Obama teams with stars for back-to-school show

Obama teams with stars for back-to-school show

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will appear in a back-to-school television special with singer Kelly Clarkson and basketball star LeBron James next month.

Obama is appearing in a 30-minute documentary that will air at 8 p.m. Sept. 8 on BET, MTV, VH1, CMT, Comedy Central, Spike TV and Nickelodeon, all of them Viacom networks. Obama also plans to deliver a back-to-school speech to the nation’s students on the same day.

In the program, the president says education is the key to people living out their dreams.

The program marks the kickoff of an education initiative by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Viacom Inc.

Newsman Don Hewitt dies; invented ‘60 Minutes’

NEW YORK — Don Hewitt, the CBS Newsman who invented “60 Minutes” and produced the popular newsmagazine for 36 years, died Wednesday. He was 86.

He died of pancreatic cancer at his Bridgehampton home.

Hewitt joined CBS News in 1948, and produced the first televised presidential debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960.

He made his mark in the late 1960s when CBS agreed to try his idea of a one-hour broadcast that mixed hard news and feature stories. The television newsmagazine was born Sept. 24, 1968, when the “60 Minutes” stopwatch began ticking.

UK film board stops sale of Japanese horror film

LONDON — Britain’s film board banned the sale of a Japanese horror DVD, saying Wednesday its violence is so extreme that it could cause psychological harm to audiences.

The film “Grotesque” devoted most of its running time to the sexual assault and torture of its two main characters, the British Board of Film Classification said.

“‘Grotesque’ features minimal narrative or character development and presents the audience with little more than an unrelenting and escalating scenario of humiliation, brutality and sadism,” the board said in a statement.

The board has refused to classify the film, meaning it cannot be legally sold or supplied anywhere in Britain.

The board said the movie’s nonstop scenes of torture — including amputation, eye-gouging, castration and evisceration — make it impossible to edit the film in a way that would make it acceptable for British viewers.

The board, which rates about 10,000 films for DVD release each year, said the ban was “very rare.”

Penns to divorce

SAN FRANCISCO— Robin Wright Penn and her husband, Sean Penn, are calling it quits on their more than decade-long marriage.

People magazine reports that Wright Penn filed for divorce from Penn Aug. 12 in Marin County, Calif.

The magazine says the couple, who have had a tumultuous relationship, have agreed to share custody of their 16-year-old son, Hopper Jack. Court papers cite “irreconcilable differences” for the split. The couple married in April 1996.

Today’s birthdays

News anchor Connie Chung is 63. Singer Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin is 61. Singer Doug Fieger of The Knack is 57. Singer Rudy Gatlin of the Gatlin Brothers is 57. “Today” show weatherman Al Roker is 55. Singer Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit is 39. Singer-actress Demi Lovato (“Camp Rock”) is 17.