Judge suspends Hasselhoff's child visitation rights

A judge on Monday suspended David Hasselhoff's visitation rights with his two teenage daughters after last week's surfacing of a videotape showing the recovering alcoholic apparently intoxicated in his Las Vegas home.

“This videotape changes the landscape, it just does,” Superior Court Judge Mark Juhas said.

The judge set a May 21 hearing to determine if the tape is authentic and who was responsible for its release. His visitation order will remain in effect until then.

Hasselhoff, 54, did not attend the hearing, but his former wife Pamela Bach was there.

Portions of the video were aired last week on syndicated entertainment shows. The video shows Hasselhoff, wearing only blue jeans, lying on a floor and clumsily eating a hamburger while one of his daughters videotapes him and reproves him about his drinking.

Judge: Candidate named Griffith did no harm

A man who changed his name to Andy Griffith and ran for sheriff did not harm the actor who played Mayberry's folksy sheriff on the “Andy Griffith Show,” a federal judge ruled.

U.S. District Judge John Shabaz on Friday dismissed the lawsuit brought by Andrew Samuel Griffith, who played Sheriff Andy Taylor on the popular 1960s TV series.

The suit claimed William Harold Fenrick violated trademark and copyright laws and the actor's privacy after he changed his name last year to Andrew Jackson Griffith. The suit was filed the day after the independent candidate came in a distant third in his race for Grant County sheriff in southwestern Wisconsin.

During the campaign, Griffith played up his name by comparing himself to the television character who dispensed heartfelt wisdom. Denouncing law enforcement practices such as speed traps, he declared: “They never did unethical stuff like that in Mayberry!”

Shabaz said the candidate did not violate federal trademark law because he did not use the name in a commercial transaction but instead “to seek elective office, fundamental First Amendment protected speech.”

Mirren turns down invite to Buckingham Palace

The queen won't be meeting “The Queen” just yet.

Helen Mirren, who won an Academy Award earlier this year for playing Queen Elizabeth II, has turned down an invitation to dinner at Buckingham Palace, a British newspaper reported. The Mail on Sunday said Mirren had been invited to dine with the queen last week, but sent her regrets because she is filming “National Treasure: Book of Secrets” in the United States.

“The palace very kindly extended an invitation to dinner last Tuesday, May 1,” Mirren said in a statement quoted by the newspaper. “But, unfortunately, I was filming in South Dakota and unable to change my schedule. I am very sad not to have been able to attend.”

- From wire reports