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Playing Abramoff

Two-time Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey has accepted a role to play disgraced fundraiser Jack Abramoff in a film called “Casino Jack,” directed by George Hickenlooper.

The blog Deadline Hollywood Daily reported Mr. Spacey visited Abramoff in prison to research the role and plans to meet with Abramoff’s old lobbyist friends in Washington.

Hayden Christensen will play Abramoff’s business partner Michael Scanlon and Spencer Garrett will play former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texas Republican.

Hope and jewels

President Obama is everywhere.

Mass retailer JCPenney is selling four different necklaces that look remarkably similar to his well-known “O” campaign logo.

The pieces are merchandised as “hope” pendants and feature a striped foreground against a rising sun. Sale prices range from $49.99 for a silver medallion pendant to $99.99 for styles with diamond accents.

Equal time

A historically black national fraternity is asking that President Obama match his executive order that created a White House Council on Women and Girls, focused on matters such as equal pay and expanded family leave, with a new order for a similar men and boys council.

“Mr. President, we are keenly aware of the challenges that face women and girls,” Herman “Skip” Mason Jr., general president of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, wrote in a letter to the president. “However, we believe a focus must also be placed on men and boys.”

Mr. Herman cited a 2006 report by the Schott Foundation for Public Education that states only 35 percent of black males graduated from high school in Chicago and only 26 percent in New York City. The report also noted that “only a few black boys who finish high school actually attend college, and of those who enter college, nationally, only 22 percent finish with a degree.”

Alpha Phi Alpha is the oldest black Greek-lettered organization of collegiate men.

Charity waterboard

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