Alicia as she is

New York, Nov. 12 (AP): If it weren’t for her mother, Alicia Keys might have a radically different image.

Keys, who has a new album titled As I Am, says that when she was trying to choose a professional name she went through a dictionary and stopped on the word “wild”. She tells Newsweek in the magazine’s November 19 issue that she asked her mother how Alicia Wild sounded to her.

“She said: ‘It sounds like you’re a stripper,’” Keys said. After that, she decided to use Keys. “It’s like the piano keys. And it can open so many doors,” said the singer born Alicia Augello-Cook.

Cheese TV

London (Reuters): Wedginald, the English cheddar cheese that has become a star of the Internet as it matures live on screen, is up for auction with the proceeds going to charity. The 44 pound cheese that has attracted 1.65 million viewer hits on www.cheddarvision.tv since it first went on the Web late last year has nearly completed its 12-month maturation and will be ready to eat by Christmas, the owners said. “As a fitting end to the first year of Cheddarvision we at West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers are going to auction Wedginald to the highest bidder and donate all the proceeds to BBC Children in Need,” they wrote on the website.

Haiti help

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (AP): Hip-hop artist Wyclef Jean arrived in Haiti on Saturday for his first visit since President Rene Preval named him a roving ambassador for the Caribbean nation in January. The 35-year-old singer and producer, who was born in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, announced the creation of several youth-based programmes financed by Yele-Haiti, a charity he established to encourage development in the troubled nation.

Host birth

New York (AP): Television talk show host Elizabeth Hasselbeck has given birth to a son, ABC announced on Saturday. The co-host of The View, a morning talk show, gave birth Friday to a 3.6-kg boy at an Arizona hospital, the network said. Hasselbeck and her husband, National Football League quarterback Tim Hasselbeck, did not release the newborn’s name. She planned to call in to the show on Monday to announce it, the network said. Elisabeth Hasselbeck, 30, began maternity leave from The View on October 23. She also was a contestant on the television reality show Survivor.