Michael Jackson’s teen daughter attempts suicide, says mother

LOS ANGELES – Paris Jackson, the 15-year-old daughter of late pop star Michael Jackson, was rushed to a Los Angeles-area hospital on Wednesday after an apparent suicide attempt, her mother said, but her family later reported she is “physically fine.”

“Paris is physically fine and is getting appropriate medical attention,” Perry Sanders, an attorney for Paris’ grandmother and guardian, Katherine Jackson, said in a statement.

“Being a sensitive 15-year-old is difficult no matter who you are,” the statement added. “It is especially difficult when you lose the person closest to you.”

Pop singer Jackson died in 2009 at age 50 from a lethal dose of surgical anesthetic propofol while preparing for his “This Is It” series of concerts in London.

The Jackson family’s wrongful-death lawsuit against concert promoter AEG Live is currently at trial in Los Angeles and family attorneys have been expected to call Paris as a witness.

Paris’ mother, Debbie Rowe, told entertainment TV program “Entertainment Tonight” that her daughter attempted suicide and had “a lot going on (lately).”

“We appreciate everyone’s thoughts for Paris at this time and their respect for the family’s privacy,” an attorney for Rowe said in a statement.

Celebrity website TMZ.com, which first reported the suicide attempt, said Paris had been taken from her family’s home in Calabasas, California, by ambulance at about 2AM time, citing unnamed sources.

Los Angeles County Sheriff deputies responded to a medical situation in Calabasas at 1:27AM, sheriff spokesman Steve Whitmore said, declining to provide additional details because of privacy laws.

Jackson was married to Rowe from 1996 to 1999, and the couple had two children together, Prince Michael in 1997 and Paris in 1998. Jackson later had a third child, Prince Michael II, also known as Blanket.

Rowe turned over full custody of the children to Jackson as part of their divorce but she had recently rekindled her relationship with Paris.

Jackson’s children live under the custody of their 83-year-old grandmother, Katherine, and their cousin, T.J. Jackson.

source: interaksyon.com

NBI nabs 6 Taiwanese implicated in credit card fraud

MANILA - The National Bureau of Investigation has arrested six Taiwanese nationals allegedly involved in credit card fraud and the duplication of ATM cards. One of them tried to bribe the agents with P500,000, and was promotly slapped with a separate charge of attempted bribery.

A report submitted to NBI Director Nonnatus Caesar Rojas on Thursday named those arrested by members of the NBI Cybercrime Division as: Cheng-Yen Yu, 25; Chih-Cheng Chang, 35; Chia-Hung Hung, 26; Sen-Yuan Wu, 24; Chun-Kai Tsou, 25 and Wen-Hao Wu, 26, all with address at Unit 4D, Regency Park Townhomes, J. Abad Santos Hi-Way corner E. Aguinaldo Street, Clark Special Economic Zone in Pampanga.

The six have been charged with violation of Republic Act 8484 or the Access, Devices, Regulation Act of 1998 before the Pampanga Prosecutor's Office.

Chih-Cheng Chang is also facing an additional complaint for corruption of public officials for attempting to bribe the NBI operatives.

Seized by the NBI-CCD team from the suspects were the P500,000 cash used in trying to bribe the agents, counterfeit automated teller machine cards and counterfeit credit cards, electronic gadgets used in illegal duplication of credit cards and ATM cards, and documents.

The NBI arrested the six Taiwanese nationals last June 4 after a series of surveillance operations.

Found in the suspects' possession were several electronic gadgets, devices, ATM cards, credit cards, and documents with Chinese characters which were being used and intended to be used in the illegal activities of duplication, unauthorized use/access of credit cards/ATM cards.

source: interaksyon.com

Global $200 million credit card hacking ring busted

NEW YORK — Eleven people in the United States, the UK and Vietnam have been arrested and accused of running a $200 million worldwide credit card fraud ring, U.S. and UK law enforcement officials said on Wednesday.

Federal prosecutors in New Jersey said they had filed charges against a 23-year-old man from Vietnam.

