Last week’s Electronic Entertainment Expo Show in Los Angeles offered several exciting glimpses into the future of videogames, not all of which were fuelled by the new consoles on show. Chief among them was Spore, the latest project by Will Wright, who conceived Sim City and The Sims.
The Cape Town municipality has given rugby boss Brian van Rooyen’s company another chance despite its role in a recent fiasco with traffic fines, the Cape Times website reported on Thursday. It said the municipality had decided to re-assess its contract with Labat Traffic Solutions only at the end of August.
The <i>Sunday Times</i> job-advertising space has risen by 25,3% year-on-year in the first four months this year, compared with an 8,7% increase in the first four months of 2004. This points to a strong employment market in 2005, as changes in job-recruitment space tend to lead changes in employment.
International investment and financial services group Brait on Thursday reported diluted headline earnings per share of 34,7 United States cents for the year ended March 31, from 4,9 US cents a year ago. The group reported a 190% increase in profit from operations to $48,5-million for the period.
In the shadow of the Washington Monument, within sight of the White House, unfamiliar, even un-American, things, are happening. A man in fine white cottons throws a ball to another, who hits it with an oddly wide bat. Other men, dressed in the same way, catch the ball and throw it through the air.
The Tshwane Metropolitan Council will table an R8,9-billion budget for the 2005/06 financial year at its council meeting on Thursday. While ratepayers will not pay more for electricity before July next year, charges for water will go up 8,3% and assessment rates — more commonly known as property tax — by 7%.
Down three goals at half-time, it looked like Liverpool’s 21-year wait for a fifth European Cup success would never end. Amazingly, the end came just over an hour later. Liverpool scored three second-half goals in seven minutes to overcome the deficit and draw 3-3 with AC Milan before winning 3-2 on penalties.
First came Madonna’s steamy smooch with Britney Spears, then Janet Jackson ignited fury by baring a breast. Now new battlelines are being drawn up in America’s culture wars — over TV condom ads. ”Condoms are the line in the sand,” said Randy Sharp of the American Family Association, which is behind a mass e-mail campaign to safeguard one of television’s last taboos.
A leading scientist warned on Wednesday that the avian flu virus is on the point of mutating into a pandemic disease and says that current estimates that such a pandemic could cause 7,5-million deaths may understate the threat. His warnings come as experts writing in Thursday’s edition of Nature voice concerns about the world’s inability to manufacture sufficient vaccines for a pandemic.
In the history of rock star misdemeanours, it wasn’t much of an offence. ”Happy fucking New Year, Tommy,” said Vince Neil, the lead singer of glam-metal giants Motley Crue, as he congratulated the band’s drummer on December 31 last year. But the remark — broadcast live on TV — led to the group being banned from NBC.