38 minutes ago

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador - Christian Chavez was hospitalized briefly after he fainted onstage during an RBD concert in Jorge Gonzalez Stadium.

Chavez collapsed during the Mexican pop group’s second song Sunday night, local media reported. He was admitted to a private hospital that night.

A woman who answered the phone at the hospital confirmed Chavez had fainted. She said he was released early Monday but declined to give further details. The woman said she was a nurse but wouldn’t otherwise identify herself.

San Salvador’s La Prensa Grafica newspaper reported Chavez had suffered from dehydration. Concert organizers couldn’t be reached for comment.

___

On the Net:

RBD:

http://www.grupo-rbd.com/

By Adam Tanner 18 minutes ago

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Saying Barack Obama embodies political hope absent since Robert Kennedy was slain 40 years ago, three surviving members of the Grateful Dead rock band reunited on Monday for the first time in four years to back the presidential candidate.

"Every few generations a guy like this comes along," drummer Mickey Hart told a news conference a day before California's primary, in which Obama, a senator from Illinois, faces New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. "It seems like desperate times and we're desperate people."

The counter-culture band, known for its loyal "Deadhead" fans, broke up in 1995 after the death of its leader, guitarist Jerry Garcia. They have since played together occasionally, most recently in 2004.

At a San Francisco concert in front of 2,400 fans, singer-guitarist Bob Weir, 60, said the band had never before, performed on behalf of a presidential candidate, although they have often embraced liberal social causes.

"The last time hope was in the air, it was ended by a bullet," Weir said, referring to Kennedy, who was assassinated on the night he won the California Democratic primary in 1968. "We've been reluctant to do political events all along."

Bassist Phil Lesh, 67, said he met Obama, who told him he has some Grateful Dead songs on his iPod music player, last year.

The concert started with a short video from Obama, filmed on an airplane, thanking the band. A thick cloud of marijuana smoke wafted through the air then and throughout the concert, and some fans engaged in free-style dance as though magically transported from 1968.

Obama's dapper, clean-cut image contrasted with the tied-dyed shirts and long, shaggy hair of fans who lined up for hours to attend the "Deadheads for Obama '08" event.

"Long live the Dead!" said Ron Svetlik, 51, who said he had attended more than 200 Grateful Dead concerts, starting in 1974.

The home builder said he had already voted by mail for the Green Party candidate, but added: "If I had to cast a write-in ballot, I'd put Jerry Garcia."

The three band members neither promised more concerts nor ruled them out. "It's a lot like family," Weir said, referring to complicated relationships dating back more than 40 years. "What we have is thicker than blood."

(Editing by Patricia Zengerle)

By NEKESA MUMBI MOODY, AP Music Writer 17 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES - Four years ago, Sean “Diddy” Combs took his hip-hop swagger across the nation in an effort to get young people to vote, with the bold slogan “Vote or Die.” Now, on the eve of Super Tuesday’s primary contests, the entertainer has just a simple message: Go vote.

“If we want to stop the war, if we want to get the economy better, I think that young people need to understand they have to take matters into their own hands,” Combs, 38, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Monday. “It is really like waking up a sleeping giant.”

Some political analysts believe the youth vote could be a key factor in this year’s presidential election.

On Tuesday, more than 20 states will hold primaries that will help determine the eventual Democratic and Republican nominees for president. Sen. Hillary Clinton is locked in a close race with fellow Sen. Barack Obama on the Democratic side, while Sen. John McCain could further cement his front-runner status over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the Republican race.

Combs launched the non-partisan group Citizen Change in 2004 for the purpose of increasing the youth vote, and used his celebrity status to raise voting awareness among the youth. Statistics suggest voter turnout among young people increased in 2004 and 2006, and Diddy believes it will grow even more this political season.

“The seeds that we planted in ‘04 are now coming to fruition,” he told the AP. “A lot of young people have decided that this is their future. This president is going to decide their future.”

Back then, Combs refused to endorse a candidate and is keeping to that policy this time around, for now, at least.

“I didn’t really want to get in the political game but I wanted to see young people become empowered,” he said. “That’s where my attention is at.”

Still, he said he finds this year’s political contests to be “exciting.”

“To have an African-American man and a woman in, it’s going to go down in history as the most historical election,” he said. “And I think that young people will have a hand in the result.”

34 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES - Influential Southern rapper Pimp C died of an accidental overdose of a combination of drugs he had name-checked in his lyrics — codeine and promethazine, the county coroner’s office ruled Monday.

The drugs are key ingredients in “syrup,” a narcotic of choice in Southern rap circles that was most famously celebrated by Three 6 Mafia and Pimp C’s group Underground Kingz in the 2000 single “Sippin’ on some Syrup.”

