Hitting a high note in high office: And now, the musical stylings of ... Silvio Berlusconi?

By: North County Times wire services | Friday, October 31, 2003 4:55 PM PST ∞

ROME ---- Long before his days as billionaire head of state, Silvio Berlusconi used to croon on a cruise ship. Now, Italy's premier has co-written an album of love songs.

Despite governmental duties, Berlusconi found time to write half the tunes on the album "Better With a Song" ("Meglio Una Canzone"), 14 ballads in the romantic Neapolitan style. A sunset graces the album cover; inside there is a picture of the Italian leader grinning.

Berlusconi does not sing on the CD. The songs are performed by Mariano Apicella, who earned his keep singing at restaurant tables before being adopted as Berlusconi's favored musical ally.

The two met at a restaurant in Naples in December 2001, and began to work together soon after.

The premier demanded a sample song first, Apicella said.

"He didn't like the lyrics, but he liked the music very much. So he asked me if he could make some changes. It was our first song. The second, the third and fourth songs followed, and then the idea of making a record too," Apicella said in an interview with Associated Press Television News.

Since their 2001 meeting, Apicella has often joined Berlusconi at his villa in Sardinia, where the Italian leader spends summer holidays, entertains visiting dignitaries -- and sings.

In one song called "With My Heart in My Throat" ("Col Cuore in Gola"), the premier says:

"With my heart in my throat

"Because your love is everything to me

"I know you may make me suffer

"But I'll never let you go

"Even if I have to fight

"I will love you until the end."

Berlusconi's office had no comment on the album. However, he has often said he likes to stay up at night to compose Neapolitan love songs.

Berlusconi, now 67, has changed much since his early singing days: He became a media mogul ---- Italy's richest man ---- not to mention winning the top job in government twice.

Yet producing an album is perfectly in line with the image Berlusconi cultivates: that of a leader who is not stuffy, distant or overly bureaucratic. The premier casts himself as a good-time man of the people, who owns a successful soccer team, whose TV channels produce slick, popular shows, and who isn't afraid to speak his mind.

This style helped win him support, particularly when he launched his political career in the early 1990s as an entire generation of political leaders fell from grace in the middle of a corruption scandal.

It also has led to awkward public statements, such as a "joke" in July when he said a German lawmaker would be perfect in the role of a Nazi concentration camp guard. This caused a diplomatic spat with Germany.

"Berlusconi is not a politician," Apicella said. "He's just in politics. In private, he's a very social person with a good sense of humor. He's an extremely normal person."

Berlusconi is not the only politician to play music.

In 1992, then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton donned sunglasses and played saxophone on a TV talk show. British Prime Minister Tony Blair played guitar in a student rock band called Ugly Rumors.

In Italy, vendors are counting on Berlusconi's first album to be a big seller.

"We are putting out a large number of CDs," said Alessandra Zago, a spokeswoman for Universal Music, which is releasing the album. "It's a debut album ---- but let's just say we have high hopes."

British Airways Concordes to go on display in New York, Seattle, Britain and Barbados

LONDON ---- British Airways' seven Concordes, which were retired last week after 27 years of commercial service, are to go on display ---- including one in New York and one in Seattle, the airline said Thursday.

The plans disappointed aviation buffs who had hoped one of the droop-nosed supersonic jets might be kept flying for airshows and ceremonial occasions.

But a study showed that "the technical and financial challenges of keeping a Concorde airworthy are absolutely prohibitive," British Airways chief executive Rod Eddington said.

One Concorde will be going to the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York, a World War II-era aircraft carrier permanently moored in the Hudson River. Another will go to the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

Four of the jets will stay in Britain ---- at the headquarters of Airbus U.K. in Filton, southwest England; Manchester airport; the Museum of Flight in Scotland; and the planes' home base of Heathrow Airport near London.

A seventh will go to Grantley Adams Airport in Bridgetown, Barbados.

