LAS VEGAS (AP) — O.J. Simpson's former lawyer defended himself point-by-point Friday against allegations he botched the former football star's armed-robbery trial, after giving damaging testimony that Simpson actually knew his buddies had guns when they went to a hotel room together to reclaim some sports memorabilia. Miami-based attorney Yale Galanter quickly found himself under withering cross-examination from a Simpson lawyer intent on proving that Galanter's word couldn't be trusted — that he knew ahead of time of Simpson's plan and spent more effort covering up his involvement than representing Simpson. Galanter took the stand as the state's star witness in a hearing on Simpson's claim that he was so badly represented at trial and on appeal that his conviction should be thrown out. "Mr. Simpson never told me he was going to go to the Palace (Station) hotel with a bunch of thugs, kidnap people and take property by force," Galanter said at one point. [...] he disputed Simpson's testimony from earlier this week when the former NFL star said he didn't know anyone in the hotel room had guns. Simpson, 65, was found guilty in 2008 of kidnapping and armed robbery over the hotel room episode and was sentenced to nine to 33 years in prison. Testifying about events leading up to the incident, Galanter said he was surprised when Simpson told him over dinner in Las Vegas that he and several other men were planning a "sting" the next morning to take back the mementos. Simpson testified that Galanter advised him that he was within his rights to retrieve the items, told him not to testify at the trial, and failed to tell him prosecutors had offered plea bargains.

The Star reported that two reporters watched a video that appears to show Ford, sitting in a chair, inhaling from what appears to be a glass crack pipe. While in office, he has been accused of flouting conflict of interest rules and making obscene gestures at residents from his car. Toronto deputy mayor Doug Holyday questioned the authenticity of the video, saying "video can be altered" and "drug dealers can't be trusted." The controversy has drawn comparisons to the 1990 arrest of then-Washington Mayor Marion Barry, who was videotaped smoking crack cocaine in a hotel room during an FBI sting operation. Barry served six months in federal prison on a misdemeanor drug possession conviction and later won a fourth term as mayor in 1994.

An employee at a Starbucks in Philadelphia is credited with recognizing 24-year-old Caleb "Kai" McGillvary, whose fledgling celebrity took a turn toward notoriety when authorities announced this week that he was wanted in the beating death of a New Jersey lawyer three times his age. The unlikely pair met amid the neon lights of New York City's Times Square over the weekend and headed back to the squat brick home of 73-year-old Joseph Galfy Jr. on a quiet cul-de-sac in suburban Clark, N.J., authorities say. In an interview viewed millions of times online, he described using a hatchet he was carrying to repeatedly hit a man who had struck a worker with his car, fending off a further attack, and thus became known as "Kai the hatchet-wielding hitchhiker." Galfy would fly to warmer climes to watch Seton Hall play its first games of the season and was urging Ellenport and his partner to travel to Bali, one of Galfy's favorite vacation spots. Galfy was a respected lawyer who in recent years handled land use and domestic violence cases, according to Union County Prosecutor Theodore Romankow, whose office is prosecuting McGillvary. In addition to his law practice, Galfy was the attorney for the planning board in Green Brook, N.J., and played drums in a wedding band. Authorities said McGillvary was arrested Thursday evening after he walked into a Starbucks near a bus station in downtown Philadelphia and ordered two coffees. Romankow said that McGillvary, who said in his TV appearance he prefers to be called "home-free" instead of homeless, traded on his newfound prominence to meet fans across the country.

Sega says it will exclusively release the next three games starring the popular blue critter on Nintendo platforms. While his recent interactive exploits haven't achieved the same level of success as previous "Sonic" outings, the character has remained a presence in pop culture, appearing in cartoons, downloadable games and the Disney film "Wreck-It Ralph." Over the past 22 years, Sonic and his friends have starred in dozens of games, including the hallmark 1992 sequel "Sonic the Hedgehog 2," 1997 3-D racer "Sonic R," 2002 hand-held adventure "Sonic Advance" and 2011 anniversary mash-up "Sonic Generations." After the publisher stopped producing its own game consoles in 2001, Sega began releasing "Sonic" games for other systems, including Sony Corp.'s PlayStation and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox.

"A painting can say anything, but let's get it out there in the world where people buy T-shirts," Karan said at the opening of a Little Haiti Cultural Center exhibition of art, accessories and furnishings produced by artisans in Haiti and sold through Karan's Urban Zen Foundation. The items artfully displayed in the Miami gallery would sell in any mainstream home furnishings store. Discarded cartons and wrappers have been coiled into beads for multi-strand, statement necklaces. Fully functional tote bags are made from recycled cotton T-shirts or paper mache ("It's so durable, it's scary," Karan said). Karan is among the designers, celebrities and retailers who have advocated for Haitian artisans amid ongoing, sputtering reconstruction efforts.

