>People: Chris Brown trashes dressing room after ‘Good Morning America’ appearance (Video)

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Chris Brown’s occasionally discomforting quest for career rehab hit another roadblock Tuesday, when an appearance on “Good Morning America” concluded with the singer trashing his dressing room and storming shirtless out of the ABC New York studio.

The reported meltdown came off-camera, after an interview with co-host Robin Roberts, who asked him about his 2009 assault of Rihanna, and after he performed a song in the “GMA” studio.

He was scheduled to perform another song after a commercial break, but unidentified witnesses told the Associated Press and other news outlets that Brown went to his dressing room, smashed a window — reports say shards of glass fell several stories onto the street — broke

several other items and stormed out as security officers were arriving.

Brown was on “GMA” to plug his new album “F.A.M.E.” (the title stands, he says, for “Forgiving All My Enemies”) which came out Tuesday and already has garnered three hit singles and largely positive reviews. But Brown clearly seemed agitated when Roberts asked him about the assault and continued to emphasize the new album.

“This album is what I want them to talk about and not what happened two years ago,” he said.

Brown is still on probation for the Rihanna assault, but ABC said Tuesday it did not plan to press criminal charges against the singer.

Brown is also slated to appear on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” next week; and so far the gig is still on.

KESHA NIXES JAPAN SHOW; CYNDI LAUPER DOESN’T: Pop singer Kesha, known for her gleefully raunchy songs and stage shows, says she has postponed an upcoming concert tour in Japan, in deference to the earthquake, tsunami and ongoing nuclear power plant crisis there.

She urged fans to donate to relief funds.

“My heart is with Japan right now through this disaster and these hardships,” the singer posted on her website. “I genuinely don’t think right now would be appropriate timing for me to perform in Japan given the content and the spirit of my show, which is all about feeling exuberant, rowdy and wild.”

But Cyndi Lauper has decided to go on with her current tour in Japan and will use the shows to raise funds for relief efforts.

ANOTHER DAY ANOTHER LOHAN ARREST: There are new legal problems for Lindsay Lohan’s father, Michael Lohan. He was arrested by Los Angeles police on three felony charges Tuesday after a woman accused him of domestic violence at a nearby apartment, police say.

Police said they arrested Lohan after receiving a call at 9 p.m. about a domestic dispute. Lohan was detained while he was walking on the street near a police station. Police said he did not appear to be intoxicated and was cooperative.

Lohan, 50, was booked for inflicting corporal injury on a cohabitant, false imprisonment and preventing a report of victimization, police said.

No other details of the alleged incident were revealed.

His daughter Lindsay, meanwhile, is expected to inform a judge by today whether she will accept a plea deal with jail time or go to trial in her felony grand theft case.

Reports say a judge has offered Lindsay Lohan a term of 60 to 90 days in county jail, rather than state prison, if she pleads guilty to grand theft, RadarOnline.com reported.

She could face a worse sentence if she rejects the deal and is later convicted.

Lohan is accused of stealing a $2,500 necklace from a jewelry store near her Venice home last month.

JA RULE BROKE DA RULES: Rapper and actor Ja Rule pleaded guilty Tuesday to failing to file tax returns and will pay more than $1 million in back taxes and penalties, Reuters news service reported.

Ja Rule, 35, whose real name is Jeffrey Atkins, 35, pleaded guilty in Newark federal court to three counts of failing to file a tax return, from 2004 through 2008, even though he was making money from royalties and live tours. Atkins was free after posting $500,000 bail, and will be sentenced June 13. He faces a maximum sentence of one year in prison on each count.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Our family weathered a huge storm, and I feel we are stronger than we have ever been.” — Tish Cyrus, referring to her husband Billy Ray Cyrus’s decision to halt divorce proceedings against her.

• 1775: Patrick Henry delivered an address to the Virginia Provincial Convention in which he is said to have declared, “Give me liberty or give me death!”

• 1806: Explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, having reached the Pacific Coast, began their journey back East.

• 1919: Benito Mussolini founded his Fascist political movement in Milan, Italy.

• 1933: The German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act, which effectively granted Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers.

• 1956: Pakistan became an Islamic republic.

• 1981: The U.S. Supreme Court, in H.L. v. Matheson, ruled that states could require, with some exceptions, parental notification when teenage girls seek abortions.

BIRTHDAYS

Comedian Marty Allen (89), Sir Roger Bannister, who broke the 4-minute mile in 1954 (82), movie director Mark Rydell (77), Motorsports Hall of Famer Craig Breedlove (74), singer-producer Ric Ocasek (62), singer Chaka Khan (58), actress Amanda Plummer (54), actress Catherine Keener (52), actress Hope Davis (47), rock singer-musician Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz (43), actress Michelle Monaghan (35), actress Keri Russell (35), gossip columnist-blogger Perez Hilton (33).

>Deaths from NYC bus crash rise to 15

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NEW YORK — A 70-year-old man yesterday became the 15th fatality from the gruesome weekend crash of a tour bus returning to New York’s Chinatown from a Connecticut casino.
The driver, Ophadell Williams of Brooklyn, 40, survived the crash and was released from St. Barnabas Hospital on Sunday. He has not been charged.
Williams told police that his bus was clipped by a tractor-trailer just as it crossed the New York City line on Interstate 95 early Saturday. But survivors and other witnesses have told investigators that Williams swerved to the right at times before the accident.
The state Department of Correctional Services said yesterday that Williams was convicted of manslaughter for his role in a 1990 stabbing and served just more than two years. He also served about three years for grand larceny.
The National Transportation Safety Board and State Police are investigating Saturday’s crash, studying a data recorder and looking into the drivers’ actions before the deadly trip.
Police said the latest victim died yesterday morning at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx.
The New York City medical examiner’s office said Sunday that the other fatalities — eight men and six women — all died of blunt force trauma. The bus scraped along a guardrail, toppled, and slid into a sign pole that sheared it end to end in a horrific scene of blood, jumbled bodies, and shattered glass. Some of the dead were tangled up with the living.
At City Hall yesterday, two Democratic politicians — Senator Charles Schumer and Representative Nydia Velazquez — asked the NTSB to go beyond its investigation and examine the regulations governing low-cost tour buses in general.

