Battery charges against Gooding dropped

The New Orleans city attorney's office has dropped battery charges against actor Cuba Gooding Jr., who was accused of shoving a bartender, officials said. A female bartender at the Old Absinthe House told police the "Jerry Maguire" star shoved her twice after she asked him to calm down or leave when patrons at the Bourbon Street watering hole where she works snapped his picture early Tuesday. The bartender dropped the charges against Gooding, prompting the city attorney's office to do the same, a City Hall spokesman told The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune Friday. Gooding is in New Orleans filming "The Butler," a film about the life of Eugene Allen, an African-American butler who served eight presidents in the White House, the newspaper said.