Gil Scott-Heron, a poet and singer whose best known work is perhaps "The Revolution Will Not be Televised," died at the age of 62 on Friday, according to reports.
He died on Friday at St. Luke's Hospital in Manhattan the New York Times reported, citing a twitter posting from his publisher Jamie Byng and a representative from his record label, XL.
The cause of death was not immediately known.
"The Revolution Will Not be Televised" piece first released in 1970 and made to accompanying perscussion instruments, made allusions to various television commercials, media events, of the time and said "the revolution" would be a participatory, not merely a matter of observation.
"You will not be able to say home, brother. You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out," he said. The piece was filled with then-current day events and commercial jingles which may have lost relevance in the last 40 years, although its themes of police violence, hope and allusions to television culture are still relevant today.
The piece reflected on police shootings, saying "there would be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in instant replay," and that "Black people will be in the street looking for a brighter day."
He said there will be "no highlights on the eleven o'clock news' or "be right back after a message" or "be no re-run."
"The revolution will be live," he said
On Monday, we'll celebrate Memorial Day, a day to remember America's veterans who have died in combat.
John A. Logan, a Civil War general who would go on to be a U.S. Senator from Illinois, devised and promoted that idea of Memorial Day as the national holiday. At the time, Logan headed the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union soldiers, and proclaimed May 30, 1868 as a day of remembrance.
Originally known as Declaration Day and first celebrated 143 years ago on May 30, 1868, it was created to honor Civil War soldiers who were killed in action. Veterans and other Declaration Day participants gathered at Arlington National Cemetery to decorate graves.
It's unclear where the tradition of decorating graves came from, but several towns in United States claim to have created it. In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson actually settled the issue declaring that Waterloo, N.Y., first celebrated a local Memorial Day on May 5, 1866, and carried on the tradition of closing the town and decorating graves annually.
Starting with World War I, it became a day to recognize fallen American soldiers from all armed conflicts. In 1971, Congress declared that Memorial Day be an officially recognized holiday to take place on the last Monday of May every year.
Don't let the plush paunch, gurgling tummy or the occasional comic aside fool you — there's a restless dragon warrior just itching to break some heads in "Kung Fu Panda 2." Po, still kicking and snacking and channeling Jack Black, believes he's the panda to do it. Master Shifu, who carries within him the wisdom of the ages and Dustin Hoffman's pipes, is not so sure.
All of which makes for a lot of tension and boundary pushing in this frothy brothy, noodle-and-action-packed second chapter of the 2008 animated hit, "Kung Fu Panda," a rich vision of ancient China with warlords, Zen masters, old grudges and just a dash of modern day awesome. This is one raucous animal kingdom, no humans allowed.
The story, written by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, is pretty standard childhood fare — believe in yourself, family is what you make it, watch out for peacocks. It's the 3-D animation, under the spell of director Jennifer Yuh Nelson, that's such a surprise. Not that a woman is flying solo on a major animated project — although that is nearly as rare as the Hope diamond — rather that this is the first movie in a long time that you won't mind paying for the glasses because what's on the screen is multidimensional magic.
When we last saw Po, he was still honing all the right moves. As "Panda 2" opens, he's gotten a lot better. The rest of the class of 2008 is back too, that would be the Furious Five, which sadly does not include Vin Diesel, but does feature a fearsome bunch in Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu) and Crane (David Cross).
Soon word comes to the Valley of Peace telling of the rise of Lord Shen, Gary Oldman as a peacock whose mommy and daddy issues have his feathers in a twist. He has developed weapons so brutal, cannons so incredible that it may spell the end of kung fu, to say nothing of an entire city, country and culture. This is one bad dude.
Nelson, who has done major time in the animation trenches, including as head of story for "Kung Fu Panda," seems like an old pro despite "P2" being her first time in the director's chair. That she grew up as much a fan of martial arts as animation can be felt everywhere, in elaborately choreographed fighting sequences à la "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," and in small touches — the way in which Lord Shen turns his peacock feathers into lethal weapons, especially powerful when combined with Oldman's ability to sound so deadly. How does he do it?
