West ran with the idea on Sunday afternoon by asking one of Silicon Valley's richest young men to lend a hand with an investment:
Monday, 15 February 2016
Kanye West asked Mark Zuckerberg for $1 billion on Twitter
Sunday, 14 February 2016
200 VALENTINE’S DAY WISHES, LOVE POEMS AND CARDS
Saturday, 13 February 2016
Aaron Gordon Puts on a Show with Stuff the Magic Dragon in Slam Dunk Contest
In the end, Gordon couldn't top LaVine, but he put on a show for the ages.
The 20-year-old took flight over the Orlando mascot to throw down an incredible between-the-legs dunk, as seen above, then followed it up with two particularly spectacular slams.
There was this perfect-score gem, which he scooped up from Stuff while in a seated position before threading the ball behind his ankles to bring it home:
Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court justice, dies at 79
His death set off an immediate debate about whether President Barack Obama should fill the seat in an election year. Obama said Saturday night that he plans to nominate a replacement, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the nomination should wait until the next president comes into office while top Democrat Harry Reid called for the seat to be filled "right away."
Scalia died in his sleep during a visit to Texas. A government official said Scalia went to bed Friday night and told friends he wasn't feeling well. He didn't get up for breakfast on Saturday morning, and the group he was with for a hunting trip left without him.
Someone at the ranch went in to check on him and found him unresponsive.
RELATED: Antonin Scalia fast facts
The U.S. Marshals Service is helping to arrange for his body to be returned to his home in McLean, Virginia, an official told CNN, not to investigate his death.
They were already present because marshals sometimes help supplement security for traveling justices.
Drew Gordon smashes phone, calls out Shaq after brother Aaron loses contest
The elder Gordon, who briefly spent time with the 76ers and now plays in France's top league, proved there's no hard feelings now that he's not the presumed best dunker in the family after Aaron narrowly lost to Zach LaVine in Saturday night's dunk contest.
LaVine and Gordon wage epic battle in dunk contest
In need of some magic, he reached deep down into his repertoire and found just enough left for one more go.
"We were looking in our bag of tricks. Ain't nothing left," LaVine said. "I just found a little piece of dust."
LaVine pulled off a between-the-legs dunk from the free throw line on the second tie-breaker to take home his second straight dunk contest trophy, becoming just the fourth player to pull off that feat.
The Minnesota Timberwolves guard had never tried the dunk before. Not in practice. Not at that playgrounds back home in Seattle. But he had already used all four of the dunks he planned to do when fellow contestant Will Barton told him to try it.
He pulled it off, putting an emphatic punctuation on a contest that instantly drew comparisons to the showdown betweenMichael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins in 1988.
Friday, 12 February 2016
NEWS/ Calvin Harris Suggests Sam Smith ''Should Write a Book'' About Weight Loss
The British singer, who just won his first Golden Globe last month for the Spectresong "Writing's on the Wall" and is now nominated for an Oscar, has opened up about the motivation behind his drastic weight loss, and it sounds as though he's loving his new body.
WATCH: How Did Sam Smith Lose Weight?
Back in September, Smith confessed to People, "When someone calls you gay, there's not much you can do about that because I am. Whereas, if someone calls you fat, there is something you can do about that."
Just as Calvin Harris seems to be, we're impressed with Sam's discipline!
Mother of Columbine killer Dylan Klebold: 'The guilt I feel is huge'
![Sue Klebold says she does not believe her son was a monster.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ec27e89098779fb8bf82da4f74d3af85d6846b13/0_1291_4800_2882/master/4800.jpg?w=300&q=85&auto=format&sharp=10&s=56041e2661e12afcc671a512dbad1052)
Sue Klebold, whose son Dylan, 17, went on a shooting rampage with his friend Eric Harris, 18, at their high school in Colorado in 1999, says she still thinks about the victims every day.
But she also counts her son as one of the victims. “He was a human being. I feel that Dylan was a victim of some kind of malfunction going on in his brain,” she said.
Klebold said she still loves her son and does not believe he was a monster but cannot forgive herself for not realising something was wrong.
“You go back over every conversation, every gift, every moment, and what you feel is self-loathing,” she told the Guardian. “I let this happen; it was my role to keep him safe, and to keep others safe, too, and somehow this happened because of me, because I wasn’t able to stop it. The guilt one feels doesn’t fit in a room, it’s so huge.”
