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Last Friday on MSNBC’s “The Abrams Report,” Hoda Kotb made an appearance to plug that evening’s NBC “Dateline” program centering on John Lennon’s murderer, Mark Chapman. Ms. Kotb said that in listening to 100 hours of audiotape she was struck by Chapman’s being “so meticulous. He’s so calm. He’s so measured; all the while he is plotting out one of the most heinous crimes of the century.” Lennon’s killing was tragic, as most killings are, but categorizing it as “one of the most heinous crimes of the century” is a gross overstatement. This is, after all, the century in which...

John Lennon was dismissed as a Communist threat to the US only because he was always stoned, secret FBI papers revealed yesterday. The ex-Beatles singer was thought to be a ringleader of revolutionaries plotting to hijack a Republican conference, the documents show. But his drug-taking - which in the early 1970s included heroin, cocaine and marijuana - ultimately ruled him out of FBI inquiries. Marilyn Monroe, Lucille Ball and Albert Einstein were also investigated as suspected Communists, according to the files, published for the first time. From the 1950s to the 1970s, the FBI kept many celebrities under close watch...

Edited By Barry A. Jeckell. September 16, 2005, 10:25 AM ET 'Lennon' Musical To Close On Broadway "Lennon," the musical about the life and music of John Lennon that earned dismal reviews, will close just six weeks after it opened on Broadway. Created with the help of the former Beatle's widow, Yoko Ono, the show had a troubled road to Broadway that involved major rewrites after it was first produced in San Francisco. Critics slammed it for what The New York Times called its "Ono-centric" view of Lennon's life, and audiences have dwindled since its Aug. 15 opening night, falling...

It doesn't look so good for the beleaguered Broadway musical about John Lennon. The eponymous titled show, which got scathing reviews after finally opening on Aug. 14, is limping along with few patrons. Last week, Lennon took in a measly $303,959 and played to less than a half full theater on most days. The box office was down about 14 percent from the previous week, and those numbers hadn’t been very encouraging either. Of course, “Lennon: The Musical” is a god-awful piece of work that portrays the late ex-Beatle with five actors. The show completely skips using any Beatles’ songs,...

Lennon on Live 8 A timely excerpt from David Sheff's September 1980 Playboy interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Sheff: Just to finish your favorite subject [the Beatles], what about the suggestion that the four of you put aside your personal feelings and regroup to give a mammoth concert for charity, some sort of giant benefit? Lennon: I don't want to have anything to do with benefits. I have been benefited to death. Sheff: Why? Lennon: Because they're always rip-offs. I haven't performed for personal gain since 1966, when the Beatles last performed. Every concert since then, Yoko and...

Beatle John Lennon's Childhood Stamp Album Acquired by Postal Museum The Associated Press Jun 24, 2005 WASHINGTON (AP) - Beatles star John Lennon collected stamps as a schoolboy - and the public will soon have a chance to see them. The Smithsonian's National Postal Museum announced Friday it has acquired Lennon's stamp album and plans to display it in October. The museum purchased the album from a British stamp dealer but declined to disclose the purchase price. The museum said the album contains more than 550 stamps from around the world, including many from former British colonies such as India...

The Liverpool children's home that inspired the Beatles' hit song is to close, officials said Wednesday. The psychedelic single "Strawberry Fields Forever" was released in February 1967 with "Penny Lane" on the reverse side and quickly made it to No. 2 in the British charts, but it was kept out of the top slot by Engelbert Humperdinck's "Release Me." John Lennon wrote the song's dreamy lyrics about a time in his childhood when he lived near the Strawberry Fields orphanage. It has been suggested that Lennon felt a kinship with the orphans after he was abandoned by his father and...

The Hollywood film star Richard Gere appeared in an ad–vertisement on Palestinian television, urging his viewers to vote in today's presidential election. In it, he declared: "Hi, I'm Richard Gere and I'm speaking for the entire world." His letter to me asking if he could represent me in his address to the Palestinians must have got lost in the Christmas post. Equally, none of my neighbours on our wet hillside in Kildare got their letters telling them what Richard was doing on their behalf. My many friends in Peru, Rwanda, Siberia, Borneo and the Pitcairn Islands report similar problems with...

Lennon, the new musical about John Lennon's life set to open next August, will have two unpublished songs that Yoko Ono, Lennon's widow, has given to Don Scardino, writer and director of the production. The songs, India, India and I Don't Want to Lose You, exist only on private recordings that Lennon made in his last years. I Don't Want to Lose You, a slow, introspective ballad, was one of three songs Ono gave to the surviving Beatles when they reunited in the early 1990s to complete a few Lennon songs for The Beatles Anthology. An electronic hum in the...

