Article Pal site help to build up your link Popularity and give you higher Page Rank. http://www.articlepal.net After a bout of refuting speculations surrounding his wife Cecilia Cheung's rumoured pregnancy, Nicholas Tse finally dropped subtle hints at his wife's expectancy. The actor-singer was amongst the celebrities including Nicholas Tse, Joey Yung, Leo Ku, Twins, Huang Yao Ming present at management company Emperor Entertainment Group's 10 anniversary, which also welcomed Chinese singer, Sun Nan to their growing base of artistes. At the event, Nicholas finally lets the cat out of the bag and said, "Honestly speaking, the changes in a woman's body is real I can only say it when I am sure about it. Her body has been changing lately." The 29-year-old shared that Cecilia's aim is to have five children. He revealed that she is currently not taking up any work assignments to focus on being a mother. Despite his roundabout admission on his wife's pregnancy, when reporters questioned Cecilia's manager on that matter, she said, "What? I have never heard of it. Is Nicholas cracking a joke?" Visibly annoyed from the media's constant harassment, Nicholas's father, Patrick Tse said, "I don't know". Good friends and family members of the couple could not be reached for comment. http://www.articlepal.net/article/Nicholas_Tse_drops_hints_on_Cecilia_Cheung_s_rumoured_pregnancy.htm 29th Oct,2009 After his contract with MediaCorp ended one-and-a-half years ago, Singaporean actor Edmund Chen decided to set his sights on the overseas market instead. Despite being based in the overseas market, Edmund expressed his desires to return to the local television screen. "I have been in the local entertainment industry for about 20 years. A lot of audiences see me as a part of their familyI feel very happy to have left such an impression in your lives. I'm looking forward to the chance [to film a local drama series]. This is the only way I can greet fellow Singaporeans. I feel that it is very rare and I am really looking forward to it." Setting up his own entertainment company, Asiatainment, after he left MediaCorp, he explained, "There are more opportunities to film movies in the overseas market." Edmund was recently seen in the Hollywood movie, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li earlier this year acting as Chun-Li's father. Currently involved in a movie production, the actor remained tightlipped about his current work assignment. Apart from participating in movie productions and various endorsements, Edmund is also busy cultivating his artistic interest in design and drawing. The father of two shared that drawing has always been one of his interest as it allows him to completely immerse himself in another world to escape from the stress and pressures of his daily life. "In the past, I would only pursue my own ideals and dreams. The importance is not for me to chase after my own dreams now. It has to be practical and yet give me the ability to bring the bacon home to support my family." Edmund is no stranger when it comes to parenting with an 18-year-old son and a nine-year-old daughter. As the new ambassador for a tuition center, Pro-Teach, the actor shared that he was impressed by the school's confident teacher and the carefree children he met during his visit. "After going through so much in life, the interactions I had when I was young with teachers, textbooks, graduation, independence, having a family. Have my children return to the same environment when they grow up, I feel that it is a natural cycle. It is like returning to my younger days." http://www.articlepal.net/article/Edmund_Chen_sets_his_sights_on_the_overseas_market.htm 29th Oct,2009 Earlier last month, Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi was rumoured to be a third party between her fiancι, Vivi Nevo and his alleged wife. After which, the pair were spotted together at Milan's fashion week and tightly held hands, displaying their affection for each other. Amidst all the speculations and rumours surrounding her relationship with Vivi, Zhang was recently in town for the opening ceremony of the Omega watch outlet in ION Orchard. She arrived 15 minutes after the event's stipulated timing in a purple dress picked for her by local stylist, Johnny Khoo. With her giant diamond engagement ring spotted on her left finger, Zhang appeared to be in high spirits and smiled throughout the event. The 30-year-old actress shared that her first watch purchase was an Omega watch which she has never worn before as she was afraid of losing it. In simple English, she jokingly said, "In the past, there weren't any discounts. The Omega boss has promised to give me discounts now." Reporters asked the actress if she would accept her boyfriend's proposed with a diamond watch instead of a diamond ring, Ziyi replied, "This has not happened to me before I don't know. It seems like the meaning behind the ring is different Anyway, just give me a ring and a watch after that. That is the way to do it. I will definitely say yes." On a tight schedule, Zhang shared that she will immediately be flying off after attending Omega's gala dinner that day. Renowned coiffeur David Gan who is also a good friend of Zhang revealed that they did not have time to go shopping and were busy working the entire day. http://www.articlepal.net/article/Zhang_Ziyi_in_high_spirits_at_Omega_event_despite_third-party_rumours.htm 29th Oct,2009 LOS ANGELES – One of Anna Nicole Smith's doctors worried about his own drug use and his professionalism after he kissed her and prescribed her highly addictive drugs, according to his diary, which was read in court. Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry read the explosive entries from Dr. Sandeep Kapoor's diary Wednesday at a preliminary hearing to determine whether Kapoor, Smith's boyfriend Howard K. Stern and her psychiatrist Khristine Eroshevich should stand trial on charges of illegally funnelling drugs to the former Playboy model. The hearing is scheduled to continue Thursday. Kapoor's lawyer previously said he was gay and objected to prosecutors' allegations that he had a sexual relationship with Smith that could have contributed to his prescribing drugs for her. However, Kapoor's June 13, 2005, diary entry appeared to confirm what prosecutors said they saw in video and photographs taken at a party around that time. The judge has ruled against showing the video in court. "I was making out with Anna, my patient, blurring the lines," the judge read from Kapoor's diary. "I gave her methadone, Valium. Can she ruin me?" The entry also recounted his ride with Smith in a gay pride parade before the party, with six police officers keeping back the paparazzi. "It was mesmerizing. ... Anna and me up there all buffed out on the car," the entry said. In an excerpt from Nov. 17, 2002, Kapoor wrote, "I also need to get off the drugs. The Buspar, Wellbutrin have to go. But first the Ambien has got to go. Oh God, it's so addicting. I have to get off that (expletive)." Buspar is an anti-anxiety drug, while Wellbutrin is used to treat depression. Ambien is used to counter insomnia. Kapoor later prescribed Ambien for Smith, according to testimony. Earlier in the day, a medical board investigator testified that Kapoor kept a hidden stash of Smith's medical records in his home that included references to possible drug addictions. Investigators found files containing Smith's medical records hidden in the kitchen and on the floor of a closet in the doctor's home after Smith died, investigator Jon Genens said. Authorities later seized another set of records at the office of Kapoor's attorney. All the records were either in the name of Smith or Michelle Chase, a pseudonym she used, Genens said. The two sets of files were for the same dates but included slightly different information, he said. Perry said the secreting of information at the house could be interpreted as "guilty knowledge." He did not elaborate. http://www.articlepal.net/article/Doctor_wrote_about_kissing_Anna_Nicole_in_diary.htm 29th Oct,2009 CARACAS (AFP) - – Oscar-winning actor and political activist Sean Penn may film a movie in Venezuela, according to the country's firebrand President Hugo Chavez. Penn "told me was very interested in a film project ... that would most likely be shot in part in Venezuela," Chavez told state television on Wednesday after meeting the actor along with film producer Art Linson at the presidential palace. Chavez said Penn, who he described as a "friend of just causes," hoped to make a movie based on the 1953 adventure novel "The Lost Steps" by Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier, which takes place mostly in the lush forests of southeastern Venezuela. The Oscar-winner, who received the award for Best Actor category in 2004 for "Mystic River" and in 2009 for "Harvey Milk," arrived here from Cuba, where he had reportedly sought an interview with its revolutionary icon Fidel Castro. http://www.articlepal.net/article/Sean_Penn_wants_to_shoot_film_in_Venezuela_Chavez.htm 29th Oct,2009 NEW YORK – It's a century-old miscarriage of justice that still haunts anyone who knows of it, and will surely disturb viewers introduced to this tragedy in "The People v. Leo Frank," a powerful retelling that premieres Monday on PBS at 10 p.m. EDT. In a rich blend of experts' accounts and dramatic re-enactments, the 90-minute film revisits the case of Leo Frank, a young Cornell-educated Brooklyn native who was plant supervisor of the National Pencil Co. in downtown Atlanta. On a Sunday morning in April 1913, the