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LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Fire Department has responded to a 911 call from the home of actress Brittany Murphy's husband.
Fire Department spokesman Devon Gale says the call was made at 8 a.m. Sunday from a home in Los Angeles that is listed as belonging to British screenwriter Simon Monjack, who is married to Murphy. Gale says one person was transported to a hospital.
Messages left for Murphy's manager, agent and publicist weren't immediately returned.
The 32-year-old actress starred in such films as "Clueless," "8 Mile," and "Don't Say a Word."

WASHINGTON – ICAP Securities USA, the U.S. division of a big British brokerage, agreed Friday to pay $25 million to settle federal regulators' charges that it deceived customers by displaying thousands of phony trades in U.S. Treasury securities on its screens.
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced the settlement of civil fraud charges with ICAP Securities USA, which it described as the U.S. subsidiary of the world's largest broker of trades between banks, ICAP PLC of Britain. Inter-dealer brokers, as they are called, match buyers and sellers in over-the-counter markets for securities such as U.S. Treasuries and mortgage-backed bonds.
ICAP Securities USA, based in Jersey City, N.J., neither admitted nor denied the SEC's allegations but did agree to refrain from future violations of the securities laws. The firm was censured and agreed to pay $24 million in civil penalties and $1 million in restitution.
It also agreed to hire an independent consultant to review its internal controls and compliance procedures, and its trading activities.
The censure brings the possibility that the firm could face a stiffer sanction if the alleged infraction is repeated.
The SEC had alleged that from December 2004 through December 2005, ICAP displayed thousands of fictitious trades in Treasuries on its screens, and disseminated false trade information into the market to attract customers' attention and trades.
The SEC also reached settlements with five ICAP brokers, which it had accused of aiding and abetting the firm's conduct, and two senior executives accused of failing to adequately supervise the brokers.
The executives are Gregory Murphy, ICAP Securities' chief operating officer; and Ronald Purpora, the former president of ICAP North America and a member of ICAP PLC's global executive management group.
Murphy and Purpora each agreed to pay a $100,000 civil fine and to a three-month suspension from working as supervisors at any brokerage firm. The neither admitted nor denied the SEC's allegations.
The brokers are: Peter Agola, Ronald Boccio, Kevin Cunningham, Donald Hoffman and Anthony Parisi. They each agreed to pay a $100,000 civil fine except for Hoffman, who retired in 2006, who is paying a $50,000 fine. The five also agreed to a three-month suspension from working for any brokerage firm.
The brokers neither admitted nor denied the SEC's allegations but did agree to refrain from future violations of the securities laws.

LOS ANGELES – "Captain EO" is moonwalking back to Disneyland.
The theme park announced plans Friday to bring back the 3-D sci-fi film starring Michael Jackson next February, over 23 years after the attraction debuted in Anaheim, Calif. The 17-minute film starred the late King of Pop as a singing-and-dancing intergalactic commander. It was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and executive produced by George Lucas.
In the film, Jackson leads a goofy alien and robot crew as they battle a wicked queen played by Anjelica Huston. "Captain EO" originally opened in Disneyland's Tommorrowland in 1986 and ran for more than a decade. Identical versions later opened at other Disney theme parks. They were all closed by 1998.
Jackson died June 25 at age 50.

Creation of the term hip hop is often credited to Keith Cowboy, a rapper with Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five. Though Lovebug Starski, Keith Cowboy, and DJ Hollywood used the term when the music was still known as disco rap. It is believed that Cowboy created the term while teasing a friend who had just joined the U.S. Army, by scat singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of marching soldiers. Cowboy later worked the "hip hop" cadence into a part of his stage performance, which was quickly used by other artists such as The Sugarhill Gang in "Rapper's Delight".

Hip hop arose during the 1970s when block parties became increasingly popular in New York City, especially in the Bronx. Block parties incorporated DJs who played popular genres of music, especially funk and soul music. DJs, realizing its positive reception, began isolating the percussion breaks of popular songs. This technique was then common in Jamaican dub music and had spread to New York City via the substantial Jamaican immigrant community. A major proponent of the technique was the "godfather" of hip hop, the Jamaican-born DJ Kool Herc.

NYC Hip Hop Classes

WASHINGTON (AFP) –
US editorial pages gave a cool response Sunday to what President Barack Obama called an "unprecedented" 11th-hour, non-binding deal on climate change during talks in Copenhagen.

The Washington Times lambasted what it called "flop" proceedings between world leaders during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in the Danish capital, calling Friday "Obama's cold day in Denmark."

