Michael Jackson leaves hefty debts, unrealized comeback

Along with a vast musical legacy and legions of adoring fans, pop superstar Michael Jackson leaves behind a mountain of debt and an unfulfilled comeback many hoped would rake in millions and erase his financial troubles.

The King of Pop died suddenly on Thursday at the age of 50, after a career spanning 40 years that included the biggest-selling pop album of all time, "Thriller."

Despite taking in hundreds of millions of dollars as one of the most successful pop musicians of all time, Jackson racked up about $500 million of debt, according to sources cited by The Wall Street Journal earlier this month.

His top assets, however, including copyrights to his own songs and a stake in the Beatles' song catalog, are worth more than $1 billion, according to a music industry source.

Jackson's career and image were tarnished by his mounting financial and legal troubles in recent years.

Known for huge shopping sprees for toys and antiques, Jackson was accused by an accountant during his 2005 trial on child molestation charges of spending $20 million to $30 million more than he was bringing in per year.

The lavish lifestyle was made possible in part by a $200 million loan secured by his stake in the Beatles catalog. Jackson owned the music in a joint venture with Sony Corp known as Sony/ATV. Jackson refinanced those loans in 2006 in a bid to stave off insolvency.

In addition, Jackson last November had to hand over the title on his Neverland estate in California to a company made up of himself and Los Angeles-based real estate investment trust Colony Capital LLC, the firm that holds his $23 million loan on the property.

Colony Capital has been sprucing up the ranch and planned to sell it, according to the Journal. Colony Chief Executive Tom Barrack told the newspaper last month the estate could fetch $70 million to $80 million, or more if Jackson's career were revitalized.

In a statement on Thursday, Barrack said he was "deeply saddened" by Jackson's death, but did not comment on the impact on Colony's business.

PLANNED BIG COMEBACK

To help turn around his financial fortunes, Jackson was planning a major comeback in London this summer, 12 years since his last tour.

AEG Live, which was promoting the 50-concert run at the 02 Arena, stands to lose as much as $40 million if its insurance is not substantial enough to cover what it has already spent on the production, Billboard reported, and one attorney said the company would not be able to recover any of those costs from Jackson's estate.

"The concert promoters can't sue the estate," said Bob Rasmussen, dean of the Gould Law School at the University of Southern California. "Once he dies, he doesn't have any obligation to perform."

AEG, wholly owned by privately held Anschutz Co, will also certainly miss out on the $400 million the company estimated it could raise through a 3 1/2-year plan to work with Jackson.But Jackson's greatest financial returns may come in the wake of his death. His long-term record company, Sony Music Entertainment, will likely reissue special versions of some his biggest-selling albums and possibly even rare recordings.

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Battles over Jackson's kids, assets may loom

Michael Jackson's three kids are with the singer's mother and "are doing fine," a lawyer for the Jackson family said Friday.

"They are in the care of a nanny," Brian Oxman told Us Weekly.

"Mrs. Jackson will care for them and I'm sure there will be all kinds of discussions that will take place about the kids."

The three kids - Prince Michael, 12, Paris, 11 and Prince Michael II, 7 - were often hidden behind masks by their oddball dad.

The two older children were born during Jackson's brief marriage to Debbie Rowe, while Prince Michael II was delivered by a surrogate mother Jackson never met.

While the kids are now with Katherine Jackson, a 79-year-old mother of 10, Rowe may be poised to fight for custody of the older two.

It's been widely reported she gave up her parental rights, but TMZ.com said she never completed that process under California law.

As a result, she's still the legally recognized mother and could take custody of Prince Michael and Paris unless a court determines it would be "detrimental to the children."

In general, Jackson's children were kept out of the spotlight that followed him everywhere.

But in 2002, Prince Michael II, also known as Blanket, was famously dangled off a hotel balcony by his pop as as onlookers below screamed.

Jackson later admitted the baby-dangling stunt was "a terrible mistake" and that he "got caught up in the excitement of the moment."

Oxman said the three children are "well-trained, well educated and extraordinarily talented. They get to play with their cousins and their nieces and their nephews. They are just smarter than smart can be."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/06/26/2009-06-26_michael_jacksons_three_kids_.html#ixzz0JYrXpxD8&D

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Celebs connect low-income children with dance

Cause Celeb highlights a celebrity’s work on behalf of a specific cause. This week, we speak with actress and singer Bernadette Peters and dancer and choreographer Jacques d’Amboise about their involvement with youth participation in the arts.

D’Amboise, formerly a principle dancer for the New York City Ballet, founded the National Dance Institute in an effort to connect public school children, especially those from low-income families, with dance. Since its founding, NDI has touched the lives of more than 2 million children. D’Amboise recently attended NDI’s Annual Gala held at the NOKIA Theatre Times Square, where Peters was the artistic honoree.

Peters, a two-time Tony Award-winning actress, has performed on stage and television, in concert, and on recordings. She recently wrote a best-selling children’s book, "Broadway Barks."

National Dance Institute holds its 2009 "Event of the Year," a celebration of John Lennon's life and legacy, on June 20-22 at LaGuardia High School Concert Hall in New York.

