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Quentin Oliver Lee, best known for his role as the Phantom in the US tour of “The Phantom of the Opera” and an off-Broadway role in “Oratorio for Living Things,” has died. He was 34. His wife, Angie Lee Graham, broke the news in an Instagram post, telling fans that he passed away in the “wee hours” of Thursday morning after a months-long battle with colon cancer. “It was the most beautiful moment of my life,” Graham wrote in the announcement which was posted to Lee’s account. “I saw his last breaths, held his hand tight, and felt his heartbeat...

The former head of trust and safety at Twitter said it was a mistake for the platform to censor a story about Hunter Biden's laptop ahead of the 2020 election. Yoel Roth, who resigned from Twitter following Elon Musk's takeover, was interviewed Tuesday by journalist Kara Swisher in his first public appearance since his departure from the company on November 10. In October 2020, less than a month before the election, the New York Post published a story that claimed to contain emails retrieved from a laptop that belonged to President Joe Biden's son Hunter. Twitter initially suppressed distribution of...

Multiple psychological factors contribute to astonishing feats of creativity and insight.In the late 1920s, a young working-class boy nicknamed Ritty spent most of his time tinkering in his "laboratory" at his parents' home in Rockaway, New York. His lab was an old wooden packing box, equipped with shelves that contained a storage battery and an electric circuit of light bulbs, switches and resistors. One of his proudest inventions was a homemade burglar alarm that alerted him whenever his parents entered his room. He used a microscope to study the natural world and he would sometimes take his chemistry set into...

It’s been a while since we last wrote about Mark Ruffalo, not because he’s gotten any smarter or better with his tweets, he’s just not crossed our radar. That being said, his tweet calling to make Twitter a public utility UNDER governmental supervision is absolutely Twitchy-worthy. Not to mention the thousands and thousands of people dragging him. Tell us you’re completely out-of-touch with reality without really telling us, Mark. Mark Ruffalo @MarkRuffalo As a worldwide “public square,” this app should be heavily regulated for misinformation & spamming by hostile interests. If Elon can’t do that with his “company,” it should...

Need some really good advice? Look no further than Dear Life Kit. In each episode, we pose one of your most pressing questions to an expert. This question was answered by John Kim, a therapist, life coach and host of The Angry Therapist, a podcast he uses to deliver what he calls "self-help in a shot glass." This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Won't be home for Christmas Dear Life Kit, I'm single and my parents keep guilt-tripping me into using all my vacation time to visit them for the holidays. I love my parents, but my...

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Police and federal law enforcement officers are among 20 people from multiple states saying they were wounded by a popular type of Sig Sauer pistol, the latest lawsuit alleging that the gun is susceptible to going off without the trigger being pulled. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. federal court in Concord, New Hampshire, says there have been over 100 incidents of the P320 pistol unintentionally discharging when the user believed they did not pull the trigger. “These men and women were highly trained officers, veterans, and responsible and safety-conscious gun users who put their trust...

Grindr came out swinging when it made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange. The gay dating app's stock rose by more than 400% after going public on Friday. The self-described "leading platform focused on the LGBTQ+ community" announced its intention to become a public company back in March. In September, the app's board of directors appointed both a chief executive, and a chief financial officer. On Friday, the dating app announced its successful merger with Tiga Acquisition Corp, a special purpose acquisition company. Grindr Inc. debuted on the New York Stock Exchange that same day under the symbols...

"But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." "And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused." "I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality."...

Anyone still wearing a face mask to protect himself from Covid probably has no intention of ever shedding it now. Residents may no longer even have a choice in Los Angeles, where local health officials pledge to reinstate mandates as soon as next week. On Thursday, Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer threatened the return of an indoor mask mandate if rates of hospitalization attributed to Covid continue to climb. “If both hospitalization indicators, new COVID-19 admissions and the proportion of staffed in-patient beds occupied by COVID patients, surpass the threshold for high, LA County will return to...

Vice President Kamala Harris’s communications director Jamal Simmons is leaving his position as Harris continues to churn through staff. Simmons plans to leave at the beginning of the new year, according to a report from Politico, having become part of Harris’s team in January to help her fix her public image after her difficult first year as vice president. Harris’ chief of staff Lorraine Voles told staff in an email announcing Simmons’ departure that she hired him to help “steady the ship” of the vice president’s office and that he agreed to serve in the position for a year, according...

