Long Island officials on the trail of a suspected serial killer now say that at least two murderers are behind the string of human remains found in a desolate beach area. Suffolk County DA Thomas Spota said today that different killing methods and circumstances indicate the work of at least…
Continue reading …A British biotech company has come up with a kind of protection it thinks men will be eager to use. Dubbed the “Viagra Condom,” its nickname is a bit misleading: It’s not targeted at men with erectile dysfunction. Instead, the new condom comes pre-loaded with a vasodilating gel that keeps…
Continue reading …More and more people have been telling Paul Krugman that the budget deficit is the people’s fault: “Weak-minded politicians catered to the electorate’s foolishness.” But that viewpoint is not only “self-serving, it’s dead wrong,” writes Krugman in the New York Times . Instead, we can thank “policies championed by small groups…
Continue reading …When protesters first took to the streets in Syria, the government’s response was brutal: It opened fire. Four days later, Hillary Clinton called dictator Bashar al-Assad “a reformer.” The US and its European allies have been sluggish throughout this Arab spring, but “nowhere has that fecklessness been more obvious, more…
Continue reading …If the federal government won’t complete Arizona’s border fence, then gosh darn it, the state is going to do it itself. Arizona lawmakers have a plan that would get the fence built using online donations and 50-cents-an-hour prison labor, and Gov. Jan Brewer recently signed a bill setting the plan…
Continue reading …Hundreds lined up in Beijing Saturday to get their hands on a white iPhone 4 or iPad 2—but eager anticipation bubbled over into violence that injured four, CNN reports. An apparent scalper kept trying to cut into the long line of those waiting to enter the Apple store, witnesses…
Continue reading …Whitney Houston has re-entered rehab, her rep confirms today. The 47-year-old, who has struggled with drug addiction for years, said she was healthy and clean in 2009. But the AP notes that her 2010 tour had issues , including canceled dates and negative reviews, and that her performances lately have been…
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New blood and a quest for the fountain of youth aren’t quite enough to rejuvenate the timber-shivering franchise It’s fitting that this fourth instalment of the mega booty-hauling franchise revolves around a quest for the fountain of youth. Here’s a property that would give its right arm for some rejuvenation, having worn out its welcome last time round, way back in 2007. And having already paid an arm and a leg to persuade Johnny Depp to reprise his Jack Sparrow role, you wouldn’t imagine it had many more limbs to spare. But the logic seems to be, if you’re splashing out on your star, you’d better make a splash with the rest of the movie. This splashes so much, its stranger tides almost drown it. It’s a succession of ever-escalating action sequences and grand settings. At first they’re stunning, then they’re routine, then they’re wearying. There is at least some new blood to power this rejuvenation exercise. Depp is his usual mincing self but Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley have walked the plank when aboard clambers Penélope Cruz, as a duplicitous old flame of Jack’s. Being Cruz, she’s Spanish and feisty, and that’s about it. And fitting right in as the new villain of the piece is Ian McShane’s Blackbeard – a mystically powered captain whose orange, leathery complexion suggests he’s spent long years trapped in a tanning salon. Throw in Geoffrey Rush’s Barbossa (now with a peg leg), and the British and Spanish navies, and you’ve got something close to a piratical wacky races. Everyone’s racing to get to the fountain of youth, negotiating perilous terrain and fantastical episodes and stitching each other up. The freshest new monsters are some vicious but seductive mermaids, which are rather cruelly hunted, slaughtered and tortured along the way. That could traumatise a few younger viewers but being just about the only other women in the movie apart from Cruz, it also suggests something more worrying beneath the light-hearted mateyness. Worse still, everyone else is so scheming and self-centred and double-crossing, it’s not always clear who to root for, who’s in cahoots with whom, or what anyone’s going to do if/when they actually find the sacred fountain. The only virtuous role model is a hunky clergyman, played by Sam Claflin. In terms of visual spectacle, it almost goes without saying the film fitfully delivers. There are vertiginous 3D swoops up and down ships, in and out of water and over jungles, and some of the action is ingeniously choreographed. The early scenes in 18th century London are particularly enjoyable, with Richard Griffiths as a delectably piggy George II, and Depp staging a thrilling escape on ropes and horse-drawn carriages. But no sooner has one set piece ended, we’re thrown into another one. In the brief moments of downtime there’s some enjoyable comedy and even some useful dialogue but it’s soon drowned out by another chase or swordfight or race to get some thing that will help them get another thing or stop someone else getting the thing they want. As previous franchise-resuscitation attempts have shown (Indiana Jones, Die Hard, Rambo, Shrek, etc), it’s difficult to come back with a part four after a long absence. The temptation to do something fresh is often outweighed by the fear of losing whatever it was that made it successful in the first place. This tries to do both, but ends up just trying too hard. On general release from 18 May Rating: 2/5 Johnny Depp Penélope Cruz Geoffrey Rush Steve Rose guardian.co.uk
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City University of New York board overturns attempt to block prize-winning playwright’s award because of his views on Israel The trustees board of the City University of New York (CUNY) brought to an end an embarrassing row over freedom of expression by voting unanimously to award an honorary degree to the award-winning playwright Tony Kushner. A firestorm was ignited last week when a single trustee, Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, launched an attack on the Jewish playwright on the grounds that he was not sufficiently pro-Israel. The intervention blocked the award of the degree which would normally have been routine. The chancellor, Matthew Goldstein, addressing the board on Monday night, said he had supported the original recommendation of the award and praised Kushner’s “extraordinary body of work”. He urged the board to overturn last week’s decision and to support the award. Some members of the board spoke, all of them voicing support for Kushner. One of them described the row as a “blemish” on the university’s reputation as an upholder of freedom of expression. After only 20 minutes of discussion, the board voted in favour of the award. The decision last week prompted a letter from Kushner, saying he had