LOS ANGELES, Aug 28  Robin Williams’ biography is officially in the works, says publisher Henry Holt.
The biography, which will feature “the definitive, comprehensive account of Williams’ life”, will be written by New York Times writer Dave Itzkoff.
So far, there is no info regarding the title or release date, reported Ace Showbiz.
“Robin Williams was a cultural hero of mine. In the encounters and interactions I was able to share with him, he was always gentle and generous, humane and thoughtful and hilarious,” Itzkoff said in a statement.
Itzkoff wrote Williams’ obituary and his profile for the newspaper in 2009.
Williams committed suicide on August 11. His family said that the Oscar-winning actor, who took part in “Mrs Doubtfire”, “Good Will Hunting”, “Dead Poets Society” and “Good Morning, Vietnam” among others, had been battling depression and Parkinson’s Disease prior to his passing at the age of 63. PTI)

ANKARA, Aug 28:
Turkey’s outgoing Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is to be sworn in as president today to extend his more than decade-long domination of the country.
Erdogan was due to take his oath of office at 1100 GMT (1630 IST) in Ankara and usher in a new era for Turkey, where he is expected to push for a new constitution and seek to further transform the country with development projects.
Taking over Erdogan’s post of prime minister is Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, a long standing ally who is expected to do little to challenge the Turkish number one.
Heads of state from a dozen nations in Eastern Europe, Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East will attend the ceremony, including Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko, the Anatolia news agency reported.
But leaders of top Western states will be conspicuous by their absence in a possible sign of suspicion towards Erdogan, who has been accused of authoritarian tendencies. The United States is only sending its charge d’affaires in Ankara.
Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian, whose country has no diplomatic ties with its giant neighbour, is expected to attend the ceremony.
Erdogan, who became prime minister in 2003, won presidential elections on August 10 against a weak opposition, which accuses him of Islamising tendencies but remains in disarray.
A man clearly with his eye on history, Erdogan during his five-year presidential term will have ruled Turkey longer than its modern founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who established the republic out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.
He can serve two mandates and so could stay in power until 2024, which would allow him to see in the 100th anniversary of modern Turkey in 2023 and portray himself as a historic figure rivalling Ataturk.
Davutoglu was confirmed as party leader at a vast meeting of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) at which both men vowed there would be no change in policy, despite the changeover.
“Names have no importance. Names change today but our essence, our mission, our spirits, our goals and ideals remain in place,” Erdogan told the meeting.
Erdogan, who has two sons and two daughters, described the party he helped found as his “fifth child”, but said the “farewell time” had come.
Under Turkish law, the president should sever all ties with political parties — but Erdogan said the party was not just about one person.
“The AKP will never be a one-man party. It is a party of principles,” he said. (AGENCIES)

LOS ANGELES, Aug 28:  Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez were pictured together while dinning at a post restaurant in New Hamburg, Ontario.
The on-and-off couple have rekindled their romance, reported E!Online.
“His dad lives around here and he has come through here about three times this year.
“Selena came to the counter with the bodyguards and Justin went into the bathroom. They came in and ordered a bunch of food and drinks. They ordered paninis and crispy chicken sandwiches and donuts. They had bodyguards with them so some of the food may have been for them too,” an onlooker said. (PTI)

LONDON, Aug 28:  ‘Moone Boy’ actor Chris O’Dowd has revealed that he and wife Dawn O’Porter are expecting their first child.
The 34-year-old actor made the announcement in a video for his ALS Ice bucket challenge, reported Us magazine.
“I’d like to nominate Baby O’Porter,” the 34-year-old said, before the camera pans to a heavily pregnant O’Porter.
She then pours a small glass of water on her baby bump, to which O’Dowd said, “So brave!”
The couple have been married since 2012 and indicated that they wanted to start a family last year.
Hayden Panettiere recently used the challenge to also announce her pregnancy. (PTI)

