Danny Puff

HANOI (Reuters) - Pot-bellied, short, or abusive traffic policemen will be barred from working on the streets of Vietnam's capital and assigned desk jobs instead as Hanoi police try to clean up their unsavoury image, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The city's traffic police are following the worst offenders closely and compiling lists of those to be reassigned. All police on traffic duty will be made to carry a book on the code of conduct to remind them how to behave, the official Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper said.

"Little officers, or those with too big a belly will be moved to work in offices instead of guiding traffic and settling violations," Colonel Dao Vinh Thang, head of the Hanoi Traffic Police Department, was quoted by Tien Phong as saying.

He said five teams of inspectors had been sent to monitor the behaviour of police on the street. Thang could not be reached for additional comment.

Tempers often flare in the city of 7 million famous for constant streams of motorcycles and sometimes haphazard driving. Complaints have mounted about the conduct of traffic police, including allegations of corruption and abusive behaviour.

The latest initiative follows the deployment in January of female traffic police, all part of a campaign to improve the image of the security forces.

Crackdowns on overweight policemen have taken place in Thailand, Pakistan, Britain, Indonesia and the Philippines in recent years. Several of those countries ordered officers to get fit and lose weight before they could return to work.

(Reporting by Hanoi Newsroom; Editing by Martin Petty and Ron Popeski)

Read More

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - At Shanghai's Zhabei District marriage registration center, officials divorced a record 53 couples in a single day this week - that's about one every five minutes - as couples rushed to untie the knot to avoid tougher tax laws on home sales.

There were similar scenes in Wuhan, Nanjing and Ningbo as married couples opted for 'quickie', uncontested divorces - costing just a few yuan - that would allow them to split ownership of their properties and sell without having to pay capital gains tax of as much as 20 percent.

Beijing last week signaled it wanted local governments to be tougher in implementing rules to curb property speculation - the tax on gains from selling second homes has been in place for almost two decades but never strictly enforced. Chinese tend to park much of their wealth in real estate as they have few other alternative investment options, and home prices in the biggest cities have risen for 9 straight months.

Reckoning that primary residences owned for more than five years will remain tax exempt, some couples hope that divorcing and dividing up real estate assets will allow them to sell properties as individuals, and not pay tax. Once the sale is complete, they can remarry.

"It's a practical attitude," said Li Li, managing director of International Strategic Group, a real estate consultancy in Shanghai. "It's strange, but policy forces people to do it."

While homeowners and prospective buyers await details on how the tightened property rules will be implemented, the official Shanghai Daily quoted one unnamed official at the Yangpu District registration office as saying the rise in divorces was driven by unapologetic tax evaders, including a pregnant woman.

"I told all of them to come here again for remarriage registration as soon as their transaction is finished," the official told the newspaper.

Requests for city-wide data from the Shanghai civil affairs bureau were not immediately answered. The Shanghai Daily quoted Lin Kewu, deputy director of the bureau's marriage administration, saying the government did not want to release statistics for fear of encouraging the tactic.

The phenomenon is not new. In 2010 and 2011, state media reported that couples resorted to forging divorce certificates so they could skirt restrictions and buy more property.

"I know people who have divorced to evade taxes," said one man who asked not to be named as he waited outside a real estate trade center in Pudong on Wednesday. "But I think marriage is more important than property."

(Additional reporting by Anita Li and Reuters Shanghai bureau; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

Read More

NEW YORK (AP) Valerie Harper, who played Rhoda Morgenstern on television's "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and its spinoff, "Rhoda," has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.

People magazine reported on its website Wednesday that the 73-year-old actress received the news on Jan. 15. Tests revealed she has leptomeningeal carcinomatosis, a rare condition that occurs when cancer cells spread into the fluid-filled membrane surrounding the brain. The report says Harper's doctors have said she has as little as three months to live.

"I don't think of dying," Harper told the magazine in a cover interview. "I think of being here now."

