newsmakers

newsmakers

Rock Hall inductees will be revealed

CLEVELAND

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame says its newest inductees will be announced in less than a week on its website.

The hall in Cleveland said Wednesday that the next class will be revealed at rockhall.com next Wednesday at 10:30 a.m.

The list of nominees for this go-round includes Bon Jovi, Alice Cooper, Neil Diamond, Donna Summer and the Beastie Boys, among others.

They will be honored in March at a ceremony in New York City.

Oprah begins trip, denies lesbian rumors

SYDNEY

Oprah Winfrey joined 300 eager audience members Wednesday in Australia, where they were flown in for an action-packed, Down Under adventure including close encounters with kangaroos, surfing lessons and a journey to the remote and dusty Outback.

Winfrey kicked off her 25th and final season of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in September by surprising her audience with one of her biggest giveaways ever: an eight-day trip to Australia.

Audience members were hand-picked by Winfrey’s staffers, who considered them the program’s most-loyal viewers.

In other Winfrey news, the TV show host said she’s not a lesbian — not even a little bit.

Her long personal and professional connection with Gayle King has sparked rumors that they are gay, but Winfrey denies it in an upcoming interview with ABC’s Barbara Walters. “I’m not even kind of a lesbian,” Winfrey says.

Persistent gossip to the contrary annoys her, she says, explaining that, if it were true, “Why would you want to hide it? That is not the way I run my life.”

“A Barbara Walters Special: Oprah, The Next Chapter” will air tonight at 9.

Writer takes Palin to task for hunt

ANCHORAGE, Alaska

Hollywood screenwriter Aaron Sorkin is calling former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin a “witless bully” after her cable television travelogue series featured the killing of a caribou. In Sunday’s episode of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate hunted north of the Arctic Circle. In a Facebook posting, she wrote that unless people have never eaten meat, they shouldn’t condemn the episode.

Sorkin, who wrote the script for “The Social Network,” said in an article for The Huffington Post that Palin didn’t kill the caribou for food, just for fun.

Vindicator wire services