Manhunt for Charlie Hebdo Attack Suspects Continues

PARIS — The French authorities carried out an intense manhunt on Thursday for the two brothers who are suspected of mounting the deadly terrorist attack on the Paris office of the newspaper Charlie Hebdo that left a dozen dead. Officials detained and questioned seven people overnight in connection with the assault.

Xavier Castaing, a spokesman for the Paris police, said that two men who resembled the suspects had been spotted in the Aisne region northeast of Paris. News reports said that the two men who were seen there had robbed a gas station, and that police forces were swarming the area, searching for the car they were using.

Even as France observed a moment of silence in remembrance of the victims of the Wednesday attack, there were unnerving reports on Thursday of the killing of a police officer and a street sweeper in a southern Paris suburb, and accounts of attacks on mosques in other parts of France..

Prime Minister Manuel Valls of France said in an interview on RTL radio that the authorities’ main concern was preventing another terrorist attack. He issued a plea for witnesses to contact the police with any relevant information.

The two chief suspects in the Charlie Hebdo attack were identified as Said Kouachi, 34, and his younger brother Chérif, 32. The authorities searched for them on Thursday across a wide area of northern France. A third suspect, Hamyd Mourad, 18, turned himself in at a police station in Charleville-Mézières, about 145 miles northeast of Paris.

Bernard Cazeneuve, the interior minister, confirmed that seven people were detained overnight in connection with the case, but he offered no details on their ties, if any, to the Kouachi brothers.

Two American officials said on Thursday that the Kouachi brothers had ties to Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, but the officials declined to say whether that meant the suspects had been in communication with the group or had traveled there and perhaps received training. The officials cited the ongoing investigation.

 more read http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/world/europe/charlie-hebdo-terrorist-attack.html?_r=0

‘American Horror Story: Freak Show’ Season 4 Episode 12 Recap: “Magical Thinking”

Ryan Murphy and co. left us in 2014 with Freak Show‘s most convincingly emotional episode. That same episode, “Orphans,” did little to advance the plot of the show, save for hinting that Elsa does, in fact, become a television star. This week, it’s become apparent that, with so few episodes left in the season, they’re itching to get some things out of the way, but they’re doing it by.. introducing a new character.





We start at the jail with Stanley trying to convince Jimmy to give him his claws in order to pay for a proper defense. (You’ll remember that Jimmy was locked up for killing a Tupperware party full of women, a crime Dandy committed.) Stanley gives Jimmy a substance to induce vomiting, and then a hired hand — a male prostitute — is there with an ambulance to take him away. Jimmy wakes up, finds himself in a pretty rough hospital with both his hands chopped off. He screams, but what was he expecting? For Stanley to take only one?
Dell visits him in prison, feeds him, and does stuff like a dad. (“I’m 50 years old and this is the first time I’ve fed my son.”) Dell explains that he was the only man in his family to not have ectrodactyly, being a kind of freak for being normal. Jimmy tells him that he wants to buy the freak show from Elsa. They’re both really excited about it.
Dell returns to the campground, where he and Amazon Eve scheme to have Jimmy rescued. It doesn’t take much doing: They simply smash the window of his police escort, kill the guards, and unshackle Jimmy.
Meanwhile, Bette and Dot, determined to work as partners and no longer dying to be separating from each other, are set on having their virginity taken by any man the two can agree on. They set their eyes on Chester (Neil Patrick Harris), a traveling salesman and magician who doesn’t quite see things how they are, thanks to a metal plate in his head. He’s also got a friend, Marjorie, a dummy that may or may not be alive. The two of them are allowed to stay at the freak show if he does some bookkeeping for Elsa. It’s honestly a surprise that this is the first time a creepy-ass doll has ever been used in AHS.
Chester enlists Bette and Dot as his assistants in his magic show in which he cuts someone in half. During this scene, we get a little bit of a flashback to something ambiguous that involves Chester, with Marjorie on his lap, sitting in the corner of a bedroom as two women have sex on a bed right in front of him.
Soon, Bette and Dot come on to him in his room, make out with him until he’s overcome with the screeching of the metal plate in his head. We get another glimpse into his past, and see that it’s his wife and another woman having sex. He snaps out of it and, after picking up and placing his hand inside of Marjorie (“She relaxes me”), has sex with Bette and Dot.
Cut to Dandy, who receives pictures from a private detective he’s hired to spy on Bette and Dot. He’s not very happy about their sleeping with Chester.
We then see another bit of Chester’s past, with his wife’s lover calling Chester a freak, and a humanized Marjorie (Jamie Brewer) telling him to kill his wife and her lover. And then, back in the present, he buys the freak show from Elsa.
The cops, looking for the escaped Jimmy, eventually show up to the campgrounds. They find nothing, but Chester is distraught over the disappearance of Marjorie. He wanders the campgrounds, shouting Marjorie’s name, and finds Dandy. He’s taken Marjorie, and he knows about Chester’s past: He — or Marjorie, depending on if the show’s depiction of it is to be trusted — killed both his wife and her lover. He eventually finds Marjorie, again humanized, in the big tent and she tells him that he has to saw the twins in half.
Dell returns to the campgrounds and finds Desiree in his camper. She confronts him, asks him who he’s killed. He confesses to the killing of the cops. But Desiree knows that Dell killed Ma Petite — and she brought her back from Philadelphia. Dell admits to it, and when he does, Elsa executes him from behind. Another excellent actor wasted on a shitty, undeveloped American Horror Story character, and another unceremonious, ineffective death.
Read more http://flavorwire.com/497731/american-horror-story-freak-show-season-4-episode-12-recap-magical-thinking

