PHOENIX – A photo of a pregnant Jessica Simpson on the cover of Elle magazine was apparently too much for some customers of a Tucson Safeway store.
A store worker wound up covering it with cardboard.
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The April edition features the photo of the singer/actress/fashion designer with one hand over her breast and another wrapped around her nude belly.
The Arizona Daily Star reported the manager of the store received multiple complaints, prompting a worker to cover the image with cardboard.
“The sign was up for a short time and removed,” said Teena Massingill, director of corporate public affairs for Safeway Inc.
“This was one store employee’s response to some customer complaints. This was by no means a company-wide directive,” she said.
Elle Magazine released a statement Friday.
“We’ve received an overwhelmingly positive response to Jessica Simpson’s cover,” it said. “She’s celebrating her body during this joyous time in her life and we couldn’t be happier for her.”
Barker says price is right to fly elephants
LOS ANGELES – Three elephants will travel from the Toronto Zoo to a sanctuary in California aboard a private plane thanks to longtime animal activist Bob Barker.
The 88-year-old TV icon offered to fund the $880,000 flight after learning that one of the elephants wasn’t well enough to withstand the long trip by truck, a Barker spokesman said Friday.
He said the Toronto Zoo agreed to move Thika, Iringa and Toka to the Performing Animals Welfare Society elephant sanctuary in San Andreas, Calif., but that one of the animals suffers from “a serious foot problem.”
Barker said the elephants “have suffered so much for so long and now they have an opportunity to live the rest of their lives at what has been described as ‘elephant paradise.’ To think that one of them might not survive the trip in a truck touched my heart and purse strings.”
The animals will travel in crates aboard a Russian cargo jet. Barker, who hosted “The Price Is Right” for decades before retiring in 2008, is a longtime animal activist who closed the game show each day by reminding viewers to have their pets spayed or neutered. He has donated millions of dollars to various animal welfare efforts and lobbied Congress for a bill that would prevent circuses from using elephants.
Gallagher says he’s retiring from the stage
MARION, Ohio – The comedian Gallagher says he’s had his fill of performing live onstage and is retiring after 32 years.
The Los Angeles-based comedian, whose full name is Leo Anthony Gallagher, told an Ohio radio station Thursday that his retirement plans include posting his writings online and possibly appearing at private parties.
Gallagher is known for smashing watermelons with a sledgehammer. He had a heart attack March 14 before a performance at a suburban Dallas bar. He came out of a medically induced coma this week and was released from a hospital Wednesday.
He told Scott Spears of WDCM in Marion that it sometimes didn’t matter how clever his jokes were if the audience couldn’t hold their liquor. He said the job is like “baby-sitting people who can’t handle alcohol.”
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