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Ellen wins humour prize

WASHINGTON -- Some of America's top comedians hailed Ellen DeGeneres as a trailblazer Monday night as she received the highest U.S. humour prize.

The Kennedy Center is awarding DeGeneres the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. The show will be broadcast Oct. 30 on Public Broadcasting Service stations.

On the red carpet before the show, DeGeneres said she doesn't see herself as political with her comedy, even though she's been a trailblazer.

"I just want to make people happy and make people laugh," she said.

Modern native warrior dies

RUSSELL Means, the self-styled modern native warrior who forced international attention on the plight of Native Americans for more than four decades, first through militant protest and later through the power of his own celebrity, died Monday at his home on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He was 72.

He had complications from lung cancer, said his wife, Pearl Daniel Means. Means had inoperable esophageal cancer diagnosed last year.

Means was a member of the Oglala Sioux tribe and emerged from an early life of drugs and poverty to become one of the most famous American Indians since Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.

Scientists convicted

L'AQUILA, Italy -- In a verdict that sent shock waves through the scientific community, an Italian court convicted seven experts of manslaughter on Monday for failing to adequately warn residents of the risk before an earthquake struck central Italy in 2009, killing more than 300 people.

The defendants, all prominent scientists or geological and disaster experts, were sentenced to six years in prison.

Earthquake experts worldwide decried the trial as ridiculous, contending there was no way of knowing a flurry of tremors would lead to a deadly quake.

"It's a sad day for science," said seismologist Susan Hough, of the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena, Calif.

-- from the news services

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 23, 2012 A9

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