Tuesday, 10 June 2008

Mariah Carey Told Friends Wedding Was A Video Shoot

Mariah Carey tricked her friends into thinking she was jetting off to the Bahamas to film a video, when in actual fact she secretly got married to Nick Cannon.



The E=MC2 songstress convinced pals she had to shoot extra scenes for her promo Bye Bye, in which Cannon plays Carey’s love interest, but instead she jetted off to her Windermere home with select pals to get hitched.



But the couple had already decided to wed there.



Carey tells People: "We only told people who had to know... If we brought a million people with us, it would've been obvious we weren't shooting a video.



"Only about four people knew we were going down there to get married."



The couple flew boxes of Maine lobster and cases of Dom Perignon champagne over to the island, and Carey reportedly picked up the wedding cake herself and discreetly carried it with her.



Carey's best pal, rapper Da Brat, helped organise a last-minute bachelorette party before the singer became Mrs. Cannon.



Carey and Cannon exchanged vows on the patio of the singer's island retreat on 30 April.

See Mr & Mrs Cannon get down and dirty here.


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Opening statements given in R. Kelly trial

Doubts remain about minor apparently in video





If prosecutors can prove a videotape features R. Kelly and an underage girl, the R&B superstar's child pornography trial could end with him receiving a lengthy prison sentence.
But prosecutors will run into defense challenges at every turn. Kelly, 41, denies he's the man on the tape. The 23-year-old woman prosecutors say was a minor at the time of the taping denies she's the girl on the tape. Defense attorneys may also contend the girl, whoever she was, wasn't a minor at all.
How prosecutors intend to eliminate a reasonable doubt about those challenges may become clearer today as opening statements begin in a trial that has been delayed repeatedly since the tape was mailed to the Chicago Sun-Times in 2002. The newspaper turned it over to authorities, and Kelly was indicted later that year.
Prosecutors say the tape was made between Jan. 1, 1998, and Nov. 1, 2000. Kelly is accused of videotaping himself around 10 years ago having sex with a girl as young as 13 years old. The singer, who has pleaded not guilty, faces up to 15 years if convicted.
Jury selection finished last week with prosecutors and defense attorneys accusing each other of trying to stack the panel along racial lines. Eight jurors are white and four are black.
The panel includes a Baptist preacher's wife, a young woman who said she was once raped, and a business executive who said during jury selection he had believed Kelly was guilty.
Despite intense media attention on the case, Judge Vincent Gaughan has vowed not to let the trial sink into a celebrity circus. He has demanded the respect of reporters, even holding up a plastic bag during a hearing Friday and saying it held pieces of chewed gum he had collected under the rows where they sat during jury selection.
"Don't stick gum on the benches," he said. "Actually, it's a crime."
The defense is led by Ed Genson, highly sought by defendants for his persuasive powers with jurors. The gray-bearded Genson suffers from a neurological disorder that can make him walk as if he suffers from a severe hip injury, and he often uses a motorized scooter. He's known to adopt a gasping, stammering air that masks the wiles of a shrewd tactician.
Shauna Boliker is expected to take the lead for the prosecution. The birth of her third child last year was one reason for the delays in the trial -- among others were a case of appendicitis for Kelly and the judge's fall from a ladder.
Boliker has prosecuted several high-profile cases, including that of a Catholic priest who pleaded guilty last year to abusing five boys.

Salma Hayek Slams Paparazzi For Baby Attacks

Actress Salma Hayek has hit out at aggressive photographers - because they continue to jeopardise the health of her baby.
The 41-year-old star gave birth to daughter Valentina last year
with partner Francois-Henri Pinault - and she's shocked by the lengths snappers will go to to get photos of the star with her family to sell to the press.
She says, "I was hounded when I was pregnant. And even more since I've had the baby. They are parked outside of your house and they will not move for months. I didn't leave my house for nearly three months... I've gotten hit with a camera before."
And Hayek has grown increasingly concerned since a February clash with photographers nearly sent her daughter flying to the pavement from her caretaker's arms.
She recalls, "First I see them attacking me with the camera and the flashes. Now she starts screaming, the baby. Then they push the nanny, she was going to the floor.
"It was so disturbing. I didn't know if they wanted to get the picture or they wanted to push the baby and get me crazy. I'm not sure because it was almost - it was really deliberate. It's a baby."

Living Legends

Living Legends   
Artist: Living Legends

   Genre(s): 
Rap: Hip-Hop
   Blues
   



Discography:


Living Legends-Legendary Music Volume 1   
 Living Legends-Legendary Music Volume 1

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 11


UHB5 - Legacy 2099   
 UHB5 - Legacy 2099

   Year: 2002   
Tracks: 18


The Underworld   
 The Underworld

   Year: 2000   
Tracks: 13


Revenge Fall Sampler 1999 (Take it Back to the Field)   
 Revenge Fall Sampler 1999 (Take it Back to the Field)

   Year: 1999   
Tracks: 16


Foxhole   
 Foxhole

   Year:    
Tracks: 9


Angels With Dirty Faces   
 Angels With Dirty Faces

   Year:    
Tracks: 21




The Living Legends, a loose collective of MCs and DJs from the Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Japan, and Europe, are unique for both their down-to-earth songs and approach to the music business concern. Following in the footsteps of California artists like Too Short world Health Organization made a name marketing tapes out of cable car short pants, the Legends as well chose to stay put independent from record labels. They took the street hustling wit even further with Destiny" ring very straight. Living Legends served as an breathing in for other Bay Area titan crews like Hieroglyphics and Hobo Junction, world Health Organization along with hip-hoppers nationwide in the tardy '90s decided they could alive off without major labels.