always supported the right of Israel to exist and protesting that he had been given no chance to defend himself. The New York Times said the university had shamed itself by shunning one of America’s most important playwrights and called for Wiesenfeld’s dismissal. The board indicated it would use the meeting of the smaller executive committee, to which Wiesenfeld does not belong, to try to make amends. Benno Schmidt, who chairs the committee, said the decision to set aside the award was “a mistake of principle”. In a statement, he said: “Freedom of thought and expression is the bedrock of any university worthy of the name. It is not right for the board to consider politics in connection with the award of honorary degrees except in extreme cases not presented by the facts here.” Kushner is an award-winning playwright who is considered one of the leading voices of his generation. His play about the Aids crisis, Angels in America, won Pulitzer and Tony awards, and his latest work, The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures , has recently opened off Broadway. Wiesenfeld has a record of acting to forward what he considers the interests of the state of Israel. A former political fixer for the then governor of New York state, George Pataki, he was instrumental earlier this year in having a temporary lecturer fired from CUNY because of his views on Israel. The teacher was later reinstated. In the wake of his intervention against Kushner, he told the New York Times that he believed the Palestinians had “developed a culture which is unprecedented in human history”. He said: “People who worship death for their children are not human.” In response to the news that the university would grant Kushner an honorary degree after all, Wiesenfeld repeated his claim that the playwright had uttered a “blood libel against the Jewish people” by accusing Israel of having committed ethnic cleansing. Tony Kushner New York United States Israel Theatre International education news Ed Pilkington Ewen MacAskill guardian.co.uk
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Liberal Democrats insist on rigorous checks as MPs debate Andrew Lansley’s NHS bill The Treasury will only support GP-led consortiums if the new bodies have passed rigorous clinical and financial tests, the chancellor’s deputy said on Monday. In a sign of the Lib Dems’ determination to introduce major changes to the health and social care bill, Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury and No 2 to George Osborne, told the Guardian the reforms would be implemented in a “variable pattern”. Tory MPs were angered over the weekend when Nick Clegg described the bill as a “disruptive revolution” and said it would be wrong to force GPs to join the new consortiums by 2013. The deputy prime minister felt free to speak so strongly after reaching agreement with Cameron over relaxing the 2013 deadline. Alexander expanded on Clegg’s remarks by suggesting there would never be a uniform imposition of the NHS reforms. He told the Guardian: “We need to be sure that we only allow GP consortia to go forward where they show they are capable and have got all the right building blocks in place so some will go faster than others and we will have a more variable pattern. “From a Treasury point of view, consortia only get the permission to go forward when they are capable clinically and financially to go forward. If GP consortia don’t want to go forward, they will hardly develop the capabilities they need. So we are working very hard on timetables and flexibility right now.” But Alexander makes clear that he hopes the NHS reforms are not abandoned. “Reform is necessary to ensure the NHS is able to deal with these rising health pressures and I just don’t believe the Labour top-down model of the NHS is suitable. So we should not abandon reform. “But at the end of the day if we think this is a bad bill then having no bill would be better than that so we have to come up to substantial changes. What we have heard in recent weeks and months is growing voices in the NHS that there are new things we need to look at.” Alexander opened up a new area of controversy by saying he did not want the new pubic services reform white paper to impose a universal blueprint for reform across the pubic sector. Cameron said in February a presumption would be written into legislation that public services will be delivered by the private or voluntary sectors. Alexander’s intervention came as the Tory whips orchestrated an ostentatious show of support for health secretary Andrew Lansley. Nine cabinet ministers sat with him on the frontbench as he took part in a Commons debate called by Labour. No voting member of the cabinet sat on the frontbench last month when Lansley announced the pause in the health and social care bill that would hand about 60% of the NHS budget to new GP-led consortiums. Lansley told MPs that the changes to the health and social care bill, which will be introduced at the end of the government’s “listening exercise”, would be substantive. He indicated that the consortiums would be expanded to include patients, doctors and nurses. Senior Tories made clear there was growing support for Lansley. One ministerial source said: “David Cameron needs to be careful. Andrew is a lot stronger than he thinks. If Andrew tells the prime minister that he is putting his job at his disposal because Downing Street has undermined his credibility that would make David look foolish.” The Labour motion failed by 284 votes to 231. But Lib Dem MPs expressed anger. Andrew George, the MP for St Ives, called for ministers to “take the guts” out of the reforms because opening the health service to greater free market competition “undermines the NHS ethos”. John Pugh, MP for Southport, said: “I have this vision of a bill being drafted during the daytime by a sane, pragmatic Dr Jekyll-like minister, but during the night some … Mr Hyde jumps in with a rightwing ideology, breaks into Richmond House [the Department of Health] and changes many of the sentences.” The findings will alarm the many medical organisations which have voiced alarm that Lansley’s plans would lead to the NHS undergoing privatisation, a fear that has caused severe unease in Downing Street. Leading cancer charities warn that care received by the growing number of people in England developing the disease could suffer as a result of the government’s NHS plans. Cancer networks, groups of specialists who advise GPs where patients can get the best treatment, are due to be phased out in 2012. But Lansley is resisting calls to keep funding them. Ciaran Devane, chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Support, said: “It’s a deeply worrying prospect that the care of cancer patients could be compromised by this. Cancer patients need to know their care will not suffer.” Health policy Health Danny Alexander Liberal-Conservative coalition Liberal Democrats Conservatives Andrew Lansley NHS Patrick Wintour Nicholas Watt Denis Campbell guardian.co.uk
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