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(11/07/06 4:31am)
GREENCASTLE, Ind. -- A body found in a central Indiana cornfield is that of a man wanted in a 2005 bank robbery, police said.\nA man and his son found the body of John Ryan Wood, 27, Sunday, facedown in a Morgan County field about 20 miles southwest of Indianapolis, police said.\nHe had been dead for several days. There was no obvious cause of death, but Morgan County Sheriff's deputies said they were treating the case as a possible homicide. An autopsy was scheduled for Monday.\nWood was wanted on a warrant in Putnam County for the June 10, 2005, robbery of an Old National Bank branch in Greencastle.\nHe was charged with conspiracy to commit bank robbery, said Greencastle Police Det. Randy Seipel.\nAnother man pleaded guilty to the robbery and was sentenced to prison, Seipel said.
(11/07/06 4:31am)
SOUTH BEND -- A judge rejected the St. Joseph County prosecutor's request to stop a political ad the prosecutor claimed was false and defamatory.\nThe commercial for Republican candidate Greg Kauffman is protected speech and can remain on the air, St. Joseph Superior Court Judge David C. Chapleau ruled Saturday.\nDemocrat Michael Dvorak filed a lawsuit Friday asking for an injunction to halt the 30-second television spot, saying it falsely accuses him of violating the law by hiring his wife to work in his office. Dvorak has said the move is not illegal because he does not personally supervise her.\nThe validity of the allegation, however, was not Chapleau's main concern.\n"My concern is that political speech, even inaccurate, must be allowed unless it's so clear that it's a question of confusing the public," Chapleau said. He cited a Michigan case in which a judge pulled an ad that misidentified one of the candidates.\nIn the TV ad, Kauffman says Dvorak "contradicts state law" because he hired his wife, Kathleen Dvorak, to run the child support division in his office. Kauffman has repeatedly accused Dvorak of nepotism, a charge the prosecutor has denied.\nDvorak said the ad "crosses the line" of protected political free speech.\n"Certainly people have the right to free speech, but that free speech stops at the point they're making defamatory lies," Dvorak said.\nKauffman defended the ad and said the lawsuit was a desperate political maneuver. \n"We didn't say anything illegal was done; it's just a contradiction of the state laws," he said.\nChapleau said Dvorak was free to counter Kauffman's ad with one of his own. That way, the public could make its own determination through "the exchange of information by the candidates."\nThe suit was filed in circuit court, but a new judge was appointed because Circuit Judge Michael Gotsch worked in Dvorak's administration when the prosecutor's wife was hired.
(11/07/06 4:31am)
FOUNTAIN CITY, Ind. -- Authorities were awaiting toxicology tests to determine the cause of death for a Wayne County man who was found dead in a house fire.\nNo foul play was suspected in the death of Tony Lee Railsback, 31, said Wayne County Coroner Kevin Fouche.\n"It's probably going to be carbon monoxide poisoning," said Fouche. "We won't know until we get a toxicology report back, but that is what it's looking like."\nThe fire broke out about 4 a.m. Saturday in a home near Fountain City, about 65 miles east of Indianapolis.\nIt took firefighters from several area departments about 90 minutes to extinguish the flames, which could be seen about two miles away, Fountain City Fire Chief Jeff Himelick said.\n"Part of the house was actually gone when we got there," he said. "It had been burning for a while."\nThe cause of the fire remained under investigation.
(11/07/06 4:30am)
LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- A Kentucky police officer trying to unload his gun accidentally shot himself while driving on an Indiana highway, police said.\nSullivan McCurdy, 41, an officer with the Radcliff Police Department, was driving south on Interstate 65 near Lafayette Sunday when the weapon discharged, Indiana State Police said. A bullet struck the 10-year police veteran in the right leg, police said.\nMcCurdy was listed Monday in satisfactory condition at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Lafayette, said hospital spokesman Matthew Oates.
