Twilight was the big winner at this year’s Teen Choice Awards taking 12 prizes including Choice Movie Actor Fantasy/Sci-Fi for Taylor Lautner and Choice Movie Chemistry for Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart.
The ceremony, held at the Gibson Amphitheatre in LA, was hosted by Katy Perry who had six costume changes during the evening including dressing up as a goth, a geek and a hippy.
Justin Bieber won four awards including Music Breakout Male Artist while Sandra Bullock took home three gongs and host Katie Perry won two.
Other winners included Ellen DeGeneres for Choice Comedian, David Beckham for Choice Male Athlete and Glee who won Choice TV comedy.
Actress Jane Lynch accepted their award saying:
“Thank you for this. We love what we do. And we love that you love it. So you keep raising your voice in song. You keep admitting with pride that you’re a Gleek. And we’ll keep singing. Thank you so much.”
The Teen Choice Awards had a record 85 million online votes this year. (AFP)
Flight attendant makes exit
A flight attendant furious with passengers who refused to follow his instructions told them off over the loudspeaker before pulling the chute to make his own dramatic personal emergency exit, police said.
The attendant, identified in the US media as Steven Slater, 39, was working a Jet Blue flight from Pittsburgh to New York that had just landed, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said.
Mr Slater told passengers to remain seated upon landing. But when a passenger started collecting his belongings from the overhead bin, disregarding the instructions, Mr Slater tried to stop him but was hit in the head by the baggage and became irate.
When Mr Slater “asked for an apology”, the passenger “instead cursed at him”, The New York Times reported. Mr Slater “got on the plane’s public address system and cursed out all aboard. Then he activated the inflatable evacuation slide at service exit R1, launched himself off the plane, an Embraer 190, ran to the employee parking lot and left the airport in a car he had parked there”.
His silver-screen-worthy escape was short-lived. Police arrested Mr Slater shortly after at his home nearby in Queens. (AFP)
Man struck with hammer
A young man was hit in the face with a hammer during a street robbery in south Belfast.
The 18-year-old was walking along Wellington Park Terrace when he was approached by a man who knocked him to the ground.
The attacker demanded money and threatened him with the hammer. When he could not find any, he hit the teenager with the weapon and then stole his iPod.
The incident happened at about 3 a.m. yesterday.
The attacker was in his late 20s with ginger hair, and was wearing a blue Londsdale jumper and blue jeans. (PA)
‘Haunted house’ actors attacked
Frightened visitors at a Taiwanese theme park have repeatedly attacked actors dressed in ghost costumes in a “haunted theatre” attraction, the company said yesterday.
The incidents have prompted Janfusun Amusement Park to grant leave of absence or transfer for actors working at Horrorwood, which features scenes from 10 classic horror movies, a company mouthpiece said.
A male employee in a zombie costume was slapped in the face by a man whose girlfriend had been scared out of her wits, she said.
The man later explained he wanted to find out whether the “ghost” was real or not.
A female visitor hit another male worker in the private parts with an umbrella, she said. (AFP)
Survivalist avoids camera disaster
Bear Grylls has told of how he was airlifted from a mountainside after badly injuring his leg while filming his new TV show – after a camera slammed into him.
The adventurer was surprised by a huge crocodile in Australia, navigated a shark-infested channel off Papua New Guinea and lost the ability to breathe while in free-fall at 30,000 feet during upcoming new episodes of Discovery’s Man Vs Wild – but his most heartstopping moment was the incident in the Canadian Rockies.
The enthusiastic survivalist had descended down a mountain, zipping down the snow on his backside, and stopped himself suddenly by using an ice pick. The camera following him didn’t stop, missing Mr Grylls’s head and shoulder by inches before hitting him in the leg. It didn’t break a bone, but came awfully close.
His first thought was: “Wow, I’m lucky.”
“It was a wake-up call,” he added. “You’ve just got to get it right every time. You live with danger a lot and you can get blase, and just can’t do that.”
“Zac Efron e-mailed the other day asking to do it,” revealed Mr Grylls, who went on a trek with Will Ferrell last year in Sweden. (PA)
A long, hot Ramadan
Muslims will begin fasting for an especially gruelling month of Ramadan this week amid sweltering heat and extremely long daylight hours.
Muslims observe the ninth month of the lunar Islamic calendar by abstaining from food, drink and sex from dawn until sunset during Ramadan.
It is expected to start today throughout much of the world or a day later, depending on the sighting of the crescent moon the night before.
Pregnant and menstruating women, the sick, travellers and prepubescent children are exempt from the fast, which is one of the five pillars of Islam.
Ramadan will begin amid scorching temperatures in the Middle East and elsewhere, with the first six months of this year being the warmest ever recorded.
Egypt, the largest Arab country whose 80 million population is mostly Muslim, will switch to winter time for the month. (AFP)