autopsy is planned in the Bahamas for actor John Travolta’s 16-year-old son, who died suddenly during a vacation at his family’s resort home, authorities said. Police Superintendent Basil Rahming said on Saturday the autopsy, which could determine the cause of death of Jett Travolta, was likely to be performed today.
Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, under threat of death from Islamist extremists who accuse her of blasphemy in her writings, is to take up residence in Paris, the city hall said Saturday.
Municipal authorities will provide her with a large studio in an artists’ residence in the 10th arrondissement, in the east of the French capital, and initially pay her rent.
Nasreen, who was made an honorary citizen of Paris in July of last year, put in an application for housing six weeks ago.
Nasreen was forced to flee her native country in 1994 after her novel Lajja (Shame) about the persecution of a Hindu family by Muslims in Bangladesh drew accusations of blasphemy.
A gynecologist by training, she spent several years moving between Europe and the US before settling in India in 2004. Renewed threats drove her to Sweden in March last year.
Actor Will Smith, star of Hancock and Seven Pounds, was voted the top money-making movie star of last year, dethroning Johnny Depp in an annual poll released on Friday of movie theater owners and film buyers. Smith, 40, is only the second African-American actor to win the Quigley poll in its 76 year history. Sidney Poitier was placed first in 1968 after the success of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and In the Heat of the Night.
Surviving members of The Grateful Dead say they’ll regroup for a 19-city tour, their first since 2004, beginning April 12 in Greensboro, North Carolina.
The group, which now calls itself The Dead, announced its plans on Thursday.
Original band members Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann have toured sporadically since the 1995 death of guitarist Jerry Garcia, but struggled to get along personally and artistically. They told Rolling Stone in November that they’ve worked out their differences, aided by a successful October benefit concert in Pennsylvania for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Warren Haynes joins The Dead on lead guitar, and Jeff Chimenti will play keyboards.
British actor Edmund Purdom, star of Hollywood blockbusters The Egyptian and The Prodigal in the mid-1950s, has died aged 82 in Rome where he was a longtime resident, his family said on Friday.
Purdom, who died Thursday, began his acting career in theater on both sides of the Atlantic.
He landed the lead role in the MGM musical The Student Prince in 1954, displacing an overweight Mario Lanzo, and moved on to replace Marlon Brando who opted out of The Egyptian the same year.
After settling in Rome in the mid-1960s, Purdom played in “sword-and-sandal” epics and Italian B movies, and then worked for many years as a voice-dubbing actor, mainly from Italian into English.
In a romantic history that included four weddings and three divorces, Purdom was best known for abruptly leaving his first wife Anita Philips and their children to marry Mexican actress Linda Christian, with whom he starred in Athena (1954).
Christian was the ex-wife of heartthrob Tyrone Power.
Mystery writer Donald Westlake, one of the most prolific figures in US literary history, has died after a career that spanned half a century, it was reported Friday. He was 75.
His wife Abigail Westlake said he collapsed of a heart attack while heading to a New Year’s Eve dinner in Mexico where he was vacationing, the New York Times reported.
The versatile writer — who banged out his stories on a manual typewriter — was also nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay of The Grifters (1990) and received three Edgar awards by the Mystery Writers of America.
Westlake’s Web site lists him as the author of 86 books and five screenplays, beginning in 1960 with his novel The Mercenaries.
In a 2007 interview he said his output was up to 104 books. The latest, Get Real, was due to be published this year.
Fifteen of his novels were made into movies, including The Hot Rock (1972) starring Robert Redford and Payback (1999) with Mel Gibson.
In a May 2007 interview with the publication On Writing, Westlake said he was less interested in historical accuracy than in developing his characters and their actions.
“It’s like quicksand,” he said about doing too much research for a novel. “You can get drowned in research and never be heard from again.”
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
Despite the intense sunshine, we were hardly breaking a sweat as we cruised along the flat, dedicated bike lane, well protected from the heat by a canopy of trees. The electric assist on the bikes likely made a difference, too. Far removed from the bustle and noise of the Taichung traffic, we admired the serene rural scenery, making our way over rivers, alongside rice paddies and through pear orchards. Our route for the day covered two bike paths that connect in Fengyuan District (豐原) and are best done together. The Hou-Feng Bike Path (后豐鐵馬道) runs southward from Houli District (后里) while the
President William Lai’s (賴清德) March 13 national security speech marked a turning point. He signaled that the government was finally getting serious about a whole-of-society approach to defending the nation. The presidential office summarized his speech succinctly: “President Lai introduced 17 major strategies to respond to five major national security and united front threats Taiwan now faces: China’s threat to national sovereignty, its threats from infiltration and espionage activities targeting Taiwan’s military, its threats aimed at obscuring the national identity of the people of Taiwan, its threats from united front infiltration into Taiwanese society through cross-strait exchanges, and its threats from
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
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