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When the Michael Jackson film, "This Is It," opens worldwide tomorrow, fans and naysayers will be able to judge for themselves whether the King of Pop still had the chops to perform.

Orianthi, the guitarist he picked to perform his London shows, told "Good Morning America" today that Jackson was "full of energy."

"On stage, he was keeping up with the 24-year-old dancers," she said. "He was up there, doing his thing. He wasn’t sitting in the corner and looking ill, not able to participate. He was on stage with everybody."

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Girlfriends come and go for Justin Timberlake, but there seems to be some question whether his latest, Jessica Biel, is really gone.

Amid rumors that Timberlake and Biel have split, his grandmother, Sadie Bomar, told a British magazine that despite his two-and-a-half-year relationship with the actress, the only thing JT is really committed to is his career.

"Jessica was keen to marry, but Justin isn’t ready," Bomar told Closer earlier this month. "He’s busy writing new material and he works hard to be successful — he’s really focused on that. As far as we’re concerned, he’s always been single.

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Viewers expressed mixed reactions Wednesday to "The Cove," a covertly filmed movie about a Japanese dolphin-hunting village that was shown to the Japanese public for the first time at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

Some were shocked but also defended the hunt as part of the country’s culture.

The film, added to the festival at the last minute partly because of international pressure, shows the annual hunt in the seaside town of Taiji, where about 2,000 dolphins are killed every year for their meat. Some are captured and sold to aquariums.

American director Louie Psihoyos, a National Geographic photographer, said he is in talks with Japanese distributors about nationwide screenings in Japan, where most people don’t know about the hunt and have never eaten dolphin meat.

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China’s Prime Minister has caused a sensation with an unprecedented letter of apology by a Communist Party leader.

His error? Premier Wen Jiabao apparently mixed up his rocks, talking about “volcanic” when he should have said “metamorphic”.

A copy of the note in his own calligraphy to the editorial board of the state-run Xinhua news agency was published on the front page of the People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the party.

The note read: “In my article Teachers Are the Pillars of Our Education, which was published by your agency yesterday, the categories of petrology ought to be ’sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic’ . I wish to make this correction and to express my apologies to all readers.” Wen was originally quoted as saying ’sedimentary, igneous and volcanic rock’.

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Comedy Zombieland has topped the North American box office, scoring Woody Harrelson the biggest film opening of his career.

The movie, which features the star as a killer fighting an epidemic of the undead, took $25m (£15.7m) in its opening weekend.

Harrelson’s previous best opening was 1993’s Indecent Proposal which took $18m (£11.3m)

Family animation Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs slipped to number two.

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With the recent release of the book, The Michael Jackson Tapes, details of over 30 hours of interview recordings between deceased popstar Michael Jackson and his longtime friend and confident, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, have recently been flooding the internet and airwaves.

In his short time in the limelight, Boteach has become a controversial figure, with many accusing him of profiteering Jackson’s death. While I wouldn’t argue against that, I can’t help being struck by details regarding Jackson’s lifelong sense of isolation and loneliness. By most accounts, none of the information is truly new; regardless, the fact that a person so famous and beloved could feel so alone is, perhaps, a profound commentary on the nature of modern fame.

In any case, the recent reminders of Jackson’s alleged alienation bring back a hazy memory of mine from several years ago, a story about Jackson that seems poignant in light of both his passing and of the recent media attention surrounding Boteach’s book. First a disclaimer. In all truth, my memory of the following is hazy, my recollection imprecise. Even so, the gist of the story is quite relevant to Jackson’s life and death I think.

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US prosecutors have disputed claims that Roman Polanski’s arrest came out of the blue, saying he had been on an Interpol "wanted list" for years.

Polanski is being held in Switzerland on a US arrest warrant over his conviction, 30 years ago, for unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl.

His agent, Jeff Berg, said the arrest made "no sense" as he had travelled extensively across Europe.

But US authorities implied Polanski had been adept at evading arrest.

"The idea that we have known where he is and we could have gotten him anytime, that just isn’t the case," said Chief Inspector of the US Marshals Service Thomas Hession.

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LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) — Michael Jackson feared his father so much he would faint or vomit sometimes when his father entered the room — even when the pop singer was an adult, according to a book written by a former Jackson confidant.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Michael Jackson’s confidant, sat down with the King of Pop and taped 30 hours of interviews.

"The Michael Jackson Tapes" includes Jackson talking about his fear of growing old, his relationship with children, his friendships with Madonna and Brooke Shields, and his remarkable shyness around people that made his surround himself with mannequins.

Jackson opened up to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach for 30 hours of interviews, which were taped nine years ago and intended for a book Jackson wanted written, Boteach said.

"He was trying to reclaim his life," Boteach said Friday in an NBC "Today Show" interview.

Jackson, who died on June 25 of what the coroner found to be a deadly combination of drugs, "lost the will to live, I think he was just going through the motions of life toward the end," Boteach told NBC.

CNN has not independently confirmed Jackson’s quotes in the book, but Boteach was known to be a spiritual adviser to Jackson for several years beginning about 1999.

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A Philippine law passed last year that spelt out Manila’s claims to parts of the disputed Spratly Islands has had a “negative” effect on relations with China, Beijing’s envoy said Tuesday.
The “baselines act” signed by President Gloria Arroyo spells out Manila’s claims to parts of the group of islands and atolls in the South China Sea that is also claimed in whole or in part by Brunei, China, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam.
Signing the law “turned out to be very negative for bilateral relations,” Ambassador Liu Jianchao told foreign correspondents.
“Our stand is indisputable sovereignty by China over the islands in the South China Sea and adjacent waters,” Liu said.
He said Beijing had made its stand “very clear” to the Philippine government and was expecting Manila to resolve the issue.
The baselines law “encroaches” on China’s sovereignty and was a violation of a code of conduct adopted by all claimants to refrain from making unilateral moves that could disturb the status quo in the area.
Liu however said China was still for the “peaceful settlement” of the overlapping claims, even as he acknowledged this could take a long time to resolve.

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Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader, didn’t embarrass himself too badly on the season premiere of “Dancing With the Stars.”

Or perhaps we should say that he did embarrass himself badly, but he did it on purpose.

During DeLay’s first number on the reality show, a cha-cha with his pro partner, Cheryl Burke, the 62-year-old Texas Republican shimmied, waggled his rear end and struck a series of absurd rock-star poses. But he also sneaked in some graceful steps that indicated he might be talented enough to stick around for a few more weeks.

DeLay wasn’t at the bottom in the judges’ leader board at the end of tonight’s episode, during which only the eight male contestants performed. The former NFL star Michael Irvin and the second-generation Hollywood B-lister Ashley Hamilton were tied for last.

The judges’ favorites were a former teen idol, Donny Osmond, and a former preteen idol, Aaron Carter, who scored 30 and 32, respectively, out of a possible total of 40.

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