Free Republic

Nearly 200 years after Jane Austen‘s untimely death, crime novelist Lindsay Ashford has come up with a new explanation: arsenic poisoning. Austen, the English author of such classic novels as “Pride and Prejudice” and “Sense and Sensibility,” died in 1817 at age 41. Her death has been attributed to everything from cancer to Addison’s disease. But Ashford, who moved to Austen’s village of Chawton three years ago and started writing her new crime novel in the former home of Austen’s brother, stumbled across another possibility — that Austen died of arsenic poisoning. ... Ashford recognized that Austen’s symptoms could be...

Two-time Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson weighed in on the #OscarsSoWhite controversy this week, and suggested the industry’s diversity issues could be remedied by “killing off” the Academy’s many older, white members. “It’s hilarious,” the British actress told the Belfast Telegraph earlier this week in regards to the Oscars nominating controversy. In January, the controversy was renewed after the Academy announced its acting nominations included no people of color for a second straight year. “It’s no change there. It’s not as if it’s ever been awash with people of color. Let’s face it, the Oscar membership is mainly old, white men,”...