Dhaka, June 23 (UNB) - After Zero’s failure at the box office, there were rumours that Shah Rukh Khan will take over the silver screens once again with Rakesh Sharma’s biopic Saare Jahaan Se Accha. Later, he was also rumoured to have met Sanjay Leela Bhansali for his directorial project based on the life of Sahir Ludhianvi. But all the reports were put to rest by the man himself, reports The Indian Express. 

“I have no film with me right now. I am not working on any film. Usually what happens is when your one film is coming to an end, you begin work on your next film and I get involved within 3-4 months. But this time I am just not feeling like…My heart doesn’t allow me to..I just felt that I should rather take time out, watch films, listen to stories and read more books,” Shah Rukh told Filmfare.

“Even my kids are in their college stage…my daughter is going to college and my son is about to finish his studies. So I just want to spend more time with my family,” the actor added.

However, Shah Rukh is keeping himself busy with his production ventures. He is producing Bard of Blood for Netflix. Recently, he announced that he would be dubbing for Mufasa while his son Aryan Khan will be voicing Simba in Disney’s upcoming live-action version of The Lion King.

Dhaka, June 23 (UNB) - Heartbeat actor William Simons, who charmed Sunday evening viewers for nearly two decades as easygoing veteran PC Alf Ventress, has died aged 79, reports BBC.

Welsh-born Simons played the character in all 18 series of the 1960s-set show.

He also appeared in Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Crown Court and Last of the Summer Wine during his 60-year career.

His agent said: "He was a wonderful, kind, warm, witty, lovely human being and anyone who ever worked with him or knew him will be devastated."

Jason Durr, who appeared alongside Simons in Heartbeat paid tribute to the "lovely man".

Simons, who was born in Swansea, was already 51 when he landed the biggest role of his career, playing Alf Ventress when Heartbeat first landed on TV screens in 1992 as a prime-time vehicle for former EastEnders star and chart-topping singer Nick Berry.

Berry played a young London constable who moved north with his family and encountered Ventress as one of the colleagues who helped him build a new life while fighting crime in a rural setting.

The show, set in the fictional Yorkshire villages of Ashfordly and Aidensfield, attracted more than 13 million viewers and saw guest appearances by Gary Barlow, Charlotte Church, Lulu, and David Dickinson - and Yorkshire's legendary cricket umpire Dickie Bird.

Simons was very popular with viewers and his character continued to appear in the show as a civilian even after he retired from the force.

And when ITV launched a spin-off show called The Royal, he was asked to play Ventress in six episodes.

According to the Yorkshire Post, Simons enjoyed his role in Heartbeat so much that he bought a house in the village of Goathland, where much of the show's filming took place.

But he sold it 14 years later, explaining in an interview with the Daily Express that Goathland had become so popular with tourists drawn by the Heartbeat factor that "it was impossible to step outside without being recognised".

Changing Faces

As a teenage actor, Simons had suffered so badly from acne that he gave up his acting career for a few years and instead got a job as a stage manager.

So as soon as he became a major star on Heartbeat, he became a patron for the Changing Faces charity, which supports people with facial disfigurements.

Heartbeat was based on the Constable series of novels written by ex-policeman Peter N Walker, under the pseudonym Nicholas Rhea.

In an interview before his death in 2017, Walker said Simons had "created a totally believable character, just as I imagined him".

Dhaka, Jun 23 (UNB) - After Zero’s failure at the box office, there were rumours that Shah Rukh Khan will take over the silver screens once again with Rakesh Sharma’s biopic Saare Jahaan Se Accha. Later, he was also rumoured to have met Sanjay Leela Bhansali for his directorial project based on the life of Sahir Ludhianvi. But all the reports were put to rest by the man himself, reports the Indian Express. 

“I have no film with me right now. I am not working on any film. Usually what happens is when your one film is coming to an end, you begin work on your next film and I get involved within 3-4 months. But this time I am just not feeling like…My heart doesn’t allow me to..I just felt that I should rather take time out, watch films, listen to stories and read more books,” Shah Rukh told Filmfare.

“Even my kids are in their college stage…my daughter is going to college and my son is about to finish his studies. So I just want to spend more time with my family,” the actor added.

However, Shah Rukh is keeping himself busy with his production ventures. He is producing Bard of Blood for Netflix. Recently, he announced that he would be dubbing for Mufasa while his son Aryan Khan will be voicing Simba in Disney’s upcoming live-action version of The Lion King.
 

Los Angeles, Jun 23 (AP/UNB) — Academy Award-winning actor Geena Davis says achieving gender parity on screen is simple, and it could happen overnight.

"Just go through (the script) and cross out a bunch of male first names and put female first names. That's all you have to do," Davis told the audience during a panel Saturday at AT&T's SHAPE media conference in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank.

