Joe Keane used his car to 'box in' McCarthy-Dundon gang members during a stand-off last week.

 

 The feared criminal - who is the son of slain mobster Kieran Keane - confronted the rival gang members following a night out in Limerick city centre. A source claimed Keane believed the car contained gangsters who knew Darren Coughlan, the innocent man he helped kick to death in November 2005. Earlier this month, gangster Joe (23) was released from prison after serving six years for Darren's manslaughter. Gardai claim Keane's release has seriously raised tensions in Limerick's criminal underworld. The notorious thug had previously vowed to get revenge on rival gang members who were behind the murder of his father, Kieran Keane snr. A source claims Keane clashed with Moyross crime figure Erol Ibrahim last week after he boxed in a car he was a passenger in. Tense Ibrahim is well known to gardai and is a close associate of senior members of the McCarthy-Dundon mob. The source said: "Keane blocked in the car because he thought it contained an associate of Darren Coughlan. He was wrong and there was a tense stand-off with Erol Ibrahim. "Apparently, Keane phoned Ibrahim later on and told him he was not the target." Gardai regard Keane as an up-and-coming gang figure and he is extremely close to his uncle, crime boss Christy Keane. The notorious thug has a reputation for violence and has previously vowed to execute his father's killers. When he was just a teenager, gardai seized a note written by Keane to his mother in which he vowed to kill members of the McCarthy-Dundon gang. It read: "People who set up and killed my father, all will be dead by the time I am 32, now I am 14. That's a promise boys." After his release, Keane flew to Spain for a holiday with his mother, Sophie, brother Kieran jnr and Kieran's girlfriend Laura Flanagan. However, since his return a source has claimed Keane has maintained a "high profile" presence on the streets of Limerick. ROW: Gangster Erol Ibrahim Ibrahim is an associate of a criminal who controls the drugs trade in Moyross. The mobster, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is facing serious charges later this year. Ibrahim, whose father is Turkish, first hit the headlines as a teenager when he was a witness in the trial of hitman Gary Campion. Evidence He was sitting in the front passenger seat of drug dealer 'Fat' Frankie Ryan's car when Campion shot him dead in 2006. He initially denied knowing the identity of the shooter but changed his evidence after a meeting with Mr Ryan's brother. However, in his second day of giving evidence in court, Mr Ibrahim said he had never seen the person who had killed Mr Ryan before in his life and could not identify him.

Two men took their friend's corpse on a night out with them to a strip club so they could use his ATM card to buy drinks

Two men took their friend's corpse on a night out with them to a strip club so they could use his ATM card to buy drinks, police claim.

Robert Jeffrey Young, 43, and Mark Rubinson, 25, discovered their friend Jeffrey Jarrett dead but delayed reporting the find to police so they could first have a free night out.

While keeping Mr Jarrett's body in their car, they stopped at a Mexican restaurant in Denver, used their friend's ATM card and withdrew $400 at a strip club before finally reporting him dead.

With friends like these: Robert Jeffrey Young, left, and Mark Rubinson allegedly delayed reporting the find to police so they could first have a free night out

The men, who are now free on bond, have been charged with abusing a corpse, identity theft and criminal impersonation.

It's unclear how Mr Jarrett died, but the men have not been charged with his death.

The bizarre scenario is reminiscent of the 1980s movie Weekend at Bernie's, in which two men discover their friend dead and maintain a façade that he's still alive while staying at his home for the weekend.

Boys night out: The men visited Shotgun Willie's strip club, pictured

Strip off: The two men went to a strip club, using their dead friend's money

One of Mr Jarrett's relatives, who asked not to be named, told the Denver Post Mr Jarrett had invited Mr Young, a former college friend, to stay with him for a few months while he had money struggles.

It is thought that on August 27, Mr Young arrived home at about 11pm and found his friend unresponsive.

 

 

 

Rather than call authorities, however, he went to see Mr Rubinson at a restaurant where he works to tell him about the find.

The pair then went back to Mr Jarrett's home, loaded him into Mr Rubinson's car and took the body with them to Teddy T's bar and grill, where they drank on his tab while the body was hidden in the vehicle.

'Young stated ... that it was obvious Jarrett was dead while all three are at Teddy T's,' Denver Detective Ranjan Ford wrote in the affidavit.

Weekend at Bernie's: The allegations are similar to the premise of the 1980s movie

The went on to eat at Mexican restaurant Viva Burrito and withdrew $400 on their dead friend's card at strip bar Shotgun Willie's, where they stayed until closing time.

Only then did the pair report their friend dead by flagging down a police officer at 4am.

'This is a bizarre and unfortunate crime,' Denver Police Department spokesman Sonny Jackson told the Denver Post. 

'This isn't anything you want to have happen to a loved one. You want them treated with respect in death.'

The relative of Mr Jarrett, a father who sold real estate, added: 'We just want to make sure they're prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.'