Harper's character, Rhoda, was one of television's most beloved characters during the 1970s, and the tart-tongued, self-deprecating Rhoda made Harper a star. She won three consecutive Emmys (1971-73) as supporting actress on "Mary" plus another for outstanding lead actress for "Rhoda," which ran from 1974-78.

Harper began show business as a dancer in several Broadway musicals, and worked in summer stock and with the Second City improv group.

"I was a dancer but I was always a little overweight," she once told The Associated Press. "I'd say, 'Hello, I'm Valerie Harper and I'm overweight.' I'd say it quickly before they could. ... I always got called chubby, my nose was too wide, my hair was too kinky."

Accordingly, she played Rhoda at first as a plump, wisecracking contrast to slender, winsome Mary Richards. But as "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" evolved, Rhoda trimmed down and her own brand of beauty was acknowledged.

The character was wildly popular and soon inspired her own CBS sitcom, which saw Rhoda moving back home to New York City and even getting married.

After her success on TV, she returned to theater. Several TV movie and feature films followed, including "Chapter Two" and "Blame It on Rio."

In 2000, she reunited with Moore in a TV film, "Mary and Rhoda."

"Rhoda Morgenstern gave a wonderful impetus and propulsion to my career," she told the AP in 2001.

At the time, she had stepped into the role originated by former "Alice" star Linda Lavin in the Broadway comedy "The Tale of the Allergist's Wife."

Harper played what she described as "an angst-ridden Woman of a Certain Age," and she likened that character to Rhoda, whose shared creed, she said, is "Get into life, and enjoy it. Just stop with the white knuckles and relax. Be OK with yourself."

In recent years, Harper had guest roles on several TV series, and in 2010 was back on Broadway playing Tallulah Bankhead, a flamboyant star from Hollywood's Golden Age.

AP Drama Critic Michael Kuchwara wrote that "Harper submerges the iconic Rhoda Morgenstern" and "has a ferocious sense of comic timing."

In January, Harper published a new memoir, "I, Rhoda."

___

Online:

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20679402,00.html

Read More

LONDON (AP) Never say never again? Sam Mendes says he won't be directing the next James Bond film but may work on the series again in the future.

Mendes has been praised for his work on "Skyfall," the first Bond film to rake in more than $1 billion in revenue.

But Mendes says he has made the "very difficult decision" to focus on other projects "that need my complete focus over the next year and beyond." They include upcoming London stage productions of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "King Lear."

In comments published Wednesday by movie magazine Empire, Mendes said he was honored to have been part of the Bond family, "and very much hope I have a chance to work with them again."

Mendes worked in theater before turning to film. He won an Academy Award in 2000 for "American Beauty."

"Skyfall," which stars Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem and Judi Dench, won two Oscars last month, including one for Adele's theme song.

Read More

LOS ANGELES (AP) A bloody Western and the comedic tale of a trash-talking teddy bear lead nominees for the 2013 MTV Movie Awards.

MTV announced Tuesday that "Django Unchained" and "Ted" each have seven bids at the annual kudo-fest, set to air live on April 14 from the Sony Pictures lot in Culver City, Calif.

"Silver Linings Playbook" earned six nominations and "The Dark Knight Rises" collected five. Other top nominees include "The Avengers," ''Skyfall," ''Pitch Perfect" and "The Perks of Being a Wallflower."

Fans can vote online for the winners in all categories, including the two newest ones: Best shirtless performance and best musical moment.

Double nominee Rebel Wilson will host the show. She'll be joined by Will Ferrell, who will receive MTV's inaugural Comic Genius Award.

___

Online:

www.mtv.com/ontv/movieawards/2013/

Read More

CHICAGO (AP) Can't get rid of that paunch?

A Chicago-area gym suggests working out with your pooch.

K9 Fit Club offers bow wow boot camps and other classes for people and their puppies to exercise together in Chicago and nearby Hinsdale, Ill.