Bernadette Peters

Question: Why do you feel it’s important to come out and support this cause?

Peters: These kids that are dancing from public schools, they get a chance to perform and express themselves and have a chance at the arts. I just think it’s very, very important.

Q: What’s your favorite part about dancae?

Peters: It’s really a feeling that expresses itself through the body, and it’s a great feeling when it can come out like that. I think kids have so many feelings and emotions and that’s why it’s so wonderful to be able to express them.

Q: In a time when the economy is so bad and so many different charities are vying for support, why is it important to support an arts cause?

Peters: I always say, “Food feeds the body and the arts feed the soul.” So it’s always important. Can’t live without it.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Peters: I think all of this is very important. I know that the economy has been tight, but if you still can give a little bit, don’t forget the things that are close to your heart and support the things are close to your heart. Even if it’s a little less money than you usually can give.

Jacques d’Amboise

Q: Can you tell me about this organization, what you do for it, and why you feel it is important?

D'Amboise: I was a dancer, and it transformed my life. Being involved in the arts, using dance as a window to all the arts, and I just wanted to have a chance to express myself in a transformative way. So I thought, “Well, look how you were transformed by the arts. How would you get young people to be engaged with the arts on a really high level and use dance as that window or catalyst?” And so about 33 years ago I started this program, and now it’s National Dance Institute, but it has affiliates, which have different names, and well over 2 million children have been through the program.

Q: Are there affiliates all over the country?

D'Amboise: Yeah, and some in Europe and Asia. The ones that I’ve heard about are Netherlands, Madras, India, and I heard there’s one in Sweden, and of course we’ve done programs in Bali and Russia and Siberia. I mean pretty much everywhere. So it’s global even though it’s called National Dance Institute. It’s global in its outlook.

Q: Do you still dance?

D'Amboise: No, I’ve got a pair of artificial knees and, at 75, it’s a little too old. Although there’s Freddy [Frederic] Franklin, who I love and I always take to dinner, who’s like 94 is still performing. As long as you can move anything, you can dance somehow.

Q: Of all of your performances, which is your favorite?

D'Amboise: You know Melissa Hayden, who was one of the greatest ballerinas we ever had in this country, used to answer that — “Dance. What’s your favorite ballet? Dance is my favorite ballet, and what I’m doing tonight is the most important dance I am doing.” So, whatever ballet she was in that night became the most important, and I feel the same.

Right now, you and I are the most important, too. We’re part of our life. We don’t know five minutes from now, and the same with the artist. Every first performance, every closing night is that one performance. You don’t know if you’ll be there at tomorrow’s matinee, but you are on that stage at that moment. So, I would say every time I’m on the stage to dance, I would make that the single most important.

The whole world is that. Now, other ballets would challenge me. They’re always better than I could ever be, no matter how I kept trying to get better, and Apollo by Balanchine is probably that, and I did a lot of full-length ballet, not enough of them. I wish I could have explored it more. But, the real answer to that, right now, right now on the stage that I’m on at that second, on this stage at the moment.

Q: What has been your most memorable moment working with the children?

D'Amboise: There’s so many! We’ve performed at the White House so many times. We’ve performed … again, I would say NOW, tonight … tonight as these children are dancing, right at this moment … it’s like waves, a wave comes in, that’s the wave you’re in. The wave goes out, there’s another wave, that’s the wave you’re in. And, that’s the way our school is. A whole wave of children right now.

Q: With the economy in shambles at the moment, and because this is an arts organization, why would you say it’s important for people to continue supporting the arts even though there’s a large variety of charities out there?

D'Amboise: That question is asked all the time. An organism, whether it’s bacteria or an elephant, you need food, shelter and water. Protein needs food, shelter and water. But we’re more than elephants, or proteins, or bacteria. We’re human beings. And human beings have something extraordinary — a sense of wonder.

Wonder. Isn’t it wonderful? Look at the pyramids! Isn’t it wonderful? Look at that dance! Isn’t it wonderful? Look at that sportsman! God, he’s wonderful! And, also, I wonder what makes the stars burn. Isn’t it wonderful! So we have to support science, our arts and our sports. Those are the three things, human beings that play, human beings expressing emotion through the arts, human beings expressing wonder by curiosity on how does it work, can I re-create it, what is it? Science, play, and the arts. That defines us as humans. That’s why you’ll have people in concentration camps dying playing orchestra music. They’re saying, "We’re not just animals, we’re human, and this is what we do."
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US senators closer to $1 trillion healthcare bill

U.S. senators on Thursday moved closer to agreement on a $1 trillion U.S. healthcare overhaul that would provide medical coverage to nearly everyone and could be paid for without adding to huge budget deficits.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and other panel members cautioned there was no final package yet but said bringing down the cost was a significant step toward reaching an agreement that could gain at least some Republican support.

Baucus said panel members have narrowed negotiations to a set of options that bring the price tag to about $1 trillion over 10 years, down from earlier estimates of $1.6 trillion.