Flights of the jet have been halted by British Airways and Air France, the only airlines that flew the Concorde. The last trans-Atlantic flight landed Friday at London, carrying 100 celebrities from New York.

A Concorde retired by Air France was flown to the National Air and Space Museum's annex outside Washington last summer.

Eighteen of the 20 Concordes that were produced still exist.

British Airways said it had received many proposals for Concorde since announcing the aircraft's retirement in April. It rejected some of the more colorful suggestions, including turning one into a restaurant or transforming one into a hyperbaric oxygen chamber to help scuba divers suffering from the bends.

It also rebuffed attempts by Virgin Atlantic Airways boss Richard Branson to obtain the fleet and keep the Concorde flying.

Eddington said the destinations had been chosen for location, accessibility and "ability to properly exhibit and preserve the aircraft."

The epitome of jet-set glamour, the Anglo-French Concorde was a stunning technological achievement, a sleek machine that carried business moguls and celebrities across the Atlantic at twice the speed of sound.

But it never made back the vast sums spent on its development.

Thousands of people gathered near Heathrow on Friday to watch the final passenger-carrying Concordes land.

The first Concorde to leave for its new location is scheduled to fly from Heathrow to Manchester airport on Friday. The others will go to their new homes soon, British Airways said.

The airline also said it would hold an auction of Concorde memorabilia ---- including a nose cone and pilots' seats ---- on Dec. 1, with proceeds going to charity.

Air France grounded its five Concordes in May. One has gone to the new branch of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington. The others will be displayed in France and Germany.

Versailles palace to undergo $158 million renovation; biggest overhaul in 150 years

PARIS ---- The palace of Versailles will get a $158 million overhaul to brighten its facade, improve safety and reorganize the way visitors pass through its gilded rooms, France's culture minister said Thursday.

The restoration is the palace's most ambitious since Louis-Philippe's reign from 1830-1848, Jean-Jacques Aillagon said. Work will start this year and continue until 2009.

"The objective of this vast project is to give Versailles back its dazzle," Aillagon said.

Workers will install better fire alarms, improve fire exits and replace aging electricity systems. Hundreds of wooden window frames on the facade that faces the palace's immense back gardens will be repaired.

Visitors to Versailles are often confused by the many entrances, some for tour groups, others for individuals.

The overhaul will simplify entrances and add four new visiting routes through the palace.

The chateau will remain open during the work, which is partly financed by the private sector.

The 17th-century palace and its sprawling 2,000-acre grounds ---- known for fountains, calm pathways and geometric gardens ---- are a top tourist attraction, drawing 9 million visitors a year.

Casino parking garage collapses on construction workers; 4 dead, 1 missing

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. ---- The top five stories of a parking garage under construction at a casino collapsed Thursday, sending concrete slabs and metal beams crashing down as workers ran for cover. Four people were killed, about 20 were injured and one was missing, officials said.

Two of the victims died inside the building and two died at a hospital, said Michael Schurman, deputy director of emergency management for Atlantic County.

One of the bodies was still inside the parking garage more than seven hours after the collapse and another person was missing, Schurman said. Authorities, worried about the structure's stability, didn't send rescue crews in right away.

"There is the real potential for a secondary collapse," Gov. James E. McGreevey said.

Robert Levy, the city's director of emergency management, said search cameras and dogs were sent into the rubble of the 10-story garage to locate missing workers, and trucks carrying lumber were being brought in to try to shore up the building. He called it "one of the worst collapses Atlantic City has ever seen."

Construction workers had been pouring a concrete floor deck when a corner of the top floors collapsed, leaving five layers of concrete and steel sloping downward at a steep angle, said state police Capt. Ed O'Neill.

Harold Simmons, 42, a pipefitter was on the second floor of the garage when he heard rumbling around 10:40 a.m.

"It sounded like an earthquake," Simmons said. "The whole building was shaking.

