It finished last, with 674,000 viewers, in its timeslot, being beaten by Border Security, The 7:30 Report and Australian Idol. In the ratings for the day, it was placed 26th.

Its best audience was located in Melbourne, followed by Sydney. However, SBS is still confident a second series will be commissioned.

Again, City Homicide was the most popular program on the night, followed by The Force and Border Security - all from the Seven Network. Australian Idol (Ten) managed to draw below 1 million viewers, getting 946,000. Due to Daylight Savings, Australian Idol is now live in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania.

Also, the RBA cut its key cash rate from 7% to 6%, double the 50-basis point cut expected by the market. This follows a 25-basis point cut in September, lowing the lending rate from a 12-year high.

Market reaction was positive, with the Australian dollar slightly recovered from a 2 US cents drop at the market’s open. The ASX 200 is, at the time of writing, up 1.86% from yesterday - now at 4624.9 points.

The economy has also held up, better than most developed countries, with France and Ireland in a recession, with predictions that Spain and the UK may be next. This is because of the strength of the mining boom, which recently delivered the second-highest trade surplus on record.

Leading the fall were banks and mining stocks, with BHP Billion losing 2.1% – the lowest close in 17 months, Rio Tinto losing 5% and Fortescue Metals losing 56 cents, or 11 percent, to $4.41 – losing two-thirds of their value in the past three and a half months.

In the banks, only Suncorp-Metway was the best performer, rising 40 cents to $11.08 over rumours of a break-up and sale of its assets.

European markets are also under siege, with Germany’s government planning to bail-out the second-best mortgage bank in Germany, Hypo Real Estate Holding, for a value of $89 billion.

The Australian dollar also plunged, falling against the US dollar and the Japanese yen; both setting new record lows, but managed to regain slightly from their losses.

The charges against the former Hall of Fame football star included kidnapping, armed robbery and 10 other charges for gathering five men a year ago and storming into a hotel-casino, where he seized several game balls, plaques and photos. The verdict came 13 years after his acquittal.

Simpson could spend the rest of his life in prison, as he is facing 15 years to life in prison for his charges. His sentencing is set for December 5.

Judge Jackie Glass also refused to give lawyers extended time to file a motion for a brand new trial, which under the laws of Nevada must be filed within seven days.

Source: MSNBC (AP)

The robbery happened at 11am at a Bank of America branch; with the robber wearing a yellow vest, safety goggles, a blue shirt and a respirator mask went over to a guard who was overseeing the unloading of cash into the bank and then sprayed him with pepper spray, grabbed the bag of money and fled.

Oh, what about the decoys? Well, they were fooled into dressing into the same clothing as he, the robber, posted an ad for road maintenance workers, promising wages for $28.50 per hour (and that is so mean, especially where we are today!). They were asked to wait near the Bank of America around the same time as the robbery, wearing the same clothes. A dozen showed up after responding to the ad.

"I came across the ad that was for a prevailing wage job for $28.50 an hour," said one of the victims of the scam.

Source: KING 5

The story, which appeared on CNN’s iReport, a citizen journalist website, claimed that the Apple co-founder had been rushed to a local emergency room following the “major heart attack”; following a series of rumours of Steve Jobs’ health after he underwent treatment for pancreatic cancer in 2004, and a more recent struggle with nutrition, according to AppleInsider, that has contributed to his visible weight loss.

Apple representative Steve Dowling has denied the report, saying that it was “not true”. In addition, CNN spokeswoman Jennifer Martin told Bloomberg that the content published on iReport is “entirely user-generated,” and once the community alerted CNN, “the fraudulent content was removed from the site and the user’s account was disabled."

The company’s stock price fell to $97.07, losing 3 percent, at closing time. It earlier fell to $94.65, after the news was reported. This is the first time since May 2007 that Apple has traded below $100.

The recent performance of its stock has been declining since the middle of August, even though the company is breaking records and its products, especially the iPhone and iPod product line, are proving more popular. The declining stock value is due to the financial crisis that is affecting all companies.

CNN is cooperating with the Securities and Exchange Commission with its investigation, handing over the details of the user who posted the story.

TECHGEEK.com.au is the sister blog to The Journal.

Insee also forecasts that unemployment will rise to 7.4 percent by the end of the year, up from 7.2 percent in the third quarter, if the current financial crisis does not worsen.

The finance minister, Christine Lagarde, who had previously rejected claims that the country is heading for a recession, which economists generally define it as having two consecutive quarters of falling gross domestic product, has said that the “risk of negative growth this autumn for the second consecutive quarter is now real.”

Lagarde has blamed the high price for oil, the strength of the euro earlier this year and the worsening financial crisis for the recession.

France joins Ireland in announcing they are in recession; and other European nations are not fairing much better. The EU is forecasting that there would be a possible recession for Germany, Spain and the UK – predicting that  their economies will shrink for two consecutive quarters.

After a week of reversals and new additions, or “sweeteners”, to the bils; the Senate version passed in the House by a vote of 263 – 171 for the bill, as that version offered more protection for individual investors and businesses. While the party leaders were looking for 12 more people to pass the bill, 58 members decided to switch their votes to yes.

Most of the votes came from the Democrats, with 172 saying yes and 63 saying no. The Republicans, on the other hand, had 91 voting yes and 108 voting no.

However, with news of the passing; markets in the US fell, with the Dow Industrials losing 157.47 points (at the time of writing), and the NASDAQ down 29.33 points (at the time of writing).

THIS WILL BE CONSTANTLY UPDATED.

This could be because of the help of another FOX show, House – which is its competition in Australia.

Meanwhile, Ten has pulled 90120 from its schedule after airing five episodes. Its plans to move it to Friday nights have also been axed, but TEN has said that it will return later in the year – most likely during the Summer Non-Ratings Period, where the channels usually put shows that they don’t want to lose their share during the official ratings period.

Ten has replaced it, according to TV Tonight, with The Bourne Supremacy for next Friday (October 10), and United 93 on October 17th.

Meanwhile, the ABC’s latest popular show, The Gruen Transfer, has been licensed to Dutch production giant Endemol to create a Dutch version. The Gruen Transfer is a show about advertising, and is to be showcase at MIPCOM by ABC Commercial.