Davis joined fellow actor Mayim Bialik on stage at the conference to discuss how gender parity in media can create social change. The conversation revolved around the need for diversity on screen to break stereotypes and encourage young people to pursue careers they might otherwise have felt were off limits to them.

"Of course, why wouldn't we need to see people who are like us to be able to imagine what we could become?" Bialik said.

The panel was born from a study conducted by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media that found women felt encouraged to pursue scientific, medical and engineering (STEM) careers because of "X-Files" character Dana Scully, an FBI agent and medical doctor. Of the women surveyed in the study, 63 percent of those working in a STEM field said Scully served as a role model for them growing up.

Bialik, who also holds a doctorate in neuroscience and recently wrapped her time playing the role of neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler on "The Big Bang Theory," said seeing characters like Scully on screen and having real-life mentors is crucial for young women to pursue careers in science, medicine and engineering.

"I was raised in a climate where if you didn't learn things as fast as the boys, it meant that it wasn't for you," Bialik said. It's important "to have a mentor, to have someone that you can see is living the life of a scientist and also has a social life — all the things that the lone scientist in the laboratory stereotype doesn't give us."

"You're seeing the full, complicated, amazing woman living life as a scientist," Bialik said of characters like Scully and Fowler. "That's what I needed as a young girl that wasn't there for me."

This doesn't just apply for gender, either. The panelists said that all forms of diversity on screen are necessary, pointing to films like "Hidden Figures," which is about the key role a group of African-American women played in the U.S. space program, as leading the way for more complex stories on people of any gender or race.

"As much as people think Hollywood is liberal and open-minded and progressive thinking, they're doing a worse job of reflecting society than the abysmal numbers in real life," Davis said. "If we show it, it will happen in real life."

Dhaka, Jun 23 (AP/UNB) - It remains the most widely used anesthetic in U.S. hospitals, but many patients still remember propofol as the drug that killed Michael Jackson.

Most are no longer afraid of it, doctors say, though many still ask if they will get "the Michael Jackson drug" before an operation. And most of them will.

Jackson died 10 years ago at his Los Angeles home after receiving a lethal dose of the drug intended for use only during surgery and other medical procedures — not for insomnia.

As Jackson rehearsed for his comeback tour, he struggled to sleep. Prosecutors said Jackson's personal doctor Conrad Murray gave the singer propofol, as he had many times before, then left him unattended. Murray, who maintains his innocence, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2011.

A look at the history and safety of propofol:

MILK OF AMNESIA

Jackson called propofol his "milk." It's a white, oily solution injected into a vein. It acts fast, in about 40 seconds, and wears off quickly too. Patients wake up with no hangover or nausea. They don't remember much, earning the drug its nickname "milk of amnesia."

Propofol was a noteworthy advance when it was launched in the late 1980s, but it almost didn't make it out of the lab. An early version caused allergic reactions.

Discoverer John B. Glen kept at it and found a better formula using soybean oil. Thirteen years after its discovery, propofol rapidly replaced sodium thiopental in most operating rooms. Up to 50 million U.S. patients receive propofol annually.

The World Health Organization deemed it an "essential medicine." Glen, who retired from the pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca, was honored with the prestigious Lasker medical research award last year.

HOW SAFE IS IT?

Because propofol lowers blood pressure and suppresses breathing, patients need to be monitored.

"It's quite safe in an anesthesiologist's hands," said Dr. Beverly Philip of the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

These days, patients aren't as afraid of going under, she said. "Now it's more of a matter of curiosity rather than being afraid for their own safety."

Dr. Steven Shafer of Stanford University, a propofol expert who testified at Murray's trial, endorses the appropriate use of propofol.

"Michael Jackson was killed by a reckless and incompetent physician," he said.

Police rarely encounter the drug. It's not a controlled substance under federal law.

There's little abuse in the general public. Almost all cases involve health care workers. They steal it at work to get a pleasant but dangerous high. At least 18 deaths were reported among medical professionals from 1992 to 2009.

WHAT'S NEW?

University of Utah psychiatrist Dr. Brian Mickey is studying propofol for depression in people who don't get relief from medications or psychotherapy. Other treatments may include brain stimulation such as electroconvulsive therapy, but that can have side effects such as confusion and memory loss.

Mickey and his colleagues published a preliminary study last year that tested a series of high doses of propofol in 10 patients with moderate to severe depression. Half improved and maintained better moods for three months.

Now the researchers are planning a larger study that will test propofol against a sedative called midazolam.

Mickey doesn't know how propofol may help depression, but said it may be triggering the brain to reorganize itself. It may be "coaxing the brain into getting unstuck from this bad, depressed state that it's in," he said.

The study was done in a hospital with an anesthesiologist giving propofol through an IV.

"Don't do this at home," Mickey said.