The look itself is a visual mash-up that evokes a nostalgia for both fairy tales and kung-fu fighting. Animation styles dip into genres as diverse as Grimm, animé and Saturday morning cartoons, yet somehow it mostly works. The big action pieces, particularly the final face-off, are masterful both for their cleverness in bringing down the house and the detail jammed into every frame. Even composers Hans Zimmer, who's scored a zillion movies, and John Powell seem to be having more fun than usual.
Now to the 3-D. What makes it appealing in "Panda 2" is how deeply embedded it is within the film. It's not just the random fireball being hurled right at us, but that the entire world of Po feels as if it has been carved out of space, rather than sketched out on a page.
There is a price to be paid for the visual razzle-dazzle — wonderful complexity against a simple story that could have benefited from some bulking up (layered, not longer). Still with Black shelving his usual snark for Po's self-deprecating charm, Jolie making Tigress terrifyingly overqualified for everything as only she can do, Rogen's Mantis showing the actor's growing facility for voicing animation and Hoffman, as ever, the guru everyone wants, they've brought this warrior's tale to kicking, spinning, bone-crunching, feather-flying life.
Minutes before the midnight deadline Thursday, President Obama approved a four-year extension of the government's Patriot Act powers to search records and conduct roving wiretaps in pursuit of terrorists.
The White House said Obama had signed the bill from France using autopen machine that holds a pen and signs his actual signature. It is only used with proper authorization of the president.
Following the 72-23 Senate vote, the House voted to approve the bill 250-153 with hours to go before the three terror-fighting tools were set to expire. The action comes a month after intelligence and military forces hunted down Usama bin Laden.
The measure extends the legal life of roving wiretaps, court-ordered searches of business records and surveillance of non-American "lone wolf" suspects without confirmed ties to terrorist groups.
The roving wiretaps and access to business records are small parts of the USA Patriot Act that was enacted after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. But unlike most of the act, which is permanent law, those provisions must be periodically renewed because of concerns that they could be used to violate privacy rights. The same applies to the "lone wolf" provision, which was part of a 2004 intelligence act.
Earlier, the Senate struggled to find a way to stage a final vote in the face of continued resistance from a single senator, Republican freshman Rand Paul of Kentucky.
Paul argued that in the rush to meet the terrorist threat in 2001 Congress enacted a Patriot Act that tramples on individual liberties. He had some backing from liberal Democrats and civil liberties groups who have long contended the Patriot Act gives the government authority to spy on innocent citizens.
Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said the provision on collecting business records can expose law-abiding citizens to government scrutiny. "If we cannot limit investigations to terrorism or other nefarious activities, where do they end?" he asked.
"The Patriot Act has been used improperly again and again by law enforcement to invade Americans' privacy and violate their constitutional rights," said Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU Washington legislative office.
But intelligence officials have denied improper use of surveillance tools, and this week both FBI Director Robert Mueller and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper sent letters to congressional leaders warning of serious national security consequences if the provisions were allowed to lapse.
The Obama administration says that without the three authorities the FBI might not be able to obtain information on terrorist plotting inside the U.S. and that a terrorist who communicates using different cell phones and email accounts could escape timely surveillance.
"When the clock strikes midnight tomorrow, we would be giving terrorists the opportunity to plot attacks against our country, undetected," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on the Senate floor Wednesday. In unusually personal criticism of a fellow senator, he warned that Paul, by blocking swift passage of the bill, "is threatening to take away the best tools we have for stopping them."
The nation itself is divided over the Patriot Act, as reflected in a Pew Research Center poll last February, before the killing of bin Laden, that found that 34 percent felt the law "goes too far and poses a threat to civil liberties. Some 42 percent considered it "a necessary tool that helps the government find terrorists." That was a slight turnaround from 2004 when 39 percent thought it went too far and 33 percent said it was necessary.
