Sex, betrayal and bloodshed were the order of a fateful day for the lost souls of Lost. With the season drawing to a close this month, Lost put several of its airline-crash castaways in the line of fire and proved it has not run out of plot twists. For those planning to watch the episode of the ABC drama later that aired on Wednesday in the United States, please do not read any further.
Earl Woods, who inspired and moulded his son Eldrick into a golf legend, died on Wednesday at age 74, superstar child Tiger Woods and wife Kultida at his bedside just before cancer claimed his life. ”He was my best friend and greatest role model and I will miss him deeply,” Woods said in a Wednesday night posting on his website.
Three Hollywood labour unions have inked new contracts that will compensate actors, writers and directors and others involved in the ABC drama Lost for the broadcast of snippets of the show on cellphones. The deals guarantee union health and pension benefits and minimum payments, and could be a blueprint for similar agreements involving other TV content.
United States rap superstar Eminem has filed for divorce from his wife Kim Mathers less than three months after he remarried her, a publicist for the singer said on Wednesday. The couple — whose stormy relationship has been the focus of much of Eminem’s music — walked down the aisle for the second time on January 14 after reconciling following their 2001 divorce.
A man was sentenced to three years’ probation on Wednesday for releasing an alligator into a Los Angeles lake, sparking a massive hunt for the elusive reptile, prosecutors said. The sentencing of one of two men charged in connection with unleashing the toothy beast came as the alligator, nicknamed Reggie, remained at large in the second largest United States city more than eight months.
Hollywood will make a transcendent leap onto the internet on Tuesday when the Oscar-winning <i>Brokeback Mountain</i> becomes the first blockbuster available for permanent download on the same day its DVDs hit the shelves. Two competing download services announced on Monday they will offer downloads of such hit films as last year’s Oscar-nominated <i>King Kong</i> and <i>Memoirs of a Geisha</i>.
Faded pop superstar Michael Jackson was on Friday crowned as the United States’s most foolish person in 2006, narrowly beating out trigger-happy US Vice-President Dick Cheney for the title. The 47-year-old "King of Pop" snatched the dishonour for the fourth year running.
James Butler, a boxer who fought under the nickname ”The Harlem Hammer,” pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and arson on Monday in the 2004 death of a freelance sports writer. Butler will be sentenced to 29 years and four months in prison by California state court Judge Michael Pastor on April 5, according to deputy public defender Jack Keenan.
After more than three-quarters of a century working for public transit agencies, a bus maintenance worker will retire on Tuesday on his 100th birthday. For decades, Arthur Winston reported to work at a bus yard at the crack of dawn. By 6am he would be supervising a crew of workers as they cleaned and refueled the region’s bus fleet.
Homer, Bart and the dysfunctional family that is The Simpsons, the longest-running animated television show in history, will live on for at least two more years, Fox television said on Monday. Fox Broadcasting Company has commissioned two more seasons of the hit series.
Two men pleaded guilty to federal charges of secretly videotaping Michael Jackson more than two years ago as he flew to Santa Barbara, California, with his attorney to surrender in a child-molestation investigation. Jeffrey Borer and Arvel Jett Reeves admitted on Monday they installed two digital videorecorders to record ”a professional entertainer” and his lawyer.
A new computer model suggests that the next solar cycle will be more active than the previous one, potentially spawning magnetic storms that will be more severe and disruptive to communication systems. The next sunspot cycle will be between 30% to 50% more intense than the last one, scientists said on Monday.
Crash pulled off one of the biggest upsets in Academy Awards history, winning best picture on Sunday over the front-runner Brokeback Mountain. Crash, featuring a huge cast in crisscrossing story lines over a chaotic 36-hour period in Los Angeles, rode a late surge of praise that lifted it past the cowboy romance Brokeback Mountain.
Tension reached fever pitch as Hollywood began the final countdown to Sunday’s Oscars, with a posse of ”serious” films, led by Brokeback Mountain, set to overrun the big night. As workers frantically put the finishing touches on preparations for the 78th annual Academy Awards, which start with the legendary red carpet celebrity fashion show, the anxious nominees are crossing their fingers.
It is up for several honours at Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony, but already Crash has taken first prize when it comes to most curse words in a movie nominated for a best picture Oscar, according to the movie watchdog group FamilyMediaGuide.com.
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/ 28 February 2006
Dennis Weaver, an actor with a Midwestern twang who played stiff-legged Chester the deputy on the classic TV western Gunsmoke and the cowboy cop hero in McCloud, has died. He was 81. Weaver died on Friday from complications of cancer at his home in Ridgway, in south-western Colorado.