New Fairfield native Matthew LaBanca has been acting since he was 5 and has starred in more than 50 Broadway, off-Broadway and regional productions, including "Young Frankenstein," "The King and I" and "Anything Goes." The show is on stage at the Good Shepherd United Methodist Church in Astoria, Queens, N.Y. LaBanca plays Mr. Lyons, an upper-class man who lives with his wife in England in the 1960s. The Lyons' housekeeper, Mrs. Johnstone, is a poor, single woman with seven children who is expecting twins. Recently, we caught up with LaBanca in a phone conversation from his Astoria apartment. Is it learning their accent, their mannerisms, their personality traits, or something else? When I found out how much gun violence plays a part in this show, I questioned if this really is the best project for me to be working on right now. Yet I realized this show gave me the opportunity to make people rethink how sensitive they need to be when handling situations like this. [...] I'm workshopping a one-man show I wrote called "Good For You," which is an autobiography about things you lose when you make choices based on other people's approval. When my singing partner asked me, "What's the first thing an actor learns?," before he had a chance to add, "The show must go on," a woman in the audience interrupted him and shouted out to me, "Zip your fly!" Since 2012, LaBanca has been music director at Corpus Christi Church in Woodside, N.Y.

(AP) — A Canadian man is accused of stalking and harassing the family of Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence and is awaiting a July 23 trial date in the Jefferson County jail. Officials allege 23-year-old Han Cong Zhao contacted Lawrence's brother, Blaine, more than 200 times before flying to Louisville April 18 and that he continued trying to contact him when Zhao was involuntarily held at a psychiatric hospital in Louisville.

NEW YORK (AP) — A special audience will get to see Helen Mirren onstage next month in London in the play "The Audience" — some retired show business veterans in a New Jersey nursing home. The live cinema event company BY Experience said Friday it will show a live performance of Peter Morgan's play with residents of the The Lillian Booth Actors Home in New Jersey. BY Experience has donated the high-tech digital projector equipment needed for the broadcast and is permanently installing it in one of the home's community space. The Lillian Booth Actors Home is a 124-person assisted living and nursing care facility for entertainment professionals in in Englewood, N.J. It is owned and operated by The Actors Fund. Current residents include veterans the world of stage and screen, including actors, vaudevillians, Ziegfeld Follies dancers, comedians, band leaders and set designers.

BRUNSWICK, Maine (AP) — Patty Wagstaff is a Hollywood stunt pilot, three-time U.S. aerobatic champion, inductee to the National Aviation Hall of Fame and favorite on the air show circuit. Federal budget cuts that eliminated military flying acts triggered the cancellation of dozens of air shows, meaning lost income for performers, air show announcers, concessionaires, vendors and others who depend on air shows and the millions of spectators. [...] the biggest acts are the Navy Blue Angels and Air Force Thunderbirds, the precision flying teams whose performances were abruptly canceled April 1, along with the Army skydiving team, military flyovers, demonstration flights and even static displays. The cancellations caused by automatic budget cuts known as sequestration sent ripples through the industry, because the jet teams anchor most shows in which they perform. Large air shows like those feature pilots pulling seemingly death-defying maneuvers in all manner of aircraft from biplanes to jets, precision formation flying, skydivers jumping from planes and, of course, screeching military jets pulling high-G maneuvers. All told, 64 air shows including the Great State of Maine Air Show that depended on military participation have canceled, accounting for a loss of nearly a third of air show revenue, and the figure could go as high as 100, said John Cudahy, the air show council's executive director. Business was so good for his product line that focused almost exclusively on the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds that he upgraded to a motor home for his seasonal business travel. The losses carry on down the line to the concessionaires who feed spectators, vendors who provide hundreds of portable toilets, rental car companies that supply vehicles, hotels that house pilots and crews, and providers of aviation fuel.

[...] the residents of a glass-walled luxury residential building across the street had no idea they were being photographed and never consented to being subjects for the works of art that are now on display — and for sale — in a Manhattan gallery. Svenson did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press, but says in material accompanying the exhibit that the idea for it came when he inherited a telephoto lens from a friend, a birdwatcher who recently died. "For my subjects there is no question of privacy; they are performing behind a transparent scrim on a stage of their own creation with the curtain raised high," Svenson says in the gallery notes. In an email circulating among the building's owners and renters this week, a resident whose apartment was depicted in Svenson's photographs suggested legal recourse against the artist. Linda Darcia, an exchange student from Colombia living with a family on the sixth floor facing Svenson's studio, said she had no idea whether or not she was depicted in any of the pieces but she was anxious to go to the gallery and find out.