(11/03/06 5:28am)
A 10-year-old girl who was being treated for the first confirmed case of rabies in Indiana since 1959 has died.\nShannon Carroll of Bourbon, Ind., died Thursday morning at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis hospital spokeswoman Jo Ann Klooz said.\nCarroll was hospitalized in early October after being bitten in June by a rabid bat, health officials said. More than 30 relatives, friends and classmates of the girl were offered injections to prevent the spread of the disease.\nSome parents whose children attend the girl's school in Bourbon, about 25 miles south of South Bend, worried about possible exposure since rabies can stay dormant for more than a year.\nHuman-to-human transmission of rabies is only possible through direct contact with saliva, health officials said.\nState records show Indiana's last human rabies case was in 1959, when a Sullivan County resident died from the disease.\nRabies is a viral disease transmitted to humans and other animals through saliva, usually in a bite. It attacks the brain and nervous system and typically leads to death once symptoms appear.
(11/03/06 5:27am)
A man paroled in March after serving more than 26 years for killing a Kansas boy was expected to be charged with murder in the death of a 16-year-old northern Indiana girl, a prosecutor said Thursday.\nInvestigators found the body of Stephanie Wagner in a northwestern Cass County field Wednesday night. The suspect in her death, Danny R. Rouse, 51, a dishwasher at the same restaurant where she worked, told them where to look and confessed to killing her, police said. An autopsy was scheduled for Thursday.\nRouse, who was living in Monterey, Ind., was arrested and held without bond at the Cass County jail. Cass County Prosecutor Kevin Enyeart said he expected to charge Rouse later Thursday.\nRouse and Wagner left the Indian Head Restaurant in Winamac Tuesday at about 10:30 p.m., police said. Her mother reported her missing about six hours later, and the Cass County Sheriff's Department Wednesday afternoon issued an Amber Alert, which said she was last seen with Rouse.\nHer body was found Wednesday night about a mile from where police discovered her abandoned car in her hometown of Royal Center, about 50 miles southwest of South Bend.\nCass County Sheriff's Detective Tom Wallace testified at a probable cause hearing Thursday that Rouse admitted strangling Wagner and then stabbing her.\nPolice took Rouse in for questioning when he showed up for work Wednesday. He told Cass County deputies he was driving along a highway when his vehicle began making funny sounds. He pulled over, and Wagner stopped to see if she could help, Wallace said. That is when "a feeling came over him," he told police.\nCass Superior Court Judge Thomas Perrone said the probable cause hearing would continue Friday morning, when bond was expected to be set.\nRouse was released in March from a Kansas prison, where he had been serving time for the 1979 murder of a 5-year-old boy.\nHe was convicted of first-degree murder in the slaying of Jason Learst at a Wichita, Kan., apartment, The Wichita Eagle reported Thursday. Rouse also was convicted of stabbing the boy's mother, Kathryn Crowley.\nWagner had withdrawn from Pioneer High School in 2005 and was being home-schooled, her friend Megan Mannies said while posting fliers with Wagner's picture Wednesday. Wagner had been pursuing a high school diploma and enjoyed her job at the restaurant, Mannies said.\n"She is a blast," Mannies told the Pharos-Tribune. "She is funny. She's hilarious. She's my best friend in the whole world."\nDuring Rouse's jury trial in Kansas, witnesses testified that Rouse and Crowley drank beer and smoked marijuana while watching television at Crowley's apartment. Crowley rejected a verbal sexual advance, after which he stabbed or cut her with a knife 12 times, according to court testimony.\nThe attack ended when Crowley collapsed and pretended to be dead. Kansas police said Rouse then went to Jason's bedroom and cut the boy's throat as he slept.\nRouse pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity at his trial, but a jury convicted him of first-degree murder.