>Another 200 bodies found in quake-hit coastal areas (Photos)

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Police in Japan said Sunday they have found another 200 bodies in the quake-ravaged coastal areas of the north.
Police officials in Miyagi told the Associated Press that authorities were recovering the bodies, but did not provide further details and declined to be identified, citing departmental policy.
Meanwhile, Japan’s Meteorological Agency has upgraded the magnitude of Friday’s quake to 9.0 after analyzing seismic waves. The agency earlier measured it at 8.8 magnitude.
The quake was the biggest to hit Japan since record-keeping began in the late 1800s. The agency warned Sunday of more strong aftershocks after Friday’s quake which unleashed massive tsunamis and killed at least 763 people — with estimates nearing the 1,700 mark.
The U.S. Geological Survey has measured the quake at magnitude 8.9, and that number remained unchanged Sunday.
Rescue and recovery
The Japanese government increased the number of troops dedicated to rescue and recovery operations from 51,000 to about 100,000.
Around 10,000 people are still unaccounted for in the Japanese port town of Minamisanriku which was virtually obliterated after the quake and tsunami. Large areas of the countryside were surrounded by water and unreachable.
Rescue teams searched for missing people along hundreds of kilometres of the Japanese coast. At least a million households are still without water and some 2.5 million households don’t have electricity.
Meanwhile, strong aftershocks continued Sunday, including one with a magnitude of 6.2 that originated in the sea, about 179 kilometres east of Tokyo.

>Lindsay Lohan gets extension — next date, March 25

>Lindsay Lohan did not strike a deal with prosecutors who are preparing a case against her for felony grand theft of a designer diamond necklace, but a Los Angeles judge gave the actress more time to decide her plea, setting an interim court date of March 25. Prosecutors and Lohan’s lawyer can continue to work on a plea bargain in the meantime, but Lohan will need to be in court on March 25 if she intends to plead guilty or no contest and accept the parameters of the court’s offer. If she decides to plead not guilty, an April 22 court date has already been set that will hear the felony grand theft case, as well as charges that Lohan has violated conditions of her probation.

Lohan has denied stealing the necklace from a Venice, Calif., jewelry store. The court expects Lohan to inform it of her intentions by March 23.

>Screen Captions of Lindsay Lohan’s Surveillance Video Released

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While talks about Lindsay Lohan’s surveillance video are all over the web, a sneak peek to the said footage has hit the web in a form of screen captions. The troubled singer is clearly visible at these images – she is seen inside the store with a companion.

The troubled singer came to Kamofie & Co., a jeweler located near her new home in L.A.’s Venice Beach district, and tried on some jewelry pieces. The pictures were released as a teaser to the video capturing the moment when she allegedly stole a $2,500 necklace from the store.
The footage has been shopped around with its recent price tag reaching around $35,000, and it’s expected to come out on Monday night, March 7. It has gone out to the Associated Press, who is handling the licensing and distribution of the tape and stills. Lindsay has been charged with felony grand theft and is due back in court March 10. Since the case is still on going, both the prosecution and defense camps are upset with the video release because they believe it will complicate the case. “Neither side wanted it released,” a source told Radar Online. “Neither side sanctioned this sale.”
Kamofie & Co. spokesman Christopher Spencer defends the decision to release the tape, claiming that the case ruined their business. “Customers have stayed away from the store because of the paparazzi and the controversy,” he said, adding that there is no profit motive because the money made from the release won’t come close to covering the loses.
“There were literally thousands of media inquiries asking for the release of the video which is not secret evidence. The video would have been released during the trial anyway, as was stated by several prominent criminal attorneys,” he stated. “We worked with the non-profit organization known as the Associated Press to allow legitimate journalists and news outlets access to the video.”

>Children’s ear infection cases in rapid decline

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A recent report shows that ear infections in children have dropped by nearly 30 percent in the last decade and a half.

While breastfeeding advocates — who have long claimed breastfeeding lowers incidents of ear infections — will likely credit the rise of the breastfeeding rate by U.S. mothers (the Centers for Disease Control says currently approximately 75% of mothers at least breastfeed early postpartum), Harvard researchers say it’s the decline in smoking by adults.

Others, like ear, nose and throat specialist Dr. Richard Rosenfeld, tells the Associated Press that the cause is far from certain, saying, “We’re sort of guessing here.”

Rosenfeld added that the large increase in ear infections between 1975-1990 stemmed from the increase in both parents working outside the home, and more children being placed in daycare centers — which every working parent knows can be a cesspool of infectious germs, some of which cause ear infections.

The CDC states that the rate of U.S. nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke has plummeted from 88 percent in 1990 to 40 percent in 2008. It’s these numbers a Harvard University study points to, and Dr. Gordon Hughes of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders was quoted as saying, “Cigarette smoke, inhaled through a child’s nose, can trigger the same kind of irritation and swelling [as a cold would].”

The question is far from answered, however, as anecdotal cases showing the opposite abound, such as the Willis family in North Carolina, who the AP profiles as a non-smoking, vaccinated, breastfeeding household whose two young children have had 14 ear infections between them.

While ear infections are on the decline, they are not going to go completely away anytime soon. The CDC says there are still 12.5 million medical visits each year for children ages 6 and under to be treated for ear infections.