When the closely watched Georgia Senate race went to a runoff, nonprofit organizations that educate voters strained to ramp up operations again after Election Day. “It’s not just, ‘Find new canvassers and recruit new volunteers.’ It’s also, ‘Find new money,’” said Kendra Cotton, CEO of New Georgia Project — founded by Stacey Abrams, the Democrat who lost her second campaign to become the state’s governor last month. The project’s goal was to raise $1 million to inform voters about the runoff, help them find out where and how to vote through phone banking and text banking, as well as voter...

A Leesburg woman was arrested after a brawl with her jealous beau who hit her with a breakfast sandwich. A Lake County sheriff’s deputy was dispatched Sunday to the 1200 block of Pine Island Drive when 39-year-old Jennifer Louise Reccoppa called 911 to report an attack. Reccoppa said she had gotten into an argument with her man friend who accused her of having sexual relations with someone else. She said she went to the store to get a drink and her beau “went to get some food stamps to eat.” When she returned, she parked in the driveway and was...

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A tiny Nevada toad at the center of a legal battle over a geothermal power project has officially been declared an endangered species after U.S. wildlife officials temporarily listed it on a rarely-used emergency basis last spring. “This ruling makes final the listing of the Dixie Valley toad,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a formal rule published Friday in the Federal Register. Environmentalists who first petitioned for the listing in 2017 filed a lawsuit in January to block construction of the geothermal power plant on the edge of the wetlands where the toad...

As Tesla has announced their new semi truck

A man died Friday morning after he initially got out of burning home in Eagle Rock but went back inside, officials said. The blaze was reported around 8:35 a.m. at 1456 W. Hepner Ave., according to an alert from the Los Angeles Fire Department. Responding firefighters arrived to find a single-family home in flames. They received reports that four people were inside the home and three nearby buildings were being exposed to the heat. Crews put out the fire in about 30 minutes and protected all neighboring structures. The home was completely destroyed and has been red-tagged. All four men...

I saw a woman on TikTok say she can stump almost any man with one specific question. The question was “Name three women who you are not related to who you admire and want to be more like.” I immediately saw her point. Misogyny generally blinds most men from seeing women as people they want to admire and, critically, to be like. So much of masculinity is about making sure we are not like women. We may love women, but we are taught to aspire to be like successful men. The qualities that most men respect in women are not...

A 38-year-old Florida man on a stand-up electric scooter was arrested Wednesday after fleeing from Deputies and then jumping in the water. According to deputies, Jose Junior Vigil, 38, of Ocala, was charged with fleeing and eluding, resisting arrest, possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia. Investigators say Vigil crossed U.S. 1 on Stock Island at approximately 2:47 a.m. on a scooter with no lights. Deputies attempted to stop the man as he traveled south toward Key West on the sidewalk. Vigil refused to stop for Deputies and continued to drive to a hotel near the entrance of Key...

Elon Musk says he will release details on Friday afternoon about Twitter’s decision to censor The Post’s scoop about Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop. “What really happened with the Hunter Biden story suppression by Twitter will be published on Twitter at 5pm ET!” the new CEO tweeted. “This will be awesome,” he added in a separate tweet alongside a popcorn emoji. The world’s richest man, who purchased Twitter last month, has previously insisted full disclosure was needed to determine why the company decided to block the bombshell report about President Biden’s son in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election.

<p>"Blackstone Inc.’s $69 billion real estate fund for wealthy individuals said it will limit redemption requests, one of the most dramatic signs of a pullback at a top profit driver for the firm and a chilling indicator for the property industry. Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust Inc. has been facing withdrawal requests exceeding its quarterly limit, a major test for the one of the private equity firm’s most ambitious efforts to reach individual investors. The news, in a letter Thursday, sent Blackstone stock falling as much as 10%, the biggest drop since March. In the past year, rich individuals, family offices and financial advisers have become more cautious about tying up money in assets that are hard to trade and value. At UBS Group AG, some advisers have been reducing exposure to BREIT. A major chunk of redemptions for the fund has come out of Asia this year, said a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified citing private information.</p>

Gérard Araud was not mincing his words. As France’s former ambassador to Washington, he had seen enough. At a November 14 panel hosted by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft titled “Is America Ready for a Multipolar Word?” Araud decried the “economic warfare” being waged by the United States against China, expressing the view that Europe was concerned by the evident “containment policy” being pursued. Araud is very much the establishment figure, having also served as French representative to the United Nations from 2009 to 2014. But despite his pedigree, he was most keen to fire off a few salvos...