"We have options that would enable us to write a $1 trillion bill, fully paid for," Baucus told reporters after a closed-door meeting with panel members.

"We're getting a lot closer to an agreement," Baucus said.

President Barack Obama has made a healthcare overhaul that reins in costs and covers most of the 47 million uninsured Americans one of his top legislative priorities. He has turned up the pressure on Congress to pass healthcare reform this year and has indicated a willingness to compromise.

Democratic Senator Kent Conrad said lawmakers would pick through the menu of options to develop a final package that can earn enough votes to pass the committee and the Senate.

"Very substantial progress has been made over the last 24 hours," Conrad told reporters.

'FULL COVERAGE'

"We now have options that will get us to $1 trillion, paid for, and do it in a way in which you still have full coverage," he said.

Lawmakers are looking at taxing some employer-sponsored healthcare benefits to help pay for the package, a measure Obama opposed during his presidential election campaign.

Finance Committee aides said their plan as currently envisioned would provide for health insurance coverage for 97 percent of the U.S. population.

In order to bring the package within the $1 trillion price tag, senators said they had to scale back proposed subsidies to help individuals and businesses obtain insurance but they declined to go into details.

Earlier, the panel had been looking at providing tax subsidies to individuals with incomes up to 400 percent of the poverty level. Now they are looking at scaling that back to 300 percent or lower.

The Finance Committee proposal is one of two healthcare plans in the Senate, which hopes to pass a healthcare bill before the August recess. Three committees in the House of Representatives are developing a healthcare proposal.

The Finance Committee plan is seen as the best chance to negotiate a bipartisan package, which Obama and Senate Democratic leaders said they want.

The panel's effort comes amid signs of strain in the diverse coalition pushing for an overhaul of a U.S. healthcare system that chews up 16 percent of the gross domestic product annually but trails many developed countries on measures like infant mortality and longevity.

Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, a major player in the negotiations, said it was too early to say how many Republicans would back the overhaul.

Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, also a key negotiator, has strongly opposed Democratic demands that a new government plan be created to compete with private insurance companies to cover the uninsured.

Insurers and doctors share Republican concerns that a new public insurance plan would drive insurance companies out of business.

"I'm certainly keeping an open mind but I am not very enthusiastic about anything that smacks of a government plan," Hatch told reporters.
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"Transformers" $60.6 million debut topples record

Action movie "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" pummeled U.S. box offices on its Wednesday debut, raking in $60.6 million in the second biggest single-day gross ever, box office watchers said on Thursday.

The effects rich, alien versus robot war movie, came close to eclipsing last year's single-day debut of Batman movie "The Dark Knight," which posthumously starred actor Heath Ledger and took in $67.2 million in domestic markets on its Friday debut.

Opening day ticket sales for "Transformers," released by Viacom Inc's Paramount Pictures and produced with privately held DreamWorks, includes $16 million from midnight screenings and gives the movie the biggest single-day box office on a Wednesday, according to Hollywood.com Box office.

The previous Wednesday record was held by "Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix," which had $44.2 million on its Wednesday debut in July 2007, including $12 million from midnight screenings.

The new film is a sequel to 2007's "Transformers" that took in a total of more than $700 million worldwide, and Hollywood has been hoping that the sequel would help the industry rebound from recent weeks of relatively lackluster ticket sales.

"Transformers" is based on the popular toys and cartoons about shape-shifting cars which morph into "autobots" that fight alien "decepticons" who want to control Earth.
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Palm Pre Reaches 1 Million Apps Mark

The Palm Pre App Catalog has reached 1 million downloads, nearly three weeks after launch of the device, according to data from mobile analytics and advertising firm Medialets.

Palm sold about 50,000 Pres and logged 100,000 downloads on launch day for an average of 2 app downloads per device and 5,500 downloads per app. Eighteen days later, Palm has sold 150,000 units and has an average of 6 apps per Pre and about 33,000 downloads per app, Medialets wrote in a blog post.

By comparison, Apple's App Store hit 1 million downloads 17 days earlier than the Pre, had 16 times the number of apps, and 26 times the number of users. Still, comparing the 1 million mark, Palm secured 26 times the number of apps that iPhone users had, and the average app in the App Catalog was downloaded 16 times more than apps in the Apple App Store.

As a result, Medialets said that congratulations are in order for Palm. "The Pre is an amazing device with lots of potential and we're looking forward to what a public SDK will offer both consumers and developers alike," the blog concluded.
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Ricky Martin Might Be Gay

We’d like to thank our special correspondent Captain Obvious for this breaking news over the weekend. Just when all five of you thought Latin superstar Ricky Martin might be all about the ladies, he went right ahead and opened up his options.