bludgeoned, sexually molested body of Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old factory girl, was found in the building's filthy basement. Within weeks, Frank, professing innocence, was arrested and charged with her murder after an inept police investigation that turned up no conclusive evidence. Even so, a northern Jew had emerged as a more compelling suspect than a black man, Jim Conley, who was a janitor at the pencil factory and had plenty to implicate him as the killer. Frank was deemed a Yankee outsider by the local citizenry, while Conley, a man of the South and therefore one of their own by default, became the state's star witness against Frank. It was a media sensation. The monthlong circus-like trial got spectacular treatment from rival newspapers, which helped whip the public into "a degree of frenzy almost inconceivable" (as The Atlanta Journal assessed the local state of mind). Frank was convicted and sentenced to death, and the city overwhelmingly rejoiced. Then, after two years of appeals (which reached the U.S. Supreme Court), he was shown a bit of mercy by Georgia's conscience-stricken governor, who abruptly commuted Frank's sentence to life imprisonment. This only reinflamed the civic uproar. Less than three months later, two dozen prominent citizens took matters into their own hands. This elite lynch mob removed Frank from the penitentiary where he was serving his life term and hanged him from an oak tree in Atlanta's neighboring town of Marietta. Thousands came to see: For them, justice had finally been delivered. The story of Leo Frank has been told in many ways (including "Parade," a Broadway musical), but no more exhaustively than Steve Oney's splendid 2003 tome "And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank." Now, in "The People v. Leo Frank," filmmaker Ben Loeterman has crafted an historical feature documentary that includes the voices of Oney (chief consultant on the project), former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes, historians, members of the Frank and Phagan families, and "Parade" playwright Alfred Uhry, among others. Framed by these speakers, the film's dramatizations transport the viewer to a tragic chapter for a region then proudly calling itself "the New South." Loeterman, an award-winning filmmaker whose documentaries have aired on "Frontline" and "American Experience," says the interviews came first. "We laid out the storytelling completely in the words of the interviews," he says, "and then figured out how the dramatic scenes could make the most of what those interviewees told us. "It was critical for me to first get the story straight, before going off and getting distracted by the moviemaking." The characters' dialogue is lifted from transcripts and letters. And the re-enactments were shot on location in and around Atlanta, to capture as much authentic look and feel as possible, even a century removed. A vintage industrial elevator (crucial to the narrative) was found in a building that once stood near the long-gone National Pencil factory. The lynching scene was staged in a bucolic spot not far outside Atlanta, exactly where Loeterman chooses not to say. The impressive cast is led by Seth Gilliam ("The Wire") depicting Jim Conley, and, as Leo Frank, Will Janowitz, who played Meadow's boyfriend Finn on "The Sopranos." Despite a remarkable resemblance to Frank, Janowitz had a challenge in portraying him. Frank was chilly, stiff, high-strung, unengaging. He was, in short, not a showcase character, nor the ideal candidate for any film's protagonist. Nor, as history proved, was he a sympathetic defendant in a murder trial. "He's not a hero, and he's not particularly likable," Loeterman says. Frank was an ordinary man most distinguished by his outsider status. For that, he was savaged. As Loeterman's film documents painfully, the scars still haven't healed. ___ On the Net: http://www.leofrankfilm.com http://www.articlepal.net/article/A_film_tells_of_Leo_Frank_and_century-old_crimes.htm 29th Oct,2009 LOS ANGELES – For a group of Hollywood-obsessed teens, entertainment news on the Internet offered more than a glimpse into the lives of stars. It helped them break into celebrities' homes. The teens tracked the movements of stars such as Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton and broke into their houses, making off with millions of dollars in stolen possessions in a spree that lasted almost a year. With a few clicks on the Internet, police say, the suspects developed a wish list of designer clothes and jewelry, then raided the homes while celebrities were away. "They thought it was fun, kind of an adrenaline rush," Los Angeles police officer Brett Goodkin said. "They would go in and steal the celebrity's clothes and possessions, things they could never afford on their own." Police last week arrested four young women and two men on suspicion of burglarizing 10 homes in the Hollywood Hills. In addition to Lohan and Hilton, other victims included "The Hills" star Audrina Patridge, Orlando Bloom, Megan Fox, Brian Austin Green, Ashley Tisdale and Rachel Bilson. Police said the teens scoured celebrity blogs and Web sites, looking for valuables, and then used the Internet to find where the stars lived. After watching a home, they would break into poorly protected properties through doors, windows and, in one case, a doggy door. The burglaries lasted from October 2008 until September. Items stolen "run the gamut of high-end designer clothing," Goodkin said. "You could pick a designer, and they would be among what was taken." Police displayed an evidence photograph Wednesday depicting approximately $2 million in stolen jewelry that was recovered and returned to Hilton. The thieves snatched dozens of items of flashy, gem-encrusted jewelry, then made off with it in the socialite's Louis Vuitton bag. The suspects include 18-year-olds Rachel Lee, Courtney Ames and Alexis Neiers, and Diana Tamayo, 19. Several of the group graduated two years ago from the "continuation campus" at Indian Hills High School in suburban Agoura Hills, said Donald Zimring, superintendent of the Las Virgenes Unified School District. Such campuses are for students struggling to attain good grades in regular schools, but Zimring could not comment on their academic records. Additionally, 18-year-old Nicholas Prugo was arrested last month in the same case on suspicion of breaking into the homes of Lohan and Patridge. A sixth suspect, 27-year-old Ray Lopez Jr., was also arrested. Police also sought Jonathan Ajar, also 27, for a variety of offenses, including receiving stolen property and possession of a firearm. Prosecutors have filed felony residential burglary charges against Neiers, Ames, Tamayo and Lopez Jr. They declined to file charges against Lee, pending further investigation, and additional charges will be filed against Prugo, who had already been charged with burglaries at Lohan and Patridge's homes. Police recovered three guns and a large amount of drugs as they served search warrants in the case. They did not specify where they searched. The robberies were driven by "celebrity infatuation and greed," Goodkin said. Neiers had been the subject of a reality-TV pilot episode that the Los Angeles Times said was about aspiring actresses. The cable network E! would not confirm that, but network officials issued a brief statement they "are concerned by recent events, awaiting further details and will be monitoring the situation closely." The statement said shooting began recently and would continue. In a short interview on E!'s Web site, Neiers said she was eager to put the matter behind her. "I just learned my lesson that I need to make some better friends and some better decisions as far as my friends go," she said. An attorney representing some of the victims said the crimes highlight the growing risks faced by celebrities in a world of unending media attention. Blair Berk worried this was putting a "bull's-eye on the forehead of celebrities." "You cannot on a weekly basis publish pictures of the back entrance to someone's house and do stories on their collection of cars and jewelry without increasing that person's vulnerability to theft and harm," Berk said. "It's a celebrity envy thing. "It's the new sociopath generation of 'I really like those Chanel boots.' Instead of going out and buying them, they just steal them." Lee appeared to be the "driving force" behind the burglaries, Goodkin said. Attempts to reach her, Lopez and Ames were unsuccessful. A man who answered the phone at a number registered to Tamayo declined to comment or to say whether she had an attorney. Court records show Lee and Tamayo were convicted of petty theft earlier this year. Neiers' attorney, Jeffrey K. Rubenstein, released a short statement saying his client "was at the wrong place at the wrong time" and is "not the party responsible for the events that led to her arrest." Prugo's attorney, Sean Erenstoft, downplayed his client's role in the burglaries. He declined to elaborate, but said Prugo was pleased that others had been caught. Erenstoft said he had not yet reviewed any evidence in the case, which includes video surveillance from some celebrity homes. Publicists for Lohan and Bloom did not immediately respond to e-mails seeking comment. Patridge's publicist declined to comment. Paris Hilton retrieved stolen belongings, including most of her missing jewelry, from police, but did not get everything she lost, her publicist said. ___ AP Entertainment Writer Anthony McCartney contributed to this report. (This version