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Horror abuse of child stars

Tuesday, 22 October 2013

A famous 1980s child star has published a tell-all book about the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of older men in Hollywood, warning parents of the underground horrors of the child actor industry. 

Corey Feldman appeared in movies Stand By Me, The Lost Boys, Gremlins and The Goonies.

He recalls in his new book, Coreyography, how he and fellow child star Corey Haim were told by adults they trusted in the industry that it was normal for older men and young boys to have sexual relations.

Feldman first met Haim on the set of The Lost Boys when they were just 14: they soon realised they were both being abused by Hollywood power players.

Feldman reports that Haim told him he had been sodomised when "innocent and ambitious" and just 14 by an older male on the set of the 1986 film, Lucas.

This man who abused Haim now "walks around, one of the most successful people in the entertainment industry, still making money hand over fist," Feldman writes in the book.

Feldman said he sought out adult role models at work due to a dysfunctional home life, with his mother dying his hair blonde at age four and torturing him about his weight, the Daily Mail reported. He was his family's breadwinner at age seven. 

These 'role models' took advantage of their power: Feldman says he was abused by an assistant hired by his father when he was in his early teens. He says the man, who was in his early 20s, took him out on the town and gave him a cocktail of pills.

He writes that the man he refers to as "Ron" put a hand on his thigh and ended up having oral sex with the "petrified" and "revolted" Feldman that night. 

The relationship with Ron lasted several years, but Feldman also formed relationships with other men during this time, many of whom turned out to be paedophiles.

In one especially sad moment in the book, which is being released on October 28, Feldman reflects on a picture taken at his 15th birthday of him and Haim with five older men - he says all five men were paedophiles, and all of them had abused them.

"Slowly, over a period of many years I would begin to realise that many of the people I had surrounded myself with were monsters," he writes of his early career in Coreyography.

The two child actors went on to make nine films together, they also partied heavily, their increasingly damaging antics driven by the horrors of their abuse.

Feldman developed a dependence on drugs after discovering his mother's cocaine stash, and snorted 3.5 grams every two days, before later moving onto heroin.

Haim's dependency was even worse - relapsing several times before dying of pneumonia in 2010 aged just 38.

Feldman relapsed in 1995, but he said since then he's been clean. He now works on low-budget horror films and, with ex-wife Playboy model Susie Sprague,  has a 9-year-old son - who he will not be encouraging into child acting.

"People always ask me about life after childhood stardom. What would I say to parents of children in the industry?' he writes.

"My only advice, honestly, is to get these kids out of Hollywood and let them lead normal lives."

Feldman says Michael Jackson was one of the few people who treated him with respect. As a teenager desperate for normalcy, Feldman called Jackson, who he had been introduced to by Steven Spielberg.

"I was shattered, disgusted, devastated. I needed some normalcy in my life. So, I called Michael Jackson," he recalls.

"Michael Jackson's world, crazy as it sounds, had become my happy place. Being with Michael brought me back to my innocence. When I was with Michael, it was like being 10 years old again."

He insists in the book that Jackson never abused him or tried to touch him sexually.

Baldness treatment a 'step closer'

Scientists say they have moved a step closer to banishing bald spots and reversing receding hairlines after human hair was grown in the laboratory.

A joint UK and US team was able to create new hairs from tissue samples.

Far more research is needed, but the group said its technique had the "potential to transform" the treatment of hair loss.

The study results were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

There are baldness therapies including drugs to slow the loss of hairs, and transplants, which move hair from the back of the head to cover bald spots.

The scientists at the University of Durham, in the UK, and Columbia University Medical Centre, in the US, were trying to actually grow new hairs.

Their plan was to start with material taken from the base of a hair and use it to grow many new hairs.

Tricky feat
But human hair has been tricky to grow despite successes in animal studies.

Whenever human tissue was taken from the dermal papillae, the cells which form the base of each hair follicle, the cells would transform into skin instead of growing new hairs.

However, the group found that by clumping the cells together in "3D spheroids" they would keep their hairy identity.

Tissue was taken from seven people and grown in 3D spheroids. These were then transplanted into human skin which had been grafted on to the backs of mice.

After six weeks, new hair follicles formed in five out of the seven cases and some new tiny hairs began to form.

Prof Colin Jahoda, from Durham University, told the BBC a cure for baldness was possible but it was too soon for men to be hanging up the toupee.