The fitness center opened last year after founder Tricia Montgomery exercised with her dog and lost 130 pounds. Montgomery says her late basset hound, named Louie, lost 22 percent of his body weight.

Fans of the gym say classes are beneficial to both man and man's best friend.

Montgomery says dogs struggle with the same weight issues that people face, including heart problems and diabetes.

People who work out at K9 Fit Club say exercising with their dogs keeps them motivated.

Classes cost about $20.

Watch the video here: http://bit.ly/1687UdR

Read More

Marvel Entertainment's renowned heroes find themselves in an unfamiliar and unsettling position in the pages of the just-released "Age of Ultron" series: defeated, demoralized and desperate.

After years of well-placed warnings that have gone unheeded, the ever-adaptive artificial intelligence that is Ultron a creation of Avengers co-founder Henry Pym has finally realized his potential as conquering villain. He has turned the planet into a dystopian landscape that is wrecked beyond compare with technology at the top of the food chain and humanity on the extinction trail.

In short, said Brian Michael Bendis, who wrote the series that debuted Wednesday, Ultron has lived up to his promise.

"Ultron is one of the big villains of the Marvel universe, up there with Dr. Doom and Magneto," he said this week. "He's been a threat a constant threat and they've never been able to defeat him because of the nature of his being."

Now, with Ultron's ability to adapt, react and learn, his promise has gone global and what was once a vibrant planet is nothing more than piles of debris with androids and mechanized robots running roughshod across the surface and heroes like Iron Man, the Sensational Spider-Man, Moon Knight, Invisible Woman and Hawkeye in the shadows.

It is, Bendis said, a reckoning of sorts with the Marvel universe "destroyed" and "half the heroes dead and half the world is dead."

Those that are left remnants of the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Hulks are living in the shadows, fighting back, Bendis said, and they aim to stop what happened from ever happening again.

"It's not an imaginary story. It's happening in Marvel continuity," he said of the tale, which has the first three issues out this month, followed by issues 4,5 and 6 in April, all illustrated by Bryan Hitch. The heroes "are going to break some rules with the space-time continuum."

The 10-issue story is illustrated by Bryan Hitch, Brandon Petersen and Carlos Pacheco, with a fourth artist that Marvel is keeping secret.

Tom Brevoort, senior vice president for publishing at Marvel and editor for "Age of Ultron," called the series one that will leave readers confused and, possibly, upset, too.

"Part of the ethos we're trying to adopt, as part of Marvel Now, is the idea that really, anything can happen and the sky is the limit," he said. "'Age of Ultron' is the exemplar of that. It's supposed to make people feel edgy and uncomfortable."

___

Moore reported from Philadelphia. Follow him at www.twitter.com/mattmooreap.

___

Marvel Entertainment is owned by The Walt Disney Co.

___

Online:

http://www.marvel.com

Read More

The Pentagon's newest military honor, symbolized by a two-inch bronze medallion, has sparked fierce debate over the nation's growing corps of drone pilots and cyberwarriors and how to commend their service, which happens far from an actual battlefield.

The Distinguished Warfare Medal, approved by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta last month, is the military's first new combat-related medal in nearly 70 years. It is intended to recognize extraordinary contributions to combat operations by a service member from afar and will rank as the eighth highest individual award behind the Medal of Honor.

But placement of the new medal in ahead of the Bronze Star and Purple Heart, which are given for valor in the line of fire, has created significant stir.

Critics have panned it as the "Chair-borne Medal," "the Nintendo Medal," "Distant Warfare Medal" and "the Purple Buttocks," alluding to fact that computer-based warriors do their work from a chair, among other names.

Top veterans groups and a rare bipartisan alliance on Capitol Hill are intensely lobbying the Pentagon and President Obama to downgrade the award.

"We are supportive of recognizing and rewarding such extraordinary service, but in the absence of the service member exposing him or herself to imminent mortal danger, we cannot support the DWM taking precedence above the Bronze Star and Purple Heart," a bipartisan group of 48 lawmakers wrote new Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Monday.