A white police officer shot a black teenager to death at a gas station in the city next door to Ferguson

A white police officer shot a black teenager to death at a gas station in the city next door to Ferguson, Missouri, touching off clashes early Wednesday between demonstrators and law enforcement.

The mayor said that video from the confrontation, in the city of Berkeley, appeared to show the teenager pointing a gun at the officer, and police said a handgun was recovered at the scene. Police said the officer feared for his life.

"This was not the same as Ferguson," Mayor Theodore Hoskins said.

He took pains to say that the shooting could not be compared to the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson or to the chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York. The mayor, who is black, pointed out that the Berkeley police department is majority-black.

He promised a thorough investigation but said that the video showed it was not a police officer going off "half-cocked." 

"Everybody don't die the same," he told reporters. "Some people die because the policeman initiated. Some people die because they initiated it. And at this point, our review indicates that the police did not initiate this, like Ferguson." 

A woman at the scene who identified herself as Toni Martin told NBC affiliate KSDK that the victim was her son, Antonio Martin, 18.

She said Martin was on his way to meet his girlfriend when the fatal encounter happened and that he was not carrying a gun. "He only just left the house to go see her," she said.

The mother said Antonio turned 18 in September and had attended nearby Jennings High School, and that she was trying to get him enrolled in the Jobs Corps employment program. She spoke as the body still lay covered on the ground outside the Mobil gas station.

"They got my baby laying out there. He's been out there for about two hours," she said.

The shooting took place just after 11 p.m. local time Tuesday. Chief Jon Belmar of the St. Louis County police said that the officer was white and a six-year veteran. The officer's name was not released. He was placed on administrative leave, Belmar said.

He said that the officer fired at least three rounds and that the victim did not fire any.

"These are nothing but tragedies," Belmar said as he offered his condolences to the victim's family. The officer "will have to carry the weight of this for the rest of his life," he said, adding: "There are no winners here." 

Read more http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fatal-cop-shooting-teen-berkeley-missouri-sparks-clashes-n274181

Santa tracker 2014: Follow Santa Claus as he delivers presents around the world

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — NORAD’s Santa Tracker is up and running at noradsanta.org as Santa Clause makes his storybook Christmas Eve flight.

The volunteers will spend Wednesday answering phone calls and emails from children and posting updates on the mythical journey to Facebook, Twitter and http://www.NORADSanta.org.
The Santa Tracker started in 1955 when a newspaper offered a phone number where children could call and find out where in the world Santa was at that moment.
The phone number it listed was for the Continental Aerospace Defense Command, the predecessor to the North American Aerospace Defense Command. The officers on duty played along and began passing along reports on Santa’s progress.
These days technology helps children keep track of Ol’ St. Nick.  Updates are posted at noradsanta.org, facebook.com/noradsanta and twitter.com/NoradSanta.

The Stanta Tracker website was launched in 1997 and peaked at 22.3 million in 2012.
Read More http://kdvr.com/2014/12/24/santa-tracker-2014-follow-santa-claus-as-he-delivers-presents-around-the-world/

In Its Strange Journey, 'The Interview' Becomes An Art House Film

The Alamo Drafthouse theater chain will show The Interview starting on Christmas Day.

Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images

A buddy flick about killing North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un will be shown on Christmas Day after all, at least in about 200 independent theaters. This kind of small-scale distribution model and the politics surrounding The Interview give what was once a big-budget Hollywood release the spirit of an art house film.

