Appropriate for the coming spring blossoms in the United States, the government is adding a little colour to American wallets. A newly redesigned bill is going into circulation. The new , featuring shades of orange, yellow and red, will join colourised versions of the bill and the bill.
United States President George Bush on Tuesday extended by one year a series of sanctions against Zimbabwe officials, including President Robert Mugabe, deemed to be undermining democracy. The decision renews Bush’s executive orders of March 2003 and November 2005 freezing the assets of more than 100 people and 30 entities considered to be opposing reforms in Zimbabwe.
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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/ 28 February 2006
Various United States interest groups have joined forces to fight a proposed bulk e-mailing fee they claim strikes at the heart of online communication — a level playing field for rich and poor. The service would charge businesses and other bulk e-mailers a fee to route their e-mail directly to a user’s mailbox.
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/ 28 February 2006
A 20-year-old woman has made it big with the Philadelphia Orchestra — she’s been hired to be its tuba player, a job normally held by men in major orchestras. ”The fact that she is a young woman playing a very un-womanlike instrument is really extraordinary,” said Christoph Eschenbach, the orchestra’s music director.
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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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/ 27 February 2006
Octavia Butler, considered the first black woman to gain national prominence as a science fiction writer, has died, a close friend said on Sunday. She was 58. Butler fell and struck her head on the cobbled walkway outside her home, said Leslie Howle, a longtime friend and employee at the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle.
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/ 27 February 2006
President George Bush has been buffeted by one calamity after another. Try what he may, he just can’t seem to find traction for his second-term agenda. With midterm congressional elections approaching later this year, it won’t get any easier.
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/ 27 February 2006
Time, the largest magazine publisher in the world, is looking for desk-bound young men more interested in idly surfing the internet than doing the work they are paid for. Surveys suggest there are millions of them and Time’s new online magazine, <i>Office Pirates</i>, has been custom-designed to grab their attention.
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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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/ 24 February 2006
A former Enron vice-president of investor relations testified that in the months before the company failed in late 2001, she witnessed behavior by top company executives that concerned her but did not think crimes were being committed. ”I observed events that I thought were wrong, so I did make a conclusion. I didn’t make a conclusion that it was legal or illegal,” Paula Rieker said under cross-examination.
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/ 23 February 2006
The United States reacted coolly on Wednesday to prospects that former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide would return to Haiti after the election of his one-time protégé René Préval to lead the Caribbean nation. ”If we were asked, I think we would say it’s probably not a good idea. It doesn’t serve a useful purpose,” said deputy State Department spokesperson Adam Ereli.
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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
The FBI’s latest attempt to modernise its computers is running behind schedule and its budget already has exceeded the cost of the last failed effort. FBI Director Robert Mueller and other officials have refused to disclose the anticipated cost of the Sentinel program, which will not be fully in place until 2009.
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/ 22 February 2006
As a vice-president of investor relations and corporate secretary for Enron’s board, Paula Rieker viewed the energy trading giant’s inner workings as it rose to be a Wall Street darling and then imploded in scandal. Rieker on Tuesday testified how former chief executive Jeffrey Skilling ordered abrupt last-minute changes to two quarterly earnings reports in 2000 to please analysts and investors.
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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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/ 21 February 2006
With few physical clues to the whereabouts of an escaped show dog, the hunt for the award-winning whippet has entered the spiritual realm, according to a media report. About 12 psychics are counseling searchers as they check the heated cargo buildings at John F Kennedy Airport where Vivi escaped from a travel cage.
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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
A northern Illinois resident has reported finding a bird’s head in a can of pinto beans, prompting a Chicago-based food company to announce a voluntary recall. La Preferida said in a statement that it is recalling a limited number of its cans as a precaution. The company says the beans were canned by New Meridian in Eaton, Indiana.
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/ 17 February 2006
The United States risks ”loss of leadership” is space exploration, if it fails to replace quickly its ailing shuttle fleet with a new reliable space vehicle, the head of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) has warned. And that will not be possible without sacrificing some valuable science programmes, Michael Griffin, head of the Nasa, told Congress on Thursday.
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/ 17 February 2006
United States Vice-President Dick Cheney badly handled a damage limitation exercise after accidentally shooting a hunting partner and could now become a case study for future politicians, experts said. ”It will be studied as one of the big ones — an example of how a modest mishap goes completely out of control,” said Larry Sabato, head of the Centre for Politics at the University of Virginia.
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/ 17 February 2006
Oprah is a Zulu. Never mind that she was born and raised in Mississippi and her great-grandparents hailed from no further away than Georgia and North Carolina, Winfrey is not just suggesting her lineage might stretch back thousands of years to a specific African tribe. She is asserting it as a definitive fact.
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/ 16 February 2006
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered California to reformulate the lethal-injection method used to kill condemned inmates, saying the original might be unconstitutionally painful. United States District Judge Jeremy Fogel refused to stop the February 21 execution of Michael Morales in San Quentin State Prison, but ruled it can proceed only if a quick-killing drug cocktail were used.
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/ 16 February 2006
The French businessman flying in China wants his airplane seat mate to be a woman who will escort him during his ”lonely after-work evening”. An American woman wouldn’t mind meeting her ”soul mate” on her plane trip. Thanks to the internet, these travellers might get to choose their ideal travel partners in their next voyage.
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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
United States comedians and satirists have seized upon Vice-President Dick Cheney’s quail hunting accident, in which he fired shotgun pellets at a lawyer friend Harry Whittington. David Letterman on his talk show said: "Good news, ladies and gentlemen, we have finally located weapons of mass destruction: it’s Dick Cheney."
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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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/ 14 February 2006
Not long after disclosing that its French fries contain more trans fat than thought, McDonald’s has admitted wheat and dairy ingredients are used to flavour the popular menu item in the United States — an acknowledgment it did not previously make. The substances can cause allergic or other medical reactions in some consumers.
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/ 13 February 2006
Road crews scrambled to clear highways for Monday’s commuters, and travellers stranded at airports still waited to get home as the United States Northeast dug out from a record-breaking storm that dumped 60cm or more of snow. The storm dropped 68cm of snow in Central Park — the heaviest since record-keeping was started in 1869.