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/ 3 December 2004
New York is famous for being oversize: big buildings, big personalities and big price tags. The latest item to fall under the latter category is a martini at the famed Algonquin Hotel. The Martini on the Rock has one piece of ice — a diamond at the bottom of the glass that puts its price at about 000, the New York Daily News reported.
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/ 26 November 2004
McDonald’s has announced another change of leadership after CE Charlie Bell stood down to battle cancer seven months into the job. Bell was diagnosed shortly after being appointed. The fast food chain named another company veteran, vice-chairman Jim Skinner, as his replacement. Bell (44) had taken the top job in May after the death from an apparent heart attack of former CE Jim Cantalupo.
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/ 17 November 2004
Forget about dancing genies, buxom harem girls and dashing heroes in mythical Arab lands bent on saving ravishing princesses. In this animated movie, the issue is one of divine love. But <i>Muhammad: The Last Prophet</i> — a two-year, $10-million undertaking — is more than a 90-minute cartoon chronicling the life of Islam’s founding prophet, say its producers and distributors.
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/ 15 November 2004
”Which country in South Africa?” asked the American, upon learning the home country of the visitor with the strange accent. ”Oh, yes,” he said, as a light of recognition flickered in his elderly eyes. ”Isn’t that the home base of that delightful Negro person who spent all those years in jail?”
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/ 10 November 2004
A 56-year-old single mother gave birth on Tuesday to fraternal twins just three days before her 57th birthday. New York 1 broadcaster reported that the twins — Francesca, and her brother Gian — were delivered in a Caesarean procedure. With their delivery, the mother, Aleta St James, a therapist, broke a national record as the oldest mother of twins in the United States.
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/ 5 November 2004
When Nirvana performed Lithium at the 1992 MTV Music Video Awards, Kurt Cobain wore a curious T-shirt with a frog logo and the question, ”Hi, how are you?” The shirt was designed by a man Cobain frequently declared his all-time favourite songwriter: Daniel Johnston. Today, Johnston remains not only an influence musicians wear on their sleeves, but a kind of godfather of low-fi pop.
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/ 30 October 2004
Two United States television networks are squaring off to produce a miniseries dramatising the September 11 2001 terror attacks, based on the report of the federal commission that investigated the event. NBC Entertainment has joined forces with Graham Yost, producer-writer of <i>Band of Brothers</i>, for the project.
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/ 27 October 2004
New York’s main crude oil contract plummeted on Wednesday as traders were swept with relief by news of a surge in United States commercial crude oil inventories. Light sweet crude for delivery in December plunged to a low of a barrel and was trading late in the morning at ,65, still down ,52.
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/ 26 October 2004
At the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, the lights are controlled by sensors that measure sunlight. They dim immediately when it’s sunny and brighten when a passing cloud blocks the sun. At a new middle school in Washington, DC, the air conditioner shuts off when a window is open.
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/ 15 October 2004
United States President George W Bush has long been lampooned by opponents as a puppet for the real brains in the White House. After his first presidential debate with John Kerry, internet bulletin boards have been hosting a growing clamour of rumours that they finally have the proof. A photograph, taken of the president from behind, appears to show a small bulge under his jacket, suggesting a hidden wire.
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/ 13 October 2004
DreamWorks Animation, which in the past decade has become one of the leaders in film animation, made a move toward going public on Tuesday by filing estimated terms of its initial public offering (IPO). The company said that it plans to offer 29-million shares at to each with expected proceeds of about -million in its initial public offering.
The man who shot former Beatle John Lennon nearly 24 years ago has again failed to convince a New York parole board that he was ready for early release from prison. Mark Chapman (49) was returned to Attica State Prison after the three-man panel on Tuesday ruled an early release would undermine respect for law and order.
Bob Dylan’s much anticipated autobiography hits United States bookstores on Tuesday, offering a rare, first-hand insight into the reclusive singer’s life, the genesis of his career and struggle with celebrity. However, any fan seeking a sensational tell-all confessional in the style of most rock music memoirs will be sorely disappointed.
Mark Chapman, the man who gunned down John Lennon in New York, could be released from jail this week — a prospect that has drawn protests and even threats against his life from the former Beatle’s fans. Chapman, now 49, was sentenced to 20 years to life after shooting Lennon five times in the back outside the singer’s Manhattan apartment building on December 8, 1980.
Moving from the pulpit to the stage, Desmond Tutu is appearing off-Broadway in a drama blasting the Bush administration’s handling of Guantanamo Bay detainees. The retired South African prelate and Nobel laureate appeared on Saturday night at a tiny theater in lower Manhattan, playing a judge in Guantanamo: Honor Bound To Defend Freedom. The play portrays the plight of British detainees at the United States naval base in Cuba.
