MSNBC Reports
SYDNEY - A man whose relatives say had been sniffing gasoline burst into flames after a police officer Tasered him as he ran at officials carrying a container of fuel, police said Tuesday.
The man, identified by his family as 36-year-old Ronald Mitchell, was in critical condition at a Perth hospital in Western Australia state following Monday's incident in Warburton, an Aboriginal community 950 miles northeast of Perth.
Western Australia police said they were responding to a complaint at a house when Mitchell ran outside carrying a cigarette lighter and a large plastic bottle containing what they believe was fuel. When he refused to stop running toward them, one officer Tasered him, police said in a statement.
The man was immediately engulfed in flames. The officer threw him to the ground and smothered the blaze with his hands, the statement said. Mitchell was charged with assault to prevent arrest and possession of a sniffing substance.
An 18-year-old woman threw rocks at the officer as he tried to help, and he was later treated for a cut on his head and burns to his hands, police said.
Police say man sniffed gas
The woman was charged with two counts of assaulting an officer, police Sgt. Graham Clifford said. Two others at the house were charged with possessing a sniffing substance.
Mitchell's sister, Morinda West, told The Australian newspaper that her brother had been sniffing gasoline and that when he ran out of the house he was carrying a lighter and an orange juice container full of gasoline.
Police spokeswoman Susan Usher said Mitchell appeared to have received third-degree burns to about ten percent of his body.
Western Australia Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan defended the officer's actions on Tuesday, calling Mitchell a known gasoline sniffer and violent offender.
"The police officers were concerned that they were going to be burnt so they deployed a Taser," O'Callaghan told reporters in Perth. "The only other choice they would have had is to use a police-issue firearm and the circumstances would almost certainly have been far more grave."
O'Callaghan also said that while Mitchell did burst into flames after the Taser was deployed, it wasn't immediately clear if the stun gun actually sparked the fire.
"There is a very strong possibility the fire was caused by the lighter in the hand of the offender," he said.
The officer who Tasered Mitchell was not suspended, Clifford said.
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KTLA Reports
ESPN reporter Erin Andrews was secretly videotaped in the nude while she was alone in a hotel room and the video was posted on the Internet, her attorney and the network said.
The blurry, five-minute video shows a nude blond woman standing in front of a hotel room mirror. It's unknown when or where it was shot.
Andrews' attorney, Marshall Grossman, says the 31-year-old reporter plans to seek criminal charges and file civil lawsuits against the unknown cameraman and anyone who publishes the material.
"While alone in the privacy of her hotel room, Erin Andrews was surreptitiously videotaped without her knowledge or consent," Grossman said in the statement. "She was the victim of a crime and is taking action to protect herself and help ensure that others are not similarly violated in the future."
A woman answering the phone Tuesday at Grossman's office said he would have no further comment.
Andrews has covered hockey, college football, college basketball and Major League Baseball for the network since 2004, often as a sideline reporter during games.
A former dance team member at the University of Florida, Andrews was something of an Internet sensation even before the video's circulation. She has been referred to as "Erin Pageviews" because of the traffic that video clips and photos of her generate, and Playboy magazine named her "sexiest sportscaster" in both 2008 and 2009.
She last appeared on the network as part of its ESPY Awards broadcast on Sunday, and is scheduled to be off until September, when she will be covering college football, ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz said.
"Erin has been grievously wronged here," Krulewitz said. "Our people and resources are in full support of her as she deals with this abhorrent act."
It was not clear when the video first appeared on the Internet. Most of the links to it had been removed by Tuesday.
Ephraim Cohen, a spokesman for the video portal Dailymotion, could not confirm the video had actually appeared on his company's site, but said it may have been there months ago. He said a search for the name of the user who purportedly uploaded the video showed the person had opened an account in February, but had since closed it.
"As far as we can tell, the user took the account and the video down a while ago," he said.
Illegal videos often are posted to multiple sites such as
YouTube and Dailymotion, which remove them as soon as they are found. The videos also often circulate on peer-to-peer or file-sharing sites, much like illegal music downloads.