They said in a statement that authorities in Vietnam had arrested Duy Hai Truong on May 29 in an effort to break up a ring he is accused of running with co-conspirators, who were not named in the statement.

“One of the world’s major facilitation networks for online card fraud has been dismantled by this operation, and those engaged in this type of crime should know that they are neither anonymous, nor beyond the reach of law enforcement agencies,” Andy Archibald, interim deputy director of the National Cyber Crime Unit, said in a statement on the British government’s Serious Organized Crime Agency website. (here)

The arrests were coordinated by the three countries, the statement said.

The arrests come as law enforcement officials around the world are cracking down on Internet-related heists. Two weeks ago, authorities raided Liberty Reserve, a Costa Rica-based company that provided a virtual currency system used frequently by criminals to move money around the world without using the traditional banking system.

Earlier last month, authorities arrested seven people involved in a $45 million heist in which hackers removed limits on prepaid debit cards and used ATM withdrawals to drain cash from two Middle Eastern banks.

“It’s rare that you find actual human beings behind these things,” said Mark Rasch, a former cyber crimes prosecutor and now a lawyer in private practice in Bethesda, Maryland. “Usually you can tie them to organizations or hacker handles, but it’s harder to find individual people.”

Rebekah Carmichael, a spokeswoman for New Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, said the charges were filed in New Jersey’s federal court because some of the victims of the scheme are residents of the state.

Prosecutors claim Truong and accomplices stole information related to more than a million credit cards and resold it to criminal customers through the websites www.matteuter.biz and www.mattfeuter.com, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in New Jersey.

According to the complaint, Truong hacked into websites that sold goods and services over the Internet and collected personal credit card information from the sites’ customers. “The victims’ credit cards incurred, cumulatively, more than $200 million in fraudulent charges,” the complaint said. The scheme began in 2007.

“Like many ‘carder’ cases, this is an international conspiracy,” Rasch said, adding that a recently passed computer crime law in Vietnam had made it possible for Vietnamese authorities to participate in the multinational sting.

Although Truong has been charged in the United States, he does not have a U.S.-based lawyer because he is being held in Vietnam, Carmichael said.

source: interaksyon.com

Ranger boosts Ford sales at end-May

MANILA - Philippine sales of American carmaker Ford climbed 82 percent in the first five months of this year on the back of robust demand for the Ranger.

Ford Philippines on Thursday said it sold 5,016 vehicles at end-May, up from 2,757 units in the same five-month period last year. The expansion makes Ford the fastest-growing car brand in the country so far this year, the company said.

In May alone, 1,230 vehicles were sold, almost double the 675 in the same month last year and also exceeding April's 1,101. On a monthly basis, sales in May were the highest to date.

Ford Philippines attributed its "exceptional" May sales to "the best-ever performance of the all-new Ford Ranger and continued strength in demand across the entire Ford lineup."

"Our full range of segment-leading One Ford vehicles in the Philippines is continuing to attract customers across the country – customers who appreciate the smart technologies, fuel efficiency, safety and quality of our vehicles – which is helping drive our ongoing sales momentum this year," Kay Hart, Ford Philippines' recently appointed managing director, said in a statement.

Sales of the all-new Ranger pickup last May reached a record 449 units, the highest so far this year. Since its launch last year, 1,586 Ranger units have been sold, making it Ford Philippines' best-selling model of late.

The new Ranger variants introduced in April, including the range-topping Wildtrak, are popular among fleet buyers, Ford Philippines said.

"The unmatched versatility and capability of this extraordinary truck has redefined the compact pickup segment, and is helping drive its wide appeal in the market," said Hart.

Other Ford models that also posted strong sales growth last months were the Everest, Explorer, Fiesta, Focus and Mustang.

Hart said the new Fiesta will be launched soon.

Ford Philippines will open its Manila Bay dealership this month--the ninth site to open during the past nine months. The company aims to end the year with 35 dealerships.