Paul, after complaining that Reid's remarks were "personally insulting," asked whether the nation "should have some rules that say before they come into your house, before they go into your banking records, that a judge should be asked for permission, that there should be judicial review? Do we want a lawless land?"
In practice, law enforcement has used the three provisions sparingly. According to a senior Justice Department national security official testifying to Congress last March, the government has sought roving wiretap authority in about 20 cases a year between 2001 and 2010 and has sought warrants for business records less than 40 times a year, on average. The government has yet to use the lone wolf authority.
But the ACLU also points out that court approvals for business record access jumped from 21 in 2009 to 96 last year, and the organization contends the Patriot Act has blurred the line between investigations of actual terrorists and those not suspected of doing anything wrong.
Two Democratic critics of the Patriot Act, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Udall of Colorado, on Thursday extracted a promise from Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that she would hold hearings with intelligence and law enforcement officials on how the law is being carried out.
Wyden says that while there are numerous interpretations of how the Patriot Act works, the official government interpretation of the law remains classified. "A significant gap has developed now between what the public thinks the law says and what the government secretly claims it says," Wyden said.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., while supporting extension of the Patriot Act measures, also pushed for changes to make the law more transparent, including requiring the Justice Department to periodically report to Congress on whether the powers in the law were being used properly.
Leahy had also sought to require the government to show greater evidence of a link with a terrorist threat when it asks for access to business records such as library circulation records or book seller records.
As the government neared a decision on whether to indict former Sen. John Edwards on criminal campaign finance violations in connection with a sex scandal, his attorney furiously denied Wednesday that he had broken the law, or even that any law applied to the situation.
"John Edwards has done wrong in his life — and he knows it better than anyone — but he did not break the law," said his attorney, former White House Counsel Gregory Craig. "The government's theory is wrong on the facts and wrong on the law. It is novel and untested. There is no civil or criminal precedent for such a prosecution."
A federal grand jury in North Carolina has spent two years looking into charges that Edwards violated campaign finance law by using money from two supporters to keep his pregnant mistress and a former aide out of sight while he sought the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Campaign contributions may not be used for personal expenses.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
Edwards, who was John F. Kerry's vice presidential running mate in 2004, admitted fathering a child with campaign videographer Rielle Hunter shortly after his wife's breast cancer had recurred. Elizabeth Edwards died in December.
If Edwards, 57, could reach a deal with prosecutors, he would probably have to surrender his license to practice law to avoid a potentially humiliating trial. But Craig's strident tone sounded as if Edwards was not considering a deal.
"The Justice Department has wasted millions of dollars and thousands of hours on a matter more appropriately a topic for the Federal Election Commission to consider, not a criminal court," Craig said.
Resolution of the investigation would be a long-awaited coda to a sordid and protracted political scandal.
Edwards, a wealthy personal injury attorney whose populist message about "two Americas" resonated with Democrats, refused for years to level with his family and the public about the true nature of his relationship with Hunter.
The National Enquirer first revealed it in 2007, weeks after he and Elizabeth had renewed their wedding vows. The story, Edwards said on the campaign trail, was "completely untrue, ridiculous. Anyone who knows me knows that I have been in love with the same woman 30-plus years."
In a 2008 television interview when he was no longer running for president, Edwards apologized for straying with Hunter but denied fathering her child.
It wasn't until January 2010 that Edwards admitted he was the father of Frances Quinn Hunter, now 3. His confession came days before publication of "The Politician," a tell-all book by former Edwards aide Andrew Young, who played a pivotal role in the deceit.
In an effort to protect his political career from the fallout of a sex scandal, Edwards had engineered a number of bizarre turns. In late 2007, he allowed Young, a married father of three, to falsely admit fathering Hunter's baby. Young and his family went into seclusion with Hunter, staying in luxury homes and hotels around the country to avoid the media.
It was the payment mechanism for this ruse that led to the government's investigation.
