UNITED STATES
Sandler a Razzie favorite
Adam Sandler has shattered a Hollywood awards season record. He has picked up 11 nominations for the Razzies, an Academy Awards spoof singling out the year’s worst movies. That more than doubled the previous record of five Razzie nominations held by Eddie Murphy for 2007’s Norbit. Among Sandler’s acting, producing and writing nominations on Saturday: worst actor for both Jack and Jill and Just Go with It — and worst actress for Jack and Jill, in which he plays a family man and his own twin sister. Sandler also had two nominations as worst screen couple opposite Jennifer Aniston or Brooklyn Decker in Just Go with It and opposite Katie Holmes, Al Pacino or himself in Jack and Jill. As a producer, Sandler was credited with worst-picture and worst prequel, remake, rip-off or sequel nominations for both Bucky Larson and Jack and Jill. He also shared in worst screenplay nominations as a writer on both movies.
UNITED STATES
Oscars to be auctioned
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is not pleased with plans to auction off 15 Oscar statuettes from such films as Citizen Kane, Wuthering Heights and Little Women. However, the academy says its hands are tied in blocking tomorrow’s sale by Nate D. Sanders Auctions because the statuettes were awarded prior to 1950, when a “winners agreement” was instituted banning the sale of Oscars. “Oscars should be won, not purchased,” the academy said in a statement, adding that it had no “legal means of stopping the commoditization of these particular statuettes.” The Sanders Co expects its total Oscar inventory, which includes Herman Mankiewicz’s 1941 screenplay award for Citizen Kane, to command more than US$1 million.
NEPAL
Smallest man measured
Chandra Bahadur Dangi, a 72-year-old man from a remote valley in the southwest of the country, was yesterday measured by Guinness World Records experts investigating his claim to be the shortest man ever recorded. Dangi, who claims to be 56cm tall, was in high spirits as he looked forward to a third and final measurement. “They have already measured me twice yesterday. They didn’t tell me what height they recorded, but everyone is sure of my height and I’m confident I’m going to get the record,” Dangi said through an interpreter. If his height is verified, Dangi will take the world’s shortest man title from Filipino Junrey Balawing, who measures 59.93cm. He will also be declared the shortest human adult ever documented, taking the accolade from India’s Gul Mohammed, who was measured at 57cm before he died in 1997 aged 40.
CHINA
Hebei outbreak not SARS
An outbreak of fever in Hebei Province is under control, the Ministry of Health said in a statement. The illness was caused by the Adenovirus Type 55 and was not SARS or avian flu, it said. As of Saturday there were no deaths among patients admitted to the 252 Hospital in the city of Baoding, with most suffering from a mild fever and none “critically ill,” according to the statement issued late yesterday. The ministry did not specify how many patients were being treated at the hospital.
HONG KONG
Dolphin cargo challenged
Hong Kong Airlines was under pressure yesterday to stop its live dolphin cargo business after an internal memo describing a recent delivery from Japan to Vietnam was leaked to Chinese media. More than 2,800 people have signed an online petition at change.org calling for an end to the flights, citing a China Daily report about a Jan. 16 delivery of five dolphins from Osaka to Hanoi. The dolphins are believed to have come from the Japanese town of Taiji, the scene of an annual dolphin slaughter depicted in Oscar Award winning documentary The Cove, the report said.
HONG KONG
Tsang sets up review panel
Chief Executive Donald Tsang (曾蔭權) will set up an independent panel led by former chief justice Andrew Li (李國能) to review the conduct of senior public officials, the South China Morning Post reported yesterday. Tsang, under criticism for accepting trips on private yachts and jets owned by tycoons, wrote in a commentary published in the newspaper that recent events had taught him “a painful lesson,” and the need for tighter scrutiny of the actions of the territory’s top officials. The committee will begin its review today and conclude its study before Tsang’s term as chief executive ends on June 30, the paper said. A group of lawmakers identified as the League of Social Democrats filed a complaint against Tsang on Friday with the Independent Commission Against Corruption.
UNITED STATES
Naked man steals fire truck
A naked man stole a fire truck at a Port Royal, South Carolina, apartment complex and sped away, killing a pedestrian who was walking on a sidewalk, authorities said on Saturday. The fire engine driver, identified as 26-year-old Kalvin Hunt, drove about 2km on Friday before he hit a man, careened off the road and crashed into some trees, authorities said. Hunt, who was pinned inside the fire truck, was freed by rescue workers and then started assaulting two police officers, deputy police chief Dale McDorman told the Beaufort Gazette. Justin Miller, 28, of Port Royal, was killed when he was hit as he walked with his brother, Beaufort County Coroner Ed Allen said on Saturday. Hunt had not been charged on Saturday in Miller’s death, said Lance Corporal Judd Jones of the South Carolina Highway Patrol, which is investigating.
UNITED STATES
Lin inspires ice cream
NBA star Jeremy Lin has inspired his own flavor from ice cream maker Ben and Jerry’s, but waffle cone pieces have replaced fortune cookie bits in “Taste the Linsanity.” The Boston Globe reported the switch in the limited-release item. In tribute to Lin, Ben and Jerry’s created a frozen yogurt that includes lychee honey swirls and a waffle cookie. Initial batches included pieces of fortune cookies mixed into the yogurt, but the cookies became soggy and two pints were returned, Ben and Jerry’s general manager for Boston and Cambridge Ryan Midden told the Globe. “There seemed to be a bit of an initial backlash about it, but we obviously weren’t looking to offend anybody and the majority of the feedback about it has been positive,” Midden said.
UGANDA
Poison coke kills producer
A US TV producer found dead on a hotel balcony in Kampala last week died after taking contaminated cocaine, police and a private investigator said on Saturday. An official toxicology report confirmed the narcotic was in Jeff Rice’s blood, dispelling initial suspicions the father-of-two known for his work on the US show The Amazing Race, had been poisoned by attackers. Rice, who was found slumped over a table bleeding through the nose and mouth, died of asphyxiation, a post mortem showed. Drug users who fall unconscious risk inhaling vomit. Rice’s assistant, identified by police as Kathryne Fuller, was found unconscious at the same time Rice’s body was discovered on Feb. 18. She is now conscious, but paralyzed down the right hand side of her body. Ugandan police said on Saturday they had arrested a man who confessed selling drugs to the pair, who had been in the east African country working on a documentary.
UNITED STATES
Tax, wage fraud soars
The government said the number of identity theft complaints involving tax and wage fraud is soaring even as law enforcement tries to crack down. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) officials said that 24 percent of the nearly 279,000 identity theft complaints it received last year came from people concerned their Social Security numbers had been stolen and used to fraudulently file for tax refunds or apply for jobs. The agency said that was 8 percent more than the year before. David Torok of the commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection said the trend had continued into this year. The number of complaints filed with the FTC on any issue has risen from 35,000 a week to 50,000. He said most of the additional complaints were over tax and wage identity theft.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not