The Associated Press
CREVE COEUR, Mo. Ä A man suspected of stalking Miss America Heather Whitestone was arrested outside a suburban St. Louis hospital where she was about to give a speech.
The 35-year-old man was jailed Tuesday after he was spotted by a guard who had seen a photograph of him circulated earlier in the week.
He was not immediately charged, and his name was not released.
Miss Whitestone went on to give her speech without incident.
The man has telephoned Miss Whitestone and her mother, Daphne Gray, and written them letters in which he called himself a CIA agent and a family friend, police said.
He visited Alabama last month, police said. Whitestone and her mother live in suburban Birmingam, Ala.
''We believe that he believed he was a friend of the Gray family,'' Hoover, Ala., police Capt. Nick Derzis said. ''We talked to him and asked him to stay away from Ms. Gray and Miss Whitestone and not make any contact with them.''
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LOS ANGELES Ä Years ago, he played out Sid Vicious' love affair with heroin onscreen. Now Gary Oldman is facing down his own addiction, to alcohol.
''I have this problem: I was born with it,'' said the star of ''Immortal Beloved,'' ''Sid and Nancy,'' and ''Dracula.''
''I process alcohol differently than a nonalcoholic,'' Oldman said in an ''Entertainment Tonight'' interview for broadcast this week.
''I've had this for a long time. It's progressive and it was killing me, so I did something about it. I did it for Gary Ä not for anyone else.''
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AUSTIN, Texas Ä Rush Limbaugh, duck! Some Texas Democrats have you in their sights.
Democrats are urging people to demand that broadcasters air opposing opinions and to ask advertisers to end their support for the feisty conservative commentator, who is on both television and radio.
''The man is guilty of half-truths and outright lies and misstatements of fact,'' party chairman Bob Slagle said Tuesday. ''We intend to tell the truth about what it is he says.''
A spokeswoman at Limbaugh's New York studio refused to comment.
Limbaugh ''obviously has an impact on what happens,'' said Slagle, whose party has been licking its wounds since Gov. Ann Richards lost to Republican George W. Bush in November.
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. Ä Ex-blonde Patty Loveless says ''Pretty Woman'' was to dye for.
''The reason that I went red was because I fell in love with Julia Roberts' hair color in 'Pretty Woman,''' the singer said in the January issue of Country Music Association's Close Up magazine.
Loveless said she ''got a lot of heat'' from her mother, a bona fide redhead.
Loveless' album ''Only What I Feel'' has sold one million copies. She is up for a Grammy for ''How Can I Help You Say Goodbye.''
OMAHA, Neb. Ä Warren Buffett a poster child? Believe it.
The second richest man in the United States will appear in ads touting his native state as a good place to live and do business.
''The truth is, all my life, back when I was a teen-ager, I was an enthusiast for Nebraska,'' the Omaha billionaire, whose father represented Nebraska in Congress, said Tuesday.