Rihanna and Chris Brown are both trying to put the spotlight back on their music careers with varying degress of success

It’s been 12 months since the private lives of Chris Brown and Rihanna spilled out into the Los Angeles streets following a violent argument while driving home from a pre-Grammy party.

According to a sworn statement by Los Angeles Police Detective DeShon Andrews, Brown punched her in the face numerous times, put her in a headlock, bit her fingers and ear and threatened to kill her.

Brown pleaded guilty to felony assault in June and lost several public endorsements. In August, he was sentenced to five years’ probation in addition to 1,400 labor-oriented community service hours.

One leaked photo, a few soul-baring interviews and two questionable album covers later, both of the young singers now find themselves at uniquely different points in their careers.

Rihanna steered clear of the spotlight for several months, re-emerging in New York City last spring, boldly walking the red carpet at the Costume Institute Ball, with a new look and a new album to begin promoting.

“There’s no restriction on Rihanna, but he [likely] can’t go anywhere without his judge’s permission,” said RollingStone.com deputy editor Caryn Ganz. “He has to appear for court appearances to prove that he’s doing his community service,” noting that the legal issues don’t make it any easier for the star to move forward with his career.

Brown did release a pop-inflected album, “Graffiti,” on December 7, which has sold a little more than 250,000 copies. He also sold out stops on his fans’ appreciation tour, but those performances were in smaller venues than he’d played previously.

“In the immediate aftermath of the incident, there was all of this ‘dead’ talk — nobody will work with him, he’ll never be able to sell another record — and that’s turned out to not be true,” she said. But, Ganz noted, “Rihanna is clearly doing better than he is, both in sales figures and public reception.”

To date, Rihanna’s literal take on being “Rated R” has sold more than a half-million since it dropped November 23. She’s also taken to the stage again, performing everywhere from NBC’s “New Year’s Eve with Carson Daly” to the “Hope for Haiti Now” telethon. “Rated R” is her fourth studio release; it entered the Billboard Hot 200 chart at No. 4, and sold more in its first week than “Good Girl Gone Bad.”

Brown’s last album, “Evolution,” sold more in its first week at 294,000 than “Graffiti” has in its seven weeks on the shelves, Ganz said.

But those sales figures could use some context, said Billboard magazine’s Senior R&B and Hip-Hop Editor Gail Mitchell. “Stuff isn’t selling for a lot of folks these days, with or without a scandal,” she said. “It’s all relative, [and] they’re doing relatively well.”

Particularly when you add in the number of individual tracks sold, which need to be accounted for in the era of iTunes, Mitchell said. Rihanna has sold 1.7 million tracks, and Brown is right behind her at 1.4 million.

“It boils down to whatever is on an album,” she added, “and I think ['Graffiti'] is a strong album. Sure, without the incident, it possibly could have done better. But if it’s what people want to hear, they’ll buy it.”

Terri Thomas, program director for hip hop radio station 97.9 The Box in Houston, Texas, used similar words.

“Initially, there was a change,” Thomas said, with listeners not as eager to tune in to a Brown song. “But once he came out and spoke up, and once she spoke up, people are moving forward. … While the incident was tragic, it’s about the music. We don’t condone domestic violence, but if they have a record fans want to hear, we’ll play it.”

Billy Johnson, Jr., Yahoo! Music’s senior musicologist and programmer, isn’t as convinced.

“I check the top 50 singles every week, and [Brown is] not there. ‘I Can Transform Ya’ didn’t get past the top 20. His album hasn’t gone anywhere,” Johnson said. “There’s absolutely no doubt that people are not supporting him because of this. He’s still a great artist, his album is good, he has good songs, so tell me another reason why he’s not doing well.”

It’s timing, said Emmanuel “E-Man” Coquia, assistant program director at Los Angeles, California’s, Power 106 radio. The record not only has to be ready for radio, the radio — as well as the listeners — have to be ready for it.

“He needed a little bit more time to let things be forgotten. The record had a nice run, but it didn’t have the run his other records had,” Coquia said. Yet, “at the end of the day it is all about the music. We never stopped playing Chris Brown records, even his older stuff. So perhaps it wasn’t the right thing at the right time.”

While no one will come out and readily admit that they’re avoiding Brown — as he accused Wal-Mart of doing when his album was released but didn’t appear to be on the shelves at a local store he visited — actions speak a bit louder, said Devin Lazerine, editor-in-chief of Rap-Up magazine.