Graham Cluley, who writes a blog for the antivirus software maker Sophos, wrote that several links purporting to send Internet users to the Andrews video actually sent them to sites with malicious software and computer viruses.
He said the some of the hackers actually include a portion of the video on their sites, apparently hoping that the malware gets passed along as users share the link with friends.
"They keep on using (videos like this) because it works," Cluley said. "If more people thought with their head rather than with their trousers, maybe less of these viruses would spread on our computers."
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New York Times Reports
A civil lawsuit has been filed in Nevada against Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger by a woman accusing him of sexually assaulting her in a Lake Tahoe hotel room in July 2008.
Roethlisberger’s lawyer, David Cornwell, said Roethlisberger denied the charge. “Ben has never sexually assaulted anyone,” Cornwell said in a statement.
According to the civil complaint filed Friday in the Second Judicial District Court in Washoe County, Nev., the woman accused Roethlisberger of assault while he was a guest at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, where she is an employee. The suit, however, is also for libel and slander and is filed against nine defendants, including Roethlisberger. The eight others are reportedly employees at Harrah’s whom the woman accuses of defaming her following the assault and whom McNulty says did not adequately investigate her complaint.
Roethlisberger was in Lake Tahoe last July for a celebrity golf tournament. The woman said she was working on the penthouse floor at Harrah’s where Roethlisberger was staying when he assaulted her in his hotel room. She also asserts that she was hospitalized and suffered from depression.
A criminal complaint was not filed against Roethlisberger after the incident, although one could still be opened. She is seeking damages of at least $390,000.
“The timing of the lawsuit and the absence of a criminal complaint and a criminal investigation are the most compelling evidence of the absence of any criminal conduct,” Cornwell said. “If an investigation is commenced, Ben will cooperate fully and Ben will be fully exonerated.”
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AllHipHop Reports
50 Cent will embark upon a five-date book tour with Robert Greene, co-author of the rapper’s upcoming book The 50th Law. Greene, who authored the book The 48 Laws of Power and The 33 Strategies of War, will be featured on the tour conversing with 50 Cent about life, business and strategies to succeed. According to Pollstar, the tour will make stops in New York City (Town Hall, Sept. 8), Washington D.C. (Howard U., Sept. 9), Atlanta (The Tabernacle., Sept. 10), Royal Oak, Michigan (Royal Oak Music Theatre, Sept. 11) and Los Angeles (The Wiltern, Sept. 12). The 50th Law is due in stores in September.
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MTV Reports
In an interview Monday night on "Larry King Live," Joe Jackson, the father of Michael Jackson, refuted longstanding claims that he had abused his son, and said that he never made any mistakes raising him.
"[I] never, never have. ... I raised him just like you would raise your kids, you know?" Jackson told King. "But harm Michael, for what? I have no reason. That's my son. I loved him and I still love him."
In his now-infamous 2003 interview with journalist Martin Bashir, Michael Jackson claimed that, as a boy, he was routinely abused by his father, saying Joe would sit in a chair with a belt in his hand while he and his siblings rehearsed, and that "if you didn't do it the right way, he would tear you up, really get you."
During his interview with King, Joe Jackson called those claims "a bunch of bull S," and said that the media was just trying to perpetuate stereotypes with reports of his abuse.
"The media keep hollering about saying that I beat Michael. That's not true. You know what this beat started — beat started in the slavery days," Jackson said. "Where they used to beat the slaves and then they used to torture them. That's where this beating started. These slave masters, and that's where that come from. ... Now, Michael was never beaten by me. I've never beaten at all."
Jackson said that he was a good father who raised Michael — and the rest of his children — the right way.
"Michael was raised properly," he said. "He didn't run the streets like most of those other kids that was in his neighborhood."
Jackson also told King that he wasn't hurt to learn that his son had left him out of a will he had drafted in 2002, instead placing his assets in a family trust that benefits his mother, Katherine, his three children and various charities.
