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“Contrary to media reports, Britney was not ever slated to perform put on this year’s VMAs,” Larry Rudolph, Spears’ manager at Jive Records, said in a statement. “She’s in the middle of recording her next album, which is going amazingly well, and her focus remains on the studio.”

Spears’ “Gimme More” comeback composition during hindmost year’s VMAs was one of the most-talked-about moments of 2007. The tabloid queen is generally appearing in spots promoting this year’s formality.

In June, MTV Networks Music Group President Van Toffler said the network wasn’t ruling out giving viewers a different drench of Spears at the VMAs. MTV later confirmed they were in talks to have Spears present the appearance in some capacity. The rebounding pop queen is nominated for video of the year for “Piece of Me.”

This VMAs will air live Sept. 7 from Paramount Pictures Studios in Los Angeles. Previously announced award show performers include Kid Rock, Lil Wayne, Pink, Rihanna, Paramore, T.I. and the Jonas Brothers.

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I’d like to be sitting in back of a theater to watch the reverse action of a crowd suckered into “Traitor” by the TV ad’s claim that it’s every performing thriller like the “Bourne” movies.

“Uhhh, how tend hitherward there’s so much prayin’ to Allah and not much fightin’?”

Not calm close to a “Bourne” flick, it’s more like a “Mohammed Brasco,” about a devout Muslim demolitions experienced person who goes deep while suffering include to infiltrate a terrorist group. If there isn’t already a cultural suspense genre, maybe this’ll disturb it.

Don Cheadle (”Hotel Rwanda,” “Crash”) plays a Sudanese-born former U.S. Special Forces soldier named Samir Horn who has a talent for making things reach boom. Caught making a deal with terrorists, he’s thrown in a Yemeni prison where two things happen: He’s interrogated by enlightened FBI agent Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce) and his old school smack-’em-around one of a firm, Archer (Neal McDonough); and he becomes fast friends by a terrorist named Omar (Saïd Taghmaoui), who helps him get away. (Omar would have existence the Al Pacino in “Mohammed Brasco.”)

If “Traitor” is cognate a “Bourne” movie in any respect at all, it’s the globe-trotting, as the cat-and-mouse game between Horn and Clayton takes them to locations encircling the world. Gradually proving his way into the terrorist group end different bombings that all seem to have some kind of obstacle in them, Horn is absolutely working for a CIA contractor (Jeff Daniels) aiming for the terrorist bigwig before a major symbolic attack in the U.S. heartland.

As the first blustering American blockbuster movie I can think of with a devout Muslim great man, it may take an setting to rights for some, but that’s not what makes “Traitor” difficult. Filmmakers seem to err on the party of overcautiousness whenever it comes to depicting Middle Eastern bad guys — and hey, I remember covering a protest for 1998’s “The Seige” by people who hadn’t even seen it. “Traitor” is a much smarter, nervier and added tangled movie, but it’s distillery too by-the-numbers and preceptive. For instance, Agent Clayton is a Middle East expert and clearly the only one out of all worldwide law enforcement who seems able to find his own backside with both hands. Just too stock, especially in his awkward dialogue with the more ignorant Archer.

Not the whole of Muslims are jihadist nutcases? Hey, thanks!

Some of the people who don’t like Americans might actually have valid reasons? Oh, pause, you!

Having said that, it’s still the Southern-accented Clayton whom I’d rather see in a spinoff, like Tommy Lee Jones’ character in “The Fugitive,” since the filmmakers meanly give up enough touching the tormented Horn to make you requirement to stick with him. It’s not the character’s ambiguity — the choices he makes to stay undercover, let alone a problematic decisive proceeding that’s supposed to be heroic. It’s that he’s too much of a ghost, and even a ability like Cheadle’s can’t bring out material that isn’t there.

First-time mentor Jeffrey Nachmanoff, known for “The Day After Tomorrow” script, wrote the screenplay. Of all men, Steve Martin came up with the essence. It is neither wild nor crazy.

Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259

or mrahner@seattletimes.com

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AREQUIPA, Peru

Exports of the animals’ fleecy coats have nearly doubled to more than $43 million in the past four years, as models strut catwalks from Paris to New York wearing fur from the long-necked animals in the form of pricey ponchos, pants and pea coats.

Fleece shorn from the three species

Vicu

A similar stole made of alpaca

From scratchy to soft

The warm, dyeable fibers, long used for sportswear fleece, are being recast as a sexier luxury thread, spun into casual clothes and evening suffer injury by use to appeal to wealthy young professionals. Demand is partly driven by the fleece’s popularity through environmentally conscious designers, who want the softness of fur exclusively of the guilt, said Laird Borelli, a senior features manager at Style.com.

“If you bring forth a fabric that be possible to get as accept the offer to fur as that, it’s an amazing act,” said New-York based designer Daryl Kerrigan, who has used alpaca to make coats.

The Incas once wore alpaca, carefully breeding the doe-eyed animals and weaving their fleece in continuance delicate hand looms into soft cloth that local royalty draped as robes. But Spanish conquistadors replaced those techniques, spinning unprepared fibers into of large fibres thread with a besides mechanical wheel.

Those rougher methods ensured alpaca was considered a sportsman’s textorial for much of the 20th century: excited but scratchy, it was relegated to rough sweaters bought in bulk by tourists, senior citizens and campers.

Yet designers and textile producers are finding ways to recreate Incan exactness on a larger scale, and now use the fleece to plat softer fabrics that suggest to some of the world’s finest furs, said Lima-based designer Jose Miguel Valdivia.

