With Jamie Dornan locked in, 'True Blood' actor Luke Grimes joins cast of the steamy flick.
By Jocelyn Vena
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Quincy Jones sued Michael Jackson's estate on Friday claiming he is owed millions in royalties and production fees on some of the superstar's greatest hits.
Jones' lawsuit seeks at least $10 million from the singer's estate and Sony Music Entertainment, claiming the entities improperly re-edited songs to deprive him of royalties and production fees. The music has been used in the film "This Is It" and a pair of Cirque du Soleil shows based on the King of Pop's songs, the lawsuit states.
Jones also claims that he should have received a producer's credit on the music in "This Is It." His lawsuit seeks an accounting of the estate's profits from the works so that Jones can determine how much he is owed.
The producer worked with Jackson on three of his most popular solo albums, "Off the Wall," ''Thriller" and "Bad."
Jackson's estate wrote in a statement that it was saddened by Jones' lawsuit. "To the best of its knowledge, Mr. Jones has been appropriately compensated over approximately 35 years for his work with Michael," the statement said.
An after-hours message left at Sony Music's New York offices was not immediately returned.
Jackson's hits "Billie Jean," ''Thriller" and "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" are among the songs Jones claims were re-edited to deprive him of royalties and his producer's fee.
Jones' lawsuit states the producer's contracts called for him to have the first opportunity to re-edit or alter the songs, in part to protect his reputation.
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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-10-25-Michael%20Jackson-Estate/id-cbfc056912a74fb0ae430d32bb885d3aMayer Hawthorne.
Mayer Hawthorne joins us on our last day of Sense of Place: Detroit to talk a bit about growing up in the Motor City. While Hawthorne began his career as a hip-hop artist, it was his retro take on soul music that caught the attention of his audience, and of record companies.
The singer's third album, Where Does This Door Go, differs slightly from his previous work, as it includes more influences from the '70s and '80s, the jazz-rock band Steely Dan among them. In today's session, listeners will hear a five song set from Hawthorne and his band.
I’m often asked: “How do you go from Walter Mondale to Fox News?” To which the short answer is: “I was young once.” The long answer begins by noting that this is hardly a novel passage. The path is well trodden, most famously by Ronald Reagan, himself once a New Deal Democrat, and more recently by a generation of neoconservatives, led by Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz. Every story has its idiosyncrasies. These are mine.
Beirut (AFP) - The toll from a car bomb explosion at a mosque in Suq Wadi Barada near Damascus Friday soared to at least 40, including seven children, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Syrian government and opposition exchanged blame for the carnage in the town.
Suq Wadi Barada is under rebel control and ringed by troops loyal to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
"The toll from a car bomb explosion that detonated after Friday prayers in Suq Wadi Barada has risen to 40, including seven children and a woman," said the Observatory.
"The number of dead is likely to rise because there are dozens of wounded, most of them in critical condition," it added.
State news agency SANA had earlier reported the blast, blaming "terrorists", the term the Assad regime uses for forces fighting to oust it.
The opposition National Coalition meanwhile blamed the Assad regime for the "massacre" caused by what it said were two car bombs placed outside the Osama Bin Zeid mosque in Suq Wadi Barada.
"Bashar al-Assad's gangs detonated two car bombs at midday... that were planted in front of the Osama Bin Zeid mosque in Suq Wadi Barada," the Coalition said in a statement.
"The regime's constant commission of massacres makes it the duty of countries of the free world, the friends of the Syrian people, as well as international human rights and humanitarian organisations to fulfil their responsibilities towards civilians," it added.
They must "protect the lives of Syrians and uphold their rights".
An activist on the ground told AFP via the Internet that there had only been one explosion.
"A second car bomb had been planted but it was discovered and defused before it exploded," he said.
Amateur video shot after the explosion showed clouds of smoke rising above a burning car, while cries of men and women could be heard amid the chaos that followed the blast.
The footage also showed people carrying away casualties.
Car bombings have plagued Syria in recent months, killing scores across the country.
She’s been feeling mighty generous lately, and Lady Gaga just served up a snippet of her forthcoming single “Venus.”
The “Applause” songstress took to her Twitter account with an announcement and link to a YouTube video clip.
Gaga tweeted, “HERE is a snippet OF ‘VENUS’ produced by Lady Gaga. ‘Venus’ is a sequence of multiple covers shot by ‘Alejandro’ and ‘Fame’ director @SKstudly Steven Klein.” she added.
Additionally, last night (October 24) Lady Gaga performed her new song “Gypsy” at the Berghain Club in Berlin, Germany, telling the crowd, “I wrote this song as I was traveling around the world…they say ‘a Gypsy doesn’t have a home.’ But I do have a home. I have a home with you always. This is my first performance of this record, it’s very special to me, thank you for sharing it with me.”
Good morning.
