British writer J.G. Ballard has died at the age of 78.He wrote Empire of the Sun and Crash, both of which were made into movies. The Crash based on his book is the 1996 cars-n-sex one that starred Holly Hunter and James Spader, not the 2004 L.A. race relations one with Sandra Bullock and Don Cheadle.
Archaeologists in may have found the Egyptian tomb of Cleopatra — buried, perhaps, next to her lover Marc Antony.
Here’s an old film of Paul Newman, warning of the dangers of drugs. Specifically, pills — you know, bennies and goofballs and so on.Courtesy of The Smoking Gun.
Actor Paul Newman has been inducted into the Connecticut Hall of Fame.Other inductees include Jackie Robinson, Mark Twain and Katharine Hepburn.
Major league players — every one of them — wear #42 in honor of Jackie Robinson’s first major league game.
Minnesota’s comedian-politician Al Franken got more votes in his challenge for Senator Norm Coleman’s seat. That’s what a three-judge panel said yesterday. Read about it here.
This story is about comic books, the Canadian air force and the long-standing mystery of Dan Cooper, otherwise known as D.B. Cooper.
This is the first shot of the First Dog, Bo, according to The Los Angeles Times.
He’s named Bo.The identity of the first puppy — the one that the Washington press corps has been yelping about for months, the one President Obama has seemed to delight in dropping hints about — leaked out Saturday.
The Daily News says yes.The First Family will reportedly welcome a black Portuguese Water Dog puppy to the White House on Tuesday… The future First Dog is reportedly a 6-month-old male pup which was returned to a kennel by its first owners.[Update: It’s official!]
Yow! John Malkovich seems to be crossing over from middle-aged-guy-playing-older to genuinely-getting-older status.He’s got a little Sir Alec Guinness going — maybe it’s the folds between the eyebrows.
The Easter Bunny pledges allegiance to the flag before the 2008 White House Easter Egg Roll.More Easter Bunny photos here.(Photo credit: Carrie Devorah / WENN)
“All those GI Joe dolls I bought him paid off.”So says the mother of pirate-fighting chief officer Shane Murphy of the Maersk Alabama.Capt. Richard Phillips is still being held by Somali pirates after a failed escape attempt last night.
Random photo of the day: Actor Harrison Ford feeds Happy, a 5,000-pound Nile hippopotamus, at the Smithsonian National Zoo on Tuesday.That’s Ford’s girlfriend Calista Flockhart and her son Liam watching the action. Liam seems skeptical.
The United States Postal Service is promoting new stamps featuring The Simpsons.They want to know which is your favorite Simpson stamp.You can win a poster of Matt Groening.
SI has photos.The basketball star batted .202 and hit three home runs in 127 games with the AA Birmingham Barons in 1994. But he also stole 30 bases. And got called screwball into the bargain.
And last year he was 80.
Four decades after NBC axed the original series, the unstoppable Star Trek franchise was back again last night — with a feature premiere in Australia and a surprise preview in Austin.
Here’s a photo from the U.S. National Archives of the expedition party led by Robert E. Peary at the North Pole. The photo was taken 7 April 1909, one hundred years ago today.Peary and his party, including Matthew Henson, reached the pole the day before, on the 6th of April.
They said it:Bird played in the game but admitted, three decades later, he has still never watched a replay of it.”Why?” Bird said at a Ford Field news conference before the national title game between North Carolina and Michigan State. “I don’t like the memories of it.”Johnson leaned over to console Bird.”I watch it enough for him and I,” Johnson said with his trademark laugh.