Breaking News Thread

[carl stromberg]

Gerard Kelly has died aged 51. You may know him from Extras where he played the gay Scottish chap.

[carl stromberg]

Students smash way into British PM's party HQ

By Robin Millard (AFP) – 1 hour ago

LONDON — University students protesting against the British government's plans to triple tuition fees forced their way into the headquarters of Prime Minister David Cameron's party on Wednesday.

In chaotic scenes, around 20 students got into the lobby of Millbank, a 1960s office building near the Houses of Parliament that houses the Conservative Party, an AFP reporter said.

The protesters inside the office block clashed with police who hit them with batons as they tried to round them up. Outside, police barricaded the entrance to the building.

Demonstrators -- some stripped to the waist and with scarves around their faces -- smashed windows at the office block on the banks of the River Thames and made a bonfire of a pile of placards outside.

Hundreds of workers in the building, which also contains the offices of dozens of companies, were evacuated after a fire alarm went off.

The students were taking part in a 20,000-strong march through London in protest at the proposals of the coalition government of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats which came to power in May.

One student, Bernard Goyber, a 19-year-old reading history at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, said: "I wanted a peaceful demonstration. We wanted to take our voices through the streets.

"Students haven't been consulted about the rise in fees at all and universities are being savaged by the cuts.

"Fifty percent of students can't get jobs, most students won't be able to pay this anyway."

The move to raise fees directly contradicts a pre-election promise made by the Liberal Democrats of Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, the junior coalition partners.

Students from towns and cities across Britain had travelled to London in coaches, with big university cities including Liverpool, Newcastle and Birmingham well represented.

Protesters waved placards saying: "Stop education cuts" and "9K? No way", referring to the 9,000-pound (14,500-dollar, 10,500-euro) maximum level of the annual fees.

Aaron Porter, president of the National Union of Students (NUS), warned the Liberal Democrats they would lose the support of a generation of young people if they continued to back the tuition fee hike.

"MPs must now think twice before going ahead with this outrageous policy," he said.

The issue of tuition fees had earlier dominated the weekly session of question and answers in parliament hosted by Clegg in the absence of Cameron, who is on a visit to China and the G20 summit in South Korea.

We should storm the eon offices.

[FormerBondFan]

http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-po ... s-91-22443

Italian Film Legend Dino De Laurentiis Dies at 91
By Dylan Stableford
Published: November 11, 2010 @ 5:42 am

Legendary film producer Dino De Laurentiis has died in Los Angeles, according to several Italian media reports. He was 91.

He produced more than 500 films, and won two Oscars -- one in 1956 for Federico Fellini's "La Strada," another in 1957 for "Nights of Cabiria."

"Cinema has lost one of its greats," Walter Veltroni, former mayor of Rome and founder the Rome Film Festival, said in a statement to Agence France-Press on Thursday.

Born in Italy, he founded the Dino De Laurentiis Studios in 1947 after serving in the Italian army during World War II. There, De Laurentiis lured some of Hollywood's top actors to Italy to star in his films, such as Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda for “War and Peace" (1956).

De Laurentiis moved to the U.S. in the 1970s and produced several American films, including "Serpico" (1973), "Three Days of the Condor" (1975), "King Kong" (1976), David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet” (1986) and "Hannibal" (2001).

De Laurentiis is also credited with launching Arnold Schwarzenegger's acting career in "Conan the Barbarian."

He's collected several awards for his decades of film work, including the Irving G.Thalberg Memorial Award at the 2001 Academy Awards and a lifetime achievement award at the 2003 Venice Film Festival.

He is survived by six children from two marriages. His granddaughter, Giada De Laurentiis, is a chef on the Food Network.

[carl stromberg]

Wesley Snipes has been sent to prison!

[Capt. Sir Dominic Flandry]

Blake Edwards has died.

[Kristatos]

Blake Edwards has died.

Among other things, the creator of the TV show with the coolest music score in history:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcflCzZlLcQ[/video]

[FormerBondFan]

http://www.imdb.com/news/ni6320434/

Steve Landesberg: 1945 - 2010

42 minutes ago | IMDb News

Steve Landesberg, best known to television audiences as Det. Sgt. Arthur Dietrich on the '70s sitcom "Barney Miller," died today following a long battle with cancer. He was 65 years old.