The Puerto Rican superstar concedes he is now one for the fellas in a new interview with Hispanic magazine TV Aqui. Pressed on his sexuality once again, daring Ricky said while he can still have fun the ladies he is now venturing into the men’s market to find his soul mate also. The 37-year-old revealed “his heart could belong to a woman or a man.”
Wow, Ricky Martin could quite possibly be gay? Never saw that coming. The Kidd is actually more surprised by the news that his heart could belong to a woman. I’m not sure how that’d work out, ya know, with the whole lack of penis thing going on there.
But then again, no one should be taken aback by this new shocking revelation… especially not when he revealed it by speaking into the reporter’s wang as if it were a microphone. Okay, maybe that’s not true… but would it really be that far-fetched if it was?
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DVD wars: Netflix warily eyes Redbox

With more subscribers than ever flocking to its DVD-by-mail service, Netflix Inc. is one of the few companies to prosper during the worst U.S. recession in 70 years. Yet Netflix CEO Reed Hastings still has something to worry about: an even cheaper DVD rental service run by one of his former lieutenants.

Once just an incongruous experiment amid the burgers and fries at McDonald's restaurants, Redbox has emerged as the largest operator of DVD-rental kiosks, with more than 15,400 vending machines set up to dispense $1-per-day discs in supermarkets and discount stores.

With Redbox opening an average of one kiosk per hour to lure budget-conscious consumers, Hastings is concerned that this upstart might upstage Netflix, whose cheapest mail-order plan costs $5 for two movie rentals in a month.

"By the end of the year, kiosks will likely be our No. 1 competitor," Hastings said in a recent conference call. "There are already more kiosks in America than video stores."

The fight for DVD-rental loyalties figures to intensify as Netflix, Redbox, Blockbuster Inc. and others vie for the attention of frugal consumers looking for inexpensive home entertainment. According to research from PricewaterhouseCoopers, Americans last year spent less money buying DVDs and more on rentals from stores, kiosks and online services like Netflix. The trend is expected to continue this year.

Redbox began in 2002 as a way for McDonald's Corp. to expand beyond the burger business. A strategy group inside the company tested a few "automated retail" ideas, as it called them.

"Vending sounded so last-century," said Gregg Kaplan, who led Redbox from inception until April, when he became chief operating officer of its parent company, Coinstar Inc.

McDonald's also tried a machine that made fresh French fries and an 18-foot-wide automated convenience store that sold everything from toilet paper to fancy sandwiches. Only the DVD kiosk stuck.

The group running Redbox grew from operating 12 of the DVD machines to about 900 in three years. By the middle of 2005, Redbox was itching to expand beyond burger joints, and McDonald's agreed to let it seek out another partner.

Coinstar already had a national sales team placing machines that converted loose change into bills in supermarkets, drug stores and other retailers — relationships it could use to pave the way for Redbox kiosks, too. In 2005 and 2006, Bellevue, Washington-based Coinstar invested $37 million in Redbox and took majority ownership, and this year Coinstar bought out McDonald's and other investors for up to $25 million.

Redbox, still based near McDonald's in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois, said last May it planned to go public, but the economy deteriorated and an IPO never materialized. Now DVD kiosks account for more than half of Coinstar's sales and profit. That profit more than doubled in the last quarter on sales that rose even more swiftly to $154 million. (An undisclosed portion of that came from DVDXpress, a much smaller kiosk chain Coinstar also owns.)

Meanwhile, Netflix grew at a slower pace, with first-quarter revenue rising 21 percent to $394 million.

Mitch Lowe, Redbox's president, came to the company after six years with Netflix, where he was vice president of business development. While at Netflix, he managed one of the company's competitive advantages: a popular system that recommends lesser-known movies to subscribers based on ratings for films they've already watched. That helps Netflix's 10.3 million customers sift through 100,000 movie titles.

In contrast, Redbox machines carry about 700 discs with 200 titles, mainly recent releases, and rely instead on the $1 nightly rate to encourage people to experiment. Four million people have swiped a card at one of the kiosks in the past month

Another difference: Because Netflix pays postage twice for every DVD it rents out, it does best when customers choose ambitious subscription plans but are slow to watch and return movies. By comparison, Redbox's profits depend on it renting out each disc as many times as possible before demand for the movie peters out.

To that end, Redbox tracks rentals to predict the right mix of titles and the right number of copies for each location. It also lets customers go online and reserve a DVD in a specific kiosk, then pick it up in person. The $1 price may be the initial draw, but most people end up paying to keep DVDs for two or three days.

If Redbox grows into a serious challenge to Netflix, it will have done what two much larger companies, Blockbuster and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., could not.

Both tried to match Netflix's DVD-by-mail success. Wal-Mart quit the business and gave all its customers to Netflix. Blockbuster still trails Netflix in DVDs by mail, and is also closing a growing number of unprofitable stores.

Now Redbox's success has prompted Blockbuster to promise 10,000 DVD kiosks of its own in a deal with NCR Corp. The maker of ATMs and cash registers acquired the second-largest movie kiosk company, TNR Holdings Corp., in April.

Redbox kiosks also sell used DVDs for $7, sometimes less than two weeks after they're available to rent, rather than the two or three months video stores usually wait. The practice irked some Hollywood studios — which may jeopardize the $1-a-day rental model that helps make Redbox so attractive.

