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Naked Randy Travis charged with DWI
Randy Travis, Aug. 8, 2012. (Grayson County Sheriff’s Office)
By DIANA HEIDGERD
ASSOCIATED PRESS
DALLAS (AP) — Randy Travis was charged with driving while intoxicated and threatening law officers after the country singer crashed his car and was found naked and combative at the scene, officials said.
A mug shot released by the Grayson County Sheriff’s Office shows a battered-looking Travis in a gray T-shirt, with a black eye and dried blood on his face. He later walked out of the county jail wearing scrubs, a University of Texas ball cap and no shoes.
It was the second Texas arrest this year for Travis, who was cited in February for public intoxication.
The sheriff’s office in Grayson County, located in far North Texas along the border with Oklahoma, received a 911 call at 11:18 p.m. Tuesday about a man seen lying in a road west of Tioga, where the entertainer lives.
Texas Department of Public Safety troopers responding to the scene said a Pontiac Trans Am registered to Travis, 53, had been driven off the road and struck several barricades in a construction road.
Travis was not wearing clothes at the time of his arrest and made threats against the Texas troopers, said Tom Vinger, a DPS spokesman. He said the singer refused sobriety tests, so a blood specimen was taken.
Travis was released on $21,500 bond Wednesday morning from the jail in Sherman, about 60 miles north of Dallas. Blood test results are pending.
Grayson County Sheriff’s Sgt. Ricky Wheeler said Travis faces charges of retaliation or obstruction in addition to driving under the influence.
Watch dashcam video of Travis’ Feb. 6 arrest in Sanger, Texas
“Travis had a strong odor of alcoholic beverage on his breath and several signs of intoxication,” according to a statement from the sheriff’s office. “While Travis was being transported, Travis made threats to shoot and kill the troopers working the case.”
A Travis representative said there would be no immediate comment on the arrest.
A message left Wednesday afternoon with the Grayson County district attorney’s office was not immediately returned.
In February, Travis was charged with public intoxication after being spotted in a vehicle parked in front of a church in Sanger, about 20 miles from Tioga.
He also has been involved in messy court proceedings with his ex-wife. Travis was divorced from Elizabeth Travis in 2010 after 19 years of marriage.
Earlier this year, Elizabeth Travis, who had been his manager for more than three decades, filed a lawsuit claiming that Randy Travis made it impossible for her to do her job and terminated her management contract without proper notice. She said her ex-husband sent several men, including an armed guard, to clean out her offices.
Randy Travis countersued in May, accusing his ex-wife of divulging confidential information about him in order to damage his reputation and career. The court documents don’t say what information Elizabeth Travis is alleged to have betrayed.
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Associated Press Music Writer Chris Talbott assisted with this report from Nashville, Tenn.
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Clinton – ‘Nimkita’ – dances away in snowy South Africa
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who got on the dance floor Tuesday night in Pretoria, South Africa, has been dubbed “Nimkita” – “the one who brought the snow” – because a rare snowfall came during her visit to the nation.
On a trip designed to strengthen trade and investment relations between South Africa and the United States, she danced away the night at a dinner hosted by South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane. There was a lot of music and jazz singer Judith Sephuma was shaking a leg as well.
Meanwhile it was snowing. Almost unheard of in South Africa. Was it a snow dance they were doing?
The snow began Tuesday morning, part of an extreme cold snap biting into a nation still in its winter months. By mid-afternoon, officials recorded snowfall across most of South Africa. However, forecasters acknowledged snow remains so unusual that they typically aren’t prepared to provide details about snowfall in the nation.
The rarity of the weather is why Clinton is being called “Nimkita,” according to news24.com in Johannesburg. It hasn’t snowed in Pretoria since 1968, the Associated Press reported. “Nimkita will be a name that I will proudly bear,” Clinton said, according to news24.
Facebook has 83 million fake users
(AP Photo/dapd, Joerg Koch)
There may be more than 83 million fake users on Facebook, the giant social network has revealed.
In company filings published this week, it said 8.7% of its 955 million active users might not be real, according to the BBC.com.
Duplicate accounts, people who have an account in addition to a principal account, make up 4.8 percent of the “fake” accounts, as of June 30, 2012.
There are also “user-misclassified accounts” (2.4 percent) — pet accounts or a personal profile for business — and “undesirable accounts” (1.5 percent) that are intended for spamming, etc.
Fake users are a huge concern to Facebook because it generates a majority of its revenue from advertising. BBC.com says Facebook is coming under increased scrutiny over the worth of its advertising model which promotes the gathering of “likes” from users.
Last week, digital distribution firm Limited Press alleged that, based on its own analytics software, 80% of clicks on its advertisements within Facebook had come from fake users.
In a post on its Facebook page, the company said: “Bots were loading pages and driving up our advertising costs. So we tried contacting Facebook about this. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t reply.
“Do we know who the bots belong too [sic]? No. Are we accusing Facebook of using bots to drive up advertising revenue. No. Is it strange? Yes.”
The company deleted its Facebook page because of the publicity and Facebook is investigating Limited Run’s problems.
