Ivanka Trump to join board of father’s gaming company

Atlantic City, N.J. – Heiress and former runway model Ivanka Trump is joining the board of the gaming company that bears her flamboyant father’s name.

“She’s been outstanding in everything she has done, and she will be an outstanding board member,” Donald Trump told The Press of Atlantic City for Saturday editions.

Ivanka Trump will join the board of Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc.

The 25-year-old already has some experience to draw from: She was her father’s sidekick on his reality television show “The Apprentice.”

She currently is a vice president with the Trump Organization, which controls Trump hotels, real estate holdings and golf courses, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, one of the nation’s top business schools.

Before joining the board, Ivanka Trump must get a license from the state Casino Control Commission. The agency is expected to grant her preliminary approval as soon as Wednesday.

Casino regulators will conduct a background check to make sure she has done nothing that would disqualify her from holding a gambling license.

Fantasia extends stay in ‘The Color Purple’

New York – Performing on Broadway apparently agrees with Fantasia Barrino.

The former “American Idol” alum has extended her stay in “The Color Purple,” the hit musical based on Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the show’s producers announced Thursday.

Barrino, who won raves from the critics for her performance as Celie, will appear in the musical through Jan. 6, 2008. She was originally scheduled to leave in October.

“The Color Purple,” now in its second year at the Broadway Theatre, received a boost at the box office after Barrino joined the production last April.

A second company of the musical is currently playing the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago.

Police seek rapper for questioning after shooting

New York – Grammy-nominated rapper Remy Ma was sought for questioning Saturday after an early morning shooting outside a trendy Manhattan nightspot, police said.

Officers investigating a report of gunfire found a woman who had been shot in the lower torso.

Police did not identify any suspects in the shooting, which followed the escalation of a verbal dispute as a group of people left a bar in the Meatpacking District. The shooter was a woman in her 20s who fled the scene, officers said.

Three blocks away, officers discovered a luxury SUV owned by Remy Ma, 26, that had been involved in a single-car crash and abandoned. She was being sought for questioning, according to a police statement.

Sasha Tcherekoff, owner of the Pizza Bar, said a review of security videotape taken inside his nightspot showed the rapper and her friends having a good time before they left.

“The police have indicated to us that the altercation happened a block away,” he said.

The 23-year-old victim, whose identity was withheld, was in stable condition at a hospital.

Remy Ma – her real name is Remy Smith – was nominated for a Grammy as part of the Terror Squad for the 2004 summer smash “Lean Back.”