People : Snoop Dogg, Roberto Rossellini, Kaavya Viswanathan (southland tales mention)

It took the lawyers-cum-cryptographers from the Olswang law firm in London two days, and a good many hints from Justice Peter Smith, to crack the secret coded message the judge playfully concealed in his ruling in the recent "Da Vinci Code" copyright case. The answer to the puzzle Smith called the "Smithy Code" was a simple phrase, an homage to Admiral John Arbuthnot Fisher, known as Jackie, credited with modernizing the British Navy in the early 20th century. The phrase, confirmed by the judge, was : "Jackie Fisher who are you Dreadnought." Fisher "was responsible for the creation of the Dreadnought, which was launched nearly exactly 100 years to the day of the start of the trial," the judge said. News of the hidden code traveled around the world, with many people working to crack it. A rival crew from The Times of London almost won. But Smith awarded bragging rights to Olswang - led by Daniel Tench, the partner who was the first person to publicly point out the strange typographical anomalies in the judge’s 71-page "Da Vinci Code" ruling - because Olswang found not just the right answer, but a deliberate misspelling within it. Among Smith’s hints, he told decoders to look at page 255 in the British paperback edition of Dan Brown’s book, where the protagonists discuss the Fibonacci Sequence, a famous series in which each number is the sum of the two preceding ones. (AP)

The rapper Snoop Dogg was grounded temporarily in London when he and five other men were arrested in a fracas at Heathrow Airport, Reuters reported. But he was later released on police bail, his lawyer said, meaning that he could be recalled for further questioning. Scotland Yard said that seven police officers suffered minor injuries after being called to the airport to deal with a disturbance among about 30 people in a British Airways business lounge. "Members of the group became abusive," a police spokesman said, after they were told to reclaim their luggage. Snoop Dogg, 34, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, was among them. "He has not been charged with any offense," his lawyer said, and added that after being released on bail, Snoop Dogg was to travel to South Africa to meet concert commitments there. (NYT)

A film tribute to Roberto Rossellini, the Italian director, has divided his twin daughters, Isabella and Ingrid Rossellini. Isabella wrote and narrates the short documentary, which was directed by Guy Maddin and was set to be shown this weekend at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in honor of the centennial of the director’s birth. (He died in 1977.) In "My Dad Is 100 Years Old," Rossellini is depicted as a large belly, which Isabella Rossellini said represented one of her prominent memories of him. Ingrid Rossellini said she was outraged by the conceit, and by the showing of a scene from the director’s "Rome : Open City," in which a German soldier shoots a character, played by Anna Magnani, in the stomach. "Father was so much against this kind of trivialized images or sensationalism," she said. Isabella Rossellini did not respond to requests for comment. (NYT)

A teen novel containing admittedly borrowed material has been pulled from the market. The author Kaavya Viswanathan, a Harvard University sophomore, had acknowledged that numerous passages in "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life" were lifted from another writer. The publisher Little, Brown and Company, which had signed Viswanathan to a reported six-figure deal, said in a statement that it had notified retail and wholesale outlets to stop selling copies of the book and to return unsold copies to the publisher. Viswanathan, 19, has apologized repeatedly for lifting material from Megan McCafferty, whose books include "Sloppy Firsts" and "Second Helpings." (AP)

The film "Crónica de Una Fuga," or "Chronicle of an Escape," by the director Israel Adrián Caetano, will join the repertoire at the Cannes Film Festival next month, a last-minute addition to the prestigious lineup, organizers said. The film was not included in the initial list of 19 films released last week. Organizers gave no reason for adding the movie, about a group of youths who escape from a detention center during a military dictatorship. The film joins an all-star list including Sofia Coppola’s "Marie-Antoinette" biopic, Richard Linklater’s "Fast Food Nation" and Richard Kelly’s "Southland Tales." (NYT)