With the anticipation of the game leaving millions of gamers rushing to get their hands on their version of the game that was tipped to, and did, break sale records within the first 24 hours of sales but with Modern Warfare 2, the previous title developed by the same creators, selling 4.7 million copies within the first day, Activision failed to see the 9.3 million titles being purchased on opening day and that resulted in devastation within their new ‘premium’ option that had been freshly developed for the latest instalment.

Modern Warfare 3 Elite had been taunted as a new addition that was going to intensify the gaming experience of players that bought the MW3 title but with the additional features came a new twist that upset gamers across the globe, yet another yearly fee to be added to their account.

Charging a premium for what the company claimed was going to offer a new ground breaking experience, with clans and titles being more powerful than ever before, seemed to split the gaming community but that didn’t stop millions of gamers subscribing to the Elite offering from the moment that the game hit the shelves.

The result of the interest and the element of the unknown was gamers paying out a fee for a yearly membership into the Elite aspect of the game, only for the servers that Activision had powering it to fail and be unable to handle the demand that came flooding towards it.

The MW3 Elite servers were soon blocked to any user, resulting in backlash from angry gamers that were demanding an explanation, something that they were given via social networking site Twitter, being told that “A surge of new Elite registrations” were the cause of the problems, showing that the reception of the new element of the game had been well received despite the questions of whether Activision were right in adding yet another expense onto a title that releases regular download content at a price.

When players have tried to access the Elite servers  they have been consistently shown the same message, telling them that traffic into the servers was at its ‘peak’ and that they should return to try again later.

With the Call of Duty franchise now valued at a huge £3 billion surely you would have expected Activision to have produced the game on servers that were capable of handling the huge number of gamers that they have had logging into their online section of the game over recent years, especially as they are charging for the chance to be part of the Elite section.

Activision have issued comment on the problems and have pledged that all those who have bought Elite membership will be issued with a further 30 days of membership once the problems have been rectified, possibly too little too late for any of the gamers according to the online gaming community with players claiming that they are set to turn the back on the title in order to purchase the game’s rival title, Battlefield 3.

Call of Duty

Hageman had said he served half of a five year term for ABH after he attacked another man however it has been revealed by a court spokesman that he was in fact jailed in 2006 for actual bodily harm on ex-girlfriend Amy Edwards.

ITV are currently under pressure to strip Nathan of his million pound prize and have been locked in talks to decide what to do after he won with the spin of a roulette wheel on Saturday’s Red Or Black game show. According to sources the attack he was jailed for was described as a vicious beating.

MP Hazel Blears said of the situation: “It seems wrong that someone like him should even be allowed on game shows like this, and it is all the more sickening that he has won a million pounds. Domestic violence is one of the most horrible crimes, committed against vulnerable women and sometimes men. In light of his conviction, he should be stripped of his winnings and the money given to a charity supporting its victims.”

On Wednesday a passenger on that flight contacted a French radio station and claimed the star stood up minutes before take-off and declared in a loud voice: “Je veux pisser, Je veux pisser.”

Police were called when the plane made its way back to the departure gate and they then escorted the Oscar-nominated Depardieu off the plane. According to CityJet staff the plane was ‘fit for purpose’ when it went back to the runway for take-off at Charles de Gaulle Airport. The airline confirmed that he plane had been delayed and it took off later than scheduled for Dublin without Depardieu, as well as an associate who had been travelling with the actor.

In a statement the airline, a subsidiary of Air France, said: “Flight AF5010, which was due to depart at 1845 from Paris to Dublin, was delayed due to an incident on board involving a passenger who refused to remain in his seat as the aircraft was taxiing on the runway. The captain returned the aircraft to stand where the passenger was offloaded.”

The 62 year old actor was due to fly to Ireland for filming on Asterix and Obelix: God Save Britannia, the fourth instalment of the Asterix and Obelix series which sees the adventures of two Gauls who resist Roman occupation with help from a magic potion.

