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'Survivor: Vanuatu' set to premiere Sept. 16

Reality TV is getting old.

Survivor will head into its ninth season on Sept. 16 with a two-hour premiere at 8 p.m., CBS announced Tuesday. The new edition, Survivor: Vanuatu - Islands of Fire, takes place in a nation of over 80 volcano-dotted islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean.

Eighteen castaways will compete in separate tribes of men versus women. The participants include an FBI agent, a drill sergeant named Sarge, a Pennsylvania sheep farmer and a mechanical bull operator from Los Angeles. The oldest competitor is Scout Cloud Lee, a 59-year-old rancher from Oklahoma.

The battle of the sexes also was the beginning structure of Survivor: The Amazon, but was altered in midseason. CBS publicist Chris Ender says nothing is set in stone this time around, either.

Vanuatu is home to more than 100 languages, and a tribal and ritualistic culture is still in existence on many of its islands.

NEW YORK - Carl Mydans, who photographed 20th century events from the Great Depression to wars and politics and was a charter member of the Life magazine staff that pioneered magazine photojournalism, has died. He was 97.

Mr. Mydans died Monday night (Aug. 16, 2004) of heart failure at his home in Larchmont, according to his son, Seth.

Mr. Mydans traveled the world with his cameras, witnessing and recording landmarks of history - the gaunt faces of 1930s dust-bowl farmers, Gen. Douglas MacArthur wading ashore on his return to the Philippines in 1944, Frenchwomen having their heads shaved as punishment for "collaboration" with the Nazis, and the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri a year later.

Among his more memorable photos was one showing rail commuters on Nov. 22, 1963, reading newspapers with the headline "President Shot Dead."

His wife, Shelley Smith Mydans, was also a journalist, and they often teamed up. During World War II, they were imprisoned by the Japanese for nearly two years.

His habit of carrying a camera enabled him to combine words and pictures; in later years as a photographer he was known for keeping diaries, and had a parallel career as an author of books.

In addition to his son, a New York Times reporter, Mr. Mydans is survived by a daughter, Misty Mydans. His wife died two years ago.

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