Month: August 2014

By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) – Three million Syrian refugees will have registered in neighbouring countries as of Friday, but many remain trapped by the advance of Islamist militants or are having difficulty in reaching open border crossings, the United Nations said. Syrians desperate to leave their war-engulfed homeland are forced to pay hefty bribes at armed checkpoints proliferating along Syria’s borders, or to smugglers, the U.N. refugee agency said. The record figure is one million refugees more than a year ago, while a further 6. …

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Movies — they don’t make ’em like they used to. Well, Peter Bogdanovich does.

By Michael Roddy VENICE (Reuters) – A madcap New York drawing-room comedy that played out like a classic Hollywood farce saw “The Last Picture Show” director Peter Bogdanovich in sharp comedic form at the Venice Film Festival on Friday. In “She’s Funny That Way” Bogdanovich, who in the 1970s was part of the “New Hollywood” wave of pioneering directors, has assembled an all-star cast including Imogen Poots as an aspiring actress who says she is a muse but works as a call girl. Her liaisons weave a spider’s web that nets men, including Owen Wilson — a theatre director who has played the rich sugar-daddy “benefactor” to a series of call girls over the years. Jennifer Aniston gives a refresher course in how to portray the woman scorned once she finds out about her husband’s hanky-panky partners.

Comedian Joan Rivers rested comfortably on Friday at a New York hospital where she was admitted after she suffered cardiac arrest and stopped breathing during a vocal cord procedure, a spokeswoman said. There was no change in her condition from late on Thursday, when daughter Melissa Rivers issued a statement saying her 81-year-old mother was resting comfortably, said Mount Sinai Hospital spokeswoman Lucia Lee. The brash comedian and fashion critic had gone to a New York clinic for a vocal cord procedure on Thursday. Without identifying Rivers specifically, the Fire Department of New York said a patient reported to be in cardiac arrest was taken to Mount Sinai from Yorkville Endoscopy by emergency workers at mid-morning.