New York
tightens security for Grammy gala
New
York city's police chief said on Thursday that
the Grammy Awards gala, scheduled for Sunday
at Madison Square Garden after a five-year
absence from the city, would be safe.
"We'll
have more than adequate security there,"
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.
Police said
event staff will include a number of
counter-terrorism officers, among whom will be
highly visible "Hercules" unit
officers in protective gear and carrying
submachine guns.
Nearly 800
security officers -- including members of the
New York Police Department (NYPD), Madison
Square Garden security and private agencies --
will be on patrol both outside and inside the
arena, police sources said, without giving
further details. Garden officials said earlier
they were confident the measures they had put
in place would ensure a safe event, which is
expected to pump 35 million to 40 million
dollars into city coffers.
A NYPD
spokeswoman said the city would issue an
advisory on Thursday with the complete
complement of street closings. Sources said an
area along all of 31st Street between Seventh
and Eighth avenues would be closed, along with
some lanes of Eighth Avenue near the Garden.
Other events have also been planned before and
after the 8 p.m. Sunday Grammy telecast on
CBS, including:
"Charlie's
Angels" cast mates Drew Barrymore, Lucy
Liu and Cameron Diaz, along with Indie Arie
and Avril Lavigne, are expected to join Pink
for a party at the new nightspot Show on 41st
Street on Friday night.
The biggest
Grammy party, Clive Davis' annual fete, will
be held on Saturday evening at the Regent Wall
Street. Confirmed guests include Aretha
Franklin, Rod Stewart, Carlos Santana, Alicia
Keys and Norah Jones, along with Martha
Stewart and Sean Combs. David Letterman
cohort Paul Shaffer will perform at the
Recording Academy's official post-Grammy event
on Sunday at the Sheraton New York Hotel.
Covering 104
categories, Grammy Awards have long been
considered peer honors awarded by and to
artists and technical professionals for
artistic or technical excellence rather than
sales or chart positions. The awards honor
recordings in musical fields as diverse as
pop, rock, jazz, blues, rap and classical.
EU's top
leader opposes looming war on Iraq
European
Commission President Romano Prodi spoke
against a looming war on Iraq, and urged the
international community to explore every
possible alternative to war, the Italian media
reported on Friday.
"We would
all be worse off after a war," the former
Italian prime minister told the Naples daily,
Il Mattino. Besides the "disasters,
mourning and pain that it would cause,"
there would be practical consequences, in
particular for Europe, he added.
"All our
efforts must be focused on obtaining through
peaceful means the same results that could be
obtained by starting a conflict. There are
many instruments available to us and we must
use them all to the best of our ability,"
Prodi said.
"We are
close to the war zone and would be affected by
the conflict. We are already host to so many
immigrants from Arab countries," he said.
The 15-member
European Union has shown deep divisions over
the Iraqi crisis. France and Germany are
leading Europe's anti-war camp, while Italy
joined with Britain and Spain in taking a
broadly pro-United States stance. Italy's
center-right government, led by Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi, has allowed US troops to
use its air space and air bases for technical
stop-overs and refueling, a decision which was
decried by the opposition.
Last Saturday,
more than a million people demonstrated in
Rome against the possible US-led war on Iraq,
the largest anti-war rally yet held in the
capital.
Up to 20
feared dead in nightclub fire in Rhode Island
An
estimated 10 to 20 people were feared dead and
dozens of others injured when a blaze broke
out on Thursday evening at a nightclub in the
Rhode Island of Massachusetts, local police
and firefighters said Friday.
Police said the
incident occurred at 11 p.m. Thursday at the
Station Club when a pyrotechnics display was
being staged in a rock band concert. The flame
quickly flared up and engulfed the whole club
on early Friday. A fire department official
put the number of injuries at about 100 and
said the fire had been brought under control.
Hundreds of
firefighters, policemen and dozens of
ambulances rushed to the scene. A fireman said
many of the bodies were found at the front
door area of the club, and the injured have
been sent to local hospitals for medical
treatment.
The incident
comes four days after a stampede in a Chicago
nightclub. On Monday, hundreds of screaming
guests rushed to the single exit of a
nightclub after someone used pepper spray, and
at least 21 people were crushed to death or
smothered in the panic.
Bush signs
US spending package for this fiscal year
US
President George W. Bush signed on Thursday a
spending bill of 397.4 billion US dollars for
the budget year that began from Oct. 1, 2002.
Signing the
bill in Crawford, Texas, Bush complained that
the US Congress was spending too much in areas
such as drought relief for farmers and not
enough on his priorities.
"I am very
concerned that the Congress failed to provide
over 1 billion dollars in funds that my
administration requested for state and local
law enforcement and emergency personnel,"
Bush said in a statement.
"Much of
the funding that the Congress did provide is
heavily earmarked for lower-priority programs
that are not best designed to protect
Americans against terrorism," he said.
The spending
bill pays for every government agency except
the US Defense Department for the 2003 budget
year that ends on Sept. 30, 2003. With his
signature, the US president ended a bitter
stalemate that began last year when he
demanded lower spending than many in the
Congress wanted.
The spending
bill was opposed by Democrats who contended it
shortchanged education, domestic security and
park lands. Conservative Republicans in the
Congress were also angry that it spent too
much on lawmakers' projects that were widely
criticized.
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