Another United States sprinter coached by Trevor Graham has tested positive for use of a performance-boosting drug, according to the Chicago Tribune in its edition on Friday. LaTasha Jenkins, silver medallist at the 2001 indoor world championships, was tested positive for the anabolic steroid nandrolone in July, the report said.
A day after one of Hollywood’s most powerful men publicly scolded actor Tom Cruise, the film capital began to think cost-conscious studios may finally be fed up with giving stars the star treatment. But some industry insiders believe Viacom chairperson Sumner Redstone’s rebuke of Cruise was more a sign that a great money-making career was on the wane.
Apple Computer said on Wednesday it would pay -million to Creative Technology to settle all patent litigation over Apple’s popular iPod music player. The agreement gives Apple a license to use a Creative patent in its music player and other products and settles all legal disputes between the two companies, Apple said.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has urged Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) presidential election rivals Joseph Kabila and Jean-Pierre Bemba to meet and work together to end fighting between their supporters, the UN said on Tuesday.
Paramount Pictures and actor Tom Cruise called an end to their 14-year production deal on Wednesday as the chairperson of the studio’s parent company took a parting shot at the movie star’s off-screen behaviour. ”As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal,” said Viacom chairperson Sumner Redstone.
When the curtain comes down on the storied career of Andre Agassi at the United States Open, the sport will lose one of its most enigmatic figures. The 36-year-old Las Vegas native no longer has the big hair or the big forehand but he can still sell tickets like a rock star.
A United States online calendar company has been forced to put itself up for sale on eBay after the internet giant Google moved into its space with a rival product. The demise of Kiko.com, which has gone up for sale with a reserve price of 999, has raised questions about the growing threat posed by ”Google-creep”.
Former Olympic champion Marion Jones has said she was ”shocked” over reports that she had failed a drugs test at the United States Championships in June. The statement, issued by her attorney Howard Jacobs, was the American’s first comment on the matter since US media reports on Friday that the American had tested positive for the banned blood booster erythropoietin (EPO).
A key United Nations Security Council member said on Monday he was puzzled by an Arab League request for an indefinite delay in a planned council meeting on the crisis in Darfur. Ghanaian UN ambassador Nana Effah-Apenteng, the Security Council president for August, said he got a positive response when he asked the Arab League about the meeting last week.
Photographer Joe Rosenthal, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his immortal picture of six World War II fighting men raising an American flag over battle-scarred Iwo Jima, died on August 20. He was 94. Rosenthal died of natural causes at a retirement home in the San Francisco suburb of Novato, said his daughter, Anne Rosenthal.
Bruno Kirby, a veteran character actor who co-starred in When Harry Met Sally, City Slickers and many other films, has died at age 57, his wife said. Kirby died on June 14 in Los Angeles from complications related to leukemia, according to a statement from his wife, Lynn Sellers.
A United States teacher arrested in connection with the decade-old killing of child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey arrived in Los Angeles from Thailand late on Sunday to undergo more questioning about his possible role in the 1996 murder. John Mark Karr (41) flew in business class on a Thai Airways flight that landed at Los Angeles International Airport at about 04.27am GMT on Monday.
SanDisk Corporation introduced the world’s highest-capacity flash-memory MP3 player on Monday and priced it to take a bigger bite of the market dominated by Apple’s iPods. The player features eight gigabytes of flash-based memory, expandable to 10 gigabytes, which translates into the potential to store as many as 2 500 songs.
England’s Luke Donald was doing his best to pull away from the pack by posting four birdies on his first six holes in the third round of the PGA Championship on Saturday. Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Mike Weir, Chris DiMarco and Sergio Garcia were also firmly in the hunt at the Medinah Country Club.
United States President George Bush warned on Friday that a North Korean nuclear test would be a threat and urged the international community to work toward ensuring Pyongyang cannot jeopardise stability. A media report said US intelligence agencies suspect North Korea is planning an underground detonation of a nuclear device.
A worker slipped into a vat of chocolate in a Wisconsin candy factory and was trapped for hours when the confection hardened around him, according to local media reports on Friday. Other workers tried to pull 21-year-old Darmin Garcia from the chocolate vat, but his clothes were caught on the mixing machinery.