“Seeing Rihanna at the Grammys and not seeing him there, that says a lot. She’s on ‘Oprah,’ she’s on ‘Ellen,’ and he’s been absent from all of those shows. It’s translated into the sales as well,” Lazerine said. “There’s a silence in the industry. People aren’t as keen on playing his music as they once were, and they’re just not talking about it.”

Lazerine thought Brown would have had a better shot if he had simply waited to release a record. “If that same album came out and we didn’t have this incident, he would have had a Top 10 hit for sure,” he said. But at this point, “it’s not good enough to have a decent album, it has to be exceptional.”

Disassociating her pop stardom from the assault hasn’t been entirely easy for Rihanna either. The singer, Johnson believes, is dealing with somewhat of a double-edged sword.

“She’s always had her detractors, but when this happened it forced people to take sides. A lot of people came out against her,” Johnson said.

“With ‘Rated R,’ people were curious about what she really had to say after all of this. And still, two brand-new artists beat her out [on the charts] and she’s huge,” he said. “I felt like there was still a subset of people who were like, ‘Whatever, I’m not going to support her.’ The attention has helped as well as hurt.”

As both young stars head into 2010, though, the opportunity is there for them to leave the past behind.

“Each day that goes by, it gets better,” Lazerine said. “On our Web site, people would get so heated when Brown’s name was mentioned, but [the assault] isn’t as hot a topic as it used to be.”

As far as Rihanna, “she’s continuing to move forward, reinventing herself and her sound, and she’ll move past this,” Johnson said. The singer need not be defined by the incident, he added, observing that Tina Turner is far more than the domestic abuse stories about her.

For Brown, Billboard Senior Editor Mitchell is assured that he’ll be able to find success again.

“A little separation time, and Chris comes back out next year with a strong album, he’ll be fine,” Mitchell said. “In this business, you’re always only as good as your last record.”

Authorities suspend search, scramble to determine number of victims, cause

BOULDER, Colo. - A small plane clipped the towline of another plane pulling a glider Saturday, sparking a fiery midair crash in Colorado and killing at least three people, authorities said.

Boulder County officials suspended a search for victims overnight.

“The investigation is still preliminary, but we do know we have three confirmed dead,” said Rick Brough, spokesman for Boulder County sheriff’s department. “We’re saying there is a possibility of five total because one plane seated five. We just don’t know how many people were flying.”

Brough said the tow airplane, a Piper Pawnee, and the other aircraft, a Cirrus SR20, “caught fire midair and fell to the ground.”

The glider disconnected from the plane just before the second plane hit the tow rope, Brough said.

“We understand the glider went through a fireball after the impact,” NTSB field investigator Jennifer Rodi said.

The glider landed safely — with no injuries to anyone on board — at a nearby airport just after the planes made impact, authorities said.

The Piper belonged to Mile High Gliding Inc. and had just taken off from Boulder Municipal Airport when the accident happened. A woman who answered the phone at the glider company declined to comment.

Gliders, or sailplanes, are lightweight aircraft that are often towed into the sky, then released to glide to the ground.

The crash spread debris over a 1½ mile region, scorching several sections of prairie in the Rocky Mountain foothills. The crash happened near a suburban area dotted with homes and businesses, but no one on the ground was injured.

The Cirrus SR2 was equipped with an emergency parachute system, which allows small planes to descend slowly to the ground in case of an emergency.

Former Alaska governor slams president’s handling of economy, security

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Sarah Palin declared “America is ready for another revolution” and repeatedly assailed President Barack Obama on Saturday before adoring “tea party” activists. They make up a seemingly natural constituency should she run for president.

“This movement is about the people,” the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee said as the crowd roared. “Government is supposed to be working for the people.”

Palin noted Democrats’ electoral losses since Obama took office a year ago with talk of hope and promises of change and asked: “How’s that hope-y, change-y stuff workin’ out for you?

Her audience waved flags and erupted in cheers during multiple standing ovations as Palin gave the keynote address at the first national convention of the “tea party” coalition. It’s an anti-establishment, grass-roots network motivated by anger over the growth of government, budget-busting spending and Obama’s policies.

Filled with Palin’s trademark folksy jokes, the speech amounted to a 45-minute pep talk for the coalition and promotion of its principles. The speech also was rife with criticism for Obama and Democrats who control Congress, but delivered with a light touch. But, aside from broad conservative principles like lower taxes and a strong national defense, the speech was short on Palin’s own policy ideas that typically indicate someone is seriously laying the groundwork to run for the White House.

Indeed, Republican observers say she’s seemingly done more lately to establish herself as a political celebrity focused on publicity rather than a political candidate focused on policy.

