GLAAD award honors Cooper
Gay advocacy group GLAAD says Madonna will present CNN’s Ander
son Cooper with an award for openly gay media professionals.
GLAAD told The Associated Press that the singer has been chosen to give Cooper the Vito Russo Award at the 24th annual GLAAD Media Awards in New York City on March 16. GLAAD president Herndon Grad
dick says Madonna and Cooper are longtime friends who have both used their careers to support lesbian, gay and transgender people.
Cooper declined to speak publicly about his sexuality for years. But last July he gave blogger Andrew Sullivan permission to publish an e-mail in which Cooper said he was gay and “couldn’t be more happy.”
Russo helped found GLAAD and wrote a book about gay people in the movies called “The Celluloid Closet.”
‘Family’ stars stuck in elevator
Three stars from the ABC comedy “Modern Family” got stuck in a Kansas City, Mo., elevator for about an hour, delaying their appearance at a charity benefit. Julie Bowen, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet were in town for a fundraiser for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Kansas City. Stonestreet grew up in Kansas City.
The Kansas City Star reports the three actors were trapped in an elevator Friday night with about a dozen other people at the Sheraton Kansas City Hotel at Crown Center, where they were head- lining the fundraiser.
Crews from the Kansas City Fire Department freed the group at 10 p.m., an hour after their scheduled appearance. When they took the stage, the actors praised and thanked the fire department.
Rapper Ja Rule in NYC jail
Federal authorities say platinum-selling rapper Ja Rule is in a New York City jail with a July 28 release date.
The 36-year-old rapper recently left a state prison in central New York after serving most of his two-year sentence for illegal gun possession and went straight into federal custody in a tax evasion case.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons says he has since moved from an upstate jail to Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, which houses prisoners awaiting court dates or having short terms left on their sentences.
Ja Rule admits he failed to pay taxes on more than $3 million earned between 2004 and 2006 while he lived in New Jersey.