By MIKE SCHNEIDER
Associated Press Writer

     ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Tiger Woods did not appear to be driving under the influence and showed no signs of having been in a fight in the minutes after his car crash outside his mansion, an attorney for the neighbors who dialed 911 said Tuesday.

     Woods’ injuries were “consistent with a car wreck and inconsistent with him being beat up,” attorney Bill Sharpe said. “The scratches on his face were consistent with someone who maybe was in a minor car accident and hit his head on the windshield. … None of his injuries looked like he was beat up by his wife.”

 In its initial accident report, the Florida Highway Patrol said alcohol was not involved.

 Sharpe said neighbor Linda Adams and her two adult sons went outside their home in the exclusive gated community of Isleworth after hearing the crash and Woods’ wife, Elin Nordegren, asked them to call 911.

 He said the neighbors found Nordegren kneeling beside her husband, upset about his injuries. Sharpe said Woods appeared woozy and had scratches on his face and that his wife was trying to console him. The Adams wrapped Woods in a blanket and made sure he didn’t move.

 According to the Florida Highway Patrol accident report, Woods crashed his SUV into a fire hydrant and a tree at 2:25 a.m. Friday. The airbags did not deploy in the crash, and Woods’ wife told Windermere police she used a golf club to smash the back windows to help him out.

 Tabloid speculation has focused on whether Woods and his wife were fighting before the accident. The crash came two days after The National Enquirer published a story alleging that Woods had been seeing a New York nightclub hostess, and that they recently were together in Melbourne, where Woods competed in the Australian Masters.

 The woman, Rachel Uchitel, denied having an affair with Woods when contacted by The Associated Press.

 Sharpe said the Adams family did not see the crash and did not see Woods’ wife with a golf club.

 ”One thing we want to make clear is that Mrs. Woods’ attitude was consistent with her being concerned about her injured husband,” Sharpe said. “Mrs. Woods was trying to help him. Mrs. Woods was worried about her husband. She was concerned.”

 Woods withdrew Monday from his own golf tournament, citing injuries from the crash.

 Sharpe says the Adams family hired him to get out the message that they’ve told investigators everything they know about the crash and aren’t hiding anything.

 © 2009 The Associated Press.

By CURTIS ROSS | The Tampa Tribune
Published: November 24, 2009

Miley Cyrus will perform Dec. 1 at the Forum in Tampa.

Scalpers got their hands on so many tickets for Miley Cyrus’ 2007 tour — e-selling some for as much as $2,500 — that many fans were left empty-handed.

Cyrus’ current tour is using paperless ticketing exclusively. To enter the show, purchasers must present a government-issued photo ID, such as a driver’s license, and the credit card used to buy the tickets.

Cyrus could have been swapping one ticket fiasco for another. Paperless ticketing sounds like a logjam waiting to happen. But reports from the tour’s early dates say things have run smoothly with few glitches.

It’s pretty straightforward if the ticket purchaser is attending the show. Once the card is scanned, a slip of paper with the seat locations is printed and you’re in. All members of the party must be present when the card is scanned in order to be seated.

Parents who bought tickets to the Dec. 1 show in Tampa but don’t want to attend will have to accompany their children to the entry point. Free temporary parking will be available for pick-up/drop-off located in the St. Pete Times Forum North Lot on the corner of Channelside Drive and Caesar Street.

Parents have the option of spending the concert at the Forum’s Shots at Channelside, a restaurant that will serve as a waiting room.

Buyers who purchased from secondary sources will have to be creative. A story on the Kansas City Star’s Web site told of a woman who bought tickets on eBay, then had to meet the seller, whom she didn’t know, outside the venue in order to get seated.

For information, consult Ticketmaster’s Web site, www.ticketmaster.com/mileycyrus.

Music critic Curtis Ross can be reached at (813) 259-7568.

     Oprah Winfrey’s decision to walk away from her daytime talk show after 25 years when her contract expires in 2011 will have a ripple effect throughout the television industry.

     The big winners are Discovery Communications, which is partners with Winfrey on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) that is due to launch in early 2011, Ellen DeGeneres and Warner Bros., which syndicates her daytime talk show and all the TV stations that will no longer have to compete against Winfrey in daytime.

     The losers include CBS, which will no longer be able to count on the hundreds of millions that “The Oprah Winfrey Show” delivered in license fees and advertising revenue over the years. ABC is also probably not too happy. Many of its big city stations carried the show and it delivered a sizeable audience to their local news. Sony is also grumbling; it was trying desperately to woo distribution rights to Winfrey’s daytime show away from CBS when her deal expired. Winfrey herself may be a loser because odds are that, at least in the short-term, she will take a financial hit by abandoning daytime talk — although, of course, in the long-term she is building an asset that could have tremendous value.

