Friday, August 23, 2013
newsmakers
Injured tourist’s kin thank Dr. Oz, others
NEW YORK
The parents of a British tourist who was injured when a New York City taxi jumped a curb say they are grateful for the help of bystanders who included TV’s “Dr. Oz.”
Jason and Sonia Green said in a statement Thursday they want to thank New Yorkers for their support after the accident. Sian Green lost a leg when she was struck by the taxi Tuesday.
Quick-thinking good Samaritans including a plumber, a nurse and television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz rushed to her aid. Plumber David Justino immediately applied a tourniquet made from a belt.
Former ‘Today’ news anchor Lew Wood dies
LOS ANGELES
Lew Wood, who marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., covered John F. Kennedy’s assassination and was a news anchor for NBC’s “Today” show during a distinguished broadcast career that began with the dawn of television, has died at age 84.
Wood, who had been in declining health, died of kidney failure Wednesday at a hospice in Riverside County, his daughter Brigitte Wood told The Associated Press.
He was perhaps best known as “Today’s” third news anchor, succeeding Frank Blair in 1975. Although Blair had the job for 22 years, Wood left after just a year, going into public relations. He stayed in that field until retiring in 2006.
Before taking the “Today” job, he had anchored the news for WNBC in New York and worked as a correspondent for CBS.
Wentworth Miller rejects Russian invite
LOS ANGELES
Wentworth Miller is declining an invitation to be an honored guest at a film festival in Russia because he is gay.
The 41-year-old actor said in a letter Wednesday to organizers of the St. Petersburg International Film Festival that he is “deeply troubled” by the attitudes toward and treatment of gay people by the Russian government, which passed a law in June against representations of “nontraditional sexual relations.”
The star of TV’s “Prison Break” series says he’s declining the invitation because he’s gay and refuses to join a celebration in a country where he says gay people are “systematically denied their basic right to live and love openly.”
Associated Press