The actor who has now arrived in Ireland to start filming which will continue for the next four weeks, his agent who is also in Ireland said he did not wish to comment publicly on the incident. The actor who is also a vineyard owner, has stated that he has not had any alcohol for the past two years and stated that all he wanted to do was use the bathroom, his agent claims the actor asked for permission from cabin crew three times but was refused.

Picture courtesy of Vincent Roche

However as darkness falls the crowd that gathers outside her home, changes, full of booze and probably drugs, mimicking the more destructive side of Amy’s personality. It’s been reported that many people are found stumbling round Camden Square swigging from bottles and singing loudly Amy’s most famous hits.

Unfortunately a lot of the late night drunken visitors are under the impression that Amy would be proud and would appreciate people out of their heads at her shrine, however with all the problem she has had battling her demons I doubt she would.

Its little wonder that the authorities keep an eye on the shrine at, however you do wonder how long this will carry on for before the makeshift shrine is removed and the area goes back to normality?

27-year old Whinehouse, was found at her North London home by her housemate last Saturday afternoon (23rd July 2011.)

The singer was believed to be in an emotional state and had been described as ‘devastated’ after splitting up with her on-off boyfriend, film director Reg Traviss. Reg has walked out on the drunken star after a blazing fight after he caught Amy on the phone to her jailed ex-husband, Blake. The star is then thought to gone on a 36-hour whisky, heroin and ecstasy session.

Whinehouse had recently returned from rehabilitation and was said to been clean of drugs for 18 months. It is thought that through stress as well as the powerful demon of addiction that the singer ended up returning to drugs. Just days before the star was found dead, she had been ‘booed’ off of the stage for being “out of tune” at a comeback tour.

Police are now considering the idea that Amy Whinehouse died from an overdose, deliberately. Friends have suggested a number of times that Amy Whinehouse “knew” she was going to become part of the “27 club” (a name given to a group of celebrities which have all died at 27 after struggling to cope with fame.) Amongst this group are music legends Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Brian Jones.

Her body has not yet been released as police are currently performing a post-mortem. Her family will be given the results of the post-mortem examination today, meaning that the soul singer can finally be buried.

Although there are many rumours of Amy dying from a drug over dose, nothing yet has been fully confirmed by the police and no drugs were found inside of her £2.5 million house.

Amy’s mother explains how her daughter’s death still hasn’t “hit her” as it was only the day before Amy died she had seen her mother and told her “I love you, mum.” .’They are the words I will always treasure,’ she said. I’m glad I saw her when I did.’

Sources say the star died alone in bed, there have also been claims Miss Winehouse may have been dead for up to six hours before she was found based on a source telling the press: ‘Rigor mortis had set in, indicating she is likely to have been dead for anything up to six hours.’

A variety of fans and friends have left flowers, messages and photographs outside of her apartment. Twitter has received numerous tweets and the topic ‘Amy Whinehouse’ and ‘RIP’ have been trending on the social networking website over the last couple of days.

Russell Brand was one of Amy’s close friends some of his speech is included below:

When you love someone who suffers from the disease of addiction you await the phone call. There will be a phone call. The sincere hope is that the call will be from the addict themselves, telling you they’ve had enough, that they’re ready to stop, ready to try something new. Of course though, you fear the other call, the sad nocturnal chime from a friend or relative telling you it’s too late, she’s gone.

“…Addiction is a serious disease; it will end with jail, mental institutions or death…Now Amy Winehouse is dead, like many others whose unnecessary deaths have been retrospectively romanticised, at 27 years old. Whether this tragedy was preventable or not is now irrelevant. It is not preventable today. We have lost a beautiful and talented woman to this disease. Not all addicts have Amy’s incredible talent. Or Kurt’s or Jimi’s or Janis’s, some people just get the affliction.”

He concludes: “…Not all of us know someone with the incredible talent that Amy had but we all know drunks and junkies and they all need help and the help is out there. All they have to do is pick up the phone and make the call. Or not. Either way, there will be a phone call.”

