Michael Jackson’s Will to be submitted to LA Superior Court
by wildcherry on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 | Entertainment, News, World | No Comments
According to The Wall Street Journal, several sources close with the pop star said a lawyer for Jackson could submit the will - which is thought to be his last - to Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday.
Michael Jackson’s will, reportedly drafted in 2002, is said to divide his assets between his mother, three children and one or more charities.
The star’s mother, Katherine Jackson, who was granted temporary guardianship of Jackson’s three children on Monday, and husband Joe Jackson have said they believed their son died without a valid will.
“No will has been presented to family or us,” L. Londell McMillan, a lawyer for Jackson’s parents who also once represented the singer, said in an e-mail to the paper. “We will review any will when we see it.”
The King of Pop is said to have amassed approximately $500 million in debt, but that his assets could reportedly outweigh that by more than $200 million.
The most valuable part of the Jackson estate could be the singer’s 50 percent stake in the Sony/ATV Music Publishing catalog, which the singer owned half of. The massive 750,000-song music catalog includes the work of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, Lady Gaga and the Jonas Brothers. The catalog is reportedly estimated to be worth upwards of $2 billion.
Michael Jackson’s Funeral
by wildcherry on Monday, June 29th, 2009 | Entertainment, News, World | No Comments
Michael Jackson s funeral could be bigger than Elvis’s and Princess Diana s, as up to a million mourners pour into LA. The Jackson family was said to be considering a private burial followed by a public remembrance ceremony to be televised live to a global audience later this week.
One senior Los Angeles Police chief said: ‘We are preparing for an event of historic proportions. We will be cooperating closely with the family once they have decided where to hold the funeral.’
Police continued to investigate the sudden death of Michael Jackson yesterday as his family gathered to decide plans for the star’s funeral.
Conrad Murray, Jackson’s personal physician and the last man to see him alive, was interviewed by homicide detectives for three hours on Saturday evening. Dr Murray, a cardiologist, was living at Jackson’s rented mansion in Los Angeles when the singer suffered a cardiac arrest.
The doctor tried to resuscitate him and went with him to the hospital where Jackson was pronounced dead. Police had spoken to him briefly after the death but were looking for him all day on Friday.
Miranda Sevcik, a spokeswoman for the doctor, said that Dr Murray “helped identify the circumstances around the death of the pop icon and clarified some inconsistencies”. Police towed Dr Murray’s car from Jackson’s home hours after the singer died and said later that it could contain medications or other evidence.
Friends, family and members of Jackson’s large entourage all face further interviews to establish the precise events leading up to the death.
The Jackson family also asked for a second, private post-mortem examination because of unanswered questions about how he died, and the celebrity website TMZ — which broke news of the star’s death — said that this had been carried out. The body is thought to be at a private mortuary after the coroner’s office released it to the family late on Friday.
Jackson was reportedly addicted to a cocktail of prescription drugs, including painkillers, and the family wants to investigate claims that he was given an injection of the powerful painkiller Demerol immediately before his death.
Dr Murray denied that he administered Demerol to the singer. Edward Chernoff, a lawyer acting for Dr Murray, said: “Dr Murray has never prescribed nor administered Demerol to Michael Jackson. Not ever. Not that day. Not OxyContin (either) for that matter.”
Mr Chernoff also discussed how his client found the dying Jackson. “He just happened to find him in his bed and he wasn’t breathing. Mr Jackson was still warm and had a pulse.”
Coroner’s officials have said that Jackson was taking prescription medicines, but declined to elaborate. Preliminary results from an official post-mortem by Los Angeles County medical examiners showed no sign of foul play. No official cause of death was given, but one is expected after the results of toxicology tests within six weeks.
The Rev Jesse Jackson, a family friend, said: “It’s abnormal. We don’t know what happened. Was he injected, and with what? All reasonable doubt should be addressed.”
More speculation about the cause of death — and Jackson’s lifestyle — was aroused when Grace Rwaramba, 42, nanny to Jackson’s three children, told The Sunday Times how she regularly had to pump Jackson’s stomach to remove dangerous cocktails of drugs.
Michael Jackson’s Sudden Death
by bintangkecil on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 | Entertainment, News, World | 1 Comment
American pop idol and superstar Michael Jackson died today in Los Angeles from apparent cardiac arrest.
Michael Jackson Greatest Hits CD/MP3s on Amazon
Cardiac arrest is a condition in which the electrical signals to the heart become abnormal, making it impossible for it to properly pump blood through the body. In over 90 percent of victims, death occurs.
Michael Jackson, who as a member of the Jackson 5 and then as a solo artist became one of the biggest stars in pop music history, was pronounced dead Monday at UCLA Medical Center after an apparent heart attack, the Los Angeles Times reports. He was 50.
Jackson arrived at the hospital in a deep coma following a heart attack, the Times said. The paper said Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics responded to a call at Jackson’s home around 12:26 p.m. He was not breathing when they arrived. The paramedics performed CPR as he was en route to the medical center, which is only a few minutes away from Jackson’s rented BelAir home. Reportedly, he never regained consciousness.
