Roman Polanski is regarded as one of the finest directors of his generation, winning an Oscar for “The Pianist” and nominations for “Tess” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” but he is probably as equally well known for his own tumultuous life.

Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate are pictured together in London in the 1960s.

Polanski, who was arrested Saturday in Switzerland on a U.S. arrest warrant stemming from a decades-old sex charge, had lived in France for decades to avoid being arrested if he enters the United States.

The 76-year-old declined to collect his Academy Award for Best Director in person when he won it for “The Pianist” in 2003. He was en route to the Zurich Film Festival, which is holding a tribute to him, when he was arrested by Swiss authorities, the festival said.

Polanski was put in “provisional detention” and now faces the possibility of being extradited to the U.S., where a warrant for his arrest was issued in 1978.

The director pleaded guilty in 1977 to a single count of having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, acknowledging he had sex with a 13-year-old girl, but fled the U.S. before he could be sentenced.

Polanski was accused of plying Samantha Gailey with champagne and a sliver of a quaalude tablet and performing various sex acts, including intercourse, with her during a photo shoot at actor Jack Nicholson’s house. He was 43 at the time.

Nicholson was not at home, but his girlfriend at the time, actress Anjelica Huston, was.

According to a probation report contained in the filing, Huston described the victim as “sullen.”

“She appeared to be one of those kind of little chicks between — could be any age up to 25. She did not look like a 13-year-old scared little thing,” Huston said.

She added that Polanski did not strike her as the type of man who would force himself on a young girl. “I don’t think he’s a bad man,” she said in the report. “I think he’s an unhappy man.”

Polanski was born in Paris in 1933 of Polish-Jewish parents. Aged three, he and his family returned to Krakow in his father’s native Poland. After the Nazis invaded his parents were sent to concentration camps: his mother was gassed at Auschwitz although his father survived the war.

The young Polanski survived the Krakow ghetto and “soared out of Poland on sheer personality,” according to director Marina Zenovich, whose 2007 documentary “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” paints a sympathetic picture of the exiled movie legend.

Growing up in war-torn Poland, the young Polanski found comfort in the cinema and in acting in radio dramas, on stage and in films. In 1962, Polanski directed his first feature-length film, “Knife in the Water.” Poorly received in Poland it was a sensation in the West, and won an Academy Award nomination as Best Foreign Film.

He later moved to England, co-starring with American actress Sharon Tate, whom he married in 1968, in the Hammer horror parody, “Dance of the Vampires/The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me But Your Teeth Are in My Neck.”

Following his move to Hollywood, Polanski was at his peak: he was one of the hottest directors thanks to the critical and commercial hit Rosemary’s Baby and he was married to the beautiful Tate.

“At a certain point in his life, Roman Polanski had a lot of hope,” Zenovich told TIME magazine in 2008. “He was living this great life. He was so talented and everyone wanted to work with him.”

But that hopeful period ended when Tate, eight months’ pregnant, was murdered by followers of Charles Manson in 1969. According to TIME, Polanski spent the first years after her death on a kind of sexual spree, and began spending time with younger and younger women, like 15-year-old Nastassja Kinski.

When Polanski was arrested for assaulting Gailey, his case drew the attention of Judge Laurence J. Rittenband, who had earlier presided over Elvis Presley’s divorce, Marlon Brando’s child-custody battle and a paternity suit against Cary Grant.

Rittenband, in a manner reminiscent of the one-liner-dropping judge in the Anna Nicole Smith case, was obsessed with the media. He even had a bailiff maintain a scrapbook of his newspaper clippings, according to TIME.

The case proceeded in a strange manner. Rittenband, who is now dead, first sent the director to maximum-security prison for 42 days while he underwent psychological testing. Then, on the eve of his sentencing, the judge told attorneys he was inclined to send Polanski back to prison for another 48 days.

The judge’s bizarre behavior might have continued had Polanski not fled to France, where he has lived for the last 30 years, ultimately marrying again and having two children.

Polanski has continued to make critically acclaimed films, such as “Tess,” an adaptation of the Thomas Hardy novel “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” which tells the story of a beautiful country girl (Nastassja Kinski) who is seduced by an older man. In 1981, he returned to Poland to direct and star in a stage production of “Amadeus.” And 2002’s “The Pianist,” re-established Polanksi as a top-flight director.