In the satirical film, which is at the center of a geopolitical tussle, Seth Rogen and James Franco play television producers who get an interview with Kim but are then hired by the CIA to "take him out."
The reaction to this film from one of the most cutoff countries on Earth — and from its leader — came quickly. North Korea went to the United Nations trying to get the film banned. In November came a hack of Sony Pictures, the studio behind the film, that the FBI links to North Koreans.
Subsequent threats invoking Sept. 11 led major theater chains to say they wouldn't show it. But when Sony pulled the film from release last week, President Obama joined a chorus of Americans expressing their disappointment.
"We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship in the United States," Obama said on Friday.
Then, 48 hours before the film's original opening day, Sony changed its mind. It uncanceled The Interview after independent theater operators started an online petition to show the film.
"It's kinda classic little-guy stuff that we support. I think it's really important that there's small places that can take a stand," says Hadrian Belove, executive director of the Cinefamily, a nonprofit cinema in Los Angeles. The Cinefamily will screen the film.
Now it's the little guys — a couple of hundred independent theaters — that get to run a big-budget film originally set for broad release. The Atlanta's Plaza Theater is among them. So is the Austin-based Alamo Drafthouse chain.
Read more
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/12/24/372765023/in-its-strange-journey-the-interview-becomes-an-art-house-film

'Tis the season for mangling Christmas phrases (+video)

The holiday season offers revelers countless opportunities to stumble over archaic English phrases, unlikely homonyms, and unexamined carol lyrics.

An Arizona woman trims her Christmas tree in her own way, in 1997.

Lo, though centuries dark and deep cometh the yuletide vocabulary donned now by the Google doodle so we can all fa-la-la-la-la our collective Christmas bliss back a few centuries and, in so doing, find comfort and joy in words and phrases that both gain and lose meaning with age.
This leads us to the 12 dazes of Christmas.
1. ‘Tis, it’s, it is and t’is the season for confusion over the spelling, meaning, pronunciation and lyrics using Old (Olde?) English-ish words and phrases that ‘twere in carols and Christmas tales back in the day.

Recommended: How well do you know global Christmas traditions? Take our quiz!

For the record, it’s correctly rendered "‘tis" which is a contraction of "it is." The rule with contractions is that we put the apostrophes where the letters, not the spaces, are missing.

"‘Tis" and "‘twas" largely became verbally extinct in the late 1800s, we bring them back to life each holiday season like dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, with much the same bizarre results.

 

Read more http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/2014/1223/Tis-the-season-for-mangling-Christmas-phrases-video

 

 

 

 

Joe Cocker Is Dead at 70; Raspy-Voiced Rock Star With Distinctive Moves

Joe Cocker onstage at Woodstock in 1969. Credit Don Hogan Charles

Joe Cocker, the gravelly British singer who became one of pop’s most recognizable interpreters in the late 1960s and ’70s with passionate, idiosyncratic takes on songs like the Beatles’ “With a Little Help From My Friends,” died on Monday at his home in Crawford, Colo. He was 70.

The cause was lung cancer, his agent, Barrie Marshall, said.

Mr. Cocker had been a journeyman singer in Britain for much of the 1960s, building a reputation as a soulful barreler with full-throated versions of Ray Charles and Chuck Berry songs. But he became a sensation after his performance of “With a Little Help From My Friends” at the Woodstock music festival in 1969.

His appearance there, captured in the 1970 concert film “Woodstock,” established him as one of pop’s most powerful and irrepressible vocalists. With his tie-dyed shirt and shaggy mutton chops soaked in sweat, Mr. Cocker, then 25, pleadingly teased out the song’s verses — “What would you do if I sang out of tune?/Would you stand up and walk out on me?” — and threw himself into repeated climaxes, lunging and gesticulating in ways that seemed to imitate a guitarist in a heroic solo.

On Twitter, Ringo Starr wrote on Monday, “Goodbye and God bless to Joe Cocker from one of his friends.” In a statement, Paul McCartney recalled hearing Mr. Cocker’s record of the song. “It was just mind-blowing, totally turned the song into a soul anthem,” he said, “and I was forever grateful for him for having done that.”

After Woodstock, Mr. Cocker toured widely and took his place as perhaps the rock world’s most distinctive interpreter of others’ songs — an art then going out of fashion with the rise of folk-inspired singer-songwriters and groups, like the Beatles, that wrote their own material.

His other hits included a version of the Box Tops’ hit “The Letter” and the standard “Cry Me a River,” both in 1970, and “You Are So Beautiful,” in 1975. His only No. 1 single was “Up Where We Belong,” recorded as a duet with Jennifer Warnes for the 1982 film “An Officer and a Gentleman,” for which he won his only Grammy Award.

