World

BEIJING -- The call came in at 3:19 p.m., from a cell phone in Beijing.

“This is Gary, Gary Locke,” the ambassador said.

I wasn’t expecting the call, and I fumbled around to see if I had a notebook and pen anywhere near at hand. 

For days, reporters trying to get any information out of the U.S. Embassy on the status of dissident Chen Guangcheng had been met only with a wall of silence. Maybe, I thought, the Chinese-born U.S. ambassador was finally willing to share some tidbits on the whereabouts of the man who was currently China’s most famous activist, the blind lawyer jailed and then confined to his house for years because of his outspoken advocacy on behalf of women forced to have abortions in support of China’s one-child policies.

What I was not prepared for was when Locke said, “I’m here with Chen Guangcheng.  Do you speak Chinese?  Hold on.” 

And then passed the phone over.

NEW DELHI — For hundreds of millions of cricket-crazy Indians, 39-year-old Sachin Tendulkar is a god. And on Thursday, this god was nominated as a member of parliament.

“God Has a New House”, declared India’s leading daily, The Times of India on Friday about the entry of the reigning superstar of world cricket into the Rajya Sabha, or the House of Elders, one of two Houses in the Indian parliament.

As fans celebrated the elevation of the soft spoken, curly haired “master blaster”, TV shows, twitterati and analysts asked one sobering question: Will this god clean up India’s politics? Or will the corrupt cesspool of Indian politics muddy the unblemished hero?

Which song will they pick?

Last time Jimmy Fallon had a presidential candidate on his late night TV show, his house band, the Roots, sparked outrage by performing Fishbone’s “Lyin’ A-- B----” for Republican White House hopeful Michele Bachmann. Tonight, “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” airs from the University of North Carolina with another candidate scheduled to drop in: President Obama.

Back in 2009, we profiled Roots leader Questlove to find out how he and the band decide on the walk-on tunes they perform for each guest. But which song they’ll pick tonight is anyone’s guess. Will Roots frontman Black Thought tip his fedora to Obama’s crooning abilities with “Let’s Stay Together?” Will the band pick a tune from the president’s campaign mix on Spotify? The folks over at Vulture have some suggestions, too. But after the outrage over that Fishbone tune, our money’s on the safest of safe bets: “Hail to the Chief.”

“Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” airs Tuesday night — technically Wednesday morning — at 12:35 a.m. on NBC.

A team of British journalists made a hasty exit from Bahrain Sunday, after police discovered they were in the country on a tourist visa, chased them down and deported them, the team’s TV station reported.

Jonathan Miller, of Channel Four News, and his crew were denied journalism visas by Bahrain, Channel Four News reported, but the group continued to film protests without official accreditation. The 14-month-old uprising in Bahrain had heated up before the Formula One Grand Prix race.

George Zimmerman was in court Thursday asking a Florida judge to be let out of jail on bail while he awaits trial for the killing of Trayvon Martin.

After testimony from his family members, Zimmerman took the stand and apologized to Martin’s parents, who were in present in court.