The rain bounced off a podium fit for an Oscar ceremony, soaking the lavish red carpet, and pouring down the collars of celebrants sporting incongruous California tans and sunglasses. And still they smiled. Each wore a lapel badge marking them out as followers of one of the most controversial and fastest growing "religious" movements in the world, the Church of Scientology. For two hours yesterday Hollywood glitz supplanted British mundanity on the streets of London as the most senior figures within ...

DEREK perches on his seat among the VIPs, eyes blazing rapturously. "Do you have any idea how huge this is for Scientology?" he says, reading the sign over the garlanded new £ 40million headquarters of the "church of Scientology London" in the heart of the Square Mile. "For how long have we dreamed of this! It's like the tipping point. With this base, we'll be recruiting the people who control the planet!" Behind him, beaming ecstatically despite the driving rain, an ...

Church-run charities abound by the dozens in Roxbury, but they are not usually operated by the oft-controversial Church of Scientology, which last month kick-started classes at its Washington Street literacy center with a grand opening that offered free food and sidewalk chalk for children. The church members who staff the literacy center, in a storefront marked with bright-yellow "Boston Scientology Ministry" signs, say they wanted to do something about the increase in violence in Boston, which they attribute in part to ...

'So what is it then, Scientology?' asks a contractor delivering supplies to builders who were putting the finishing touches yesterday to Number 146, Queen Victoria Street, one of the City of London's most exclusive addresses. 'I mean,' continues the contractor , 'I've heard a lot about it. Is it based on science? Who's the big man in charge?' Such questions are likely to be asked more often from today when the controversial Church of Scientology opens its biggest UK centre in ...

Kenneth Anger doesn’t have a phone and for the past year he’s been living in a Los Angeles hotel that doesn’t take messages. "I’ve managed to do all my various things without one," he informs me on a cellphone handed to him by his assistant after much muffled talk about how to operate the bloody thing. "I got so irritated with people calling me when I was meditating or writing. If you want to get me, try mental telepathy!" Those aren’t ...

RAMOS, JAIRO ENRIQUE, 58, of Largo, died Thursday (Sept. 28, 2006) at Gulfside Regional Hospice, New Port Richey. He was born in San Fernando de Apure, Venezuela, and came here in 1986 from Venezuela, where he served in the Venezuelan Army obtaining the rank of captain. He worked as a manager for Hertz Car Rental, Tampa. He was a member of the Church of Scientology, Clearwater. Survivors include a son, Jamil Ramos, and two daughters, Obsana Sturiale and Jaira Ramos, all ...

Gabe Cazares spoke out, whether it was as Clearwater mayor, to promote civil rights or to fight Scientology. CLEARWATER — Former Clearwater Mayor Gabe Cazares, a civil rights advocate, champion of the disadvantaged and archenemy of the Church of Scientology, died Friday (Sept. 29, 2006). He was 86. As a politician, Mr. Cazares led the local Democratic Party and won public office at a time when few Hispanics even lived in Pinellas County. As a community activist, he worked to help ...

CLEARWATER — Former Clearwater Mayor Gabe Cazares, a civil rights advocate, champion of the disadvantaged and arch-enemy of the Church of Scientology, died Friday (Sept. 29, 2006). He was 86. As a politician, Mr. Cazares led the local Democratic Party and won public office at a time when few Hispanics even lived in Pinellas County. As a community activist, he worked to help the poor and build bridges in Clearwater during the early years of integration. But after the Church of ...

Members of the Church of Scientology considered buying RISC OS in 1998 because they wanted to "try something different", it was claimed earlier this month. When Acorn management pulled the plug and broke up the company, Scientologists allegedly pondered stepping in to purchase the intelluctual property rights to the platform to expand their commercial activities. In the end, the operating system was licensed to various clients of Acorn so they could continue to use the technology, and eventually, Pace Micro and ...

When Viacom kingpin Sumner Redstone cited Tom Cruise's personal conduct as the reason for killing his production deal with Paramount, the 83-year-old mogul's candor rocked Hollywood. But Radar has learned Redstone may have let Cruise off easy, particularly in light of allegations the actor dispatched goons from the Church of Scientology to intimidate Redstone's studio chieftan, Brad Grey. According to a high-ranking media executive, Paramount Pictures honcho Grey had a highly unpleasant run-in with the Church during his tense negotiations with ...

Hollywood insiders are wondering if Tom Cruise’s powerful legal team will quash a tell-all which makes some pretty shocking insinuations about the actor’s sex life. Porn producer Paul Barresi is writing a book, “Pellicano’s Enforcer,” about how he allegedly helped incarcerated former private-eye-to-the-stars Anthony Pellicano protect celebs from negative stories. In one chapter that’s been posted on an Internet site, Barresi tells how someone came to him trying to sell a story about Cruise — similar to the one that Cruise ...

Lincoln, Nebraska – A federal judge has refused to throw out Nebraska's one-of-a-kind newborn blood screening law. Ray and Louise Spiering of Saunders County filed a lawsuit challenging the law in 2004, arguing that the mandatory blood test would violate a tenet of their religious beliefs as members of the Church of Scientology. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf said the law is constitutional. The blood screening has been standard practice in Nebraska since 1967. Health officials say the test, ...

