Michael Jackson’s doctor is more than US$770,000 in debt and his luxury resort home in Las Vegas faces foreclosure, court documents filed in Nevada have revealed.
Conrad Murray — whose home and office in Nevada were raided by authorities on Tuesday — began working for Jackson in May, after creditors went to court to recoup more than US$363,000 he owed for office equipment.
He also had been ordered to pay US$71,000 in overdue student loans, documents revealed. The doctor also faces likely foreclosure on his home in a gated community in Las Vegas after missing over US$100,000 in mortgage payments.
The mountain of debts could explain why Murray abandoned his own practice in Las Vegas to accept a US$150,000 a month job as Jackson’s personal doctor ahead of the singer’s 50-date comeback concert series in London.
Jackson died on June 25, and authorities are probing whether his death was a criminal act, with Murray the center of investigators’ attention.
Documents unsealed on Thursday showed that authorities searched Murray’s property seeking evidence of manslaughter, unprofessional conduct, “prescribing or treating an addict” and excessive prescribing.
In a disclosure of a more spiritual nature, pop diva Madonna recounted to Israelis the long search that led her to the Jewish mystic religion Kabbalah, in an article published on Friday by Israel’s largest newspaper.
Madonna, who will be in Israel in September as part of her Sticky and Sweet tour, said she had traveled the world many times over, dined with state leaders and achieved a high level of success but still felt that something was missing from her life.
“I was raised a Catholic and my father was very religious, but none of my questions ever got answered,” she wrote in the article that appeared in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper in English and Hebrew.
The Queen of Pop’s spiritual search led her to practice yoga, study Buddhism, Taoism and read about the early Christians.
“I learned a lot and I was very inspired, but I still could not connect the dots and find a way to take this knowledge and apply it to my daily life.
“I was looking for an answer,” the 50-year-old pop icon said.
She said her quest was over after she turned to the Kabbalah, an ancient Jewish mystic tradition.
In 2004, Madonna took the Hebrew name Esther but has not converted to Judaism.
British actor Jude Law is to be a father for the fourth time after being informed that a partner from a previous relationship is expecting, his publicists said in a statement on Wednesday.
The Oscar-nominated star of The Talented Mr Ripley already has three children with his ex-wife Sadie Frost. No information about the mother of his fourth child
was released.
“Jude Law can confirm that, following a relationship last year, he has been advised that he is to be the father of a child due in the fall of this year,” a statement said.
“Mr Law is no longer in a relationship with the individual concerned but he intends to be a fully supportive part of the child’s life. This is an entirely private matter and no other statements will be made.”
Law, 36, is currently single. He will next appear in director Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, in which he plays the Victorian sleuth’s trusty sidekick Dr Watson.
Joining Law is former world number one tennis player Boris Becker, who revealed on Saturday that he too is set to become a father for the fourth time.
“It’s true, we’re going to become parents,” the three-time Wimbledon champion told the Germany daily Bild.
The 41-year-old Becker married his 33-year-old Dutch wife Lilly Kerssenberg in St Moritz, Switzerland, on June 12.
Becker already has three children — two with his former wife Barbara Feltus and one with Russian model Angela Ermakova.
Ang Lee (李安) is in upstate New York for the first of several US screenings of his upcoming movie Taking Woodstock. Lee and screenwriter/producer James Schamus attended a benefit screening of the movie on Thursday night in rural Columbia County, near where some scenes for the movie were filmed last year.
Taking Woodstock is based on a memoir by Elliot Tiber and chronicles the lead-up to the festival that drew half a million people to a farm in the Catskills.
Woodstock’s 40th anniversary falls on Aug. 15.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
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
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist