News: Ad banned for using Photoshop to alter model

US bans Photoshopped mascara ad

The National Advertising Division in America has decided to ban an ad by Covergirl for their NatureLuxe Mousse Mascara because the model’s eyelashes in the ad were digitally extended and plumped up. The ad spruiked the merits of the mascara which it said could increase lash volume up to ‘2x’ but small fine print at the bottom of the ad declared the lashes in the shot were Photoshopped. It might be a landmark case for the US, but something similar has already happened in the UK. Earlier this year the UK Advertising Standards Authority pulled a Lancome ad featuring Julia Roberts because it was ‘misleading’. Her skin had, it found, been ‘excessively Photoshopped’.

Molly Meldrum opens his eyes

For the first time since he fell from a ladder which nearly killed him, Molly Meldrum has opened his eyes. Doctors at his Melbourne hospital reduced his sedation and directed him to open his eyes, if he could. His manager Mark Klemens said: “He did, slowly and deliberately. He is still critical, he is still in an induced coma, but this at least gives us something positive.”

Fourth Azaria Chamberlain inquest to begin soon

A fourth inquest into the death of Azaria Chamberlain will take place in February and consider a host of evidence that wasn’t available at the first trials in the 1980s. The SMH reports: In 1987, Justice Morling, after an exhaustive inquiry, said that a judge with full access to the facts as then revealed to the royal commission would have been obliged to instruct a jury to acquit.

He rejected virtually all the Crown scientific evidence and found a host of material, which had always been available, supporting the dingo attack hypothesis. It included dingo paw prints, canine hairs, drag marks, vegetation consistent with dragging through brush, and evidence from campers that they had heard a dingo growl.

Uncertainty as ’27-year-old’ Kim Jon-Un leads North Korea

No one quite knows how this one will pan out. Not even the best analysts have any idea what the leadership style of North Korea’s new leader will be like. They don’t even know his age except that he is about 27. South Korea put its frontline military on high alert last night after the death of North Korea’s ‘dear leader’ from a ‘great mental and physical strain’. North Korea reportedly fired a short range missile after the death was announced. Last night Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd and Acting Prime Minister Wayne Swan issued a joint statement, clearly aimed at China: “It is vital that all those with influence on Pyongyang [the North Korean capital] reinforce the need for calm and restraint.”

What’s the 2011 word of the year?

It’s been a bit of a wild ride in 2011, but some events – and words associated with them – have stood out more than others. So which word sums up 2011 best? Is it ‘occupy’, associated with the Occupy Wall Street protests? Or ‘planking’, that rather ridiculous Internet sensation that hit the streets around the country and the world? Or perhaps it was ‘minority’ in association with the Government that had led Australia since a narrow victory at the last election? The other contenders are ‘ear-bashing’ as used by the charming Barack Obama, ‘debt’ for obvious reasons, ‘gestational carrier’ which is technically two and the correct term for the woman who carried Nicole Kidman’s baby and ‘winning’ as used by Charlie Sheen to describe whatever it was that he was doing. So, you tell us?

If you’re looking for the Malcolm Turnbull story, we loved his eulogy for his dog so much we decided to run the whole thing here.