CORRECTS spelling of Vuitton's first name to Louis.) http://www.articlepal.net/article/Police_Celeb-obsessed_teens_robbed_famous_victims.htm 29th Oct,2009 LOS ANGELES – "Michael Jackson's This Is It" comes too late in the year to be considered for a documentary Oscar, but the film about the late King of Pop's preparations for a series of comeback concerts could qualify for other Hollywood honors, including the Academy Award for best picture. The film, which opened around the globe Tuesday and Wednesday has already earned rousing praise from fans and critics, who say it restores Jackson's reputation as a world-class entertainer. Director Kenny Ortega, a longtime Jackson collaborator who was overseeing his London concert comeback, crafted the nearly two-hour film from more than 100 hours of footage recorded during rehearsals for the London shows, which were to have begun in July. Jackson died June 25 at age 50. "What we did here was focus on telling a good story and creating a film for the fans really enabling them to understand what Michael Jackson had dreamed for them," Ortega said Wednesday. He added it was his hope "the audience for this film will grow and that as many people come to see it as possible because I think that it's a wonderful story about a brilliant man... Awards, Oscars, that's all great wishful thinking." It may be more than wishful, said Steven Gaydos, executive editor of the Hollywood trade paper Variety and a self-described cynic. With the Academy Awards best-picture slate expanded to 10 films this year rather than the traditional five, "This Is It" could find itself among the contenders, he said. To qualify, the film must complete a seven-day run in Los Angeles County and filmmakers would need to "submit the proper paperwork," said Leslie Unger, spokeswoman for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which puts on the Oscars. The movie could also be considered in other categories such as sound, she said. Sony, which paid $60 million for the global film rights, plans to keep "This Is It" in theaters for just over two weeks. The studio did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment about whether it planned to submit the film in any of the Oscar categories. The film took in $2.2 million domestically from its first late-night screenings, setting it up for a strong shot at a No. 1 debut weekend. It is already well on its way to becoming a top-grossing music documentary. Ortega, a veteran director, producer and choreographer who counts TV's "High School Musical" among his credits, could find himself in contention for a best-director nod, Gaydos said. "He did a masterful job putting this whole thing together," he said. "It was so powerful and interesting, so creative and well-done, I think he should be considered... Kenny just won over all these critics like me with Michael Jackson that anything interesting could go on with this guy." After completing a weeklong run, "This Is It" could also be eligible for Golden Globe awards consideration if it's submitted before the Nov. 6 deadline, said Michael Russell, a spokesman for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which puts on the annual ceremony. Ortega said an Oscar nod would be a fitting recognition of Jackson's last work. "He deserves one," he said. "Come on people." ___ Associated Press writer Marcela Isaza in Los Angeles contributed to this report. http://www.articlepal.net/article/Could_Michael_Jackson_s_This_Is_It_win_an_Oscar.htm 29th Oct,2009 By Mike Collett-White LONDON - The London film festival closes on Thursday with the world premiere of "Nowhere Boy," about John Lennon's rebellious teenage years and his torrid relationship with his aunt and mother before the Beatles were formed. The directorial debut of video artist Sam Taylor-Wood, the movie stars Aaron Johnson as an angry, confused Lennon who struggles to understand why his mother Julia left him with his aunt Mimi when he was a small boy. The film plays on the contrast between his "buttoned-up," straight-laced aunt, played by Kristin Scott Thomas, and his fun-loving mother who encourages him to listen to rock'n'roll and teaches him the banjo. Asked how reliable her account of the star's troubled youth was, Taylor-Wood told BBC Radio: "There are often versions of truth. Maybe if you'd spoken to Mimi she'd have had one version and Julia, his mother, would have had another version. So as much as possible I think it's pretty close." She also confessed that tackling a subject as revered as Lennon in her first feature film was daunting. "I think I went into it fairly naively," said the 42-year-old. "It wasn't really until I spent a lot of time in Liverpool and walking around that it started to dawn on me the magnitude of the subject matter I'd taken on. And there were moments when I thought, 'I just can't handle this, this is too big.'" DEBT TO MINGHELLA The script was written by Matt Greenhalgh, who won acclaim for his screenplay for another rock biopic "Control," about the life and death of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis. Greenhalgh said he went to Liverpool in northern England and visited the area where Lennon grew up as well as St. Peter's Church Hall where he famously first met Paul McCartney. His story traces the formative months of The Beatles and ends with the band about to leave for Hamburg, an early step on their way to becoming the most successful pop act in history. "It's always nice to think of characters as kids because you can actually create them -- it doesn't come with too much baggage," Greenhalgh said in production notes for the film. Taylor-Wood, best known for her video installations and a string of celebrity subjects and friends, switched to film with the encouragement of the late director Anthony Minghella. "He gave me the confidence because he genuinely believed I could do it and told me so," she said. The gala screening of Nowhere Boy marks the end of the 2009 London film festival, which has lasted 16 days and showcased around 200 feature films. The annual event is attempting to compete with major international festivals like Venice and Cannes, and this year introduced a best film award which brings it closer into line with its rivals. French drama "A Prophet" scooped the prize. The majority of its movies have already been shown elsewhere, however, with only a few exceptions including Wes Anderson's animated "Fantastic Mr Fox," which opened the festival and ensured George Clooney was on the red carpet. http://www.articlepal.net/article/John_Lennon_film_brings_London_festival_to_an_end.htm 29th Oct,2009 MEXICO CITY (AFP) - – As scientists race the clock to increase food production worldwide, new trials to plant genetically-modified maize have stoked anger in Mexico, the cradle of corn. Many here are sensitive about meddling with maize, which dates back to pre-Hispanic times, when mythologies held that people were created from corn. Some fear Mexico could one day lose the wealth of native varieties it still produces, including red and blue, to a few, tough breeds of GM maize, as well the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of subsistence farmers. The government this month granted its first 22 permits to agribusinesses Monsanto, Dow AgroSciences and Pioneer to carry out tests on GM maize on farms in north and west Mexico. Mexico is the number one producer of white maize, which is used to make its famous flat tortillas, but it imports increasing amounts of yellow maize from the United States, mainly for cattle feed. The tests are part of efforts to help the country return to maize self-sufficiency and keep food prices down. The price of maize has more than doubled since 2007, which prompted tens of thousands to protest the price of tortillas in Mexico last year. "No country should be dependent for its food from other countries," Ariel Alvarez Morales, head of the Bi-Secretarial Commission on Biosecurity of Genetically-Modified Organisms, told AFP. "We can take advantage of this biodiversity we have in maize, and part of that can also be through this (GM) technology," Morales said. The United States, China and India are among countries that already grow GM crops, while six European countries have banned them. GM crops, also including soya and cotton, are highly controversial, with critics underlining potential risks to health and the environment. Greenpeace has led efforts to protect Mexico's maize after GM traces have turned up in samples of native varieties in the past decade, despite a moratorium on planting GM maize. The new test permits cover more than 10 hectares (25 acres) in northern border states and the western top corn-producer of Sinaloa, and the government has pledged to prevent them from contaminating native varieties. But Greenpeace claims they risk polluting 31 of more than 50 native seeds and is filing court motions to withdraw the permits. "The final goal is not to experiment. It's to open the door for these kind of crops which only benefit the companies, not the producers nor Mexican consumers," Greenpeace campaigner Aleira Lara told AFP. The government should spend more money helping small farmers and protecting native corn, Lara said. Of the country's 1.9 million corn farmers, some 85 percent have less than five hectares (12.5 acres) of land, according to government figures. As the GM debate rages on, much of Mexico's treasured maize diversity is for now protected in a giant seed bank in central Mexico, which keeps tiny grains of different colors and sizes at freezing temperatures, holding 27,000 maize samples