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Friday, January 25, 2008

Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography, a biography of actor Tom Cruise written by journalist Andrew Morton, has hit the number one spot on Amazon.com‘s Top Sellers list and The New York Times Best Sellers list.

Morton’s book was published January 15, and hit number one on Amazon.com’s Top Sellers list on January 18. Yesterday, the book hit the number one spot on The New York Times Best Sellers list. The book is not for sale in Britain or Ireland, and the New York Post has reported that British tourists to the United States are buying copies of the book to bring back home.

Morton makes some controversial assertions in the book, including that Cruise is second in command at the Church of Scientology, and that Scientology was the cause of Cruise and Nicole Kidman‘s separation.

Cruise’s attorney, Bertram Fields released a statement which said that the book was “absolutely loaded with false statements.” Cruise has threatened a USD$100 million lawsuit against Morton and the book’s publisher, St. Martin’s Press. The Church of Scientology also responded to Morton’s claims in the book. In a 15-page statement, the Church called the book “bigoted” and a “defamatory assault,” and said that Cruise “holds no official or unofficial position in the Church hierarchy.”

Morton was interviewed by the Associated Press, and responded to some of the statements made by the Church of Scientology. When asked if he had attempted to interview Cruise for the book, Morton said “I asked Tom for an interview and he declined.” In response to a statement released by Cruise’s publicists that he had not interviewed “one person who has known or worked with Tom” in the past twenty-five years, Morton responded “I interviewed everyone from scriptwriters to producers to actors to actresses to teachers to girlfriends to pupils to Scientologists to people who have audited him.” When questioned about his assertion that Cruise is “second in command” of the Church of Scientology, Morton stated “Scientology would be a shadow of what it is today if it had not been for the involvement of Tom Cruise.”

Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that parts of the book “push the limits of responsible reporting.” A review in the Chicago Tribune was also critical, and Teresa Budasi wrote “If you read Andrew Morton’s unauthorized biography of Tom Cruise with a fan’s curiosity in one hand and a thinking person’s skepticism in the other, you’ll likely end up in the same place you were before you read it: not all that interested.” In his review of the book, Dave Shiflett of The Wall Street Journal commented on the litigious nature of the Church of Scientology, writing “Mr. Morton, apparently unfazed by the reputation of the group’s notoriously hair-triggered legal department, leaves few stones unhurled.”

Shortly before the book’s publication, a video produced by the Church of Scientology featuring Tom Cruise promoting his beliefs appeared on the Internet. After the Church of Scientology sent a legal complaint to the online video-sharing website YouTube, the video was taken down from that site, but is available on Gawker.com. A group of Internet users calling themselves “Anonymous” subsequently announced a “War on Scientology” including denial-of-service attacks against the Church of Scientology’s main websites. Andreas Heldal-Lund, founder of the Scientology-critical site and Norway-based non-profit organization Operation Clambake released a statement on Tuesday critical of the actions of the “Anonymous” group, saying that the Church of Scientology deserves the right to freedom of speech.

Actor Jerry O’Connell, who had previously acted alongside Cruise in the 1996 film Jerry Maguire, produced a parody of the Cruise video which was released on Wednesday. Other Hollywood acquaintances of Cruise, including comedians Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller, released statements defending Cruise and criticizing those who have mocked him for his beliefs. Sandler stated “To see anyone’s private life invaded and mocked like this is sickening,” and Stiller commented “People lose sight of the fact that Tom Cruise is actually a person. I feel for him.”

On Wednesday the Associated Press reported that Cruise will be a presenter at the Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony on Sunday.

Monday, March 28, 2005

San Jose, California — As the April 15 deadline for U.S. private citizens to file their 2004 income tax returns draws near, the government is reminding sellers on eBay that they may have to report any proceeds from sales on the auction site as taxable income.

This could be a surprise to some of the 135 million registered eBay users who consider trading on San Jose-based auction site to be a non-taxable hobby. Complicating matters, eBay says it doesn’t report individual sales figures to the government – users are responsible to report any profits on their own tax returns.