Last year, NBC Universal's DVD distribution arm, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, pressed Redbox to limit the number of Universal DVDs its kiosks could carry and to destroy used discs instead of selling them at cut-rate prices. When Redbox refused, Universal ordered its partners to stop selling DVDs to Redbox at wholesale prices. Redbox sued Universal for violating antitrust laws, among other claims.

The case is still underway and Redbox would not say what effect it might have on its DVD rental or resale prices. But Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter bets that if Redbox loses the lawsuit, other studios could follow Universal's lead, pushing Redbox to either agree to restrictions or buy movies at retail prices, then raise rental rates.

Universal Studios Home Entertainment did not return a call for comment.

In the era of YouTube and Hulu, video iPods, Netflix's own streaming video service and devices that connect TVs to the Internet, storming an industry by way of supermarket vending machines seems very yesterday.

But while DVDs will someday disappear, for now the market dynamics still work for Redbox: almost 90 percent of U.S. homes have a DVD or Blu-Ray player, while only a sliver download movies to their computer or stream them from the Internet, said Russ Crupnick, an entertainment analyst for market researcher NPD Group.

Crupnick doesn't expect streaming services to fully catch on until the technology is built into more television sets. And since many people just invested in new flat-screen TVs, it will be years before they replace them.

"Digital options and physical options can coexist," said Crupnick. "People think there's this balkanization — `Once I get Netflix, I never go to Blockbuster. Once I go to Redbox, I don't need Netflix.' That's really not the way that it works in the world."
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Chicago couple with swine flu say ‘I do’

The bride wore white — and a face mask. Ilana Jackson and Jeremy Fierstien of Chicago wore surgical masks and latex gloves to their wedding last Sunday after finding out less than 48 hours before that they had swine flu. The couple decided to go ahead with the ceremony after doctors assured them guests wouldn't be put at serious risk.

To be sure, they also stayed 10 feet away from guests at all times, even walking around the gathering instead of down the aisle at a Highland Park synagogue.

Jackson says they'd joked about swine flu after both experienced vomiting, achy limbs and fever. But they never thought they really had it.

She says the circumstances were unfortunate but they have a good attitude about it.

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Obama updated on Iran, concerned about violence

U.S. President Barack Obama expressed continued concern about violence and "unjust actions" taken against Iranian demonstrators on Sunday during a meeting with advisers who updated him about developments in the Islamic Republic.

"At approximately noon today, the President met for more than 30 minutes in the Oval Office with foreign policy advisors to get an update on the current situation and developments in Iran," a White House aide said in an email.

"At the meeting, the President reiterated his concerns about violence and unjust actions being taken against the Iranian people."

Obama's comments echoed a lengthier statement he released on Saturday that urged the Iranian government to cease violent actions against its own people.

Obama, a Democrat, has sharpened his tone about the unrest in recent days amid escalating violence in Tehran and growing criticism from some Republicans, who accused the president of being timid in his response to Iranian leaders.

Gunfire rang out in Tehran on Sunday after demonstrations culminated in the death of at least 10 people on Saturday. Iranian authorities dismissed the protesters as "terrorists" and rioters.

The protests were sparked by a disputed June 12 election that returned hardline anti-Western President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power.
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What Really Hapenned in Roswell?

UFO watchers believe that in 1947 a flying saucer with aliens on board landed outside the New Mexico town of Roswell and that an elaborate cover-up by the authorities followed. The BBC's Kevin Connolly went to Roswell in pursuit of the truth about the Roswell incident.

There is a lunar quality to the landscape of New Mexico which seems somehow appropriate for a state which is our portal to the heavens.
A mock-up of an alien autopsy at the International UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico
Roswell's International UFO Museum is a big draw for tourists

It is here on a dried-up lake bed high above sea level that the radio telescopes of the US government's Very Large Array (VLA) receive signals from the outer edges of our expanding universe, chasing the very moment of the Big Bang through the trackless void of time and space.

And of course it is also here - perhaps - that 62 years ago a flying-saucer crashed to earth on a ranch outside the town of Roswell, killing its alien crew and prompting one of the most elaborate and protracted cover-ups in history.

The power of that possibility and the darkness of the nights here so far from the light pollution of the big cities are what draw scientists and curious tourists alike to this entrancing place.

And it is what motivates watchers of the skies to keep, well, watching the skies, obviously.

Alien ambiguity

If UFO true-believers are right, then nothing much that has happened on our tiny, fragile planet in the years since that stormy summer's night really matters very much.

What, after all, would Watergate, or Vietnam or Iraq amount to if we could establish that the US government knew for sure that we are not alone in the universe?

Most of the big questions about alien life and UFOs can be traced back to Roswell - not least the issue of how life-forms from another civilisation have such an uncanny sense of when the tourist industry in a small US town could use a shot in the arm.

My father saw the bodies, my father saw the craft
Julie Shuster, daughter of Roswell Air Force Base press officer

Are we really alone in the heavens, for example, and if we are not, do the civilisations with which we share the heavens mean us any harm?

Is it just a coincidence that aliens have never managed to find an earth-dweller who knows how to operate his own camera properly?

And why, if you have journeyed light years across the unknowable vastness of the heavens, would you confine yourself to a fleeting and ambiguous appearance before a handful of New Mexican ranchers?

