Faces & Names: Susan Boyle dreams another dream

Susan Boyle has dreamed a dream and is singing for the pope.

Boyle, the unlikely pop star who shot to global Internet fame after she sang on the TV show “Britain’s Got Talent,” reprised her winning performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” from “Les Miserables” during a Mass on Thursday celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI.

Boyle got her wish to sing for the Pope when she helped mark the end of his open air Mass in Scotland on Thursday.

The committed Catholic’s rendition of the hymn, “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace,” was heard across the a park in Glasgow as Pope Benedict XVI was saying his farewells to church leaders following Mass, according to People magazine.

Dressed in an elegant long black coat and black heels, her flawless rendition of her signature “I Dreamed a Dream” and hymn “How Great Thou Art brought” the crowd to their feet and inspired many to sing along with her.

Benedict was capping off his first day of a four-day state visit to Britain that included a meeting with Queen Elizabeth II at Holyroodhouse Palace in Edinburgh.

Adventures of an accidental photo subject

Mayor Don Ness recognized the bowl cut on a young student featured in a photograph from the mid-1980s that ran on Page A6 of Sunday’s News Tribune.

“I’m pretty sure I’m that kid on the far right side of that picture,” Ness said via e-mail.

The photo by Bob King ran with the story “Reporter tracks her paper trail,” about former News Tribune reporter Laurie Hertzel’s new book on her local newspaper life. In the photo, Hertzel is interviewing students outside of a school (the caption in Hertzel’s book, “News to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist,” identifies the school as Morgan Park, but Ness is positive it is Grant Elementary — where he went to grade school. He remembered two of his classmates who are more clearly shown).

Just a fraction of the child’s head is shown, enough to see light-ish hair, cut in a straight line across his forehead. If only he could see another crop of the photograph, Ness said, he would be 100 percent sure:

“The ears would be a giveaway,” Ness said.

Swift partners with Target on new CD

Taylor Swift is the latest act to offer bonus album content to an exclusive retailer.

The country superstar is aligning herself with Target Corp. for the release of her latest album, “Speak Now.” The store will offer fans three additional songs, remixed tunes and video content when the album is released Oct. 25.

Swift says she tries to give fans bonuses whenever she can, so she is happy to oblige with her third album.

“Speak Now” is the follow-up to her Grammy-winning, multiplatinum CD “Fearless.”

Cruz expecting

A Spanish agency that represents Penelope Cruz says the Oscar-winning Spanish actress is pregnant.

The Madrid-based agency Kuranda says in a statement that 36-year-old Cruz is 4½ months pregnant.

Cruz has no children. She married Spanish actor Javier Bardem, 41, in a discreet wedding in the Bahamas in July.

They appeared together in the Woody Allen film “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” for which Cruz won the Oscar for best supporting actress in 2009.

In 2008 Bardem won the Oscar for best supporting actor for his role in “No Country for Old Men.”

Maher gets Hollywood Walk of Fame star

Political satirist Bill Maher has been immortalized in Hollywood.

With Larry King and “Family Guy” producer Seth MacFarlane standing nearby, HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” talk show host unveiled his Walk of Fame star Tuesday outside the W Hotel at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street.

Maher, who once hosted the late-night talk show “Politically Incorrect,” said he wanted to thank “George Bush, Sarah Palin and the pope.”

It was the 2,417th star dedicated on the famous sidewalk.

Kid Rock defends himself in ‘07 Atlanta fight

Kid Rock and his entourage were trying to defend themselves from another customer at a suburban Atlanta Waffle House when a fight broke out in 2007, said a lawyer for the musician who was in court Tuesday.

The entertainer, whose real name is Robert James Ritchie, and five people who were with him that night are being sued over the fight. Harlen Akins claims the group beat him for no reason and is seeking unspecified punitive damages, according to the lawsuit filed in DeKalb County.

The entertainer and his party behaved “like a pack of wild animals,” starting a fight inside the restaurant and pursuing Akins into the parking lot to beat him up before leaving in their tour bus, Akins’ lawyer Eric Hertz said in his opening statement.

Akins demonstrated “a pattern of provocation and escalation,” while Kid Rock and his party consistently tried to defuse the situation, said William Horton, a lawyer for Kid Rock and five others being sued.

Akins arrived at the restaurant alone shortly after 5 a.m. on Oct. 21, 2007. Kid Rock, who had given a concert in Atlanta earlier, arrived in his tour bus around the same time.

Akins and two women in Kid Rock’s party, one of whom he had known for years, began talking. Kid Rock was either jealous that Akins was getting the attention or was insulted by what Akins was saying to the women, but either way, a physical attack was unjustified, Hertz said.

Horton countered that Akins got into an argument with the women and with Kid Rock, who tried to calm things down by offering to buy Akins’ breakfast. It was Akins who kept trying to provoke an argument, Horton said.

Montag, Pratt detained with guns in Costa Rica

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — Police say reality TV stars Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag were briefly detained at a Costa Rica airport for illegal arms possession.

Airport police chief Otto Arrieta says security officers found two handguns in the pair’s luggage. He says the former stars of “The Hills” had not declared the weapons and did not have permits to have them in Costa Rica. They did not have ammunition.

Arrieta said Pratt and Montag were detained for questioning Saturday, but released and allowed to leave the country the same day. Arrieta spoke Monday.

The celebrities had been in Costa Rica since Aug. 14. Their representatives could not be reached for comment Monday.

