LOS ANGELES—A man arrested outside Ryan Seacrest’s workplace has pleaded not guilty to a felony stalking charge.

Chidi Benjamin Uzomah Jr. entered the plea Tuesday through an attorney. A court commissioner ordered Uzomah to stay 500 yards away from Seacrest if he is released from jail on $150,000 bail.

Los Angeles police arrested Uzomah at the E! Entertainment Television headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday. A request for a civil restraining order stated he was carrying a knife at the time.

Uzomah appeared in street clothes during Tuesday’s hearing and agreed to be represented by a public defender. He is due back in court Nov. 16.

Seacrest did not attend.



NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Country Music Hall of Famer George Jones isn’t a big fan of where the genre has moved in recent years.

When asked about what he thought about music by today’s top country stars, the 78-year-old said while they are good, “they’ve stolen our identity.”

Jones made the comment during a recent interview when asked about music by artists like Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift.

“They had to use something that was established already, and that’s traditional country music. So what they need to do really, I think, is find their own title, because they’re definitely not traditional country music,” he said.

“It’s good to know that we still do traditional country music. Alan Jackson still does it, so does George Strait. We still have it, and there’s quite a few of us that are going to hope that it comes back one of these days.”

Still, his contemporaries haven’t always stuck to traditional country, either. Fellow Hall of Fame member Johnny Cash was met with critical acclaim a few years ago by covering the Nine Inch Nails song “Hurt.” Asked whether he’d ever branch out to a completely different genre of music, like heavy metal or rap, Jones laughed and said: “Rap? That’s tacky.”