"It's closer, but it's still some way away because in terms of what people want cosmetically they're looking for re-growth of hair that's the same shape, the same size, as long as before, the same angle. Some of these are almost engineering solutions.

"Yeah I think it [baldness] will eventually be treatable, absolutely."

He added: "It's hard to say exactly how long that would take, but the fact that we've done it now should reawaken interest."

Any future therapy would involve transplanting cells which have been grown in the laboratory so safety is a concern.

There would be a risk of infection and the cells could become abnormal, or even cancerous, while being grown.

Baldness cures may not be the first application of the research. Prof Jahoda believes the findings will be used to improve the quality of skin grafts used after severe burns.

Prof Angela Christiano, from Columbia University, said: "This approach has the potential to transform the medical treatment of hair loss.

"Current hair-loss medications tend to slow the loss of hair follicles or potentially stimulate the growth of existing hairs, but they do not create new hair follicles.

"Our method, in contrast, has the potential to actually grow new follicles using a patient's own cells."

Las Vegas nightclub shooting kills 1, injures 2

A man who wanted his money back after paying to enter a Las Vegas nightclub shot three people, killing one, when the club management refused to make a refund, police said on Monday.

The suspect, who was wounded when several patrons and club employees wrestled him to the ground during a resulting melee, was hospitalized early Monday but will be taken into custody as soon as he was released, said Jose Hernandez, an officer with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

"Right now he is facing several charges, including murder," said Hernandez.

Police did not identify the gunman.

The incident began about 5:30 a.m. when the suspect entered an after-hours club at the Bally's resort on the Las Vegas strip. After initially hesitating over whether to pay the cover charge required for entry, the man did pay and entered the club, but he quickly became dissatisfied and asked club employees for a refund, police said.

An argument ensued and the man pulled out a handgun and began shooting. A club manager, a club security officer and a club patron who tried to tackle the gunman to the ground were all shot.

Hernandez said one of the three men shot died after being taken to the hospital.

Netflix customer gains reinforce growth hopes, shares jump

Netflix, with over 100,000 Irish customers, gained more subscribers than expected with help from original series like "Orange is the New Black.”

The news sent its shares up 11pc, to a record high.

Netflix quadrupled profit in the third quarter as it added a higher-than-expected 1.3 million customers to its subscription video streaming service in the United States.

The company, which has invested heavily in original series such as political satire "House of Cards," said it had 31.1 million U.S. streaming users from July to September.

For the last three months of the year, Netflix said it expects to add about the same number of US. streaming customers it signed up a year earlier, and will end 2013 with 32.7 million to 33.5 million users.

"That keeps the view alive that this company has a larger subscriber base and has pricing leverage in its corner to extract more value," said Janney Montgomery Scott analyst Tony Wible, who rates Netflix a "buy."

Shares rose 10.6pc after-hours to $392.50, up from their close of $354.99 on the Nasdaq. The stock has racked up successive highs since September, as investors bet on its growth prospects.

During the quarter, Netflix released critically acclaimed prison drama "Orange is the New Black," part of its push into original programming to attract customers to its $8-a-month movie and TV streaming service.

Its original series slate generated buzz during the quarter, with 14 Emmy nominations and three wins for shows including "House of Cards."

The company said it will double investments in original programming in 2014, when it will air second seasons of both "House of Cards" and "Orange is the New Black." Spending on original shows will remain below 10pc of its global content expenses.

Netflix was added in September as an option on cable set-top boxes through two companies in Europe. CEO Reed Hastings, in a webcast after the earnings release, said he was "hopeful" Netflix could reach a similar deal with Comcast Corp or other U.S. cable operators.

MOMENTUM

Wall Street also singled out the company's growth abroad. It added 1.4 million customers in international markets, bringing its reach in foreign territories to 9.2 million, and said it will launch in unspecified new countries next year.

Netflix reported earnings-per-share of 52 cents, beating the average of 49 cents projected by Wall Street analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Net income for the quarter reached $32m, up from $8m a year earlier, Hastings and CFO David Wells said in a letter to shareholders.

Standard & Poor's equity analyst Tuna Amobi said Netflix appeared to be gaining traction in some of its newest markets, and noted that "Orange is the New Black" will end the year as the company's most-watched original series.

"There is not a whole lot not to like. There is a whole lot of momentum behind the story," Amobi said. "They appear to have turned an important corner for potentially sustained subscriber growth."