‘Fresh, young and fragile’
Catering to her crowd, Palin talked of limited government, strict adherence to the Constitution, and the “God-given right” of freedom. She said the “fresh, young and fragile” movement is the future of American politics because it’s “a ground-up call to action” to both major political parties to change how they do business. “You’ve got both party machines running scared,” she said.

Palin suggested that the party should remain leaderless and cautioned against allowing the movement to be defined by any one person. “This is about the people” and “it’s a lot bigger than any charismatic guy with a teleprompter,” she said, jabbing at Obama.

“Let us not get bogged down in the small squabbles. Let us get caught up in the big ideas,” she said, though she offered few of her own.

The former Alaska governor, who resigned from office last summer before completing her first term, didn’t indicate whether her political future would extend beyond cable news punditry and paid speeches to an actual presidential candidacy.

All she offered was a smile when a moderator asking her questions used the phrase “President Palin.” That prompted most in the audience to stand up and chant “Run, Sarah, run!”

But, given the plethora of attacks that Palin leveled at Obama, she seemed like she was already running against him. And, perhaps, as an independent.

Two planes collided in midair Saturday in Boulder, Colorado, killing three people, authorities said.

One of the planes, a single-seat Piper Pawnee, was towing a glider. The pilot of the Piper died in the collision, said Rick Brough of the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office.

After the collision, the pilot of the glider was able to detach from the plane and land safely, Brough said.

The second aircraft involved in the collision was a Cirrus SR 20. Two people on that plane also died, Brough said.

Authorities began receiving reports of a plane crash around 1:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m. ET), Brough said, adding that people had seen flames in the air in an area less than five miles from the Boulder Municipal Airport.

Brough said the debris field was spread out over a couple of miles.

“I was in my house and I heard a loud bang,” iReporter Zac Mitchell, of Boulder, told CNN. “I looked out my window and saw a giant fireball in the sky.”

When he went outside, he said he saw smoke and two objects, including a parachute, falling from the sky.

“It was quite a shock, it happened right in front of me,” he said.

Brough said a parachute did deploy from one of the planes, but that no one was attached to it.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are involved in investigating the incident, Brough said.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has asked the country’s nuclear chief to begin enriching uranium to 20%.

The move comes amid a worsening stand-off over a Western offer for Iran to swap enriched uranium for nuclear fuel.

The West fears Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons - and have threatened new sanctions. Iran insists its programme is peaceful.

The US defence secretary urged the world to “stand together”, saying there was still time for sanctions to work.

“Pressures that are focused on the government of Iran, as opposed to the people of Iran, potentially have greater opportunity to achieve the objective,” Robert Gates said during a visit to Italy.

In London, the Foreign Office said Mr Ahmadinejad’s announcement was “clearly a matter of serious concern”.

“This would be a deliberate breach of five UNSCRs [United Nations Security Council Resolutions],” it said in a statement.

In January, diplomats said Iran had informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it did not accept the terms of the deal agreed in October by Iran, the IAEA and the P5+1 - the US, Russia, China, UK and France plus Germany.

Earlier this week, the US, Britain and France circulated a discussion paper on further possible sanctions against Tehran.

But China says the P5+1 must remain patient and keep pursuing a diplomatic solution to the issue.

Red line

Mr Ahmadinejad made the announcement on Iranian state television - two days after his foreign minister said a deal on swapping enriched uranium for nuclear fuel was close - a claim greeted with scepticism by Western powers.

“I had said let us give them [Western powers] two to three months, and if they don’t agree, we would start ourselves,” Mr Ahmadinejad said in a speech broadcast live.

“Now Dr [Ali Akbar] Salehi, start to make the 20% with the centrifuges,” the president said, addressing Iran’s nuclear chief who was sitting in the audience at a laser technology plant in Tehran.

Civilian nuclear power requires uranium enriched to about 3%. Weapons grade uranium needs to be enriched to 90%.

The BBC Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne, reporting from London, says Mr Ahmadinejad’s announcement crosses a significant red line.

Iran says it wants to supply a research reactor with highly enriched uranium following the breakdown of the international deal to provide fuel for it.

But some Western analysts say Iran does not possess the technical know-how to make fuel rods for the reactor, our correspondent says, and Western countries fear this could be a stepping stone towards the manufacture of weapons-grade material.

At the very least, this is a provocative act which will make negotiations more difficult, our correspondent says.

Existing UN sanctions are meant to prevent the flow of any items or technology which might aid Iran in enriching uranium or developing nuclear weapon delivery systems.

The sanctions range from actual sales or supplies to dealings with named individuals.