"You didn't know where to run. I tried to run to a staircase, but the staircase was wiped out. I went to another staircase and that one was wiped out."

Simmons eventually made it out by following other workers. He said 300 to 400 workers were at the site when the garage floors collapsed.

The parking garage supports one side of an 18-story hotel tower also under construction as part of an expansion project for the Tropicana Casino and Resort.

"It's a tragedy. We're devastated," said Maureen Siman, a Tropicana spokeswoman.

The project's general contractor, Keating Construction, said in a statement: "This is a difficult time. Obviously, our first concern is the well being of the people that are injured or missing."

Last October, three workers were injured at the Tropicana site when a one-story panel of concrete they were standing on collapsed.

Bill Crilley, 42, an insulator, working at a project in another part of the city, said he rushed to the building after hearing Thursday's collapse and saw authorities carrying one body away.

"It's ugly. Horrific. The whole stairwell is crushed," he said.

Ten people were taken to a trauma unit at Atlantic City Medical Center, and six others were treated at the hospital for other injuries. Four others were taken to Shore Memorial Hospital in Somers Point with injuries that didn't appear life-threatening, said hospital spokesman Bill Elliott.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was leading the investigation into the cause of the collapse.

At the site, construction workers gathered on the street nearby to gaze up at the collapsed floors. Family members began arriving at the scene looking for relatives.

"He was working up there last night, I know," said one distraught woman as she searched for co-workers of her husband.

The Tropicana expansion project is intended to diversify the casino's offerings with forms of entertainment other than gambling, including an IMAX theater, nightclub and restaurants. It had been scheduled for completion next spring.

Green River Killer suspect expected to plead guilty to 48 murders

SEATTLE ---- The man suspected of being the Green River Killer has agreed to plead guilty next week to the murders of 48 women in a deal that would spare him from execution, a source told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Gary Leon Ridgway, a 54-year-old truck painter arrested in the serial killer case in 2001, will admit to murdering 42 women on investigators' list of Green River Killer victims, as well as six women not on the list, said the source, who is involved in the case and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Green River Killer preyed mostly on prostitutes, drug addicts, young runaways and other women on the streets. The case is named for the waterway where the first bodies were found in the suburbs south of Seattle in mid-1982. Most of the slayings were in the mid-1980s, but one of the slayings to which Ridgway will plead guilty was in 1998, the source said.

In many cases, the killer had sex with his victim and then strangled her.

Ridgway was arrested nearly two years ago and was ultimately charged with seven slayings. Prosecutors said DNA evidence and microscopic paint particles linked him to most of those killings.

Seattle-area newspapers and TV stations had been reporting over the past few days that a plea bargain had been reached.

With the death penalty off the table, Ridgway would face life in prison without parole ---- the only other penalty for aggravated murder under Washington law.

Detective Kathleen Larson, a spokeswoman for the Green River Killer task force, would not comment when contacted by the AP on Wednesday and Thursday.

The women Ridgway will admit killing who were not on the list include Patricia Ann Yellow Robe, 38, of Seattle, a nurse's aide who was found dead by a wrecking crew in 1998.

"I guess I'm a little stunned, you know," said her father, Joe Yellow Robe of Box Elder, Mont., told KING-TV. "I find it incredible that an individual was able to cause that many deaths, to perpetrate that much suffering and misery on so many people."

Task force detectives have found four sets of human remains at various sites in recent months. That led to speculation that Ridgway himself was directing investigators to the burial sites.

Women feed burglar into submission

TAMPA, Fla. ---- Confronted with an armed intruder in their home, two women plied him with a ham sandwich and rum until he became groggy and passed out.

Police arrived and arrested Alfred Joseph Sweet, 52, to end the five-hour episode.

Cathy Ord, 60, and Rose Bucher, 63, said they tried to befriend the man after he burst through their kitchen window with a sawed-off shotgun Tuesday night.