The amount of money traveling through eBay is big business. $33.8 billion worth of merchandise was sold on the site in 2004, up from $5.2 billion in 2000.

Although eBay pays taxes on its share of the sales (5.25 percent cut from each transaction as of Feb. 18), the IRS fears some small businesses are using the site to dodge tax responsibility. Adding to the confusion, some sellers may legally be a taxable business without realizing it.

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has a nine-point checklist it uses to determine whether or not a money-making activity is legally a business, which means money made is taxable, or a simple hobby – where it is not taxable. The IRS can consider a person to be a legal “business” even though they never incorporated or claimed to be one.

According to Woodbury, New York-based accountant Bart Fooden in an Associated Press interview, the IRS looks for such things as evidence that the auction seller depends on the eBay sales income to pay for activities other than maintaining the hobby, acts in a businesslike manner when selling on auctions or puts enough time and effort into the eBay activities that there is an obvious intent to make a profit.

But Fooden said in the same interview casual users probably have nothing to worry about. Those cleaning out closets or the garage and selling off junk for less than the original price paid are not turning a profit, so that money is not considered income and is not taxable.

Thursday, October 22, 2020

2020 Melbourne Lord Mayor candidate Wayne Tseng answered some questions about his campaign for the upcoming election from Wikinews. The Lord Mayor election in the Australian city is scheduled to take place this week.

Tseng runs a firm called eTranslate, which helps software developers to make the software available to the users. In the candidate’s questionnaire, Tseng said eTranslate had led to him working with all three tiers of the government. He previously belonged to the Australian Liberal Party, but has left since then, to run for mayorship as an independent candidate.

Tseng is of Chinese descent, having moved to Australia with his parents from Vietnam. Graduated in Brisbane, Tseng received his PhD in Melbourne and has been living in the city, he told Wikinews. Tseng also formed Chinese Precinct Chamber of Commerce, an organisation responsible for many “community bond building initiatives”, the Lord Mayor candidate told Wikinews.

Tseng discussed his plans for leading Melbourne, recovering from COVID-19, and “Democracy 2.0” to ensure concerns of minorities in the city were also heard. Tseng also focused on the importance of the multi-culture aspect and talked about making Melbourne the capital of the aboriginals. Tseng also explained why he thinks Melbourne is poised to be a world city by 2030.

Tseng’s deputy Lord Mayor candidate Gricol Yang is a Commercial Banker and works for ANZ Banking Group.

Currently, Sally Capp is the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, the Victorian capital. Capp was elected as an interim Lord Mayor in mid-2018 after the former Lord Mayor Robert Doyle resigned from his position after sexual assault allegations. Doyle served as the Lord Mayor of Melbourne for almost a decade since 2008.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

A Pembroke Pines, Florida teenager killed himself Wednesday, November 19, while broadcasting on the live video site Justin.tv. After making suicide threats and being encouraged by Justin.tv viewers and Bodybuilding.com forum members, Abraham K. Biggs, 19, committed suicide by taking an overdose of opiates and benzodiazepine, which had been prescribed for his bipolar disorder.

Biggs first began blogging about his planned suicide 12 hours before the actual event. He died after taking pills and lying on the bed in front of the webcam. After the broadcast, viewers who apparently thought it was a hoax posted messages such as “OMG”, “LOL”, and “hahahah”.

Hours later, after being alerted by viewers who had noticed that Biggs had stopped breathing, law enforcement and paramedics arrived, discovered his body, and covered the camera. The Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office has reportedly confirmed Biggs’ death.

According to Montana Miller of the Bowling Green State University, the circumstances of this case were not shocking: “If it’s not recorded or documented, then it doesn’t even seem worthwhile. For today’s generation it might seem, ‘What’s the point of doing it if everyone isn’t going to see it?'”