"That's the way he wanted it," Jackson said. "And it's not going to hurt me that I was left out of his will. But it happened."
Jackson claimed that the reason he was excluded from the will had nothing to do with childhood abuse, but rather, because he was shut out of his son's life during his final years.
"Larry, I'm going to cut through the chase on this. I could never get to him," Jackson said. "I tried all I could and I could never get to him because he — I was barred away from him by securities and all that type of thing. I could not get to him."
Jackson then reiterated his claim that foul play was involved in his son's death.
"If a doctor's there that couldn't bring you back — and this doctor, he ran away," Jackson said. "They had to look for him three days to find him. So what do you think there that's happened? To me, that's foul play."
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Ballerstatus Reports
In June, the news leaked that Vibe magazine folding after over 15 years in business.
Since closing its doors, no one has really spoken too much about the aburpt end. However, in a recent interview with Angela Yee's The Morning After radio show on Siruis/XM radio, former editor-in-chief Danyel Smith spoke briefly regarding the final days Vibe.
Smith says the magazine business has suffered for some time now, and she noticed that even three years back.
"The magazine business overall has been in such a state, frankly since I came back three years ago," she said. "I always had it at the front of my mind. Was it a complete surprise to me that day? No, I don't think it was for any of my fantastic staff.
"We had already gone down to four days a week ... we were all making sacrifices because we really wanted the brand to live. We were all strategizing and working really hard and I'm just really really brokenhearted. There'll be a bounce back, there's no question about that," Smith continued.
With the closing of Vibe, she asked the question of who would fill in where the magazine left off without being able to give an answer.
"It's sad. I don't know where those stories are gonna be told in the way they were told in Vibe. I don't know where that is."
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Ballerstatus Reports
The line between musical genres have become blurred over the years. With Lil Wayne crossing over to with his Rebirth album and guys like Kid Cudi and Kanye singing instead of rapping, hip-hop has become open to change.
As rappers cross over, so do rockers. Kid Rock has always had a strong hip-hop background, and is aiming to show it on his next album, collaborating with the likes of both Lil Wayne and T.I.
The Detroit rocker was gearing up to drop a new album this fall, but opted to take his project to veteran producer Rick Rubin, to go over what he's created, including the rap collabos.
Rock will head back into the studio after he wraps up his current summer tour.
In addition to Weezy working on his rock album, producer Timbaland is also working outside the hip-hop genre. He recently signed on to executive Seattle Rock veteran Chris Cornell's new album Scream. He joined formers with Cornell to tap his more soulful side.
No word on when this project is slated for release though.
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Ballerstatus Reports
It's been months since anybody has heard from former Grand Hustle artist Alfamega, after he was ousted as an informant by TheSmokingGun.com back in May. But, he's finally surfaced and says he's no snitch.
Despite documents being leaked by TSG, the rapper (real name: Cedric Zellars) denied informant accusations via an interview with GyantUnplugged.com, and maintained that the criminal past he raps about is real
"There wasn't no informant situation. He talking to dude who did time with me. Your uncle was in jail with me," Alfamega said, speaking to Gyant. "If I went to jail with your peoples, your peoples would know that.
"I don't work for no motherf***in' DEA. I've never worked for the DEA. I had a gun charge, that's an ATF charge," he continued.
Shortly after the damaging reports hit the net, Grand Hustle head T.I. officially booted Alfamega from the label claiming he was stunned by the news and couldn't associate with individuals who were dishonest about their past.
In TSG's leak, documents showed that Alfamega served as an informant for the DEA, as well as a government witness during the mid-90s.
Court records indicated that the rapper began working with law enforcement in 1995 after he was sentenced to just over nine years, thanks to a federal gun case (a prior felony robbery conviction, the rapper was busted for selling weapons to an undercover federal agent).
The report stated that Alfamega helped in the conviction of a known drug trafficker named Ali Baaqar, and got his sentence reduced by 18 months. After being released, he eventually went on to sign with T.I.'s Grand Hustle imprint.
