Elton John on Friday sang at the White House at the invitation of President Joe Biden, after declining invitations from his predecessor Donald Trump. . John, who was on a marathon global farewell tour, thanked Biden for the invitation and also praised former US President George W. Bush.
Hilary Mantel, the first British novelist to win the Booker Prize twice and who sold millions of books around the world, has died aged 70, her publishers announced on Friday.. Mantel won the Booker Prize for "Wolf Hall" (2009) and "Bring Up the Bodies" (2012) and had been tipped to win again in 2020 with "The Mirror & The Light," the third in the trilogy.
When Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman first let loose their swords, voodoo and pirates epic "The Secret of Monkey Island", it was sold on floppy disks and released for long-forgotten home PCs like the Amiga.. "I think there's unfinished business for Guybrush because he never found the secret, and I think there's unfinished business for Dave and I as well," said Gilbert.
Hilary Mantel, whose death was announced on Friday, communed with ghosts throughout her life: the ghosts from history that stalked her fiction, the ghosts of her Irish Catholic ancestors and the ghosts of her unborn children.. She imagines life with the daughter she would never have, named Catriona, the most heart-rending ghost of the many spectres that populate her 12 novels.
The late Sidney Poitier was at the peak of his Hollywood career when he came under fire from Black activists and intellectuals, accused of playing stereotypical, safe roles for white audiences just as the 1960s civil rights movement was exploding.. that accused Poitier of "playing essentially the same role, the antiseptic, one-dimensional hero."
The high-stakes defamation battle between News Corp co-chairman Lachlan Murdoch and small Australian news outlet Crikey will go to trial beginning March 27 in Sydney.. The case will be heard by Justice Wigney, who has overseen several closely-watched defamation trials -- including actor Geoffrey Rush's successful suit against another Australian media outlet.
Clarence Thomas, the most conservative justice on the US Supreme Court, and his wife Ginni, an activist tied to Donald Trump's bid to challenge his 2020 defeat, are adamant there is a firewall between their careers.. In 1991 president George H.W. Bush chose Clarence Thomas, with his impeccable conservative credentials, to join the Supreme Court.
The latest show by Damien Hirst displays thousands of the provocative British artist's colourful spot paintings... many of which he will set on fire after selling them in digital form as NFTs. The exhibition, "The Currency", which opens Friday in London, is Hirst's first project involving NFTs, a new technology growing in popularity as a way of owning art.. Hirst will set the works on fire himself at the gallery on October 11, a day before the opening of Frieze London, one of the world's biggest contemporary art fairs.
The release this week of one of the main characters on the hit podcast "Serial" has reignited the debate over Americans' "obsession" with true crime series and their effect on the US penal system.. Unsolved murders, failures of justice, mysterious disappearances -- podcasts dedicated to true crime have flourished in the wake of "Serial."
The next James Bond will serve King and country -- but discussions with new 007 studio owner Amazon over the spy film franchise's future direction haven't really started, long-standing producer Barbara Broccoli said Wednesday.. We haven't really started to get involved in the next Bond film yet," said Broccoli.
