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People in the News

Man charged with stalking

Rihanna, burglarizing home

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Authorities say a man who broke into Rihanna’s Hollywood Hills home and spent 12 hours there has been charged with stalking the singer, who was not at home at the time.

Los Angeles County prosecutors say 26-year-old Eduardo Leon of Fullerton was charged Monday with felony counts of stalking, burglary and vandalism, and a misdemeanor count of resisting arrest.

He appeared in court Monday and pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.

Leon is accused of climbing over a fence and breaking into the house on May 9. Authorities say Rihanna’s assistant found him and called police.

Modigliani painting fetches $157 million at auction

NEW YORK (AP) — A 1917 painting by Amedeo Modigliani of a reclining nude woman that was once considered obscene in Paris sold for over $157 million at an auction in Manhattan on Monday.

“Nu couche (sur le cote gauche)” was the highlight of Sotheby’s “Impressionist & Modern Art” sale featuring Pablo Picasso works spanning seven decades, and paintings by Claude Monet, Edvard Munch and Georgia O’Keeffe.

Modigliani shocked Europe at the turn of the 19th century with his series of 22 nudes reclining in every possible position. When the Italian-born, Jewish artist’s nudes were unveiled at a Paris gallery, police demanded that it be shut down, offended by the unflinching strokes of his oil brush that thrust art’s nude figure into the modern era.

In the past half-dozen years, prices for Modigliani’s works have soared, from $26 million the current owner paid for “Nu couche (sur le cote gauche)” in 2003 to as much as $170 million.

Picasso’s “Le Repos,” an image of his lover and “golden muse,” Marie-Therese Walter, sold for $40 million. It was one of 11 Picasso works that were offered Monday evening.

Academics protest ‘media

harassment’ against Diaz

NEW YORK (AP) — Author Rebecca Walker and some two dozen educators from Harvard, Stanford and other schools are protesting what they call a “media-harassment campaign” against Junot Diaz.

In a letter to the editor published on Monday on the website of The Chronicle of Higher Education, the signatories cited “at times uncritical” coverage of sexual misconduct against the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist. Diaz has said he accepts responsibility for his behavior.

In Monday’s letter, Walker and others say they don’t dismiss the allegations, but worry about a “sensationalist” portrait of the author, one that reinforces stereotypes of blacks and Latinos as sexual predators. They also contend that the discussion rules out such external factors as racism and colonialism and how they affect “the most intimate spaces.”

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