An exhausted Michael Jackson stayed out of sight at his Neverland estate on Tuesday but his lawyer said the singer would take a "tougher" approach to managing his affairs and keep his bedroom to himself. Some of the jurors who acquitted Jackson on all 10 counts after a four-month child sex abuse trial said they were nevertheless troubled by the singer's behavior.
Internet auction site eBay ended a sale of free Live 8 tickets on Tuesday after Bob Geldof, the organizer of the awareness-raising concerts, labeled the site an "electronic pimp" and urged people to swamp it. Tickets to the star-studded London show, which aims to pressure world leaders into fighting poverty in Africa, were given away to the winners of a text-message lottery. But they immediately started appearing on eBay for hundreds of pounds.
Hollywood movie star Tom Cruise on Tuesday denied rumors his relationship with actress Katie Holmes was just a fabricated publicity stunt. "I have to laugh. It's just ridiculous," Cruise said at the European premiere of the film War of the Worlds in Berlin.
PHOTO: AP
The three vocalists of the chart-topping R&B act Destiny's Child plan to part ways at the end of their upcoming North American tour to pursue solo careers, their label said on Monday. The glittery trio first signaled their intentions last Saturday from the stage of a concert in Barcelona, Spain, when group member Kelly Rowland said their current "Destiny Fulfilled ... And Lovin' It" tour would be their last in Europe.
Actor Sean Penn, warming to his occasional role as a reporter, has quizzed the top contender in Iran's presidential elections about democracy and had a brush with security agents at an illegal women's protest. Penn, 44, on assignment for the San Franciso Chronicle ahead of presidential elections tomorrow, had already caused a stir by turning up to listen to worshippers chant "Death to America" at Friday prayers in Tehran last week.
The father of Canadian rock music icon Neil Young died on Sunday at his home in Kingston in central Canada, local media reported.
As a journalist with several Canadian newspapers, Scott Young traveled the world most of his life covering World War II, the assassination of former US president John F. Kennedy and countless sporting events.
He also wrote about 40 books, including the 1984 Neil and Me about his relationship with his famous son, whose musical abilities he purportedly first encouraged by giving him a ukulele in 1958. Shortly after, he split with Neil's mother.
Scott Young married three times and had seven children and stepchildren. He was 87 years old.
The golden treasures of Egyptian boy-king Tutankhamun's tomb are set to dazzle America for the first time in three decades with today's Hollywood-style launch of a unique exhibition.
Tinseltown will collide with the land of legendary King Tut when the blockbuster exhibit Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs begins its 27-month US run at a gala in Los Angeles to be attended by a constellation of stars.
The show, which boasts 130 funerary objects some of which have rarely or never traveled out of Egypt before, opens its doors 26 years after the last US display of artefacts from Tutankhamun's tomb ended in 1976.
Organizers are hoping the show will become a phenomenon and break attendance records set by the 1976 to 1979 show that gave birth to blockbuster exhibitions and hauled in nearly US$30 million for Egypt's government.
"Since the discovery of his tomb in 1922, Tutankhamun has captured the hearts of people around the world," said Zahi Hawass, King Tut's official caretaker and head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s