Tony Blair 'visited Libya to lobby for JP Morgan'

 

A senior executive with the Libyan Investment Authority, the $70 billion fund used to invest the country's oil money abroad, said Mr Blair was one of three prominent western businessmen who regularly dealt with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the former leader. Saif al-Islam and his close aides oversaw the activities of the fund, and often directed its officials on where they should make its investments, he said. The executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, said officials were told the "ideas" they were ordered to pursue came from Mr Blair as well as one other British businessman and a former American diplomat. "Tony Blair's visits were purely lobby visits for banking deals with JP Morgan," he said. He said that unlike some other deals - notably some investments run by the US bank Goldman Sachs - JP Morgan's had never turned "bad".

THE record company behind Irish rockers U2 has allegedly been unwittingly used by a multi-million dollar drugs trafficking ring

 

THE record company behind Irish rockers U2 has allegedly been unwittingly used by a multi-million dollar drugs trafficking ring. A year-long investigation by the US Drugs Enforcement Authority (DEA) is alleged to have uncovered a racket where the band's record company, Interscope Records, was being used to transport Class A drugs and money inside the United States. It is understood that the record company's Californian headquarters was being used for pick-ups and deliveries of hundreds of kilograms of cocaine while a New York recording studio at the other end was also being used for the drug and cash shipments. Members of the drugs ring allegedly used musical equipment called “road cases” for shipping cocaine from Los Angeles to New York, between January 2010 and June 2011. On the way back, the same cases were filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, according to documents filed in a US court. The illegal trading was allegedly going on for 18 months, but it was not alleged that Interscope Records or its staff knew or were involved in any drug shipments. The allegation was contained in a letter detailing evidence against James Rosemond, a music-industry manager and head of Czar Entertainment. Mr Rosemond, 46, known as ‘Jimmy Henchmen', is a rap music manager who represents artist The Game. He was indicted three months ago on drug trafficking charges. Federal prosecutors say Interscope employees knew nothing about Mr Rosemond’s alleged drug smuggling. However, it is not yet understood how Mr Rosemond's team got access to Interscope's Californian headquarters to drop off and take the shipments. The ring is alleged to have used a New York recording studio at the other end for the drugs and cash shipments, the Wall Street Journal reported. The cases were shipped by music gear specialists RockIt Cargo, which is the company responsible for shipping U2's musical equipment around the world — including during their latest 360 tour. However, there is no suggestion in the filing that RockIt Cargo knew what was inside the cases. RockIt has not commented. Interscope chairman Jimmy Iovine, long a highprofile executive within the music industry, has recently become something of a household name thanks to American Idol, which he joined last season to provide creative guidance to contestants. His company, which is part of Universal, released a statement yesterday afternoon. “Interscope Records has been informed by the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York that there is no evidence that any employee of UMG or Interscope Records had any involvement in the drug trafficking ring being prosecuted by that office,” the statement read.

Brazil judge's murder points to vigilante power

 