Klebold, 66, also admits that while she was shocked and devastated by her son’s role, she did not feel anger until six months after the killings, when investigators showed her the home video tapes Dylan and Harris had made. In them, the pair spew nihilistic hatred towards family members, as well as wider society.
Deaths of two teenage girls in Arizona was a murder-suicide, police say
![Glendale](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e471608613edb8d1ffae3ec3de54a5653b1d4dbb/0_0_3140_1884/master/3140.jpg?w=300&q=85&auto=format&sharp=10&s=62b9d0adaf2014c7e25fea3eb75fe4cb)
Glendale police spokeswoman Tracey Breeden said a suicide note was located at the scene of Friday morning’s shooting at Independence High School.
She said both victims were shot once and a weapon was found near the bodies.
Breeden said the teens had been positively identified, but their names were not being released by police because they were juveniles.
The girls, both 15-year-old sophomores, were each shot once, Breeden said.
“This is not an active shooter situation, and we realized that once we got on the scene,” Breeden said. She could not confirm if one of the girls had killed themselves but said to parents: “Your children are safe.”
“This occurred in an isolated area,” Glendale police sergeant David Vidaure added.
The campus at Independence high school, located in a suburb of Phoenix, was on lockdown on Friday morning. About 2,000 students are enrolled at the public high school.
Earlier on Friday, Breeded had said, “This is not an active shooter situation, and we realized that once we got on the scene,” Breeden said, and saying to parents: “Your children are safe.”
Breeden said the police department received a call just before 8am from the school to report a shooting. Police officers were on the scene in less than two minutes and found the bodies of the two students near the school’s cafeteria under a covered patio area. The girls were declared dead at the scene. Police said they had no information on who may have fired the shots.
“It’s a tragic incident,” Breeden said. “Two young people are dead this morning. We send our condolences out to the family, the loved ones and the friends of those two young girls.”
Superintendent Brian Capistran said social workers from the school district were providing support for students and faculty.
How To Be Single Is A Good Lesson In How Not To Be A Smart, Subversive Rom-Com
How to Be Single wants to be smarter than the average rom-com. It wants to stick up for the girls who can clothe themselves. So while it looks and acts like Sex and the City on Adderall, every time there’s a big, emotional speech — something no human would say in real life — Ditter gives it the finger. No clichĂ© is safe. When Alice climbs into a taxi after a moment of enlightenment and beams, “I’m finally going home,” the camera basks in her joy for three seconds. Then the cabbie kills the mood: “Woman. I don’t know where the fuck you live.”
But, like Alice’s first conquest, the bartender (Anders Holm) who keeps his kitchen sink turned off so last night’s hungover babe can’t linger for a glass of water, the script can’t commit. Instead of being subversive, it’s overcrowded and contradictory. Ditter wants to fit everybody’s definition of single, from sad spinster Lucy to sex-crazy Robin, and shoves in so many subplots and subpar boyfriends that the movie feels like 90 minutes speed-flicking through Tinder.
Groan and swipe left. We’ve seen too many female characters like Lucy and Robin, electrons who must pair off or explode, as Lucy does in a kiddie bookstore, ripping out her extensions, clawing off her Spanx, and terrifying a flock of children who just wanted to hear another fairy tale about a princess and her prince. (Sweetie, the solution isn’t marriage — it’s a mental institution.) Even the patron saints of singledom, Carrie Bradshaw and Bridget Jones, were desperate. As Meg groans, “All those girls ever did was look for boyfriends.” Modern updates like Trainwreck’s Amy Schumer, or Rebel Wilson in, well, everything, equate single with slutty. Here, Wilson would rather wake up with a goon than wake up alone, and hits the club wearing a dress with an arrow pointed at her crotch. But this concept of single still assumes that a woman must have a man, that a girl’s only choice is between one boyfriend or 20.
Meet your new Top Gear presenters!
We are very proud to announce that racing driver Sabine Schmitz, YouTube star Chris Harris, F1 pundit Eddie Jordan and motoring journalist Rory Reid will join Chris Evans, Matt LeBlanc and of course, The Stig, when the show returns in May.
Eddie Jordan you’ll remember, once ran his own Formula One team with drivers like Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill on the roster. He said: “I have such enormous respect for all my fellow presenters and I politely ask that they go easy on these old bones.”
Sabine will be no stranger to regular viewers of TG telly of course, having famously set a scorching lap time around the NĂĽrburgring… in a Transit van. “I grew up next to the NĂĽrburgring and have been racing for most of my life,” she said, “so the chance to combine both driving and filming was too good an opportunity to pass up.”
