Tatum O’Neal arrested in drug bust

Associated Press

June 2, 2008 at 5:13 AM EDT

NEW YORK — Police say Oscar-winning actress Tatum O’Neal has been arrested for buying crack cocaine on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

Police say the 44-year-old actress was seen making the illicit purchase on Clinton Street at about 7:30 p.m. ET Sunday. She is charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance.

O’Neal appears regularly on the cable television series Rescue Me and was the youngest person to win an Oscar for her role in 1973’s Paper Moon.

She chronicled her struggles with addiction in her memoir, A Paper Life.

Police could not say whether she had an attorney. Messages left for a publicist were not immediately returned.

Shuttle astronauts perform cursory wing inspection

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Lacking the proper laser tools, shuttle Discovery’s astronauts performed a cursory wing inspection as they zoomed ever closer to the international space station.

The astronauts used their ship’s 50-foot robot arm Sunday to beam down camera images of the upper edges of the wings so engineers back on Earth could check for any evidence of launch damage. Left unexamined were the lower edges of the wings and the nose cap, also particularly vulnerable hot spots during re-entry.

Astronaut Karen Nyberg, who helped operate the robot arm, said it was “just a quick inspection, as much as we could with what we have.”

The astronauts’ laser-tipped inspection boom is at the space station, left there by the previous shuttle crew in March. They’ll retrieve it after they arrive at the orbiting outpost on Monday and perform a full survey once they depart.Undergoing MyBlogLog Verification

Search for crashed chopper in China quake zone continues

Beijing (PTI): Hundreds of troops on Monday continued to search for survivors of a military helicopter that crashed with 19 people on board in the mountainous region of the devastating earthquake-battered disaster zone in China.

The Russian Mi-171 chopper ferrying a crew of five and 14 people injured in the 8-magnitude quake of May 12 crashed on Saturday in heavy fog and turbulence during a relief work mission near Yingxiu township of Wenchuan county in the quake-shattered Sichuan province.

Two rescue helicopters conducted several rounds of search while the land troops had been continuously hunting for survivors, state-run Xinhua news agency said.

The search mission was “really arduous” as the crash site was among the canyons surrounded by high mountains, the agency said, quoting the military sources.

More than 2,300 soldiers had been deployed for search and rescue operations, Xinhua said, while the state-run China Daily said over 4,000 military personnel were involved in it.

The five-member crew was on their 64th mission on Saturday and had earlier transferred relief materials, quake relief workers and victims since the temblor struck Sichuan, it said.

Tropical storm Arthur soaks Yucatan, loses steam

AMBERGIS CAYE, Belize (AP) — Tropical Storm Arthur weakened to a dissipating depression Sunday after soaking the Yucatan Peninsula. But heavy rains still threatened to cause dangerous flooding and mudslides in Mexico, Belize and Guatemala.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami warned that remnants of the first named storm of the 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season could rain a total of 5 inches to 10 inches (12 to 25 centimeters) across portions of Belize, Guatemala and southeastern Mexico, with isolated rainfall up to 15 inches (38 centimeters) possible.

At 11 p.m. EDT, the center of the dissipating storm was located inland near the northwestern border of Guatemala and Mexico, about 95 miles south-southeast of Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico.

It was moving southwest at about 6 mph (10 kph). Maximum sustained winds were near 30 mph (50 kph).

Large Fire Devours Movie Set And Video Vault At Universal Studios

One of Hollywood’s largest movie studios starred in a disastrous sequel Sunday as a fire ripped through a lot at Universal Studios, destroying a set from “Back to the Future,” a King Kong exhibit and a streetscape seen frequently in movies and TV shows.

It was the second fire at the historic site in nearly two decades, levelling facades, hollowing out buildings and creating the kind of catastrophe filmmakers relish re-creating. This time around, thousands of videos chronicling Universal’s movie and TV shows were destroyed in the blaze.

But Universal officials said that they were thankful no one was seriously injured at the theme park and that the damaged footage can be replaced.

“We have duplicates of everything,” said Ron Meyer, NBC Universal president and chief operating officer. “Nothing is lost forever.”

Nepal back to work after republic, palace confused

By Gopal Sharma

KATHMANDU (Reuters) – Nepal went back to work on Sunday as government offices and schools opened for the first time since the Himalayan nation ended its centuries-old monarchy and became a republic.

A special assembly that voted on the monarchy’s fate on Wednesday gave dethroned King Gyanendra 15 days to vacate the imposing Narayanhity royal palace, a prime location in the heart of the national capital.

The government declared a three-day national holiday to mark the birth of Nepal as a republic, a crucial condition set by Maoist former rebels in a 2006 peace deal that ended their decade-long civil war which caused more than 13,000 deaths.