The coroner’s office said Pimp C had sleep apnea, which causes people to stop breathing for up to 30 seconds at a time while sleeping. That illness combined with large amounts of prescription-strength cough syrup is what killed the rapper, coroner’s Capt. Ed Winter said.

DJ Screw, another influential figure in the Texas hip-hop scene, died of a heart attack in 2000 after a reported overdose of codeine-laced cough syrup.

Pimp C, born Chad Butler, was 33 when he was found in his bed Dec. 4 at the upscale Mondrian hotel in West Hollywood. The coroner’s office said his body was decomposing when it was found.

With partner-in-rhyme Bun B, Pimp C was half of the pioneering Port Arthur, Texas-based rap duo UGK. The group’s self-titled CD topped the Billboard charts last year. Pimp C had been working on a solo effort before he died.

52 minutes ago

LONDON (Reuters) - An intergalactic celebration of the Beatles was set for launch on Monday with the beaming of their peace anthem "Across the Universe" into outer space.

The man behind the idea, which marks the 40th anniversary of the recording of the song in 1968, is an avid Beatles fan who has persuaded the U.S. space agency, NASA, to kick off the party and now hopes to turn alien life forms on to the Beatles' music.

"At the moment we are sending up Morse code as a way of contacting aliens," Martin Lewis told BBC radio. "Maybe we should send them something a little more cheery."

If all goes according to plan, NASA will transmit the Beatles tune via its deep space network at midnight GMT, 7 p.m. U.S. Eastern time.

At exactly the same moment, fans worldwide are being asked to play "Across The Universe" in a bid to "create a harmonic convergence" around planet Earth and throughout the universe.

According to a statement from NASA, the transmission will be aimed at the North Star, Polaris, which is 431 light years away from Earth. The song will travel across the universe at a speed of 186,000 miles per second.

Former Beatle Paul McCartney, who beamed his first intergalactic concert to the International Space Station in 2005, congratulated NASA and asked them to pass on his regards to anyone else out there.

"Amazing! Well done, NASA!" he said in a statement released by the space agency. "Send my love to the aliens. All the best, Paul."

Fans can watch the event online via the Web site www.acrosstheuniverseday.com.

Reuters/Nielsen

By LINDA DEUTSCH, AP Special Correspondent 10 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES - A court commissioner on Monday extended the temporary conservatorship of Britney Spears to her father and an attorney until Feb. 14 and appointed a physician to evaluate her competence to make decisions.

The hearing came three days after her father, James Spears, and her attorney, Andrew Wallet, were granted temporary conservatorship after Superior Court Commissioner Reva Goetz ruled that Spears needed someone to take over her personal and financial affairs.

Goetz’s decision might not sit well with Spears, who remains in a hospital psychiatric ward undergoing a medical evaluation. Adam Streisand, who sought to enter the case as Spears’ lawyer, said in court that the pop star told him her dad shouldn’t be named the conservator of her and her estate.

“She has expressed to me very strongly that her father not be the conservator,” Streisand said. “There has been an estrangement for quite some time. With him as conservator, that is causing her more agitation and more distress.”

Despite Streisand’s pleas, Goetz denied his request to represent Spears.

In addition, Goetz ordered Spears to have no contact whatsoever with her friend and sometime manager Sam Lutfi, specifying that she can’t reach him by phone, text message or by any other means. Goetz also extended a restraining order against Lutfi.

A court-appointed attorney also weighed in on the Spears case. Samuel Ingham said he interviewed Spears on Sunday at UCLA Medical Center, determining that she didn’t understand the court proceedings, and that “she lacks the capacity to retain counsel.”

Streisand argued that Spears hadn’t been given any notice of Ingham’s plan to interview her, saying Ingham appeared at the hospital unannounced.

Vivian Thoreen, attorney for Spears’ father, said her client should continue to be conservator because “his daughter is in great distress.”

“He’s not here to take over her assets,” Thoreen said. “He’s here to get her medical help. He’s here to take over while she’s healing.”

Spears was originally to be released Sunday after a 72-hour mental evaluation. But doctors and a ward medical officer cited California law to keep her for two weeks, said a person close to the pop star who requested anonymity.

The state law allows patients to be kept for medical treatment if they are found to be gravely disabled or a danger to themselves or others.

Streisand also told Goetz that the Spears estate has assets totaling $40 million and is being audited by the IRS.

Earlier Monday, a child custody hearing was held but continued because of Spears’ condition.

Lawyers for Spears, her ex-husband Kevin Federline and her conservators met behind closed doors. The hearing was to deal with efforts by Spears’ legal team to withdraw from the case, but the lawyers abandoned that effort last week.

Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon barred Spears from contact with her two small children after she refused last month to relinquish the children to representatives of Federline after a court-sanctioned visit.

On that occasion, she was also taken to a hospital for psychiatric observation but quickly released.