from across the Americas. "It's a repository of potentially useful genes for future breeding and response to problems ... for example in response to climate change," said maize expert Kevin Pixley, at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Texcoco, where the bank lies among fields of maize. Scientists also cross-breed grains and advise on more efficient farming techniques to help them survive challenges, such as this summer's severe drought. They say that, in the current climate, Mexican farmers need all the help they can get. "If conserving diversity in the field actually conserves poverty of the farmers by having them grow varieties that are far inferior to those that are available, then I think it's a debatable issue," Pixley said. http://www.articlepal.net/article/Tests_on_treasured_maize_ignite_fears_in_Mexico.htm 29th Oct,2009 MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Phish and crew bustle about Shoreline Amphitheater's backstage area, a sprawling patio where memories linger of raging parties from bygone tours. Hours before a recent show, the scene is markedly different. Voices and footfalls carry across the expanse of empty picnic tables. A baby stroller clatters across wooden planks. As afternoon slants into evening, a ruckus finally kicks up: The clip-clop of a pingpong game between Trey Anastasio and his teenage daughter. "Fifteen-love," says the Phish guitarist. To understand why the touring jamband juggernaut broke up for nearly four years _ only to resurface with a stunning depth of clarity in live performance, its strongest album yet and an ambitious festival slated for this weekend _ measure this family centered serenity against the colossal traveling party they left behind. "We used to have a lot of people hanging around, and it was a crazy scene backstage _ CRAZY," Anastasio says later, between sips of tea. "I remember being here, a number of times, and you couldn't get through. There were literally hundreds of people, all the time. Everywhere." The scene was a symptom of a lifestyle the members of Phish knew they couldn't sustain. So after 20 years on the road together, they staged a farewell blowout in Coventry, Vt., in 2004, their seventh massive festival. It began with a freakish downpour and ended with the emotionally shattered band flubbing and struggling to say goodbye. More than four years after the split, Phish roared back to life in March with an electrifying three-night reunion stint in Hampton, Va., followed up with a summer tour chock full of bootleg-worthy shows. Their new album, "Joy," released last month, was critically lauded for its musical and lyrical maturity and refreshed, live-show inspired sound. And on Friday, Phish completes its comeback victory lap with the kickoff of Festival 8, a three-night marathon of sets in Indio, Calif., on the same grounds where the Coachella music festival is held. A fall tour will follow. While it would seem Phish back at full blast could risk relapse into old habits, the band agreed on a number of changes that have made their rebirth possible. For one, the number of dates the band plays has been scaled back; for another, the members have kept their pact to put families first, even on the road. That means lots of kids backstage _ seven in the Phish family so far, most of them on tour _ and not so much the hundreds of hangers-on who had snowballed out of control through the years. As Anastasio likes to point out, there were 3,500 people on the guest list at their "farewell" show in 2004. At the reunion show this year, there were 10 _ "and seven of them were under the age of 13." "It's just a very nice vibe," says bassist Mike Gordon. "And the music has been feeling really good as a result. I had no idea whether removing the party element would make it sterile or something _ but the opposite happened, where it feels like we have extra consciousness left over to jam harder. It feels like a great era _ it's the beginning of the rest, like we're in it for the long haul again." For his part, keyboardist Page McConnell says he'd always figured that Phish would take up the cause anew, and spent his off-time well to that end: Serious study of classical piano and a solo album built extra muscle behind his chops, giving the band more balance through which to hear complex interplay in the middle register. "I thought, well, I don't want to come back a little bit staler _ I'd like to come back better," McConnell says. "But I really feel it from all of us; the way we're listening to each other, and the way we're communicating, we really make each other sound good." Working with a vocal coach has also borne fruit for Anastasio and Gordon: On "Joy," the quirky, isn't-this-silly singing style has been all but abandoned. It's probably no coincidence that "Billy Breathes," another vocally strong and widely cherished Phish studio recording from 1996, was also produced by Steve Lillywhite. "I told them, 'Look - this record is your first in a few years, you're all in a good space ... you just need to be YOU,'" he recalls. "I really felt like this was a new band. They were very relaxed, and I think one of the reasons was, they have these memories of the 'Billy Breathes' sessions, of me just coming in and taking a great weight off their shoulders." Whatever the reason, everything about Phish feels lighter this time around. Even the selection of the Empire Polo Fields for Festival 8 was made in part to ease the usual traffic- and weather-related headaches that have plagued Phish festivals past: The Coachella site is cool and dry in October, there's plenty of lodging nearby, and there are plenty of roads leading in. Perhaps the most pressure for Phish will be pulling off their Halloween "costume" surprise, a tradition of covering a classic album by another artist on Halloween night (Anastasio was understandably cagey about his choice _ but "Thriller" was notably still in the running, according to a process-of-elimination interactive on the band's Web site.) Whatever they decide to do, Anastasio says, it'll be more fun than the last time. "It IS more fun. It's SO much more fun. And it's hard to believe that, because it was really fun for quite some time. But ... it's fun to let all go, and just kind of ride the wave again." ___ On the Net: http://www.phish.com http://www.articlepal.net/article/Reunited_Phish_living_a_more_serene_band_life_now.htm 29th Oct,2009 PARIS (AFP) - – France's creme de la creme luxury firms, hit by a drop in sales on traditional markets, on Thursday launched a China charm offensive, with a 3D website that gives a peek at the best France has to offer. Launched in Paris and Beijing by the Comite Colbert group of 70 luxury firms, the 250,000-euro website developed over two years (www.cColbert.fr) shows off top-end products as well as the best of the French lifestyle. The launch came as consultants Bain et Company said luxury goods are expected to slump 16 percent this year on the US market, 10 percent in Japan and eight percent in Europe -- but see a 12 percent hike in China. "This is the first such internet site," said the Comite Colbert's Elisabeth Ponsolle des Portes. "3D previously was used for video and film but not on a website." Users can watch a ballet performance, drool over patisseries, check out Paris hot spots and see the latest watches, perfumes and scarves. "Luxury is not just about money but about culture and education," said the president of the Comite Colbert, Francoise Montenay. "Products can be more or less expensive and you have to learn to distinguish between a very good product and a less good one." Underlining the importance of the stakes, a number of leading luxury goods makers attended the launch of the site in Beijing, including Cartier, Hermes, Lanvin, Yves Delorme and Gien. The website is hosted by China's biggest portal sina.com and will be available for six months. In 2005, Comite Colbert companies registered 4.5 percent of their turnover in China, Hong Kong and Macau. That figure has gone up to eight percent on average, for some, up to 25 percent. Over the last four years French luxury outlets in China have tripled to around 1,600, with 45 new boutiques due to be opened in 2009-2010, including 38 in mainland China. http://www.articlepal.net/article/French_luxury_preens_on_website_in_China.htm 29th Oct,2009 KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - – Malaysian authorities have seized some 15,000 bibles imported from Indonesia because they use the word "Allah" as a translation for God which is banned here, a church leader said Thursday. "The church uses the bible and it is part of the worshipper's life. There is no reason why it should be confiscated," said Reverend Hermen Shastri, general secretary of the Council of Churches of Malaysia. "The bibles are used in the church," he said, dismissing suggestions by Islamic officials that they could be used to help convert Muslims who make up some 60 percent of the 27 million population. Shastri said the latest confiscation happened in September when airport authorities in Sarawak state on Borneo island seized 10,000 copies of the Indonesian-language bibles which feature the disputed word "Allah". Another 5,000 copies were confiscated in March, he said. "The reason given for the detention of the Scriptures was because they contain banned words," he said. The Catholic Church has waged a two-year legal battle with Malaysian authorities over the use of the word "Allah" as a translation for "God" in its newspaper published here. The Herald newspaper, circulated among the country's 