(10/26/06 2:34am)
A new statewide poll has found greater support for Democrats regaining control of the closely divided Indiana House, while also finding more people saying the state is heading in the right direction than in the wrong direction.\nRepublicans now hold a 52-48 majority in the House, but 45 percent of those surveyed said they wanted to see the Democrats win control, with the GOP picked by 39 percent in the WISH-TV Indiana Poll released Tuesday night. Sixteen percent were not sure.\nThe poll found strong majorities of both Republicans and Democrats backing their party winning control of the House. Among independents and those of other parties, however, Democrats were the preference by 49 percent to 28 percent.\nControl of the House is the top state-level priority for both parties going into the Nov. 7 election. Republicans hold a commanding 33-17 majority in the state Senate and hold all elected state offices.\nThe poll also found 47 percent saying they thought the state was heading in the right direction; 41 percent said the state was heading in the wrong direction, and 12 percent were not sure.\nRepublicans thought the state was going in the right direction by a 62 percent to 28 percent margin, while Democrats disagreed by a 56 percent to 31 percent margin. Independents were closely split — 43 percent saying right direction and 42 percent saying wrong.\nThe telephone poll of 800 likely voters has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points and was conducted Oct. 17-20 by Maryland-based Research 2000.
(10/24/06 2:23am)
The former minister Ali Allawi told CBS' "60 Minutes" that $1.2 billion had been allocated from the Iraqi treasury to the defense ministry to buy new weapons. About $400 million was spent on outdated equipment, while the rest of the money was simply stolen, he said.\nAllawi said the arms fraud is "one of the biggest thefts in history" and that corrupt former Iraqi officials are now "running around the world hiding and scurrying around."\nHe did not name the officials who allegedly stole the money during the CBS report. But Iraqi investigators are probing several weapons and equipment deals engineered by former procurement officer Ziad Cattan and other officials including former Defense Minister Hazim Shaalan.\nMost of the fraudulent arms purchases were allegedly made during the term of former interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who took office after occupation authorities turned over sovereignty to Iraqis on June 28, 2004. When new Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi took office in May 2005, an investigation was opened into several alleged cases of corruption.\nAyad Allawi and Ali Allawi are cousins.\nTapes obtained by "60 Minutes" from a former associate of Cattan allegedly captured Cattan talking about paying large bribes to Iraqi officials.\nCattan, wanted by Iraqi authorities and now living in Paris, was interviewed in the same "60 Minutes" broadcast and said he can account for the hundreds of millions he used to purchase weapons.\n"I have documentation. I give it to you in your hands," Cattan said.\nHe said the tapes, excerpts of which were played on the broadcast, had been doctored and were not authentic.\nExperts at Jane's, a leading authority on military hardware, told "60 Minutes" the documentation Cattan provided did not prove whether any of the weapons he ordered -- paid for in advance -- had been delivered to Iraq.\nJudge Radhi al-Radhi, chief of Iraq's Public Integrity Commission, told "60 Minutes" he had obtained arrest warrants for some top defense ministry officials in October 2005, and almost all of the suspects fled the country.\nAl-Radhi said aside from the hundreds of millions of dollars believed to have been stolen by the officials, the arms that did make their way to Iraq -- Soviet-era helicopters, bulletproof vests and ammunition -- were in such poor shape they could not be used.\nAl-Radhi said those accused of the fraud are thought to be hiding mostly in Europe and the Middle East, but he is not receiving help from those countries in recovering any of the money or in apprehending the suspects.\nIraqi government officials could not immediately be reached for comment by The Associated Press.\nBut Sheik Sabah al-Saadi, chairman of the Iraqi Parliament's Integrity Commission, told the AP he had written to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry on Sunday asking it to contact Interpol to detain all those involved in the defense corruption case, including former Defense Minister Shaalan.\nHe said he had documents that show the theft of $2.2 billion dollars from the time of Saddam Hussein's ouster in 2003 until now.
