Award-winning Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman Died of apparent drug overdose!

Award-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead of an apparent drug overdose late Sunday morning in his New York City apartment.

Law-enforcement officials said a hypodermic needle and two glassine envelopes containing what appeared to be heroin were found in the apartment on Bethune Street in the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan.

The 46-year-old actor was found in the bathroom of his fourth floor apartment in the Pickwick House around 11:15 a.m. by screenwriter David Katz, who called 911, a law-enforcement official said. Mr. Katz had been concerned after not being able to get in touch with Mr. Hoffman, the official said.

The New York Police Department is investigating, and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is working to determine the exact cause of death.

Mr. Hoffman was most recently seen in "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," the second installment in the blockbuster "Hunger Games" series from Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.

He was set to star in two more installments in the franchise that are scheduled for release. "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1" is set to come out in November, with "Part 2" scheduled for November 2015.

"It's horrible, just horrible," he said. "I think he's the greatest actor of his generation."

Colombia nabs fugitive priest linked to criminal gangs!

Colombian authorities have arrested a fugitive priest convicted of links to criminal gangs, an official said Saturday.

Oscar Ortiz was sentenced in absentia to 19 years in prison for ties to right-wing militias and drug traffickers in Medellin.

A police source, who asked not to be named, said that Ortiz was tracked down to a house in the town of La Virginia.

Ortiz's lawyer Jose de Jesus Diaz Moncada told local newspaper El Colombiano his client was innocent and was appealing his conviction at the Latin American country's Supreme Court.

Medellin, Colombia's second largest city is a former drug lord fiefdom. Long considered one of the most dangerous places on the planet, it has seen crime rates fall and neighborhood life return thanks to new public services in some of its poorest areas.

Oscar winning actor Maximilian Schell dies at 83!

Austrian-born actor Maximilian Schell, a fugitive from Adolf Hitler who became a Hollywood favorite and won an Oscar for his role as a defense attorney in “Judgment at Nuremberg,” has died. He was 83.

Schell’s agent, Patricia Baumbauer, said he died overnight at a hospital in Innsbruck following a “sudden and serious illness,” the Austria Press Agency reported on Saturday.

Adieu

Sudan orders Red Cross to suspend work!

The ICRC said it had received a letter from the Sudanese authorities citing "technical issues relating to its humanitarian plans for this year", but giving no further details.

Sudan has in the past suspended or expelled humanitarian organisations.

The Red Cross supplies food, water, health care, and other forms of aid, mainly in the western region of Darfur.

Last year it helped more than 1.5 million people affected by conflict in Sudan.

The ICRC said it had halted its work in response to the letter but hoped "to resume our activities as soon as possible".

The UN estimates that more than 300,000 people have died in Darfur since rebels took up arms in 2003.

Although the violence has come down from its peak, clashes between government forces, rebels and Darfur's rival ethnic groups have continued.

Man to die by hanging for killing his wife!

A man in Lagos has been sentenced to death after being found guilty of stabbing and killing his wife.

Edet Okon, has been convicted of the death of his spouse after it was discovered that he stabbed her to death with a spoon at night.

Okon has been sentenced to death by hanging after his plea of insanity failed. 

A three-man panel of the Court of Appeal led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh ordered that Okon be hanged for killing his wife. 

The appellant had appealed the judgement, arguing that the lower court erred in law when it dismissed his plea of insanity. But in a unanimous judgement, the Court of Appeal held that Appeal No. CA/L/553/10 lacked merit and dismissed it. 

Justice Ikyegh, who delivered the leading judgement, said Mrs. Okon’s blood was crying for vengeance and her killer husband should “reap what he has sown; blood for blood.” Okon had claimed at the lower court that he was insane at the time he stabbed his wife to death and two witnesses called by the defence had given evidence that there were cases of insanity in the family of the appellant. However the court rejected the evidence adduced in support of Okon’s claim, convicted him of murder and ordered that he should die by hanging. 

Aggrieved, Okon took his defence of insanity to the Court of Appeal, urging it to upturn the judgement of the lower court. But in their judgment, the Appeal Court justices said the High Court was right in rejecting the plea of insanity. The court further held that the burden of proving insanity rested on the appellant. The appellant, the court added, failed to discharge the burden on him to prove that he was insane at the time of committing the offence.

 Source: Vanguard News

11 killed in Saturday's volcanic eruption in Indonesia!

According to an Indonesian government official, no fewer than 11 people were killed when a volcano erupted on Saturday.  

Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra erupted Saturday morning, disaster mitigation agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

Nugroho said that the victims were hit by hot ash clouds and were all found in Sukameriah, a village close to the volcano's crater.

The volcano spewed ash columns 2,000 meters high and hot ash clouds down its slope, Nugroho said.

Local search and rescue teams will go on a recovery operation Sunday morning, he said.