Pop star Mark Morrison (25) failed to turn up in Leicester Crown court yesterday because he was in Barbados for "drugs rehabilitation".
Morrison had been due to appear for sentence for breach of a community service order. He was convicted at Marylebone magistrates court last month of sending an imposter to carry out the community work. The judge yesterday issued a warrant for his arrest.
In May 1997, Morrison was jailed for three months for threatening a policeman with a stun gun.
Ronan Keating is preparing for a second career as a TV talent show host.
The Boyzone singer has been snapped up by the BBC to present Get Your Act Together, a programme which hopes to spot future pop stars.
Raquel Welch (58) left Vienna's Opera Ball early after being hounded by paparazzi.
Welch, invited to the ball by Richard Lugner, a Vienna businessman, left shortly after midnight yesterday, after cameramen with few other celebrities to chase persistently followed her. Lugner, a publicity-friendly tycoon running for the Austrian presidency in April, said Welch was "more than super".
Unabashed, he remained in his box as the ball continued towards dawn.
Louise Woodward (19), whose murder conviction in the US for killing a child was reduced to involuntary manslaughter, has been given a babysitting job again. The Sun says she is now looking after the two children of a staff member at the British consulate in Boston.
Antonio Banderas is to make his debut as film director in April with Crazy in Alabama, starring his wife and actress Melanie Griffith, Daily Variety says.
Canada's senate has suspended, without pay, one of its members who resides in Mexico and whose chronic absenteeism earned him the nickname "Senator Siesta".
Sen Andrew Thompson (73) has appeared only a handful of times since the senate, an appointed chamber, began keeping attendance records in 1990.
Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger is interested in buying a ranch in southern Argentina near farmland owned by media mogul Ted Turner.
According to the Cordillerano newspaper, Kissinger is looking at a ranch near Bariloche surrounded by the Andes mountains. In addition to Turner, who reportedly paid $8 million for his ranch, US businessman Charles Lewis, linked to the Planet Hollywood and Hard Rock Cafe theme restaurants, owns land nearby.