(10/19/06 1:28am)
A Kurdish witness at Saddam Hussein's genocide trial testified Wednesday that he survived a massacre by running and falling into a ditch full of bodies as troops fired on his group of detainees.\nA second Kurd told of a separate massacre in which 35 detainees, knowing they were about to die, decided to attack their guards in the hope that if they struck first, at least one would live to tell the tale.\nSpeaking from behind a curtain to conceal his identity for fear of reprisal, the first witness said he was in a group of detainees who thought they were being taken to another detention center during the military offensive that Saddam's government waged against the Kurds in northern Iraq in 1988. But their convoy of trucks stopped in the desert.\n"It was dark when they brought a group of people (prisoners) in front of the vehicle. The drivers got out of our vehicles and turned on the headlights."\nSome prisoners tried to grab an automatic rifle from a guard, but they failed because they were "so weak," he said.\nHe said the soldiers opened fire, spraying the prisoners with bullets.\n"It was really unbelievable, the number of people being killed like this. A detainee called Anwar recited the Islamic prayers before death and asked for forgiveness," the man testified.\n"I ran and fell into a ditch. It was full of bodies. I fell on a body. It was still alive. It was his last breath," he said.\nHe was lightly wounded. He took off his clothes in the ditch, thinking he was more likely to blend into the color of the sand if he were naked. He then began running again.\n"As I was running, I saw many pits, I saw many mounds, and I saw lots of people who had been shot," he said. "The desert was full of mounds that had people buried underneath."\nThe second witness, who also testified from behind a curtain, said that after a few days in Tob Zawa detention camp in April 1988, he and other detainees were told they were being moved to another facility.
(10/17/06 2:51am)
INDIANAPOLIS -- A toddler remained in critical condition Monday, a day after he drank from a juice bottle where his mother's boyfriend allegedly hid the hallucinogenic drug PCP during a traffic stop.\nAbout a half-hour after drinking the juice, 19-month-old Terion Vaughn stumbled, began drooling, "fell to the ground and couldn't hold his head up," according to a police report.\nHe was rushed to Methodist Hospital on Sunday morning, where he tested positive for the drug PCP or phenylcyclohexylpiperidine. \nThe boy's mother, Tamara Vaughn, 22, told police she gave the boy juice from a bottle that had been in her car the night before.\nAccording to a police report, she said that when she called her boyfriend, Montiez Mann, 27, from the hospital to tell him what happened, he told her he had poured liquid PCP into a juice bottle to hide it when Tamara Vaughn had been pulled over Saturday night for a traffic violation.
(10/17/06 2:23am)
Hawaiians check for quake damage HONOLULU -- Officials began inspecting bridges and roads across Hawaii early Monday following the strongest earthquake to rattle the islands in more than two decades, a 6.7-magnitude quake that caused blackouts and landslides but no reported fatalities. At least one stretch of road leading to a bridge near the earthquake's epicenter on the Big Island collapsed, Civil Defense Agency spokesman Dave Curtis said Monday.\nIsrael wants talks with Lebanon, \nnot Syria QB 'penciled in' JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday invited the Lebanese prime minister to begin peace talks following Israel's recent war against Hezbollah guerrillas, but Olmert ruled out peace talks with Syria at the present time, saying President Bashar Assad isn't a suitable negotiating partner. Olmert said Assad must halt his support for Palestinian militant groups before the two nations can hold peace talks, and he dismissed the Syrian leader's calls for negotiations as a "negotiating tactic." Syria hosts the top leaders of Hamas, the ruling Palestinian political party, which is committed to Israel's destruction.\nTamil rebels killing 93 sailors COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- Tamil rebels rammed a truck packed with explosives into a convoy of military buses Monday, killing at least 93 sailors in one of the deadliest insurgent attacks since the 2002 cease-fire. The attack comes as a Japanese envoy met with the president Monday amid intensified diplomatic efforts to strengthen the peace process between the government and rebels ahead of scheduled talks between the two sides later this month in Switzerland.\nFBI raids home of Congressman's daughter MEDIA, Pa. -- The FBI raided the homes of Rep. Curt Weldon's daughter and a close friend Monday as it investigates whether the congressman improperly helped the pair win lobbying and consulting contracts. Earlier Monday, Weldon called the investigation politically motivated and called the timing suspect. A Republican locked in a tight re-election bid, he denied wrongdoing and said he gave his daughter no special help.\nGuatemala, Venezuela fail to win U.N. seat UNITED NATIONS -- Guatemala topped Venezuela in the first four rounds of voting Monday for a U.N. Security Council seat, but it failed to get the necessary two-thirds majority to win a two-year term on the powerful United Nations body. That result opened the door for others to join the race, in what could be a blow to both countries' chances for a seat. The results were an embarrassment to Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, who had waged a highly public campaign on the claim that his nation would use its seat on the council to speak out against the United States.