Why not go the extra mile and find a research institute of some kind - unless our visitors have a sense of humour, of course.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Let us return to that stormy summer New Mexican night in 1947 when the story of the UFO landing first broke.

It was a world of tension and uncertainty.

The United States had detonated the first atom bombs - they were developed just up the road at Los Alamos, New Mexico - and was uneasily aware that the Soviet Union, its increasingly hostile former ally, had nuclear ambitions of its own. The Cold War was just beginning.

'Switcheroo'

Roswell was in those days the home base of the 509th Bombardment Group of the US Eighth Army Air Force.

Most of the boys in the 509th were combat veterans and when they were tasked to investigate reports of some kind of landing on a ranch a short distance away it seems reasonable to assume they were not too excited at first. That soon changed.

When they got the material back to base, they quickly concluded they were onto something historic.

Their first press release talked of the recovery of a flying saucer - it was only when the suits descended from Washington that the tone of the official communiques changed.

The base intelligence officer who was tasked with taking the wreckage to another base reports leaving it in an office there and returning a few minutes later to find that the space debris he had brought had been replaced with parts of a weather balloon.

The fix was in. Faced with evidence of one of the most significant events in human history the American authorities had responded by pulling the old switcheroo.

One account of those days comes from Julie Shuster, whose father was the press officer at the Roswell base.

She now runs the museum in the town which is the focal point for the local UFO industry (it is on a street where the street lights have been decorated so that they look like alien heads).

For Julie there is a simple issue in all of this which goes back to the version of events her father passed on to her.

"My daddy didn't lie. My father saw the bodies, my father saw the craft," she says.

"He saw bodies - large heads, almond shaped eyes... and material that couldn't be burnt, ripped, cut - anything."

'Majestic 12'

It is not quite so personal for the other true believers in the incident.

Dennis Balthaser, for example, is a retired civil engineer who is perhaps the most meticulous researcher of the Roswell incident.

He has spent years (and thousands of dollars of his own money) tracing every witness and every player from that night in 1947 and is convinced that there was a landing.

But he is at his most compelling when talking about the cover-up which follows.

Dennis lives in a rather frightening world where the US government would be perfectly happy to murder anyone (including him) who got too close to the truth.

He believes the US is really governed by a kind of secret committee of senior military and intelligence officials with the president serving as a kind of hired hand to deal with the public.

"Basically he can't be trusted with information like this" says Dennis.

"Back in Truman's time, we're looking at a thing called 'majestic 12', which was a group of some of the highest military people, some of the highest dignitary people we had. I believe today we still have a group similar to that that calls the shots."

Even before I met Dennis, I knew he believed that space travellers helped build the pyramids - where I, for example, am more inclined to the view that they are probably the work of Egyptians.

I expected to find him hopelessly naive - but the funny thing is he is so lucid and convincing that I left feeling rather naive myself.

(And in case you were wondering - if anyone ever lifts a quote from this article to promote a book or a DVD it will be that previous sentence.)

Missing balloon?

But here is the problem.

I mentioned before that New Mexico is a place where real science and Roswell science-lite co-exist.

And it is in that proximity that our explanation probably lies.

At the VLA (that centre of government radio telescopy) they will tell you that around the time of the crash, the US government was sending up special high-altitude weather balloons made of a then-classified material.

They were looking for atmospheric evidence that the Russians were testing their own nuclear bomb.

On the night of the Roswell incident, one of those balloons went missing.

Until, perhaps, it was found by the boys of the 509th.

And all that stuff about alien bodies being recovered and autopsies being performed? Well I leave you to speculate about that for yourselves.

If you find all that a little disappointing then you can always employ the debating technique favoured by UFO true believers - the deployment of questions designed to expose the lack of absolute certainty in almost all human affairs.

How do you know, for example, that there really is not a government department 27 layers above top secret tasked with keeping an eye on these things?

Perhaps they insist that articles like this are submitted to them for screening before publication.

And maybe this is not the script I originally wrote and submitted - just the script they sent back.

You could hardly blame me for giving in - I am sure you would not want to find my bleached bones left out in the desert, would you?

All I am saying is - keep watching the skies.
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US girl 'burnt in voodoo ritual'

New York prosecutors have charged a woman with setting alight her six-year-old daughter in a voodoo rite that left the child with life-threatening burns.

Lawyers say Marie Lauradin, 29, sent her daughter to bed after the ritual with serious burns on 25% of her body.

The girl was taken to hospital the next day, where doctors put her into a drug-induced coma. She has since been placed in foster care.

Ms Lauradin denies charges of assault and endangering the welfare of a child.

Defence lawyer Jeff Cohen said the girl was Ms Lauradin's only child and she would not have hurt her.

Prosecutors say she poured rum over the child during a Haitian voodoo practice known as Loa.

"The child's mother is alleged to have intentionally poured an accelerant over her young daughter's body, causing her to be engulfed in flames," said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

If convicted, Ms Lauradin faces up to 25 years in jail.