     While Winfrey and OWN are keeping quiet, the talk show queen is expected to have a visible presence on the channel when it launches. She probably will do a daily show, although it will not be a carbon copy of her current effort. This will help OWN build a brand and boost its distribution for the network.

     Winfrey’s departure will be the end of an era for daytime talk. She burst onto the national scene in 1986 after toiling in local TV in Nashville, Baltimore and Chicago, which is where she has made her home for almost 30 years. The late Roger King, a legendary salesman known as much for his hard-living as for his deal-making acumen, signed her to King World and made her a star, and she made him and his brother Michael incredibly rich. CBS later bought King World for $2.5 billion.

     When Winfrey premiered, daytime talk was still ruled by Phil Donahue, who dealt with politics and social issues in a more refrained manner. Winfrey was boisterous and enthusiastic and endeared herself to her audience and guests. She was able to woo political leaders and movie stars to her couch and at the same time dip into the more tawdry topics that have also become a staple of TV without soiling her own reputation.

     The exit of Winfrey from broadcast TV to cable is yet another sign of the paradigm shift between the two mediums. News Corp., Disney and Viacom all are powered by their cable networks, as is Time Warner. Comcast wants control of NBC Universal not for its broadcast network and TV stations, but for its cable networks. Winfrey is making the decision that she can make more money and build her brand better on cable than broadcast. A few years ago that would have seemed unthinkable, but it is clear that the greater value lies in the broadband medium. OWN, which will debut in 2011 in roughly 70 million homes, will be turbo-charged by having her on board as a regular presence.

     At the same time, her own visibility will decline, at least for awhile. While actors bounce back and forth between broadcast and cable, personalities of Winfrey’s stature generally stay put. Ted Koppel left ABC’s “Nightline” for Discovery Channel but his presence in the cultural zeitgeist diminished and he no longer is associated with the network. Howard Stern gave up his perch on FM radio for satellite radio and though his pay day grew tremendously, he is no longer part of the daily conversation around the water cooler. Winfrey probably will have a similar adjustment. Cable is great at building some stars such as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, but those who move there from broadcast face smaller audiences and diminished limelight. 

Of course, after a quarter of a century of being in the spotlight, maybe Winfrey won’t mind some quiet time.

– Joe Flint

Photo: Oprah Winfrey. Credit: Chris Pizzello/Associated Press

     Remember the huge uproar in April 2008, when 15-year-old Miley Cyrus appeared in “Vanity Fair” wrapped in a sheet, with her right shoulder and the top of her back visible, implying that, under the sheet, she wasn’t wearing a shirt? That week, the cover of the New York Post read ”Miley’s Shame,” the Christian Coalition called for the Hannah Montana star’s employer, Disney, to reprimand the teenager, and finally Miley was forced to apologize in a statement to People Magazine, saying: “I never intended for any of this to happen, and I am truly sorry if I have disappointed anyone.” The pandemonium was so huge that critics ranging from the ladies of “The View”, to Bill O’Reilly, to Miley’s fellow Disney star Joe Jonas all expressed their disapproval over what they saw as

the sexualization of a child to sell magazines.

     Now, with the premiere of his movie, “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” less than a month away, magazines, websites, and TV are blanketed with images of 17-year-old star Taylor Lautner, shirtless and showing off the body he trained for months to perfect for the role. And yet, none of the cultural critics who turned Miley’s photos into a full-blown “scandal” have said a word about the sexualization of Taylor, who, at 17, is just two years older than Miley was during her “scandal” and is also a minor. So, does Hollywood have a double standard?

     Actress Kristin Davis, who worked with Taylor in 2005 in “The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl 3-D,” has so far been the only major voice to raise questions about the photos. But even her remarks from last week seemed more about her own working relationship with a much-younger Lautner: “I feel protective, like what is he doing without his shirt on?” she said. “And then I hear he’s dating people, and I’m like, ‘Ahh!’”

     Interestingly, the biggest critic of these pervasive images seems to be Taylor himself, who said this week he hopes never to take his shirt off in a movie again, saying, “It’s so uncomfortable knowing that so many people are seeing pictures of me shirtless… It’s weird. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

     What do you think? Does Hollywood have a double standard for its shirtless teenage stars?