More Read

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/23/arts/music/joe-cocker-is-dead-at-70.html?_r=0

Chargers drop 49ers in OT to stay in playoff race

(Photo: Kyle Terada, USA TODAY Sports)

SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — Philip Rivers looked at the 21-point deficit on the scoreboard at halftime and even he wondered whether the San Diego Chargers had it in them to come back. The season depended on it, so Rivers took charge.
He prevailed through a balky back and a sore chest to keep San Diego's slim playoff chances alive, rallying his team to tie it in the final minute and setting up Nick Novak's 40-yard field goal nearly 5 minutes into overtime in a 38-35 victory over the San Francisco 49ers on Saturday night.
"Obviously, an unbelievable finish," coach Mike McCoy said. "We had about as bad a first half as we could possibly play. …You saw a lot of emotion on the sideline throughout that second half — the excitement, the energy, the way we play football."
Rivers found playmakers in Antonio Gates and Eddie Royal when two of San Diego's offensive stars were down with injuries.
Read More http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/chargers/2014/12/20/novaks-40-yard-fg-lifts-chargers-past-49ers/20711753/

Today the Sun Stands Still

Happy December solstice! There may be a few more months of this, though.

Photo by Phil Plait

Today is the real reason for the season: It’s the winter solstice! If you’re a purist, then raise your glass at 23:03 UTC (18:03 Eastern US time), because that's the moment the solstice occurs.

There are a lot of ways to look at this, but they all boil down to the Earth’s axis being tilted with respect to its orbit. You’ve seen this with classroom globes; they’re tipped by about 23.5°. As it orbits the Sun, the north pole of the Earth’s axis is always pointed pretty close to Polaris in the sky, which means that sometimes the axis is tipped toward the Sun, sometimes away. When it’s tipped as far from the Sun as it can be, that’s the moment of the winter solstice.
Read more http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/12/21/winter_solstice_dec_21_2014.html

Two N.Y.P.D. Officers Are Killed in Brooklyn Ambush; Suspect Commits Suicide

Two police officers sitting in their patrol car in Brooklyn were shot at point-blank range and killed on Saturday afternoon by a man who, officials said, had traveled to the city from Baltimore vowing to kill officers. The suspect then committed suicide with the same gun, the authorities said.

The officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, were in the car near Myrtle and Tompkins Avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant in the shadow of a tall housing project when the gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, walked up to the passenger-side window and assumed a firing stance, Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said. Mr. Brinsley shot several rounds into the heads and upper bodies of the officers, who never drew their weapons, the authorities said.

Mr. Brinsley, 28, then fled down the street and onto the platform of a nearby subway station, where he killed himself as officers closed in. The police recovered a silver semiautomatic handgun, Mr. Bratton said.

Investigators at the scene where Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were shot and killed on Saturday. Credit John Minchillo/Associated Press

Mr. Brinsley, who had a long rap sheet of crimes that included robbery and carrying a concealed gun, is believed to have shot his former girlfriend near Baltimore before traveling to Brooklyn, the authorities said. He made statements on social media suggesting that he planned to kill police officers and was angered about the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases.

Authorities in Baltimore sent a warning that Mr. Brinsley had made these threats, but it was received in New York at essentially the same time as the killings, officials said.

The shootings, the chase, the suicide of Mr. Brinsley and the desperate but failed bid to save the lives of the officers — their uniforms soaked in blood — turned a busy commercial intersection on the Saturday before Christmas into a scene of pandemonium.

The manager of a liquor store at the corner, Charlie Hu, said the two police officers were slouched over in the front seat of their patrol car. Both of them appeared to have been shot in the head, Mr. Hu said, and one of the officers had blood spilling out of his face.

“Today two of New York’s finest were shot and killed with no warning, no provocation,” Mr. Bratton said at Woodhull Hospital in Williamsburg, where the officers were declared dead. “They were, quite simply, assassinated — targeted for their uniform and for the responsibility they embraced to keep the people of this city safe.”

“Officer Ramos and Officer Liu never had the opportunity to draw their weapons,” he continued. “They may have never even seen the assailant, their murderer.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio, standing beside the police commissioner, said, “It is an attack on all of us; it’s an attack on everything we hold dear.”

Mr. de Blasio said he had met with the officers’ families, including Officer Ramos’s 13-year-old son, who “couldn’t comprehend what had happened to his father.”