The girl's grandmother is also alleged to have taken part in the ritual and faces a separate trial.
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Call to ban child-in-car smoking

Adults should be banned from smoking in cars when children are passengers, the new head of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has said.

In a BBC News website Scrubbing Up column, Professor Terence Stephenson, said children deserved protection.

"You can't inflict this on your colleagues any more. Why should we treat our children's health as a lower priority?" he said.

A Department of Health spokesman said it would review smoking laws next year.

Read Professor Stephenson's column here

Professor Stephenson, who recently took over as head of the college, said children should not have to breathe in their parents' cigarette smoke.

"Why on earth would you light up in your car whilst your children are sitting happily in the back?

"On the assumption that you wouldn't pass the packet round and invite the kids to light up, why make them breathe tobacco smoke at all?"

He said the Canadian province of New Brunswick, California, South Australia and Cyprus had already introduced such legislation successfully.

And Professor Stephenson said second-hand smoke had been linked to chest infections, asthma and ear problems in children.

'Impractical suggestion'

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of the anti-smoking charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), backed a complete ban on smoking in vehicles.


"Smoking just one cigarette, even with the window open, creates a greater concentration of second-hand smoke than a whole evening's smoking in a pub or a bar.

"That's not just bad for children but for adults too, especially those who already have heart or lung diseases."

And a spokeswoman for the road safety charity, Brake, said smoking while driving meant people were not concentrating on the road.

"All that can add up to not having proper control of your vehicle or dangerous driving."

She said it might be useful to have a law banning smoking in the same way there was in force regarding using hand-held mobile phones.

But Neil Rafferty, Scottish spokesman for Forest, the pro-smokers' rights group, said: "We don't think that children should be exposed to smoke in a car but a ban would be a waste of police and court time.

"Would it be OK if you opened the sunroof or a window while smoking? It's an impractical suggestion.

"People like those at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health should be more realistic about what is possible."

A Department of Health spokesman said it would look at whether current anti-smoking laws needed to be extended.

He added: "We would always strongly recommend that people do not smoke in cars, especially those used to transport children."
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Apple stores to sell iPhone 3G S at 7 a.m.; Safari 4.0.1, Bluetooth 2.0

Having already promised to open its retail stores early, Apple now says that all its available stores will start selling the iPhone 3G S even earlier than expected. Also, the Mac maker has released Safari 4.0.1 and Bluetooth Firmware Update 2.0.

Not to be outdone by AT&T's 7 a.m. pre-order pickup on the iPhone 3G S launch day, Apple on Wednesday moved its doors-open time to 7 a.m., an hour ahead of the previous schedule.

Unlike AT&T, Apple isn't saving the early line for those already committed to an iPhone and will let on-the-spot purchasers buy an iPhone at that time in addition to those who already signed up for service at home. Apple also expects this timeframe to hold across all countries rather than just the US, which should lead to some of the countries in the first wave of the iPhone launch receiving their units before those in North America have fallen asleep.

In the US, six Apple retail stores will be closed for remodeling at the time of the launch.

Apple releases Safari 4.0.1

Just a week after the introduction of Safari 4 itself, Apple has patched it with Safari 4.0.1 (web link not yet available).

The update mends compatibility problems between the new Safari and certain iPhoto '09 features, particularly integration with Places and publishing photos directly to Facebook. Other bug fixes havent' been mentioned.

As of this writing, 4.0.1 is only available through Software Update.

Apple posts Bluetooth Firmware Update 2.0

A lower-key update has come Wednesday evening in the form of Bluetooth Firmware Update 2.0 (1.8MB).

Upgrading provides various bug fixes but is targeted at compatibility between certain Macs and both the Wireless Mighty Mouse as well as the Wireless Keyboard.

Only Macs with a Broadcom-made Bluetooth chipset will see the update. Installing requires Mac OS X 10.5.7 or later.
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Twitter power - or people power?

You'll have seen the suggestions, I suspect, that the remarkable scenes in Tehran and other major Iranian cities are a manifestation of a new phenomenon known as "Twitter power".

You'll have seen the suggestions, I suspect, that the remarkable scenes in Tehran and other major Iranian cities are a manifestation of a new phenomenon known as "Twitter power".

(Twitter, m'lud, is a method of communicating short messages via mobile phone or online, popular, apparently, among the urban young in Iran.)

I try to remain open-minded about new forms of communication (why else, after all, would I be blogging or on Facebook?), but I hope I am allowed by BBC impartiality rules to be mildly sceptical.

Where was Twitter when millions of people took to the streets of Manila in 1986, to put pressure on Ferdinand Marcos to quit?

Where was Twitter in central and eastern Europe 20 years ago to nudge Communist rule into the history books? Or in Tiananmen Square? Or more recently, in Kiev, or Tbilisi?

Of course, it's true that it is much easier now to spread a message than it was before the days of mobile phones or the internet. And I think the video footage taken on ordinary Iranians' mobile phones has genuinely added to our understanding of what is happening there.

But I am yet to be convinced that Twitter has done the same. Richard Sambrook, the BBC's director of global news, has written a useful piece about the pros and cons here Read More......