Amobi said he had a "hold" rating on Netflix shares because of their valuation after the year's stock run-up. Before the earnings release, Netflix shares had gained 283pc this year, far exceeding the 23pc gain in the S&P 500.

Twenty-three of 35 Wall Street analysts had a "hold" rating prior to Monday's earnings release. Six rated Netflix a "buy" and six recommended "sell." Skeptics question whether Netflix can grow quickly enough to justify its high share price and pay the cost of movies and TV shows, original programming, and its push into foreign territories.

Ten years ago, Netflix was the highest-performing stock on the Nasdaq when it was delivering video only through DVDs mailed in red envelopes, a business from which it is now moving away.

At that time, "we had solid results compounded by momentum-investor-fueled euphoria," Hastings and Wells said in their letter. "Some of the euphoria today feels like 2003."

Man seen toppling boulder claims 'debilitating injuries' from car crash in recent lawsuit

Los Angeles (CNN) -- One of the men who toppled an ancient boulder in Utah's Goblin Valley State Park last week filed a personal injury lawsuit just a few weeks earlier, claiming he suffers from "serious, permanent and debilitating injuries."

Video of Glenn Taylor shoving the huge rock off a slender pedestal where it rested for millions of years went viral online and prompted media scrutiny. As his friend sang "Wiggle it, just a little bit," Taylor pushed the delicate sculpture over, which was followed by laughter and high fives with his son.

The attention has led to revelations that Taylor filed a personal injury lawsuit in September, claiming he had suffered "serious, permanent and debilitating injuries" from a 4-year-old car crash.

"Someone with a bad back who's disabled, who can't enjoy life, to me, doesn't step up and push a rock that big off the base," the defendant in Taylor's lawsuit, Alan MacDonald, told Salt Lake City television station KTVX.

'You didn't see how hard I pushed'

Taylor's lawyer did not return calls for comment. But when CNN affiliate KUTV noted that Taylor didn't look particularly debilitated in the video, he replied, "You didn't see how hard I pushed."

CNN legal analyst Danny Cevallos said when someone has a pending disability lawsuit, "you'd think they'd avoid the camera like the plague.

"But instead, they think no one will ever see it or repercussions will ever come of it," Cevallos said.

'Glenn saved his life'

Goblin Valley, in southern Utah, is home to thousands of the mushroom-shaped rocks -- known to locals as goblins -- that developed as millions of years of winds and water eroded sandstone cliffs.

Taylor and two other men were leading a Boy Scout group on a visit to the park when the incident happened.

The men, all from Utah, defended their actions in interviews last week, saying the delicate structure posed a threat to visitors.

"We have now modified Goblin Valley, a new Goblin Valley exists," David Hall, who shot the video, is heard saying at the end of it. 

"That's crazy that it was held up just by that little bit of dirt. Some little kid was about ready to walk down here and die and Glenn saved his life by getting the boulder out of the way. So it's all about saving lives here at Goblin Valley. Saving lives. That's what we're all about."

Hall told Utah television station KUTV that the boulder seemed unstable. "That wasn't going to last very long at all," he told the CNN affiliate. "One gust of wind and a family's dead."

Asked if he would do it again, he said, "Absolutely, absolutely."
'Didn't look like a stiff wind to me'

Park officials suggested the men broke the law by defacing a state park.

Jeff Rasmussen, the deputy director of Utah State Parks and Recreation, said, "It didn't look like a stiff wind to me."

"Obviously, we're very concerned and upset that somebody would come and destroy this natural wonder that took millions of years to be formed," he told KUTV.

In his 22 years on the job, he said he had not heard of any goblins rolling off their pedestals.

Connection to Arias trial

All three have been booted from their Boy Scout leadership roles.
The National Boy Scouts of America and the organization's Utah National Parks Council issued almost simultaneous and similar statements Monday addressing the men's actions.

The local council statement said the former leaders violated the Scouts' principle of "Leave no trace," which it said "teaches the value of natural areas and the methods we can use to help protect and conserve these areas for future generations."

Meanwhile, the man who shot the video, Hall, is tied to another nationally publicized case: the Jodi Arias murder trial.

Throughout the Arias trial, Hall appeared numerous times on HLN to talk about the life and legacy of his friend Travis Alexander and to paint an unflattering picture of his killer, Arias.