Judge Patricia Acioli was known for wielding a "heavy hammer," especially against rogue police who have formed illegal vigilante gangs. She had put more than 60 officers behind bars, most of them for murder. The Rio de Janeiro state judge paid for that fearlessness: Acioli was shot to death in front of her house last month. And all of the 21 bullets that hit her came from a lot issued to police, including some in Sao Goncalo, the city where she worked. While violence and impunity are common in Brazil, the brazen murder of Acioli was an especially heavy blow, a message of intimidation from the vigilante militias. The slaying was "a wound to the lawful state, to democracy; the figure of the judge is a symbol of justice," said Denise Frossard, a retired judge who presided over some of Rio's first cases against the militias in the 1990s. "If she is a judge and can be killed, how can a citizen feel secure enough to be a witness?" Acioli's death was the first murder of a judge in the state's history, though Frossard herself survived three assassination attempts and had eight security guards ensuring her safety while she was on the bench. Violent militias have grown in power and scope in recent years, taking over poor communities formerly controlled by drug dealers and coercing residents to pay for illegal utility hookups, transportation, and security. Their members include former and current police, firefighters and jail guards. Investigators say they have elected members as state and city legislators. They also have been praised by politicians, including Rio de Janeiro's mayor, for taking back swaths of territory from drug gangs. A probe by the state legislature in 2008 found militias were connected to execution-style killings, far-reaching extortion schemes, and the kidnapping and torture of a group of journalists investigating the gangs' activities. Acioli had been repeatedly threatened for taking on the police officers who were part of the gangs, and she had written letters to her superiors requesting protection. One week before her murder, she went to Rio police's internal affairs office and said she was being threatened by officers from Sao Goncalo, where she worked, and Niteroi, where she lived. The last case on her docket on Aug. 11, the day she died, involved policemen charged with executing an 18-year-old man in a slum. One of her last acts as a judge was to authorize their arrest. A month later, three of the same Sao Goncalo police officers were charged with her murder. The suspects knew the judge would ask for their arrest, and wanted to stop her, said Felipe Ettore, the head of Rio's homicide division, in a press conference this week. They didn't know she'd already issued the order. "Their way of stopping her was to kill her," Ettore said. "They went to court and followed Patricia to her front door." Nationwide, the lives of 134 judges are currently under threat, according to the National Council for Justice, which oversees the judiciary branch in Brazil. Requests for protection from magistrates jumped 400 percent in the month since Acioli's death, according to the Brazilian Association of Judges. The killing prompted the United Nations special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Gabriela Knaul, to urge Brazilian authorities to protect those charged with enforcing the law. "The assassination of Judge Acioli is evidence of the existence of a pervasive and serious problem regarding the protection of judges in Brazil," said Knaul, a Brazilian judge herself. Acioli's caseload was taken on by three other judges. Seven prosecutors are now working with them. "Her death did bring on a fear among prosecutors and judges; they're human, and it's natural to think, 'That could be me tomorrow,'" said Claudio Lopes, Rio state's attorney general. "But if this was done to intimidate justice, it is backfiring. We will be more rigorous than ever." The work is not only dangerous, it's difficult. Militias infiltrate the state from local police departments to state legislatures. They have a particularly nefarious effect on the legal system because they blur the boundaries between legitimate agents of the law and criminals, Lopes said. "They're often composed of people credentialed by the state to promote public safety, and they turn against the state, against the public," he said. "They usurp the authority of the state. In this way, they are a danger that goes deeper than drug traffickers." Even a few years ago, some politicians still praised militias for doing what the state couldn't do: take on drug dealers entrenched in the city's shantytowns. Former Rio Mayor Cesar Maia welcomed them as a "lesser evil" and a form of "community self-defense" against drug gangs, according to the newspaper O Globo in 2006. Current Mayor Eduardo Paes praised militias in a July 2008 interview on Globo television, saying they "brought peace to the population" in areas where the state had lost sovereignty to drug lords. Such views are changing as the body count rises. The 2008 investigation led by Marcelo Freixo, head of the state legislature's human rights commission, led to the arrest of one state representative and six city council members for militia activity. Hundreds were arrested on other charges because of information detailed in the report. One of those arrested, Rio City Councilman Luiz Andre Ferreira da Silva, is accused of plotting to kill the city's police chief and Freixo. In Sao Goncalo, 34 officers were put on leave after Acioli's death because they face serious criminal charges such as murder, according to Rio state's Supreme Court. Arrest warrants have been issued for 28 of them. In spite of the threats to Acioli, court officials had cut her security detail from four to one in 2007, said Tecio Lins e Silva, an attorney representing her family. "This is a matter involving my life, and it is very important," Acioli wrote in a letter appealing the decision. "I don't understand the treatment being given to the case." But the security officers were not reinstated. At the moment she was shot, no one was there to protect her.

1.6m patients' records on CD sent to landfill

 

The personal information of 1.6 million people has been put at risk after a CD was sent to a landfill site by an NHS trust by mistake, a watchdog said. The Eastern and Coastal Kent Primary Care Trust put the CD, which contained the name, address, date of birth, NHS number and GP of about 1.6 million people, in a filing cabinet during an office move. But no one told staff, who sent the cabinet to the landfill site. It has not been recovered, the Information Commissioner's Office said. Related articles £59m bill for flu pandemic that never happened Search the news archive for more stories The trust said it would now take action to bring in clear policies and procedures for moving office, improve staff training and boost security against unauthorised and unlawful processing, accidental loss and damage of personal records. The trust's chief executive, Ann Sutton, said: "When planning the office move, the security of the CD was considered and it was deemed appropriate to store it in the filing cabinet concerned. Although communication was established with the project manager co-ordinating the move, the existence of the CD was not communicated, leading to the disposal of the filing cabinet." A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "There is absolutely no excuse for breaches leading to the loss of sensitive and personal data... Having set clear standards for NHS organisations to adhere to on data handling, they must ensure that staff understand and follow that guidance."

'Rogue trader' Kweku Adoboli faces fraud charges dating back to 2008

 