Read More http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/nyregion/two-police-officers-shot-in-their-patrol-car-in-brooklyn.html?_r=0

South Plainfield crowns four champs, wins Morris Knolls title

The South Plainfield High School wrestling team crowned four individual champions and freshman Joe Heilmann had an impressive debut for the Tigers, who captured their eighth consecutive Morris Knolls Invitational Tournament title on Saturday.
The Tigers amassed 218 team points, besting the host school, which tallied 198 points.
Ryan Walsh (126), Kyle Bythell (132) and Dan Hedden (138) strung together individual crowns for South Plainfield, while teammate Jordan Handwerger won the 160-pound title.
Heilmann, the younger brother of former South Plainfield and current University of North Carolina standout Nick, dropped a 3-0 decision in the opening round to West Morris sophomore Shane Metlzer, who InterMat ranks No. 19 in the nation at 106 pounds.
Heilmann rebounded from the defeat, wrestling his way back to third place.
Max Meyer (113), Alex Murray (152) and Ben Gomes (182) finished second for Watchung Hills, which placed fifth as a team with 124 points.
Perth Amboy, which did not boast a finalist, placed seventh.
Team scores: 1. South Plainfield (218); 2. Morris Knolls (198); 3. West Morris (195.5); 4. Montville (148.5); 5. Watchung Hills (124); 6. Seton Hall Prep (123); 7. Perth Amboy (75.5); 8. Newark Academy (67); 9. Wallkill Valley 62; 10. Morris Hills 21.
106—Shane Metzler (West Morris) dec. Austin Perrault (Morris Knolls), 9-3.
113—Garrett O’Shea (Morris Knolls) tech. fall Max Meyer (Watchung Hills), 17-2 (4:47).
120—Dylan Luciano (West Morris) dec. Nick Fierro (Seton Hall Prep), 3-0.
126—Ryan Walsh (South Plainfield) maj.dec. Marco Gaita (West Morris), 11-2.
132—Kyle Bythell (South Plainfield) dec. Michael Glasser (Montville), 6-2.
138—Dan Hedden (South Plainfield) dec. T.J. Calas (Seton Hall Prep), 5-0.
145—David Migliaccio (West Morris) dec. Brandon Seyffried (Newark Academy), 4-1.
152—Anthony Fano (Montville) dec. Alex Murray (Watchung Hills), 7-3.
160—Jordan Handwerger (South Plainfield) dec. Joey Schiele (Morris Hills), 1-0.
170—Luke Drugac (Morris Knolls) tech. fall Charles Austin (Newark Academy), 15-0 (2:53).
182—Dean Drugac (Morris Knolls) pin. Ben Gomes (Watchung Hills), 3:29.
195—Kevin Sears (West Morris) dec. Donovan Monteverdi (Seton Hall Prep), 8-1.
220—Joe Lascala (Montville) dec. Kevin Van Dyne (Morris Knolls), 7-1.
285—Parker Fox (Montville) dec. Jake Baker (Seton Hall Prep), 7-2.
Read More http://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/sports/high-school/wrestling/2014/12/20/south-plainfield-crowns-four-champs-wins-morris-knolls-title/20707893/

Eye on the East Bay: PG&E comes to rescue of Antioch tree lighting PG&E TO THE RESCUE: Downtown Antioch's Christmas tree lighting wouldn't have been quite so delightful earlier this month without the last-minute intervention of some hard hats and bucket trucks. An electrician who had volunteered to string lights around the approximately 60-foot tree at City Hall earlier in the week became backlogged in his work, and two days before the living decoration was supposed to be ready for prime time as part of Antioch's "Holiday De Lites" festivities, it was still lacking much of its bling. An officer of the Celebrate Antioch Foundation -- a nonprofit that brought the Christmas parade back this year after the recession forced the city to withdraw its financial support for the event in 2010 -- got on the horn to Pacific Gas & Electric Co., which sent several trucks along with six workers to the site that Friday morning. The crew had the job done in about 90 minutes, festooning the tree with LED lights, silver bells and some ornaments made from recycled DVD discs and vinyl banners cut up to resemble snowflakes. Without the utility company, residents would have seen a trimmed-down tree, said Diane Gibson-Gray, who helped with the decorations. "We would have lit up the tiny little lights that we had and said, 'Sorry,' " she said. Read More http://www.mercurynews.com/my-town/ci_27168254/eye-east-bay-pg-e-comes-rescue-antioch

Legend of Korra: A Fantastic Finale With a Perfect Ending

Korra's finale is a wild ride, even if it is better suited to end a season rather than conclude a series.