The money came from two Edwards supporters — his national campaign finance chairman, Fred Baron, who died in 2008, and banking heiress Rachel "Bunny" Mellon, who is 100.
In an interview last year, Young said Baron provided hundreds of thousands of dollars and loaned his Aspen, Colo., estate to the Youngs and Hunter. Mellon provided about $700,000. Young said he and Edwards called her contributions "Bunny money."
According to Mellon's attorney, she gave the money to Edwards as a personal gift and filed a gift tax return.
"She intended it for his personal use and had no understanding of what his need was and where the money would go," her attorney, Alexander Forger, told the Associated Press in January 2010.
But prosecutors likely think the money constituted campaign contributions because it was used to preserve Edwards' political viability.
"The government originally investigated allegations that Sen. Edwards' campaign funds were misused, but continued its pursuit even after finding that not one penny from the Edwards campaign was involved," Craig said Wednesday.
Hunter kept such a low profile that Time magazine headlined a February 2010 profile "The Quiet Dignity of Rielle Hunter." A month later, however, she introduced herself to the public in spectacular fashion, giving GQ magazine an interview and posing for photographs in a shirt with no pants.
A few months earlier, in January 2010, she had sued Young and his wife, Cheri, for invasion of privacy, demanding the return of a videotape she said they had stolen. The Youngs claimed that the tape, purportedly showing Hunter and Edwards having sex, had been abandoned by Hunter when she moved out of their home. That civil suit is pending in North Carolina.
Edwards is raising his and Elizabeth's two youngest children, who are still school age. An older daughter, Cate, is an attorney. Their son Wade died in 1996 at 16. Both Edwardses often cited Wade's death as the reason John Edwards entered politics.
At least six unconfirmed tornadoes touched down late Wednesday morning in the Kansas City area, according to authorities, but only minor damage and no injuries were reported.
It was the second consecutive day of severe weather across the state, which included a storm Tuesday that killed two people in Stafford County.
One tornado Wednesday was reported in Louisburg about 10:50 a.m., Miami County Undersheriff Wayne Minckley said. He said officers saw the twister lift a pickup, spin it and drop it to the ground. The driver escaped with minor injuries as the storm moved north toward downtown Kansas City, Mo.
Authorities in Stafford County said Sharon Gleason pulled her Ford Explorer off U.S. 281 north of St. John to seek shelter from the storm about 5 p.m. Tuesday. She parked under a large cottonwood tree next to a farmstead's driveway, Stafford County Sheriff Jeff Parr said.
A tornado struck the farmstead, uprooting the cottonwood and smashing it into the Explorer. Gleason, 56, and her 17-year-old son, Jeffrey, were killed.
Her daughter, 21-year-old Kristin, was seriously injured. She is in fair condition at a Great Bend hospital.
"It was a very large cottonwood," Parr said. "The two that were killed were in the front seat of the Explorer."
The tornado was one of 10 confirmed twisters that touched down in central and western Kansas on Tuesday, said Larry Ruthi, meteorologist in charge of the Dodge City branch of the National Weather Service.
It's not unusual for motorists to seek shelter from hail storms underneath large trees, Ruthi said.
"Most of the time, that's a fairly safe thing to do," he said.
At least one other injury was reported in Barton County.
The tornadoes were part of an outbreak that killed at least 14 people in three states, including four in Arkansas and eight in Oklahoma, authorities said. Storms may have killed a man in Texas whose burned body was found near a downed power line.
While numerous thunderstorms raced through the Wichita metropolitan area, no tornadoes touched down.
But Wichita could easily have been added to a growing list of cities hammered by tornadoes, meteorologist Robb Lawson said.
"There was a fairly large tornado west-southwest of Enid (Okla.)," Lawson said. "Had it kept on course it would have come right through Wichita. Luckily, it collapsed."
