Picture Archive: Dorothy Lamour and Jiggs, Circa 1938


Dorothy Lamour, most famous for her Road to ... series of movies with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, never won an Oscar. In her 50-plus-year career as an actress, she never even got nominated.

Neither did Jiggs the chimpanzee, pictured here with Lamour on the set of Her Jungle Love in a photo published in the 1938 National Geographic story "Monkey Folk."

No animal has ever been nominated for an Oscar. According to Academy Award rules, only actors and actresses are eligible.

Uggie, the Jack Russell terrier from last year's best picture winner, The Artist, didn't rate a nod. The equines that portrayed Seabiscuit and War Horse, movies that were best picture contenders in their respective years, were also snubbed.

Even the seven piglets that played Babe, the eponymous star of the best picture nominee in 1998, didn't rate. And the outlook seems to be worsening for the animal kingdom's odds of ever getting its paws on that golden statuette.

This year, two movies nominated in the best picture category had creatures that were storyline drivers with significant on-screen time. Neither Beasts of the Southern Wild (which featured extinct aurochs) or Life of Pi (which featured a CGI Bengal tiger named Richard Parker) used real animals.

An Oscar's not the only way for animals to get ahead, though. Two years after this photo was published, the American Humane Association's Los Angeles Film & TV Unit was established to monitor and protect animals working on show business sets. The group's creation was spurred by the death of a horse during the filming of 1939's Jessie James.

Today, it's still the only organization that stamps "No Animals Were Harmed" onto a movie's closing credits.

Editor's note: This is part of a series of pieces that looks at the news through the lens of the National Geographic photo archives.


Read More..

Oscars 2013: 'Argo' Wins Best Picture












"Argo" took home the top prize as best picture at the Oscars Sunday night, with first lady Michelle Obama announcing the winner from the White House.


"You directed a hell of a film," co-producer Grant Heslov told director and fellow producer Ben Affleck. "I couldn't be more proud of the film and more proud of our director."


Affleck was snubbed in the directing category but humbly accepted the best picture Oscar as one of the three producers on the film. George Clooney was the third.


Affleck thanked Steven Spielberg and the other best picture nominees and his wife Jennifer Garner for "working on our marriage."


"It's good, it's work," he said, adding, "but there's no one I'd rather work with."


For Full List of Winners


Acknowledging his last Oscar win, as a screenwriter for "Good Will Hunting," Affleck said, "I was really just a kid. I never thought I would be back here."


In the acting categories, Daniel Day-Lewis won the Oscar for best actor, being the first actor to three-peat in that category. As he accepted the award from Hollywood's greatest actress, Meryl Streep, he joked, "I had actually been committed to play Margaret Thatcher. ... Meryl was Stephen's first choice for Lincoln."


He also thanked his wife, Rebecca Miller, for "living with some very strange men," with each new role that he takes on.


"She's the versatile one in the family and she's been the perfect companion to all of them," he said.






Kevin Winter/Getty Images











Daniel Day-Lewis Gets Laughs With Oscars Speech Watch Video









Jennifer Lawrence won the award for best actress. She tripped on the stairs on her way to accepting her award but picked herself up and made her way to the stage, earning a standing ovation.


"You're just standing up because you feel bad that I fell and that's embarrassing," she said, before rattling off a list of thank-yous and leaving the stage looking slightly stunned.


Watch Jennifer Lawrence's Oscar Tumble


"Life of Pi," which had a total of 11 nominations, was another big winner of the night. Director Ang Lee took home the Oscar for best director over Steven Spielberg and David O. Russell.


"Thank you, movie god," Lee said, accepting his award.


As expected, the film took home the first technical awards of the night for cinematography and visual effects. "Life of Pi" also won for best original score.


The first big acting awards of the night went to Christoph Waltz and Anne Hathaway in the supporting actor categories.


In one of the biggest tossups, Waltz claimed the award for supporting actor for his role in "Django Unchained." It was his second Oscar for a Quentin Tarantino film; his first was for Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds."


PHOTOS: Stars on the Red Carpet


As expected, Hathaway took home the award for best supporting actress for her role as Fantine in "Les Miserables."