The two-part series finale for Legend of Korra pits the expanded Team Avatar against invading dictator Kuvira and her towering mecha-super-weapon. The massive explosions padded with heartfelt moments are immensely satisfying, but even amid all the destruction, tears, and laughter, Korra never faces the global and emotional stakes Aang did at the end of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
When The Legend of Korra first began production, it was intended as a single season spin-off of the incredibly popular ATLA . Sometime before the last episode aired, Nickelodeon decided to extend the series, which left creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino in a bit of a difficult position. ATLA began with an established antagonist and plans for Aang's development (along with his friends), enough to carry the show for multiple seasons. With Korra, from the beginning the show restricted itself to a Big Bad each season, and as such its finale doesn't have the impact on the universe ATLA's did. This has been a problem the show has faced since its first season, so if Korra's finale feels a little underwhelming, it's not something we didn't see coming.
Still, "Day of the Colossus" and "The Last Stand" are a fantastic pair of episodes. Studio Mir almost always knocks it out of the park with its animation work, and these episodes are some of its best work yet. On top of that, the music is perfect, as usual. Two tracks in particular stand out - one for Mako and another to close out the finale.
Fans of the fight choreography in LoK and ATLA might be disappointed by this finale. While almost every fight sequence is epic, none are as masterfully laid out or precise as earlier confrontations, such as Suyin facing Kuvira in "Operation Beifong." However, while Kuvira's super-weapon may be over the top, none of the combat reaches DBZ levels of ridiculousness. Mostly, it's small strikes against a massive enemy, supporting the narrative of fighting an authoritarian power.
The final portion of the episode provides a quiet conclusion to the series, and while not everyone gets to say their goodbyes, those that do are fitting. Some of the "surprises" of the episode were telegraphed moments before they occurred (or weeks ago, in some cases), but there should be a couple moments that catch you off guard.
The final two minutes of the episode are so far the most talked about, and rightly so. Legend of Korra and Nickelodeon did something unprecedented in Western children's animation in those moments. It's obviously a huge spoiler, so we'll save discussion of the topic for the next page.
Episodes of Legend of Korra: Book Four are released on Nick's website on Friday mornings, with all of the previous episodes available to view now. The first two seasons are available on Amazon, with Book Three on Vudu.
Read more http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/moviesandtv/reviews/12785-Legend-of-Korra-Series-Finale-Review

Kate Upton wins 'Sexiest Woman' at People Magazine Awards

The 22-year-old model took the stage at the magazine’s first-ever award show Thursday and revealed what ‘sexy’ means to her. 

Kevin Winter/PMA2014/Getty Images for dcp Model Kate Upton wins 'Sexiest Woman' award Thursday at the People Magazine Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Kate Upton was awarded "Sexiest Woman" at the first-ever People Magazine Awards Thursday in Beverly Hills, Calif.ore

Read more  http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/kate-upton-wins-sexiest-woman-article-1.2050992

 

 

 

 

 

Report: Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden engaged

It appears that Cameron Diaz’s reign as Hollywood’s most desired bachelorette has come to an end.
The 42-year-old actress is engaged to Good Charlotte rocker Benji Madden, reports Us Weekly.
PHOTOS: Cameron's bikini body
“Everyone thinks it’s wild, but are so happy for them,” said an insider. “Benji always tends to fall in love easily, but this time it’s for real and he landed a great girl. They obviously both make each other incredibly happy and there’s nothing better than that.”
Madden, 35, is said to be more traditional than the “Annie” star. “She really doesn’t care about getting married but wants babies,” the source added. “He wants to get engaged and married first.”
Madden’s twin brother and fellow rocker Joel Madden’s wife, Nicole Richie, set the couple up months ago. She told “Watch What Happens Live” in July, “I approve of anything that’s going to make Benji happy … I’m going to take responsibility for everything!”
PHOTOS: Odd couples
The couple of seven months have spotted on the sunny beaches of Miami and on the bustling streets of New York City.
Read More http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/12/19/report-cameron-diaz-and-benji-madden-engaged/

Serial podcast finale: Mania has propelled podcasts into the cultural mainstream

Simon Usborne finds out who's listening – and what to tune into now that Sarah Koenig has closed her case