There have been repeated attempts to settle the sex case over the years, but the sticking point has always been Polanski’s refusal to return to attend hearings.

Prosecutors have consistently argued that it would be a miscarriage of justice to allow a man to go free who “drugged and raped a 13-year-old child.”

Polanski’s lawyers tried earlier this year to have the charges thrown out, but a Los Angeles judge rejected the request.

In doing so, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza left the door open to reconsider his ruling if Polanski shows up in court.

Espinoza also appeared to acknowledge problems with the way the director’s case was handled years ago. Polanski’s victim is among those calling for the case to be thrown out.

Geimer filed court papers in January saying, “I am no longer a 13-year-old child. I have dealt with the difficulties of being a victim, have surmounted and surpassed them with one exception.

“Every time this case is brought to the attention of the Court, great focus is made of me, my family, my mother and others. That attention is not pleasant to experience and is not worth maintaining over some irrelevant legal nicety, the continuation of the case.”

Geimer, now 45, married and a mother of three, sued Polanski and received an undisclosed settlement. She long ago came forward and made her identity public — mainly, she said, because she was disturbed by how the criminal case had been handled.

Polanski was arrested two days after one of his wife’s killers died. By her own admission, Susan Atkins held Tate down as she pleaded for mercy, stabbing the 26-year-old actress 16 times. Polanski was filming in Europe at the time.

Atkins, 61, died Thursday. She had been suffering from terminal brain cancer.

Rescue workers are being overwhelmed by the scale of floods in the Philippines that are estimated to have killed at least 140 people, officials say.

The head of the National Disaster Co-ordinating Council, Anthony Golez, said resources were being spread too thinly.

Torrential rains from Tropical Storm Ketsana flooded the capital, Manila, and 25 nearby provinces on Saturday.

Some 80% of Manila was submerged, displacing 450,000 people. More than 115,000 are now in makeshift shelters.

“We are concentrating on massive relief operations. The system is overwhelmed, local government units are overwhelmed,” Mr Golez told reporters.

“We were used to helping one city, one or two provinces but now, they are following one after another. Our assets and people are spread too thinly.”

One doctor in Manila told the BBC that he had been working 24-hour shifts in a hospital flooded with water since Saturday.

Defence Minister Gilbert Teodoro said troops, police and volunteers had so far been able to rescue more than 7,900 people. Thirty-two people are missing.

The authorities were now focusing on providing food, medicine and other necessities to those in emergency shelters, he added. Telephone and power services in some parts of Manila remain cut.

Over the weekend, the government declared a “state of calamity” in Manila and the 25 storm-hit provinces, including many that have not experienced widespread flooding before, allowing access to emergency funds.

The Philippine government has not yet requested international help, but Mr Golez said it would welcome any assistance. The US military has deployed a helicopter and soldiers to the country’s south to help.

‘Stranded’

On Sunday, President Gloria Arroyo visited the devastated areas, appealing for calm over what she described as an “extreme event” that “strained our response capabilities to the limit but ultimately did not break us”.

Ramil Digal Culle in Cavite City, south of Manila, told the BBC that he had spent the night with families trapped on rooftops without food and water.

“The mothers were at work when the flooding happened and they got stranded with me, unable to go home,” he wrote in an e-mail.

“Strange how I could have internet access during the disaster to describe this experience… while the government struggles with a scarcity of rescue equipment,” he added.

Some officials are quoted as saying rubbish-choked drains and waterways, along with high tides, compounded the flooding.

The BBC’s Alastair Leithead in Marikina City, the worst affected part of the capital, says all the streets in the area were under metres of water and that now there is a thick coating of mud over everything which was submerged.

Our correspondent says the government argues it could not have been expected to cope easily with a storm in which a month’s rain fell in 12 hours.

In the meantime, he adds, people are just focusing on clearing up, trying to salvage what possessions they can, along with food, water and some shelter, because further rainstorms are forecast.

‘Heroic rescuer’

Reports have also emerged of acts of heroism by members of the public during the floods, including Muelmar Magallanes, who rescued more than 30 people, but ended up sacrificing his own life.

With the help of his older brother, the 18-year-old construction worker tied rope around his waist and took his siblings to safety before going back to the house for his parents, according to the AFP news agency.

Later, he decided go back to save neighbours trapped on rooftops. He then dived back in again when he saw a mother and her six-month-old baby daughter in the water.

