Daily News Channel
Bleak. That’s always been the rap against American novelist Richard Yates. Though he has been celebrated as a writer’s writer and a consummate craftsman since his death in 1992, even his admirers found his work depressing.
On a winter evening in early 1940, Hattie McDaniel became the first black performer to win an Oscar, a best supporting actress honor for her performance as Mammy, the servant in "Gone With the Wind." She accepted her award at the Academy Awards ceremony at the Coconut Grove, a nightclub in Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel, where she was seated in the segregated section at the rear of the room. Though her win was played as a sign of progress for black actors in America — “Not only was she the first of her race to receive an Award, but she was also the first Negro ever to sit at an Academy banquet,” said Daily Variety, according to Mason Wiley and Damien Bona’s indispensable “Inside Oscar” — her role was poorly received by much of the black community.
A U.S. congressional delegation visited Gaza Thursday, marking the first time that American lawmakers have entered the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory in eight years, according to the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton headed for South Korea on Thursday on the third leg of her four-nation tour of Asia. The visit comes at a time of escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula and after U.S.
A one-of-a-kind bicycle belonging to Lance Armstrong that was stolen Saturday, hours after the U.S. cycling legend rode it in a race, has been handed over to authorities, police said Wednesday. “A local resident came to the police headquarters and turned in a bicycle that he believed to be Lance Armstrong’s,” said Sgt.
A court in Zimbabwe charged a senior opposition official Tuesday over an alleged plot involving terrorism and insurgency, as President Robert Mugabe chaired the first Cabinet meeting of a coalition government. Roy Bennett, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) treasurer and the country’s agriculture deputy minister-designate, is charged with illegally possessing firearms for the purposes of trying to commit acts of insurgency, banditry and terrorism and to illegally leave the country last week, his lawyer said. Trust Maanda told CNN on Tuesday: “The charges were changed from treason which the state had initially charged Bennett, I am sure they discovered it could not stand
U.S.
Zimbabwe’s new unity Cabinet met for the first time Tuesday, bringing together leaders of President Robert Mugabe’s party and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s opposition party. The government met a day after the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, criticized last week’s arrest of a key party leader and what they called the abduction of other party members by Mugabe supporters. Roy Bennett — treasurer of the MDC and Zimbabwe’s agriculture deputy minister-designate — faces charges of planning terrorism and insurgency
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made her strongest comments yet about North Korea Tuesday during her tour of Asia. Speaking at a news conference with Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone, the U.S.
Soft music filled the room as waiters served white wine and hors d’oeuvres. Two dozen well-dressed women chatted in small groups.