A senior colleague of mine, whose age and identity will remain secret, did something telling on Tuesday. Holding out her iPhone a couple of desks away, she turned to a younger member of her team, and said quietly: "Um, can I ask a stupid question... how do I get a podcast?" As anyone who has grappled with the iPhone app and its complicated system of dots and clouds will know, this was not a stupid question. Nor is it a rare one at a time of feverish interest in a once-niche medium that is ending its 10th year on a huge high.
There will be no spoilers here, but it will be a revelation to few people that yesterday was a big one in podcasting – easily the biggest since the birth of the word in 2004. For more than three months, car journeys have been extended, treadmills paused and irons left to burn holes in shirts as millions of people – many of them podcast virgins – consumed Serial with a relish typically reserved for box-set binges. Launched quietly early in October, the gripping armchair investigation into a murder in Baltimore in 1999 ended with its 12th episode. Whether or not you downloaded it or listened on Radio 4 Extra last night (the BBC, itself the world's biggest producer of podcasts, snapped up the American series earlier this month when downloads topped five million), there are still plenty of reasons to be excited about a flourishing form – and plenty more podcasts out there to satisfy listeners with withdrawal symptoms.
But first, are we really streaming our way into a golden era? Is this a resurgence, a coming of age, or just a very successful show hyped by liberal media types who have been on first-name terms with Ira Glass for years? (The unlikely podcast god is the presenter and lifeblood of This American Life, the excellent show from which Serial sprung.) "I went to my cousin's wedding last weekend, and I will definitely let you know the aunts and uncles in my family are not super-familiar with podcasting," Julie Snyder, the producer who works with Serial presenter Sarah Koenig, admitted as the first episode went up.
"You have to be careful about thinking what's important to me and my mates is relevant to the universe at large," says Fiona Sturges, The Independent's radio columnist and a huge podcast consumer. "But the fact that millions of people have listened to Serial is astonishing because, while those numbers aren't that surprising when you look at how the arts are often consumed now [after viral promotion] in the realms of this supposedly marginalised form, it really is a big deal. Finally, people are getting it."
If you're still unsure about podcasts, they are pretty simple – just a way of distributing audio content that emerged shortly after the digital media player (namely the iPod) appeared. Ten years ago, radio shows began to become available to download and listen to anytime, anywhere. The BBC got in early, in 2004, releasing shows or chunks of shows such as In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg and, later, The Archers and Desert Island Discs. Elsewhere, download-only shows, Serial being the best recent example, skip radio entirely (even if they later end up on the BBC).
Be they five-minute word showers or hour-long ear baths, podcasts can be big budget and slick or made by a couple of football fans in a shed. They have brought democracy to the spoken word in the way that YouTube did for video over the same decade, appealing as much to the amateur producer as the global broadcasting corporation.
Simon Mayo is an accidental podcast star. The veteran BBC radio presenter admits that he "didn't really pay attention" when his and Mark Kermode's film-review show on Radio 5 Live first became available to download, in 2005. Now, he says, "we think about it a lot and increasingly people choose the podcast over the live show, or switch off on Friday afternoon so they can download later". Those who do are rewarded with "DVD extras", and none of the traffic updates that punctuate the radio programme. The weekly show now has 1.6 million monthly downloads, with far more younger and international listeners than can or would tune in to 5 Live.
Read More http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/serial-mania-has-propelled-podcasts-into-the-cultural-mainstream-9934634.html

Rajon Rondo is averaging 8.3 points per game this season.

Celtics trade Rajon Rondo to Mavericks

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AP

Rajon Rondo is averaging 8.3 points per game this season.

By Julian BenbowGlobe Staff  December 18, 2014

Trade rumors have followed Rajon Rondo for as long as he’s been in the NBA. They followed him during the Big Three era and in the rebuilding years that followed.
On Thursday, the rumors became reality. The Celtics completed a trade that will send Rondo and little-used forward Dwight Powell to the Dallas Mavericks for budding center Brandan Wright, veteran point guard Jameer Nelson, swingman Jae Crowder, and future first- and second-round picks.
“We would like to thank Rajon for everything that he has done for the Celtics organization and the success we have experienced during his tenure with us,” said Danny Ainge, Celtics president of basketball operations.
The trade, confirmed by the Celtics and Mavericks, ends Rondo’s nine years with the Celtics, a stretch that includes the 2008 NBA championship. It leaves the Celtics clearly positioning themselves for the long-term future with a hefty collection of draft picks. The immediate future, however, will continue to feature a team that will struggle to break .500.
Read More http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2014/12/18/rajon-rondo-traded/sDkGGBPe9zG7pykywZFWWJ/story.html

