Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

In the news

J.K. Rowling prepares for final Harry Potter book

By wire services
Published December 28, 2005

J.K. Rowling expects to have a busy 2006, "the year when I write the final book in the Harry Potter series."

"I contemplate the task with mingled feelings of excitement and dread, because I can't wait to get started, to tell the final part of the story and, at last, to answer all the questions (Will I ever answer all of the questions? Let's aim for most of the questions); and yet it will all be over at last and I can't quite imagine life without Harry," the British author wrote in a recent posting on her Web site.

The sixth installment of Rowling's fantasy series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, came out last summer. It has sold more than 10 million copies in the United States alone.

Total worldwide sales of the Harry Potter books top 300 million.

On her Web site, Rowling said she had been "fine-tuning the fine-tuned plan of seven during the past few weeks." She noted that "reading through the plan is like contemplating the map of an unknown country in which I will soon find myself."

Rowling expects to start on the final book, not yet titled, next month.

Joining the trend of TV shows migrating to the Internet, a pair of episodes from the CBS comedies Two and a Half Men and How I Met Your Mother are being offered for free video streaming this week from the Yahoo Web site.

Available through next Monday, the half-hour shows, which aired earlier this season, will be available in their entirety and without commercials, CBS and Yahoo announced. It is the first time that Yahoo is streaming episodes of a CBS television series in their entirety.

The episodes of Two and a Half Men (which stars Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer and Angus T. Jones) are "We Called It Mr. Pinky" and "Madame and Her Special Friend."

The episodes of How I Met Your Mother (a freshman entry whose stars include Alyson Hannigan, Neil Patrick Harris and Josh Radnor) are "The Pineapple Incident" and "The Sweet Taste of Liberty."

Both shows are regularly broadcast Monday nights on CBS.

The special Webcasts are part of a growing movement of TV shows being made available to viewers through streaming video on their computers or via downloads to other devices.

For instance, with the recent introduction of Apple's video iPod, ABC began making available reruns of series including Lost and Desperate Housewives for download to iPods at $1.99 per episode. NBC offers same-night replay of Nightly News online at no charge.

TiVo has announced that, starting next year, any show recorded on its Series2 digital video recorders can be transferred to an iPod. And AOL will soon make available episodes from some 30 classic TV series for viewing on an online AOL channel.

Troubled Boys Choir of Harlem faces eviction by city

The world-renown Boys Choir of Harlem, struggling under millions of dollars of debts and allegations that its founder ignored reports of sexual abuse, is being evicted.

The New York city government has asked the choir to leave the public school where it practices for free by Jan. 31, 2006. The Boys Choir also provided some instruction at the school, called the Choir Academy of Harlem, as part of a 12-year collaboration with the Department of Education.

The choir failed to fulfill a 2004 agreement to find a new chief executive to replace founder Walter Turnbull, said department attorney Michael Best in a letter Thursday. Turnbull was demoted to artistic director after an investigation concluded he did not act on reports that an employee was sexually abusing a student.

Turnbull has continued to run the organization, the attorney said.

The department also said the choir staff failed to report to the school when expected - apparently because the staff was not being paid due to the choir's financial problems.

Turnbull said Friday the Boys Choir would find a new home.

"Surely there are people out here who realize that when 98 percent of your kids graduate high school and go on to college that there's something right," he told Fox 5 News.

[Last modified December 28, 2005, 00:36:14]