850,000 Catholics, nearly lost its publishing licence last year for using the disputed word in its Malay-language edition. The government has argued that the word "Allah" should be used only by Muslims, who dominate the population of multicultural Malaysia. The row is one of a string of religious disputes that have erupted in recent years, straining relations between Muslim Malays and minority ethnic Chinese and Indians who fear the country is being "Islamised". Shastri said there was no reason to seize the bibles because the use of the word "Allah" pre-dates Islam. "The word is not sensitive in Indonesia and the Christians use it in the Middle East. It is mainly driven by other motives ... (to project) the dominance of Islam in Malaysia," he said. Officials at the home ministry, which Shastri said was involved in the seizure, were not immediately available for comment. http://www.articlepal.net/article/Malaysia_seizes_15_000_copies_of_the_bible_church_leader.htm 29th Oct,2009 ROME (AFP) - – Romans don't have to wait for Halloween to enjoy the macabre. The spirit of Halloween stalks the city's myriad churches, from skeletons galore to mummified monks, embalmed papal hearts to a purported piece of John the Baptist's head. A good place to start is the Church of Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Via Veneto. The ghosts of La Dolce Vita are quickly forgotten when the visitor enters the church's crypt, elaborately adorned by the earthly remains of hundreds of Capuchin monks. Vertebrae create a floral effect, while shoulder blades suggest the wings on the hourglasses symbolising the inexorable flight of time for us mortals. Clavicles also make up the Grim Reaper's scythe held by a skeleton attached to the ceiling. Decorated by the monks themselves using the bones of their departed brothers, the sanctuary is a series of alcoves dubbed the Crypt of the Skulls, the Crypt of the Pelvises, the Crypt of the Leg Bones and Thigh Bones, and so on. Mummified monks in their brown robes lie in niches or stand, heads bowed in prayer, against the wall. Here the Capuchins would come to pray before retiring for the night, contemplating the message that "Death closes the gates of time, and opens those of eternity," the church says on its website. Most chilling are three skeletons, displayed in the final alcove, of small children, said to have been members of the noble Barberini family that produced Pope Urban VIII and built the friary. Those who may be more shaken than stirred by the omnipresent reminders of death need to put things into perspective. Centuries ago, the Grim Reaper stalked the Eternal City in the form of famine, violence and diseases, notably malaria and tuberculosis. Whether their souls were headed for heaven or hell, Rome's legions of unidentified dead had a home at Santa Maria dell'Orazione e delle Morte, built by a charity, the Company of Good Death, that buried abandoned corpses or those of the poor. The 16th-century church near the banks of the Tiber -- convenient for fishing out corpses -- has a forbidding facade decorated with laurel-wreathed skulls and a winged skeleton. The effect is enhanced by moonlight -- as it happens, Halloween falls two days before the full moon this year. On a plaque near the entrance, a skeleton holds a banner reading "Hodie mihi cras tibi," the Latin for "My lot today, yours tomorrow." In the crypt, the upper part of a skeleton with one arm raised as if to say "hello" is set in the wall above a holy water basin. Only one burial chamber remains from a set that contained some 8,000 bodies until the late 19th century, when the graves were destroyed during the building of an embankment. Here the decor includes a candelabra made from vertebrae. For those on the threshold of eternity, there is the tiny but spooky Museum of the Souls of Purgatory, with purported messages from beyond the grave begging for help to get in. The tortured souls seeking prayers to speed the process left imprints of burning hands or fingers on items such as prayer books and garments, collected by Father Victor Jouet in the late 19th century from around Europe. Those with a taste for the grotesque on top of the morbid may be interested to know that a certain baroque church facing the Trevi Fountain is the custodian of the hearts and intestines of three centuries of popes, ending with those of Leone XIII, who died in 1903. The gruesome tradition begun by Pope Sixtus V raised the theological conundrum of how the popes' bodies would be recombined at the time of the General Resurrection, when people are to rise from the dead to face the Last Judgement. Presumably, the popes' organs will find their way across the Tiber to St Peter's Basilica where the rest of their bodies lie buried. Rome is well known for its catacombs, spooky underground cemeteries with thousands upon thousands of burial niches lining dark and narrow passageways, with the occasional sculpted mausoleum or stunning fresco -- but no skeletons, at least not in those that are open to the public. No matter, for skeletons, bodies and body parts abound elsewhere in Rome. One of the first sights awaiting the visitor to St Peter's is the embalmed body of Pope John XXIII (1881-1963), lying in an ornate glass case in the right aisle. At Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, another glass case contains the body of Santa Wittoria, lying on her side, propped up on an elbow looking out. There's also the Blessed Annamaria Taigi in Trastevere's San Crisogno; Saint Francesca Romana at Santa Maria Nuova in the Forum, and Saint Philip Neri -- his decomposed face covered with a silver mask of his likeness -- in the Chiesa Nuova, among others. Body parts are also commonplace. Saint Ignatius has a silver reliquary containing the arm of Saint Francis Xavier; San Silvestro in Capite claims to harbour a fragment of Saint John the Baptist's decapitated head; Santa Croce in Gerusalemme boasts the finger of Saint "Doubting" Thomas. http://www.articlepal.net/article/In_macabre_Rome_it_s_Halloween_all_year_round.htm 29th Oct,2009 WASHINGTON (AFP) - – A rare collection of unique, ornate books of divination consulted by shahs, sultans and Muslim laymen in 16th century Persia and Turkey are on show at Washington's Smithsonian Institution. "It won't happen again, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity" to see the brilliantly painted manuscripts, Massumeh Farhad, chief curator and curator of Islamic art at the prestigious institute's Sackler Gallery of Asian art told AFP. Titled "Falnama: The Book of Omens," the exhibition includes 65 manuscripts and fortunetelling books depicting figures from the Old Testament, the Koran and a host of astrological symbols that provided insight to people's questions about their future. The manuscripts, whose large size make them a rarity in Oriental literature, are pages from three of the four known books of divination from the Persian and Ottoman cultures after 1550. It includes the book of omens from the court of Shah Tahmasb, who reigned from 1524 to 1576). The works of art were lent by museums including Istanbul's Topkapi Palace, the Louvre in Paris, Berlin's museum of Islamic art, Geneva's museum of history and Dublin's Chester Beatty Library. The exhibition run until January 24. "It's the first study of these manuscripts, the catalogue is the first publication on the subject anywhere in the world," Farhad said. The books, she added, show a different view of Islam because they were used "in private secular context; the imagery is not used for religious reasons." Prior to a series of rituals and prayers, the texts were opened to a page at random and their images and accompanying verses would provide guidance or revelation for whatever was asked. "They were meant to aid the seeker in the process of making difficult decisions, from embarking on a voyage to waging war against an enemy, getting married or selling one's horse," Farhad explained. "Astrology and astronomy have always played an important role in the region, it's a very rich tradition" in the Muslim world. The manuscript depicted in haphazard fashion prophets from Islam and the Bible, including Adam and Eve, the Virgin Mary, personalities from the Koran and the symbols and planets from the Zodiac. "It shows a different aspect of the culture, a universal message: 'We all want to know what's going to happen.' The concerns that people had then are concerns that people have now," she said. http://www.articlepal.net/article/Rare_Muslim_books_of_divination_on_show_in_Washington.htm 29th Oct,2009 KATLENBURG, Germany (AFP) - – For nearly 20 years, Reverend Martin Weskott has been saving books printed in the former East Germany from the rubbish heap of history. It all began in 1991, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when a newspaper published the picture of tens of thousands of books tossed onto an open-air dump in Leipzig, eastern Germany, because they were no longer wanted. "With a few friends I got hold of a truck and we drove to the dump. We filled bags with books and brought them back, and then we did it over again," said Weskott who lives near Goettingen, in central Germany. "Literature has no place in a tip," said Weskott as he showed off his trove of books stacked in a barn next to his Lutheran church. Some 50,000 books, some in piles reaching up to the rafters, are crammed in the barn where parishioners and treasure-hunters are welcome to browse and shop after Sunday services. Token proceeds from the sales are given to a charity. "It's not by throwing culture away that