Landesberg joined the regular cast of "Barney Miller" in its second season, distinguishing Dietrich from the rest of the Greenwich Village police station's motley crew of detectives by making him the intellectual straight man and a likable know-it-all. Although movie buffs may recognize Landesberg from his recent appearance in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, in which he played Peter Bretter's pediatrician, the veteran character actor portrayed Dietrich on the classic ABC sitcom until the end of the series' run in 1982. Landesberg even reprised the role for the short-lived "Barney Miller" spinoff "Fish," a vehicle for fellow castmember Abe Vigoda.

Born November 23, 1945, in New York, NY, Landesberg's father owned a grocery store, and his mother was a milliner. Landesberg started out in show business doing stand-up, and he also performed with an improvisational group called The New York Stickball Team.

After "Barney Miller" went off the air, the actor did extensive voice-over work, as well as making numerous guest appearances on a variety of television series including "The Golden Girls," "Seinfeld,""Everybody Hates Chris," and a featured guest appearance in an episode of the A&E's "The Cleaner." His most recent regular role was Dr. Myron Finkelstein on the Starz original comedy "Head Case," for which he co-wrote seven episodes.

Landesberg is also credited with the quote "Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense."


- Melanie McFarland

[katied]

Epic amounts of rain here. We need it, but just not this much. They said we could get a couple of inches an hour, depending on the area

[James]

My cat has just had a saucer of milk and is now ready for a nap.

[FormerBondFan]

http://new.music.yahoo.com/various-arti ... --62008336


Teena Marie, known as 'Ivory Queen of Soul,' dies
AP, Dec 26, 2010 11:30 pm PST

Teena Marie, the "Ivory Queen of Soul" who developed a lasting legacy with her silky soul pipes and with hits like "Lovergirl," "Square Biz," and "Fire and Desire" with mentor Rick James, has died. She was 54.

The confirmation came from a publicist, Jasmine Vega, who worked with Teena Marie on her last album, 2009's "Congo Square." Her manager, Mike Gardner, also confirmed her death to CNN.

The singer continued performing in recent years after overcoming an addiction to prescription drugs. It was unclear late Sunday where and how she died.

Marie certainly wasn't the first white act to sing soul music, but she was arguably among the most gifted and respected, and was thoroughly embraced by the black audience.

Even before she started her musical career, she had a strong bond with the black community, which she credited to her godmother. She gravitated to soul music and in her youth decided to make it her career.

Marie made her debut on the legendary Motown label back in 1979, becoming one of the very few white acts to break the race barrier of the groundbreaking black-owned record label that had been a haven for black artists like Stevie Wonder, the Jackson Five, the Supremes and Marvin Gaye.

Marie was the protege of the masterful funk wizard James, with whom she would have long, turbulent but musically magical relationship.

The cover of her debut album, "Wild and Peaceful," did not feature her image, with Motown apparently fearing black audiences might not buy it if they found out the songstress with the dynamic, gospel-inflected voice was white.

But Marie notched her first hit, "I'm A Sucker for Your Love," and was on her way to becoming one of R&B's most revered queens. During her tenure with Motown, the singer-songwriter and musician produced passionate love songs and funk jam songs like "Need Your Lovin'," "Behind the Groove" and "Ooh La La La."

Marie's voice was the main draw of her music: Pitch-perfect, piercing in its clarity and wrought with emotion, whether it was drawing from the highs of romance or the mournful moments of a love lost. But her songs, most of which she had a hand in writing, were the other major component of her success.

Tunes like "Cassanova Brown" "Portuguese Love" and "Deja Vu (I've Been Here Before)" featured more than typical platitudes on love and life, but complex thoughts with rich lyricism.

And "Fire and Desire," a duet with Rick James that featured the former couple musing about their past love, was considered a musical masterpiece and a staple of the romance block on radio stations across the country.

Marie left Motown in 1982 and her split became historic: She sued the label and the legal battle led to a law preventing record labels from holding an artist without releasing any of their music.