"The promised treaty -- billed with the characteristic understatement of the alarmist community as 'the single most important piece of paper in the world today' -- was an anticlimax," it said.

"The final three-page version was tossed together in the closing hours with little deliberation and wound up saying little.

"The much-ballyhooed treaty promises next to nothing, other than a 100-billion-dollar slush fund for Third World dictators to 'adapt to climate change,' which probably involves buying mansions in southern France."

The Washington Post said the agreement was not bold, noting that many of the details have yet to be set. But it welcomed a commitment by developing countries to a verification regime as "an important step".

"Governments must do better," it added, pointing to a UN report leaked earlier this month that found that pledged emission cuts would likely allow far more warming than the two degrees Celsius (35.6 Fahrenheit) threshold beyond which most scientists say global warming could have disastrous consequences.

The newspaper urged the US Senate to take up climate legislation now stalled in Congress.

"Reducing America's dependence on foreign sources of energy and tackling domestic pollution are strong enough reasons to pass a bill," it added. "Vigorous debate should commence."

On Saturday, The Wall Street Journal said the Copenhagen talks offered "a lesson in limits for a White House partial to symbolic gestures and routinely disappointed by reality."

Echoing those sentiments, the San Francisco Chronicle noted the deal was a "face-saving result" and provided "a humbling lesson in complexity, economic rivalries and financial risks."

It urged California to take on the climate change fight and serve as a pioneer in the field.

The Journal called the Copenhagen deal "a pre-emptive dead letter because countries like China, Brazil and India said they were unwilling to accept anything that depressed their economic growth."

Noting that China, the world's biggest polluter, would likely continue to get a "free climate pass," it said "we can't wait to hear Mr Obama tell Americans that he wants them to pay higher taxes so the US can pay China to become more energy efficient and thus more economically competitive."

The White House had earlier sought to rally support for the contentious deal Obama brokered at the UN-backed climate talks by listing prominent Americans who back the plan.

A White House release included quotes from environmentalists, industry leaders and top lawmakers from Obama's Democratic Party praising the "breakthrough" that would "lay the foundation for international action in the years to come."

Michael Eckhart, head of the American Council on Renewable Energy, applauded Obama's "wisdom in achieving an agreement on the aspirational goal."

Nike vice president Hannah Jones praised the president's "sense of urgency and recognition that companies need certainty and a level playing field" to move to a low-carbon economy.

National Wildlife Federation chief Larry Schweiger was more nuanced, noting that although all top polluters have made pledges to cut emissions from the heat-trapping gases, "the deal is incomplete."

The 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry, hailed Obama's "hands-on engagement," saying it "sets the stage for a final deal and for Senate passage this spring of major legislation at home."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised the "critical agreement."

Others were not as charitable.

Bill McKibben, founder of the environmentalist group 350.org, said the final declaration reflected "that small and poor countries don't matter, that international civil society doesn't matter and that serious limits on carbon don't matter."

American Petroleum Institute president Jack Gerard said Friday that his oil and gas industry trade group agrees with Obama "on the importance of addressing global climate change."

But he criticized the leading proposals in Congress on the issue.

BRUSSELS – The European Union's top antitrust official said Wednesday she was "still optimistic" that regulators could resolve a bitter dispute over an EU investigation into Oracle Corp.'s planned takeover of Sun Microsystems Inc.
The two companies had hoped to close the $7.4 billion deal this summer but EU objections have held up the deal for months while Sun hemorrhages money and sheds jobs.
EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said she hoped regulators and Oracle "could reach a satisfactory outcome to ensure that there is no adverse impact on effective competition on the European market."
The EU regulators have been concerned that Oracle would gain too much control over the database software market if it buys Sun's open source-based MySQL, which regulators claim will increasingly pose a threat to Sun's proprietary database programs.
Oracle says it does not want to sell MySQL — a solution for many companies running into similar problems with the EU commission. Sun paid $1 billion for MySQL last year.
It is unclear whether Oracle could make other commitments to resolve the EU's worries. Regulators say they fear Oracle could refuse to license MySQL to some companies or for some uses in order to favor its own software — which could limit customer choice and ultimately raise prices.
The commission has until Jan. 27 to make a final decision.