people will rid themselves of their past", said Weskott, 57, who grew up in West Germany where the memory of the burning of books by the Nazis in 1933 still strikes a chord. After the fall of the Berlin Wall dividing East and West Germany in 1989, about 100 million books were thrown out, publishing experts say. Some came from the 8,000 public libraries, out of East Germany's 12,000, which were forced to close because of lack of funds. "No one wanted GDR (German Democratic Republic, as East Germany was known) books anymore," said Siegfried Lokatis, a book specialist at the University of Leipzig. Some books were political, but many were simply of poor quality, printed on cheap paper. Weskott has already saved more than one million of them, including novels from East German authors such as Christa Wolf and Stefan Heym, foreign literature by writers approved of in communist Germany, but also school textbooks, medical books, cookbooks, DIY books and art books. In addition to selling them, the "book reverend", as he is known, has sent box loads to libraries abroad, as far away as Shanghai and Almaty. Among the more unusual books he stocks are copies of children stories such as "King Edmund", still in their original plastic wrapping. "Edmund, that was in fact Erich," says Weskott, referring to Erich Honecker, the former East German communist leader, and the critical book was banned by the regime. When it was finally allowed to be published after the reunification of Germany, no one wanted to read it anymore. Two old science books found in the reverend's barn allowed one specialist from the renowned Max Planck Institute of Physics to put together a very special instrument to measure light intensity. The books "allowed me to build a photometer made of steel and ceramic according to a process which has not been used in the West since the war," said Hans Lauche whose instrument was then sent off to Saturn aboard the Cassini space probe in 1997. http://www.articlepal.net/article/Saving_East_German_books_from_history_s_rubbish_heap.htm 29th Oct,2009 By Alex Dobuzinskis LOS ANGELES - Comedian George Lopez is about to enter a world in turmoil by competing for American TV viewers against the likes of Jay Leno, David Letterman and Conan O'Brien with his own nightly talk show. In recent months, O'Brien replaced Leno at "The Tonight Show," and Leno launched his own talk series in a 10 p.m. time slot normally reserved for hour-long dramas. Then Letterman made headlines when he was the victim of a blackmail attempt and admitted to having sexual affairs with women co-workers. Now, Lopez is entering the fray, two years after his sitcom "George Lopez" was canceled. The hour-long "Lopez Tonight" will launch on November 9 on cable network TBS, and the comedian told Reuters the time is ripe for a talk show hosted by a Latino like himself: Q: TBS has said your show will be like a street party. What does that mean to you, a street party? A: "Probably what it means to TBS is that it's going to be safe and a lot of fun and properly lit. A street party to me means it's dark, it's fun, you stay after the party, and you just try to condense as much fun into that one hour." Q: You were once a disc jockey for an L.A. radio station. Will any of that experience help you on this talk show? A: Yes. Let me tell you this, I already went through this with the TV show. Radio is really difficult to do. ... I think if you were to ask Howard Stern, I think he would probably tell you that there isn't a more divisive, backbiting business that you could ever run into. I wasn't prepared for any of that when I had the opportunity to do radio, but what I learned in those 10 months surrounded by those people served me well when I did my sitcom, because I didn't freak out. ... And when they fired me , it's funny because my cardboard cutout passed me on the way to the meeting. I thought, 'Why is that not in the lobby anymore?' Some dude had it under his arm." Q: There's a lot of competition for late night talk show audiences. Where do you think you'll fit in? A: "Well, I'm at 11 so I don't have to compete with Jay Leno. If this show was at 10 o'clock, I don't think I would have taken it. Ten o'clock is an already established time for hour dramas with incredible, huge fan bases. ... I also would not have touched 11:35, because do I want any part of David Letterman? Absolutely not. Would I want to go up against Conan and the 'Tonight Show'? Not particularly, starting out as the new host. But at 11 o'clock, I get a little bit of a jump." Q: You write in your autobiography that your grandfather was the only real man in your life growing up. Why was he so important to you? A: "I never knew my father, and I grew up around guys who always had their fathers, and I always felt like I was less, because I was raised by my grandparents and I didn't have a relationship with my mother. And they were already older, and everyone else's parents were younger, and they had brothers and sisters and I was an only child. So everything that they had that shined, I had the opposite, that didn't shine." Q: You also befriended Richard Pryor toward the end of his life. What was he like when you knew him? A: "Well, he was very sick, and I remember I got him a satellite radio because he was spending a lot of time in bed, and he liked that. I would go over and bring him movies. Because when I was sick I got a lot of movies and I would deliver movies to him. He wasn't speaking at the time, so I would do some of his material for him. And he liked it, he would make sounds and things.... And to know him a little, to be able to stand there at his funeral and express my admiration and my respect and my love for him was an amazing honor." http://www.articlepal.net/article/George_Lopez_to_host_TV_talk_show.htm 29th Oct,2009 By Mike Collett-White LONDON - Noddy, the beloved toy character created by British author Enid Blyton 60 years ago, returns to book stores on Thursday in "Noddy and the Farmyard Muddle," written by the late writer's grand-daughter Sophie Smallwood. The book will be the first classic Noddy tale to appear in 46 years and is illustrated by Robert Tyndall who has been the artist for the stories since 1953. Smallwood, 39, who has admitted the challenge she faced was daunting, has created new characters including Stumpy the Elephant and The Bull and retained several old favorites like Big-Ears and Mr. Plod the policeman. According to the book's publisher HarperCollins, in the story the goblins are up to their old tricks again, turning cows blue, making the pigs woolly and driving the tractor into the pond. Fortunately Noddy is at hand to put things straight. But among the notable absentees are the golliwogs, characters inspired by black-faced minstrel rag dolls which have gone out of fashion because the term is widely interpreted as racist. "The golliwog characters haven't been part of the Noddy ecosystem for at least two decades now," said Jeff Norton, senior vice president at Chorion, the company which owns Blyton's literary estate. "Firstly, the storyline just didn't involve them, but secondly we all felt it was not appropriate to put characters and terminology into a children's book that have that connotation," he told Reuters. Chorion approached Smallwood, who is a teacher by profession, to pen a Noddy story to mark the character's diamond anniversary. Smallwood already knew illustrator Tyndall. "This is the first classic Noddy tale for more than 40 years and goes back to the 1950s style versus the more modern, CGI animated version," Norton said. Chorion has built the Noddy brand into a global industry worth 200 million pounds a year, and many children will know the stories in their modern incarnations and through television series rather than through the old books. Blyton was born in 1897 and died in 1968, and became one of the most successful children's authors of the 20th century. Chorion said Noddy's original tales alone account for 200 million copies sold. Blyton's other classic series include "The Famous Five" and "The Secret Seven." http://www.articlepal.net/article/Noddy_returns_minus_golliwogs_to_mark_60th_year.htm 29th Oct,2009 NEW ORLEANS – Rapper Eminem performs along with KISS this weekend at Voodoo Experience, the punk and rock music festival to be held amid the live oaks and lagoons at New Orleans City Park. "This is the only concert Eminem is doing all year," said Voodoo producer Steven Rehage. "We're really excited to have him back." Eminem headlined Voodoo in 2000 when his career began to soar with his Grammy-winning debut album "Slim Shady." The rapper went on hiatus after touring in 2005 and it wasn't until this year that he released "Relapse," his first album since 2004. Eminem is expected to perform songs from "Relapse" when he opens Voodoo on Friday. Other opening day acts include Ween, The Black Keys and Fischerspooner. On Saturday, KISS, Jane's Addiction, Wolfmother, Black Lips and George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic are the headliners. Closing acts Sunday include Lenny Kravitz, the Flaming Lips and Meat Puppets. "It's going to be a lot of fun," said Pepper Keenan, guitarist for the heavy metal band Down, which performs Saturday. "Mardi Gras is one thing, but this city is set up for a crazy holiday like Halloween." In all, Voodoo will have more than 100 music acts. Rehage said the "musical gumbo" will also include word artist-slash-political activist Jello Biafra and K'Naan, a Somali-Canadian poet-rapper-musician. The festival has grown steadily in attendance, drawing more than 