| Business News |
Fed lowers growth forecast, raises inflation
(Reuters)
 Reuters - The Federal Reserve on Wednesday
slashed its U.S. economic growth forecast for 2008 and signaled
that mounting concerns over inflation would make further
interest rate cuts unlikely.
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American Airlines to slash jobs, charge for bags
(Reuters)
 Reuters - American Airlines' shares
fell 24 percent on Wednesday as it said it will cut thousands
of jobs, retire old aircraft and charge passengers to check
bags in a move to counter record fuel prices and a weak U.S.
economy.
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Oil surges over $134 on supply woes, weak dollar
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Oil prices surged $5 to a record over
$134 a barrel on Wednesday after a U.S. government report
showed a surprise drop in crude stockpiles, reinvigorating
fears of a supply crunch.
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Stagflation fears send stocks sharply lower
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Stocks tumbled on Wednesday, posting
their biggest losses in two weeks, amid fears the U.S. economy
faces 1980s-style stagflation after the Federal Reserve slashed
its economic growth forecasts while raising estimates for
inflation.
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Boeing to cut workers at California satellite plants
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Boeing Co , passed over for a
potential $3.6 billion Air Force satellite deal, said on
Wednesday it plans to lay off about 750 workers in Southern
California because of a downturn in its satellite assembly and
integration business.
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Fed sees slower growth, higher unemployment in `08
(AP)
AP - Federal Reserve officials strongly suggested they won't be inclined to cut interest rates further even as they sharply downgraded their forecast for economic growth this year, citing damage from a housing slump, credit crunch and galloping energy prices.
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| Book lifts lid on star of eerie first Dracula film - 09, May 2008 |
By Dave Graham
BERLIN (Reuters) - The first screen portrayal of Dracula was so eerie, some critics asked whether the actor himself could be a vampire. But since his death, little has been done to resurrect Max Schreck's reputation -- until now.
Schreck is best remembered for playing the cadaverous vampire Count Orlok in F.W. Murnau's 1922 silent classic "Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror", the first, unauthorized cinematic adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula.
The rest of his career has been largely forgotten -- unjustly, in the view of German author Stefan Eickhoff, who has written what he says is the first biography of Schreck.
"Whoever hopes to discover a vampire will be disappointed, but they will find an actor of real skill and versatility," said Eickhoff. "Yet he himself remains somewhat shrouded in mystery."
"Nosferatu" failed to make its lead a star, but achieved such cult status that some film scholars speculated his name -- Schreck means "fear" or "fright" in German -- was a pseudonym.
In 1953, Greek-born critic Adonis Kyrou mischievously asked in his book "Le Surrealisme au Cinema" whether the actor was a vampire: the idea caught hold and later inspired a film.
Despite years of research, Eickhoff found there were virtually no anecdotes featuring Schreck, nor any references to him in the memoirs of the many people he had worked with.
Instead, Eickhoff's biography provides a detailed chronicle of the career of Schreck, a civil servant's son who appeared in around 800 stage and screen roles. Glimpses into the man behind the actor's mask remain few and far between.
(c) 2008 Reuters
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| Other news from Entertainment category: |
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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The national symphony orchestra hoped music would bring Iraqis into harmony in a concert on Wednesday which highlighted sectarian violence that has killed tens of thousands of people, including some of its members.
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STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - British rock band Pink Floyd and American soprano Renee Fleming were awarded Sweden's annual Polar Music Prize on Wednesday, joining an eclectic group of winners including Paul McCartney, Elton John, Quincy Jones and Joni Mitchell.
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ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Boy band mogul Lou Pearlman, who launched Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Wednesday for swindling investors and major U.S. banks out of more than $300 million.
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CHICAGO (Reuters) - R&B superstar R. Kelly and a girl who described him as her godfather and was about 13 or 14 are the two people on a pornographic tape Kelly is accused of making, the girl's former best friend testified on Wednesday.
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LONDON (Reuters) - Richard Burton had no doubt that "God put me on this earth to raise hell."
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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actress Scarlett Johansson's latest film work may be getting the red carpet treatment at Cannes, but her debut album, released on Tuesday, is drawing fire from music critics.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Haitian-born hip-hop star Wyclef Jean launched a new initiative to help his impoverished homeland on Tuesday following last month's deadly food riots.
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CHICAGO (Reuters) - Jurors and spectators in a darkened courtroom watched a graphic video on Tuesday showing what prosecutors contend is R&B star R. Kelly in a sexual encounter with an underage girl.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - "American Idol"'s dueling Davids faced off on Tuesday as the two remaining finalists each performed three songs in their bid to take the crown in the talent show's seventh season.
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BERLIN (Reuters) - Scores of firefighters battled to put out a blaze at the home of the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra on Tuesday that sent banks of thick smoke billowing from the city's architectural landmark.
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| Software News |
Microsoft says aids Office/open-source interaction
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Microsoft said on
Wednesday that starting some time next year it will make it
easier for users of an open-source rival to work with Microsoft
Office.
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Microsoft lures search traffic with cash rebates
(AP)
AP - Microsoft Corp. is offering cash rebates when people make purchases after using its search engine as the software maker begins to reveal how it plans to take on Google Inc. following the failure of its $47.5 billion bid for Yahoo.
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McAfee likes small, not big, deals
(Reuters)
 Reuters - McAfee Inc, the No. 2 security
software maker, likes small and medium-sized acquisitions of up
to about $350 million and sees no need for a transformative
deal to challenge larger rival Symantec Corp.
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ZoneAlarm ForceField: Compromised in sixty seconds
(InfoWorld)
InfoWorld - Check Point Software's new Web browser security software, called ZoneAlarm ForceField, integrates a host-based firewall, anti-spyware, Web site rating, anti-phishing, and keylogger-jamming into a limited virtualization environment with the elegant user interface you've come to expect from the ZoneAlarm brand. Its goal is to provide superior anti-malware protection against the increasingly prevalent and complex threats posed to Internet surfers.
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Codie awards go to Red Hat, Adobe, Salesforce.com
(InfoWorld)
InfoWorld - Winners of this year's Codie awards, given by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIAA) Tuesday evening, include some familiar names in software as well as some lesser known and new companies.
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Startup Aster Offers Software For Clustering Commodity Servers
(TechWeb)
TechWeb - Intelligent Enterprise - Aster says its technology can turn commodity servers into a massively parallel processing relational database for analytics.
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