Yahoo MoviesIn Pictures: Spectacular light show brings festive cheer to Kew
Festive projections are lighting up the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew.
Lanterns and neon lights cascading down from trees are among the dazzling displays at the venue in London.
Festive projections are lighting up the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew.
Lanterns and neon lights cascading down from trees are among the dazzling displays at the venue in London.
‘The facts are very clear and I’m not going to sugarcoat them, hospitals are under extreme pressure and staff are under extreme pressure’
Canada's Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne spoke to Alimentation Couche-Tard founder Alain Bouchard and assured him of support for Canadian businesses, after the company dropped plans to buy European retailer Carrefour SA, the minister said in a tweet on Sunday. Quebec-based convenience store operator Couche-Tard abandoned talks to buy Carrefour for $20 billion after French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire raised concerns about food and job security. Champagne said in his tweet that the government will support Canadian businesses "here and abroad," adding the two-way trade benefits businesses both sides of the Atlantic.
Follow live updates from the highly-anticipated clash at Anfield
New Delhi [India], January 17 (ANI): Congress leader Randeep Surjewala on Sunday said the BJP-led Central government should clarify who will get free COVID-19 vaccination, when and how.
Spector transformed pop music with his "wall of sound", but in 2009 was jailed for killing actress Lana Clarkson.
Hall of Fame Kareem Abdul-Jabbar performed a PSA, announcing he will take the vaccine and is encouraging others to follow suit, right before the league takes center stage on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
I think this top TSX stock has the potential to be influenced by Warren Buffett this year. I mean, he's done so in the past! The post 1 Top TSX Stock Warren Buffett Is Likely to Choose in 2021 appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.
All eyes on Anfield this afternoon as one of the great rivalries in English football is renewed. It's been a while since a meeting between Liverpool and Manchester United has meant as much as today. During a period in which Liverpool have dropped points against West Brom, Newcastle and Southampton, failing to win any of their last three league fixtures, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's side have won five of their last six games to go top.
The UK Government has recorded 38,598 new cases of coronavirus giving the country a total of 3,395,959 people infected so far in the pandemic. The figures come as Boris Johnson hailed the vaccine roll-out effort that sees a vaccine being administered at a rate of 140 jabs a minute. The Foreign Secretary added it would be "great" if the rollout could be faster but that the Government was working to the early autumn target.
Dom Bess storms to centre stage after a whirlwind journey to the top. The unorthodox spinner may always attract criticism but against Sri Lanka he has shown the value of his turbulent style
There is hope at the centre of many shanties – the perfect antidote to help fight coronavirus-related isolation
States are increasing security at capitols while D.C. locks down Sunday ahead of expected protests before the inauguration. Live coverage.
WILMINGTON, Del. — Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris will resign her Senate seat on Monday, two days before she and President-elect Joe Biden are inaugurated. Aides to the California Democrat confirmed the timing and said Gov. Gavin Newsom was aware of her decision, clearing the way for him to appoint fellow Democrat Alex Padilla, now California's secretary of state, to serve the final two years of Harris' term. Padilla will be the first Latino senator from California, where about 40% of residents are Hispanic. Newsom announced his choice in December, following intense lobbying for the rare Senate vacancy from the nation's most populous state. Harris will give no farewell Senate floor speech. The Senate is not scheduled to reconvene until Tuesday, the eve of Inauguration Day, two weeks after supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol as lawmakers were meeting to affirm Biden's election victory. That siege, Harris said in an interview broadcast Sunday, “was seismic. It was an inflection moment. You know, sometimes we think an inflection moment is the bringing of something that is positive. No. It was in many ways a reckoning. It was an exposure of the vulnerability of our democracy.” Padilla's arrival, along with Harris becoming the Senate's presiding officer when she's sworn-in as vice-president, is part of Democrats' upcoming Senate majority. But the party still needs Sens.