(10/17/06 2:18am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Sunni Muslims fled across the Tigris River on Monday, trying to escape a four-day rampage of sectarian fighting in their Shiite-dominated home city of Balad north of Baghdad. At least 91 people have died -- all but 17 of them Sunnis.\nAlso Monday, staggered car bombs hit a Shiite funeral in Baghdad, killing 15 people -- mourners as well as rescuers who arrived before the second explosion. It was the deadliest attack in violence around the country Monday that claimed at least 60 lives.\nThe government and its police and armed forces appeared unable or unwilling to stop the bloodshed that may set the standard for the building inter-communal conflict should it spread further and the pace hasten, which appeared likely.\nSunnis in Balad said militiamen went door to door, giving them two hours to clear out of their homes, and one police officer said the bodies of the city's Sunni minority lay unclaimed in the streets.\nMohamed Ali Hamid, a 35-year-old Sunni taxi driver, said he walked for two hours with 20 family members Sunday to reach the nearby Sunni town of Duluiyah. Shiite militiamen accompanied by police gave them just two hours to leave Sunday, he said.\n"They said, 'You are Sunnis and have no place here at all,'" Hamid said. "They burned everything related to Sunnis, and we were forced to leave everything behind," he said by phone from a police station where he had been taken after Duluiyah law enforcement picked the group up along the highway.
(10/12/06 3:11am)
President George W. Bush on Wednesday called ex-Rep. Mark Foley's approaches to House male pages "disgusting" and backed Speaker Dennis Hastert's efforts to learn how officials handled the problem. Peggy Sampson, the supervisor of the page program, was questioned for less than two hours before the House ethics committee. The panel is investigating Foley's inappropriate electronic messages to former pages and if House officials covered up Foley's come-ons.
(10/12/06 2:37am)
Joan "Josie" Orr, who spent eight years as Indiana's first lady while her husband, Robert Orr, was governor, has died. She was 85.\nOrr died Tuesday, Alpha Funeral Services in Indianapolis said.\nHer husband, a Republican, was governor from 1981 until 1989, following eight years as lieutenant governor.\nShe married him in 1944, after spending part of World War II as a pilot ferrying airplanes across the country on their way to Europe. They lived in Evansville when Robert Orr entered the family business, Orr Iron Co., and became active in politics.\nThe Orrs had three children and divorced in 2000. Gov. Orr died in 2004 at the age of 86.\nGov. Mitch Daniels said Josie Orr "lived a one-of-a-kind life."\nFuneral arrangements were not immediately announced. Daniels directed that flags at state offices be lowered to half-staff through the day of Orr's funeral.