Actors, union settle suit over royalties

Attorneys for the Screen Actors Guild and the actor who played Eddie Haskell on “Leave It to Beaver” have reached a settlement in a class-action lawsuit over the distribution of millions of dollars in foreign royalties to actors.

Attorneys for the union and actor Ken Osmond filed the agreement for a judge’s approval on Monday.

SAG has already paid out millions in royalties to the performers, but the agreement spells out how both remaining and future royalties will be distributed.

The lawsuit is the last of three cases filed against unions representing tens of thousands of actors, writers and directors over royalties that have been generated in Europe since the 1980s. The payments were created to compensate the performers for video rentals, blank media and, in some countries, cable retransmissions.

The settlement requires an independent audit of payments that have already been made and sets out disclosure guidelines for how SAG handles the royalties. The union is not admitting any wrongdoing, according to the settlement.

Swift absolves West in VMA song

Taylor Swift has absolved Kanye West of last year’s onstage sin with one somber song.

The 20-year-old delivered a poignant and powerful ode about West at Sunday night’s MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles that instead of criticizing him, sympathized with his difficult time in the spotlight and West’s own admissions that his ego often has gotten in his own way.

“Thirty-two and still growing up now; who you are is not what you did,” she sang softly, adding: “You’re still an innocent.”

Swift’s dramatic performance delivered on the hype promised from a sequel to last year’s incident when West marred Swift’s acceptance speech for best female video by jumping onstage and insisting the award should have gone to Beyonce. In the aftermath, West endured intense backlash, despite an apology, as well as a serious dent in his career that has yet to be ironed out.

Last week on Twitter, West poured out his heart, again apologizing to Swift and saying how much he had suffered since the incident, and adding that he had grown.

While Swift is known for skewering those who have done her wrong, for West, she offered an olive branch with her song, written earlier this year: “Everyone of us has messed up too ... I hope you remember to today is never to late to be brand new.”

In between the performances from the likes of Bieber and Usher, some actual awards were given out. Lady Gaga — who set a VMA record with her 13 nominations — was awarded best female video and best dance video for “Bad Romance” and best collaboration for her mini-epic “Telephone,” featuring Beyonce.

Travolta dances Winfrey into final season

Oprah Winfrey isn’t just walking onstage for the first show of her final season, she’s dancing — with John Travolta.

The 25th and final season of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” starts airing Monday.

In recently released video of the first episode, the TV talk show host and the actor dance hand-in-hand through her stage doors to “Love Train” by the O’Jays.

Winfrey has been tightlipped about who would join her on the season premiere. Other celebrity guests and a musical performance have been hinted at.

On her 19th season premiere in 2004, Winfrey gave a car to the nearly 300 people in her studio audience. It was a $7 million giveaway during which she famously exclaimed, “You get a car! You get a car! You get a car! Everybody gets a car!”

Lady Gaga, producer withdraw lawsuits

They may have had a bad romance, but now there’s a cordial professional split between Lady Gaga and a music producer who said she ditched him as both a collaborator and a boyfriend after he helped launch her career.

Court papers show the Grammy Award-winning “Bad Romance” singer and songwriter-producer Rob Fusari agreed to dismiss the lawsuits each filed against the other in March in a Manhattan court.

He’d sought $30.5 million, but it’s unclear whether they made any monetary deal.

“Lady Gaga and Rob Fusari have agreed to end their dispute amicably and wish each other well. There will be no further comment by either of them,” the singer’s camp said in a statement.

Fusari had said the pop-meets-performance-art sensation shoehorned him out of her lucrative career after he co-wrote such Gaga hits as “Paparazzi” and “Beautiful, Dirty, Rich,” came up with her stage name and helped get her record deal.

Lady Gaga’s lawyers had said Fusari was just an agent for her and got the then-inexperienced singer to sign an unfair agreement in 2006. Her lawsuit asked a court to void the “unlawful arrangement,” or at least declare that Fusari wasn’t owed what he claimed.

Lady Gaga won two Grammys in January: best dance recording, for “Poker Face,” and best electronic/

dance album, for “The Fame.” She leads the field of nominees with 13 nods for this year’s MTV Video Music Awards; the awards broadcast is set for Sunday.

Foxy Brown pleads not guilty

Rapper Foxy Brown has pleaded not guilty to charges of violating a court order stemming from a 2007 confrontation with her neighbor in New York City.

Brown, whose real name is Inga Marchand, entered the plea on Friday to a charge of criminal contempt. She could face up to one year in jail.

Prosecutors say Brown violated the order in July by screaming at neighbor Arlene Raymond before bending over, baring her buttocks and showing her underwear while shouting an obscenity.

The 31-year-old Brown was issued the order of protection after pleading guilty in 2008 to menacing Raymond with her cell phone.

The two had been in a dispute over Brown blasting her car stereo outside their Brooklyn building.

DiCaprio granted 3 years’ protection

A judge has granted Leonardo DiCaprio a three-year restraining order from a woman who he said claims to be his wife and carrying his baby.

During a brief hearing Friday, a Los Angeles judge ordered that Livia Bistriceanu stay 100 yards away from the actor. Court filings state Bistriceanu traveled from Chicago to Los Angeles and acted aggressively when she showed up at DiCaprio’s home and business offices recently.

Bistriceanu, who has been twice placed on psychiatric hold, was notified of a temporary restraining order but did not appear in court.

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