-elect Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia to be certified as victors in their Jan. 5 elections and then be sworn in. Harris will be the first Black woman and first woman of South Asian descent to serve as vice-president, but her Senate departure leaves the chamber’s roster without a Black woman. Harris was just the second Black woman senator, winning her California election 17 years after Democrat Carol Moseley Braun finished a single term representing Illinois. Among many potential successors to Harris, Newsom passed over at least two prominent Black women, U.S. Reps. Karen Bass and Barbara Lee. Bass also was among Biden's finalists for running mate. Democrats were in the minority during Harris' four years on Capitol Hill. Perhaps her biggest mark came as a fierce questioner of judicial nominees and other witnesses as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Harris was viewed as a future presidential candidate almost immediately upon joining the Senate in 2017. She announced her White House bid in January 2019 but dropped out the subsequent December after a lacklustre campaign and before the ballots were cast in Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses. Biden, himself a former senator, invited her to join the national ticket in August. The wins by Ossoff and Warnock in Georgia ensured a 50-50 Senate, positioning Harris as the tie-breaking vote for Democratic control. But Ossoff and Warnock cannot join the chamber until Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger certifies the final vote tally. Raffensperger, a Republican, has said he could act as soon as Tuesday, conceivably allowing Padilla, Ossoff and Warnock to join the Senate together as early as that afternoon's session. But Republicans will maintain a narrow majority until all three take office and Harris sits in the presiding officer's chair. Harris' early departure from the Senate has multiple precedents. Biden was the last sitting senator to be elected vice-president. He resigned his Delaware post on Jan. 15, 2009, five days before he and Barack Obama were inaugurated. Obama, a senator at the time of his election, had resigned his Illinois seat two months before Biden. Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, have enjoyed conversations and debates over how Emhoff should be addressed when Harris takes office. During their joint interview with “CBS Sunday Morning,” Harris joked that some of Emhoff’s friends suggested he could be dubbed the “first dude.” Emhoff added there were other ideas “I can’t repeat on national television.” Vice presidents’ spouses -- all of them wives before Emhoff -- have typically been called the “second lady,” a nod to the “first lady” being the president’s wife. All kidding aside, Emhoff told CBS’ Jane Pauley, he would be the first “second gentleman” in U.S. history Bill Barrow, The Associated Press
Music producer Phil Spector has died in prison at the age of 81. Spector died from complications after contracting Covid-19, according to reports. Spector, who changed the sound of pop music in the 1960s with his "Wall of Sound" recordings , had been diagnosed with Covid-19 four weeks ago and was transferred from his prison cell to a hospital, it has been reported.
Those who stormed the Capitol and their attorneys in early defense arguments say they went there at the 'invitation' of President Trump or were let in by police.
LOS ANGELES — Phil Spector, the eccentric and revolutionary music producer who transformed rock music with his “Wall of Sound” method and who later was convicted of murder, has died. He was 81. California state prison officials said he died Saturday of natural causes at a hospital. Spector was convicted of murdering actress Lana Clarkson in 2003 at his castle-like mansion on the edge of Los Angeles. After a trial in 2009, he was sentenced to 19 years to life. While most sources give Spector’s birth date as 1940, it was listed as 1939 in court documents following his arrest. His lawyer subsequently confirmed that date to The Associated Press. Clarkson, star of “Barbarian Queen” and other B-movies, was found shot to death in the foyer of Spector’s mansion in the hills overlooking Alhambra, a modest suburban town on the edge of Los Angeles. Until the actress’ death, which Spector maintained was an “accidental suicide,” few residents even knew the mansion belonged to the reclusive producer, who spent his remaining years in a prison hospital east of Stockton. Decades before, Spector had been hailed as a visionary for channeling Wagnerian ambition into the three-minute song, creating the “Wall of Sound” that merged spirited vocal harmonies with lavish orchestral arrangements to produce such pop monuments as “Da Doo Ron Ron,” “Be My Baby” and “He’s a Rebel.” He was the rare self-conscious artist in rock’s early years and cultivated an image of mystery and power with his dark shades and impassive expression. Tom Wolfe declared him the “first tycoon of teen.” Bruce Springsteen and Brian Wilson openly replicated his grandiose recording techniques and wide-eyed romanticism, and John Lennon called him “the greatest record producer ever.” The secret to his sound: an overdubbed onslaught of instruments, vocals and sound effects that changed the way pop records were recorded. He called the result, “Little symphonies for the kids.” By his mid-20s his “little symphonies” had resulted in nearly two dozen hit singles and made him a millionaire. “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” the operatic Righteous Brothers ballad which topped the charts in 1965, has been tabulated as the song most played on radio and television — counting the many cover versions — in the 20th century. But thanks in part to the arrival of the Beatles, his chart success would soon fade. When “River Deep-Mountain High,” an aptly-named 1966 release that featured Tina Turner, failed to catch on, Spector shut down his record label and withdrew from the business for three years. He would go on to produce the Beatles and Lennon among others, but he was now serving the artists, instead of the other way around. In 1969, Spector was called in to salvage the Beatles’ “Let It Be” album, a troubled “back to basics” production marked by dissension within the band. Although Lennon praised Spector’s work, bandmate Paul McCartney was enraged, especially when Spector added strings and a choir to McCartney’s “The Long and Winding Road.” Years later, McCartney would oversee a remastered “Let it Be,” removing Spector’s contributions. A documentary of the making of Lennon’s 1971 “Imagine” album showed the ex-Beatle clearly in charge, prodding Spector over a backing vocal, a line none of Spector’s early artists would have dared cross. Spector worked on George Harrison’s acclaimed post-Beatles triple album, “All Things Must Pass,” co-produced Lennon’s “Imagine,” and the less successful “Some Time in New York City,” which included Spector’s picture over a caption that read, “To Know Him is to Love Him.” Spector also had a memorable film role, a cameo as a drug dealer in “Easy Rider.” The producer himself was played by Al Pacino in a 2013 HBO movie. The volume, and violence, of Spector’s music reflected a dark side he could barely contain even at his peak. He was imperious, temperamental and dangerous, remembered bitterly by Darlene Love, Ronnie Spector and others who worked with him. Years of stories of his waving guns at recording artists in the studio and threatening women would come back to haunt him after Clarkson’s death. According to witnesses she had agreed, somewhat reluctantly, to accompany him home from the Sunset Strip’s House of Blues in West Hollywood, where she worked Shortly after their arrival in Alhambra in the pre-dawn hours of Feb. 3, 2003, a chauffeur reported Spector came out of the house holding a gun, blood on his hands, and told him, “I think I killed somebody.” He would later tell friends Clarkson had shot herself. The case was fraught with mystery, and it took authorities a year to file charges. In the meantime, Spector remained free on $1 million bail. When he was finally indicted for murder, he lashed out at authorities, angrily telling reporters: “The actions of the Hitler-like DA and his storm trooper henchmen are reprehensible, unconscionable and despicable.” As a defendant, his eccentricity took centre stage. He would arrive in court for pretrial hearings in theatrical outfits, usually featuring high-heeled boots, frock coats and wildly styled wigs. He arrived at one hearing in a chauffeur-driven stretch Hummer. Once the 2007 trial began, however, he toned down his attire. It ended in a 10-2 deadlock leaning toward conviction. His defence had argued that the actress, despondent about her fading career, shot herself through the mouth. A retrial got underway in October 2008. Harvey Phillip Spector, in his mid-60s when he was charged with murder, had been born on Dec. 26, 1939, in New York City’s borough of the Bronx. Bernard Spector, his father, was an ironworker. His mother, Bertha, was a seamstress. In 1947, Spector’s father committed suicide because of family indebtedness, an event that would shape his son’s life in many ways. Four years later, Spector’s mother moved the family to Los Angeles, where Phil attended Fairfax High School, located in a largely Jewish neighbourhood on the edge of Hollywood. For decades the school has been a source of future musical talent. At Fairfax, Spector performed in talent shows and formed a group called the Teddy Bears with friends. He was reserved and insecure, but his musical abilities were obvious. He had perfect pitch and easily learned to play several instruments. He was just 17 when his group recorded its first hit single, a romantic ballad written and produced by Spector that would become a pop classic: “To Know Him is to Love Him,” was inspired by the inscription on his father’s tombstone. A short, skinny kid with big dreams and growing demons, Spector went on to attend the University of California, Los Angeles for a year before dropping out to return to New York. He briefly considered becoming a French interpreter at the United Nations before falling in with the musicians at New York’s celebrated Brill Building. The Broadway edifice was then at the heart of popular music’s Tin Pan Alley, where writers, composers, singers and musicians turned out hit songs. He began working with star composers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who had met at Fairfax