Newsmakers of the week

Barenaked justice

For six months, former Barenaked Ladies frontman Steven Page passed random drug tests, underwent therapy, and generally kept his nose clean—as per the conditions laid out for him by New York Judge Thomas Miller following Page’s arrest last summer for drug possession. At a hearing last Friday, Judge Miller dismissed all charges against Page, as well as those against his girlfriend Christine Benedicto, and her roommate Stephanie Ford. “I talked to Steven 20 minutes ago, and he’s elated,” Page’s loquatious attorney Mark J. Mahoney told the Buffalo News. A drug conviction would not have boded well for the musician’s new solo career, he said—he would have been banned from entering the United States for years. When asked how his client has been occupying himself, Mahoney volunteered, “He’s been writing songs, working on a book, and scouting out the possibility of performing in some kind of Broadway show.”

Nanny diaries

Two Toronto-area caregivers are alleging that Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla, 35, and her family hired them illegally and mistreated them, seizing their passports, and forcing them to shine shoes, wash cars, and clean a cousin’s apartment and Dhalla’s brother Neil’s chiropractic clinics. According to Magdalene Gordo, 31, and Richelyn Tongson, 37, who spoke to the Toronto Star, Dhalla hired them to care for her mother Tavinder Dhalla in early 2008. But instead of doing caregiving work, they say they spent 12 to 16 hours a day, five days a week, doing manual labour for $250 a week. “Her mother had me out shovelling snow at midnight,” Gordo said. “She wanted a slave, not a caregiver.” They also claim their passports were taken from them and that their work permits, as per Canada’s Live-In Caregiver Program, were not in order. Dhalla, who is the Liberal critic for youth and multiculturalism, denies the allegations and says she is “shocked and appalled.” “Anyone who has ever worked in our home has been treated with a lot of love, with a lot of care and compassion,” she told the Star, “and money has never, ever been withheld from anyone.”

Nobody is sorry

Animosity between Italy’s billionaire Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his fiery wife of almost 20 years, Veronica Lario, continues to escalate. On Monday, Berlusconi told the press that divorce is unavoidable unless Lario apologizes to him for her recent spate of media comments. The trouble began after reports emerged in the Italian press that Berlusconi planned to field a number of beautiful women, dubbed by media as the “show girl” candidates, in the upcoming European parliamentary elections. In an email to the Italian news agency Ansa, Lario lashed out, calling his selections “shameless rubbish,” designed solely to “entertain the emperor.” On Sunday, Lario confirmed that she wanted a divorce. She said, “my children and I are victims and not accomplices in this situation. We must endure it and it causes us to suffer.” Berlusconi expressed his anger that his wife had allowed media reports to get her riled up. But he also added, in his defence, “we’re talking about three talented girls out of 72 candidates. And what’s wrong if they are also cute?” Ultimately, only one of the “show girl” candidates, a former Miss Italy, was selected for the final list. As for the marriage, the Prime Minister says he doesn’t know if he is willing to patch it up. “Veronica will have to publicly apologize to me,” he said. “And I don’t know if that will be enough.”

Fallen star

Ayman Udas, a burgeoning pop star in Pakistan who sang in her native Pashto, was shot and killed in the city of Peshawar last week, allegedly by her two brothers who condemned her for performing on television, deemed a sinful act for a woman. The incident was interpreted as a warning signal to artists in Peshawar, a city increasingly dominated by Islamic fundamentalists. Many of Udas’s fellow performers have already receieved death threats from fundamentalist groups. Udas was a divorced mother of two who remarried only 10 days before she was killed. Her brothers, ashamed of her growing celebrity, allegedly broke into her home while her husband was out, and shot her three times in the chest. Neither has been detained. Among Udas’s hits was a song called “I died but still live among the living, because I live on in the dreams of my lover.”

Silly Twit

Last week, Sion Simon, 40, a junior British MP from Birmingham Erdington, earned the scorn of his peers after he cracked a joke on his Twitter page implying that Susan Boyle, the matronly break-out star of Britain’s Got Talent, was somehow responsible for the swine flu outbreak. In his post, he wrote: “I’m not saying Susan Boyle caused swine flu. I’m just saying that nobody had swine flu, she sang on TV, people got swine flu.” Simon’s fellow MPs were disgusted by his insensitivity, not only to Boyle, but to the growing number being affected by the H1N1 virus. On Monday, Britain’s Health Protection Agency confirmed nine new cases of swine flu, five of whom were children, raising the national total to 27. Simon later removed the comment and posted an apology. The minister is gaining a reputation for tin-eared attempts at humour. In 2006, Simon was rebuked by both official parties for a spoof video he made about Britain’s Conservative Party Leader David Cameron, in which he, posing as Cameron, offered viewers a chance to sleep with his wife.