NEWSMAKERS

NEWSMAKERS

No charges in battery complaint against Chris Brown in Vegas

LAS VEGAS

Authorities in Las Vegas say R&B singer Chris Brown won’t be charged with a crime based on a woman’s complaint about a New Year’s weekend altercation in a casino resort hotel room.

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said Monday that he met Wednesday with detectives who investigated the Jan. 2 complaint, and they decided there wasn’t enough evidence to seek misdemeanor battery and theft charges.

Police Officer Laura Meltzer characterized the case as suspended.

Police had said the woman complained that Brown hit her and took her cellphone when she tried to snap his photo during a private party in a room at the Palms Casino Resort.

Brown’s publicist, Nicole Perna, didn’t immediately respond to messages. She had called the woman’s account “unequivocally untrue” and a fabrication.

Brown, 26, was in town after performing New Year’s Eve at Drai’s nightclub at The Cromwell Las Vegas.

He completed five years of felony probation last year after pleading guilty to felony assault in a February 2009 attack on his then-girlfriend Rihanna in Los Angeles.

Publisher rejects criticism of decision to pull slavery book

NEW YORK

The publisher Scholastic is rejecting criticism by two leading advocates for free expression that it committed self-censorship in halting distribution of a picture book about slavery.

The National Coalition Against Censorship and the PEN American Center last week chided the publisher for pulling “A Birthday Cake for George Washington,” which had been attacked widely for its depiction of smiling slaves. The two organizations called the decision “a shocking and unprecedented case of self-censorship.”

On Monday, Scholastic released a statement saying that PEN and the NCAC “apparently did not correctly read” the publisher’s initial announcement that it was withdrawing “A Birthday Cake for George Washington.”

Scholastic said that the failure to meet company standards “for appropriate presentation of complex subject matter” was the reason for pulling the book, not any criticism.

Associated Press