High a few years before Spector arrived. Ultimately, he found his niche in producing. During this period he also co-wrote the hit song, “Spanish Harlem,” with Ben E. King, and played lead guitar on the Drifters’ “On Broadway.” “I had come back to New York from California where there were all these green lawns and trees, and there was just this poverty and decay in Harlem,” he would recall later. “The song was an expression of hope and faith in the young people of Harlem ... that there would be better times ahead.” For a time he had his own production company, Philles Records, with partner Lester Silles, where he developed his signature sound. He assembled such respected studio musicians as arranger Jack Nitzsche, guitarist Tommy Tedesco, pianist Leon Russell and drummer Hal Blaine, and gave early breaks to Glen Campbell, Sonny Bono and Bono’s future wife, Cher. In the early 1960s, he had hit after hit and one notable flop: the album “A Christmas Gift to You,” released, tragically, on Nov. 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated, the worst possible time for such a joyous record. “A Christmas Gift,” featuring the Ronettes singing “Frosty the Snowman” and Love’s version of “White Christmas,” is now considered a classic and a perennial radio favourite during the holiday season. Spector’s domestic life, along with his career, eventually came apart. After his first marriage, to Annette Merar, broke up, Ronettes leader singer Ronnie Bennett became his girlfriend and muse. He married her in 1968 and they adopted three children. But she divorced him after six years, claiming in a memoir that he held her prisoner in their mansion, where she said he kept a gold coffin in the basement and told her he would kill her and put her in it if she ever tried to leave him. When the Ronettes were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, Spector sent along his congratulations. But in an acceptance speech by his ex-wife, she never mentioned him while thanking numerous other people. Darlene Love also feuded with him, accusing Spector of failing to credit her for her vocals on “He’s a Rebel” and other songs, but she did praise him when inducted into the Hall. Spector himself became a Hall member in 1989. As his marriages deteriorated, recording artists also began to quit working with Spector and musical styles passed him by. He preferred singles to albums, calling the latter, “Two hits and 10 pieces of junk.” He initially refused to record his music in multichannel stereo, claiming the process damaged the sound. A Spector box set retrospective was called “Back to Mono.” By the mid-1970s, Spector had largely retreated from the music business. He would emerge occasionally to work on special projects, including Leonard Cohen’s album, “Death of a Ladies’ Man” and The Ramones’ “End of the Century.” Both were marred by reports of Spector’s instability. In 1973, Lennon worked on an album of rock ‘n roll oldies with Spector, only to have Spector disappear with the tapes. The finished work, “Rock ‘n’ Roll,” didn’t come out until 1975. In 1982 Spector married Janis Lynn Zavala and the couple had twins, Nicole and Phillip Jr. The boy died at age 10 of leukemia. Six months before his first murder trial began, Spector married Rachelle Short, a 26-year-old singer and actress who accompanied him to court every day. He filed for divorce in 2016. In a 2005 court deposition, he testified that he had been on medication for manic depression for eight years. “No sleep, depression, mood changes, mood swings, hard to live with, hard to concentrate, just hard — a hard time getting through life,” he said. “I’ve been called a genius and I think a genius is not there all the time and has borderline insanity.” ___ Linda Deutsch is a retired special correspondent for The Associated Press. The Spector murder trial was one of many sensational cases she covered during her 48-year career as a Los Angeles-based trial reporter. Christopher Weber And Linda Deutsch, The Associated Press
The Chanel Connects show will focus on all things culture and is set to feature a starry celebrity line-up.
Private entrants to GCSEs and A-levels face second year of delays. Home education advocates call for urgent action to ensure independent students do not miss out on acquiring qualifications
Local law enforcement and National Guard troops surrounded the Michigan State Capitol on January 17, ahead of anticipated protests.The FBI warned of potential armed demonstrations at state capitols across the country ahead of the inauguration of Joe Biden. However, dozens of militia organizations and other groups have warned members to stay away from protests at capitols.In Michigan, the Detroit Free Press reported that one self-described militia group, the Southeast Michigan Militia, backtracked on its plans to protest at the capitol.Footage filmed by Brendan Gutenschwager shows military-style Humvees parked outside the Michigan State Capitol on Sunday morning. Credit: Brendan Gutenschwager via Storyful
Platform fights suspension by service provider Amazon amid claims it was used to incite storming of US Capitol