Daily News Channel
A district court judge who lectures on international art crime has found his work in the most unexpected place – the pages of Dan Brown’s latest blockbuster. Hamilton-based Judge Arthur Tompkins, who each New Zealand winter teaches a course on art crime during war in a small town north of Rome, was stunned to find The Da Vinci Code author had lifted a passage of his writing for use in his latest New York Times bestseller, Inferno.
Like those of its competitors in New York or London, the sleek glass and steel offices of media company Rotana are filled with preening attitude and fashion-conscious staffers: assistants teeter in shoes that might have absorbed much of their monthly paycheck; executives parade the halls in power suits and pencil skirts. But Rotana isn’t in New York or London; it’s in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia, a country in which women normally adhere to a strict dress code in public — a black cloak called an abaya, a headscarf and a veil, the niqab, which covers everything but their eyes.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has issued a posthumous apology for the “appalling” treatment of Alan Turing, the British code-breaker who was chemically castrated for being gay.
Britain’s House of Lords voted Wednesday to suspend two of its members over corruption claims — the first time a lord has been barred from the chamber since 1642, a spokesman for the chamber said.
"The Da Vinci Code," a film based on a novel from Dan Brown, opened three years ago amid controversy and protests. Now, a new film based on another Brown novel, "Angels and Demons," opened on Friday. Larry King talked with the star of the movie, Tom Hanks, and its director, Ron Howard, about whether the new film will spark more controversy
Bolivia had been enjoying some well earned quiet in recent days.