tearful Kweku Adoboli, the alleged rogue trader at the centre of a $2bn (£1.3bn) loss at Swiss bank UBS, appeared before magistrates on Friday to be charged with fraud and false accounting dating back to 2008. A clerk at City of London magistrates court handed the 31-year-old Ghanaian a tissue as the 15-minute proceedings began, after which the one-time star trader was led away to remain in custody until a bail hearing on 22 September. Adoboli's charge sheet appeared to allege that he had taken steps to cover loss-making trades as long ago as 2008. A committal hearing was set for 28 October. The timescale of the allegations will raise questions about risk management procedures at the bank, put intense pressure on the chief executive, Oswald Grübel, and fuel calls from some Swiss politicians for the bank to exit its investment banking business, putting thousands of jobs at risk in the City. Many UBS bankers already fear for their year-end bonuses. Smiling at times, Adoboli spoke only to confirm his name, address and date of birth, while the Swiss bank refused to add anything to the statement it issued on Thursday when it revealed it had called in City of London police at 1am to investigate Adoboli after uncovering "unauthorised trading". British-educated Adoboli – whose passport spells his name as Kwaku – joined UBS in 2006 and was a member of the so-called delta one trading desk, where, among other things, he traded exchange traded funds (ETFs). These complex financial instruments, on which the regulators issued warnings earlier this year, are structured to mimic market movements. His registration with the Financial Services Authority was switched to "inactive" on Friday at the request of the firm – indicating that he is no longer performing that role. Two charges claim that Adoboli falsified records of ETFs between October 2008 and December 2009 and then January 2010 and September 2011. A third charge alleges that he committed fraud between January 2011 and September 2011 while senior trader in global synthetic equities. His lawyers at Kingsley Napley – the law firm that advised Nick Leeson, the rogue trader who broke Barings – did not issue a statement or enter pleas to the charges. His father, John, told Reuters from Tema, Ghana: "I want the world to have an open mind. He should not be sentenced before the trial begins." The former United Nations worker is hoping to fly to the UK this week and is applying for a visa. The City of London police, who arrested Adoboli at his luxury home on the edge of the City at 3.30am on Thursday, said their investigation was continuing, in "close collaboration" with the Financial Services Authority, the Serious Fraud Office and the Crown Prosecution Service. Adoboli's trading activity, by its nature, required him to perform frequent numbers of small trades. One of the last postings on his Facebook page – "need a miracle" – came at around the time the Swiss National Bank intervened to reduce the value of the Swiss franc, which has prompted speculation that this helped expose his losses. The bank, which employs 6,000 staff in London, will now have to pay for a detailed investigation being launched by the FSA and the Swiss regulator, Finma, into the control systems at UBS, the failures that permitted the losses to occur, and details of the unauthorised trading activity. The "comprehensive, independent investigation" will be carried out by one of the big four accountancy firms, although no timescale has been given for when it might be completed. The discovery of the "unauthorised trading" has come at a sensitive time for the City, coinciding as it does with the third anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and coming after calls from politicians in the UK and Switzerland for the break-up of high street banks to separate "casino" investment banking arms. "It shows that investment banking is a high-risk field and it's important that we clearly separate systemically important functions from the rest of the banking business," said Caspar Baader, of the Swiss People's party. Switzerland's Social Democratic party called for "consequences" such as a ban on "proprietary trading" and replacing "egomaniacal, arrogant and irresponsible managers". Even a year after the banking crisis of 2008, during which Swiss taxpayers contributed to a $60bn bailout of UBS, the nation's banking assets totalled SFr3.47tr – nearly seven times the country's gross domestic product. New laws requiring UBS and Credit Suisse to rein in risk and hoard capital to a higher level than required elsewhere in Europe have already been passed in the first chamber of the Swiss parliament and were debated this week in the upper house, known as the national council. Moves to hive off riskier investment banking and private client operations from those banking functions vital to the smooth operation of the Swiss economy also form part of the legislation, but would not be implemented immediately. Banking analysts believe UBS may now have to scale back its investment banking business and axe even more jobs on top of the 3,500 group-wide cuts announced last month in a bid to save £1.5bn – a similar amount to the losses the bank now fears it faces from the alleged "unauthorised trading". "We are making further cuts in our 2012 profit estimates, as we believe that UBS is set to announce a more streamlined investment banking business strategy in November, with certain business units being closed and additional jobs being lost. This is part of the bank's efforts to address the long-term structural issues within the financial services industry," said Christopher Wheeler, an analyst at Mediobanca. Ratings agencies warned of a downgrade of the bank's credit rating. Standard & Poor's placed the bank on its Creditwatch list, citing factors including the "setback to UBS's efforts to rebuild its reputation and demonstrate strengthened risk-management following its weak performance in 2007-2009", when it almost collapsed during the credit crunch.

Scarlett Johansson photos: How did they end up online?

 

