The Office

Investigators next up in Jackson manslaughter case - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The involuntary manslaughter trial of the doctor charged in Michael Jackson's death is moving into its "CSI" phase, with jurors set to hear next from investigators and detectives.

The panel also will hear from Dr. Conrad Murray, himself, though it will be through a more than two-hour interview that police conducted with the Houston-based cardiologist two days after Jackson's June 2009 death.

The exact order of the witnesses is unclear, but court transcripts of discussions between the judge and lawyers from both sides Tuesday show that prosecutors are entering the next stage of the trial — furthering their case against Murray through the recollections of people who investigated him.

via news.yahoo.com

Blackwater game aims for fun, not controversy - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES (AP) — In the world of video games, realism reigns supreme, but the makers of a game based on the infamous private security firm Blackwater are intentionally steering clear of it.

There's no blood, the enemies are fictional and civilians can't be killed. With no moral dilemmas in "Blackwater," it's simply a matter of shoot — or be shot.

"It's a game," said Erik Prince, the company's founder. "This is not a training device. This is not a simulator. We're not doing this to teach folks how to conduct military operations in an urban terrain. That's not it at all. This is more along the lines of kids running around their neighborhood playing cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians."

via news.yahoo.com

Afghans rock at first music festival in three decades - Yahoo! News

KABUL (Reuters) - Live rock returned to Afghanistan after three long decades on Saturday as young men and women cheered and leapt into the air to the sound of heavy bass beats and punk rock.

Bands from Australia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Afghanistan served up a six-hour musical feast of blues, indie, electronica and death metal to hundreds of fans, many of whom had never seen live music before.

Sound Central was something new in a deeply conservative Muslim country where music was banned under the austere Taliban regime. Even now music shops are attacked in some cities and musicians taunted for their clothes or hair.

via news.yahoo.com

Florida musicians play Cuba in cultural exchange - Yahoo! News

HAVANA (AP) — Lilting wind tones filled the pillared hall of a historic former church in Old Havana on Friday as a quintet of musicians from Florida performed in the latest of a string of U.S.-Cuban cultural exchanges that have increased in recent years.

The five members of the Tampa-based Florida Orchestra, all principals on their instruments, played an all-wind program of works from George Gershwin and five other composers during the evening recital at the San Felipe Neri Oratory, which dates to 1693 and was used as a bank for part of the 20th century before reopening as a concert hall in 2004.

"It's a historic opportunity to play in such a place," bassoonist Anthony Georgeson told The Associated Press. "I never thought that I'd be in Havana playing a concert."

via news.yahoo.com