Show-business couple buys land for park

Show-business couplebuys land for park
LOS ANGELES -- Marty Ingels and Shirley Jones are spending more than $100,000 to keep developers at bay in a tiny mountain town east of Los Angeles.
The comedian and the actress outbid two developers last week on a half-acre commercial lot in downtown Fawnskin and plan to turn it into a public park.
"We are seeing the world buried by progress," Ingels said. "They are going to try to figure out where they can put the 7-Elevens and hotels in downtown Fawnskin, and they will find they can't put them in anywhere."
The husband and wife actually live about 100 miles away in the Encino area of Los Angeles but own a 15-acre estate less than a half-mile from the center of Fawnskin.
Some of the town's 360 residents said they appreciate the couple's effort.
Coolio heads for hillsafter tour with USO
BEND, Ore. (AP) -- Rap star Coolio hit the slopes of Mount Bachelor this week for a little rest and relaxation after a USO tour in Kuwait.
"It's a country that is still at war," Coolio said, adding that he was driven everywhere by armed guards. "It didn't bother me -- I got people driving next to me with guns every day. I'm from L.A."
When he got an invitation to perform at Club 97 in Bend, he had only one question: "Do I get to go snowboarding?"
He spent Friday on the slopes before heading to the club to perform songs from a new album, "Coolio 2002," which he calls his best yet.
"I just get better, I think. If you get wise, more experienced at things, you should get better."
Butte sets aside weekto honor daredevil
BUTTE, Mont. -- "Evel Week" is coming to Butte next summer, in recognition of motorcycle daredevil and native son Evel Knievel.
The designation, for July 29-Aug. 3, is a way to acknowledge Knievel's "unrelenting promotion" of Butte, the Butte-Silver Bow County Commission said.
Evel Week will fall just before an annual rally that draws thousands of motorcyclists and their companions to Sturgis, S.D.
"Our idea is to pull some of these people off the highway and entertain them before they get to Sturgis," the Evel Week committee wrote the commission, which approved the designation last week.
Actress writes to helpanimals in Turkey
RADNOR, Pa. -- Gillian Anderson, the star of Fox's prime time drama "The X-Files," has written to Turkey's prime minister urging passage of a law protecting animals in that country.
"I respectfully urge you to do everything in your power to ensure that such a law is enacted," Anderson wrote in her letter to Bulent Ecevit, TV Guide said in its Dec. 29 issue.
Anderson, a member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, told the prime minister that she was "shocked to learn that animals in Turkey have absolutely no legal protection from cruelty and abuse" and cited examples of suffering by dogs, camels, bears and roosters.
Today's Birthdays
Actor Richard Widmark is 87. Comedian Alan King is 74. Actor Donald Moffat is 71. Rhythm-and-blues singer Abdul "Duke" Fakir (The Four Tops) is 66. Record producer Phil Spector is 61. "America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh is 56. Baseball Hall of Fame catcher Carlton Fisk is 54. Former baseball player Chris Chambliss is 53. Country musician Brian Westrum (Sons of the Desert) is 39. Rock musician Lars Ulrich (Metallica) is 38. Rock musician J is 34.