The Malaysian Insider

LOS ANGELES, Nov 21 — A celebrity photographer who briefly dated Britney Spears at the height of her career meltdown was sentenced to 45 days in jail yesterday after clashing with an official trying to serve him a restraining order.

Adnan Ghalib, 37, one of the paparazzi who trailed Spears night and day in 2007, was also ordered to complete an anger management program.

Los Angeles prosecutors alleged that in February Ghalib drove his car toward an official who was trying to serve a court order keeping him away from Spears and her family.

PARIS, Nov 20 — South Korean model Daul Kim was found hanged in her Paris apartment yesterday, a spokeswoman for the city prosecutor’s office said.

Police were investigating the cause of the 20-year-old’s death and said it was most likely that she committed suicide, the prosecutor’s spokeswoman told Reuters today.

LONDON, Nov 20 - Scottish singer Susan Boyle, one of the biggest stars of the Internet age, seeks to turn global celebrity into record sales next week with the release of her debut album “I Dreamed a Dream”.

Named after the song from the musical “Les Miserables” that made her famous, the 12-track album is a mix of pop covers like Madonna’s “You’ll See” and The Monkees’ “Daydream Believer” and Christian stalwarts like “Amazing Grace” and “Silent Night”.

The Sony Music record hits stores in Britain on Monday and in the United States on Tuesday, and the early commercial signs are promising.

The album is the largest ever global CD pre-order on online retailer Amazon.com, with sales reportedly in excess of 100,000, and is the bookmakers’ favourites to top the British chart over the lucrative Christmas period.

PHOENIX, Nov 20 - A week after abruptly quitting his longtime job as a CNN television news host and commentator, Lou Dobbs said yesterday he is considering career options including possible runs for the White House or US Senate.

“Right now I feel exhilaration at the wide range of choices before me as to what I do next,” Dobbs, whose outspoken views on immigration and other topics often angered liberals, told Reuters in a telephone interview from New York yesterday.

Dobbs, 64, a veteran CNN anchor who had become one of the most divisive figures in US broadcast journalism, announced last Wednesday he was leaving CNN after spending the better part of 30 years at the 24-hour cable news network.

He still hosts a daily radio show.

LOS ANGELES, Nov 20 — A few weeks ago “Crazy Heart” was just another invisible movie, one with so little promise that the company that made it refused to put it into theaters. Now, suddenly, this low-budget film about a washed-up country singer finds itself at the heart of the Oscar race, with some awards watchers calling its star, Jeff Bridges, a likely best actor candidate.

Every year one or more films like “Juno” or “The Wrestler” seem to emerge from nowhere. What makes “Crazy Heart” so arresting this year is that it has jumped into the race at pretty much the last minute and also comes complete with a juicy business back story involving a studio, Paramount, that may find itself embarrassed for letting an Oscar winner slip through its fingers.

And it comes in a year when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has raised the number of best picture nominees to 10, causing even more filmmakers to demand potentially expensive awards campaigns from studios that increasingly wonder whether having an Oscar contender is an asset or a liability.