NEW YORK: American Apparel Inc settled film director Woody Allen's lawsuit over the company's use of his image in advertising for $5 million, Allen said on Monday as the case was about to come to trial.The American film director sued the clothing company more than a year ago after his image appeared on billboards in New York and Los Angeles. Allen says his reputation was damaged and the image from his film "Annie Hall," which showed him dressed as a Hasidic Jew, was used without his consent."Five million dollars is enough to discourage American Apparel or any one else from ever trying such a thing again," Allen said outside federal court in Manhattan.Allen, 73, who says he does not sell his image for commercial profit in the United States, said depositions revealed American Apparel believed fear of publicity would keep him from taking action. But American Apparel founder Dov Charney had argued that the ads, which also appeared on the Internet, fell under free speech rights and were intended for comic satire and not commercial profit."The billboards were designed to inspire dialogue. They were certainly never intended to sell clothes," Charney said in a statement on his Web site.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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