Automated sales messages that annoyed recipients sometimes call "robocalls" will be banned beginning Sept. 1.

The new rule was announced Thursday by the Federal trade Commission. It requires sellers and telemarketers to get written permission from potential customers before contacting them with prerecorded telephone messages. Violators could face penalties of up to $16,000 for each call.

An estimated 30 employees at two Florida-based radio stations have unwittingly gone without health insurance for two months, according to an internal memo. Employees at stations WFTL-640 AM and WFTL-850 AM found out they haven't been covered after the insurance company started refusing claims.

Station owner, James Crystal Radio, Inc., hasn't paid the premiums and as a result, the insurance plan stopped paying out. Now, in a message to employees, company owner Richard Hindes admits they have paid up, and employees should be covered soon.

Catherine Zeta-Jones was paid a staggering $5,700 a second to star in a shampoo commercial. The Oscar-winning actress earned $2.5 million for the seven-minute TV advertisement for haircare product Lux, which will only be broadcast in China and Japan.

An executive at Unilever, the firm behind the commercial, told Britain's The Sunday Times newspaper: "We wanted Catherine as we remember her in 'Entrapment, all slinky and mysterious."

Noel Gallagher caused a swine flu panic by sneezing. The Oasis rocker arrived in Venezuela with his bandmates this week and was amazed at how people are reacting to the outbreak of the disease - and was even more shocked when he received a worried telephone call from his mother.

He wrote on his blog: "It's all got a bit mad over here. This swine flu malarky is freaking people out. Landed at Crack'a**e airport yesterday. All the ground staff are wearing those little white face masks! ALL OF THEM. It was like something out of a Stephen King novel. I suddenly feel quite naked without one."

The Miami Veterans' Hospital on Tuesday received 2,662 telephone calls from patients who were worried they may have been infected with the hepatitis virus and HIV from unclean equipment after undergoing colonoscopy there.

A total 351 veterans also visited Veterans Affairs (VA) clinics in Miami and Fort Lauderdale for consultation a day after the agency informed them via letter on Monday that colonoscopy equipment used on patients since 2004 were only rinsed and not disinfected by hospital staff as required. .