Scarlett Johansson, Vanessa Hudgens and Jessica Alba have all allegedly been computer hacking victims Scarlett Johansson appears to have become the latest star to have private nude pictures leaked on the internet. But how did the images end up online?How do private photos get online? The two photos - one which appears to show Johansson topless and another showing her bottom - have spread like wildfire since Wednesday with a huge number of reposts of the images and links placed on sites including Twitter. News that the pictures had been posted was reported by the Hollywood celebrity website TMZ.com at 06:41 Los Angeles time (14:41 GMT) on Wednesday. But it's unclear where the images were first published. According to a blog on the Washington Post newspaper's website, the pictures initially appeared on video site WorldStarHipHop.com. By Thursday afternoon, they had been viewed almost 675,000 times there. But the Los Angeles Times' Ministry of Gossip blog says they came to wider attention when they appeared on US aggregation website BuzzFeed. Hacked photos of Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis have reportedly appeared online But even if she could find out the exact order of events, it would be of little comfort to the 26-year-old actress According to TMZ.com, she does not believe that all publicity is good publicity and has instructed her lawyer to approach individual websites to demand the pictures are taken down. He will have his work cut out. It now takes an experienced web user a matter of seconds to find the pictures if they so desire. And it seems millions do. Gossip website Holy Moly was one of the first UK-based sites to post the pictures, at 13:04 GMT on Wednesday, under the headline: "Scarlett Johansson naked: Either wonderful Photoshop or a very similar lookalike." Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote It's a celebrity gossip website, if celebrities don't want naked pictures of themselves plastered all over the internet then either don't take them at all or don't have them on your mobile phone” Jamie East, Holy Moly As a result, the photos attracted more than a million page views in one day. Holy Moly founder Jamie East says his staff first saw the pictures on US-based site reddit.com, which he believes was the original source. The photos had been published on the user-generated website by 12:00 GMT on Wednesday. One image of Johansson posted on the site, which had attracted more than 2,900 comments from users, has since been removed. "We had by far the biggest day in Holy Moly's history yesterday - 20 times our normal traffic and the site's currently down because of it," said Mr East, who is also a co-host on Channel 5 Big Brother spin-off show Bit on the Side Asked what he would say to those who think the publication of stolen photos is an invasion of privacy, he replied: "Nothing at all". "I'm not here to argue the morals of it. "It's a celebrity gossip website, if celebrities don't want naked pictures of themselves plastered all over the internet then either don't take them at all or don't have them on your mobile phone." FBI investigation Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security firm Sophos, agrees that the "golden rule" for stars should be to abstain from taking naked photos. Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote My guess is that, even if these photos were taken on Scarlett Johansson's phone, she would then maybe have emailed them to somebody” Security expert Graham Cluley "And certainly don't put them anywhere on the internet because you may have a weak password which allows hackers to get in." He says that if photos taken on a mobile phone remain on a mobile phone, it's much harder for hackers to get hold of them. "You would normally need physical access to the phone or to install maybe some malware onto it," he adds. He points out that High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens had naked photos leaked onto the internet after her web mail account was hacked. "My guess is that, even if these photos were taken on Scarlett Johansson's phone, she would then maybe have emailed them to somebody. "Then, either their email got hacked or they were in her sent folder in her online email account - that would be the most natural way." Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote There's been a frenzy of activity from the male population online looking for these pictures” Security expert Graham Cluley The cases of Johansson and Hudgens, as well as that of actress Jessica Alba and dozens of other stars who have been hacked, are all likely to be part of an ongoing FBI investigation. Mr Cluley suggests the hackers could be earning money by selling the photos to websites either directly or through intermediaries. "I would always suggest following the money trail if you want to find out who's responsible," he says. And he also offers a note of caution to red-blooded internet users. "There's been a frenzy of activity from the male population online looking for these pictures. "I would say to people, be very, very careful because if I were a virus writer it would be very easy to send out links saying here are more naked pictures of Scarlett Johansson. "And then, if you clicked on that link, your computer could then become infected."

Husband hits out at Palin sex, cocaine claims

 

Sarah Palin's husband jumped to her defense Thursday after an upcoming book claimed the Republican politician snorted cocaine off an oil drum and had a premarital fling with an African-American basketball star. "The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin" by Joe McGinniss -- who moved in next to Palin's home in Alaska last year as part of his research -- comes out Tuesday, as the Tea Party darling ponders whether to formally seek the Republican presidential nomination. "This is a man who has been relentlessly stalking my family to the point of moving in right next door to us to harass us and spy on us to satisfy his creepy obsession with my wife," husband Todd Palin said. "His book is full of disgusting lies, innuendo, and smears," he added in a statement carried by several US news media and political blogs. "Even the New York Times called this book 'dated, petty,' and that it 'chases caustic, unsubstantiated gossip.'" Citing unnamed "publishing sources," the National Enquirer said McGinniss claims in the book that Palin had "a steamy interracial hookup" with Glen Rice less than a year before she and Todd Palin eloped in 1988. Sarah Palin was then a local television sports reporter just out of college, and Rice -- a now-retired National Basketball Association all-star -- was in Alaska with his Michigan college team for a tournament, it said. "Todd was very much in the picture at the time and the couple married just nine months later," the supermarket tabloid said, adding that McGinniss quotes Rice as confirming the one-night stand. McGinniss also writes that both Palins "dabbled" with cocaine, and that before she became Alaska's governor in 2006, Sarah Palin was seen snorting cocaine "off an overturned 55-gallon oil drum while snowmobiling with pals," the weekly added. McGinniss is author of several best-sellers, including "The Making of a President" in 1969. There was no comment Thursday from either him or his New York publisher Crown, a division of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. In the New York Times on Wednesday, reviewer Janet Maislan said "most of 'The Rogue' is dated, petty and easily available to anyone with Internet access." She added that "Mr. McGinniss used his time in Alaska to chase caustic, unsubstantiated gossip about the Palins, often from unnamed sources like 'one resident' and 'a friend.'"

