Tuesday, March 17, 2009


Singer Amy Winehouse not guilty on Tuesday of attacking a fan during a party last year.

Diva attended a court hearing at Westminster in London. Previously posed for photographers.


The singer of 25 years is accused of assaulting a fan who tried to take a photo at a charity ball in London on September 26.

Judge Timothy Workman scheduled for trial in July and ordered bail of Winehouse.

The screenwriter Millard Kaufman, one of the creators of the cartoon character Mr. Magoo and nominated for an Oscar for his script of "Take the High Ground!" and "Bad Day at Black Rock", died at 92 years, reported a spokesperson for the publisher.

Kaufman, who successfully debuted as a novelist for 90 years, died Saturday of heart failure, said Laura Howard, a spokesman for McSweeney's Publishing which published his novel Bowl of Cherries "in 2007.


Among the scripts are also Kaufman "Never So Few," "The Warlord," "The Klansman" and "Convicts 4" plus an episode that worked in the television series "Police Story" in the film and television "Enola Gay".

In 1949 he wrote the screenplay for the film "Ragtime Bear", which first appeared Mr. Magoo, an old man of small stature who is in trouble for his poor eyesight, which refuses to recognize. Later, he co-authored the libretto for the short film "Punchy de Leon" in 1950.

The psychiatrist Khristine Eroshevich surrendered to authorities to face charges for allegedly over-prescribing drugs to Anna Nicole Smith before the overdose death of former model in 2007, told the Los Angeles police.

Rosario Herrera, police spokesman, said that Eroshevich was delivered at approximately 11 am on Monday at the Van Nuys district. She was released several hours later after filing a $ 20,000 bond, according to a communique from the office of his attorney, Adam Braun.


After a lengthy investigation by the Attorney General and other state agencies and federal prosecutors in Los Angeles last week was accused of conspiring to Eroshevich with another doctor, Sandeep Kapoor, and Smith's lawyer, Howard K . Stern _quien had become his novio_, to give the former model thousands of prescription pills that need to be able to buy.

Jerry Brown, California Attorney General, argued that doctors wrote prescriptions in false names and amounts prescribed to Smith unjustified highly addictive drugs, knowing that she was an addict.


Brown described Stern as the "main orchestrator" of the alleged conspiracy. Stern Kapoor and surrendered to authorities last week and both were released on bail of $ 20,000.

Braun has said that only Eroshevich was protecting the privacy of Smith to write prescriptions under false names and had no intent to commit a fraud.


The psychiatrist, who served Smith since 2006, he traveled several times during a period of six months to the Bahamas, where the former Playboy bunny's lived with Stern, and wrote the recipes.

Smith died on February 8, 2007 in Florida after suffering a collapse in a hotel. At that time he was engaged in a legal fight to inherit millions of dollars from his deceased billionaire husband.


Moreover, just five months before the son of the former model, Daniel, 20, died of an overdose of drugs in the hospital room that she occupied a few days after giving birth to a daughter, Dannielynn.


'Second Life', a computer program to create 3D virtual worlds and live a 'second life' online, is still popular, says the chairman of the firm to refuse to press reports that portend the destruction of this spoiled child of former internet.

Mark Kingdon, chairman of Linden Lab, the company launched in 1999 this game in which people were socialized as if leading a parallel life, shakes his head negatively when they heard rumors that claim that their site loses popularity. "The reality is that Second Life continues to grow, every second someone signs up," Kingdon says in an interview with AFP.


However, reporters who rushed to cover cyber-events taking place in Second Life ( 'Second Life', in English) that described the site as an online realm of science fiction come true, have been withdrawing their bets and before criticizing the community praised enthusiastically. A well-known website that publishes the latest news from Silicon Valley, Valleywag.com even placed in Second Life "list of dying," asserting that "there seems to be more academic than a failed experiment."

The number of "active users" of Second Life increased 25% since September 2008 while the money exchanged in the virtual world has grown in similar proportions, Kingdon said. "We are seen as the spoiled child of the Internet, as with (the site of socialization) or Facebook (the site of mini-blogs) Twitter, but continued to incredible levels," he insisted. "We'll see over time, but our society is growing and we're profitable," he said.


Second Life, where people are socialized in the form of animated characters called 'avatars', which are designed and dressed according to the taste of each, has been accused of inflating its success to report the total number of people registered without specifying how many their visitors.

According to Kingdon, 15 million people have used the virtual world of Second Life since its inception in 1999, and there are about 70,000 users connected at all times.


The 'ups' have increased from about 41.5 million hours in total on this website in January, higher than the 28.3 million hours of use during the same month of 2008, according to Linden Lab, headquartered in San Francisco.

According to the company, daily transactions in Second Life account for more than $ 1.3 million and more than 15,000 merchants selling clothes, artwork and other items for avatars, virtual-all.


During last year, according to Linden, users spent 360 million dollars in the virtual world.

Schools consider it a 'place' right to organize on-line courses and bands are using it to 'play' before an audience from all parts of the world, although somewhat scattered.


Moreover, companies whose employees are spread across the globe are increasingly turning to Second Life as a forum in which to organize their meetings. "There is something about that sense of presence," said AFP Karen Keeter, director of IBM commercial that uses Second Life for meetings. "Power to see yourself as an avatar sitting next to each other is a feeling of immersion that you get with no other alternatives."

IBM's campus in Second Life is a picnic area with hammocks, a garden with sculptures and a café where avatars can spend time chatting.

Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday that the distribution of condoms is not the answer in the fight against AIDS in Africa.

Benedict XVI never before spoken explicitly about condom use, although he emphasized that the Catholic Church is at the forefront in the battle against AIDS. The Vatican maintains that abstinence is the way to fight the disease.


"You can not solve the distribution of condoms," the Pope said to reporters aboard the Alitalia plane while en route to Yaounde, Cameroon. "On the contrary, it increases the problem."

Some priests and nuns who work with victims of the AIDS pandemic plaguing Africa which have questioned the church's opposition to condom use.


The Pope also said it intends to make an appeal for "international solidarity" for Africa in times of global economic recession.

He said that although the Catholic Church does not propose specific solutions, it can give "moral and spiritual suggestions.


Describing the current crisis as a result of "a lack of ethics in economic structures," the Pope said: "This is where the church can make a contribution."

The pilgrimage of Benedict XVI will take seven days to Cameroon and Angola.


Africa is the region where the Catholic Church is growing fastest in the world.

Benedict XVI departed Tuesday for his first pastoral visit in Africa. The flight took off from Leonardo da Vinci airport in Rome shortly after 10.00 am (0900 GMT) and is scheduled to arrive six hours later the Cameroonian capital of Yaounde.


The 81-year-old Pope said on Sunday the pilgrims in St. Peter's Square that will carry a message of hope to the African continent suffered poverty, disease and conflict.



British actress Natasha Richardson was hospitalized Monday in Montreal for a serious head injury suffered in a skiing accident, reports People magazine. The actress, 45, is the wife of Irish actor Liam Neeson and also the daughter of British actress Vanessa Redgrave.

Richardson was taken to a hospital near the ski area of Mont Tremblant after the accident. He was then transferred to a hospital in Montreal, according to the magazine. The website IrisCentral.com, which was the first to give the information, citing an official from the hospital saying that Richardson suffered a traumatic brain injury.

Neeson, who was in Toronto filming a movie, he went immediately to Montreal to accompany his wife in the hospital, told the press one of the publicists for the film "Chloe," which plays the Irish actor. Richardson Neeson married in 1994 and the couple has two children.