People in the News

NEW YORK - Ry Cooder loved riding around Los Angeles from his home in Santa Monica, Calif., as a youngster, seeing all the different neighborhoods.

But there was one place he didn't go, fearing it was too tough: Chavez Ravine, a Chicano neighborhood ripped apart when the city decided to build Dodger Stadium there.

The Grammy-winning guitarist uses the old neighborhood for a musical setting for his new album, "Chavez Ravine," which draws on vintage Latin pop, rhythm 'n' blues and country and comes out later this spring.

Cooder describes his fascination for the neighborhood in liner notes written for the album.

"Occasionally there would be photographs in the paper of some poor Mexican family from the ravine watching some bulldozer tear up their little house while being harassed by the LAPD or lectured to by some city politician," he said.

"I didn't understand any of this until later, long after the deal had gone down. In those days, they called such things 'progress,'" he wrote.

Cooder co-wrote several of the 15 tracks with Willie Garcia of The Midniters.

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NEW YORK (AP) - Sharon Stone says her character will have a bisexual relationship in the upcoming film "Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction."

"There is lesbian love," Stone said in an interview on the syndicated entertainment TV show "Access Hollywood," which aired Thursday. "We're testing for her now."

When asked if she would mind if life ever imitated art, the 46-year-old actress said with a smile: "Why not? Middle age is an open-minded period."

Stone said she was surprised at the attention her interrogation scene in the original 1992 "Basic Instinct" movie - in which she is famously underdressed - received.

"People still want to see some more of that," she said with a laugh. When asked if that was the plan for the sequel, she smiled and replied, "You can spend your $12 and go find out for yourself."

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ATLANTA (AP) - Muhammad Ali, one of the best-known athletes of the past century, still gets a kick out of being recognized by a kid at a fast-food window.

"Muhammad is in awe when we go through the McDonald's drive-through and the teenager who is 16 knows who he is and thinks he is cool and awesome," said Ali's wife, Lonnie Ali. "It just really brightens him up. He loves connecting with the next generation."

It is not just teens or fast-food fans who think the 63-year-old boxing great is cool.

An audience of admirers, including celebrities, will pay up to $1,000 a ticket to attend the Butterfly Ball Saturday night in Atlanta to honor Ali as part of Black History Month. Proceeds will support the Muhammad Ali Center, scheduled to open in November in Louisville, Ky.

The event will add a late push toward raising $75 million for the center. The six-story, 93,000-square-foot building will overlook the Ohio River in downtown Louisville, Ali's hometown.

Lonnie Ali said completion of the center "will be a dream come true."