They made him a sandwich, gave him a bottle of rum and suggested he shower and shave so he could "sort of be disguised in his getaway," Ord said.

"We just treated him with kindness," Bucher said.

She said she had offered Sweet cash and the keys to her Cadillac, but he just sat with them, holding his gun. The intruder never said what he wanted, the women said.

Odds and Ends

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. ---- Eric Velleca didn't even have to don his Halloween costume to garner some explosive attention.

His getup stashed in a trunk tripped an explosives detector during a baggage screening at Palm Beach International Airport.

Velleca, 28, was pulled off his United Airlines flight to Chicago and questioned by investigators on Wednesday while a bomb squad inspected the trunk carrying three costumes patterned after the outfits worn in the film "Ghostbusters."

The trunk contained PVC pipes, radios, cell phones, batteries with wires attached and car distributor caps to be used to assemble the "proton packs" for costumes he and two friends were planning to wear for a Friday party.

Officials had discussed blowing up the trunk but decided against it, Velleca said. He said officials briefly considered pressing charges against him, but they were polite and professional throughout the ordeal.

Lauren Stover, regional spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, said officials had no choice but to treat the situation as if it were a threat.

"People need to be careful about incorporating simulated bombs into their costumes," she said.

Velleca was able to catch another flight to Chicago later Wednesday ---- with his costume props.

"It wasn't my idea," he said of the costumes. "I don't even really like the Ghostbusters."

NEW LONDON, Conn. ---- Want to stay healthy this winter? Try a trip to the casino.

As another flu and pneumonia season starts, several organizations are targeting casinos with their large numbers of elderly visitors as places to administer vaccines.

"It's an ideal place," said Susan Peak, the wellness coordinator at the Visiting Nurse's Association of Central Connecticut, which administered flu and pneumonia shots at the Mohegan Sun Casino Wednesday.

The one-day casino clinic has in the past vaccinated as many as 600 patrons.

Promoting vaccinations for gamblers and employees also is good for business, say casino spokesmen and health care workers.

With thousands of people in an enclosed space, frequent passing of chips and money and the numerous hands that grip slot-machine levers, casinos are practically an incubator for viruses, say health care workers.

Kay O'Shea, 73, of Massachusetts, said she typically comes to the casino once a week. The one-stop gambling and inoculation is "killing two birds with one stone," she said.

PENSACOLA, Fla. ---- A 6-foot-tall emu led a half-dozen pest control workers on a 90-minute chase through woods and brush before the flightless bird was snared and then gang-tackled.

Gene Ham has caught raccoons, opossums, coyotes, deer, squirrels, foxes and other critters in his job with Jones/Hill Pest Control, but Tuesday's chase was his first encounter with an emu, an ostrich-like bird native to Australia.

"That was by far the toughest thing we've ever caught," Ham said. "It was quick, and it put up a tough fight once we caught it."

The emu, wrapped in a blanket and with shredded duct tape clinging to its clawed feet, was taken to The Zoo near suburban Gulf Breeze after being caught west of Pensacola near Perdido Bay.

The bird will be quarantined for at least 30 days and get veterinary care before joining other emus at The Zoo, said zoo president Pat Quinn.

It may have escaped from an emu ranch or been deliberately released, Quinn said. Emus are raised mainly for their lean but beef-like meat.

Oil made from the birds' fat can be used to treat joint swelling and stiffness and as a skin thickener to reduce the appearance of aging, according to the American Emu Association.

Emus feed on grasses, insects and sometimes small reptiles in the wild. They can run up to 40 mph and deliver lethal blows with their feet.

CLEVELAND ---- Baby Boomers can't seem to grow up, at least when comes to their taste in candy.

The Woodstock Candy company is doing a booming business, catering to the boomers' sweet-tooth.

"People are usually thrilled to know that a lot of candy from their childhood is still available," according to Bridget Sweeney-Bell of the Woodstock, N.Y., confections company.