According to the rapper, he's never met or dealt with Ali, but is sorry for his name getting brought up in the media.
"I don't know who put that out there. The dude Ali, we ain't ever had no business together, ever. Me and that dude Ali never been in the streets together," he said.
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AllHipHop Reports
Snippets from 50 Cent’s highly anticipated upcoming album Before I Self Destruct recently hit the Internet.
At least four tracks reportedly taken from the G-Unit front man’s release are circulating on a 4:43 second snippet online.
On one of the unnamed tracks, 50 reignites his beef with former G-Unit cohorts Young Buck and The Game, where he disses both rappers in one line.
“I’m like a zebra/I got so many stripes/ “I’m the f**king general/I run my click right/It was five of us/all of us millionaires/now one’s a f**king junkie/the one’s a f**king queer/now it’s three of us/that’s how it started”
Sources have told AllHipHop.com that the tracks that hit the net could be from the version of Before I Self Destruct that 50 Cent decided to scrap.
In May of 2009, 50 Cent announced that he had scrapped the original version of Before I Self Destruct due to numerous delays of the album’s release.
The latest release date for Before I Self Destruct is September 29.
In an interview with MTV.com, 50 Cent said the album was almost finished, with just a few tracks left to be mixed.
“I’m ready,” 50 Cent told MTV.com. “I’m ready to put this album out. I really don’t need adjustments. I need a few songs to be finished, mixed. Dre, he drags his feet. He’s slow, but it’s because he’s so creative. He’s gonna make sure it’s perfect.”
Producers on the scrapped and upcoming version on the album include Ty Fyffe, Sha Money XL, DJ Premier and Play-N-Skillz, told MTV.com that 50 was creating a more “soulful” sound, fused with a “boom-bap” style of Hip-Hop (in reference to a straight, 4/4 time signature).
At press time, confirmation on producers on the final version of Before I Self Destruct could not be verified.
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New York Daily News Reports
Another gubernatorial sex scandal may be looming. Even as South Carolina's Mark Sanford waits to see whether his wife, Jenny, forgives his romp in the pampas, a New York call girl could plunge one of America's most prominent governors into a fresh hell.
In March, we told you about a high-end escort who claimed that former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer had gotten overly aggressive during some kinky role-play (a charge Spitzer's lawyer called "outrageous and defamatory").
Now the elegant blond courtesan, whom we'll continue to call "Annie," is talking about three "dates" she allegedly had with another state's chief executive, who we'll call Gov. X.
Though Annie's former boss, ex-madam Kristin Davis, corroborates that Gov. X was a client, his spokesman flatly denies that the married politician has ever hired hookers.
Still, it's hard not to be intrigued by Annie's detailed story. She contends that, in the spring of 2006, Davis' agency booked her for an out-of-state date with a man identified as "Michael."
"He picked me up in an Italian sports car," says Annie. "He was in his 30s, handsome enough to be an actor, an impeccable dresser. I wouldn't think he'd have a problem getting girls.
"We went to a restaurant where the governor was dining at another table with two or three other men. Michael said the governor was a client of his. He introduced me to him. I thought it was odd that he'd introduce someone he'd hired, but the governor was very gracious. It was a brief meeting. Later, Michael and I went to an apartment our agency kept. We had sex.
"A couple of days later, Michael booked another appointment. He was supposed to come to the same apartment. I buzzed him in. When I opened the door, it wasn't Michael. It was the governor. He was smiling. I knew what was happening. I was okay with it.
"He was a very standard client. He didn't take the full hour. There was no exchange of money. Michael handled the payment.
"I had two more dates with the governor. Never in public. Always for just an hour, around dinner time. He'd arrive at the apartment in a suit. I never had a problem with him, like I did with Spitzer. He was always nice. There wasn't a lot of conversation. It wasn't a girlfriend experience, but he was relaxed. He was very appreciative, like I was giving him a sort of affection he wasn't getting elsewhere. Later I found out he was married. His wife is quite prominent in her own right." (Annie and Davis say Gov. X is free to say he didn't pay for sex, since "Michael" took care of the bills.)
