MEGAZINE

NEWS:

Unusual suspect

After responding to an alarm at a New Jersey bank during a holiday weekend, officers thought thay saw a human figure behind the closed blinds of the bank. When attempts to contact the "intruder" by telephone and megaphone for 90 minutes failes, armed police stormed the bank... but only found a life-sized cardboard cutout used for an advertising campaign.

PEOPLE:

Smith for president

Will Smith has staked his claim to play Barack Obama if a film about the president is ever made. He says that he is perfect for the role because he and Obama are both tall and, most importantly, have big ears. "That's the key" Smith says. "America loves ears, you know? Mickey MOuse started it; Goody and Dumbo followed behind. And America just loves the ears. Smith also said that he would wait until Obama "writes the end of the story" befoe playing the role.


BOOKS:

There have been postapocalyptic, or end-of-the-world, novels before. In 1826 Mary Shelley published The Las Man, in which humanity is destroyed by a plague. More recent writers such as Nevil Shute, Stephen King and Margaret Atwood and have imagined a world ravaged by nuclear war, a flu pandemic and a genetically-modified virus. But until McCarthy's The Road, no sorious novel had explored the consequences of total ecological collapse.