LOS ANGELES, July 21:  Veteran singer Brian Wilson is working with Lana Del Rey and Zooey Deschanel on new songs which he had originally written to record with The Beach Boys.
The 72-year-old legendary Beach Boys singer and composer had started writing material to record with the group before he and fellow founding member Al Jardine were ousted in 2012 by Mike Love, so he has turned to other vocalists to help him complete the songs, reported Rolling Stone magazine.
“It was a shock. I was so proud of how the Boys were singing. Then it just ended. I was writing for the Boys, so I thought, ‘What am I gonna do without them?’,” Wilson said.
Singers recruited by Wilson also include Kacey Musgraves, Frank Ocean and Fun’s Nate Ruess, whom he says ‘sounds a little like my brother Carl.’
The centrepiece of the album is set to be the track featuring Lana, which is about the way The Beach Boys broke up. (PTI)

LOS ANGELES, July 21:  Former ‘Scrubs’ actor Zach Braff has revealed the grammatically incorrect title of his next film, ‘Wish I Was Here’, was on a purpose as the movie’s story is about a father who knows less than his children and he learns from them.
Braff, 39, said though the title should have been ‘Wish I Were There’, they kept it incorrect as it suits the plot of the crowd-funded film, reported Ace showbiz.
“The whole film is about a dad who is not an academic trying to teach his kids, and his kids know more than he does,” he said.
“His daughter is constantly correcting him when he says who instead of whom, and so the title, although it has another meaning, we grammatically did it incorrect on purpose, because it is about a father who is actually learning from his children who are brighter than he is,” Braff added.
Braff has directed, co-written the film with his brother Adam J Braff, and played the main role in it.
The movie is about a struggling actor, father, and husband
trying to find the purpose of his life at the age of 35. He opts for homeschooling his two children after no longer being able to pay for private school. (PTI)

TRIPOLI, Jul 21:  At least 47 people have been killed in fighting between rival militias for control of Libya’s main airport, the health ministry has said.
Another 120 people were injured in the fighting which began on July 13, according to the figures for the week until Saturday, which do not take into account possible victims from violent clashes yesterday. (AGENCIES)

MANAGUA (Nicaragua), July 21: Unidentified gunmen staged separate attacks on two buses carrying supporters of Nicaragua’s governing party home after a celebration of the Central American country’s 1979 revolution, killing five people and wounding 24, local authorities have said.
The national police and army provided no information on either attack reported in northern Nicaragua, and there was no indication of who staged the assaults.
Matagalpa Mayor Zadrach Zeledon, a member of the governing Sandinista National Liberation Front, told Channel 4 that the worst attack happened on the Pan American Highway around 1 am yesterday in a community known as Las Calabazas. Two men and two women died from bullet wounds, he said.
The other attack was reported north of Matagalpa on a road between the towns of San Ramon and El Jobo. One man was reported killed there.
The government supporters were heading home after Saturday’s commemoration of the ouster of the Somoza dictatorship on July 19, 1979.
Leaders of the political opposition as well as Roman Catholic bishops in Nicaragua’s north have said there are groups of people who have taken up arms against the government of President Manuel Ortega. Both the police and military have denied those claims, saying crime gangs are behind violence in the region. (AGENCIES)

VIENNA, July 21:  Iran has turned all of its enriched uranium closest to the level needed to make nuclear arms into more harmless forms, the United Nations’ nuclear agency has said.
The move was expected. Tehran had committed to convert or dilute its 20-per cent enriched stockpile under an agreement with six powers last November that froze its atomic programs pending negotiations on a comprehensive deal. Those talks were extended Saturday to Nov 24.
Still, the development was noteworthy in reflecting Iran’s desire not to derail the diplomatic process with the six countries the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.
Iran had more than 200 kilograms (over 250 pounds) of 20 per cent enriched uranium when the preliminary agreement was reached. That’s nearly enough for one warhead.
A report from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency obtained by The Associated Press yesterday said that all has now been converted or diluted. The report said Iran was observing all of its other commitments as well.
At 20 per cent, enriched uranium can be converted quickly to arm a nuclear weapon. Iran denies wanting such arms.
Tehran is keen to seal a deal that would end nuclear-related sanctions on its economy, but is resisting a US-led drive to put stiff, long-term constraints on atomic activities that have both peaceful and weapons-related applications.
The main dispute is over uranium enrichment, which can make both reactor fuel and the fissile core of nuclear warheads.
Up to last week Tehran had demanded that it be allowed to expand its enrichment program over the next eight years to a level that would need about 190,000 current-model enriching centrifuges.
It now has about 20,000 centrifuges, with half of them operating. Iranian officials have recently signaled they are ready to freeze that number for now. But US Secretary of State John Kerry said last week it was “crystal clear” that even 10,000 are too many.
Diplomats say Washington wants no more than 2,000 of the machines. (AGENCIES)

SEOUL, July 21:  North Korea’s top military body today defended its recent missile tests as a legitimate exercise in self-defence, and said South Korean and US charges of provocation were malicious and hypocritical.
The North has conducted half-a-dozen missile, rocket and heavy artillery tests over the past month, earning a verbal slap on the wrist from the UN Security Council.
The launches included a number of ballistic missile tests, which North Korea is banned from conducting under existing UN resolutions.
The National Defence Commission (NDC) said condemnation of the tests was absurd given the large-scale military drills the South Korean and US forces conduct every year south of the border.
The military allies carried out a joint naval exercise last week, and a separate two-day “search and rescue” maritime drill kicked off today with Japan also participating.
The response of Seoul and Washington was akin to a burglar rudely criticising the owner of the house he is trying to rob, an NDC spokesman said in a statement carried on the North’s official KCNA news agency.
“The real provocations and threats made to the Korean peninsula are the whole gamut of political and military moves being pushed forward by the US,” the spokesman said, citing the annual joint drills in South Korea.
“The more desperately the US and South Korean authorities resort to gangster-like hostile acts, the more deadly retaliatory actions they will face,” the spokesman said, warning that any North Korean response would come “like a bolt from the blue”.
Pyongyang has been playing hawk and dove in recent weeks, mixing its tests with peace gestures that have been largely dismissed by Seoul.
The two Koreas are currently trying to sort out logistics for the North’s participation in the Asian Games, which begin in September in the South Korean city of Incheon.
Talks last week broke down with the North accusing the South of duplicity and arrogance, and threatening to boycott the event.
Despite the failure of the talks, North Korean state media yesterday quoted leader Kim Jung-Un voicing “great expectations” for the North’s athletes at the Asiad. (AGENCIES)