Man seen toppling boulder claims 'debilitating injuries' from car crash in recent lawsuit

Los Angeles (CNN) -- One of the men who toppled an ancient boulder in Utah's Goblin Valley State Park last week filed a personal injury lawsuit just a few weeks earlier, claiming he suffers from "serious, permanent and debilitating injuries."

Video of Glenn Taylor shoving the huge rock off a slender pedestal where it rested for millions of years went viral online and prompted media scrutiny. As his friend sang "Wiggle it, just a little bit," Taylor pushed the delicate sculpture over, which was followed by laughter and high fives with his son.

The attention has led to revelations that Taylor filed a personal injury lawsuit in September, claiming he had suffered "serious, permanent and debilitating injuries" from a 4-year-old car crash.

"Someone with a bad back who's disabled, who can't enjoy life, to me, doesn't step up and push a rock that big off the base," the defendant in Taylor's lawsuit, Alan MacDonald, told Salt Lake City television station KTVX.

'You didn't see how hard I pushed'

Taylor's lawyer did not return calls for comment. But when CNN affiliate KUTV noted that Taylor didn't look particularly debilitated in the video, he replied, "You didn't see how hard I pushed."

CNN legal analyst Danny Cevallos said when someone has a pending disability lawsuit, "you'd think they'd avoid the camera like the plague.

"But instead, they think no one will ever see it or repercussions will ever come of it," Cevallos said.

'Glenn saved his life'

Goblin Valley, in southern Utah, is home to thousands of the mushroom-shaped rocks -- known to locals as goblins -- that developed as millions of years of winds and water eroded sandstone cliffs.

Taylor and two other men were leading a Boy Scout group on a visit to the park when the incident happened.

The men, all from Utah, defended their actions in interviews last week, saying the delicate structure posed a threat to visitors.

"We have now modified Goblin Valley, a new Goblin Valley exists," David Hall, who shot the video, is heard saying at the end of it. 

"That's crazy that it was held up just by that little bit of dirt. Some little kid was about ready to walk down here and die and Glenn saved his life by getting the boulder out of the way. So it's all about saving lives here at Goblin Valley. Saving lives. That's what we're all about."

Hall told Utah television station KUTV that the boulder seemed unstable. "That wasn't going to last very long at all," he told the CNN affiliate. "One gust of wind and a family's dead."

Asked if he would do it again, he said, "Absolutely, absolutely."
'Didn't look like a stiff wind to me'

Park officials suggested the men broke the law by defacing a state park.

Jeff Rasmussen, the deputy director of Utah State Parks and Recreation, said, "It didn't look like a stiff wind to me."

"Obviously, we're very concerned and upset that somebody would come and destroy this natural wonder that took millions of years to be formed," he told KUTV.

In his 22 years on the job, he said he had not heard of any goblins rolling off their pedestals.

Connection to Arias trial

All three have been booted from their Boy Scout leadership roles.
The National Boy Scouts of America and the organization's Utah National Parks Council issued almost simultaneous and similar statements Monday addressing the men's actions.

The local council statement said the former leaders violated the Scouts' principle of "Leave no trace," which it said "teaches the value of natural areas and the methods we can use to help protect and conserve these areas for future generations."

Meanwhile, the man who shot the video, Hall, is tied to another nationally publicized case: the Jodi Arias murder trial.

Throughout the Arias trial, Hall appeared numerous times on HLN to talk about the life and legacy of his friend Travis Alexander and to paint an unflattering picture of his killer, Arias.

Plan Aims to Fix Sewers, but Its Cost to Residents Leaves a Bad Taste

LONDON — On a particularly hot summer day in 1858, the smell of raw sewage from the River Thames became so unbearable that legislators had the curtains of the Houses of Parliament soaked in chloride of lime. When that failed to repel the odors, members of Parliament simply abandoned the place.

The leader of the House and chancellor of the Exchequer, Benjamin Disraeli, “was seen fleeing from the chamber, his handkerchief to his nose,” according to Stephen Halliday in his history, “The Great Stink of London.”

At the time, nearly all of London’s sewage ended up in the Thames, which was also one of the city’s main sources for drinking water, and the city endured three cholera epidemics, which killed more than 31,000 people. The Thames stank famously, and many doctors and politicians believed that it was the stench itself that caused cholera.

Pressure grew to follow the recommendation of a prominent civil engineer, Joseph W. Bazalgette, to build a system of tunnels that would catch the sewage and divert it farther downstream, below the capital, and construction soon got under way. The tunnels of the 1,100-mile system — lined with 314 million bricks meticulously laid by Victorian masons — remain in surprisingly good condition today.