The couple who are dedicated Facebook users named their daughter after the well known feature of the site which is a basic thumb up, that allows people to show their acknowledgement that they like a certain entry, picture, or comment without having to physically say so. The couple Lior and Vardit Adler are ‘in love’ with the feature so much that they decided to use it on their youngest child.

Mr Adler told German Press Agency DPA: “To me it is important to give my children names that are not used anywhere else, at least not in Israel. If once people gave Biblical names and that was the icon, then today [the Facebook Like] is one of the most famous icons in the world.”

Mr Adler’s other two other daughters are called Dvash (which is Hebrew for honey) and Pie; he said that he and his wife were also looking for a name that sounded nice when being called and that Like had ‘a nice, international ring to it’.

Kerry Campbell was originally from Birmingham, but moved across to the US and is now living in San Francisco, where she enters her daughter into pageant competitions. She stated on the US TV show that to give her daughter a competitive edge she injected the eight year old with Botox injections.

She also stated the she got the idea from other pageant parents who had admitted to her to using injections on their own children, she said: “When Britney takes part in pageants, parents talk about how they have given their daughter an extra jab to plump her lips or lose a wrinkle. Everyone is doing it and talking about it. We are not doing anything illegal, and I don’t want my daughter being the only one who doesn’t have a bit of extra help.”

Officials in San Francisco acted after they received hundreds of calls from concerned views through their child abuse hotline, after which they took the child into care over the weekend, speaking about the situation, Trent Rohrer of the San Francisco social services department stated: “It’s pretty unusual for a mom to be injecting an eight-year-old with Botox and certainly is grounds for an investigation.”

Kerry Campbell also admitted that she waxes her daughter’s legs to prevent hair growth, as well as injecting her with painful Botox injections which her daughter said ‘hurt her face’. Kerry said: “What I am doing for Britney now will help her become a star. I know one day she will be a model, actress or singer, and having these treatments now will ensure she stays looking younger and baby-faced for longer. All I want is for Britney to have the best start in life, so it is easier for her to become a superstar. More mothers should do it for their daughters. I wish that I’d had the same advantages when I was younger.”

Barbara Thomas, a director with California Gold Coast Pageants said: “I’ve never, ever heard of a child getting that. It’s ridiculous. What would a child have need of Botox for? They don’t have a wrinkle on their face. That woman must be off her rocker.” After organizers of child beauty pageants denied that the young competitors have had to use Botox.

Picture courtesy of Andres Rueda

The couple got together only a couple of months after her divorce from Peter Andre was finalised back in 2009, before getting engaged later and marrying after Reid won Celebrity Big Brother in Las Vegas last February. However it’s thought that Alex’s ‘desire to promote himself’ is what broke the relationship.

Katie Price said she had supported Alex Reid’s ambition to attract more media attention, but said his desire to promote himself “contributed to our alienation”.

Jordan also said the couple had failed to resolve their differences because “the issues between us are too deep rooted”. Adding: “I am deeply upset that my relationship with Alex has failed but I know it is the right thing for my children and I that we separate. My children are my absolute priority in this and they are being shielded from what is happening.”

So is racism worse on free dating sites than one you have to pay for? It’s hard to prove, but the fact that many paid sites such as Parship have strict anti racism polices and that they vet each member, means you have added security which means will be less likely to be target of racial abuse on paid sites rather than the free ones like OkCupid. However there is no getting away from the statistics above and peoples personal preference no matter what sort of dating site you’re on.

Picture courtesy of Baddog_

Jennifer Miller, a sexually transmitted disease counsellor at the clinic said: “We do have a confirmed adult-industry performer who tested positive for HIV. We are quarantining and testing all exposed partners to the individual who tested positive for HIV. We’re doing what we can to notify the individuals involved.”

The clinic however did not immediately reveal whether the infected performer was male or female. After the news broke two of the largest porn producers in the area Vivid Entertainment, a porn production company based in Van Nuys, and Wicked Pictures, based in Canoga Park immediately announced a halt to their porn productions.

