From a London houseboat with views of the River Thames to a property by a loch in the Inner Hebrides
Continue reading...In her first novel for adults, the YA author explores the dark side of writers who fictionalise their childrenâs lives
Childrenâs writers are sometimes cruel, and often damaged. And, as AS Byatt put it crisply when talking about her 2009 novel The Childrenâs Book: âWriting childrenâs books isnât good for the writerâs own children.â Think of Christopher Milne, raging at having been Christopher Robin; Vivian Burnett, dragging Little Lord Fauntleroy behind him; Alastair Grahame, lying down on train tracks.
This is fertile material, as Byatt recognised, for a grown-up book. The American author Melissa Albert, herself a very successful childrenâs writer, has made it the theme of her first adult novel. The Childrenâs protagonist is Guinevere Sharpe, who as a grown woman is trapped by a very public version of her childhood. Her mother, Edith, a sort of JK Rowling/Enid Blyton composite, wrote an era-defining run of childrenâs portal fantasies called the Ninth City series, in which Guin and her older brother Ennis appeared as the named protagonists.
Continue reading...Son of actorâs girlfriend arrested after 81-year-old found unconscious in his front yard in Tarzana, Los Angeles
Veteran actor James Handy has died at his home in Los Angeles after a fatal stabbing, allegedly by his girlfriendâs son.
The 81-year-old actor was found in the front yard of his home in Tarzana, California, at 9.30am on Wednesday, according to the Los Angeles police department. He was unconscious and had multiple stab wounds to the chest.
Continue reading...Bear believed to have unlatched and opened a locked window, and was seen turning on and drinking from a tap
Police and hunters in Fukushima, Japan were searching for an âextremely intelligentâ bear which, after attacking four people, apparently evaded capture by unlocking a window from the inside. The one-metre-long bear was seen drinking from a tap and showed no reaction when struck by a tranquilliser dart.
On Wednesday, the bear was filmed on CCTV chasing and then mauling an employee in a company car park before being chased off by a quick-thinking passerby who drove their car at the animal. Unfortunately, the animal escaped by running inside the office building where it attacked another man, before taking flight again.
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Creator Martin Gero developed a new Stargate series over two years, ultimately crafting a show that offered a fresh jumping-on point for new viewers while deeply respecting existing canon. It was a series that avoided the pitfalls of several modern remakes and reboots by fully embracing the core of its predecessors: action, adventure, exploration, wonder, heart, humor, and found family. And based on that creative vision, the new Stargate series was greenlit in November of 2025.
As of today, officially, that original vision is no more. We'll never get the opportunity to introduce you to that world and those characters -- or reintroduce you to, and check in with, some familiar faces from the past.
My heart breaks. For the incredibly talented writers who worked tirelessly to bring this show to life. For Martin who maintained an unwavering positive outlook throughout despite the challenges, and who always strove to make a show that would honor the fans while welcoming a new audiences. And for the long-suffering Stargate fandom who waited so long and came so close to getting a show they truly would have loved.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Bumblebees can use tools to solve a problem, according to experiments that demonstrate their remarkably advanced cognitive abilities. The bees were given an adapted version of an experiment that, 100 years ago, first demonstrated chimpanzees could work out how to retrieve an out-of-reach banana by stacking boxes. Since then, various other primates, elephants and crows have joined an elite cohort of species known to be capable of this level of insight and spontaneous problem solving. In the latest research, bees were shown to be able to roll a polystyrene ball to a specific location and climb on to it in order to access an artificial flower on a low ceiling. The findings challenge the longstanding assumption that insects operate purely on instinct and mindless trial-and-error learning. "Most people think insects are reflex-based machines," said Dr Olli Loukola, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Oulu, Finland, and senior author. "That they can't have any emotional states or feel pain. Some people don't even realize that they have brains. I hope that these results change the worldview about that."
"We are not claiming that bees think like humans," added Loukola. "But our findings show that miniature brains can generate flexible solutions to novel problems in ways we are only beginning to understand."
The findings are published in the journal Science.
"We are not claiming that bees think like humans," added Loukola. "But our findings show that miniature brains can generate flexible solutions to novel problems in ways we are only beginning to understand."
The findings are published in the journal Science.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Het Amerikaanse Kennedy Center heeft medewerkers opdracht gegeven de naam van president Donald Trump te verwijderen. Teksten in e-mails en andere documenten moeten meteen worden aangepast. Voor het weghalen van de naam van Trump op borden, de website en in brochures geldt een deadline van 12 juni. Dat schrijven Amerikaanse media als PBS en NBC News, die zich baseren op een interne memo.
Het besluit volgt op een rel over de naam van het culturele centrum. Dat is bedoeld als eerbetoon aan de vermoorde president John F. Kennedy, maar aanhangers van Trump in het bestuur besloten vorig jaar de prestigieuze instelling ook naar de president te vernoemen. Minder dan een dag later was de naam van Trump al op het gebouw te zien.
Een rechter oordeelde vorige maand dat de naamswijziging onwettig was, omdat het Congres daar toestemming voor had moeten geven. In de memo staat dat het centrum nu gehoor geeft aan die uitspraak en namen als "Trump-Kennedy Center" niet meer gebruikt.
Het plan van de gemeente Lansingerland om in een nieuwbouwwijk in het dorp Bleiswijk zes straten Arabische namen te geven is ingetrokken. Na klachten van omwonenden krijgen ze Nederlandse namen.