Clinton says Twitter is important for Iranian free speech

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday defended a US request to Twitter to postpone a planned maintenance shutdown as a way to allow Iranians to speak out and organize.

"The United States believes passionately and strongly in the basic principle of free expression," Clinton told reporters when asked about the State Department's request to the social networking firm Twitter.

"We promote the right of free expression," the chief US diplomat added.

"And it is the case that one of the means of expression, the use of Twitter is a very important one, not only to the Iranian people but now increasingly to people around the world, and most particularly to young people," she said.

"I wouldn't know a twitter from a tweeter, but apparently it is very important," she said, sparking laughter.

"And I think keeping that line of communications open and enabling people to share information, particularly at a time when there was not many other sources of information, is an important expression of the right to speak out and to be able to organize," she said.

The US government took the unusual step of asking Twitter to delay a planned maintenance outage because of its use as a communications tool by Iranians following their disputed election, a senior official said Tuesday.

The request highlighted the Obama administration's Web-savvy and the power of social networks such as Twitter and Facebook in organizing protests over the election results in the face of a ban by Iranian authorities on other media.

But it also seemed to run counter to President Barack Obama's public efforts not to appear to be meddling in Iran's internal affairs.

Twitter delayed Monday's scheduled tune up, which would have taken place during daylight hours in Iran, and rescheduled it for Tuesday but said the decision was made with its network provider, not the State Department.
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Money to shut nuclear plants falls short

Companies that run more than half of the nation's 104 nuclear reactors are not saving enough to pay for their dismantling and removal of radioactive materials when they stop operating, according to documents and interviews.

The companies that own almost half the nation's nuclear reactors are not setting aside enough money to dismantle them, and many may sit idle for decades and pose safety and security risks as a result, an Associated Press investigation has found.

The shortfalls are caused not by fluctuating appetites for nuclear power but by the stock market and other investments, which have suffered huge losses over the past year and devastated the plants' savings, and by the soaring costs of decommissioning.

At 19 nuclear plants, owners have won approval to idle reactors for as long as 60 years, presumably enough time to allow investments to recover and eventually pay for dismantling the plants and removing radioactive material.

But mothballing nuclear reactors or shutting them down inadequately presents the most severe of risks. Radioactive waste could leak from abandoned plants into ground water or released into the air, and spent nuclear fuel rods could be stolen by terrorists.

During the past two years, estimates of dismantling costs have soared by more than $4.6 billion because rising energy and labor costs, while the investment funds that are supposed to pay for shutting plants down have lost $4.4 billion in the battered stock market.

Not saving enough
The power companies have been hammered by the same declining market returns as colleges, companies and private investors. Industry critics say reactor owners weren't saving enough even before the financial collapse, and that federal regulators have not held the industry to a high enough standard.

Federal regulators are expected to release a report later this week that will describe shortfalls at 30 of the nation's 104 nuclear plants and ask operators for details about how they plan to resolve the problem.

The amount of money set aside for dismantling the plants has decreased at nearly four of every five reactors, according to an AP analysis of financial records provided every other year to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The government could force plant operators to set aside more money.

Plant owners say they have several ways to close the gap. In addition to idling the plants, the government can simply extend licenses to operate them. And investments could recover in the years to come. Industry officials say a 6 percent annual rate of return is a reasonable long-term goal.

Most nuclear plants will be operating for several more decades and will be able to recoup their fund losses, said Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade group.

'The funds are inadequate'
Nuclear power critics say those plans are not enough.

"No one at the NRC wants to acknowledge what is absolutely obvious to us, that the funds are inadequate and that the industry has bare assets," said Arnold Gundersen, a retired nuclear engineer and decommissioning expert.

Those critics say the industry is making assumptions about their investments that do not account for another market collapse, political obstacles to getting the licenses renewed and unforeseen safety problems that could make nuclear power less palatable.

Last week, British officials reported on a 2007 leak in a cooling tank at the decommissioned Sizewell-A nuclear plant. If the leak had not been promptly discovered, officials said, nuclear fuel rods could have caught fire and sent airborne radioactive waste along the English coast, harming plant operators or the public.

The average cost of dismantling a nuclear reactor is now estimated now at $450 million. The average plant owner has about $300 million saved up for the job. Typically, the money is raised through a small surcharge on electric rates.
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Student who blew kiss to mom denied diploma

A Maine high school senior says he was denied his diploma because he bowed during graduation and blew a kiss to his mother.

Justin Denney was about to receive his Bonny Eagle High School diploma on Friday when he pointed at friends and relatives.

Schools Superintendent Suzanne Lukas ordered him back to his seat. She told the Portland Press Herald newspaper she was enforcing behavior rules.

Justin's mother, Mary Denney, said her son's showboating didn't break any rules. She told WMTW-TV "a kiss to your mom is not misbehavior." She is seeking an apology — and a diploma for her son.

The commencement at the Cumberland County Civic Center also was disrupted when a giant inflatable rubber duck and beach balls were thrown. One student was ejected.

Some parents want a review of commencement policies.
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