Your erstwhile members of Congress are high-tailing it out of Washington for the weekend (no votes in the House, and the Senate took the day off but promises to return Monday).
But there's plenty to digest.
Fallout from Thursday's House hearing on computer problems marring the health care overhaul rollout. Across-the-pond anger over America's spying on allies. And, yes, donkeys. We'll get to that.
First, let's look at political reaction to the House hearing where executives of the IT companies that built the Obamacare website were quizzed about its failures.
Their message to Congress: the rollout was rushed, and the insurance exchange website should have been tested months, not weeks, before it went live Oct. 1.
"It was not our decision to go live," said Cheryl Campbell, senior vice president of CGI Federal, which handled most of the project, as quoted by the Washington Post. She said the decision was made by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services.
CMS officials, the Post says, declined to spell out why the complete tests started so late.
Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, scheduled to testify next week, will no doubt be asked to explain.
But just what is the point of the GOP-led House inquiry? To fix problems, or kill the health care overhaul?
In the they-want-to-kill-it camp is committee member Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., who at the hearing called out his GOP colleagues for holding what he derisively labeled a "monkey court."
"The goal here should be to fix it, not nix it," Pallone said. "The Republicans are not trying to make this better - they are using he website glitches as an excuse to delay or defund Obamacare."
And, indeed, conservatives on and off Capitol Hill are making no bones about their continued aims to scuttle the law.
Jonah Goldberg, writing in the conservative National Review, reminds that when President Obama addressed the website problems earlier this week, he noted that the website is just a small part of the health care overhaul.
Says Goldberg: "So, sure, the website is just one small part of Obamacare. But your jugular is only one small part of your anatomy, too."
Here's Goldberg's dream scenario: "Still, the barely holding conventional wisdom on the right and left is that the website will get fixed eventually, the glitches will be de-glitched, and one day we'll all look back and laugh at the fuss. That's possible. But with every passing day it's less likely. And if more Democrats join the movement to delay the individual mandate (Republican senator Marco Rubio has already drafted legislation to do exactly that), the whole thing could start to unravel almost overnight."
BloombergBusinessweek reports that this all plays into Republicans' pivot from their failed government shutdown strategy over Obamacare to a delay and defund effort. As part of that strategy, Republicans have turned again to House oversight hearings, which they've used to for inquiries in the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, and the Internal Revenue Services scrutiny of Tea Party Groups, the publication says.
Michael C. Bender and Kathleen Miller write: "The pivot from a failed legislative assault to investigating the troubled rollout at oversight hearings follows a Republican campaign to choke off the law's funding, which led to the first partial government shutdown in 17 years. The shift may help Republican leaders avoid a similar legislative fight, which hurt the party in public opinion polls."
Writing in the New York Times opinion blog, Juliet Lapidos characterizes the standoff as between lawmakers who "hope that government programs work well, and if they don't try to fix them," and those who "want to shrink government until it's small enough to drown in a bathtub.
Here's Lapidos: "In theory, our representatives hope that government agencies carry out their missions smoothly, and if something goes wrong, try to figure out what happened to avoid making the same mistake in the future.
Obviously that's not how things work in the United States, where one of the two parties doesn't even believe in government. Republicans want to shrink government until it's small enough to drown in a bathtub! They think there's nothing scarier than the prospect of a government employee trying to help! With beliefs like those, it's not surprising that — with disturbing frequency — they root for failure in order to score points."
Her conclusion, in breaking down Republican arguments: "If the glitches indicate deep problems, then health care reform will fall apart, in which case Republicans will pick up seats in the next election. In other words, disaster would be good for (the) party."
Check out RealClearPolitics' roundup of polls on public approval of the law.
Spying
As the heathcare overhaul debate continues stateside, anger about American spying on allies deepened overseas.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says international trust in President Obama has been "shattered" by revelations about the depth of NSA spying - including claims that Merkel's own phone may have been tapped.
The Daily Mail reports on the widening crisis, and my NPR colleague Scott Neuman has a wrap up of developments here.
Reports the Mail: "Brazil and Germany have joined forces in an attempt to pile pressure on the United Nations to rein in the snooping activities of American spies.
The two nations want a UN General Resolution that promotes the right to privacy on the internet in the first major international response to the National Security Agency's infiltration of the online communications of foreigners.
The step comes after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the recent US espionage scandal has shattered international trust in Barack Obama following claims her phone may have been tapped by American agents."
Other news we're watching:
*NPR's Kathy Lohr tells us how the fight over abortion in Texas is playing out in federal court, where a new state law with tighter restrictions on the practice is being challenged.
*And, finally, the donkeys. This has pretty much nothing to do with politics, but it's a fascinating look tactics being used by Australian sheep farmers to keep wild dogs at bay — including the deployment of donkeys. The story is told in photos, some graphic.