“I didn’t know that the current was so strong. In an instant, I was under water. We were going to die,” the mother Menchie Penalosa told AFP.

“Then this man came from nowhere and grabbed us. He took us to where the other neighbours were, and then he was gone,” she added.

Witnesses said an exhausted Mr Megallanes was simply swept away by the water.

His father Samuel said: “He always had a good heart. We had already been saved. But he decided to go back one last time for the girl.”

The Philippines chief weather forecaster, Nathaniel Cruz, said more than 40cm (16in) of rain fell on Manila within 12 hours on Saturday, exceeding the 39cm average for the whole month of September.

The previous record of just over 33cm in a 24-hour period was set in June 1967, Mr Cruz added. He had earlier blamed climate change for the mass downpours.

Ketsana, with winds of up to 100km/h (62mph), hit the Philippines early on Saturday, crossing the main northern Luzon island before heading out toward the South China Sea.

Photocopier giant Xerox has unveiled a takeover deal which takes it into the fields of data management and technology outsourcing.

It is buying Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) in a cash and shares deal worth $6.4bn (£4bn).

Xerox is already the world’s biggest supplier of digital printer and document management services.

Shares in the company fell by 14% on Monday as investors reacted to the deal. ACS shares gained 16.5%.

Xerox said it would take on ACS’s debt, worth about $2bn, as part of the takeover.

Chief executive Ursula Burns said the deal was a “game-changer” for Xerox that would help “expand our business and benefit from stronger revenue and earnings growth”.

ACS provides information technology services to industries including telecommunications, retail, financial services and education. After the takeover, it will operate as a stand-alone firm.

When their 19-year-old son, Jason, disappeared eight years ago, any concept of a normal life ceased for the Jolkowski family.

Jason Jolkowski would be 28 today and might look like the man shown in this photograph.

Kelly and Jim Jolkowski and their other son, Michael, believed at first that Jason would walk through the front door of their Omaha, Nebraska, home at any moment. Now, every time a body is found somewhere, the news sets their hearts pounding.

To this day, police say they have no evidence of foul play. Nor, they say, do they have any evidence that Jason simply ran away. It is a bona fide mystery.

Kelly Jolkowski described her life in an open letter to her missing son a year ago: “We waited and hoped that you’d walk in the door … and that the whole awful event would be over, but that didn’t happen,” she wrote. “It feels as if it never may end, and that we may have to wait for our life after this world to see you again.”

Since shortly after Jason’s disappearance, the Jolkowskis have thrown their energy into raising public awareness about what to do when a loved one goes missing. After three years of lobbying, they were able to get a law passed in Nebraska creating a statewide missing persons database.

They founded a nonprofit organization called Project Jason, and its Web site tracks missing persons cases across the country. According to the site, Project Jason has distributed some 50,000 missing persons fliers since 2003.

“We feel that some good is coming out of Jason’s story,” Kelly Jolkowski told CNN. But she said she still hopes to find her son someday.

The last time anyone who knew him saw him, Jason Jolkowski was bringing the empty trash cans in from the curb. That was June 13, 2001. Since then, his cell phone has fallen silent and his bank account hasn’t been touched. His last paycheck was never cashed.

Jason was 19 and attending community college part time. He had a job at a restaurant and wanted to be a disc jockey. On the day he disappeared, Jason and his younger brother, Michael, were on summer break from school. Their parents were at work, and the boys were home alone.

Jason worked at a restaurant called Fazoli’s. His boss had called him that morning and asked him to come into work on his day off.

Jason’s car was at the mechanic’s shop, so his boss arranged a ride for him with a co-worker. She and Jason were to meet at a high school parking lot that was within walking distance from the Jolkowskis’ home.

According to his mother, Jason had walked that seven-block route before. It took him along quiet, residential streets with little pedestrian or vehicle traffic.

Jason was last seen at 10:15 that morning, standing at the end of his driveway. Less than an hour later, his boss called and spoke with Michael, complaining that Jason had not shown up for work and had never arrived at the high school to meet his ride.

His parents arrived home from work to learn that Jason had been missing all day. They called Jason’s friends. None of them had seen or heard from him that day.

“Jason was a quiet boy,” his mother said. “He only had a small handful of friends. He was shy.”

