LOS ANGELES - Patrick Swayze, the hunky actor who danced his way into moviegoers' hearts with "Dirty Dancing" and then broke them with "Ghost," died Monday after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 57.
"Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of his illness for the last 20 months," said a statement released Monday evening by his publicist, Annett Wolf. Swayze died in Los Angeles, Wolf said, but declined to give further details.
Fans of the actor were saddened to learn in March 2008 that Swayze was suffering from a particularly deadly form of cancer. He kept working despite the diagnosis, putting together a memoir with his wife and shooting "The Beast," an A&E drama series for which he had already made the pilot.
Swayze said he opted not to use painkilling drugs while making "The Beast" because they would have taken the edge off his performance. The show drew a respectable 1.3 million viewers when the 13 episodes ran in 2009, but A&E said it had reluctantly decided not to renew it for a second season.
When he first went public with the illness, some reports gave him only weeks to live, but his doctor said his situation was "considerably more optimistic" than that. Swayze acknowledged that time might be running out given the grim nature of the disease.
"I'd say five years is pretty wishful thinking," Swayze told ABC's Barbara Walters in early 2009. "Two years seems likely if you're going to believe statistics. I want to last until they find a cure, which means I'd better get a fire under it."
C. Thomas Howell, who co-starred with Swayze in "The Outsiders," "Grandview U.S.A." and "Red Dawn", said: "I have always had a special place in my heart for Patrick. While I was fortunate enough to work with him in three films, it was our passion for horses that forged a friendship between us that I treasure to this day. Not only did we lose a fine actor today, I lost my older 'Outsiders' brother."
Other celebrities used Twitter to express condolences, and "Dirty Dancing" was the top trending topic for a while Monday night, trailed by several other Swayze films.
Ashton Kutcher — whose wife, Demi Moore, co-starred with Swayze in "Ghost" — wrote: "RIP P Swayze." Kutcher also linked to a YouTube clip of the actor poking fun at himself in a classic "Saturday Night Live" sketch, in which he played a wannabe Chippendales dancer alongside the corpulent — and frighteningly shirtless — Chris Farley.
And Larry King wrote: "Patrick Swayze was a wonderful actor & a terrific guy. He put his heart in everything. He was an extraordinary fighter in his battle w Cancer." King added that he'd do a tribute to Swayze on his CNN program Tuesday night.
A t...

[ Full reading ]

MANILA,Philippines -
Sen. Panfilo Lacson made good yesterday his threat to expose former President Joseph Estrada’s “bad side” as he recited in a privilege speech a litany of the deposed leader’s alleged excesses and criminal activities, including smuggling and the shakedown of a businessman.
“God save the Philippines from Joseph Ejercito Estrada,” Lacson said at the end of his speech titled “Ang dalawang mukha ng sining (The two faces of art).”
Lacson, in his speech, narrated how Estrada enriched himself while in power from 1998 to 2001.
Lacson accused Estrada of involvement in the illegal numbers game jueteng, extortion and intimidation of businessmen, and of ordering the release of big shipments of smuggled dressed chicken and rice from the Bureau of Customs.
Behind Estrada’s pro-poor posture was a man lusting for power and wealth, Lacson said.
Behind a pro-poor Joseph Estrada who is well-loved by the masses lie transactions fraught with abuses and achieved through the use of the power of the presidency to enrich himself, Lacson, the chief of the Philippine National Police during the Estrada administration, said in Filipino.
Lacson said he had his first encounter with Estrada’s greed for power when the latter tried to convince him to go easy on jueteng.
“Jueteng is just one illustrative insight into the character of Mr. Estrada as a government official, and as President of the country,” Lacson said.
“There were other sinister behavioral patterns that must be told to the Filipino people,” he said.
Lacson first worked with Estrada in an anti-crime task force when he was still vice president.
In August 1998, Lacson said he learned that one of the country’s prominent businessmen, Alfonso Yuchengco, was forced to sign conveyance of his 7.75 percent shares with Philippine Telecommunications Investment Corp. (PTIC), equivalent to 18,720 shares, to Metro Pacific under its president Manuel V. Pangilinan.
Lacson said the PTIC holdings corresponded to 2,017,650 common shares of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. or PLDT.
“Mr. Yuchengco, I also learned later, was pressed to sign a waiver of his right of first refusal over the PTIC shares of the Cojuangco-Meer group,” Lacson said.
Years later, Lacson said he learned of Estrada’s order for the police to harass Yuchengco’s son Tito with threats of arrest on trumped up drug charges to force his father to sell his PTIC shares. Lacson said this shakedown happened while Estrada was barely two months in office.
“This harassment of the young man was accomplished through deliberate and obvious physical surveillance,” he said. “I only learned that the Yuchengco family had long harbored this grudge against me because they thought that Estrada directed me to conduct this harassment to force them to sell their shares of stocks with PLDT,...

[ Full reading ]

GMA　ONLINE　NEWS