(09/21/06 4:00am)
- From Associated Press reports\nLOS ANGELES -- There is an irony to a movie about a little boy whonever gives up being made by a couple who themselves worked together to overcome the odds.\nThe opening this week of the animated baseball film "Everyone's Hero" marks the final project -- and message -- from Christopher and Dana Reeve, who both died during the making of the movie.\nThe film's message mirrors the final years of their lives, say those who worked with the couple. Reeve, paralyzed in a horseback riding accident, and his wife worked tirelessly to find a cure for spinal-cord injuries, always believing the actor would walk again.\n"It has a great message, which is really the philosophy that Chris and Dana Reeve had: Never give up," said actor and director Rob Reiner, whose role on this film was to voice a talking baseball. "We are getting the chance to realize Chris Reeve's last vision and dream, which is to get this message out."\nThe movie tells the story of Yankee Irving, a boy who grows up during the Depression idolizing Babe Ruth despite always striking out himself.\nThe boy is ready to quit baseball when he finds himself in possession of the legendary player's bat, and must hit the open road by himself and against all odds return the bat in time for the Babe to use it in the last game of the 1932 World Series. Along the way, Yankee learns that "no matter where life takes you, always keep swinging."\n"The fact you know it's Chris Reeve's last project, it resonates with the film," Reiner said.\nReeve died in 2004 while directing the film. His wife, who served as the film's executive producer and lent her voice to one of the characters, died in March of lung cancer before the film was finished.\nThe story began as a bedtime story that Howard Jonas of IDT Entertainment wrote for his children years ago. When he decided to make a film about the story, he said there was only one person he wanted to direct the film.\n"To me, there is no bigger hero that Christopher Reeve," Jonas said.\nAfter Reeve died, his wife encouraged the production company and others to carry on in her husband's footsteps.\n"I think what made it a lot easier was that his wife was executive producer. She, too, had that spirit," said Colin Brady, who took over as co-director of the film after Reeve's death. "It was kind of like having Christopher's blessing."\nThe movie, from IDT Entertainment and released by 20th Century Fox, owned by News Corp., underwent restructuring after an early executive screening, said Dan St. Pierre, a first-time movie director who was brought in with Brady to work on the movie.\n"We had to stop and break everything down, and rebuild the movie," he said. "The most important thing was maintaining Christopher's original theme and his original vision."\nThe restructuring, he added, was overseen by Dana Reeve. Many of the actors voicing roles signed on either gratis or at lower-than-normal scales because of the Reeves, producers said. Reeve's son, Will, also had a bit vocal role in the movie.\nNeither director ever met Reeve and relied on those who knew him, especially his wife, to help them keep his spirit alive during the production process. But when Dana Reeve died, it threw the movie into more uncertainty.\n"She passed away before we completely recorded her lines. There was some discussion about whether we wold recast her voice," Brady said. \nBut the cast and crew felt Dana Reeve was too important _ both to the production and the character _ to recast her role. To complete her lines, Brady and St. Pierre sifted through her outtakes to piece together her unfinished lines.\nThroughout the film, there are small salutes to Christopher and Dana Reeve. The movie poster features a baseball flying through the air -- much like Superman, Reeve's most famous role. In the movie, the talking baseball, Screwie, says "up, up and away," the Superman catch phrase, a she makes his own heroic gesture to help Yankee.\n"That was on very succinct nod to Christopher's legacy," Brady said.
(09/21/06 3:58am)
- From Associated Press reports\nLOS ANGELES -- There is an irony to a movie about a little boy whonever gives up being made by a couple who themselves worked together to overcome the odds.\nThe opening this week of the animated baseball film "Everyone's Hero" marks the final project -- and message -- from Christopher and Dana Reeve, who both died during the making of the movie.\nThe film's message mirrors the final years of their lives, say those who worked with the couple. Reeve, paralyzed in a horseback riding accident, and his wife worked tirelessly to find a cure for spinal-cord injuries, always believing the actor would walk again.\n"It has a great message, which is really the philosophy that Chris and Dana Reeve had: Never give up," said actor and director Rob Reiner, whose role on this film was to voice a talking baseball. "We are getting the chance to realize Chris Reeve's last vision and dream, which is to get this message out."