YouTube star Chris Harris said: “Top Gear is the thing that helped shape my life with cars, my perception of cars and my obsession with cars, and I’m raring to give it a go.
“I’m also quite gobby and happy to get into trouble. And if it all goes wrong, well, I can say I was once on Top Gear, and just head back to being that annoying small bloke off YouTube,” he added.
And remember our little shout out for public auditions? Step forward Rory Reid. “When I submitted my 30-second audition tape, I knew the odds were very firmly against me.
“To be the only person to make it through the open audition process makes me immensely proud. I’ve been a Top Gear fan for decades, but more than that, I live and breathe cars in a way that is perfectly compatible with the show,” he added.
Patience: The FBI's Strategy to the Oregon Standoff and Nab Cliven Bundy
On the most obvious level, that was reflected in the 41 days that armed militia members occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns. It took 25 days before the FBI and state police moved to arrest several leaders of the occupation and to barricade the refuge. It took another 15 days before the last of the final occupiers walked out, Thursday morning Oregon time.
Each of those cases involved patience as well: Officers massed on Highway 395 didn’t shoot LaVoy Finicum when he tried to ram past a barricade, nearly striking an FBI agent, though when he reached for a gun in his pocket they finally fired. Meanwhile, despite increasingly hysterical behavior from David Fry, the final occupier, officers waited him out until he emerged peacefully.
Gravitational waves have been detected for the first time
It is, however, a hole that is less than the sum of its parts. Three suns’ worth of mass has been turned into energy, in the form of gravitational waves: travelling ripples that stretch and compress space, and thereby all in their path. During the merger’s final fifth of a second, envisaged in an artist’s impression above, the coalescing holes pumped 50 times more energy into space this way than the whole of the rest of the universe emitted in light, radio waves, X-rays and gamma rays combined.
Deadpool: the pansexual superhero who has never had a non-heterosexual experience
![Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e14b5e8fb07d16090971a6e591d2295d08bc520f/0_146_2031_1218/master/2031.jpg?w=300&q=85&auto=format&sharp=10&s=f076a13937badf1952fa2bfbf50b4e8e)
![Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e14b5e8fb07d16090971a6e591d2295d08bc520f/0_146_2031_1218/master/2031.jpg?w=300&q=85&auto=format&sharp=10&s=f076a13937badf1952fa2bfbf50b4e8e)
Thursday, 11 February 2016
Carly Fiorina Peaked Early And Faded Fast
![](https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/ap_287089601201.jpg?w=575)
Fiorina entered the campaign in May of last year, the only female Republican candidate, touting her leadership experience as the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard. If there was a lane for Fiorina in what was once a 17-laneautobahn-style highway of a GOP race, then it was one for a hybrid vehicle: She was the outsider-establishment candidate, running largely on her businesswoman bona fides and having never held elected office, and a gender warrior to boot.
Fiorina garnered attention early in the primary season for her debate performances, particularly in response to personal attacks launched by Donald Trump. “Look at that face,” he said of Fiorina, according to a September Rolling Stone article. “Would anyone vote for that?” In a Sept. 16 debate, Fiorina fired back: “I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.” Her performance was also notable for her claims about undercover videos of a Planned Parenthood clinic, which Fiorina wrongly said showed “a fully formed fetus” kicking on the table.
Not coincidentally, Fiorina’s support in the polls reached its all-time high in September:
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to be eighth book
A hardback edition of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Parts I & II will be released on 31 July, the day after the play has debuted on stage.
It sees Harry as a father and an overworked Ministry of Magic employee.
The play is from an original new story by JK Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will tell the "untold part" of the boy wizard's story, including the story of the lives of his murdered parents, Rowling has said.
It will pick up the story 19 years after Harry was last seen in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, waving his two eldest children off to Hogwarts.
Fan appeals
The script's ebook will be published simultaneously with the print editions.
David Shelley, chief executive of the publishers Little, Brown Book Group said: "We are so thrilled to be publishing the script of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
"JK Rowling and her team have received a huge number of appeals from fans who can't be in London to see the play and who would like to read the play in book format - and so we are absolutely delighted to be able to make it available for them."
The special rehearsal edition of the script book will comprise the version of the play early in the production's preview period and is therefore subject to being changed before the official opening.
Previews of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child begin in May at London's Palace Theatre, with both plays set to open on 30 July. The hardback and ebook will go on sale at 0001 on 31 July.
