Vanity Fair (YouTube): Hugh Grant Rewatches Love Actually, Notting Hill, Heretic & More
“I just think, why doesn’t my character have any balls?” Hugh Grant takes a walk down memory lane as he rewatches scenes from his classic works including ‘Love Actually,’ ‘Notting Hill,’ ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary,’ ‘Paddington 2,’ ‘A Very English Scandal,’ ‘The Undoing’ and ‘Heretic.’ Hugh looks back at working alongside Julia Roberts in ‘Notting Hill’, shooting fight scenes with Colin Firth for ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ and so much more.
UPI: A Charlie Brown Christmas nearly didn’t air — why the holiday special endures today
But this beloved TV special almost didn’t make it to air. CBS executives thought the 25-minute program was too slow, too serious and too different from the upbeat spectacles they imagined audiences wanted. A cartoon about a depressed kid seeking psychiatric advice? No laugh track? Humble, lo-fi animation? And was that a Bible verse? It seemed destined to fail — if not scrapped outright.
And yet, against all the odds, it became a classic. The program turned Peanuts from a popular comic strip into a multimedia empire — not because it was flashy or followed the rules, but because it was sincere.
Kottke: Restoring Vintage Star Wars Posters
Watching these expert restorers mend & refresh a pair of vintage Star Wars posters (neither of which features the logo we’re familiar with todayand one of which is signed by the designer) is both fascinating and relaxing. It’s like the posters are having a spa day: bit of a soak, a gentle scrub, some light bodywork, and voila, you’re brand new.
Crystal Mangum, the former exotic dancer who accused three Duke men’s lacrosse players of rape in 2006, igniting a national firestorm, now says she lied about the encounter.
“I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn’t, and that was wrong. And I betrayed the trust of a lot of other people who believed in me,” Mangum said on the web show “Let’s Talk with Kat," hosted by Katerena DePasquale.
⋮
The charges brought broad media attention, forced the cancellation of the team’s 2006 season, and cost coach Mike Pressler his job. The district attorney on the case was convicted of criminal contempt and disbarred.
This is most unfortunate.
TechCrunch: The federal crash-reporting rule Tesla opposes could be on the chopping block
The Trump transition team wants to end a federal rule requiring automakers to report crashes when advanced driver-assistance or autonomous driving technology is engaged, Reuters reports.
Federal safety agencies would lose the ability to investigate and regulate the safety of vehicles with automated-driving systems should the rule — which went into effect in 2021 — be killed.
The crash-reporting rule has allowed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to analyze data on more than 2,700 crashes, leading to 10 investigations into six companies, including Tesla and Cruise, along with nine safety recalls from four different companies, says Reuters.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland confirmed Ottawa plans to develop a $15-billion program to generate up to $45-billion in investments from pension plans to build AI data centres, as first reported by The Globe and Mail.
Ms. Freeland announced a suite of measures aimed at making it more attractive for major pension funds to invest in Canada at an event in Toronto on Friday. The new measures will be part of Ottawa’s fall economic statement, which will be released on Monday.
Globe: Ontario didn’t inform public about expert advice to shift away from natural gas
It is unclear how this report has informed the Ford government’s energy plans, which adopt an “all-of-the-above” approach that includes renewable energy but also a large increase in natural gas to mitigate the energy supply gap. The move has already made Ontario’s grid dirtier: in 2021, the electricity system was 94 per cent emissions-free, but that is now down to 87 per cent.
CBC: These musicians bought a seat for cello worth $4.5M. Air Canada wouldn’t let it on board
A pair of classical musicians, including famed British cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, cancelled a sold-out show in Toronto after Air Canada refused to allow them to board their flight with a cello, even though they’d purchased a seat for the instrument.
Kanneh-Mason and his pianist sister Isata were scheduled to perform at Koerner Hall on Wednesday, but had to cancel last minute, the pair shared in an Instagram post.
“First we had delays, then a cancellation, and the day concluded by being denied boarding with the cello — despite having a confirmed seat for it — on a new, final flight into Toronto,” they wrote.
UPI: Trump advocates eliminating daylight saving time, calling it ‘inconvenient’
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he would work to ditch the practice of setting clocks ahead by one hour each spring and back in the fall.
Something we agree on!
Last Updated: 13.Dec.2024 23:10 EST