James Murdoch under pressure as News Corp shareholders start lawsuit

 

The shareholders – Amalgamated Bank, New Orleans Employees' Retirement System and the Central Laborers Pension Fund – had already filed a claim in Delaware Chancery Court against News Corp's board for allowing "rampant nepotism" at the company. However, on Tuesday they lodged a much wider-ranging suit with allegations of "computer hacking, privacy breaches and extreme anti-competitive behaviour" in America, which they claimed "foreshadowed" allegations of phone hacking at the News of the World. News Corp was forced to pay out $1bn (£610m) in damages in a series of legal battles over alleged dirty tricks at its News America Marketing (NAM) and NDS Group subsidiaries. In one case, an NAM director testified to issuing "false press releases impugning a rival it was trying to purchase" and "mutilating and removing" competitors, the lawsuit said. So far, criticism of James Murdoch has focused on his handling of the phone hacking scandal, which preceded his tenure as News International chairman. However, the new lawsuit claims privacy breaches happened on his watch. "The illicit phone hacking and subsequent cover-ups at News of the World were part of a much broader, historic pattern of corruption at News Corp," said Jay Eisenhofer, the shareholders' lawyer. Before the scandal, James Murdoch was widely expected to succeed his father, Rupert, as chief executive and chairman of News Corp. But Rupert Murdoch has since appeared to be backing Mr Carey.

Whitney Houston To Make Hollywood Return

 

Whitney Houston is to star in her first film for fourteen years, a remake of 1976's Sparkle. It will be the troubled singer's first movie role since The Preacher's Wife, in 1996. American Idol winner Jordin Sparks will make her film debut playing the titular character, one of the Williams sisters who begins her career alongside her siblings in a church choir, later finding fame as The Supremes. Houston will play Sparkle's resentful mother, while Faster actor Mike Epps will take on the role of Satin, a comedian who marries one of the sisters and drags her down into drug abuse. This is the second time producers have tried to make Sparkle - Houston was attached to the original project ten years ago, although it was shelved following the death of proposed lead star Aaliyah. It is currently unknown when shooting on Sparkle will begin.

Butler gets death threats over film

 

Hollywood star Gerard Butler increased his security team at the Toronto International Film Festival over the weekend after receiving death threats. The 300 star has been promoting his role in controversial movie Machine Gun Preacher, a true-life story based on a Hells Angel who rescues orphans in Muslim-dominant Sudan after converting to Christianity. Butler was forced to hire more bodyguards when he took to the red carpet at the festival after reportedly receiving a string of threatening messages. A source tells Scotland's Daily Record, "It is quite a controversial subject and some people are upset by the strong religious theme. We are treating this matter seriously."

Wallace's ex: I'm really sorry

 

Jessie Wallace's former fiance Vince Morse has publicly apologised to the actress for "humiliating" her. The EastEnders star, 39, called off their wedding just hours before she was due to tie the knot last month after the 50-year-old catering boss admitted sending an explicit picture of the star to his ex-girlfriend. He insisted on ITV1's This Morning that he had no intention of being unfaithful when he sent the text. In a message direct to Jessie, Vince said: "It's going to sound really ridiculous and I know I've humiliated you, I know that, but it doesn't stop me loving you, it doesn't stop me wanting to be with you. "I know it's probably going to be impossible because it's so public, but I just want you to know from the bottom of my heart I am sorry." Vince said that Jessie would be "furious" that he was speaking publicly about what happened but he wanted to "say to the nation that I'm really sorry". He said he was "drunk" when he sent the topless picture to his ex-girlfriend Karen Short, after he had a row with the actress. Jessie, the BBC1 soap's Kat Moon, had been engaged twice before she met Vince.

British Parliament Again Calls James Murdoch on Phone-Hacking Scandal

 

British lawmakers say they will recall News International's deputy chief operations officer, James Murdoch, for questioning in connection with the phone-hacking scandal at the now-defunct News of the World tabloid. Murdoch will face new questions about whether he knew that phone-hacking was widespread at the newspaper. It will be his second public questioning since lawmakers grilled him and his father, media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, in July. The recall centers around claims that James Murdoch saw an e-mail that is said to prove that phone-hacking at the paper was more widespread than earlier reported. Several people have been arrested in connection with the scandal, including former News of the World editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson. Coulson went on to head communications for Prime Minister David Cameron before resigning in January. News of the World shut down in July after allegations that reporters illegally accessed the cell phone voice mails of hundreds of celebrities, politicians, rival journalists and even murder victims. They also are suspected of bribing police for information. In a separate development, the mother of a man killed in the 2005 terrorist attacks on the London transport system has filed a lawsuit against News International for illegal hacking. Sheila Henry, whose son was killed in the July 7 bombings, is among several people seeking damages from News International. News International is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's worldwide media conglomerate, News Corporation.

Amy Winehouse died during detox?