What's big for Halloween for Baby Boomers? "Wax lips are very popular," says Sweeney-Bell, who also listed favorites including candy buttons on paper, Gold Mine Gum, candy cigarettes and Nik-L-Nips.

In the politically correct present, candy that looks like cigarettes often is marketed as "candy sticks," but some old-time favorites still provide a puff of sugar when you blow through a hole in the middle.

Nostalgic candy has become a niche in the $24 billion U.S. candy business, in part because the biggest candy makers have concentrated on fewer items, especially chocolate.

Outfits specializing in nostalgic candies have moved into that retail void, often via the Internet.

Tom Scheiman has 2,500 items in his Cleveland candy store, 200 of which he classifies as "nostalgic," and are hard to find or have limited regional distribution.

"We ship a lot to Florida and Atlanta," he said. "They're transplants."

His top Halloween nostalgic item: wax fangs.

"They're cool. There's nothing like them," he said.

McCartney's wife Heather Mills gives birth to girl

LONDON ---- Paul McCartney's wife Heather Mills has given birth to a girl, the couple said Thursday.

Beatrice, the couple's first child, was born Tuesday at a London hospital and weighed 7 pounds, her parents said in a statement.

"She is a little beauty. We couldn't be prouder," the 61-year-old former Beatle McCartney and Mills, 35, said, adding that they were "ecstatic."

A spokeswoman for the Hospital of St. John and St. Elizabeth said Beatrice Milly McCartney was born three weeks premature and delivered by Caesarean section.

Spokeswoman Claire Hornick said the baby and mother were doing "very well," and added that Mills and McCartney were still in the hospital Thursday.

The Daily Mirror newspaper had reported earlier Thursday that the child was a boy.

The baby is Mills' first child. McCartney has three adult children Stella, Mary and James, and a stepdaughter, Heather, from his marriage to first wife Linda McCartney, who died in 1998 from breast cancer.

The baby was named after Mills' late mother Beatrice and McCartney's aunt Milly, Hornick said.

Mills, a former model who lost a leg in a motorcycle accident and raises money for children disabled in war, married McCartney at an Irish castle in June 2002.

Earlier this year, she expressed fears she would never have a child because of a series of health problems.

"The chances of me getting pregnant are about that much," she said in a television interview, holding up her thumb and finger an inch apart.

But the couple announced in May that Mills was pregnant.

Rosie O'Donnell, publisher in court battle over demise of Rosie magazine

NEW YORK ---- Lawyers for Rosie O'Donnell and the publisher of her now-defunct magazine, Rosie, squared off in court Thursday, each charging the other with destroying the publication by seeking complete control.

"Ms. O'Donnell walked away from the magazine, causing it to shut down in its second year of publication and causing hundreds of people to lose jobs and Gruner + Jahr to lose millions of dollars," Martin Hyman, lawyer for publisher Gruner + Jahr USA, said in opening statements in a Manhattan courtroom.

The magazine, launched in 2001, folded soon after O'Donnell resigned in September 2002. G+J is seeking $100 million from O'Donnell; she asks $125 million in a countersuit.

O'Donnell, wearing a bright red coat over a black shirt and pants, listened attentively to opening arguments, but showed no reaction. She is expected to take the witness stand during the trial.

Modeled in part after O, the successful Oprah Winfrey magazine, Rosie got off to a strong start with circulation close to 3.5 million. But the magazine stumbled in 2002 as conflicts emerged between O'Donnell and the editors.

Hyman said a key dispute arose after a newly hired editor chose a cover photo of O'Donnell with cast members of "The Sopranos" for the August 2002 edition.

"Ms. O'Donnell hated this photo because she thought it made her look fat," Hyman said. To express her displeasure, "she threw a foul-mouthed temper tantrum" that caused the editors to switch to another photo featuring only the cast members.