Wednesday, 10 February 2016
DMX’s Downfall: From Hip-Hop King to the Brink of Death
DMX was found unresponsive at a Ramada Inn parking lot in his native Yonkers, New York, earlier this week after suffering a possible drug overdose. The growling rapper’s long history of addiction and arrests is as well-known as his music at this point—perhaps even more so—so it’s not hard to see why many would jump to those conclusions. Varying reports claimed that cops gave him CPR and a medic injected him with Narcan, which is an anti-opioid used to reverse the effects of a heroin overdose.
It was reported that a witness at the scene said DMX had taken a powdered drug before he collapsed.
“We’re told when cops arrived DMX was on the ground in the parking lot next to a parked car,” reported TMZ. “Cops quickly determined he was lifeless, not breathing with no pulse and immediately began CPR.”
For his part, the man formerly know as Earl Simmons claims that he did not take any powder or drugs, and says all he remembers is that he was experiencing trouble breathing after a recent bout of bronchitis and then collapsed, while a family member reportedly told TMZ that he’d requested his inhaler for his asthma before falling unconscious. Asthma attack or drug overdose, it’s hard to know what to believe. Given DMX’s history, both are equally likely to be true. But every time his name pops up in the headlines, with mentions of drugs and health and this ominous, lingering feeling of impending tragedy, we’re reminded of how far he’s fallen—and how upsetting it is that he can’t seem to stop the spiral.
In the spring of 1998, there wasn’t an album rap fans like myself were more intensely anticipating than DMX’s debut. He’d been burning through hip-hop for months, with guest appearances on hits ranging from “Money, Power, Respect” and “24 Hours To Live” to “4,3,2,1” from flossy rappers like Ma$e and LL Cool J. His single “Get at Me Dog” had been released that winter and was a go-to track at parties on my college campus that year. I have fond memories of my college days, but in retrospect, that time was especially divided when it came to mainstream hip-hop fans on my small HBCU campus in central Georgia. Most of my peers fell into one of three camps: No Limit soldiers, Wu-Tang Clan disciples, and Bad Boy fanatics—not to mention those who were devoted to “artsier” fare from the Dungeon Family and Native Tongues/Soulquarians.
But everybody seemed to love DMX. He had the hardcore East Coast aggression, the radio-friendly hooks, and the “tear da club up” energy that resonated with all of the disparate camps at my school. We all had It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot that spring.
It was reported that a witness at the scene said DMX had taken a powdered drug before he collapsed.
“We’re told when cops arrived DMX was on the ground in the parking lot next to a parked car,” reported TMZ. “Cops quickly determined he was lifeless, not breathing with no pulse and immediately began CPR.”
For his part, the man formerly know as Earl Simmons claims that he did not take any powder or drugs, and says all he remembers is that he was experiencing trouble breathing after a recent bout of bronchitis and then collapsed, while a family member reportedly told TMZ that he’d requested his inhaler for his asthma before falling unconscious. Asthma attack or drug overdose, it’s hard to know what to believe. Given DMX’s history, both are equally likely to be true. But every time his name pops up in the headlines, with mentions of drugs and health and this ominous, lingering feeling of impending tragedy, we’re reminded of how far he’s fallen—and how upsetting it is that he can’t seem to stop the spiral.
In the spring of 1998, there wasn’t an album rap fans like myself were more intensely anticipating than DMX’s debut. He’d been burning through hip-hop for months, with guest appearances on hits ranging from “Money, Power, Respect” and “24 Hours To Live” to “4,3,2,1” from flossy rappers like Ma$e and LL Cool J. His single “Get at Me Dog” had been released that winter and was a go-to track at parties on my college campus that year. I have fond memories of my college days, but in retrospect, that time was especially divided when it came to mainstream hip-hop fans on my small HBCU campus in central Georgia. Most of my peers fell into one of three camps: No Limit soldiers, Wu-Tang Clan disciples, and Bad Boy fanatics—not to mention those who were devoted to “artsier” fare from the Dungeon Family and Native Tongues/Soulquarians.
But everybody seemed to love DMX. He had the hardcore East Coast aggression, the radio-friendly hooks, and the “tear da club up” energy that resonated with all of the disparate camps at my school. We all had It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot that spring.