Lennon fans threaten his killer as release looms Paul Harris in New York Sunday September 26, 2004 The Observer Mark Chapman, the man who murdered John Lennon, could be released from jail next month in a move that has sparked fears of retribution from Beatles fans. Chapman will have a parole hearing in the week beginning 4 October, officials at the New York State Parole Division said. It will be held behind closed doors. However, one official said they had 'no idea' what the outcome of the hearing would be. But if Chapman is released after 24 years in prison,...

Murdered at 10:55pm eastern on 12/8/80. At 11:15pm Howard Cosell interrupted the Monday Night Football game between Miami and New England, as it was going into overtime, to announce: "One of the great figures of the entire world, one of the great artists, was shot to death horribly at the Dakota Apartments, 72nd Street and Central Park West in New York City. John Lennon is dead. He was the most important member of the Beatles, and the Beatles, lead by John Lennon, created music that touched the whole of civilization. Not just people in Liverpool, where the group was born,...

The record album signed by John Lennon for Mark David Chapman just hours before Chapman fatally shot him is being sold online.

Back when listening to Beatles music could get you placed in a state work camp in Cuba, Silvio Rodriguez lost his state job because of his Beatles penchant. Now Rodriguez is one of Cuba’s top folk singers. He was recently one of the participants in a peace concert that took place in a Havana park named after, not Vladimir Lenin, but can you believe it? John Lennon. Lennon’s songs were a featured part of the commie concert. John's sister-in-law, Setsuko Ono, announced that she was donating several of her sculptures to Cuba. A local artist named Kcho covered a Sherman...

QUESTION: There are several claims that the Bible Code points to the Son of God as Yeshua. But what does the Word of God say? In Nehemiah 8:17 according to the original Hebrew Text and the Old King James of 1611, it is made certain that Yeshua (Jeshua), is the son of Nun. Obviusly, the son of Nun can never be the son of God. Therefore, isn't the Bible Code fake, and couldn't it be used for total blasphemy?

<p>Yoko Ono paid $42,000 for a full-page ad in today's Chronicle, because "it is a pretty urgent message," she said by e-mail Tuesday. "It is my contribution to the community."</p> <p>The San Francisco version of Ono's message is "Imagine Peace Spring 2003." Ono has taken out identical or similar ads making brief statements in last week's Los Angeles Times, the L.A. Weekly and the Village Voice, and another will appear in the Washington Post this weekend.</p>

Lawyer Arrested for Wearing a 'Peace' T-Shirt — NEW YORK (Reuters) - A lawyer was arrested late Monday and charged with trespassing at a public mall in the state of New York after refusing to take off a T-shirt advocating peace that he had just purchased at the mall. According to the criminal complaint filed on Monday, Stephen Downs was wearing a T-shirt bearing the words "Give Peace A Chance" that he had just purchased from a vendor inside the Crossgates Mall in Guilderland, New York, near Albany. "I was in the food court with my son when I was...

ALBANY, N.Y. -- John Lennon's killer was denied parole for a second time yesterday on what would have been the slain Beatle's 62nd birthday. Releasing Mark David Chapman after 22 years in prison would "depreciate the seriousness" of the crime, the parole board said in a statement released yesterday. The board said Chapman had "acceptable" behaviour in prison but that didn't guarantee he wouldn't pose a threat to society. State Parole Division spokesman Thomas Grant said the timing of the notice wasn't intentional. At his first parole hearing two years ago, Chapman said he did not deserve to go free....

LONDON (Reuters) - Yoko Ono Tuesday pleaded with the world to "Give Peace A Chance" with the release on the MTV music channel of a short film to mark the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks. John Lennon's widow said in a statement: "Let's create peace, unity and light. I think John's words are needed just as much now as when they were written -- 'Imagine all the people living in peace' and 'Give Peace A Chance."' The film starts with the viewer trailing down a dark corridor to reach a door with light pouring through it. Yoko Ono...

LIVERPOOL, England -- The Queen made two stops in Liverpool yesterday devoted to the Beatles, opening a new $48-million US passenger terminal at John Lennon Airport and attending an exhibit of paintings by Paul McCartney. At the airport, the Queen met with Yoko Ono, the widow of the murdered Beatle, and viewed a life-size bronze statue of Lennon, complete with his trademark round spectacles and swept-back hair. The Queen chatted to Ono and sculptor Tom Murphy, creator of the Lennon statue. Ono said afterward that "John would have been very proud and honoured." After a short address by airport chairman...

Imagine there's no atheist. By Darren Morrison The Ex-Beatle John Lennon wrote a song called Imagine. This song became a hymn for GOD haters everywhere. Marxists use this song as their battle cry and this very song is living proof that John Lennon was an anti-freedom communist. On December of 2000 Fidel Castro attended the unveiling of a bronze statue of John Lennon sitting on a bench in a park of the city. The statue has been made by Cuban sculptor Josè Villa Soberon, and represents a long haired John in blue jeans. From the sixties The Beatles have been...