Huffington Magazine Issue 43 | Page 7

FROM TOP: AP PHOTO/NBC, ANDREW ECCLES; AP PHOTO/NBC, ANDREW ECCLES Enter POINTERS 2 LENO OUT, FALLON IN 3 PROSECUTORS WANT DEATH PENALTY FOR JAMES HOLMES 4 HUFFINGTON 04.07.13 After months of rumors surrounding NBC’s late-night talk shows, the network announced this week that Late Night host Jimmy Fallon will take over The Tonight Show from Jay Leno in 2014. Leno wished Fallon congratulations, saying, “I hope you’re as lucky as me and hold on to the job until you’re the old guy. If you need me, I’ll be at the garage.” NBC last tried to pull off a host transition in 2009, when Conan O’Brien took over The Tonight Show. But it became a messy PR battle when the network chose to reinstate Leno after just seven months. Colorado prosecutors announced that they will seek the death penalty for James Holmes, who is accused of killing 12 people and wounding 58 others during a shooting rampage at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises last July. “It’s my determination and my intention that in this case for James Eagan Holmes, justice is death,” the district attorney said. The defense recently proposed a plea deal that would have given Holmes life in prison without the possibility of parole, but prosecutors rejected it. ACTIVISTS SAY MARCH WAS DEADLIEST MONTH IN SYRIA More than 6,000 people were killed in Syria last month, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, making it the deadliest month in the country’s two-year long conflict between those loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and rebel forces. The observatory has recorded a total of 62,554 deaths since the start of the conflict, but it estimates that the actual total is around 120,000, the head of the opposition group told Reuters. The United Nations has said that more than 70,000 people have died in the conflict.