershwin Theater accompanied by five plainclothes guards, who remained stationed outside the stage door.
Diggs, who is black and stars in the UPN drama Kevin Hill, and Menzel, who is white, were wed in January 2003.
BARKER ENDOWS ANIMAL RIGHTS FUND
Price Is Right host Bob Barker, a longtime proponent of animal welfare, has donated $1 million to Duke Law School in Durham, N.C. to endow a program to teach animal rights law, the school announced Monday.
The Bob Barker Endowment Fund for the Study of Animal Rights Law will support education in animal rights law, including opportunities for students to earn course credit on cases involving compliance with state animal cruelty laws and other forms of animal rights advocacy.
It’s similar to funds Barker has established in the past few years at law schools including those at Harvard, Stanford, Columbia and UCLA.
“Animals need all the protection we can give them,” Barker said. “We intend to train a growing number of law students in this area of the law in the hope that they will ultimately lead a national effort to make it illegal to brutalize and exploit these helpless creatures.”
GILLIGAN HELPS CHRISTMAS TOY DRIVE
Gilligan turned into Santa’s helper when former television star Bob Denver and his wife joined a car dealership’s toy campaign in Princeton, W. Va.
“I think it’s all been fantastic. It has only been 45 minutes and we’ve already done really well,” Denver said during Saturday’s event, which transformed Ramey Chrysler’s lot into an island of toys.
“We normally do this in a smaller way, but we wanted to go all out this year. When I was growing up, I was underprivileged myself and didn’t get a lot of toys at Christmas, so this is really important to me,” said Jim Ramey Sr., owner of Ramey Automotive Group.
Denver, star of the 1960s TV show Gilligan’s Island, and his wife, Dreama, donated a pickup truck full of toys to the Marine Corps League’s Toys for Tots campaign and a $1,000 check to the Princeton Quota Club. The couple live in the area.
CROW BECOMES HONORED MISSOURIAN
Award-winning rocker Sheryl Crow has been elected to the Missouri Academy of Squires, a ceremonial group dedicated to honoring current and former Missouri residents.
Crow, who was born in Kennett and graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia, hasn’t forgotten her hometown roots.
Though the former music teacher has sold millions of albums, Crow also has given benefit concerts, funded local scholarships, donated clothes for charity and pledged funds to help build a new city swimming pool.
In addition to honoring the Grammy-winning singer, Missouri Gov. Bob Holden announced that nine other people were elected to the academy, including Harris-Stowe State College President Henry Givens Jr., J.E. Dunn Construction chief executive Terry Dunn, Kansas City community activist Lali Garcia and former Missouri congressman Alan Wheat.
The academy was started in 1960 by then-Gov. James Blair Jr. This year’s class was the first elected in two years.
FORMER MENUDO MEMBER INJURED
Four members of the Coral Gables Police Department, including a former member of the 1980s band Menudo, were injured when the van they were riding in overturned on Florida’s Turnpike in Yeehaw Junction.
The officers were members of the department’s SWAT team and were returning Saturday from the SWAT Round-up International, a 66-team competition in Orlando.
Miguel Cancel, one of the officers injured in the accident, was a singer with Menudo as a teenager in the 1980s, said Coral Gables Police Lt. Paul Miyares.
The four officers — Eduardo Orbe, 29, Edwin Pagan, 32, Eugenio Arencibia, 32, and Cancel, 37 — were traveling south on the turnpike when the rear right tire blew on their van.
The vehicle flipped into the northbound lanes, coming to rest on the northbound shoulder, the Florida Highway Patrol said.
Arencibia and Cancel, who were riding in the back and not wearing seat belts, were ejected, the FHP said. All four were taken to a hospital, and Orbe and Pagan were released.
Miyares said Arencibia had a back injury and Cancel suffered a “severe injury to his left hand.”
ALMANAC
It’s Tuesday, Dec. 7,
the 342nd day of the year;
24 days are left in 2004.
ON THIS DATE
In 1787, Delaware became the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
In 1796, electors chose John Adams to be the second president of the United States.
In 1836, Martin Van Buren was elected the eighth president of the United States.
In 1941, Japanese forces attacked American and British territories and possessions in the Pacific, including the home base of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
In 1972, the last moon mission to date was launched as Apollo 17 blasted off from Cape Canaveral.
In 1988, a major earthquake in the Soviet Union devastated northern Armenia; official estimates put the number of dead at 25,000.
THOUGHT FOR TODAY
“No nation ever had an army large enough to guarantee it against attack in time of peace or ensure it victory in time of war.”
— President Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Actor Eli Wallach, 89; bluegrass singer Bobby Osborne, 73; actress Ellen Burstyn, 72; Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., 67; ABC News anchorwoman Carole Simpson, 64; country singer Gary Morris, 56; singer-songwriter Tom Waits, pictured, 55; actress Priscilla Barnes, 49; former Tonight Show announcer Edd Hall, 46; rock musician Tim Butler, 46; actor C. Thomas Howell, 38; pop singer Nicole Appleton, 29; rapper Kon Artis, 28.