The tornado threat in the Wichita area was stifled by all the strong thunderstorms that fired up in Oklahoma on Tuesday, Lawson said. Rain from the storms cooled the surrounding area, reducing the instability of the atmosphere enough that storms forming farther north did not produce tornadoes.
"Wichita lucked out," Lawson said.
Damage reports from Wednesday's storm in the Kansas City area were minor, said Sharon Watson, spokeswoman for the Kansas Division of Emergency Management. But areas throughout much of the state were still reporting power outages, tree damage and minor flooding from Tuesday's storm.
Gov. Sam Brownback urged Kansas residents to have an emergency plan in place. He said lives were saved when a tornado hit Reading on Saturday night because several residents had planned in advance to go to a United Methodist church for shelter.
"I know I tend to get complacent about storms when they come through... thinking, 'Well, OK, I've lived in Kansas my whole life. This isn't going to affect me.' But it does," Brownback said.
"I would really just hope that people would pay attention to the alarms when they go off, particularly when they're in their area, that they would have a plan ahead of time about what they would do."
Cleanup continued in Reading, where Saturday's tornado killed one person.
"Recovery seems to be going well," said Maj. Gen. Lee Tafanelli, director of the Kansas Division of Emergency Management and the adjutant general. "The town is receiving good support from surrounding communities and from volunteer organizations, as well as individuals."
Ward, a Super Bowl MVP, triumphed along with partner Kym Johnson over finalists Chelsea Kane, dancing with Mark Ballas, and Kirstie Alley who was paired with Maksim Chmerkovskiy.
"I never thought I'd be in the finals, but I owe it all to Kim. She's an amazing teacher," Ward said of his journey on the TV show.
He also thanked the judges for their constructive criticism, and said he hoped he had done a good job representing Pittsburgh.
The cliffhanger win followed the couple's spirited Samba, performed in front of an ecstatic studio crowd as the show's resident orchestra belted out Earth Wind and Fire's disco hit "Fantasy."
Wearing a black figure-hugging pantsuit with accents of yellow that matched his partner's short-skirted dress, Hines seemed to enjoy himself as much as his cheering fans.
The win was a disappointment for former "Cheers" star and fan favorite Alley, especially after her performance with the heart-throb dance professional Chmerkovskiy wowed the judges.
From the season's start the star endeared herself to fans with self-deprecating asides to the camera, as well as occasional and embarrassing falls to the dance floor.
"It's like the most extraordinary adventure I've ever been on in my whole life," Alley said.
Despite earning the night's first perfect 10 score, it wasn't enough to beat Hines, who takes home the famous mirror ball trophy as winner.
Disney actress and singer Kane, who provides the voice of Bea Goldfishberg on the Disney Channel animated series "Fish Hooks,": took third place with her partner Ballas.
With the game on the line and a game-high 40 points already in the bank for the Dallas Mavericks, Dirk Nowtizki tried to make the signature play in overtime of Game 4 of the Western Conference finals.
He didn't force it. Instead of taking the shot he found Jason Kidd in the corner. Kidd gave a pump fake to free himself from the on-rushing Russell Westbrook to nail the game-winner as the Mavericks overcame a 15-point deficit with 5:06 left in regulation to shock the Oklahoma City Thunder 112-105 and take a 3-1 series lead.
"People still think Kidd is not a good shooter but over the years he's proved everybody wrong," Nowitzki said.
BOX SCORE: Thunder 112, Mavericks 105
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It was the Mavericks' second consecutive road win and the first time since April 2 that the Thunder lost consecutive games.
Dallas can close out the series at home and advance to its second NBA Finals in franchise history Wednesday (ESPN, 9 p.m. ET).
Nowitzki scored 12 points in the fourth quarter for the Mavericks. The Thunder thought they had leveled the series after Kevin Durant's three-pointer gave them a 99-84 lead, but Nowitzki outplayed him down the stretch.
After a two errants shots by Durant, the 7-footer had a jumper and a three-pointer to cut the Mavericks defict to 101-94.