 

Late Singer Amy Winehouse had a prescribed drug in her system upon her demise on July 23, says father Mitch Winehouse. Mitch reveals that his daughter did have the drug Librium in her body when she died and adds Librium is a prescribed substance that is given to those who are overcoming related stories Rehab after Amy Winehouse on Sept 14 alcohol detoxification, and is used to reduce seizures, Contactmusic reported. "Everything Amy did, she did to excess. She drank to excess and did detox to excess," he said Mitch insists that Amy had been winning her battle with booze, saying "the periods of abstinence were becoming longer, and the periods of drinking were becoming shorter". Mitch also says that Amy's attempts at giving up alcohol had resulted in seizures during which she would lose consciousness and speculated as to whether such an episode was the cause of her death.

Rapper Aggro Santos charged with raping two women

 

Brazilian-born rapper and former contestant on I'm a Celebrity has been charged with raping two women. Aggro Santos, 22, of Bickersteth Road, London, is accused of raping a woman in Chichester, West Sussex, on 7 May. He is also accused of raping another in Yeovil, Somerset, between 25 and 26 September last year. Another man, Tyrelle Ritchie, 21, of Vauxhall Road, London, has been charged with one count of rape in Chichester on the same date, Sussex Police said. Mr Santos, whose real first name is Yuri, and Mr Ritchie have been bailed to appear at Chichester Magistrates' Court on 19 September. Mr Santos's debut single, Candy, featuring former Pussycat Dolls singer Kimberly Wyatt, shot to number five in the UK charts last year. But he became more popularly known through his appearance in last year's series of ITV's reality game show I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! in which he reached the last six.

Millions of Hotmail users cut off by Microsoft 'cloud' failure

 

As well as Hotmail, the outage affected Office 365 and the Skydrive online storage service. Microsoft said the cause appeared to be related to the Domain Name System, the computer network that ensures that web addresses are connected to websites. “Preliminary root cause suggests a DNS issue,” the firm said on its office 365 Twitter feed. The problems lasted for at least two-and-a-half hours, beginning at around 4AM British Summer Time. On a company blog, Microsoft said it had fixed the problem at 5.45AM, but the repairs took some time to “propagate” through the DNS network.  "We are working on propagating the DNS configuration changes and so it will take some time to restore service to everyone. Again we appreciate your patience," the firm said. For Office 365, Microsoft’s subscription-only competitor to Google Apps, which went live earlier this year, it was the second major technical failure in less than a month. Such incidents are likely to give pause to organisations considering migration to online “cloud” services, whereby software is delivered from vast data centres, over the internet.

Red or Black: The criminal thing about Cowell's show?

 

The premise of Red Or Black is based partly on roulette and entirely on luck. It bills itself as a show that offers 'ordinary people across the UK the chance to become millionaires'. All contestants are asked to do is choose between red and black. Black or red. It's that simple. A no brainer for the brain dead. There is absolutely zilch talent involved; indeed a toddler on the brink of speech could do it. A highly motivated tadpole might just manage it. A smart budgie could be in it to win it. Yet this is what passes for primetime entertainment. Naked, slavering greed served up on a platter. No palpable skills required.  We have finally mined down to the showbiz nadir, reached the lowest common denominator of Saturday night entertainment. The prospect of total strangers doing nothing very much to win large sums of money is supposed to be hugely entertaining. Isn't that depressing? The nation has been shaken down, sieved and graded so that those who can actually do something, or at least think they can, have already auditioned for The X Factor, Britain's Got Talent, Big Brother, Countdown or The Weakest Link. Now we are left with the desperate dregs.  Padded out: Former X Factor winner Leona Lewis, one of Cowell's acts, appeared on Red Or Black Indeed, the very first Red Or Black winner, Nathan Hageman, has been exposed as a violent criminal who served a prison sentence for an assault on a woman, believed to be an ex-girlfriend. Red or Black and black and blue? It put the show on the front pages earlier this week, but it was not good publicity — for anyone. Hageman may have fulfilled his jail sentence and his debt to society, but a wife beater, by any other name, elicits scant public sympathy.  Even down in the grim bowels of public entertainment, there is little compassion for a man who hits a woman. Hageman may have done his time, but it appears that redemption is not yet his. And he must have suspected as much, otherwise why lie on his Red Or Black entry forms? Cowell was furious, and wanted Hageman not to be given the £1 million he had rightly won. Yet ITV says there is nothing it can do. Hageman had been allowed on Red Or Black despite the fact that producers knew he had a criminal record. He had claimed that he attacked a man, whereas in reality he was jailed for assaulting Amy McLean. As he was allowed onto the show without proper checks, he was allowed to keep his winnings. Beating up a woman is unacceptable, but beating up a man is OK? What a joke. ITV bosses are now carrying out stringent checks to make sure no more controversial participants appear, and have so far booted three dubious contestants off shows this week. Yet it all makes one wonder about their standards. If, in fact, they have any in the first place. Yet what can you expect on a show like this? If you remove the need for flair or aptitude, anything and anyone goes. Hundreds of thousands have already applied to be on Red Or Black, including the barely sentient, the desperate, the not quite there. Some were filmed sobbing in the queues about how hard life was, and how much they needed the cash. Very unedifying, for all involved.  Let me say it again. All you have to do is choose between red or black. Despite this, the shows are given a frill of respectability with cheap pomp and dreary stunts.  There have been motorbike daredevils — something that stopped being interesting pre-Evel Knievel. And David Hasselhoff doing a 'reverse bungee jump' — catapulted 230ft into the air — thrilled absolutely no one.  The show was padded out exclusively with Cowell musical acts, such as Leona Lewis and Il Divo. How have ITV even allowed this blatant plugfest? Successful game shows flourish by showing real suspense and thrills. Not this overblown and immoral nonsense. It's like Deal Or No Deal for the criminal classes. It makes Dale Winton's Hole In The Wall look like Mastermind. Where on earth do we go from here?