100,000 fans in recent years. Widespread Panic, which performs Sunday, is one of the groups that has been active in Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts. Lead singer and guitarist John Bell said the group plans to tour a New Orleans neighborhood where it donated $150,000 to build a house for victims of the 2005 storm. "It's still kind of eery because you see a lot of places where houses used to be, some of the foundations and pillars that look like grave stones. But the community is really coming together," he said. ___ On the Net: Voodoo Experience, http://thevoodooexperience.com http://www.articlepal.net/article/Voodoo_music_fest_kicks_off_Halloween_weekend.htm 29th Oct,2009 Like most drivers, I don't think much about how my car gets me from point A to point B. The idea of fiddling with my Nissan Sentra's engine, brakes or suspension is as appealing as being stuck in traffic. About the only thing I can do to my car is fill it with gas. And yet I'm easily seduced by high-end auto-racing simulators like "Forza Motorsport" and "Gran Turismo." I enjoy popping the hood on a virtual Ferrari or Lamborghini _ because if I do any damage, I can easily reverse it. "Forza Motorsport 3" (Microsoft, for the Xbox 360, $59.99) still lets you play grease monkey. But if you don't know the difference between a transmission and a carburetor, you can still coax maximum performance out of even a Ford Focus, thanks to a handy "quick upgrade" button. That simple addition is emblematic of developer Turn 10's approach to "Forza 3": maintaining all the options that serious gearheads love while making the game accessible to people who just want to go for a spin. Once you're on the track, the most noticeable new feature is the ability to rewind a few seconds of the race. Anyone who's ever played a racing game knows the frustration of seeing a big lead wiped out by a spinout on a corner. Gameplay rewind lets you try that corner again, and it really comes in handy if you've gotten bleary-eyed at the end of a long race. For true beginners, "Forza 3" offers a variety of assists, including automatic braking, traction control and overlays that suggest when and where you should slow down. Once you start piling up easy victories, you'll want to turn off each of these options and add factors like tire wear and standard transmission control. One other welcome change is that all of the game's 400-plus cars are unlocked from the start _ you just have to earn enough cash to buy them. That means you can get one of the more exotic vehicles fairly early on, so you can upgrade quickly from a Hyundai to a Maserati. "Forza 3" looks sharper than ever, with gorgeous race tracks, detailed car modeling and the ability to paint whatever you like on your ride. And the in-car cockpit view, combined with the fact that every vehicle feels somewhat different, really makes you feel like you're behind the wheel. Fans of more action-packed, arcade-like racers like "Burnout Paradise" may find the simple presentation of "Forza" boring. And it does suffer from achingly slow loading times, taking about a minute to go from starting a race to actually putting the pedal to the metal. But since most of us don't make Jay Leno money, this is the only way we'll get a garage full of Jaguars and Porsches. And you won't get oil under your fingernails. Three-and-a-half stars out of four. ___ On the Net: "Forza Motorsport 3": http://forzamotorsport.net/ http://www.articlepal.net/article/Forza_3_welcomes_newcomers_satisfies_veterans.htm 29th Oct,2009 MUMBAI, India – The two child stars of "Slumdog Millionaire" are at risk of losing their monthly stipend and their trust fund if they don't attend school more regularly, a trustee for the fund said Thursday. Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, 11, and Rubina Ali, 10, shot to fame after starring in the Oscar-winning movie. But these days, Azhar is only showing up at school 37 percent of the time, and Rubina has only a 27 percent attendance rate, the trustee said. "It's pathetic," said Noshir Dadrawala, who helps administer the Jai Ho trust established by the filmmakers to provide an education, living allowance and housing for the young stars, who both grew up in Mumbai's real-life shantytowns. Azhar played the role of the young Salim, the main character whose childhood in Mumbai's slums helps him win fortune and love through a TV quiz show as an adult. Rubina played the role of female lead Latika, as a child. Dadrawala blamed the children's busy schedule for their chronic truancy. "They are constantly going to Paris and Cochin and Chennai," he said. "That's fine, but go over the weekend, not at the sacrifice of school." The children's parents said the absences were due to deaths in the family and other problems and promised to get them to school from now on. "Slumdog" director Danny Boyle and producer Christian Colson said in a statement that the children's families "need to honor their part of the bargain." "We are disappointed that Azhar and Rubina's school attendance remains patchy. We have urged both families to honor their commitment to ensure regular school attendance," they said. The filmmakers were in Mumbai to discuss future film projects and charity work. Dadrawala said the trust decided that if the children do not get their attendance above 70 percent they will lose their monthly stipend of about $120. If they fail to graduate, they will forfeit a lump sum payment set aside by the filmmakers to help the children, who grew up in one of Mumbai's more wretched slums, get a start in life. The filmmakers have declined to reveal the amount in the trust for fear of exposing the families to exploitation. Azhar's mother, Shameen Ismail, said her son had been truant over the past two months because he was inconsolable after his father died in September from tuberculosis. "He would cry often, so I kept him home from school for a while," she said. She promised his attendance would improve. "As long as I'm alive, I will make sure my son gets an education," she said. Rubina's father, Rafiq Qureshi, said the girl was not in school because her slum shanty was destroyed and she was cut on the leg by a piece of glass. "It will not happen next time," he said. In July, Azhar moved out of a metal shack in the slums and into a $50,000 one-bedroom apartment that the filmmakers bought for his family in Mumbai. Azhar's father remained in the slum because, his mother said, he did drugs and she did not want him in the new home. The trust was also searching for a house for Rubina's family, but her father said the budget was not enough to cover the cost and he was hoping the state government could make up the difference. The new homes are to be transferred to the children's names after they turn 18 provided they graduate from high school. http://www.articlepal.net/article/Slumdog_kids_truancy_threatens_their_trust_fund.htm 29th Oct,2009 NEW YORK – Roy DeCarava, a photographer whose black and white images captured Harlem's everyday life and the jazz greats who performed there, has died. He was 89. DeCarava died in Manhattan of natural causes on Tuesday, said his daughter, Susan DeCarava. He had been teaching an advance photography course at Hunter College, where he joined the faculty in 1975. Born in Harlem, DeCarava was considered to be among the first to give serious photographic attention to the black experience in America. Trained as a painter, DeCarava relied on ambient light, infusing his images with shadows and shades of gray and black _ a style that invited the viewer to look closer. "He photographed for himself, and ultimately produced a body of work that enshrined the social contradictions of the '50s, the explosion of improvisational jazz music in the '60s, the struggle for social equity, the bold faced stridency of the '70s and '80s, only to turn to even more contemplative realities during the later years of his life," his wife, art historian Sherry Turner DeCarava, said in a statement. "His contribution to American photography and culture is manifold," she added. Using a 35 mm camera, he chronicled black Americans doing ordinary things: A family watching the Harlem River; a couple dancing in their kitchen; a girl standing on a desolate street in a white graduation dress. DeCarava worked at a time of enormous creative energy in Harlem, whose many residents included prominent writers, artists and musicians. He spent years capturing candid shots of Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane and other jazz musicians _ many taken in smoke-filled nightclubs. "The Sound I Saw," published in 2001 and reprinted in 2003, is a collection of his jazz photography. In 1951, he became the first black photographer to win the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in the arts. In his scholarship application, he wrote: "I want to show the strength, the wisdom, the dignity of the Negro people. Not the famous and the well known, but the unknown and the unnamed, thus revealing the roots from which spring the greatness of all human beings. ... I do not want a documentary or sociological statement, I want a creative expression, the kind of penetrating insight and understanding of Negroes which I believe only a Negro photographer can interpret." In 1955, he collaborated with poet Langston Hughes on the best-selling pictorial narrative on 20th century African-American life titled "The Sweet Flypaper of Life." Some of his works were featured in the 1950 New York exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, "The Family of Man," that was