Los Angeles

Police who searched Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch amid child molestation allegations were seeking to arrest the pop icon, NBC television said on Wednesday. Jackson family lawyer Brian Oxfam confirmed reports that the raid was sparked by new child abuse allegations against the 45-year-old father of three.

The wildfires that chewed through southern California left a trail of dead, injured and displaced animals, but scientists say wildlife could eventually benefit from a rejuvenated forest. The fires burned in a typical mosaic pattern, leaving islands of vegetation that provided a refuge for the animals that did survive, biologists said.

California Governor Gray Davis, ousted in a stunning recall vote on Tuesday, spent three decades steadily climbing the ladder of state politics only to be bumped off after reaching the top by the ”Terminator” Arnold Schwarzenegger.

John Ritter, whose portrayal of the bumbling but lovable Jack Tripper helped make the television comedy series Three’s Company a smash hit in the 1970s, has died. Country music legend Johnny Cash also passed away on Friday in a hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. He was 71.

Disgraced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, who quit in a plagiarism scandal, has signed a book contract worth around half a million dollars. The book Burning Down My Master’s House: My Life at The New York Times will be published early next year.

A ”watch list” drawn up by Mexican security forces of 80 anti-globalisation activists who are believed to be headed for Cancun for the World Trade Organisation gathering next month has provoked an angry response — from those whose names are missing.

Beloved entertainer Bob Hope, who died on Monday, was still cracking jokes as he approached his 100th birthday in May.

Scores of Disney films like Chicago and Monsters Inc. will soon be available for downloading off the internet through a licensing deal reached between the entertainment giant and online movie service Movielink, the companies said.

Many Cubans had forgotten Compay Segundo, who died on Monday, until a US record producer arrived in Havana in 1996 and launched Segundo and his fellow musicians onto the world stage with the release of the Buena Vista Social Club.

Is there no limit to the mindless incredulity of modern movie audiences? That seemed to be the question on the minds of many movie critics on Wednesday when Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines opened in US cinemas with high hopes of becoming the biggest hit of the summer.

US rock legend Carlos Santana joined the battle against South Africa’s Aids pandemic on Thursday, announcing he would donate more than three million dollars from an upcoming concert tour to fight the scourge.

Record producer Phil Spector denies that he killed an actress found dead at his mansion in February, telling Esquire magazine the woman shot herself after grabbing a bottle of tequila.

The Palestinian immigrant convicted of assassinating US presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy 35 years ago is making a fresh bid to have his case retried, his lawyer said on Tuesday.

More of the same, only better — that’s the paradoxical hype emerging this week as the video game industry’s three consoles embark on a third season of competition.

Director Ridley Scott says moviegoers are becoming savvy enough to second-guess filmmakers and that’s why deleted scenes, documentaries and unused endings are such popular DVD features.

The use of the death penalty in the United States is to be challenged by a case brought by the Mexican government on behalf of 51 Mexicans awaiting execution in jails across the border. The case highlights the international unease about the US justice system.

The United States is condoning the torture and illegal interrogation of prisoners held in the wake of September 11, in defiance of international law and its own constitution, according to lawyers, former US intelligence officers and human rights groups.

The United States hopes to send an astronaut to Mars in a nuclear-powered rocket, according to a senior Nasa official. Under the space agency’s ambitious plan, humans would be sent on a two-month journey to Mars in a spaceship travelling at three times the current speed of space travel.

Hollywood movie mogul Steven Spielberg has won a restraining order after a close encounter with an alleged stalker who claimed that the director planted a mind-control device in her brain.

An Egyptian immigrant armed with guns and a knife opened fire on Thursday at the Los Angeles International Airport ticket counter of Israeli airline El Al, killing two people before an airline security guard shot him dead.

A new study has found that the death toll from crashes caused by drivers talking on cell phones appears to have risen markedly in recent years.

The Aids Healthcare Foundation has filed a lawsuit against Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline, charging the drugmaker with antitrust violations and overcharging for its medicines.

Athena DeLima placed a bouquet of roses amid an array of other floral arrangements, then leaned over and kissed the bronze name plate on Marilyn Monroe’s crypt.

Buzz Aldrin, one of the first men to walk on the moon, is being investigated by police for allegedly punching a man who claimed that the whole lunar landing programme was nothing but an elaborate
hoax.