World number one Tiger Woods surged to within one stroke of the leaders, rolling in a birdie putt on 18 en route to a four-under 68 in Friday’s second round of the ,8-million PGA Championship. The United Kingdom’s Luke Donald and Sweden’s Henrik Stenson led another birdie fest on Friday.
American John Daly was troubled by a rumour that spread around the Medinah Country Club on Tuesday claiming he had died from a heart attack. ”Just a sick individual starting a bad rumour,” said Daly. ”I was leaving the course and my agent is calling me, terrified. And my wife was terrified.”
Trapped and running out of air on the smoky 83rd floor of the World Trade Centre, Melissa Doi begged the emergency operator not to hang up. ”Can you stay on the line with me, please? I feel like I’m dying,” she said. On Wednesday, her voice was heard as New York City released new tapes of hundreds of heart-wrenching phone calls from that day.
A Washington-bound United Airlines flight from London made an emergency landing in Boston on Wednesday after a confrontation with a woman suffering from claustrophobia, but there was no apparent terrorist threat, police and security officials said.
Aquarium officials in St Louis in the United States hope an exhibit that opens next week and runs until September 5 will earn a Guinness World Record for the most two-headed animals on display, according to a media report. So far, the World Aquarium at the City Museum has lined up 10 two-headed snakes and turtles.
United States beverages giant PepsiCo on Monday named company high-flier Indra Nooyi as its new boss, capping a rapid rise to the highest ranks of corporate America for the Indian-born woman. Nooyi will join an exclusive list of women CEOs heading top US companies.
Singer Boy George tried to perform court-ordered community service on Monday but found a major obstacle when a throng of news photographers prevented him from sweeping the streets of Lower Manhattan. ”It’s supposed to me making me humble. Why don’t you just let me do it,” George told photographers.
Kazakhstan-born Oleg Maskaev stopped Hasim Rahman in the final minute of the 12th and final round on Saturday to seize the World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight title. The triumph for the 37-year-old former Russian Army lieutenant, who became a United States citizen two years ago, left no American-born fighter atop the heavyweight division among the major sanctioning bodies.
Top-seeded Russian Maria Sharapova avenged a French Open fourth-round defeat with a straight-set win over compatriot Dinara Safina on Friday to reach the semifinals of this 600 000-dollar WTA tournament. Sharapova, seeking to keep the momentum going after her WTA triumph in San Diego last week, defeated the fifth-seeded Safina 6-2, 6-4.
A new study by researchers in the US says African healthcare workers are contracting HIV faster than they are being lured abroad by better-paying jobs
The film Snakes on a Plane has yet to be released, but already enjoys cult status in cyberspace, thanks to little more than its over-the-top title, which just begs to be parodied. It stars Samuel L Jackson as an FBI agent who fights off hundreds of snakes released by a Mob boss on a commercial flight in a attempt to kill a key witness.
The United States Federal Reserve has finally suspended a run of interest-rate hikes stretching back more than two years, explaining that slowing economic growth will vanquish the menace of inflation. But the reprieve for investors, consumers and businesses around the world could be short-lived, economists warn.
Apple showcased its Leopard operating system, due out next year, to the cheers of software developers gathered for a major conference in San Francisco on Monday. With its trademark theatrical flair, the maker of Macintosh computers and iPod music players demonstrated new Leopard features.
The shutdown of a major Alaskan oil field sent oil prices sharply higher on Monday and prompted investors to sell stocks on inflation fears, one day before the Federal Reserve’s next decision on interest rates. BP plc said late on Sunday it would shut down the Prudhoe Bay oilfield due to possible pipeline corrosion.
In nursing homes and college dorms, in crowded cities and spread-out suburbs, Americans confront an ailment with no single cause or cure. Some call it social isolation or disconnectedness. Often, it’s just plain loneliness. According to a new study documenting Americans’ shrinking circle of intimate friends, it is worsening.
World oil prices fell on Friday, but losses were limited by strong demand, tight supplies and geopolitical tensions, analysts said. Traders were monitoring the latest developments in Nigeria, the biggest oil producer in Africa, where three Filipino oil and gas workers were abducted on Friday.