Commissioner delays candidacy announcement

Lawrence City Commissioner David Schauner still hasn’t officially announced he is seeking re-election.

Schauner had scheduled an announcement for Tuesday afternoon, but canceled the event after the area was enveloped in an ice storm. Schauner is expected to announce that he’ll seek a second term on the commission. He hasn’t yet set a date for a new announcement.

Schauner is one of three commissioners who have terms that end in April. Commissioner Sue Hack has announced her candidacy. Commissioner David Dunfield said he won’t seek another term.

Other declared candidates are Mike Amyx, a former mayor and downtown business owner, and Tom Bracciano, a Lawrence school district administrator.

Candidates have until noon on Jan. 25 to file.

County commission conducts little business

Douglas County Commissioners met for 30 minutes in an executive session regarding personnel issues Wednesday night.

The commissioners made no decisions and only approved standard items, such as minutes from past meetings and accounts payable, following the executive session.

No other businesses was discussed outside of the executive session.

Magazine: Bush called Britain’s most powerful man

London — The most powerful man in Britain is American President Bush, while soccer star David Beckham’s sway over British society is in free fall, a men’s magazine said Wednesday.

Bush tied with Prime Minister Tony Blair for first place in the list drawn up by the British edition of GQ magazine.

Blair has long faced criticism that he simply follows Bush’s orders as his “poodle,” but GQ claimed that re-election has given Bush an even bigger say in British life. Last year, the U.S. president didn’t make the top 100.

Beckham plummeted from eighth to 23rd place, reflecting a turbulent year for the England soccer captain in which “the wheels seem to have come off Brand Beckham,” GQ said.

Dick Clark gives Regis thumbs-up for New Year’s

Burbank, Calif.– A month after his stroke, Dick Clark remains hospitalized in good spirits while working with rehabilitation specialists.

The “American Bandstand” icon watched Regis Philbin play host to “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve 2005” from his hospital bed and said “he enjoyed the show and thought Regis did a wonderfully professional job,” Clark publicist Paul Shefrin said Wednesday.

Clark, 75, was hospitalized Dec. 6 at an undisclosed Burbank hospital after suffering a mild stroke.

There was no word on when Clark would go home. It seems certain, however, that Clark won’t be at the Jan. 16 Golden Globes Awards, which he produces.

“Nothing in life is certain, but it doesn’t look like he will be at the show,” Shefrin said. “He is doing some business from bed. His mind is 100 percent.”

Wedding bells I

German supermodel Heidi Klum and singer Seal are engaged to be married, reports The Associated Press.

“We affianced on a glacier in Whistler. We reached this beautiful place by helicopter one day before Christmas Eve. It was a unique experience,” said a posting on Klum’s Web site.

Whistler is a ski resort town in British Columbia.

Klum, 31, and Seal, 41, started dating last year, shortly after her breakup with Renault Formula One team boss Flavio Briatore, who is the father of her daughter, Leni, born in May.

Wedding bells II

London — Jude Law has become engaged to his actress-girlfriend, Sienna Miller, proposing to her Christmas Day.

Law, whose films include “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and “I (Heart) Huckabees,” proposed to Miller in England, presenting her with a gold ring featuring nine diamonds set in platinum, the couple’s spokeswoman, Ciara Parkes, said Wednesday.

A date for the wedding has not been set.

Law, 32, divorced fashion designer-actress Sadie Frost in October 2003 after a six-year marriage and three children.

Lifetime achievers

Santa Monica, Calif. — Rocker Jerry Lee Lewis, country star Eddy Arnold and jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton are among this year’s recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Recording Academy, which also presents the Grammy Awards.

Janis Joplin, blues pianist Pinetop Perkins, Led Zeppelin, the Staple Singers, jazz drummer Art Blakey, pianist, conductor and composer Morton Gould, and Alvin P. “A.P.” Carter, Sara Carter and Maybelle Carter of the original Carter family also will be honored during a Feb. 12 ceremony, it was announced Tuesday.

Scorsese, DiCaprio honored

Paris — France honored film director Martin Scorsese by making him an officer of its Legion of Honor and gave actor Leonardo DiCaprio the slightly less prestigious Arts and Letters award.

Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres hailed Scorsese’s respect “for the rights of artists” at a ceremony Wednesday. He said the director gave life to “cinema that everyone — French, Europeans and Americans — likes.”

“I don’t know what to say after such a presentation,” said Scorsese, director of “The Aviator,” the new movie that stars DiCaprio as Howard Hughes.

The French minister hailed DiCaprio — whose films also include “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” “Titanic” and Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York” — as a movie icon and as the “little prince of Hollywood and bad boy of Los Angeles.”

Stern pulled off air for satellite radio plug

New York — Howard Stern says he was pulled off four radio stations this week for using a pair of newly forbidden words: satellite radio.

Citadel Broadcasting Corp., which aired Stern’s envelope-pushing syndicated show, opted to yank the program Monday because the host was devoting too much time to his impending switch to Sirius Satellite Radio, Stern told his listeners.

Stern’s decision to abandon terrestrial radio is often a topic of conversation on his show. Citadel felt the program had become “an infomercial” for Stern’s next employer and pulled the plug, the shock jock said.

It was unclear if the decision was permanent, according to “An Open Letter to Fans in the Citadel Markets” posted on Stern’s Web site.

Stern, whose show still airs in more than 40 markets, was hardly cowed by the rebuke. He devoted extensive time on his highly rated show to making fun of Farid Suleman, chairman of the board and CEO of Citadel Broadcasting.

“Who are you punishing?” Stern asked during one broadcast. “You’re not punishing me. I’m leaving in a year.”