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/ 27 February 2006
Otis Chandler, the former publisher of The Los Angeles Times who transformed his family’s provincial, conservative newspaper into a respected national media voice, died early on Monday. He was 78. Chandler was the scion of a family that wielded financial and political power in the Los Angeles area for decades.
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/ 26 February 2006
Darren McGavin, the husky, tough-talking actor who starred in the TV series Mike Hammer, played a grouchy dad in the holiday classic A Christmas Story and had other strong roles in such films as The Man with the Golden Arm and The Natural, has died. He was 83.
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/ 26 February 2006
United States actor Don Knotts, famous for his portrayal of the bumbling, jittery deputy on the television comedy series <i>The Andy Griffith Show</i>, has died at the age of 81, news reports said on Saturday. Knotts is also known for his role on another television comedy series in the 1970s and 1980s, <i>Three’s Company</i>.
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/ 25 February 2006
Sheryl Crow underwent surgery for breast cancer earlier this week and the prognosis for a full recovery is excellent, the singer’s publicist reported. Crow had the surgery in Los Angeles on Wednesday and is recovering without complications, Dave Tomberlin, her publicist, said on Friday.
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/ 22 February 2006
Oscar has developed a social conscience this year, with weighty real-life themes, ranging from ethics in big business and media to racial tensions, dominating the movies vying for the big prizes. ”All of these films reflect the concerns that the filmmakers have for our society,” said Marty Grove, columnist for the Hollywood Reporter.
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/ 22 February 2006
South African Oscar-winner Charlize Theron will return to the Academy Awards stage next month to present one of the coveted golden Oscar statuettes, organisers announced on Tuesday. The ice-blond beauty (30) who won the best actress statuette for 2003’s Monster, in which she played a serial killer, is nominated again this year for her leading role as a female miner in North Country.
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/ 19 February 2006
South African Rory Sabbatini fired a four-under 67 on Saturday to seize a four-shot lead after three rounds of the ,1-million Nissan Open. With another consistent round, Sabbatini moved to 14-under 199 through 54 holes. He had a comfortable lead over Craig Barlow and Fred Couples.
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/ 18 February 2006
Rory Sabbatini overcame a sloppy start in frigid temperatures and then ran off five straight birdies and finished strong for a six-under 65 that put him atop the Nissan Open leaderboard among the early starters on Friday. The South African was in the second group and faced temperatures below eight degrees Celsius.
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/ 15 February 2006
Ernie Els returns to the United States PGA Tour for the first time in eight months, and he could not have picked a more appropriate setting than Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles. The Hollywood script of his career undoubtedly would start with something like, ”It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” and it would take place at the fabled course off Sunset Boulevard.
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/ 14 February 2006
Actor Chris Penn died accidentally from an enlarged heart and the effects of a mix of multiple medications, the county coroner’s office said on Monday. ”There is absolutely no indication that this is anything but an accident,” chief coroner investigator Craig Harvey said.
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/ 13 February 2006
Phil Brown, who played Luke Skywalker’s Uncle Owen in the 1977 hit film Star Wars, has died. Though Brown worked in stage and film for more than 30 years, many remember him best for his brief role as the loving uncle who tries to give Skywalker a normal childhood.
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/ 13 February 2006
Researchers scouring the remote forests of the African island nation of Madagascar have found that tiny assassin spiders, grotesque-looking bugs that prey on other spiders, are more diverse than previously thought. Assassin spiders, which grow to less than 0,3cm long, are notorious for stabbing helpless spiders with their sharp, venom-filled fangs.
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/ 9 February 2006
Rebecca Webb Carranza, who is credited with playing an important role in popularising the tortilla chip, has died at age 98. In the late 1940s, the Carranza family’s Los Angeles-based El Zarape Tortilla Factory began making tortillas by machine, but at first many of the corn and flour disks were misshapen and had to be thrown away.
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/ 8 February 2006
Sheriff’s officials said on Tuesday they were working on a computerised plan to identify and isolate the most dangerous jail inmates but warned it would not prevent all future violence in an overcrowded system that exploded into deadly racial riots.
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/ 2 February 2006
Pop princess Britney Spears will take a guest role in the hit United States television series Will & Grace, making her first-ever turn as a sitcom star, the NBC television network said on Wednesday. Spears (24) will play a Christian conservative sidekick to one of the show’s lead characters, the flamboyantly gay Jack.
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/ 30 January 2006
Capote star Philip Seymour Hoffman, Reese Witherspoon and the drama Crash stole top honours at Sunday’s Screen Actors’ Guild Awards, dealing a blow to Oscar favourite Brokeback Mountain. Witherspoon won best actress for her role as singer June Carter Cash in Walk the Line, while Hoffman was named best actor for his portrayal of United States author Truman Capote.