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 28:  Passengers waiting to board an aircraft here were left standing out on the tarmac for four hours after an agitated passenger uttered the word “bomb”.
A passenger, while boarding a Malindo Air flight OD1158 to Penang on Tuesday, reportedly got tired of waiting in queue for his boarding pass to be checked at the entrance of the plane and said, “Why need to check? I have no bomb.”
The word “bomb” sparked a security threat as the airline was forced to evacuate the 37 passengers off the plane, tow it to an isolation area and have a bomb disposal squad turn it upside down for explosives.
The passengers were left standing out on the tarmac from 4pm to 8pm, while police searched them one by one, media reports here said.
“This is a sensitive word, hence we had to deploy a K9 and bomb unit to evaluate the threat,” police said.
ACP Azmi said all passengers were taken off the aircraft while the plane was towed to an isolation area on the runway.
He said investigations revealed that the supposed “bomb threat” was nothing more than just the careless words of an agitated passenger, and that police gave the green light for the passengers to take off at 7.30pm.
“Don’t say words like bomb on a plane,” he warned. (PTI)

WASHINGTON, Aug 28:  Fighter jets were scrambled to escort a jetliner as it turned back during a flight from Canada to Cuba because of two drunken, unruly passengers, the airline said.
The women drank a lot of duty-free alcohol in the rest room, lit a cigarette, triggered the fire alarm, got into a fight and ended up making threats against the plane, said Janine Chapman, marketing director of the airline Sunwing.
The threat against the aircraft “was considered non-credible given their condition,” she said in an email.
The plane returned to Toronto and the women were taken into custody, she wrote.
The passengers were provided with a different plane and the airline apologised. It had endured a similar incident a month ago.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command had scrambled two CF-18 fighter jets out of Quebec to escort Sunwing Flight 656 back to Toronto in yesterday’s incident, a spokeswoman said.
In late July a Sunwing plane full of vacationers headed for Panama had to return to Toronto, escorted by two US F-16s, because of threats from a passenger.
Social media reports said that in the new incident the two women were apparently in their 20s.
“Once the aircraft was safely on the ground, the Canadian fighters returned to their home base,” a NORAD statement added.
NORAD is the joint Canadian and American command in charge of maritime warning, aerospace warning and aerospace control for the neighboring nations. (AGENCIES)

WASHINGTON, Aug 28:  The US is trying to determine if a second American fighting with the Islamic State group has been killed in Syria.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said yesterday that the US. Has no independent confirmation of reports of a second American killed while fighting with the militant group. “We’re looking into it,” she said.
NBC cited an anonymous member of the opposition Free Syrian Army as saying two Americans were killed in a battle last week with Islamic State fighters.
The US confirmed the death of one American, Douglas McAuthur McCain, who grew up outside Minneapolis in the town of New Hope and most recently lived in San Diego.
A relative, Kenneth McCain, told The Associated Press that the State Department called to tell his family that Douglas McCain had been killed in Syria. “We do not know if he was fighting anyone,” he said.
Investigators were aware that McCain was in Syria to fight with the militant group, said a US official who was not authorized to discuss by name an ongoing investigation and spoke only on condition of anonymity.
Surveillance flights have begun over Syria on the orders of President Barack Obama, a move that could pave the way for airstrikes against the Islamic State group. (AGENCIES)

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 28:  Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has strongly condemned the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), saying the group’s actions are against the teachings of the Prophet and run counter to the Islamic law.
“The actions of the Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria and Iraq run counter to our faith, our culture, and our common humanity,” Prime Minister Najib said.
ISIS is an al-Qaeda splinter group and it has seized hundreds of square miles in Iraq and Syria.
Al-Qaeda has distanced itself from the group, chiding it for its lack of teamwork in its aggressive, brutal expansion.
Najib said Muslims around the world had reacted in horror to reports of mass executions, killings of civilians and evidence of brutality.
“They (ISIS) are against the teachings of the Prophet, a man of peace and moderation; and against Islamic law, which prizes the protection of life above all. We deplore those responsible and call on the international community to act in concert to prevent further violence,” said the prime minister of the Muslim majority country.
His remarks came amidst reports of three Malaysian women joining the ISIS forces as “comfort women”.
“These women are believed to have offered themselves in sexual comfort roles to ISIS fighters,” The Malaysian Insider news portal reported, citing an unnamed intelligence official.
The official said one of the women had travelled to the Middle East in December last year. Another woman in her 40s is believed to have linked up with ISIS forces sometime in April.
The official said Malaysian women were not the only ones who were performing sexual jihad.
“Intelligence exchanged with other countries revealed that Sunni Muslim women from Australia and the United Kingdom had also joined up with ISIS,” the official said.
The intelligence official said British counterparts had revealed that more than 600 British Muslims are believed to be fighting for the ISIS. (PTI)