Built for a city half London’s current size, however, the system is now overflowing. As often as once a week, raw sewage is forced into the Thames, a sharp change from the 19th century, when the newly built system overflowed less than once a year.

The increasing flow of raw sewage — the result of the loss of green spaces to absorb rainwater as much as population gain — violates European environmental law, the European Commission said in 2009, and the government has promised to act.

But in an era of austerity and strained budgets, it is not the government that is paying the $6.6 billion bill but Thames Water, a private company with shareholders. The government is to underwrite the risk, which means that it will act as the financier of last resort in the case of major problems during the construction, but it will otherwise not pay for the new system.

There is a catch, of course: it is actually the customers of Thames Water who are paying for the project with higher water bills, a prospect almost as horrendous to today’s Londoners as the river’s stench was to their 19th-century forebears. Water bills for Thames Water’s 14 million customers in and around London are to rise to as much as $700 annually from $570 for the foreseeable future, the company said. The money will be used to repay the initial investors, who will also own the new system. And even then, the tunnel will remain the property of the company, a prospect that further rankles.

A variety of local politicians and industry experts say the plan is akin to pouring money down the drain, that construction estimates are far too low, and that there are cheaper and less disruptive alternatives. “The costs might end up at 10 billion pounds,” or about $16.16 billion, said Nicholas Botterill, council leader of Hammersmith and Fulham, districts in southwest London, “and I don’t want the country to waste that much money.”

It would also be unpleasant for people living close to the construction sites, he said. Even the engineer who initially planned the new sewage tunnel, Chris Binnie, is now saying two smaller and far less costly tunnels might suffice.

Mr. Bazalgette’s system cost about $6 million, now the equivalent of about $6 billion, according to Thames Water, but it transformed central London. For example, he narrowed the Thames by building Victoria Embankment, an elegant road and walkway that housed not only the sewerage tunnel but also one of the first subways.

The scope of today’s planned project is no less intimidating. The new tunnel would run mainly beneath the Thames to intercept sewage before it reached the river and to transport it to sewage treatment plants. The tunnel would be more than 15 miles long, more than 200 feet deep and large enough to fit three London double-decker buses next to one another.

Ann Rosenberg, a retired BBC journalist, lives a block away from one of the planned construction sites for the sewer in Parsons Green. “The thing that sticks in my throat,” she said, “is that I will be paying for this until I die, and then my children will pay for this tunnel, which none of us will own but which will go into the asset base of Thames Water and its investors.”

Ms. Rosenberg is also concerned about other problems. “It’s going to be intolerable and will affect people’s health,” she said from her three-bedroom house, where she has lived for 30 years. “They talk about large vehicles every 15 minutes. It will impact our air quality.”

Michael Gerrard, the managing director of the sewerage project for Thames Water, said Londoners have to contribute to their city’s future. “If you want London to grow you must invest in the infrastructure,” he said. “If nothing is done you’ll have a public health issue.”

Thames Water does not deny that there will be some disturbance and said it would pay for the double glazing of residents’ windows to protect against the noise or even move residents should the construction become unbearable. But details of when and under what circumstances such help would be offered remained vague.

“There will be disruptions and costs and people want it to go away, but I don’t have the power to do that,” Mr. Gerrard said. “I wish there were alternatives.”

Ms. Rosenberg and others say there are. Mr. Binnie, who recommended the new sewer in 2006, now argues that two smaller sewers would suffice and cut costs by about $2.4 billion. New ways to treat sewage and prediction of total sewage flows have changed over the last six years, and Thames Water should at least revisit its options, he said.

One of those options, according to Clean Thames Now and Always, a nonprofit organization that opposes the supersewer, is to create more green spaces in the city that could naturally absorb rainwater instead of pushing it down the sewer. Another is to improve the water quality by injecting oxygen into the river.

“We want the project to be looked at again,” said Mr. Botterill, the council leader. “We want a better environmental, social and economic solution. Everybody who looks at this seriously comes to the conclusion that it’s not the best solution.”

Thames Water has said that such ideas are both ineffective and short term. It would take new green spaces the size of 40 Hyde Parks to start alleviating the sewage problem, the company said. “And anyway,” said Phil Stride, a Thames Water executive, “you’re not going to make everyone happy all the time.”

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