New Mexico is about to become the first state to try a new approach in using longterm treatment in a lockup for chronic drug offenders. Officials hope the Second Chance Center, which opens this week in the old West Side jail, is the answer to a broken system that cycles drug offenders through courts and jails. Instead of sentencing nonviolent drug offenders to prison, judges will have the option of sentencing some to Second Chance. Inmates will spend eight hours a ...

American actor Tom Cruise has apologised to Brooke Shields for criticising her use of antidepressant drugs while suffering postnatal depression after the birth of her first daughter. According to Shields, Cruise, a member of the Scientology cult which condemns the use of antidepressants, came to her house and apologised last Thursday. 'He came over to my house and he gave me a heartfelt apology,' Shields said on Friday on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. 'And he apologised for bringing me ...

This is KRQE News 13 with Dick Knipfing and Erika Ruiz. DICK KNIPFING: More than half a million dollars in taxpayer money has been allocated for a privately-run drug and alcohol treatment program for offenders. ERIKA RUIZ: But our investigations find the rehab facility is nothing more than a thinly-veiled program based on the teachings of the founder of Scientology. News 13's Michael Hertzenberg is here with the story. MICHAEL HERZENBERG: Erika, when you think of drug and alcohol rehab, you ...

An assistant state attorney says a video of the scuffle shows mutual aggression. CLEARWATER - The State Attorney's Office has decided not to pursue charges against a Scientologist accused of assaulting a church critic who was shooting video of Scientologists downtown next to a sandwich board that read "Cult Watch." Assistant State Attorney Kendall Davidson, after viewing a video of the confrontation captured by a Church of Scientology security camera on a nearby building, determined "it is just not going to ...

This summer's biggest Hollywood breakup has left Steven Spielberg caught in the middle. The director was blindsided by Paramount Pictures' decision to dump Tom Cruise, Spielberg's spokesman said Thursday. Sumner Redstone, chairman of Paramount parent Viacom, dropped the bombshell in an interview in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal. Spielberg is a Paramount powerbroker, but he "had no advance knowledge of Sumner Redstone's position," rep Marvin Levy said Thursday. "The story broke when Steven was on an airplane. He found out when the ...

HOLLYWOOD - A novel theory of what lay behind the sacking of Tom Cruise by his Hollywood studio has emerged: he got up the nose of the main man's wife. Reports are circulating that the star so angered Paula Fortunato, wife of Sumner Redstone, boss of the studio's parent company, that she told her husband she was "boycotting Cruise's product for ever". Some film-world blogs have suggested this statement - provoked apparently by Cruise's criticisms of Brooke Shields's use of prescribed ...

[...] COOPER: Oh, the video of Tom Cruise in happier times with Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone. Earlier this week, the actor's production company was dumped by Viacom's Paramont Pictures division. Cruise, who in the past – that's Sumner Redstone on the left. Yes. Cruise, who in the past has enjoyed tremendous popularity with audiences and has been a powerhouse, of course, at the box office, seems to be kind of losing at least some of his appeal. One of the issues, ...

"In my opinion," says Rick Ross, who has spent years studying cults and religious groups, "(Tom Cruise's) meltdown is likely attributable to Scientology. He's made some bad career choices lately. He's damaged goods. How do you go from the world's biggest movie star to someone Viacom dumps?" The New York Times this morning said simply that Cruise has gone "into full Scientology mode." Indeed, his recent responses to Matt Lauer, inveighing against modern psychiatric care, reflect Scientology's claim that its own ...

A definition of Scientology is hard to pin down. Basically, it's a system of beliefs, teachings and rituals originally established as a secular philosophy by L. Ron Hubbard. His 1950 book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, provided the core principles of what would later become Scientology. Scientologists regard the publication of the book as a seminal event, and celebrate its publication date — May 9, 1950 — as a religious holiday. A central belief of Scientology is that a ...

Nasdaq once raved about Digital Lightwave, whose stock hit $150. Its shares now sell for about 25 cents. For lease: 92,000 square feet of Class A office space in a three-story building. Atrium. Marble floors. And terrific exposure just south of Clearwater's Bayside Bridge. Former tenant: a once-high-flying tech star now in more modest digs in a nearby office park. Digital Lightwave Inc., one of Nasdaq's most sizzling stocks in 1999, has left the building that epitomized its promise when it ...

Southern California is seasonally inundated with tour buses plying the streets of Hollywood and the homes of entertainment stars. But a new tour, begun this summer, takes the curious to places far hotter and more significant: the Military Tour of Southern California, sponsored by the L.A. chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR). It's a chance for locals to get in touch with the amazing amount of military toxins in our environment, by boarding a bus to military-related sites that ooze ...

A new report finally reveals the real reason why director Steven Spielberg was angry with Tom Cruise during the promotional tour for their movie "War of the Worlds” – and not surprisingly, it has much to do with Scientology. At the time, the New York Post reported that Spielberg was furious with Cruise because he had been "ranting” against "the widespread use of Ritalin to treat unruly children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder.” Spielberg was upset because he knew children who ...

The head of Narconon International says Bouquet Canyon is a great place to open a drug rehab center. But some neighbors strongly disagree, citing state records to back up their opposition. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will have a public hearing Tuesday morning in downtown Los Angeles on plans for the Scientology-based drug rehabilitation program in Leona Valley. Narconon Southern California plans to turn an abandoned boarding school on Bouquet Canyon Road into a rehab center for 66 people, ...