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A US judge has banned publication of a book promoted as a sequel to JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. US District Judge Deborah Batts ruled that Swedish author Fredrik Colting's novel too closely mirrored Mr Salinger's 1951 classic. Mr Salinger brought the lawsuit against Mr Colting, with his lawyers calling the book a "rip-off pure and...

Sacha Baron Cohen's movie Borat was a masterpiece of comedy; arguably the most inventive satire for many years. Its unique genre of wicked, sophisticated parody set the bar very high; so high that Cohen's latest comedic outing, Brüno, is something of a letdown. After all the hype, I feel cheated. While the film scores plenty of laughs by mercilessly exposing dim-witted homophobes, Brüno's persona also embodies some really lazy, crude gay stereotypes. A sex-obsessed "cockaholic", he is a shallow bitchy queen who uses and abuses everyone around him. Not nice. On the plus side,...

There's evidence of a high-risk trend in British crime writing. Perhaps aware that readers are wearying of burnt-out, alcoholic or damaged detectives, writers such as Laura Wilson have made their heroes relatively untroubled: family men, non-addictive personalities, not at loggerheads with superiors. This more...

When Alex Poots travelled up to Manchester in 2004 to make his pitch to direct the city's newly-conceived international festival he thought he had nothing to lose. "Before I agreed to accept the job I wanted to set conditions," recalls the softly-spoken Scot. These included complete editorial and artistic control; a "sizeable" budget; the creation of a limited festival company beyond the reach of bureaucrats or politicians and a timescale and opening of his choosing. By the time the then-creative director at the English National Opera's train was pulling back into London's Euston station, the job was his. What emerged in 2007 was an inaugural festival equally uncompromising, dedicated to...

An old sock, some duct tape and a bit of plastic: how the Apollo 13 astronauts were saved In my book, sci-fa beats sci-fi, and you don't get much better than real dudes walking on the moon. The second part of NASA: Triumph and Tragedy picked up the story after Neil Armstrong's little step, moving into the Houston-we've-had-a-problem era. That means an explosion on Apollo 13. Things got a little tense back at mission control. But problems can be solved, and the men with the oiled hair sitting in front of banks of 1970 consoles pulled hard on their cigarettes , took out their pencils and wooden rulers, and set...

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Bridgewater: Friday, Battle of the...

One of the main priorities of any Government, or regional Assembly, is the health of its people. This is the background to today’s important Stormont session which is considering a request from Health Minister Michael McGimpsey for an extra £55m to help combat swine flu. So far, some 70,000 cases have been confirmed in 112 countries worldwide, where there have been 311 deaths. There are more than 6,500 cases in the United Kingdom, and the projections suggest that by the end of the autumn there could be a total...

Loggerhead turtles scuttle toward city lights instead of to the sea Almost 100 loggerhead sea turtles became disoriented by lights Tuesday morning and wandered along the beach instead of...

              Text: KOLKATA: Barely 24 hours before she presents her third Rail Budget after a nine-year hiatus, Union railway minister and Trinamool chief, Mamata Banerjee, is clearly in high spirits, buoyed by Wednesday’s stellar show by the TMC-Congress combine in West Bengal’s civic polls. True to her image, the railway minister, it is learnt,...

Finally, some good news coming out of the Madoff mess. The Securities Investor Protection Corporation has earmarked $231 million for investors left holding an Bernie Madoff bag. Trustee Irving Picard made the announcement Wednesday. Not that those empty bags are going to be bursting at the seams, exactly. The 543 claims approved by the court are already adding up to almost $3 billion, and there's thousands more still out there. Madoff...

The first recipients of the Randolph A. Frank Prizes for the Performing Arts - a musician, a director and a rising performer - were honored at a cocktail reception and dinner. The event took place June 15 at Amici. The evening honored Wendell Simmons, J. Barry...

Mary Cleary Ierardi opened up her home to help the incoming officers of St. Edward Guild honor the group's past presidents. The...

I understand George Monbiot's view on casual drug use, but he rather undermines himself by concluding that his opinion is worthless . It is true that we have little idea of the potential effect on the developing world of legalisation, so it is surprising that he suggests a comparison between the costs of prohibition and those of legalisation. I would suggest that the best way to estimate the effect of a change in the approach to on the developing world is a comparison with other legal goods. A large proportion of goods used in the west are produced in poorer countries, but what is the difference between the "bad" drugs and "good" products such...

 

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