The Long History Behind Ash Wednesday Traditions
![A woman receives ashes at Saint Patrick's Cathedral on Ash Wednesday in New York February 13, 2013. REUTERS/Adrees Latif (UNITED STATES - Tags: RELIGION ANNIVERSARY) - RTR3DQUC](https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/ash-wednesday.jpg?quality=75&strip=color&w=1100)
In the United States, the practice of wearing a cross on the forehead only recently became widespread
Ash Wednesday is inextricably linked to Easter. After all, it marks the beginning of the Lent penance period that ends on that important Christian holiday. But, even though the Easter story takes place in biblical times, the traditions of Ash Wednesday aren’t quite that old.
“The practice of Ash Wednesday dates back to the 11th Century,” says Lauren F. Winner, a priest and assistant professor at Duke Divinity School. “You see that in the book Daniel in the nine chapter there’s a line about associating fasting with ashes, so ashes are associated with penance, which is the dominant theme of Lent.”
And the most familiar Ash Wednesday observance—the ash crosses worn on the foreheads of many churchgoers—hasn’t always been acknowledged by all branches of Christianity, Winner says. It wasn’t until a few decades ago that the tradition became widespread in the United States.
In the 1970s, the practice matched up with a few wider trends in American religion, including the embrace of once-discarded traditions and the search for ways to connect the physical body to spiritual life. Ash Wednesday was an opportunity for a multi-sensory way of connecting faith to the body, so many American Christians at the time decided to begin wearing that outward physical mark of their spiritual lives. Winner says she thinks its popularity has endured as it offers those celebrating an easy way to prompt conversations about faith.
“We’ve seen the rise of a whole array of bodily practices and this is a very striking one for those who are not necessarily comfortable talking about faith,”she says. “The practice of this once a year is an organic way of drawing their faith into their lives.”
Tuesday, 9 February 2016
Authorities say security checkpoint at Louisville International Airport has re-opened
Louisville Airport Authority spokeswoman Trish Burke said the TSA needed to "further investigate an item in one of its scanners."
Mark Howell, a regional spokesman for the TSA, said there was no security breach, but they worked with local law enforcement to determine what happened.
LMPD spokesman Dwight Mitchell confirmed that the LMPD bomb squad responded to the scene.
“This morning, several of our emergency service operations did come to the Louisville International Airport on a suspicious package. That package has been removed from that area at this time. We expect the airport to be back to normal operations shortly. At this time no one has been hurt, or anything of this nature at this time. The investigation continues at this point. We will try to get back to you in an hour from now,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell added, “We just really wanted the public to know that the incoming flights have never been suspended. Outgoing were for a brief period of time. UPS was never shut down. They had normal operations as well. Obviously we’re erring on the side of caution at this point, and that’s where the investigation stands.”
Ciara Reportedly Sues Future For $15 Million
Whoa! We knew these two were feuding, but this is a whole new level.
Ciara filed a lawsuit against her ex and baby daddy Future on January 21 accusing the rapper of defamation, libel, and slander.
According to court docs obtained by thejasminebrand.com, the 30-year-old is seeking $15 million in damages (plus $250k in legal fees) after her ex made "several false and defamatory statements" about her in the press over the past year regarding her ability to mother their son Future Zahir.
WGAL
![WGAL.png](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7b/WGAL.png/125px-WGAL.png)
Chipotle addresses multiple illness culprits
Chipotle Mexican Grill is blaming sick employees for the two norovirus outbreaks that the restaurant chain experienced last year.
The company closed stores for a few hours on Feb. 8 for a national team meeting to discuss proper health and safety protocol. Chipotle revealed that tomatoes were the likely culprit behind the salmonella outbreak in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
"That's one of the reasons why we no longer dice tomatoes in our restaurants," the company said in a statement Monday.
However, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ended its investigation last week, representatives for the fast-casual chain are still uncertain of which ingredient cause the E. coli outbreaks.
Daniel Bryan dazzles the WWE Universe for one last time
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that anyone reading this particularMonday Night RAW review is doing so because they want to read a take on the retirement of Bryan “Daniel Bryan” Danielson. Of course, when I decided to return to RAW coverage, I didn’t think I’d have to write said take, at least not on my first night back. So upon learning that tonight was the night, I found myself trying in vain to follow along with the rest of the “smart mark” world and playfully suggest that maybe this was just an angle. I couldn’t commit to that line of thinking at all, but I knew just what to think in order to avoid the gravity and reality of what was going to happen, even after reading Bryan’s tweet and seeing the reveal of the new shirt for the occasion. I’d think:
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