"Possibility of death or grievous bodily harm" are key factors that should elevate recipients of those awards above others who didn't face those risks, the group wrote.

The letter was penned by 34 Republicans and 14 Democrats, including Republican Reps. Joe Wilson of South Carolina and Darrell Isa of California and Democratic Reps. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Susan Davis of California.

Officials with the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars said they have already been pressing the administration to downgrade the award, saying that bestowing a higher-ranked medal to service members who fought from "behind a desk" is disrespectful to those serving in harm's way.

So far the administration has shown no sign of backing down.

Last month, in one of his final public events before retiring, Secretary Panetta hailed creation of the new medal as a reflection of an evolution in modern warfare and of the growing importance of the drones and cyberwarfare strategies.

"The medal provides distinct, department-wide recognition for the extraordinary achievements that directly impact on combat operations, but that do not involve acts of valor or physical risk that combat entails," Panetta said.

"I've always felt - having seen the great work that they do, day in and day out - that those who performed in an outstanding manner should be recognized," he said. "Unfortunately, medals that they otherwise might be eligible for simply did not recognize that kind of contribution."

A White House official declined to comment on the criticism. Obama, who has significantly increased drone warfare during his administration, on Tuesday awarded two purple hearts to wounded service members at Walter Reed military medical center in Washington.

Also Read

Read More

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - If you were hoping to watch Tom Cruise's legal battle against "In Touch" and "Life & Style" publishers Bauer Publishing Company play out in public, you're out of luck.

Cruise's lawsuit against Bauer has been moved to private mediation, according to papers filed in U.S. District Court in Central California on Friday.

The move was expected; a motion filed last month indicated that the case would move to private mediation if the suit wasn't settled 45 days prior to the final pretrial conference. And judging from comments issued by Cruise's attorney Bert Fields since the suit was filed, the "Top Gun" actor doesn't seem to be much in a settling mood on this one.

Cruise filed his $50 million defamation lawsuit against Bauer in October, claiming that Life & Style and In Touch said he had abandoned his daughter, Suri, following his split from wife Katie Holmes.

Fields has adamantly denied the tabloids' reports, calling them "a disgusting, vicious lie." He's also characterized Bauer as "serial defamers."

Bauer has countered that its claims about Cruise are "substantially true."

As reported last month by TheWrap, Cruise's legal team said that it expected to seek discovery relating to Bauer's alleged "history of bigotry and hatred toward minority religious groups and their members" - presumably, in reference to Cruise's membership in the Church of Scientology.

Attorneys for Bauer said that they would likely seek discovery for the "role, if any, that Plaintiff's membership in the Church of Scientology played in his decisions regarding his visitation and communications with Suri Cruise after his separation and divorce."

Read More

LONDON (Reuters) - The wife of Britain's Prince William, the Duchess of Cambridge, might have accidentally revealed the sex of her unborn child during a conversation with a well-wisher, hinting that the future monarch could be a girl.

When presented with a white teddy bear on a trip to Grimsby in northern England, a woman in the crowd said Kate appeared to hint that she was expecting a daughter.

"I distinctly heard Kate say: 'Thank you, I will take that for my d...'" Sandra Cook, who was standing next to the woman who presented Kate with the toy, was widely quoted as saying.

"Then she stopped and corrected herself to say... 'for my baby'," Cook said.

The slip provoked front page coverage in the British media with intense speculation on whether Kate is carrying a future queen.

William, whose father is heir to the throne Prince Charles, married Kate in April 2011, and the couple's movements attract huge interest around the world.

A spokeswoman for William's office said they had no comment on reports about the baby, due to be born in July.

Britain and other Commonwealth countries which have Queen Elizabeth as their monarch have agreed to change the rules of royal succession so that males would no longer have precedence as heir to the throne.

(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Michael Holden; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Read More