Most of us can’t get through our days now without being reminded of technology we didn’t have or didn’t use in 1999. But as we Tweet via our BlackBerrys or watch the latest viral video from the YouTube application on our iPhones, we may be taking for granted just how much media developments have affected our culture and transformed our lives in the past decade.
"What has happened between the beginning of the 21st century and now I think is the most profound part of the new media revolution," says Paul Levinson, a professor of communication and media studies and Fordham University and the author of "New New Media." “In particular, what makes these newer media so important is that it turns the consumers into producers.”Developments like Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia and Twitter have allowed audiences to participate in producing content that can easily be distributed to others. Before, that kind of power was reserved mainly for big companies.

"In previous times, no matter what, someone was deciding what you were going to hear and see and watch and listen to," notes Ken Hudson, a digital media consultant in Toronto. "But now there are also individuals that produce content. And so if the story is worth telling or if it’s worth hearing, it’s going to be heard."The ability to distribute content we produce has also led to a new age in the news media. We now give the credibility and regard to some bloggers that was once reserved for those employed by a major newspaper, wire service or television network, says Hudson, who thinks the 21st century has seen the rise of what he calls the "democratization of media."

AP

We can see and hear all of this user-produced content from almost anywhere nowadays. The convenience of the laptop computer developed into smart phones that help us become content producers from where ever we happen to be at the time.With so much information from so many sources at our fingertips at all times, there has been talk that it’s bad for interpersonal connections. But the media experts seem to disagree."Social media is letting people create much, much bigger communities than they ever have before," says Barna Donovan, chair of the communication department at Saint Peter’s College. Websites like Facebook allow people to reclaim any part of their lives at any time, Levinson says. Developments like Twitter allow us to be in touch with people we’re close to – or people we’re not even close to – throughout the day without ever having to pick up a phone.

AP

And Skype, which provides video chats for anyone with an Internet connection, lets us see and hear people who might be halfway across the world – for free."That’s like the revolutionary thing that’s happening right now," Levinson points out. "The idea that you can talk to someone and see their face and have a video conversation with them that doesn’t cost anything – that would have been science fiction 10 years ago."

AP

In addition to challenging the authorities’ rule with user-produced content, audiences are also having a powerful impact on society through technologies like Hulu, which allows free television viewing online. By flocking to what we want to see, instead of what the networks want us to see or the Federal Communications Commission permits us to see, we are creating a loophole in censorship, says Donovan, who is writing a book called "Violence is Good: How Anti-Media Paranoia Threatens Free Speech and Democracy.""We are able to see just what kind of values the culture really lives by and what kind of things they believe in," he says. "It’s going to be difficult to impossible to censor and keep audiences from explicit content."But, as significant as the "democratization of media" has been, Hudson says he thinks more significant developments are on the way."I think we’ve just seen the beginning of it. I don’t think we really understand how it’s going to revolutionize our society," he said, noting that, appropriately, "I think we’re in charge of where it’s going to take us, which is also revolutionary."– Laura E. Davis

TRENTON, N.J. – "The Boss" is backing gay marriage in the Garden State.
Bruce Springsteen posted a statement on his Web site urging support of the gay marriage bill that's up for a vote in New Jersey's Senate on Thursday.
Springsteen wrote that he's long believed in and has "always spoken out for the rights of same-sex couples."
The native son says he agrees with Gov. Jon Corzine that marriage equality is a civil rights issue.
Gov.-elect Chris Christie is a big Springsteen fan. The Republican has said he would veto the bill.
A state Senate committee approved the bill by one vote on Monday.
Democrats concede the measure may fall short of the 21 votes needed to pass the Senate.
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On The Net:
http://www.brucespringsteen.net/news/index.html

WASHINGTON – A man who made his way uninvited into a White House state dinner is denying that he and his wife are gate-crashers.
In his first nationally broadcast interview since the incident, Tareq Salahi (TAH'-rehk sah-LAH'-hee) told NBC's "Today" show that the whole experience has been "the most devastating thing that has ever happened" to he and his wife, Michaele.
Salahi said flatly that the couple "did not party-crash the White House." He said the pair is cooperating with the Secret Service and they have "great respect" for President Barack Obama. Salahi told interviewer Matt Lauer he's confident "the truth will come out." about the circumstances surrounding his and his wife's attendance at the state dinner for the visiting prime minister of India.

A wallet generally has one or more currency pockets; in some cases, there may also be a money clip. Wallets usually have one or more pockets for storing credit card or identification cards, which may be oriented vertically or horizontally.

Major retailers usually sell a wide selection of men's wallets . Major retailers (such as the UK's John Lewis Partnership or Neiman Marcus in USA) usually offer branded wallets and house-name wallets.

RFID Blocking Wallet