Biggs’ sister Rosalind was angry that neither the website nor its viewers reacted soon enough to save him. “They got hits, they got viewers, nothing happened for hours,” she said. She described him as “very happy” and “friendly and outgoing.” “On a normal day, you couldn’t really tell that he got as low as he did.” However, he did have relationship problems with his girlfriend, according to a friend.

Mental health professionals have warned about the possibility that other mentally troubled people would copy his actions. According to Dr. David Shaffer of Columbia University, “Any video showing it as heroic or romantic or glamorous could reduce the anxiety people might feel about suicide. It becomes a respectable behavior and lowers the threshold of suicide.” He and other psychiatrists recommend that potentially suicidal teens talk to others and “tell what’s going on.”

Friday, June 27, 2008

Newspaper The Guardian reports today that the sale of the BBC subsidiary BBC Resources Ltd., has cost £3.4m in consultancy fees — over £1m more than the £2.3m trading profit the commercial division is estimated to have made for the last financial year. Details of the failed privatisation were released by the BBC following a freedom of information request, and prior to publication of its annual report on July 8.

Fourteen months after advisers were appointed to try to sell BBC Resources Ltd., only one of the three main business units has been sold — its Outside Broadcast division to Satellite Information Services Limited (SIS), for an estimated £20m. On March 7, 2008 it was also announced that the studios operation would remain in BBC ownership and in early June, the fate of the third business was put on hold with the BBC stating that “like Studios, Post Production will remain within BBC Resources, which will continue to operate as a wholly-owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC.”

BBC Resources Ltd. made an operating profit of £6.1m for 2005-06, down from £7.4m the year before, with the BBC accounting for 83.3% of its turnover, down from 87.4% for 2004-05. Last year’s published figure for 2006-07 was £5.2 million — with BBC business at 80% of turnover.

BECTU Assistant General Secretary Luke Crawley is quoted as saying: “It’s fairly outrageous that around half the profit of the company [announced last year] has been spent trying to sell it. It’s an inordinate amount of money. The BBC was promised big returns if it sold BBC Resources but it’s only managed to sell outside broadcasts and we do not know how much it made out of that. We think the £3.4m is a poor investment.”

Friday, July 9, 2010

A California jury in a Humboldt County courthouse ordered nursing home operator Skilled Healthcare (SH) to pay $671 million (about €531 million) in a class action lawsuit from patients of SH’s 22 California facilities and their families. The jury found that SH failed to properly staff its facilities to comply with California state law.

The jury has not heard the case for punitive damages; however, it awarded the plaintiffs $613 million (about €484 million) in statutory damages. The remaining $58 million (about €46 million) was in restitution.

After the verdict was issued, Skilled Healthcare stocks plunged over 75% to a record low.

An official statement from SH says it “strongly disagrees” with the jury’s verdict. SH plans on filing an appeal to the decision. The company could possibly face bankruptcy because of this verdict.

One of the lawyers for the nearly 32,000 plaintiffs, Timothy Needham, claimed that inadequate staffing levels put SH’s patients at risk. He said, “The company knows that this lack of staffing causes a higher risk of problems for patients. Call lights don’t get answered, persons don’t get proper hygiene, persons don’t get their medications on time or the care they need.”

This lawsuit does not apply to SH’s facilities in Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas.

Saturday, June 11, 2016

On Wednesday, Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard, songwriters of the song Amazing performed by Matt Cardle in The X Factor six years ago, claimed British singer Ed Sheeran copied it ‘note-by-note’ in his 2014 single Photograph.

The duo claimed there are 39 identical notes in both the tracks and they seek about US$20m (about 17.8m euros) and royalties from their song in settlement.

Matt Cardle, performer of Amazing, denied his partipitation in filing the lawsuit. He tweeted, “Please read news articles closely. This is not my lawsuit. I think Ed Sheeran is a genius & 100% deserves all his success”.

Photograph, the fifth single of the album x, has more than 208 million views on YouTube and has been purchased 3.5 million times. The song was featured in Hollywood romantic movie Me Before You.

The hearing is to take place in federal court in California and Richard Busch is to represent the duo.