Farm Aid in New England


July 16, 2008 at 12:00a.m.

Farm Aid in New England

BOSTON — Farm Aid, the long-running benefit concert, will be in New England this year for the first time. The show will be Sept. 20 at the Comcast Center in Mansfield.

The Boston Globe reports that John Mellencamp, Willie Nelson, Neil Young and Dave Matthews will headline the concert, and more performers will be announced. Farm Aid executive director Carolyn Mugar says organizers have long wanted to have a show in New England to highlight the region’s agriculture. The organization is based in the Boston suburb of Somerville.

Farm Aid, which held its first concert in 1985 and has raised more than $30 million, supports family farms.

Who is ‘Greatest Russian’?

MOSCOW — Ninety years after he was executed, Czar Nicholas II is leading a tight race to be named the greatest Russian in history. His closest competitors? Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state that killed the last czar and his entire family.

The contest, sponsored by state-owned Rossiya television, is a Russian version of the 2002 BBC show “Great Britons,” which was won by Winston Churchill. A U.S. version in 2005 declared Ronald Reagan, the former president who had died the year before, to be the “Greatest American.”

As of Tuesday, Nicholas II was ahead with more than 267,000 of the 2.4 million votes cast in the Internet poll.

Stalin, who like Churchill, led his nation to victory in World War II, was close behind with about 263,000 votes. Lenin trailed with 187,000.

Today’s birthdays

Singer William Bell is 69. Actor-singer Ruben Blades is 60. Drummer Stewart Copeland of The Police is 56. Dancer Michael Flatley is 50. Actress Phoebe Cates is 45. Country singer Craig Morgan is 44. Actor Will Ferrell (“Saturday Night Live”) is 41. Actress Rain Pryor (“Head of the Class”) is 39. Actor Corey Feldman is 37. Singer-guitarist Ed Kowalczyk of Live is 37. Singer Ryan McCombs of Drowning Pool is 34. Actress AnnaLynne McCord (“Nip/Tuck”) is 21. Actor Mark Indelicato (“Ugly Betty”) is 14.