Actress Brittany Murphy, who starred in films such as Just Married, Clueless and 8 Mile, has died at age 32. The actress died on Sunday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center near Beverly Hills, a hospital spokeswoman has confirmed. The LA Times said Murphy went into cardiac arrest, but hospital sources would not release the cause of death. Murphy was married to British screenwriter Simon Monjack. The couple lived in Los Angeles.
Reports said the LA fire department responded to a medical call at Murphy's home in West Hollywood at 0800 local time (1600 GMT). Two hours later, she was pronounced dead at hospital. Murphy grew up in New Jersey but moved to Los Angeles with her mother to pursue acting. She got her start in the sleeper hit Clueless and rose to stardom in 8 Mile alongside rapper Eminem. Her on-screen roles declined in recent years, but Murphy voiced characters for the hit US television series, King of the Hill, and animated movie Happy Feet.
She is due to appear in Sylvester Stallone's film, The Expendables, set for release next year. Murphy once dated Ashton Kutcher, who co-starred with her in the 2003 romantic comedy, Just Married. Kutcher tweeted Sunday morning about Murphy's death: "2day the world lost a little piece of sunshine." My deepest condolences go out 2 Brittany's family, her husband, & her amazing mother Sharon, his tweet said.
Once the worlds wettest places, Cherrapunji is getting up to 20% less rain every year - and is suffering water shortages. Residents say their heavenly abode in the clouds is hotter and drier than ever before - and they blame it on global warming.
Cherrapunji - or Sohra in the local Khasi language - is located in the West Khasi Hills of India's north-eastern state of Meghalaya. Never were there very big forests around Cherrapunji and many of those that are there are sacred to us, says Millergrace Symlieh, a senior member of Sohra Science Society.
We never cut a branch in these sacred forests. So you cannot say this adverse weather change is our creation. We are affected by what's happening all over the world, he said. This hot weather and less rain here is not due to huge deforestation or massive industrialization, says Mr. Symlieh. We only have a cement plant near here.
US President Barack Obama has called on world leaders to come together at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen as time runs out to strike a deal. President Obama told delegates the international community's ability to take collective action was in doubt. Leaders have gathered for the final day of the summit amid uncertainty over the shape of any eventual deal.
A draft political agreement drawn up by a small group of countries was rejected during overnight discussions. Addressing the summit on Friday, President Obama said, while the science of climate change is not in doubt, I think our ability to take collective action is in doubt right now, and it hangs in the balance. He said he had come to Copenhagen "not to talk, but to act".
Unchecked, he said, climate change would pose unacceptable risks to international security, the world economy and the planet.
A producer from Uruguay who uploaded a short film to YouTube in November 2009 has been offered a $30m (£18.6m) contract to make a Hollywood film. The movie will be sponsored by director Sam Raimi, whose credits include the Spiderman and Evil Dead films. Fede Alvarez's short film "Ataque de Panico!" (Panic Attack!) Featured giant robots invading and destroying Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. It is 4 mins 48 seconds long and was made on a budget of $300 (£186).
So far it has had more than 1.5 million views on YouTube. I uploaded (Panic Attack!) On a Thursday and on Monday my inbox was totally full of e-mails from Hollywood studios," he told the BBC's Latin American service BBC Mundo. It was amazing, we were all shocked. The movie Mr. Alvarez has been asked to produce is a sci-fi film to be shot in Uruguay and Argentina. He says he intends to start from scratch and develop a new story for the project.
If some director from some country can achieve this just uploading a video to YouTube, it obviously means that anyone could do it, he added. YouTube recently revealed the most watched videos of 2009. Britain's Got Talent star Susan Boyle topped the chart with more than 120 million views worldwide of her debut on the show.
As President Dmitry Medvedev prepares to join talks to save the planet in Copenhagen, only a minority of Russians will be worrying much about the outcome. Climate change and the environment are not big issues for most Russians - and most of the time the government seems equally unconcerned.
"Global warming, the Kyoto Protocol, cutting emissions, nuclear waste, incinerators - it might be a topic of discussion among Moscow's business elite, but the masses are nowhere near these issues. No-one's talking about them," said former Russian deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, an outspoken critic of the current Russian government.
There is one popular opinion, though that Russia is a cold country and warming it up slightly wouldn't do any harm.
Russia has pledged to ensure that greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 are at least 25% below 1990 levels. But since they are currently 34% below 1990 levels - thanks to an economic slump that coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union - the economy can continue to grow for some time before it becomes necessary to go green.
A poll conducted this summer suggests that Russia is far less concerned about climate change than other European countries. Only 46% of 1,008 respondents in Russia said it was a very serious problem, and only 54% favored government investment to address climate change if it might hurt the economy - figures closer to those for the US or India than for Western Europe.
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