Peru’s government is also boosting efforts to promote the fibers, sending topical designers to Europe to lobby fashionistas. Nine traveled to Paris’ famed ready-to-wear show hold out January on behalf of state-run commerce dispose PromPeru, showing alpaca-made slacks, coats, dresses and jackets to journalists and in posse buyers.

Leases are falling out of favor, that is bad for import brands. They depend on leases to put populate in cars they otherwise couldn’t afford

by Jim Henry

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Upscale brands like BMW (BMWG.DE), Saab, and others are cutting back in continuance leasing for some of the same reasons Chrysler quit leasing outright, effective Aug. 1. Ford Motor (F) and General Motors (GM) have in addition said they are taking incentive money out of leasing and putting it toward cut-rate loans and cash rebates.

Leasing is more important to luxury brands, having helped finance a luxury-car boom since the early 1990s. Luxury leases will still have being useful, but as discounts on new leases go down, monthly payments and down payments upon the body leases will go up.

"We are silence very committed to the leasing calling," uttered Daniel DeChristopher, vice-president for sales and marketing at BMW Group Financial Services. Four out of the top 10 most commonly leased vehicles in the U.S. auto industry are BMWs, according to J.D. Power & Associates’ Power Information Network (PIN). (Like BusinessWeek.com, J.D. Power is a unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies (MHP).)

Nevertheless, through Sept. 2, in addition to leases, BMW is oblation 0.9% APR loans on almost its entire 2008 lineup, to make room in opposition to 2009 models.

"There’s every amount of risk involved [in leases] where we see the used-car mart. We’re a little more exposed. We certainly remain committed to leasing, but we are trying to shift," DeChristopher aforesaid.

BMW is more than a little exposed to leasing. According to PIN premises, the flagship BMW 7 Series sedan (BusinessWeek.com, 4/16/07) is No. 1 in continuance the list of greatest number leased vehicles, at 85.3% lease penetration. That is, 85.3% of the 7 Series customers from Jan. 1 through Aug. 10 leased their cars. The rest took out a loan or paid cash.

That’s every extraordinarily high percentage of leasing, compared to industry standards. For the whole U.S. busy vigor, leasing accounted for and nothing else about 19.7% of retail volume in July vs. 53.8% loans and 26.5% cash. The "pay in money" category includes all buyers who paid outright with respect to their car. That includes some who may receive gotten a loan someplace other than the dealership, probably a credence union or a home equity loan.

This is the resolved mode of action leasing works: The customer in efficiency borrows the difference between the up-front cost of the vehicle, negative what it’s desert at the close of the lease, usually called the residual value. Obviously, that yields a lower monthly payment than having to borrow the entire cost of the conveyance.

Leasing is attractive for more expensive, aspirational brands, where customers may want to stretch their budget to obtain a pricier car than they would normally buy, suppose that they had to buy it outright.

"There are unceasingly going to be people who need to lease," said Jesse Toprak, executive guide of industry analysis for Edmunds.com.

Leasing is besides attractive for the car companies and their dealers because it brings people outer part to the dealership for service, to turn in their car at the end of the lease, and for another new vehicle.

John Blair, CEO of Automotive Lease Guide, said he couldn’t imagine luxury brands doing without leasing. ALG, based in Santa Barbara, Calif., maintains a commonly used industry benchmark for setting residual values.

"They might not subsist as aggressive, and payments may go up a little coin, but that it’s such a main part of the selling strategy for luxury vehicles.

The easy app lets iPhone-toting house hunters find listings and be parted houses in their vicinity. But it’s not the only smartphone real estate tool

by Prashant Gopal

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House chase.? Forget the listing agents and classified ads. Now you can find homes for opportunity to sell with a few taps on a smartphone.

Trulia, one of the Web’s most visited home listing sites, on Aug. 25 is introducing a tool available on Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone that can locate all the listings and open houses in a user’s vicinity.

The free software industry uses navigation technology to summon data and displays the results steady an interactive map. It lets users call together up such information as price, photos, square footage, and number of bedrooms. Another tap of the cover sends a short visit or e-mail directly to the listing agent. "It’s every person of about convenience," says Trulia CEO Pete Flint.

Trulia is besides releasing home listing applications at the same time that antidote to Research In Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry, Samsung’s BlackJack, and Dash Navigation’s Dash Express, which provides navigation services using GPS technology. Trulia’s service will also be available on various mobile operating systems, and on devices made by dint of. Sony Ericsson and Nokia (NOK).

Trulia, which boasts information for 70% to 80% of the properties on the multiple-listing benefit database of veritable estate listings, testament be the biggest listing locality with an iPhone application. But it’s hardly alone. FrontDoor.com says it resolution introduce an iPhone application later this year that not only searches nearby listings, but also integrates video and information about what it’s like to live in a given neighborhood.

StreetEasy.com’s two-week-old iPhone application, what one. provides location-based for-sale listing information in quest of New York City, has been downloaded about 5,000 times. The application was designed through New Yorkers in mind, letting surfers see available properties not just in a neighborhood, but also in a given building.

Coming versions of StreetEasy’s iPhone software will make it possible to search for guileless house and broadcast observations near specific buildings. "People are experiencing real estate by means of walking from the top to the bottom of the street; they’re not experiencing it in front of the computer," says Dawn Doherty, StreetEasy’s vice-president of business development. "It takes people involved in searches single step closer to the plain product."

Greg Swann, a broker for BloodhoundRealty.com in Phoenix, says that while the Trulia application may undermine the role of buyers’ agents, it will apparently be a boon to sellers’ agents and customers. He’s quick to add that as empowering as the iPhone apps may be for buyers, they can’t replace the advice and negotiating abilities of a good Realtor. "Anyone be possible to change their allow oil," Swann says. "But then why is there evermore a line for Jiffy Lube?"