■ UNITED STATES
Tommy Makem dies at 74
Irish singer, songwriter and storyteller Tommy Makem, who teamed with the Clancy Brothers to become stars during the folk music boom, has died of lung cancer. He was 74. Makem died on Wednesday in Dover, New Hampshire. The Irish-born Makem, who came to America in the 1950s to seek work as an actor, grew to international fame while performing with the band The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. Armed with his banjo, tinwhistle, poetry, stagecraft and his baritone voice, Makem helped spread Irish culture around the world through stories and songs such as Four Green Fields, Gentle Annie and Red Is the Rose.
■ UNITED STATES
Office tyrant uncensured
In a study that was to be presented at a conference on management this weekend, almost two-thirds of the 240 participants in an online survey said the local workplace tyrant was either never censured or was promoted for domineering ways. "The fact that 64.2 percent of the respondents indicated that either nothing at all or something positive happened to the bad leader is rather remarkable -- remarkably disturbing," wrote the study's authors at Bond University in Australia. Despite their success in the office, spiteful supervisors can cause serious malaise for their subordinates, the study suggested, citing nightmares, insomnia, depression and exhaustion.
■ UNITED STATES
Murphy fathered Spice baby
Actor-comedian Eddie Murphy publicly acknowledged on Friday having fathered a child out of wedlock with Spice Girls singer Melanie Brown, who brought a paternity suit against him earlier this week. A brief statement from Murphy said: "Mr Murphy and Ms Brown dated very briefly and never made any plans of ANY sort ... He acknowledges paternity of the child Angel, and has paid child support to Ms Brown as well as covering the expenses of her pregnancy." A DNA test in June confirmed that Murphy is the father of Brown's baby, Angel Iris Murphy Brown, who was born in April. Brown, 32, known as Scary Spice as a member of the British pop phenomenon, listed Murphy as the father on the child's birth certificate.
■ UNITED STATES
NASA delays launch
NASA delayed the launch of space shuttle Endeavour by one day on Friday to allow time for workers to finish replacing a leaky valve in the spaceship's crew cabin, officials at the space agency said. Liftoff of the second shuttle mission of the year had been targeted for Tuesday, but was rescheduled for Wednesday at 6:36pm. "We understand the decision to delay until Wednesday and we agree with it completely," said Endeavour commander Scott Kelly, who arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida along with his six crewmates on Friday. The shuttle will carry a new beam to install in the main structural truss of the International Space Station.
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