O'Donnell saw the dispute as a sign she was losing control of the magazine, Hyman said. From then on, he said, O'Donnell was determined that either the new editor, Susan Toepfer, would go or she would.

In her opening statement, O'Donnell's lawyer Lorna Schofield defended O'Donnell's decision to walk away from the magazine, saying the publisher breached an agreement that gave her control of the magazine's editorial content.

She agreed with Hyman that the disputed cover photo had upset O'Donnell, but that her client saw that as a sign that her wishes with regard to the magazine were not being respected. Schofield said O'Donnell found Toepfer difficult to work with and wanted the previous editor, Cathy Cazender, to return.

"She wanted things to return to the way they were when she was in control," Schofield said.

The trial is expected to feature differing accounts of O'Donnell's style as the editorial inspiration of Rosie, which subsumed the venerable but failing magazine McCall's.

A key prong of the dispute is how the magazine reported its circulation numbers.

Lawyers for O'Donnell are expected to contend that G+J deliberately overstated its subscriber base to make the magazine appear healthier than it was. O'Donnell's contract allowed her to walk away from the magazine if it posted particularly high losses.

Outside court, O'Donnell said she could "hardly wait" to testify. As for the way G+J's lawyers portrayed her, she said, "I am loud and I curse way too much for my own good. I'm guilty as charged. It's not illegal to curse in America."

The trial comes as O'Donnell prepares to launch "Taboo," a boisterous musical about the 1980s pop phenomenon Boy George ---- and starring Boy George in a different role ---- that O'Donnell has confidently predicted will win a Tony Award. She is the $10 million show's producer and single investor.

Stone Temple Pilots singer ordered to rehab

PASADENA ---- Former Stone Temple Pilots lead singer Scott Weiland was ordered today to report to a live-in detox program by early tonight, followed by a six-month residential drug rehabilitation program.

Pasadena Superior Court Commissioner Collette Serio said she'll allow Weiland out of the residential facility for a 10-day period starting Nov. 7 for four hours per day so he can finish an album.

He'll be taken to the recording studio by an off-duty police officer and will be tested immediately upon his return, the commissioner said.

She also ordered the 36-year-old singer not to drive a motor vehicle.

Weiland was charged yesterday with a misdemeanor count of driving under the influence stemming from his 6:30 a.m. arrest in Hollywood a day earlier.

Los Angeles police booked him on suspicion of driving under the influence and hit-and-run, and he was released on $15,000 bail

Weiland had been placed in a drug diversion program after pleading no contest Aug. 14 to possession of heroin, stemming from a May 17 arrest in Burbank, said Sandi Gibbons of the District Attorney's Office.

Weiland has had drug problems in the past.

In 1999, he served time after repeatedly violating his probation and failing to complete stints in drug rehabilitation following drug-related arrests.

Boy's costume catches fire during Halloween school assembly; student charged

ELLSWORTH, Maine ---- A high school student suffered severe burns after his Army sniper costume of leaves and a grass-like material was set on fire by a classmate during a Halloween assembly Thursday, police said.

A 15-year-old at Ellsworth High School was charged with starting the fire with a lighter after allegedly saying, "I wonder if this will burn," police Lt. Harold Page said.

Donald Awalt, 14, of Ellsworth, was airlifted to a Boston hospital with third-degree burns. He suffered burns to his back, legs and head, Page said. His condition was not immediately released.

"This is just a prank gone horrifically wrong," Page said.

The entire school ---- about 500 students, many in costume ---- was at the "Spook Day" assembly in the school gymnasium when the flames broke out at the top of the bleachers.

Some people initially thought it was a joke when they saw the flames. Then students bolted for the exits in a panic.

The victim ran down to the floor, where students and a school worker used a fire extinguisher and a coat to smother the flames.

The 15-year-old was charged with reckless conduct, aggravated assault and arson and taken to a youth detention center in Charleston, Page said. The boy was remorseful and said he never intended for anyone to be hurt, Page said.