\nThe movie tells the story of Yankee Irving, a boy who grows up during the Depression idolizing Babe Ruth despite always striking out himself.\nThe boy is ready to quit baseball when he finds himself in possession of the legendary player's bat, and must hit the open road by himself and against all odds return the bat in time for the Babe to use it in the last game of the 1932 World Series. Along the way, Yankee learns that "no matter where life takes you, always keep swinging."\n"The fact you know it's Chris Reeve's last project, it resonates with the film," Reiner said.\nReeve died in 2004 while directing the film. His wife, who served as the film's executive producer and lent her voice to one of the characters, died in March of lung cancer before the film was finished.\nThe story began as a bedtime story that Howard Jonas of IDT Entertainment wrote for his children years ago. When he decided to make a film about the story, he said there was only one person he wanted to direct the film.\n"To me, there is no bigger hero that Christopher Reeve," Jonas said.\nAfter Reeve died, his wife encouraged the production company and others to carry on in her husband's footsteps.\n"I think what made it a lot easier was that his wife was executive producer. She, too, had that spirit," said Colin Brady, who took over as co-director of the film after Reeve's death. "It was kind of like having Christopher's blessing."\nThe movie, from IDT Entertainment and released by 20th Century Fox, owned by News Corp., underwent restructuring after an early executive screening, said Dan St. Pierre, a first-time movie director who was brought in with Brady to work on the movie.\n"We had to stop and break everything down, and rebuild the movie," he said. "The most important thing was maintaining Christopher's original theme and his original vision."\nThe restructuring, he added, was overseen by Dana Reeve. Many of the actors voicing roles signed on either gratis or at lower-than-normal scales because of the Reeves, producers said. Reeve's son, Will, also had a bit vocal role in the movie.\nNeither director ever met Reeve and relied on those who knew him, especially his wife, to help them keep his spirit alive during the production process. But when Dana Reeve died, it threw the movie into more uncertainty.\n"She passed away before we completely recorded her lines. There was some discussion about whether we wold recast her voice," Brady said. \nBut the cast and crew felt Dana Reeve was too important _ both to the production and the character _ to recast her role. To complete her lines, Brady and St. Pierre sifted through her outtakes to piece together her unfinished lines.\nThroughout the film, there are small salutes to Christopher and Dana Reeve. The movie poster features a baseball flying through the air -- much like Superman, Reeve's most famous role. In the movie, the talking baseball, Screwie, says "up, up and away," the Superman catch phrase, a she makes his own heroic gesture to help Yankee.\n"That was on very succinct nod to Christopher's legacy," Brady said.
(09/07/06 4:00am)
(09/07/06 3:03am)
(08/31/06 4:00am)
LOS ANGELES -- Hollywood may wish it had kept a great ape, a lion, a witch or a wizard in the bullpen for this fall, whose movie lineup has just two really familiar names: James Bond and Santa Claus.\nThe movie industry's prestige period, when studios trot out their big Academy Award contenders, also has become a steady blockbuster season with such recent hits as "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, most of the "Harry Potter" flicks and last year's "King Kong" and "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."\nLacking any of those entries, the fall schedule is led by "Casino Royale," Daniel Craig's first outing as British superspy Bond.\nInheriting the license to kill from Pierce Brosnan, Craig is the sixth actor to play 007. Adapted from Ian Fleming's first Bond novel, "Casino Royale" takes James back to his beginnings as a young operative taking on a terrorist ring being financed at an exotic gambling hall.\nNot yet the casual womanizer of later years, Bond is assigned a gorgeous woman as ally -- Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), a bean-counter dispatched by British intelligence to keep tabs on the money he's gambling with.\nUncharacteristically, Bond falls in love -- and gets his heart stomped on.\n"We're kind of meeting him for the first time, and a number of things need to be explained. His attitude toward women, how he becomes what he becomes," Craig said. "He meets Vesper, this very beautiful, very complex, very mysterious girl who steals his heart then double-crosses him. It may explain the distrust of Bond for women later."\nHollywood revives a handful of other film franchises this fall, including Tim Allen's "The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause," in which Jack Frost (Martin Short) makes a play to steal Christmas from St. Nick.