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Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, the romantic craftsman behind hits by Whitney Houston, Eric Clapton and Toni Braxton this year alone, earned a record-tying 12 Grammy Award nominations yesterday.
Smashing Pumpkins, whose "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" album was a critical and commercial smash, received seven nominations. Tracy Chapman and Vince Gill each had five nominations.
The televised Grammy Award ceremony will be held in New York's Madison Square Garden on Feb. 26.
The dozen nominations cement the reputation of Babyface, as he is known, as one of the most successful musicians of the 1990s. He earned seven nominations as a songwriter, four as a producer and one as a performer.
Babyface produced Clapton's "Change the World," nominated for record of the year, and Toni Braxton's album, "Secrets," which earned a best pop album nod. He also was nominated for producer of the year.
Michael Jackson was nominated for 12 awards and won eight in 1983, the year "Thriller" topped the charts.
Mr. Clapton, Canadian chanteuse Celine Dion, producer David Foster, newcomer The Tony Rich Project and Pierre Boulez were each nominated for four Grammy Awards.
Nominees for best new artist were country singer LeeAnn Rimes, the Tony Rich Project, Jewel, Garbage and current chart-toppers No Doubt.
Spanish author and screenwriter Jorge Semprun was named yesterday as the 1997 winner of theJerusalem Prize for Literature.
"In all his writings, as in his life, Mr. Semprun pointed an accusing finger at all oppressive regimes," the judges said. The award recognizes Mr. Semprun's "greatness as a writer and fearless fighter for freedom, both in his life and in literature."
The $5,000 prize will be presented at the Jerusalem International Book Fair on April 6.
Semprun's works include the books "The Long Voyage" and "Literature or Life," and the screenplays for the Costa Gavras films "Z" and "The Confession."
Semprun, 73, was born in Madrid, Spain, but lived much of his life in France. His grandfather was prime minister of Spain and Mr. Semprun served as culture minister in the late 1980s.
Visitors at the Zhengzhou Zoo in Beijing are relieved to see Babu the elephant shoveling cabbages into his mouth with his trunk once again.
The 14-year-old elephant was standing by an iron window grating waving his trunk at a female elephant when his trunk got stuck. The sharp pain made the elephant stumble and his trunk was severed.
Surgeons from the central China city and from Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen reattached the trunk in a successful 17-hour operation, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday.
Tears ran down the elephant's face during the surgery and a female elephant confined nearby stretched out her own trunk to stroke him, the report said.
The report, which did not say when the accident happened, noted that 100 days after the operation the elephant was able to feed himself again – even though his trunk is now 16 inches shorter.
Woody Allen loves France. So does Claudia Schiffer. Even Mickey Mouse is ready to pledge his affection to the land of the Eiffel Tower and Disneyland Paris.
French tourism officials in Paris yesterday unveiled 14 television ads with celebrities gushing: "J'aime la France."
The ads feature Mr. Allen, Ms. Schiffer, Tina Turner, Ray Charles, Roger Moore, Julio Iglesias and others saying "I love France" in different parts of the country, from the Mediterranean to Paris.
The ads will premier on French television and abroad before the end of January.
Danes are smoking mad over a Swedish journalist's criticism of their cigarette-loving queen.
"Mind your own business, Swedes," one newspaper headline in Copenhagen, Denmark, snorted Tuesday. "Go on smoking," another said.
"It's a private matter if she wants to smoke," said Ninna Wuertzen, head of the Danish Cancer Society.
The controversy was sparked by a column by Hagge Geigert in Saturday's Goteborgs-Posten, in which he called Queen Margrethe II a "plague-woman."
"She has a special lackey who follows after her with an ashtray. She smokes everywhere. At official banquets, receptions, at parties at old-people's homes and so on," wrote Geigert, who suffers from emphysema.
Mr. Geigert praised Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf, who also likes cigarettes but "never smokes in photographs or when there are TV cameras."
That especially angered the Danes.
"This is hypocrisy. You may be a sinner as long as you don't talk about it," popular author Ebbe Kloevedal Reich told the newspaper B.T.
The royal palace in Copenhagen has no official comment.
Johnny Deppwas a rolling stone for most of his childhood, yet he says he's still gathering Moss.
The star of "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" and "Ed Wood" told Vanity Fair he's surprised he and model Kate Moss are still an item. In fact, he said, the relationship is better than ever.
"I am amazed," he said in an interview in the February issue. "I am doubly amazed at how great it still is. It's still new and fun. She makes me laugh and you can't beat the South London accent."
In the interview, he speaks frankly about his past drug use and points to River Phoenix's death as a "wake-up call for everyone."
"Getting high is about trying to numb something," Mr. Depp said.
Rodney Allen Rippymunched hamburgers on TV in the 1970s, but now he's hungry for meatier roles.
Mr. Rippy, a Long Beach, Calif., native who lives in Glendale, has changed a lot since his days as a chubby-cheeked 3-year-old hawking Jack in the Box burgers. He's 28 now, 6 feet tall and sports a goatee and glasses.
He last appeared on television two years ago on the show "Parker Lewis Can't Lose."
"When you have creativity bottled up inside you, you feel like you're going to explode if you don't get it out," he said.
Besides auditioning for parts, Mr. Rippy is a news apprentice at a TV station and is writing his autobiography. But don't expect the usual sad tale of a child star going to seed.
"My parents always kept me rooted," Mr. Rippy said. "Back then, you could turn on the TV and I was plastered all over the place. But my mom and dad didn't let it go to my head."
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