13 minutes ago

NEW YORK - She just became an honorary cultural ambassador for Barbados, and now Rihanna is advocating for another cause: a New York City leukemia patient in urgent need of a bone marrow donor.

The 20-year-old singer is working with DKMS, an international donor network based in Tubingen, Germany, to try to find a donor for Lisa Gershowitz Flynn, People magazine reported on its Web site Saturday.

“When I heard about Lisa’s plight, my heart broke,” Rihanna told the magazine. “I said, `I need to get the word out about Lisa right away.’”

Flynn is a 41-year-old mother of two young children. She was diagnosed in November with acute myelogenous leukemia, a fast-growing cancer of the blood and bone marrow. Doctors have told her she has four to six weeks to find a suitable donor, according to People.

Flynn said she was stunned by the singer’s efforts on her behalf.

“For Rihanna to even be thinking about helping others and putting herself out there when she is so busy with her career is tremendous,” Flynn said.

Rihanna, born Robyn Rihanna Fenty, was named an honorary cultural ambassador for her native Caribbean island on Thursday. Earlier this month, she and Jay-Z won a Grammy in the rap/sung collaboration category, for her hit “Umbrella.”

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On the Net:

People: http://www.people.com

DKMS: http://www.dkmsamericas.org

43 minutes ago

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland's rich musical tradition has acquired an unlikely ambassador for the 2008 Eurovision song contest: glove puppet Dustin the Turkey, renowned for his burps and thick Dublin accent.

The choice of Dustin's song "Irelande Douze Pointe" (Ireland 12 points) played to mixed reviews on Saturday, with applause and boos from the audience.

One judge, Dana Rosemary Scallon, a former Eurovision winner, said: "If it's the turkey, I think we're better not to go into the Eurovision again."

But Dustin vowed to put Ireland, which has a record seven Eurovision wins, back on the map after several disappointing years and finishing last place in Helsinki in 2007.

"Shake your feathers and pop your beak/ Shake it to the West and to the East," Dustin sings as he makes fun of Riverdance, a hugely successful Irish dance show.

He also takes on "goulash-eating" eastern countries which tend to vote for each other's Eurovision candidates.

Irish rock star Bob Geldof, who has released a duet with Dustin, denied he was unfit to represent the country just because he is a turkey.

"The mere fact of his being a turkey should give Ireland the edge," Geldof told the Irish Times.

Due to Ireland's disastrous performance last year, Dustin will have to compete in a semi-final in May, a few days before the final in Belgrade is watched on television by an audience of tens of millions.

(Reporting by Andras Gergely; Editing by Stephen Weeks)

26 minutes ago

BEIJING - Facing dwindling popularity in the West, classical music could receive a boost from a large Chinese population increasingly interested in other cultures, the music director of the New York Philharmonic said Saturday.

Speaking ahead of two performances in Beijing’s new National Grand Theater, Lorin Maazel noted that China is embracing outside influences.

“We need defenders of our tradition of classical music if classical music is to survive,” he told reporters. “It could very well be that one of the most important defenders of classical music will be found in the country of China.

“I think the Chinese people, who have shown their passion and very, very high sense of aesthetics, are an ideal spawning ground for burgeoning interest in classical music,” Maazel said at the theater, an egg-shaped structure sheathed in titanium and glass.

The two concerts in Beijing are part of an Asia tour by the Philharmonic, so far highlighted by a Tuesday performance during an unprecedented visit by a prominent American cultural group to North Korea.

The U.S. and communist North Korea remain technically at war since the 1953 cease-fire halted the Korean War and they have no normal diplomatic relations.

The conductor and other Philharmonic officials refused Saturday to answer questions about the North Korea trip, preferring to keep the focus on the Beijing performances.

17 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Alicia Keys postponed two concerts on her European tour after being put on vocal rest by her doctor, her publicist said Saturday.

Keys, whose latest album, “As I Am,” has sold millions of copies worldwide, was supposed to perform Monday in Glasgow, Scotland, and Tuesday in Manchester, England. But the Grammy-winning singer was told to spend the next few days off the stage because of laryngitis, publicist Patti Webster said in a statement.

The Glasgow and Manchester dates were to be rescheduled.

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On the Net:

Alicia Keys: http://www.aliciakeys.com

5 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES - Britney Spears has been reunited briefly with her sons, nearly two months after the troubled pop star last saw them.

Elliot Mintz, a spokesman for Spears’ ex-husband Kevin Federline, says she spent about three hours Saturday with 1-year-old Jayden James and 2-year-old Sean Preston.

Mintz wouldn’t say where the reunion took place or who else was there.

Spears had not been allowed to see the boys since Jan. 3, when she refused to return the children after a visitation. Police were called to her home in a scene that ended with Spears in the hospital.

Federline’s attorney said Friday that the singer’s ex had agreed to give her visitation rights.