Pope pulls plug on Crowe

There was speculation last week that Pope Francis had reportedly pulled the plug on a potential chat with Noah star Russell Crowe at the Vatican for fear of creating a media circus. The approachable pontiff had tentatively agreed to sit down with the Australian actor on Wednesday around 8:30 am, Variety reported. Crowe, 49, had personally reached out to the pope last month via Twitter, offering to let him view the biblical big screen epic before the multitudes, in the hope he'd give the film his blessing. Vatican officials had tentatively agreed to a meeting, but the pope then reconsidered, worried about the media frenzy it would create.

Iran stoning sentence commuted

An Iranian woman sentenced to die by stoning for adultery and later given a 10-year jail term instead has been allowed to leave prison. A judiciary spokesman told Reuters that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani had been given "a leave" from prison several weeks ago for good behavior. He said, without elaborating, that the decision was a sign of "our religion's leniency towards women". There was no immediate word on whether the release was permanent or whether it was subject to some form of probation. Mother-of-two Ashtiani was convicted of adultery and complicity in the murder of her husband in 2005. A court sentenced Ashtiani to be stoned in 2006 but the sentence was suspended in 2010 in the face of international pressure on Teheran. Her sentence was then reduced to 10 years, for being an accessory to her husband's murder.

Moviegoer killed over argument

A man who argued with two other moviegoers about the ending of a film in the United States last week was struck outside the cinema by a truck driven by his adversaries and killed, the Harris County Sheriff's Office said on Monday. The men's discussion of the film, believed to be the Ancient Greek-era battle-heavy action flick 300: Rise of an Empire, grew more heated as the three left the theater and went to the parking lot after the late Sunday evening film. Two of the men then got into a pickup truck. "The driver of the truck put the vehicle in reverse striking the victim and knocking him to the ground," the sheriff's office for Houston-area county said.

Agencies