Jason did not have a girlfriend and was not the sort of person to take risks, like hitching a ride with a complete stranger, his mother insisted.

His parents called police the next morning. Like so many people, the Jolkowskis mistakenly believed there was a 24-hour wait before police would accept a missing person’s report.

“And then it took at least another 10 days before police took Jason’s disappearance seriously,” Kelly Jolkowski said. “They assumed this was a typical teen runaway scenario.”

But according to the family, Jason did not have a history of running away and was not a troubled teen. He had no reason to run off. From the beginning, his family feared an accident or abduction.

Police began to interview neighbors and conducted searches 10 days after his disappearance, but valuable time had been lost, Kelly Jolkowski said.

“We’d have liked to see more activity in the first crucial hours, but we do feel they stepped up to the plate to do all they could and in the end, they did a proper investigation,” the Jolkowskis said in a prepared statement. “We were pleased by the meetings they had with us, following up on any leads, talking to his friends, checking the computer and conducting interviews.”

Despite mounted searches, ground searches, a helicopter and the use of infrared technology, there was no sign of Jason or any clues to his whereabouts. The family is not certain whether dogs were brought to track the route between the Jolkowski home and the high school. But his mother said she believes that if police had any evidence, they would have shared it with the family.

Detective Jim Shields of the Omaha Police Department said the case remains an open and active investigation.

“I know his parents have expressed concern about how the investigation was handled in the beginning,” he said, “but in missing adult cases, often we wait a few days because adults have the right to come and go freely.”

Police said they have no clues or evidence in the case. It is categorized as a missing person’s case, and authorities have no evidence suggesting Jason is no longer alive. “We simply don’t know and really hope for more tips,” Shields said.

At the time he went missing, Jason would have only had about $60 on him, his mother said.

She speculated in her open letter about what his life might be like now.

“If you are still with us, you could be married and have children. You may have graduated from college and be pursuing a career,” she wrote. “So many life events which normally happen with someone of your age may have passed by. We hope and pray that you haven’t been cheated of the life you were meant to live.”

Jason Jolkowski is described as 6 feet 1 inch and 165 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing a Chicago Cubs T-shirt, black dress pants and black dress shoes. Anyone with information leading to his whereabouts is asked to call the Omaha police at 402-444-5818.

The death toll from flooding in the Philippines climbed to 140 Monday as a tropical depression in the Pacific sparked new fears of flooding.

People search for usable materials as flood waters recede in Marikina City, suburban Manila on Monday.

Flood water began to subside after a weekend that saw Manila hit with its heaviest rainfall in more than 40 years.

More than 80 percent of the capital was under water at one point Sunday. The deluge caused by Tropical Storm Ketsana, which has since strengthened into a typhoon, engulfed whole houses and buses.

At least 140 people have died, the National Disaster Coordinating Council said.

Manila, on the island of Luzon, and the nearby province of Rizal bore the brunt of the storm. People huddled on rooftops Sunday waiting on army helicopters to pluck them to safety. Others used ropes to wade through waist-deep muddy waters.

Power and water supply failed in some areas. Roads were rendered impassable, making rescue efforts challenging. Rescue crews were handing out food rations.

“Right now the challenge is to find out how many people have actually died and how many people we have to take care of in terms of people who’ve been displaced,” said Richard Gordon, the chairman of the Philippines National Red Cross.

“We’re really talking about maybe hundreds of thousands of people,” with about 280,000 to 300,000 displaced in the island of Luzon alone, he said.

Though the Philippines is no stranger to floods, Saturday’s downpours approached a record, with a month’s worth of rain falling within six hours.

The average rainfall for the month of September is 391 mm (15.4 inches), said Gilberto Teodoro, chairman of the National Disaster Coordinating Council.

The capital experienced 341 mm (13.4 inches) between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m., he said.

Officials worried that if the rains return, they could bring more floods if reservoirs burst.

“We’re hoping that there will be no more breaching of the dams,” Gordon said. “That’s one of the things that are very disconcerting to many people right now.”

Mike Anthony Catuira spent Sunday retrieving valuable belongings and seeking cover on higher ground. Overflowing rivers in the municipality of Tanay in Rizal province had inundated shops and homes, he said.

“The storm’s local name ‘Ondoy’ is really a powerful storm, and this is the most severe storm in my whole life,” he said in an iReport video to CNN.