Mystik Journeymen, a duet composed of BFAP (later rechristened Sunspot Jonz) and PSC (later Luckyiam), formed in 1992 and became legendary for their underground tapes and parties in East Oakland. The institution nucleus of the Living Legends, the deuce met the Grouch in 1995 and soon after embarked on the first of a retentive serial of self-funded tours abroad, this time only to Europe. Upon their return, they met up with a triple called 3MG or Three Melancholy Gypsies (MURS, Eligh, and Scarub) world Health Organization had broken cancelled from their Los Angeles-based group Log Cabin and reunited in Oakland. The sextet officially formed Living Legends in 1996 (along with Aesop, Elusive, and Bizarro) and gained national fame with appearances on 1997's Beats and Lyrics digest and 1998's Rules of the Game. As the net and their internet site world Wide Web.LLcrew.com developed, the Legends were able to strive a immense new audience worldwide.


As their renown grew, the Legends tirelessly visited Europe, Asia, and Australia, a come of eight-spot earthly concern tours in two age. Their rank as well grew to international proportions afterward they joined up with Japan's Arata and DJ Quietstorm and Belgium's Krewcial. While place in California, they released a uninterrupted current of albums and tapes through their imprints Outhouse Records and Revenge Entertainment, produced their have clip, Unsigned and Hella Broke, and set annual Broke Ass Summer Jams. In 1999, Living Legends affected their base of trading operations to Los Angeles and added Basik as some other penis.





Heather Mills - Mills Photographer Has Conviction Quashed

R. Kelly trial: Prosecution's star witness will not testify Thursday, judge says

The carrot has dangled before us all week, taunting and teasing us like an aquatic mirage in the desert.

We sat patiently as the state called witness after witness to say what the others had already said before. We struggled through testimony about evidence collection that was drier than the sandwich we ate for lunch. All because we thought that, finally, now we would get the fireworks we were promised.

But the day has turned out to be a dud.




Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan informed the jury a short while ago that Grant Fredericks, a forensic video analyst, will be the last witness of the day, thus dashing our hopes of hearing from the prosecution's star witness who was set to testify that she had a three-way sexual encounter with R. Kelly and the alleged victim.

A wave of disappointment washed through the courthouse as word got around that the woman's bombshell testimony was not happening Thursday. The spectators in the gallery thinned out. Court personnel in the hallway walked away shaking their heads upon learning that they broke away from their own cases for nothing.

We're sorry we got your hopes up, loyal blog readers. Trust us, we're disappointed too. We're now left trying to figure out how to make video analysis seem sexy.

Kayce T. Ataiyero

May 29, 2008 3:01 PM: Tale of the tape: Video expert testifies

If you ever wanted proof that forensic investigative techniques are just not as interesting as they appear on TV dramas, this last witness is your guy.

George Skaluba, a video analyst with the forensic unit of the FBI, spent the better part of an hour and a half Thursday discussing the various ways that videotapes are produced, reproduced, analyzed, morphed, doctored and damaged.

We call it the "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Videotapes Plus An Hour More" testimony.

He used more technical terms than helpful in a blog, and ultimately concluded the following:
1) The tape is not an original, and he doesn't know what generation tape it is.

2) The more you copy a tape, the more the quality and clarity of the video deteriorates.

3) It was not a good-quality tape.

4) The copy he reviewed didn't appear to be altered, but the original may have been.

5) To morph the faces and images in the 27-minute video (think "Little Man") was possible, but it would take "years" and would be "very, very difficult because of the length" of the tape. On top of that, he said, it would likely be easily identifiable.

Azam Ahmed

May 29, 2008 12:43 PM: Still no star witness

This morning's testimony has been the equivalent of your mom making you eat your Brussels sprouts before you can have dessert.

For the first time since the trial began, all six rows designated for spectators were filled in anticipation of the prosecution's bombshell witness, who is expected to testify that she had a three-way sexual encounter with Kelly and the alleged victim.

The Lovers

The Lovers   
Artist: The Lovers

   Genre(s): 
New Age
   



Discography:


Black orchid   
 Black orchid

   Year: 2001   
Tracks: 5




 






Guests for Sunday TV news shows include Sen. Kerry

Guest lineup for the Sunday TV news shows:


---


ABC's "This Week" - Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.


---


CBS' "Face the Nation" - Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.; Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va.; Howard Wolfson, campaign adviser for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.


---


NBC's "Meet the Press" - Journalists round table.


---


CNN's "Late Edition" - Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., Bob Casey, D-Pa., Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Feinstein; Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S.; Wolfson.


---


"Fox News Sunday" - Govs. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn.








See Also