"It came true," she said, launching into a breathy speech, in which she thanked the cast and crew, her team and her husband. "The greatest moment of my life was when you walked into it," she said.


Tarantino won the Oscar for best original screenplay for his slave revenge western "Django Unchained." He thanked his cast.


"I have to cast the right people," he said. "And boy this time did I do it."


Chris Terrio won the award for best adapted screenplay for "Argo," which also won for film editing.


For only the sixth time in Academy history, there was a tie at the Oscars. "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Skyfall" tied for sound editing.


See Other Ties in Academy History






Read More..

Obama’s new political group to lure unlimited donations



The fledgling Organizing for Action says it will be nonpartisan and steer clear of election activity. But the line between issue disputes and electoral politics can be a fuzzy one. The first of an expected wave of ads on gun control, for example, has targeted only Republicans. And OFA board member Jim Messina, who managed Obama’s reelection campaign, has been talking with Democratic Party leaders, including those responsible for success in the 2014 midterm elections.


Over the past month, Messina and Jon Carson, a leading strategist, have traveled the country meeting with members of the Obama 2012 National Finance Committee, who are being pressed back to work to find support for the new organization.

In huddles with Hollywood studio executives, California energy investors and Chicago business titans, they have suggested $500,000 as a target level for OFA bundlers and that top donors get invitations to quarterly OFA board meetings attended by the president.

The next step in converting Obama’s election apparatus to grass-roots lobbying is a “founders summit” March 13 that includes a $50,000-per-person meeting at the Jefferson hotel in Washington led by Messina and Carson. Those planning to attend said they hope the president will be part of the day’s agenda, though the White House and OFA declined to comment on that possibility.

A one-page memo accompanying the invitation lays out the goals of the new OFA: Building grass-roots support for Obama proposals on issues ranging from climate change to immigration reform to women’s health.

In addition, the memo says, the OFA will help “strengthen the progressive movement and train our next generation of leaders.”

It also promises to engage in “state-by-state fights” over issues such as “ballot access and marriage equality.”

Advocates for campaign finance reform see the organization’s goal of raising tens of millions of dollars as a new channel to allow wealthy individuals and corporations to seek favors from the administration. And they criticize Obama for abandoning reform rhetoric in favor of a group that can raise unlimited sums with limited transparency, the very circumstances he complained about publicly in 2010 when the Supreme Court granted corporations and unions the opportunity to contribute to groups seeking to influence elections.

Unlike political parties and other organizations set up to win elections, the OFA is not subject to federal election fundraising restrictions and disclosure requirements, meaning the public will have only limited opportunities to learn about its operations, including how revenue is collected and spent.

OFA officials say they have adopted a voluntary disclosure system that goes beyond that required by law and that will provide sufficient public review.

Read More..

Several dead in Vietnam house explosions






HANOI: Several people were killed when twin blasts tore through a residential street and destroyed three houses in south Vietnam early Sunday, police said, with reports putting the death toll at around 10.

"We have been informed of two explosions this morning that killed about ten people... but we need to check the exact number of the victims," a local policeman told AFP following the blasts, which left many more victims trapped in rubble, according to reports.

The policeman said authorities were investigating the cause of the explosions in a district of the southern metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City, adding that they were believed to have been accidental.

State mouthpiece Tuoi Tre newspaper reported on its website that a family of seven was among those killed and many people remained trapped in the rubble.

It said local people heard two large explosions within five minutes of each other -- causing shockwaves that rattled homes up to several hundred metres away. They discovered three homes ablaze and partially destroyed.

Hundreds of firefighters on more than a dozen fire trucks rushed to the scene and were leading rescue efforts, the newspaper said.

- AFP/fa



Read More..

Shinde expressed regret, did not apologize for 'Hindu terror' remark: Govt

NEW DELHI: As dust settles on the 'Hindu terror' issue, government has said home minister Sushilkumar Shinde had not apologized for his controversial remarks but only expressed regret, which was accepted by the BJP.

"Well, it is regret. That is the word that has been used. I cannot change the language once it is used," parliamentary affairs minister Kamal Nath told Karan Thapar on 'Devil's Advocate' programme on CNN-IBN.