"With the introduction of more segment-leading One Ford vehicles and a growing network of authorized Ford dealerships, we remain absolutely committed to growing our business and welcoming even more new-to-Ford customers to our showrooms across the Philippines," Hart said.

source: interaksyon.com

Twitter back online after brief outage

SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter was down for about a half-hour for an unknown number of users on Monday after a glitch during a “routine change.”

The microblogging service said in a short post that it had rolled back the changes, fixing the issues though some users experienced delays in getting updated tweets.

Earlier on Monday, users trying to click on trending topics and other posts received an error message that began with “something is technically wrong.”

Britain could be about to be flattened by a tidal wave of debt.

“Due to an error in a routine change, Twitter was not available from 1:08pm PDT to 1:33pm PDT. We rolled back the erroneous change as soon as we identified the issue,” the company said.

Twitter’s phenomenal growth since its 2006 birth means it has struggled to handle an ever-rising volume of tweets. It currently claims more than 200 million users, generating about 400 million tweets – or 140-character messages – daily.

Since enduring repeated criticism about its infamous “fail whale” outage icon in its early years, the microblogging service has devoted considerable resources to improving reliability, in a move to project itself as a mature, polished brand.

source: interaksyon.com

2 more cases of MERS-CoV SARS-like coronavirus confirmed in Italy; death toll at 30

GENEVA -- The Italian Ministry of Health has notified the World Health Organization (WHO) of an additional two laboratory-confirmed cases with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), the WHO said Sunday.

WHO said in its latest disease outbreak update that both the patients had close contacts with the first confirmed case in the country, one is a two-year-old girl and the second is a 42-year-old woman. They are in stable condition.

Globally, from September 2012 to date, WHO has been informed of 53 confirmed cases of infection with MERS-CoV, including 30 deaths, it said.

WHO said Saturday that a 45-year-old Italian resident with recent travel from Jordan has been confirmed with infection of the MER-CoV.

The man returned to Italy on May 25 with symptoms of cough and fatigue and was hospitalized on May 28 as his condition deteriorated. He is currently in stable condition, according to the WHO.

source: interaksyon.com

Angelina Jolie makes first public appearance after mastectomy

LONDON – Angelina Jolie made her first public appearance since announcing her double mastectomy on Sunday, joining fiance Brad Pitt on the red carpet in London where she welcomed the debate on women’s health that the surgery had sparked.

The Oscar-winning actress has stayed out of the spotlight since announcing her operation in a New York Times column last month, saying the decision was made after finding she carried a gene giving her an 87 percent chance of getting breast cancer.

The 37-year-old mother of six, praised for her courage in publicly announcing her surgery, is now reported to be planning another operation to remove her ovaries as the BRCA1 gene also gives her a 50 percent chance of ovarian cancer.

On the red carpet for the world premiere of Pitt’s latest movie, zombie blockbuster “World War Z”, Jolie praised her partner as being “a wonderful man and a wonderful father.

“I’m very, very grateful for all the support … and I have been very happy just to see the discussion of women’s health expanded and that means the world to me,” she told reporters.

“After losing my mom to these issues, I am very grateful for it,” added the American actress, wearing a long black, backless Yves Saint Laurent dress.

Jolie’s mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, died from ovarian cancer in 2007 at the age of 56 and her aunt, 61-year-old Debbie Martin, died last week as a result of breast cancer.

Jolie missed her aunt’s funeral to accompany Pitt to London for the premiere of “World War Z”, an adaptation of Max Brooks’ 2006 apocalyptic novel.

Pitt’s production company Plan B Entertainment bought the screen rights to the novel about six years ago and it is one of the big box office releases this summer, but it is under pressure to perform before even opening.

It was due to be released late last year but suffered setbacks amid reports that the budget had ballooned above $200 million and Pitt clashed with director Marc Forster.

In “World War Z”, Pitt plays United Nations representative Gerry Lane who is enlisted to help stop a zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to destroy mankind.

Pitt said he was proud of the film and also of Jolie for her decision to have a mastectomy for the sake of their family and to share that experience.

“When she’s faced with a problem – and we have known this was coming for some time – she takes it by the horns,” Pitt, 49, also dressed in black, told reporters. “I’m super proud of her. She’s a bad ass.”

