Video Recordings

Damon Wayans is betting people will fire up their computers to watch videos about an African American leprechaun pimp, a thieving airport security guard and an adulterous Burger King. Later this month, the comedian of "In Living Color" and "My Wife and Kids" fame plans to launch a website, WayOutTV.com, featuring videos produced by aspiring young comedians he handpicked.

Justice Department attorneys apparently have known since early 2006 that the CIA destroyed videotaped interrogations of a key terror suspect, federal court documents unsealed Wednesday showed. The disclosure that at least two prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office in Alexandria, Va., were apparently aware of the agency's actions raises new questions about a matter now under investigation by a special Justice Department prosecutor.

San Bernardino County prosecutors Friday filed felony charges against a former Chino slaughterhouse manager who allegedly used cruel methods to force ailing cattle into the slaughter box. The charges follow last month's release of a video showing treatment of animals at the plant, which led to schools nationwide pulling beef from cafeterias.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the largest beef recall in its history Sunday, calling for the destruction of 143 million pounds of raw and frozen beef produced by a Chino slaughterhouse that has been accused of inhumane practices. However, the USDA said the vast majority of the meat involved in the recall -- including 37 million pounds that went mostly to schools -- probably has been eaten already. Officials emphasized that danger to consumers was minimal.

It was a bright-blue winter morning in this Bible Belt capital, and Brian Bates was happy. The balmy weather conditions, he explained, were conducive to his peculiar line of work: public humiliation. Steering wheel in one hand, camcorder in the other, Bates slowly drove a white Ford Explorer with tinted windows past a procession of sad-eyed prostitutes. But his camera was not trained on them; it was targeting their customers.

The owner of a celebrity jet service who secretly videotaped Michael Jackson talking with his lawyers while the singer flew from Las Vegas to Santa Barbara to turn himself in to face child molestation charges in 2003 was ordered to pay $20.25 million to the pop star's attorneys. The order by Los Angeles County Superior Judge Soussan G. Bruguera, made public Monday, followed a two-week bench trial held in January 2007.

Paramount Pictures is offering thousands of free movie clips on the Facebook social-networking site to spur DVD sales and promote its films. Paramount partnered with software maker FanRocket to create an application called VooZoo that lets users share film clips as messages. The partnership plans to develop VooZoo for other platforms such as News Corp.'s MySpace and even instant-message services. About 100 Paramount movies are available now.

Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. and Apple Inc. will allow customers who buy DVDs to transfer the movie from the disc to iTunes for viewing on mobile devices. The Vancouver, Canada-based movie production company joins 20th Century Fox and Paramount studios, which announced similar agreements in January.

For the NFL, the New England Patriots' tale of the tape is beginning to sound more like a never-ending story. Since the Super Bowl, the league has been trying to arrange an interview with Matt Walsh, a former Patriots video assistant. He is alleged to have damaging details on additional secret videotaping by the team, footage of opponents that presumably gave New England an unfair competitive advantage. So far, however, Walsh has been unwilling to talk.

YouTube, not happy to be just an Internet site, is expanding to the medium it has helped undermine -- the boob tube. On Wednesday, TiVo Inc., the digital video recorder maker, announced that its customers would be able to watch YouTube videos on their TVs using one model of TiVo's set-top box sometime this year. Over the last year, it has been possible to watch YouTube videos on the television through other devices, such as Apple Inc.'s Apple TV. But TiVo, which has more than 4 million subscribers, could make YouTube a television star.