Refugee work first left Jolie tearful, despairing

New York – Angelina Jolie says her work as a humanitarian ambassador for the United Nations at first left her tearful and overwhelmed.

“The first two years I just cried constantly,” the actress told Newsweek. “I couldn’t really talk about the situation without being emotional. And I went through a period of just complete lack of hope.”

During her February visit to the Oure Cassoni camp on the border between Darfur and Chad she came across a disturbed 7-year-old boy whose family had tied him to a pole to stop him wandering away or banging himself. The boy had spent 48 hours hiding in the bush after his village was bombed.

“I talked to him for like half an hour and just kind of looked at him for a long time before he touched me,” Jolie told the magazine, “and there was a little boy in there who was open to a kind sound.”

Jolie has visited camps in Africa, Pakistan and Cambodia as part of her work as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She said she travels unaccompanied on commercial flights, and doesn’t care about people who describe what she does as celebrity tourism.

“I don’t know if anybody saying that has spent the last six years of their life going to over 30 camps and really spending time with these people,” said Jolie, who wants to return to Cambodia.

Ski patrol rescues 3 actors lost in snow, fog

Aspen, Colo. – The Aspen Ski Patrol had to lead actors Rob Morrow, Chad Lowe and Fisher Stevens to safety after they and other skiers got lost in snow and fog and ended up out of bounds.

“We’re all good skiers,” said Morrow, star of CBS’ “Numb3rs.”

However, he admitted Saturday, they didn’t know the mountain. “We were going every which way.”

They ended up with another group of lost skiers, who had used a cell phone to call for help. All were in an area closed to skiing.

Ski Patrol members led the group to the bottom of the mountain, a three-hour trip through heavy snow, streams and dense forest.

“It ended up being great because it was a good adventure,” Morrow said.

Loretta Lynn to receive honorary doctorate

Nashville, Tenn. – Country music queen Loretta Lynn, the coal miner’s daughter, is getting an honorary doctorate from Boston’s Berklee College of Music.

Berklee President Roger H. Brown will make the presentation on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday for Lynn’s contributions to contemporary music and tackling real-life situations faced by many women.

Lynn, 72, was one of the best-known female vocalists of the 1960s and 1970s, tackling women’s issues before feminism came in vogue. Her 1969 hit the “Coal Miner’s Daughter” told of growing up in a cabin while her father worked in a Kentucky coal mine.

“You put out a song that isn’t life, nobody is going to care for it, because if nobody is living that life, how are you going to sell a record if it’s just Ring Around the Rosie?” Lynn told ABC’s “This Week” in an interview that aired Sunday. “You know, you’ve got to put your whole heart into a song, and that’s what I did with every song that I wrote.”

Others who have received honorary doctorates of music from Berklee include Duke Ellington, Tony Bennett, Aretha Franklin, Sting and Bonnie Raitt.

Jackie Chan to promote L.A. County Sheriffs

Monterey Park, Calif. – Martial arts expert and actor Jackie Chan has taken on a new role promoting the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to Asian-Americans in a public service ad.

The Chinese star and stunt man will step out of a squad car dressed in a sheriff’s deputy uniform in the ad and will urge potential recruits to join the force. The department hopes the commercial, which will be shown during recruitment fairs, will help boost the low number of Asian-Americans in their ranks.

“I’m the police ambassador in Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, China, everywhere,” Chan said.