Culture

The Irish bookmaker, Paddy Power, has described this weeks conclave in the Vatican as "getting to be a bigger non-sporting betting event than the Oscars Hollywood movie awards." The bookmaker has been taking bets all week on who will be the next Pope, with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger the 3-1 favourite. Second favorite was a Frenchman; Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger. The betting firm revealed that one customer has placed €1,000 (US$1,287) on the former Jew. In third place is a 78 year old Italian, Carlo Maria Cardinal Martini. Like the late Pope J

With little ceremony, one of the most innovative and radical new media projects in decades, the Creative Archive was officially launched today by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). In partnership with the Open University, Channel 4, British Film Institute and Creative Commons, the Creative Archive will allow UK residents access to selected items from the archives of British public service radio and television broadcasting. The Archive has been in pre-development stages for several years, and today's official launch saw the creation o

The last British-owned volume car manufacturer, MG Rover, has closed down, with the loss of 5,000 jobs. International accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCooper was brought in last week to put the company into administration. Today PwC announced that MG Rover's only hope, the Chinese car company SAIC, had no interest in buying the ailing firm. With no further source of revenue, PwC has closed the company's factory in Longbridge, Birmingham and has laid off 5,000 workers. Some 1,000 workers will continue for a while to complete the remaining cars l

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed 405 lawsuits against students at 18 colleges across the US. The RIAA says these students were illegally sharing songs and films over the Internet2. They claim that 3,900 songs were available on the network. The RIAA said that each person sued downloaded an average of 2,300 songs. The MPAA has also filed several lawsuits, against students, but has declined to comment on the number of students sued. The MPAA claim that users of the Internet2 had swapped 99 terabytes of films per day.

Moviegoers who pushed it to No. 1 with a reported $18.1 million take for the weekend ending April 10 at the U.S. and Canadian box office welcomed the premiere of the movie Sahara, starring Matthew McConaughey and Penélope Cruz. Still, the total was $10 million less than Sin City, the top film of the previous week, made in its debut. Sahara is described as an adventure movie with plenty of fun. McConaughey plays a tanned and fit traveler searching for a long lost U.S. Civil War battleship, filled with gold coins, and finds love in the process.

A tiny piece of rock 4.4 billion years old went on display in Wisconsin, USA Sunday for one day only. A jazz band played music, with rocks for percussion, which they said might be appropriate for displaying the bit of zircon crystal, barely two human hairs wide. The tiny gem was found in Australia in 1984, and analyzed in 2001 by experts, and has led to the reappraisal of early Earth. University of Wisconsin–Madison geophysicist Professor John Valley said his work proved the crystal could only have formed in a low-temperature environment. "T

Mean Fiddler PLC, one of the most successful music promoters in the UK and Ireland has today agreed to be taken over by the Irish owned Gaiety Investments (owner of MCD Promotions) and US based Clear Channel Communications. The deal values Mean Fiddler at STG£37.9m (€55.3m; US$71.4m) or £0.60 a share. It will be an all cash transaction. Mean Fiddler was founded in 1982 by Vince Power, a native of County Waterford, Ireland. The company, which started life as a small but trendy club in London, grew rapidly in the 1980's to encompass a French res

Speculation is mounting in Rome with Vatican observers suggesting that many factors will go into the decision of who will be John Paul II's successor. It has long been considered extremely unlikely that the next pope will be an American. Cardinal Francis George of Chicago declared in 2003 that "to some extent, even the appearance of being in some sense captured by, as we say now, the world's only superpower, would not be helpful to the mission of the church." Some say the choice of a French Pope would also be overly controversial. The Polish-

Success may be too much of a good thing for the future of storied BBC series Doctor Who. After the unexpected popularity of last Saturday's return of the series to BBC airwaves, the star of the show is calling it quits from fears of typecasting. According to a report from the BBC, actor Christopher Eccleston, who injected a edgier and sexier image onto the title character plans to leave the series once his 13-episode commitment is over later this year. Eccleston told reporters that his last appearance as The Doctor will be for a December Chris

Entertainment industry rising star Gail Berman was named president of the Viacom-owned Paramount Pictures film and television studios Wednesday. She is scheduled to start in May. Currently Berman heads up the programming division of the U.S. Fox network. Berman is credited for the major turn-around in the fortunes of the Fox network. Their ratings were at the bottom of the heap of the four major U.S. broadcast networks when she took over programming in 2000. According to the latest Nielsen ratings, Fox is the No. 1 U.S. network in primetime pr

In a report from the Department of Homeland Security released on Friday, March 25, they allege the US Transportation Security Administration "made inaccurate statements" about its management of personal data belonging to passengers. The report claims, "TSA did not ensure that privacy protections were in place" as it handled data transfers to private contractors for use in the development of a computerized passenger screening application, called CAPPS II. While the report criticizes TSA for its inaccurate statements, it notes the "misstatements

The local chapter of the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity at California State University, Chico was suspended after members were linked to a pornographic DVD apparently filmed in the club's fraternity house. According to reports, the DVD shows students engaged in various sexual activities with female porn actresses. The Chico fraternity also has been suspended by the national Phi Kappa Tau organization and Chico State's Interfraternity Council, the student governing body for all fraternities. In addition, the national Interfraternity Council issued a