1. THE LOS ANGELES POLICE have opened an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse by Bill Cosby.
The Guardian reports the investigation comes after documents from a 2005 trial were released by the Associated Press.
The documents show that Cosby admitted giving a woman the sedative Quaalude (it causes confusion and sleepiness) before having sex with her.
Cosby is reported to have said that the drug-taking and the sex were consensual.
The woman, Andrea Constand, a basketball coach at Temple University in Philadelphia, took action and settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.
More than two dozen women have come forward with allegations of sexual abuse against Cosby in recent years, and most involve Cosby giving the woman a pill before being assaulted.
2. TOM Cruise and Nicole Kidman’s daughter, Isabella, has completed a specialist hair and movie make-up course in London, and may now seek work behind the camera.
The Daily Mail reports that Isabella, 22, has graduated from the exclusive Delamar Academy of Make-up and Hair in West London.
She was taught by instructors who have worked on Downtown Abbey, amongst other shows.
Isabella has lived in London for three years. She posted photographs of some of her work, including an arm made up to look bruised, and her own face covered in blood, to look like a beating victim.
3. FANCY a free back tattoo?
Australian publisher Hachette is seeking a woman willing to get a dragon tattoo to promote the next book in the ‘Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’ book series.
The ad says: ‘We want your back for a national ‘Tatvertising’ campaign. If you can handle it, just like Lisbeth Salander, register your details and tell us briefly why you’d like to be considered. You must be able to attend a live casting, in Sydney on Wednesday 15 July.’
It’s obviously a publicity stunt for the fourth book in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series but the tattoo will be real. Hachette wants the girl to be tattooed over eight hours (two four hour sessions) and then intends to use her back ‘as the central image of its outdoor ads.’
4. THE BBC has conceded a ‘grave error in judgement’ which led to a reporter mistakenly Tweeting that the Queen had died.
The world was shocked in April to read Tweets on a BBC social media account, wrongly saying that the Queen had been hospitalised, and then that she died.
A report by the BBC Trust into the incident says the reporter ‘was watching in-house monitors’ at the BBC ‘without realizing that the reporting on the Queen was part of a rehearsal for covering a Royal death.’
The report found the journalist, Ahmen Khawaja, had not been told the rehearsal was underway and believed the story to be true when she Tweeted that the Queen had died.
The report conceded that the Tweet had ‘damaged the BBC’s reputation.’
The reporter will have to take a “a refresher course” in social media and editorial values.