Dispute closes rapper's restaurant

CLINTON, Iowa (AP) - A fried chicken restaurant in Iowa founded by Flavor Flav has abruptly closed its doors after the reality TV star and his business partner cut ties and exchanged harsh words.

Flav's Fried Chicken in Clinton, Iowa, closed on Sunday, just four months after opening to much fanfare.

Flav told WQAD-TV that he was pulling a license that allowed restaurant manager Nick Cimino to use his name in the restaurant because he "isn't running the business right." Some former employees had complained they were not paid.

Flav, a founder of the hip-hop group Public Enemy and later a star of VH1's "The Surreal Life," opened the business with Cimino in January.

The website TMZ.com posted an interview with the rapper, born William Drayton, on Sunday saying it was his decision to end the restaurant and the partnership.

Cimino countered in a phone interview Sunday night with the Quad-City Times, "It wasn't mismanaged by me. He mismanaged it right from the beginning because he didn't know what he was doing.

"He wanted to be an active partner in the business when he didn't even know what was going on," Cimino added.

Flavor Flav went to the Clinton restaurant several times and told TMZ that on April 2 he found potato salad with an expiration date of Feb. 28.

"And it's then when I realized I can't do business with this man, and I really hope no one ate those potatoes," he said in the interview.

Cimino countered: "We got inspected by the health department all the time. Flavor Flav's making it up in his own little brain."

Cimino said he felt "betrayed" that he came up with the concept, menu and plans for the restaurant and was not given credit.

Cimino, who estimates that he lost $400,000 in the venture, said Flav insisted that the oil in the fryers be changed every hour, which cost $14,000 in the first week alone.

Levi Johnston to pen tell-all book on Palin family

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Levi Johnston is promising to set the record straight about the Palin family.

Touchstone Publishing has a fall publication date for Johnston's book, "Deer in the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin's Crosshairs."

Johnston fathered a child with Bristol Palin, the daughter of the former Alaska governor, when they were teenagers. The pregnancy was announced days after Palin was selected as the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate. The couple broke up after the birth of their son, Tripp, and reconciled briefly.

He has had a contentious relationship with the Palins.

Johnston says the book will "tell the truth" about that relationship, including his "sense of Sarah and my perplexing fall from grace."