He was responding to questions on whether Shinde had expressed regret or tendered an apology for his remark made at a Congress meet in Jaipur that BJP was running camps for training Hindu terrorists.

Nath said while Shinde had used the word BJP, he has clarified that he did not mean any political organisation.

"If it has inadvertently or advertently been construed to mean that, he said I express regret," Nath said.

He also sought to make a distinction between Shinde's remarks and similar comments made by P Chidambaram during his tenure as home minister.

"The difference was Shinde used the word BJP and Mr Chidambaram had not used the word BJP," he said.

The minister admitted that Shinde's statement of regret was discussed at meetings he and Shinde had with the BJP leadership.

"There was a discussion and some text was worked out. Some text was discussed (with BJP). They said this was enough... they said he should say this. This was not a test like putting a comma and a fullstop," Nath said, describing the meetings with the BJP leaders.

He said the matter was discussed with the BJP leaders to avoid complications later.

"We did not want a statement where they said this is not that. They want something and the only way to cut it short was to discuss it and sort it out," Nath said.

Read More..

Elderly Abandoned at World's Largest Religious Festival


Every 12 years, the northern Indian city of Allahabad plays host to a vast gathering of Hindu pilgrims called the Maha Kumbh Mela. This year, Allahabad is expected to host an estimated 80 million pilgrims between January and March. (See Kumbh Mela: Pictures From the Hindu Holy Festival)

People come to Allahabad to wash away their sins in the sacred River Ganges. For many it's the realization of their life's goal, and they emerge feeling joyful and rejuvenated. But there is also a darker side to the world's largest religious gathering, as some take advantage of the swirling crowds to abandon elderly relatives.

"They wait for this Maha Kumbh because many people are there so nobody will know," said one human rights activist who has helped people in this predicament and who wished to remain anonymous. "Old people have become useless, they don't want to look after them, so they leave them and go."

Anshu Malviya, an Allahabad-based social worker, confirmed that both men and women have been abandoned during the religious event, though it has happened more often to elderly widows. Numbers are hard to come by, since many people genuinely become separated from their groups in the crowd, and those who have been abandoned may not admit it. But Malviya estimates that dozens of people are deliberately abandoned during a Maha Kumbh Mela, at a very rough guess.

To a foreigner, it seems puzzling that these people are not capable of finding their own way home. Malviya smiles. "If you were Indian," he said, "you wouldn't be puzzled. Often they have never left their homes. They are not educated, they don't work. A lot of the time they don't even know which district their village is in."

Once the crowd disperses and the volunteer-run lost-and-found camps that provide temporary respite have packed away their tents, the abandoned elderly may have the option of entering a government-run shelter. Conditions are notoriously bad in these homes, however, and many prefer to remain on the streets, begging. Some gravitate to other holy cities such as Varanasi or Vrindavan where, if they're lucky, they are taken in by temples or charity-funded shelters.

In these cities, they join a much larger population, predominantly women, whose families no longer wish to support them, and who have been brought there because, in the Hindu religion, to die in these holy cities is to achieve moksha or Nirvana. Mohini Giri, a Delhi-based campaigner for women's rights and former chair of India's National Commission for Women, estimates that there are 10,000 such women in Varanasi and 16,000 in Vrindavan.

But even these women are just the tip of the iceberg, says economist Jean Drèze of the University of Allahabad, who has campaigned on social issues in India since 1979. "For one woman who has been explicitly parked in Vrindavan or Varanasi, there are a thousand or ten thousand who are living next door to their sons and are as good as abandoned, literally kept on a starvation diet," he said.

According to the Hindu ideal, a woman should be looked after until the end of her life by her male relatives—with responsibility for her shifting from her father to her husband to her son. But Martha Chen, a lecturer in public policy at Harvard University who published a study of widows in India in 2001, found that the reality was often very different.

Chen's survey of 562 widows of different ages revealed that about half of them were supporting themselves in households that did not include an adult male—either living alone, or with young children or other single women. Many of those who did live with their families reported harassment or even violence.