Guantanamo ‘failed to prevent attacks’
Famed United States photographer Richard Avedon was hospitalised over the weekend following a brain haemorrhage, a spokesperson for The New Yorker magazine said on Thursday. The photographer is in a hospital in San Antonio, Texas, and is ”in critical but stable condition,” said a spokesperson.
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/ 21 September 2004
Passwords alone won’t be enough to get onto America Online under a new, optional log on service that makes AOL the first major United States online business to offer customers a second layer of security. The so-called two-factor authentication scheme, being unveiled on Tuesday, will cost ,95 a month in addition to a one-time ,95 fee.
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/ 21 September 2004
The United States east coast’s leading newspaper group, the New York Times, on Monday warned on profits after weaker than expected advertising sales so far this month. The news increased fears that the autumn is shaping up to be weaker than US publishers had hoped and sent shares in the company to their lowest level for two years.
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/ 20 September 2004
Saddam Hussein spends his days tending plants and playing board games as he waits to be put on trial for his life, according to Iraq’s United States-backed leadership in interviews on Monday offering a glimpse into the spartan routine of the once-all-powerful dictator. Their portraits included at least three descriptions of Saddam.
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/ 18 September 2004
Talk about a scrapbook! He’s only two years old, but Jeremy Zorek has already been photographed with dozens of celebrities as he and his stay-at-home dad wander New York with a camera. ”This just started as a lark and I was content with that,” said Michael Zorek, who chronicles their adventures on a website. But then ”it took on a life of its own”.
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/ 3 September 2004
Former United States president Bill Clinton was admitted to a New York hospital on Friday to undergo bypass surgery after suffering a heart attack, media reports said.
The New York Times reported the 58-year-old Clinton suffered a heart attack. Clinton is now at the Columbia-Presbyterian hospital in New York.
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/ 3 September 2004
Among the half a million demonstrators peacefully thronging the streets of Manhattan last Sunday, the verdict against George W Bush was instantly familiar to any visiting European. He’s dumb, he’s dangerous, he’s divisive — and more. In the face of such anger, it is hard not to be awed yet anxious because it was another reminder of the ways in which this is becoming an ever more divided society.
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/ 1 September 2004
The Sudanese government has failed to implement fully commitments to improve the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Wednesday in the first 30-day assessment of the conflict in that region. Annan’s report was submitted to the UN Security Council for discussion on Thursday.
War of words delays Darfur deal
Laura Branigan, a Grammy-nominated pop singer best known for her 1982 platinum hit Gloria, has died. She was 47. Branigan died of a brain aneurysm on Thursday in her sleep at her home in East Quogue. Branigan released seven albums after her debut, including Solitaire and Self Control.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters calling for United States President George Bush to be removed descended on to the streets of Manhattan on Sunday, on the eve of the Republican party convention. But as the demonstrators marched, Republican delegates arrived in town hoping to open a significant lead over the Democratic challenger, John Kerry, for the first time this year.
Can the antidepressant Prozac help you kick cocaine? Can Ritalin, which is meant for hyperactivity? How about a blood pressure pill or medicine for muscle spasms? If you’re an alcoholic, could you get help staying sober by taking an anti-nausea drug used by cancer patients?
Six weeks after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre, President George W Bush flew to New York to throw out the ceremonial first pitch in the World Series baseball game between the New York Yankees and the Arizona Diamondbacks. It seemed like the perfect location for this week’s Republican convention, but now the city that never sleeps is preparing a noisy reception for Bush.
The United Nations is trying to transform one of the most politically unstable countries in Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), into a multiparty democracy with elections scheduled for 2005. But to do so, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wants to more than double the number of UN peacekeepers in the DRC.
A machine that lets drinkers inhale shots of alcohol has gone on display in New York, even as one local lawmaker warned the device is ”a disaster waiting to happen”.
The Alcohol without Liquid vaporiser mixes the alcohol with pressurised oxygen. Makers say it gives drinkers the effect of alcohol without the drunkenness, or hangover.
First the board room, now the board game. At his Fifth Avenue Tower on Wednesday, Donald Trump unveiled his newest business venture: a new board game, called Trump: The Game, with high-stakes dealmaking and dollar sums in the billions. Move over, Mr Monopoly.
Dressed in a tuxedo, Simba sat at the front of one of Manhattan’s newest dining establishments and nodded at people who greeted him. Then he yawned, began to roll on the floor and lick his paws. That’s acceptable behaviour at the Meow Mix Café, a new eatery designed especially for cats and their human owners.