Asked how important it was to have her on the red carpet with him, Pitt said: “It’s just more fun to do these things with each other. More fun when she’s around and same for her.”

“World War Z” marks Pitt’s first foray as the star and producer of his own potential franchise.

Pitt said his own children’s reaction to the book sparked the project which ultimately was about survival and family.

“The boys love a zombie,” he said.

source: interaksyon.com

Charice knew she was a lesbian at age 5, says her mom knew, even Oprah and David Foster

The truth has set Charice free.

The morning after she came out on national television, the diminutive singer whom Oprah Winfrey famously called “the most talented girl in the world” was on cloud nine, no longer weighed down by years of hiding her true identity and months of negative speculation.

“Alam mo, para akong batang gusto ko agad lumabas tapos magtatalon tapos sige halika party party na tayo! As in bumalik ako sa pagkabata. As in malaya ako na walang problema,” the 21-year-old told News5 on Monday.

Charice was in such bliss that she treated the media who had come to interview her to a soulful rendition of her favorite song these days, “Perfect”, by American singer-songwriter Pink.

Earlier, she surprised students of her alma mater — an elementary school in Cabuyao, Laguna — with a surprise gift-giving visit on the first day of school.

Charice said it was her way of giving back to the school where her eyes were opened to her sexual preference.

“Maraming ala-ala. Mga naging crush ko,” she said with a laugh. “Chos!”

In fact, she said she had known very early that she was a lesbian.

“Five years old po ako nang ma-realize ko,” she said, breaking into another laugh.

What prompted her to finally confess on Sunday after months of being out of the public eye?

“May naririnig kasi ako sa ibang tao na ganon kaya siya? Shivoli bang bang kaya siya?” she said, laughing again.

“Kahit naririnig ko ‘yun na-feel ko na ok naman sa kanila. So sa mga reaksyon nila na di pa nila alam pero andun pagtanggap nila, it’s about time sabi ko,” she added.

Charice admitted that changes in her hairstyle and wardrobe, which started middle of last year, were a prelude to her coming out. She kept quiet as the doubters and haters had a field day in social media until she decided that she had had enough.

“Ang bigat sa feeling. Ang dami ko nakikitang negative comments. Nalilito sila. After nun naiyak ako after ginupitan ng buhok ko… Parang ‘yun kasi yung first step to freedom.”

Since her televised confession on “The Buzz” on Sunday, Charice said she has received an outpouring of support on the internet from everywhere.

“Talagang lahat po. ‘Yung iba taga-LA, Rhode Island. Lahat iba-iba. Nanuod sila, talagang sinabayan nila dito sa Philippines. Livestream kaya po nag-trending ako,” she said.

Charice said she did not hide her lesbianism to people in her inner circle — even to her mentors and godparents, TV host Oprah Winfrey and composer-producer David Foster who, she said, told her they were proud of her and remain supportive of her career to this day.

“Basta po ang lagi nilang sinasabi sa ‘kin, specially nung nag-come out po ako sa kanila. Na-touch lang po ako kasi talagang sabi lang nila sa ‘kin… We’re proud of you.”

However, she admitted that she and her mother, Raquel Pempengco, still do not see to eye — even though she had already come out to her in a phone conversation three years ago.

“Talagang cinonfirm ko po sa kanya nung 18 po ako. Sobrang hirap nun kasi nasa US ako, andito siya. Sobrang takot ko. Na-accept ko na na baka maybe years bago niya fully matanggap,” she said.

source: interaksyon.com

Google interns get preview of Hollywood film about them

SAN FRANCISCO – Google interns got an early look at a Hollywood take on their world and chatted with celebrities who play them on screen in ‘The Internship’ film set for release next week.

Actors Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson along with director Shawn Levy walked on stage to a standing ovation from an audience of ‘Googlers’ in the wake of a private viewing of the film in a San Francisco theater.