Thunder point guard Russell Westbrook missed two free throws with 2:11 left, and Nowitzki answered with a difficult fallaway jumper over two defenders on the baseline.
"Dirk Nowitzki was great, making threes and contested jump shots," Durant said. "And they played great defense. We lost."
According to the numbers, the Thunder had no business dropping this game:
•They held a 55-33 rebounding edge, including 20-5 on the offensive boards, as Durant had a game-high 15 and Serge Ibaka 10.
•They had a 23-16 advantage in assists, led by Westbrook with game-high eight.
•They outscored the Mavs in the paint 54-36 as Ibaka and Kendrick Perkins combined for 24 points compared to 14 by Tyson Chandler and Brendan Haywood.
•They won blocked shots 9-2.
•They led 19-6 in fast-break points and 24-12 in second-chance points.
What undid Oklahoma City in the end, however, was turnovers. They had 25, 12 more than Dallas. Durant had a series-high nine and Westbrook six.
"That's hard to overcome against a very good Dallas team," Thunder coach Scott Brooks said. "I give our guys a lot of credit, they came and fought and did everything they can to win this game. It's unfortunate that we didn't come out with the win. Dallas outplayed us down the stretch."
Brooks was without sixth man James Harden because he foule dout 4:34 left in regulation. He picked up three fouls in a four-minute stretch and the Thunder went 1-for-9 and had three turnovers.
Ibaka, who had 18 points and 10 rebounds for Oklahoma City, tied it at 105 on a mid-range jump shot in overtime. But Kidd's three-pointer with 40.3 seconds left gave the Mavericks a lead they would never relinquish.
Durant, who was edgy all week and promising he'd be more aggressive in Game 4, was just that early. He got the Thunder off to a quick start with 10 first-quarter points.
He finished with 29 points and 15 rebounds, but Durant went cold and finished 9-for-22 shooting. With the score tied at 101 in regulation, Shawn Marion blocked his three-point attempt.
"Once we got to OT, we had to feel good about ourselves after being down 15," Nowitzki said. "We obviously talked about it in timeouts that we've got to go for it now. We're here and this is our ballgame."
Justin Bieber has flaunted some PDA with Selena Gomez on live television. The "Baby" hitmaker was announced as the winner of Top New Artist at 2011 Billboard Music Awards on Sunday night, May 22, but before he got on stage to accept the trophy, he was caught on camera sharing a quick kiss with his songstress girlfriend.
The 17-year-old singer collected a total of seven kudos on the special night. Before the show was kicked off, he had already nabbed Top Social Artist, Top Streaming Artist, Top Pop Album and Top Streaming Song (Video). During the ceremony, he was presented with Digital Artist of the Year and Fan Favorite Award in addition to the New Artist gong.
After his big wins, Justin made time to speak with the press backstage. During the Q&A session, he was asked if kissing Selena was the best prize of the night. To the question, he replied, "She's amazing." He went on to add that the best moment "was seeing my mom's eyes and how proud she is." The pop sensation also admitted that he was most proud of winning Top New Artist.
The "Never Say Never" additionally unraveled that he is taking a month off before starting to work on his next album. Of the effort, he shared his hopes for it to have songs with "meaning and significance." He added, "I want to focus on myself and get into what I'm feeling."
Getting a Congratulatory Kiss From Selena Gomez:
No impact from Icelandic volcano for now: Eurocontrol
Europe's air traffic control organization said on Sunday it expected no impact on European or transatlantic flights from an Icelandic volcano eruption for at least 24 hours.
Eurocontrol said it was monitoring the situation as a plume of ash from the Grimsvotn volcano drifted toward the northeast.
"There is currently no impact on European or transatlantic flights and the situation is expected to remain so for the next 24 hours," Eurocontrol said in a statement.
"Aircraft operators are constantly being kept informed of the evolving situation," the Brussels-based organization said.
Iceland's most active volcano erupted on Saturday, forcing the closure of the country's main airport.