P.S. Among Davis' other alleged clients: Bernie Madoff. An assistant to the jailed Ponzi scammer has already told of his fondess for noontime massages. ABC News has now found the number for Davis' closed New York Body Miracle, once located near Madoff's offices, in his leather-bound phone book.
Davis, who writes in August's Penthouse about servicing the financial industry, also just found Madoff's unlisted number in her records. "He'd pay about $220 for a body rub," she'd tell us. "He wasn't an escort client."
In other words, unlike his victims, Madoff didn't lay out a lot of money to get screwed.
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Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (l.) with Chris Rock during the filming of 'African American Lives.'
New York Daily News Reports
A distinguished black Harvard University professor was handcuffed and dragged off his porch to jail after Massachusetts cops mistook him for a burglar.
Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation's most renowned scholars of African-American history, was busted when he repeatedly accused a cop of racism for confronting him, police said.
"Why, because I'm a black man in America?" Gates, 58, demanded, the police report said.
This booking photo released by the Cambridge, Mass., Police Dept., shows Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr
"I warned Gates to calm down, but Gates ignored my warning and continued to yell at me," Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley wrote. "It was at this time that I informed Gates he was under arrest."
Gates heads Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research. He was also host of "African American Lives," a PBS series in which he traced the roots of black celebs, including Oprah Winfry and Morgan Freeman. Time magazine has named him one of the 25 most influential Americans.
Despite his fame, Crowley, who is white, didn't recognize Gates, prompting the prominent academic to yell, "You don't know who you're messing with!"
Crowley said he took offense at Gates' "loud and tumultuous behavior."
"I was quite surprised and confused with the behavior he exhibited toward me," he wrote in his report.
Crowley said Gates continued to berate him - and when he asked the professor to speak to him outside, he claims the scholar told him, "Ya, I'll speak to your momma outside."
Gates apparently arrived home from China last Thursday to find his front door so damaged he couldn't open it, said his Harvard colleague Charles Ogletree.
When Gates and his driver tried to get in through the back door they set off the alarm and a white neighbor who saw them called the cops.
"He was handcuffed on his own front porch," said Ogletree, explaining that Gates produced ID to prove he lived there and that he was a Harvard professor.
Gates was held at the Cambridge police station for four hours before being released without bail on charges of disorderly conduct, Ogletree said.
Harvard colleagues called the arrest a case of racial profiling.
"We do not believe this arrest would have happened if professor Gates was white," said Allen Counter, who has taught neuroscience at Harvard for 25 years.
In a statement last night, the Rev. Al Sharpton called Gates' arrest "an outrage of no small implication."
"I have heard of driving while black and even shopping while black, but now even going to your own home while black is a new low in police community affairs," said Sharpton, who is vowing to attend Gates' Aug. 26 arraignment.
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On August 15th, in the match-up that everyone's been waiting for, Gina Carano and Cris Cyborg will make history as the first women to headline a televised MMA event.
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Dailymail.Co.UK Reports
A teenager conned British aviation bosses into believing he was a tycoon by showing them elaborate plans on setting up his own airline.
The 17-year-old from York bluffed his way through meetings, created fictitious fellow executives of his 'airline' and set-up fake websites to bolster his story.
With an imaginative twist, he even made-up an American parent company which signed off emails 'American Global Group, 35 Countries, 22 Languages, One Team'.
Similarities have been drawn with the true story of Frank Abagnale Jr, who convinced Pan Am he was a pilot while he was just a teenager in the 1960s, and whose exploits featured in the Leonardo DiCaprio film Catch Me if You Can,
The smooth-talking teenager, said to be autistic and with a huge knowledge of the intricacies of the air industry, operated under pseudonym Adam Tait.