According to Drèze, the situation hasn't changed since Chen's study, despite the economic growth that has taken place in India, because widows remain vulnerable due to their lack of education and employment. In 2010, the World Bank reported that only 29 percent of the Indian workforce was female. Moreover, despite changes in the law designed to protect women's rights to property, in practice sons predominantly inherit from their parents—leaving women eternally dependent on men. In a country where 37 percent of the population still lives below the poverty line, elderly dependent relatives fall low on many people's lists of priorities.

This bleak picture is all too familiar to Devshran Singh, who oversees the Durga Kund old people's home in Varanasi. People don't pay toward the upkeep of their relatives, he said, and they rarely visit. In one case, a doctor brought an old woman to Durga Kund claiming she had been abandoned. After he had gone, the woman revealed that the doctor was her son. "In modern life," said Singh, "people don't have time for their elderly."

Drèze is currently campaigning for pensions for the elderly, including widows. Giri is working to make more women aware of their rights. And most experts agree that education, which is increasingly accessible to girls in India, will help improve women's plight. "Education is a big force of social change," said Drèze. "There's no doubt about that."


Read More..

Las Vegas Strip Shooting Suspect ID'd












Las Vegas police identified a suspect today in a shooting on the strip that caused a Maserati to hit a taxi and burst into flames, killing three people.


Ammar Harris, 26, has been named a suspect in the Thursday skirmish that killed three people, including rapper Kenny Clutch.


The altercation between Harris and Clutch, 27, whose legal name was Kenneth Cherry Jr., is believed to have originated in the valet area of a Las Vegas hotel, police said.


Police said Harris fired several rounds into a Maserati that was being driven by Cherry as both vehicles continued northbound on glitzy Las Vegas Boulevard.


The rapper's expensive sports car careened out of control after he was shot, slamming into several cars, including a taxi. The impact caused the cab to burst into flames, killing the driver, Michael Boldon and a female passenger. Witnesses said it looked like the car exploded.


"He was a number one guy," Carolyn Jean Trimble, Boldon's sister, told ABC News.








California Man's Carjacking Spree Takes 3 Victims Watch Video









Chicago Teen Killed Day of Obama's Anti-Violence Speech Watch Video









Dallas Courthouse Shooting Manhunt Intensify Watch Video





"I looked out my window and I could see one vehicle down here on the corner of the intersection totally engulfed in flames," witness John Lamb told ABC News.


Boldon, 62, and his passenger, who has not yet been identified, were both killed, as was Clutch.


Timble said her brother loved driving his taxi around Vegas.


"He came to live with me in Las Vegas last year to help take care of our mother, and the first day he got here he said, 'I have to get a job.' The second day, I came home from work, and he said he got a job," she recalled.


"He says, 'You'll never guess what it is,' and I said, 'what,' and he said, 'taxi cab driver,' and we both fell out laughing," Trimble said. "He loved that job. He never complained. He'd come home and tell me stories about what happened, who he picked up."


Boldon was a single father who raised a 36-year-old son and was a new grandfather. His grandson was named after him, Trimble said.


"Of all the people to take from this earth," she said. "But I guess the Lord needed him."


A passenger in the Maserati was hit and sustained only a minor injury to his arm. Clutch died at University Medical Center.


His father, Kenneth Cherry Sr., expressed his grief for the loss of his son while speaking with ABC News.


"This is something you never really, really ever want to experience as a parent, to lose a child before you go," he said.


Harris is described as 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Las Vegas Metro Police Department's homicide division.



Read More..

White House warns of flight delays if sequester is not averted





Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood vowed that airline security would not be compromised, but he emphasized that the Federal Aviation Administration would have no alternative but to furlough thousands of employees as it seeks to slash $600 million.


LaHood’s surprise appearance in the White House briefing room aimed to put a spotlight on the real-world consequences of the political standoff over the across-the-board spending cuts, known as the sequester that will take effect next Friday.

Even as LaHood painted a dire picture, a Pew Research Center/USA Today poll released Thursday shows that most Americans have heard little to nothing about the potential cuts. Only 27 percent said they had heard “a lot” about them.

