NEWSMAKERS | ‘Wire’ actress pleads innocent in drug case

NEWSMAKERS

‘Wire’ actress pleads innocent in drug case

BALTIMORE

A woman who played a Baltimore drug gang assassin in HBO’s “The Wire” has pleaded not guilty to conspiring to sell heroin.

Felicia “Snoop” Pearson entered the plea Tuesday morning during an arraignment in Baltimore Circuit Court. An Aug. 9 jury-trial date was set.

Pearson is one of 64 people charged in March in “Operation Usual Suspects,” a joint state-federal prosecution of an alleged east Baltimore drug gang. She is charged in an indictment with conspiring with two men to distribute heroin.

The 30-year-old Pearson was released weeks later on $50,000 bond with electronic monitoring that has allowed her to leave the state to pursue her acting career.

She declined to comment after the arraignment. Attorney Benjamin Sutley says it’s too early to know if the three will be tried together.

With Elaine gone, hangout is closing

NEW YORK

Elaine’s is shutting its doors.

For decades, Elaine Kaufman held court at the restaurant bearing her name with a hand-picked selection of favorite regulars, literary luminaries and celebrities.

After Kaufman died in December, longtime manager Diane Becker inherited the restaurant. But she says the place just can’t survive without Kaufman.

Becker says: “The truth is, there is no Elaine’s without Elaine.”

The Upper East Side restaurant will shut its doors for good May 26.

Kaufman had a soft spot for writers who were trying to make it big, and often let them eat for free. Among those who did make it big were Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, George Plimpton and Gay Talese.

Mayors, artists and celebrities including Jackie Onassis, Michael Caine and George Steinbrenner also frequented the restaurant.

Ex French-first lady: Baby news wonderful

PARIS

The expectant granddad has spilled the beans: Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is pregnant.

Germany’s top-selling newspaper on Tuesday quoted President Nicolas Sarkozy’s father as saying that the first lady is having a baby. And one of her predecessors says a child at the presidential palace will be wonderful for the whole country.

“It’s wonderful news to see this baby coming. It’s a chance for France, absolutely,” Bernadette Chirac, wife of ex-French President Jacques Chirac, told reporters in Paris on Tuesday at an event for a literacy foundation hosted by Bruni-Sarkozy.

“And a birth, it’s a wonderful event for a family, the arrival of a child. There is nothing nicer. A baby at the Elysee, yes. It’s wonderful for them and for all the French people,” Chirac said.

Bruni-Sarkozy, also attending the event, wouldn’t respond to questions by The Associated Press about the pregnancy. Sarkozy’s office also refused to comment.

Germany’s Bild newspaper quoted Pal Sarkozy as saying: “Neither wants to know the gender beforehand, but I’m certain it will be a girl, and beautiful like Carla.”

A pregnancy could be a potential strategic coup for Sarkozy, less than a year ahead of presidential elections. The incumbent’s popularity is in the doldrums, but a baby in the Elysee Palace could help voters relate to a man they have seen as increasingly out of touch with their worries.

Woody Allen in Broadway return

NEW YORK

Three one-act plays by Woody Allen, Ethan Coen and Elaine May are being bundled together and heading to Broadway this fall.

Allen is no stranger to the format, having collaborated with May and David Mamet for “Death Defying Acts,” three effervescent one-act comedies that debuted in 1995.

The new miniplays, titled “Relatively Speaking,” will be directed by John Turturro, who has appeared in several films by Coen and his brother Joel, including “The Big Lebowski.”

Producers said Tuesday that previews will begin in September with an opening the following month. Details on casting and location will be made later.

Allen returns to the New York stage as a playwright following the off-Broadway productions of his “Writer’s Block” in 2003 and “A Second Hand Memory” in 2004.

Wire reports