Citigroup banker faces 30 years in jail after admitting $22m fraud

 

Former Citigroup banker Gary Foster has pleaded guilty to embezzling $22m (£14m) from the bank, money he spent on a lavish lifestyle of fast cars and fancy apartments. He faces up to 30 years in jail. The 12-year Citigroup veteran spent hundreds of thousands on cars including a Ferrari and a Maserati Gran Turismo, even though he is legally blind and was unable to drive them. He hired a chauffeur. Foster, 35, was arrested in June at John F Kennedy Airport as he was getting off a flight from Bangkok. He had quit the bank in January before Citi had uncovered his scheme. A former treasury finance department executive, Foster earned $100,000 a year managing internal investments at the bank. Prosecutors said his scheme began in September 2003 and continued into 2011. He wired the money from internal Citi accounts into his personal bank account and covered up his tracks by assigning phony contract or deal numbers to the transfers to make them appear bona fide. According to prosecutors, between July and December 2010, he moved around $14.4m from Citigroup's debt adjustment account and $900,000 from the bank's interest expense account to his personal account in eight separate wire transfers. In a single transfer, on 8 November, he is alleged to have wired himself $3.9m. The US Attorney's Office in Brooklyn has already seized $16m in assets including his cars, an exclusive apartment in Manhattan's Rockefeller Centre, an apartment in Brooklyn and mansion in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. "The defendant violated his employer's trust and stole a stunning amount of money over an extended period of time to finance his personal lifestyle," said US attorney Loretta Lynch. "We will vigorously investigate and prosecute such conduct and seek to recover as much of the proceeds as possible."

American Banker Shows DOJ Sat On a Bank-Kickback Scandal

 

Jeff Horwitz has a big scoop in today’s paper, reporting on a HUD investigation that says banks forced mortgage insurers to pay them $6 billion in kickbacks over ten years. HUD’s inspector general tied a bow on the case and presented it to Obama’s Department of Justice, which has sat on it for two years now. It’s just the latest example of the Obama administration not going after the banks. Here’s the gist: Most homebuyers don’t put 20 percent down and banks require them to buy mortgage insurance from third parties to cover their risk. In the 1990s, banks started requiring insurers to pay them to reinsure the loans. Reinsurance is basically insurance for insurance companies, and if a deal isn’t crooked, the reinsurer will be compensated based on the risk it takes. But there was a major market flaw here (and an antitrust issue, if you think about it)—Banks control who gets to insure mortgages—and they took full advantage of it, naturally. If a PMI company resisted paying kickbacks—or didn’t want to pay a higher level of bribe—the bank would take its mortgages to someone who would. HUD’s IG says they gouged the PMI companies and consumers: Documents from the investigation show that the inspector general’s staff concluded that banks and insurance companies had created elaborate financial structures that had the appearance of reinsurance but failed to transfer significant amounts of risk to their bank underwriters. Some of the deals were designed to return a 400% profit on a bank’s investment during good years and remain profitable even in the event of a real estate collapse. Making matters worse, banks allegedly forced unknowing consumers to buy more insurance than they needed and failed to properly disclose the reinsurance agreements, another RESPA violation. But AB’s excellence here isn’t just the scoop, nice as that is. Horwitz and the Banker do a very good job explaining a somewhat complicated topic. This piece could have got bogged down in the details of the arcane world of captive mortgage reinsurance, but it doesn’t. That’s no small thing. There are a couple of other interesting points here, including this statement from Wells Fargo: Wells Fargo said in a written statement to American Banker that risk was split equitably under its contracts with mortgage insurers. It further denied that its captive mortgage reinsurance arrangements had ever been under HUD investigation. “It is simply not true that Wells Fargo has ever been the subject of a HUD investigation involving either our captive reinsurance programs or our relationships with any private mortgage insurance company,” the statement says. The Banker nicely places these graphs directly after a quote from the HUD investigation of Wells. It also reports that HUD found that “Nearly all loan files reviewed show borrowers with excessive coverage placed on their loan.” Banks gouged consumers on mortgage insurance because they were getting a taste. Actually, a 40 percent cut with 10 percent of the risk is more than a “taste.” “Half” would be more like it. At some point when you sit on a slam-dunk case like this long enough, it starts smelling pretty bad, particularly when your administration has bailed out and protected them at almost every turn, and you’ve recently been exposed pressuring other law-enforcement agencies to ease up on the banks.