curated by renowned photographer Edward Steichen. Jennifer J. Raab, president of Hunter College, called DeCarava a beloved colleague and teacher who "will long be remembered for his inspiring contributions to the arts and for enriching the lives of generations of students." MoMA mounted a retrospective of DeCarava's work in 1996. His works are in the collections of major museums, including the National Gallery of Art and the National Portrait Gallery, in Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York; and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Beside his wife and daughter Susan, he is also survived by daughters Wendy and Laura DeCarava. http://www.articlepal.net/article/DeCarava_photographer_who_recorded_Harlem_dies.htm 29th Oct,2009 By Bob Tourtellotte LOS ANGELES - The Michael Jackson movie "This Is It" earned $20.1 million at worldwide box offices on its first day in theaters as fans around the globe turned out in strong numbers, Columbia Pictures said on Thursday. The movie studio said the film, which shows the late pop star rehearsing for a series of comeback concerts before his death in June, made $7.4 million in the United States and Canada, and another $12.7 million internationally. "The studio believes that the worldwide launch, with very strong performance across North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia, represents an amazing beginning for the film and a reaffirmation of the global appeal of Michael Jackson," Columbia Pictures spokesman Steve Elzer said in a statement. Finding comparable films to "This Is It" is difficult because of the movie's unusual nature as a hybrid documentary and concert film, as well as the fact that its star was not alive to promote it. Moreover, "This Is It" premiered on Tuesday night and then began playing around the world on Wednesday, which is unusual for a movie that is not based on a major franchise like the "Harry Potter" or "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies. "It's difficult to make comparisons because there is nothing like this," said Paul Dergarabedian, who runs box office tracker Hollywood.com Box Office. Among concert films, one top performer recently was 2008's "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour." It enjoyed an opening, three-day weekend of $31 million, starting on a Friday, and went on to earn just over $70.6 million globally during its entire run. Another recent music movie was 2008's "U2 3D," which earned a total of $16.6 million worldwide during its entire release. Columbia Pictures paid $60 million to distribute the film and millions more to market it. Columbia is a unit of the Sony Corp's Sony Pictures Entertainment media group. INTERNATIONAL BOX OFFICE In the United Kingdom, box offices rang up just under $2 million, while French sales totaled about $1.4 million, and Germany just over $1 million. Japanese fans spent roughly $1.2 million, and in China, the movie delivered $730,000. The question now for Columbia is how well the movie will perform during the upcoming, first weekend. Jackson's fans were expected to turn out in droves early, but whether they will be repeat customers remains to be seen. Columbia has said the movie will be extended beyond its planned two-week run if ticket demand is high, and it plans a DVD release in 2010. Jackson died on June 25 in Los Angeles at age 50 after suffering cardiac arrest brought on by a drug overdose only weeks before he was to have begun the "This Is It" concerts in London. The shows had been hyped in the media as his chance to erase the stigma of a 2005 trial in which he was acquitted of child molestation charges. The nearly two-hour movie features Jackson singing and dancing to his biggest hits, including "Beat It," "Black or White" and "Man in the Mirror." Throughout the film, audiences see him working to create a show that would wow fans. http://www.articlepal.net/article/Michael_Jackson_movie_earns_20_million_on_1st_day.htm 29th Oct,2009 By Neil Hartnell NASSAU - The Bahamian lawmaker who caused a mistrial in the John Travolta extortion case escaped a contempt of court citation on Thursday when the judge ruled that his public vilification was punishment enough. Picewell Forbes, a member of parliament, mistakenly announced at a convention of the Progressive Liberal Party on October 21 that two Bahamian defendants accused of trying to extort $25 million from the American actor had been acquitted. In fact, the jury was still deliberating and had not reached a verdict. Supreme Court Justice Anita Allen declared a mistrial on grounds that Forbes' announcement gave the impression there had been an improper communication from the jury room. At a hearing on Thursday, the judge said Forbes showed "a dangerous lack of appreciation" for the integrity of the justice system and that she had considered punishing him with a fine or jail sentence. But she said he had taken responsibility for his actions by issuing a public apology and had been punished enough. "I believe you have suffered greatly, you have been vilified throughout this nation and, indeed, the world," she told Forbes. One of the defendants, attorney Pleasant Bridgewater, is a PLP member and former member of Parliament. Forbes' erroneous announcement that she had been acquitted set off a joyful celebration at the political party's convention. Forbes later said in his apology that he had recklessly repeated a rumor without bothering to verify it. Bridgewater and her co-defendant, former ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne, were charged with attempting to extort $25 million from Travolta over the death of his son, Jett, at a Bahamian resort in January. They were accused of threatening to give the media information suggesting the actor was at fault in his son's death, unless Travolta paid up. An autopsy found that Jett Travolta had died of a seizure and Travolta testified he and others had frantically tried to save the boy. Bridgewater and Lightbourne had pleaded not guilty and a new trial is expected next year. http://www.articlepal.net/article/Bahamian_lawmaker_avoids_jail_in_Travolta_mistrial.htm 29th Oct,2009 BRUSSELS (AFP) - – First, it was Commerzbank, ING and now Northern Rock -- European Union competition regulators are imposing tough conditions on banks that benefited from state bailouts, deepening concerns for the likes of Lloyds, RBS and Dexia. EU competition regulators on Wednesday approved the state aid contained in plans to break up and sell British nationalised bank Northern Rock in the wake of the global financial crisis. Competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said the proposed changes "will allow the bank to become viable in the long-term and limit distortions of competition." Welcomed on this occasion by the British Treasury, the deal to bring Northern Rock back from the brink of collapse will see it split into a "good bank" that will continue its economic activities, and a "bad bank" management company to run down the remaining assets. The British government's aid includes recapitalisation measures of up to three billion pounds (4.43 billion euros), liquidity measures of up to 27 billion pounds and guarantees for liabilities of several billion pounds. Once Britain's fifth-biggest home loan provider, Northern Rock faced potential collapse in September 2007 and requested emergency funding from the Bank of England -- sparking the first run on a British bank for more than a century. The commission's ruling comes after Dutch banking and insurance group ING said it would restructure, under pressure from the EU regulator, to pay back emergency state funds. ING said Monday it would sell off its insurance operations and raise up to 7.5 billion euros (11.25 billion dollars). As Kroes heads towards the end of her tenure in the plum competition job, she has made a concerted drive to rein in banks previously considered "too big to fail." Germany's Commerzbank has already been forced to shed 45 percent of its balance sheet after it received aid from the German state, which now owns 25 percent of the group. And Belgium's Dexia, like ING, was also yellow carded by the commission this month for announcing to markets the early repayment of debt without first alerting European competition authorities. Dexia -- itself under investigation for nearly eight months -- and ING have between them announced over one billion euros of such repayments. Bankruptcy is no longer taboo, in the commission's eyes -- with one banking source saying it is "frightening" what is happening with ING. Stock markets seemed to agree. Shares in the banks concerned fell following Brussels' announcements. Kroes has long had the two biggest British bank rescues -- Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group -- in her sights. Lloyds is expected to face a forced reduction in its share of the retail banking market from 30 percent to 25 percent, with the disposal of more than a seventh of its 3,000 branches, Britain's Independent newspaper reported on Wednesday. RBS, which is 70 percent owned by the taxpayer after it was saved from collapse by a government bailout last year, is also working on plans to sell off several hundred branches. RBS had to be rescued after it was ravaged by the credit crunch and weakened by its 2007 takeover of Dutch group ABN Amro at the top of the market. Last year, it recorded Britain's biggest ever corporate loss of more than 24 billion pounds (26 billion euros, 38 billion dollars). http://www.articlepal.net/article/Brussels_targets_bailed-out_banking_giants.htm 29th Oct,2009