“I had heard mythical, weird things about Google culture,” Levy said while recounting how Vaughn pitched him the idea the idea of a pair of 40-something buddies challenged to re-invent themselves for the Internet Age.

“When I came to Google with Vince and looked around, I was amazed to see all the things I’d heard about like nap pods and free food within 150 feet at all times were all true,” he continued.

“It seemed a really good backdrop for a comedy and a good backdrop for an aspirational movie about two guys who were really trying to write their next chapter.”

Levy was quick to point out that while the film was true to the spirit and scene at the Internet giant’s campus in Mountain View, California, the internship program was made fiercely competitive to power the story.

“There was no way to do this well if the company wasn’t going to have a sense of humor about themselves,” Levy said.

Stickers, tee shirts, bicycles and other details down to equations or code written on white boards at Google were all authentic, and scenes on campus inspired lines or characters in the film, according to the director.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin ended up in the film by chance, after Levy noticed what he thought was a colorful character in “yoga clothes and fuzzy green slippers” pedal by on an elliptical bicycle.

When he asked who it was, someone whispered reverentially ‘Sergey.’

‘I loved the look,” Levy said, adding that he coaxed Brin into peddling through a scene.

In true Silicon Valley style, many Googlers were as excited about Brin’s involvement in the film as they were in seeing the actors on campus.

Levy recounted Vaughn and Wilson never passing a micro-kitchen on campus without stopping to sample edibles.

The actors rode off so often on Google bicycles that a tracker had to be assigned so they could be found for filming, according to the director.

“It seemed like a kind of nice resort,” Wilson said of Google, confiding that he had tried in vain to use his film intern badge to explore buildings on the campus.

“It is not all loosey-goosey at Google, there is security there,” he quipped.

Levy and the actors said that a big draw for them at Google was that workers there seemed to want to do good.

“The three of us are commitedly non-cynical,” Levy said. “A lot of people who work at Google are genuinely trying to make life better for humans better; I got that and I wanted the movie to have the same heart.”

Vaughn recounted taking the idea to Google marketing vice president Lorraine Twohill two years ago with Wilson in tow.

“I had an idea where, unfortunately, there were a lot of people who were having a hard time in the economy; the types of jobs they were doing were going away,” Vaughn said.

“If you lost your job, where is a fun, exciting place that seems foreign to you to go to work? Google.”

Google associate product marketing manager Raymond Braun, who had two internships at the company before being hired last year, said his experiences were more collaborative than competitive, but that the film was fun.

“I love that they capture the essence of Google being a place that wants to make a positive impact and celebrate diversity in an open environment, but there is certainly a Hollywood take on the experience,” Braun said.

In the film, a key quality sought at the company was “Googliness.”

“Googliness is all the things that make you a complete person beyond smarts,” Levy said.

“This idea of being a holistic person with an ethical center, and work ethic, and empathy and consciousness of people and the world around you.”

source: interaksyon.com

NDRRMC takes back higher fatality count in Serendra: Only 3 dead, not 6, as agency earlier reported

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council on Saturday morning corrected its own report that six people died as a result of the blast that hit Serendra on Friday, revising its report back to list three fatalaties.

The NDRRMC early Saturday had raised the casualty count from the explosion that rocked the Serendra residential development in Bonifacio Global City, doubling the fatalities list, and raising the number of injured to five. Within an hour of posting its report, however, the NDRRMC took back its statement.

The NDRRMC had said, wrongly, that the dead included three unidentified males in Unit 501 of Two Serendra, from where the blast emanated.

In fact, only three passengers of an Abenson delivery van that was crushed by debris from the explosion, remained the only fatalities.

Five passengers of a Hyundai Starex van, including a nine-year-old girl, were also injured by debris from the blast and brought to the nearby St. Lukes Medical Center within Bonifacio Global City.

Authorities continue to explore all possible angles as to what caused the explosion. DILG Secretary Mar Roxas said it was too early to say whether the blast was caused by a bombing, a gas leak, or some sort of combustion.

Ayala Land Inc., developer of Serendra, said it was fully cooperating with fire and police investigators.

source: interaksyon.com