Photo: AP
It is too early to tell, however, the exact reasons behind the 50-year-old Jackson’s death. Undiagnosed heart disease is the leading underlying cause of cardiac arrest. However, other risk factors like a family history of the condition, previous heart attack or heart failure, and drug abuse or excessive alcohol intake can increase the risk of its occurence.
Celebrity Web site TMZ.com, which was the first to report of Jackson’s death, said LaToya Jackson was seen running from the hospital, sobbing. It was reported Jackson’s mother and at least some of his brothers were present.
Father Joe Jackson, who was the driving force behind the Jackson 5 and Michael Jackson’s early singing career, was reportedly in Las Vegas.
Jackson’s death came less than a month before the start of a scheduled series of so-called comeback concerts. From July 13 to March 6, 2010, Jackson was scheduled to perform 50 sold-out concerts at London’s O2 Arena.
Check out some Michael Jackson childhood pictures here.
Pregnant man’ gives birth to second child
by nate on Thursday, June 11th, 2009 | Health, News, World | No Comments
Thomas Beatie, the so-called “pregnant man,” gave birth to his second child on Tuesday, ABC News reported. The child, a boy, joins sister Susan Juliette.
Thomas, formerly Tracy, decided to keep his female reproductive organs before undergoing a sex change operation and made headlines last year when he was photographed with a beard and a baby bump.
His wife, Nancy, will reportedly nurse the boy, as she did with Susan. The couple has not yet decided on a name.
The pair announced Thomas’ second pregnancy in an interview with Barbara Walters last November.
The baby boy arrived right on schedule — he was due on June 12
source: MSNBC
National Donut Day: Free Donuts!
by on Friday, June 5th, 2009 | News, World | No Comments
In honor of National Donut Day, both Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme are giving away one free donut. Dunkin Donuts requires a purchase of a drink to get your free donut.
National donut day is always the first Friday in June and was originally started during World War 1.
The day is spent commemorating Salvation Army volunteers who braved the front lines in order to provide home cooked foods as a morale boost to soldiers. The donuts made in those days were often times cooked inside of the metal helmets of American soldiers.
Due to their fondness of the fried dough, American infantryman were often called “Doughboys”.
California Supreme Court Upholds Discriminatory Proposition 8
by wildcherry on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 | News, World | No Comments
In a 6-1 ruling the California Supreme Court has decided to affirm a voter backed proposition of defining marriage as between a man and a woman. “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California,” Chief Justice Ronald George wrote in the court’s opinion. The court did however hold that all of the marriages that have already taken place will not be dissolved.
SAN FRANCISCO — California voters legally outlawed same-sex marriage when they approved Proposition 8 in November, but the constitutional amendment did not dissolve the unions of 18,000 gay and lesbian couples who wed before the measure took effect, the state Supreme Court ruled today.
The 6-1 decision was issued by the same court that declared a year ago that a state law defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman violated the right to choose one’s spouse and discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation.
Prop. 8 undid that ruling. The author of last year’s 4-3 decision, Chief Justice Ronald George, said today that the voters were within their rights to approve a constitutional amendment redefining marriage to include only male-female couples.
Justice Carlos Moreno, in a lone dissent, said a majority should not be allowed to deprive a minority of fundamental rights by passing an initiative.
The justices ruled unanimously that Prop. 8 was not retroactive and that gay and lesbian couples who relied on the court’s May 2008 ruling to get married before the Nov. 4 election will remain legally wed.
Prop. 8, which declared that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California, passed with a 52 percent majority after an intense and expensive campaign. Sponsors, mainly affiliated with Christian conservative groups, raised nearly $40 million for the measure and opponents more than $45 million - combined, a record for a ballot measure on a social issue anywhere in the nation.
And here’s the important part:
The ruling, the court’s third major decision on same-sex marriage in five years, may be the last word from the state’s legal system on the issue. But the matter is far from settled in the political arena. Gay-rights advocates, anticipating the decision, have discussed putting another constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2010 or 2012 to try to repeal Prop. 8.
Human ancestry determined by scientists?
by nate on Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 | News, World | 31 Comments
As a person who never believed in the evolution, I am still amazed why these scientists keep looking for the facts that human being are from a monkey, now they even are having faith to believe this “Ida” as a possible common ancestor of monkeys, humans and other primates. I still think it’s so weird spending our years just to prove God does not exist, and humans are from some kind of weird process of nature. I am just happy being a human, and respecting my ancestors as human as well. What do you think from this new discovery?
“Scientists say the fossil, dubbed “Ida,” is a transitional species, living around the time the primate lineage split into two groups: A line that would eventually produce humans and monkeys, and another that would give rise to primates such as lemurs.
The fossil was formally named Darwinius masillae, in honor of the anniversary of Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday.
“This is the most complete primate fossil before human burial,” said Dr. Jorn Hurum, of the Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo, who led the study of the fossil, a young female primate.
“And it’s not a few million years old; it’s 47 million years old,” Hurum said, speaking at a news conference at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.”
source: CNN.com
