Lady Gaga, Eminem and Katy Perry will be performing at this year’s Grammys, it has been announced.
Canadian rock band Arcade Fire, US rapper Cee Lo Green, and country music artist Miranda Lambert will also be taking to the stage at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards telecast next month.
Rapper Eminem is already set for glory at the ceremony – he is up for 10 awards, including Record Of The Year with Rihanna for Love The Way You Lie.
Lady Gaga has six nods, including Album Of The Year for The Fame Monster and Female Pop Vocal Performance for Bad Romance.
California Gurls singer Katy, who wed funnyman Russell Brand last year, is up for four gongs, including Album Of The Year for Teenage Dream. (PA)
Policewoman art raises hackles
A prize-winning lifelike sculpture of a policewoman urinating has whipped up a storm of protest in Germany, where it went on prominent display last week.
The work entitled Petra by 27-year-old German sculptor Marcel Walldorf is made of silicone and metal and has pitted public officials against art world aficionados in the debate over what is acceptable in the name of high culture.
It depicts a young female police officer in full riot gear with exposed buttocks at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden, eastern Germany.
The work entitled “Petra” was completed one year ago and has captured a €1,000 prize by the prestigious Leinemann Foundation for fine arts.
“It shows very well the difference between the public sphere and the private sphere,” the jury said. However, the GdP police union also blasted the piece, saying it “breached the limits of artistic freedom.” (AFP)
Catch a smoker!
Ratting on neighbours who light up on the sly can be lucrative in Sweden, where a landlords’ association said yesterday it would offer a hefty reward for shopping people who violate a strict smoking ban in a residential building.
“I have decided to offer a reward of 5,000 kronor (€560) to our tenants for helping us discover which people are smoking” in buildings where it is banned, said Hans Selling, the head of communal landlords Mitthem in Sundsvall, north of Stockholm.
The initiative concerns a building in Sundsvall where residents in all 121 apartments are required to adhere to a strict smoking ban.
“It is extremely serious that people who have signed up for a non-smoking residence decide to light up, while it is the people suffering from asthma who have expressly chosen this residence who are forced to move,” he said.
Anyone found to be smoking in the building will be evicted, he added. (AFP)
Cocaine hidden in plastic bananas
Police in Spain seized 162 kilos of cocaine hidden inside plastic bananas that had been concealed in a 20-tonne shipment of real fruit from Ecuador, the interior ministry said yesterday.
“The imitations with the drugs, which were very similar to real bananas, were hidden amongst a shipment of real fruit,” it said in a statement.
The cocaine was wrapped in clear plastic sheets inside the fake green bananas.
Four people were arrested in the operation surrounding the shipment which arrived at the Mediterranean port of Algeciras from Guayaquil, the largest and the most populous city in Ecuador.
Police believe one of the four arrested is the leader of the ring who was responsible for maintaining contacts with the Colombian drug cartels that supplied the narcotics. (AFP)
Shot girl book sells out
A book featuring the nine-year-old girl killed in the Arizona shootings jumped into the top 200 on Amazon.com after President Obama mentioned it in his speech at Tucson.
Christina Green was among 50 children in Faces of Hope, a paperback collection of photographs of babies born on the day of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The book was ranked No. 8,288 before Mr Obama’s speech on Wednesday night at the University of Arizona and was No. 154, and out of stock, by yesterday morning.
A spokesman said another print run would be commissioned quickly. (AP)
‘Rent-a-husband’ service
A new business in Georgia is offering single women who need household help the chance to hire ‘husbands’ by the hour – but the company’s owner admits that all that some of his customers need is love.
“Our service is here to assist those women who need help with tough housekeeping tasks,” company owner Beso Mchedlishvili said.
But he said that many women had been confused by the company’s name – A Husband for an Hour Limited – and had been asking for something more. Since going into business in the ex-Soviet republic two months ago, the number of calls from women seeking a more intimate hour has significantly exceeded the orders for the company’s actual services.that our guys are not male prostitutes. (AFP)