Steven Hirsch, Vivid’s co-founder, said in statement: “When Vivid was first made aware that a performer had tested positive for HIV we immediately suspended production. We did this as a precaution and will continue to monitor the situation. AIM Healthcare acted appropriately to quarantine all adult talent who may have been exposed. We will wait for all of the facts to emerge before we resume production.

This is not the first time this has happened to the U.S porn industry, in 2004 an outbreak occurred among performers when male porn star Darren James, tested positive for HIV, however he had already infected three female performers with whom he’d filmed sex scenes. Darren James had worked outside the U.S but he did not know he was HIV positive at the time of his performances. Many of the performers who had, had contact with James as well as the three women needed additional testing, shutting down production for a month in the spring of 2004.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation which has been leading efforts to change California worker-safety health code, held a press conference in light of the infection to address the HIV case. President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Michael Weinstein said: “That a performer tested positive for HIV today – and that more may be infected – was totally preventable. It is also living proof that testing is not adequate protection against HIV/AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases among porn performers. How many more people have to be infected with HIV before L.A. County steps in to do its job?”

It was revealed last year that up to 22 performers had contracted the HIV virus, but the U.S. adult industry only admitted to one such case since the 2004 outbreak.

Picture courtesy of jnn1776

Lee had entered the building via the main entrance at around 1pm brandishing a gun as well as wearing what looked like metallic canisters strapped to his front and back, bomb technicians were rushed to the scene in Silver Springs, Maryland, which is a suburb of Washington, DC. At the time there were around 1,900 people working in the building, including children and babies who were in the company’s daycare facility, with most of the workers and the infants able to escape safely.

Before he was shot police officers were negotiating with Lee and watching him on CCTV, however the three hostages he had decided not to wait and made a run for it the two Discovery employees and a security guard as they did officers moved in on Lee as they did they thought they heard a pop which could have been one of his bombs. Police then stepped out from behind a wall and shot him dead, ending the siege after around four hours of negotiations.

According to police they also found and detonated four more devices at a home where Lee had been staying after the owner alerted authorities. Speaking about the situation Montgomery County Police Chief Thomas Manger said: “For most of the time, the hostages were laying on the ground, and he didn’t engage them much other than saying on the phone, ‘I don’t care about these people, I believe he was not intending to come out of there alive. … He told us many times over the course of hours that he was ready to die.”

It wasn’t the first time Lee had been in trouble at the Discovery HQ he had previously been arrested in 2008 after a protest there where he threw thousands of dollars in the air.

Actress Lindsay Lohan, 24 was arrested in 2007 for drink driving offence. The star spent a diminutive 84 minutes in jail and was released under the condition that she had to attend alcohol education classes until further notice. This probation was then broken, as from 2007, nine of the alcohol classes have been missed.  Matters then got worse when in May; she was given an alcohol monitoring bracelet and told that she must wear it. On the night of the MTV Movie Awards, the bracelet then sent out an alarm… she had done it again.

On the day of her trial Lindsay turned up to her trial 10 minutes before the start with dad Michael, and Sister Ali, all looking convinced that there would be no charge. Lindsay simply replied to the judges questions with a mere excuse: “I did do everything I was told to do and did the best I could to balance jobs and showing up,” The star promised that she was not drinking at the night of the MTV Awards and it was agreed by the judge that it would not be taken into consideration when making the decision. Lohan’s excuse for missing the lessons was that she had a ‘busy career’ and that it was ‘too hard to fit it all in.’ These excuses were obviously just not good enough as she was sentenced to 90 days imprisonment and a further 90 day of rehabilitation after her sentence. As she heard the news Lindsay burst in to tears -gasping and sobbing on her lawyers shoulder.

The U.S actress was told that the date in which her sentence starts is the 20th of July and that she must continue wearing the bracelet right up until that date.

Lindsay Lohan became an acting sensation at the age of 11 when staring in ‘The Parent Trap’ an interview with her shortly after the release of the film revealed that Lindsay vowed ‘to stay normal.’ This promise wasn’t exactly kept as she is continuously headlining newspapers with negative news. Has Lindsay’s reputation been completely reunited by this…is it the end?

Picture courtesy of abardwell