American Sniper

"Do you ever think you’ve seen things or done things that you wish you hadn’t?" goes the new trailer for "American Sniper." For those who haven’t, the two-minute sizzle reel is happy to oblige.
Starring Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle, considered one of the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history, "American Sniper" jumps back and forth between military operations and the marine’s life back at home. He struggles on both fronts. The film costars Sienna Miller, Jake McDorman, Luke Grimes, Navid Negahban and Keir O’Donnell, but seems to entrench itself inside Kyle’s mind as he navigates his noble and peculiar life.
The film comes from Clint Eastwood, the man behind such war pictures as "Flags of Our Fathers," "Letters from Iwo Jima," and "Jersey Boys" (maybe that last one just felt that way). The film earned lackluster reviews out of its AFI Fest premiere — our own Drew McWeeny praised Cooper but found Eastwood’s direction underwhelming, calling "American Sniper" a "perfunctory tribute to a man who seems to have lived an anything-but-perfunctory life" — and wound up without any nominations when the Golden Globes rolled around, a snub considering the talent involved. Could "American Sniper" play better to audiences outside Hollywood? That was the case for "Lone Survivor," which overcame negative reviews to gross $125 million at the box office.
Check out the new trailer for "American Sniper" above, which amps up the bombast and splashes the picture with dizzying critic quotes.

Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/in-contention/new-american-sniper-trailer-swells-with-action-music-and-praise-filled-quotes#I4YrqZQ2KeJjZKR1.99

Wassily Kandinsky at 148: a revolutionary Google Doodle star

The great abstract artist’s paintings are spiritual symphonies that reveal hidden truths and speak directly to our senses and feelings

Launelinie, 1927, by Wassily Kandinsky. Photograph: Christie’s Images/Corbis

The fascinating thing about Wassily Kandinsky, whose 148th birthday has got him a Google Doodle today, is how seriously and carefully he evolved from figurative painting to abstract art. Kandinsky did not become an abstract painter lightly. He reached abstraction in a strenuous, thoughtful way that gives his art huge authority.
In his early expressionist paintings villages glow in radiant colours. These landscapes pulse with wild chromatic splendour that resembles the freedom of the fauves. In fact Kandinsky’s expressive landscapes are already partly abstract, in their use of colour. This innovation, that started with the French fauves and was rapidly adopted by the German expressionists, was the first, huge step towards abstraction in 20th-century art. But the wild colours enflaming art in the early years of the century still portray a very recognisable world. Kandinsky took it a revolutionary step further by reaching a logical conclusion – what if painting were pure colour? What if it created its own imaginary world, like the world of a symphony?

Yellow-Red-Blue, 1925, by Wassily Kandinsky. Photograph: Burstein Collection/Corbis

Like symphonies, Kandinsky’s great abstract paintings speak directly to our senses and feelings. Their constellations of mysterious marks are like waves of sound that trigger emotions. For him, the world they pointed towards was a spiritual realm, a hidden truth.
Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian both build cathedrals of the mind in their abstract art – silent cities of spiritual calm. That mystical impulse is connected to mathematics, and in Kandinsky this means a deep consciousness of structure. If his paintings have the expressive colour of Van Gogh’s Starry Night they also have the classical clarity of Poussin.
There is a true grandeur to his concept of painting, and a sense of truth. Whatever we think about his spiritualist beliefs, the result is an art that is at once purely abstract and plainly rooted in a deep feel for the nature of things. A profound, paradoxical and rich achievement. Kandinsky intuits the cosmic complexity of modern physics. His art can be set alongside today’s images of the fabric of the universe.
None of this makes Kandinsky an easy artist.
It makes him a great one.
Read More
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/dec/16/wassily-kandinsky-148-google-doodle

Cutler, Bears look completely lost as Saints take first place in NFC South

Photo: Brian Kersey/Getty Images

Coming into their Monday night matchup at Soldier Field, the Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints were dealing with various levels of dysfunction. Aaron Kromer, Chicago's offensive coordinator and New Orleans' former assistant coach from 2008 through 2012, told NFL.com's Ian Rapoport that the team had a case of "buyer's remorse" regarding the seven-year, $126.7 million deal with $54 million guaranteed that quarterback Jay Cutler agreed to in the offseason. That led to a tearful apology to the team and to Cutler, and rumors that Kromer might be headed out the door. Kromer was retained, though after the results of Monday night's game, he may have wished he was job-hunting.
• Catch up on the NFL action in Week 15 with SI.com's news and features
Meanwhile, Saints head coach Sean Payton reacted to his team's 41-10 loss to the Carolina Panthers on Dec. 7 by having meetings with several players and making corresponding roster adjustments. Payton and defensive coordinator Rob Ryan have had it out on the sidelines this season, and New Orleans' 31st-ranked defense (per Football Outsiders, only the Falcons are worse on that side of the ball) has been the cause.
Both of these teams came into this game with 5-8 records, but with different levels of motivation. While the Bears' season has been over for a while, the Saints were angling for first place in the NFL South, this year's version of which may very well be the worst division in NFL history.
Read More
http://www.si.com/nfl/2014/12/15/saints-bears-jay-cutler-drew-brees-nfc-south-nfc-north