\nWithout the big fantasy spectacles that have been Hollywood's fall mainstays in recent years, real-world stories will have to take up the slack. Luckily for film fans, there's an interesting crop of possibilities:\n-- "All the King's Men," a fresh take on Robert Penn Warren's novel of a Southern political boss inspired by Huey Long, stars Sean Penn as the idealistic leader whose rise to power is poisoned by corruption. "Schindler's List" screenwriter Steven Zaillian directs a cast that includes Anthony Hopkins, Jude Law, Kate Winslet and James Gandolfini.\n-- Clint Eastwood, who directed Penn to a best-actor Oscar in "Mystic River," follows his best-picture champ "Million Dollar Baby" with the World War II saga "Flags of Our Fathers." Starring Ryan Phillippe, Paul Walker, Barry Pepper and Jamie Bell, the film tells the story behind one of the most enduring war photographs: The soldiers who raised the American flag at Iwo Jima.\n-- Martin Scorsese reunites with Leonardo DiCaprio and brings along Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon and Martin Sheen for "The Departed," the director's return to the cops-and-mobsters tales that have been his strong suit. DiCaprio plays a cop who's undercover in Nicholson's crime gang, while Damon plays a mob member who's infiltrated the police department.\n-- After lip-synching to Ray Charles' voice for his Oscar-winning turn in "Ray," Jamie Foxx gets to do some singing of his own in "Dreamgirls," an adaptation of the stage musical that co-stars Beyonce Knowles, Eddie Murphy and "American Idol" finalist Jennifer Hudson. The film follows the triumphs and trials of a trio of female soul singers in the 1960s.\nDirector Bill Condon ("Gods and Monsters") skillfully blends story and character with show-stopping musical numbers and takes singer Knowles and comic Murphy to places audiences have never seen them, Foxx said.
(08/31/06 2:54am)
EVANSVILLE — Supporters of immigrant rights waved small American flags while others called for strict border control during a federal hearing on immigration.\nMore than two dozen hearings by the House Judiciary Committee have been held around the country during the last two months, including the one in Evansville attended by 200 people Tuesday night.\nHouse GOP leaders called the hearings to highlight differences between the enforcement-only bill that the House passed in December and a Senate bill approved in May, which would establish a guest worker program and a path to citizenship for many who are in the country illegally.\nBut Democrats and immigrant groups have questioned the need for the hearings because such meetings are typically held before legislation is passed — not after. Critics call the hearings an election-year tactic to delay negotiations on the competing immigration bills passed by the House and Senate.\nRep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the lone Democrat among the four congressmen who heard testimony Tuesday in Evansville, urged a compromise with the Senate.\n"We must roll up our sleeves and get to work on solving the problems created by the Bush administration instead of spreading fear of immigrants and driving further wedges between our citizens," he said.\nBut Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and Reps. John Hostettler, R-Ind., and Steve King, R-Iowa, said tough employer sanctions and penalties would drive illegal residents out of the country by eliminating their jobs.\nOutside The Centre in the southwestern Indiana city, supporters of immigrant rights carried small American flags and displayed signs supporting the Senate bill.\nFreddie Peralta, a Dominican Republic native who said he is a legal immigrant living in Lexington, Ky., distributed flags and talked with people waiting in line to enter.\n"The current immigration system is broken," Peralta said. "It doesn't work, so people are forced to come to this country without documentation."\nBut Evansville resident Gene Thweatt disagreed.\n"We must control our borders or we're no longer a sovereign nation," said Thweatt, 73. "We did (amnesty) in 1986, and this is the result."\nThe recent immigration hearings have generally involved officials, academics and activists discussing the issue, and Evansville's was no different.\nSteven Camarota, director of research for the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, said a recent study shows immigration reduces wages by 4 percent for all workers and 7 percent for those lacking a high school education.\n"Why do illegals reduce wages? The main reason is not so much that they work for less," Camarota said. "Instead, it's basic economics: Increase the supply of something — in this case less-educated workers — and you lower its price."\nRicardo Parra of the Midwest Council of La Raza cited studies that he said dispute such claims.\n"Immigrant labor is needed to fill jobs in the U.S. that an older, more educated American work force is not willing to fill, especially at the low wages and poor working conditions many unscrupulous employers offer," Parra said.