The White House has sought to change that this week with a public relations campaign that included President Obama’s appearance Tuesday with emergency medical workers and an announcement by the Pentagon that it would furlough up to 800,000 civilian employees one day a week.

But it was the specter of widespread travel delays — up to 90 minutes during peak flight periods — that the White House hoped would rally public opinion and put pressure on Republican lawmakers.

“Your phones are going to start ringing off the hook when these people are delayed at airports,” said LaHood, a former GOP congressman from Illinois. “Nobody likes a delay. Nobody likes waiting in line.”

The sequester was put into motion by the August 2011 debt-ceiling deal, and there have been few signs of progress in negotiations to avert them. Obama has proposed a mix of budget cuts and new revenue through closing corporate loopholes, but Republicans have said they will not raise taxes and instead have pushed to cut federal health spending.

During a photo op in the Oval Office after a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the president said Friday that the impact of the budget cuts would slow growth in an already soft economy.

“It also means that we are not going to be driving down unemployment as quickly as we should,” Obama said. He added that his fellow world leaders understand that drastic budget cuts are the “wrong prescription” for the U.S. economy.

“I don’t need to persuade world leaders of that,” Obama said. “I’ve got to persuade member of Congress, and that can be harder sometimes.”

House Republicans continued to blame Obama for the sequester, which the White House proposed in 2011 and Congress approved.

Several Republicans who serve as leaders on transportation policy released a statement Friday accusing the administration of exaggerating the impact of the scheduled cuts on air travel.

“We are disappointed by the Administration creating alarm about sequestration’s impact on aviation,” said the statement from Sen. John Thune (S.D.) and Reps. Bill Shuster (Pa.) and Frank A. LoBiondo (N.J.). “Before jumping to the conclusion that furloughs must be implemented, the Administration and the agency need to sharpen their pencils and consider all the options. Prematurely outlining the potential impacts before identifying other savings is not helpful.”

Read More..

Hollande wants proper labels on meat meals






PARIS: France's president said Saturday he wanted to see proper labelling of meat in ready-made meals to avert a repeat of the scandal over horsemeat being passed off as beef.

"I want there to eventually be mandatory labels on the meat contained in prepared meals," Francois Hollande said while visiting an agricultural show in Paris.

"Until then, I will support... all initiatives for voluntary labelling" so that "consumers know the origin of the products they are consuming, especially meat."

A vast food scandal erupted in Europe in January after horsemeat was initially found in so-called beef ready-made meals and burgers in Britain and Ireland. It has since spread as far as Hong Kong.

French firm Spanghero has been at the heart of the scandal after it allegedly passed off 750 tonnes of horsemeat as beef, with the product eventually finding its way into 4.5 million "beef" products sold across Europe.

-AFP/fl



Read More..

Hyderabad blasts: CCTV image may provide breakthrough

HYDERABAD: The probe into Thursday's twin blasts, which killed 16 people and injured over 100, gathered momentum with the police scanning the image of a suspect captured on CCTV camera.

The investigators are scanning the images recorded on a Closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera mounted on a traffic signal near the blast site in Dilsukhnagar, police sources said.

A man believed to be in his early thirties was seen reaching the place on a bicycle with a bag hung to its carrier a few minutes before the blasts.

He was seen reaching the area at 6.38pm, 10 minutes before the blast at Anand Tiffin Centre in front of Konark theatre. The second blast took place at 7.01pm a few meters away. The bombs at both the places were planted on old bicycles.

The surveillance camera installed in front of Dilsukhnagar bus station captured the image of the suspect. However, as his face is not clearly visible, the police are taking the help of experts.

Though the CCTV camera is focused on the vehicles moving on the main road and not towards the corner where the blast occurred, the image of the suspect on bicycle could prove a vital clue in the investigations, sources said.

The police Friday announced a suitable reward for anyone providing information about the suspect. Cyberabad police commissioner D. Tirumala Rao said the identity of the person would be kept a secret. He said the reward could be anywhere between Rs.5 lakh to Rs.20 lakh depending on the investigations.

Meanwhile, the condition of eight of the injured remained critical. The injured are undergoing treatment at seven hospitals including state-run Osmania Hospital.

Read More..