The scam ended at Southend Airport on Monday, where the youngster had apparently set-up a meeting with an aircraft leasing firm, as he prepared to board a 93-seat plane his 'company' wanted to buy.
Smooth talker: The teenager, who used the pseudonym Adam Tait, when he conjured up an airline company, fooling many in the industry
The hoax was uncovered by the industry magazine Airliner World. But police said the boy, who told airline bosses he was in his twenties, would not be prosecuted.
An Essex Police spokesman said: 'As a result of information received from a member of the public on Saturday July 11, Essex Police and security staff at Southend Airport refused a man access to the air-side section of the airport on Monday July 13.
'No offences were committed and Essex Police is taking no further action.'
Airliner World first became aware of the teenager when he contacted the magazine with his ambitious plans to establish an airline in the Channel Islands.
The publication spoke to contacts who had heard rumours about a new player in the area, and ran a small item on his creation, Channel Connect Airways.
Richard Maslen, Airliner World deputy editor, said: 'A representative from the company, now known as Island Airways, contacted us again by email on July 4 and following a conversation with the individual on July 6, I had some serious concerns over his story.
'After an initial investigation by the magazine we asked one of our freelance journalists, Martin Foley, to investigate this on our behalf.
'Over the subsequent week Martin and I worked closely to unravel this mysterious story and were able to disprove many of the claims that the company was making.'
The magazine tipped-off the police who intervened at the airport.
By then the boy had been in negotiations with the Guernsey government-owned airline Aurigny, among others.
Its commercial manager Malcolm Coupar told the Sunday Times: 'Some of the things he said were the sort of things that were indicative that there might have been some substance to his claims.
'If they were real then there would have been opportunities for us to expand our business and that's not the sort of thing we are going to ignore.'
Claims about start-ups were frequently made in the air industry, Mr Maslen said, and while airports tried to avoid wasting time on long-shots, they did not want to miss a business opportunity.
He said: 'You can imagine what Luton Airport first thought when Stelios Haji-Ioannou first approached them and said he was going to launch easyJet.
'An airline that painted the tails of its aircraft bright orange, initially had its telephone booking number in enormous letters across the fuselage of its aircraft, made passengers pay for food and drink onboard with fares cheaper than a pair of jeans.'
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AllHipHop Reports
Hip-Hop star Busta Rhymes has taken a step towards independence via a new worldwide deal with independent publisher Kobalt Music Group.
According to the terms of the deal, Kobalt will administer 27 of Busta Rhymes’ tracks, including all songs on Back on My B.S., which contained the hit single “Arab Money.”
In July of 2010, Kobalt will begin administering over 150 of Rhymes tracks, which are currently being handled by Warner Chappell.
"We are thrilled to conclude this deal with Busta Rhymes which also includes synch licensing and creative services for film, TV, games, ringtones and other media,” said Willard Ahdritz, CEO and Founder of Kobalt. “He is truly one of the most influential artists in Hip-Hop history and we look forward to working closely with him.”
Busta Rhymes, born Trevor Smith, started his career as a member of the pioneering Hip-Hop group Leaders of the New School in 1989.
In 1996 Busta Rhymes began a successful solo career on the strength of his breakout single “Woo Hah!! Got You In All In Check,” taken from the album The Coming.
He has enjoyed numerous hit singles like “It‘s A Party” featuring Zhane, “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See,” “Gimme Some More,” “Break Ya Neck,” “What’s It Gonna Be” featuring Janet Jackson, “Make It Clap,” “Touch It,” “I Love My B**ch” and numerous others.
"We chose Kobalt not only for their competitive deal structure and fully transparent, online accounting system, but also because the team at Kobalt is knowledgeable, experienced and extremely involved and aggressive -- all the key elements we were looking for in our publisher. We're very happy to be here," added Mona Scott-Young, manager of Busta Rhymes.
Busta Rhymes’ latest album Back On My B.S. debuted at #5 on Billboard’s Top 200 Chart upon its release in May of 2009.
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}