She went to Epic in the 1980s and had hits like "Lovergirl" but her lasting musical legacy would be her Motown years.

Still, she continued to record music and perform. In 2004 and 2006 she put out two well-received albums on the traditional rap label Cash Money Records, "La Dona" and "Sapphire."

In 2008, she talked about her excitement of being honored by the R&B Foundation.

"All in all, it's been a wonderful, wonderful ride," she told The Associated Press at the time. "I don't plan on stopping anytime soon."

[FormerBondFan]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/28/arts/ ... ndex.jsonp

Lina Romay, Singer and Actress, Dies at 91
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 27, 2010

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — Lina Romay, who sang with the Xavier Cugat orchestra in the early 1940s before beginning a 15-year career as a film and television actress, died here on Dec. 17. She was 91.

Her death was confirmed by her son, Jay Gould.

The daughter of a Mexican diplomat, Ms. Romay was born in Brooklyn in 1919 and began her entertainment career by touring as the Cugat orchestra’s lead singer.

A performance with the orchestra in the 1942 film “You Were Never Lovelier,” starring Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth, led to roles in about a dozen other films, including “Week-End at the Waldorf” in 1945 and “Love Laughs at Andy Hardy” in 1946. She also appeared on “The Milton Berle Show,” “The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet,” ”The Red Skelton Show” and other TV programs.

She also appeared on Broadway as part of the revue “Michael Todd’s Peep Show,” which opened in 1950 and ran for eight months.

Her movie career ended in 1953, and after a few television appearances she abandoned show business entirely in 1957. From the late 1970s into the 1980s, she worked as a Spanish-language radio announcer for horse races at Hollywood Park Racetrack.

Information on survivors was not immediately available.

Long after Ms. Romay’s film career ended, a Spanish movie actress, some 35 years her junior, took Lina Romay as her stage name.

[Kristatos]

This thread ought to be renamed the obituary column.

[FormerBondFan]

A white R&B singer died of natural causes at 54 makes absolutely no sense.

[katied]

Re:Teena Marie..I heard she had a seizure a few weeks before she died.

[FormerBondFan]

What's not to love this?

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7MJXRIqU7E[/video]

[Kristatos]

RIP to Anne Francis and Pete Postlethwaite, both of whom passed away today.

[Captain Nash]

Terrible news that Pete Postlethwaite has passed away.
A really great actor, who will be missed.
R.I.P

[katied]

I was sad to hear about Postelthwaite.He's been in some great movies.And Alien 3.

[Kristatos]

I was sad to hear about Postelthwaite.He's been in some great movies.And Alien 3.

Well, unless he's done something else since that I don't know about, his last movie was Clash of the Titans. That's no way to go out. I was fortunate enough to see him as Macbeth at the Bristol Old Vic a decade or so ago, so that's how I'd prefer to remember him.

[Goldeneye]

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/08/132764367 ... in-arizona

Congresswoman, 6 Others, Killed By Gunman

by NPR Staff
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
Drew Angerer/AP

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
text size A A A
January 8, 2011

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and six others died after a gunman opened fire at a public event on Saturday, the Pima County, Ariz., sheriff's office confirms.

The 40-year-old Democrat, who was re-elected to her third term in November, was hosting a "Congress on Your Corner" event at a Safeway in northwest Tucson when a gunman ran up and started shooting, according to Peter Michaels, news director of Arizona Public Media.

At least three other people, including members of her staff, were injured. Giffords was transported to University Medical Center in Tucson. Her condition was not immediately known.

Giffords was talking to a couple when the suspect ran up and fired indiscriminately from about four feet away, Michaels said.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., poses with House Speaker John Boehner Wednesday on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Enlarge Susan Walsh/AP

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) poses with House Speaker John Boehner on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., poses with House Speaker John Boehner Wednesday on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Susan Walsh/AP

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) poses with House Speaker John Boehner on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

The suspect ran off and was tackled by a bystander. He was taken into custody. Witnesses described him as in his late teens or early 20s.

Giffords was first elected to represent Arizona's 8th District in 2006. The "Congress on Your Corner" events allow constituents to present their concerns directly to her.

More details to come.