HIGH POINT, N.C. - Reigning American Idol Fantasia Barrino said one song on her new CD, "Free Yourself," is dedicated to young mothers who struggle to support themselves and their children - just as she does.
Her "Baby Mama" track has elicited some criticism as endorsing children out of wedlock, but Barrino, 20, said she isn't promoting teenage motherhood.
Barrino has a 3-year-old daughter named Zion. She said she isn't ashamed of being a teenage mother, but "if I could have waited, I would have."
Young teens come up to her and tell her, "I'm a baby mama."
"That's cool," she tells them, but then she asks, "What are you doing to try to better yourself?"
Traveling with her daughter serves as a reminder of why she works so hard, said Barrino, who returned home to High Point on Friday during her CD promotion tour.
Barrino was among the artists who sang a tribute to Elton John at the 27th annual Kennedy Center Honors in December. She will be a co-host of the Soul Train Awards on Feb. 28, and she is nominated for an NAACP Image Award as outstanding female artist.
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SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) - Tough talking radio host Dr. Laura Schlessinger's 19-year-old son will join the U.S. Special Forces later this year - an endeavor that could take him to the Middle East.
Schlessinger, famous for doling out conservative advice on her nationally syndicated call-in show, told about 300 people at a 425th Civil Affairs Battalion event on Saturday that she wasn't too worried about her son, Deryk Bishop.
"I brought my son up to be a warrior," she said. "I feel sorry for the mothers of the bad guys. And I just have a good feeling."
Bishop, who enlisted last year, joined his mother on stage and told the audience including U.S. Army reservists that he resents how Americans criticize the war without recognizing the sacrifices soldiers make - a theme echoed by his mother.
"Real people were fighting and I wanted to be part of that," Bishop said.
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OXFORD, Ohio (AP) - Filmmaker Spike Lee told a crowd of college students that they should try to find a career that will make them happy, not necessarily one that will make them rich.
"Hopefully, you'll be able to find a career path that you love and be able to make a living out of that," Lee told about 1,000 Miami University students Thursday.
He urged students to use their college years to discover what they would enjoy doing during their lives.
"You do not want to be sitting 20 years from now when you dread waking up in the morning to go to a job that you hate," Lee said.
Lee, who was born Shelton Lee in 1957, in Atlanta, has gained renown for edgy films that tackle issues of race, sexuality and urban living.
His credits include "School Daze," "Do the Right Thing," "Jungle Fever," and "Malcolm X."
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KENT, Ohio (AP) - The macho hunter image of Ernest Hemingway is replaced by a picture of the author as a confident and happy man in one of his last manuscripts, to be published this fall.
Written while Hemingway was on safari in Kenya from late 1953 to early 1954, "Under Kilimanjaro" is lighter and more comedic than the author's other work, said coeditor Robert Lewis, a Hemingway scholar at the University of North Dakota.
"Without this book, I think people would tend to stereotype Hemingway as they have in the past, as the macho man, the man of blood sports.... That man is completely absent from this book," Lewis said. "It's the work of a man, an author, who is confident in his person, happy in himself."
The unabridged novel, published by Kent State University Press, is expected to be in bookstores in September. Excerpts have appeared in Sports Illustrated, and a version heavily edited by Hemingway's son was published under the title "True at First Light: A Fictional Memoir."
Hemingway committed suicide in 1961.
The Augusta Chronicle ©2012 Morris Communications, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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