US comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres married her long-time partner, actress Portia de Rossi, at their home in Los Angeles on Saturday, according to People.
DeGeneres, 50, and de Rossi, 35, exchanged handwritten vows in an intimate ceremony attending by 19 guests, a representative for the couple told the magazine.
The couple have been dating for about four years and have been open about their relationship, appearing at red carpet events in Hollywood together.
DeGeneres announced her plans to wed de Rossi, the former Ally McBeal actress, on her talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, in May after California’s Supreme Court overturned a state ban on same-sex marriage.
Irish folk legend Ronnie Drew, a founding member of The Dubliners, died in a Dublin hospital on Saturday, his family said. He was 73 and had been suffering from throat cancer.
The Dubliners, formed in 1962, were pioneers for Irish folk music across Europe and the US. Drew was known for his gravelly-voiced renditions of rabble-rousing folk songs like Finnegan’s Wake and Dicey Reilly.
In a statement, Drew’s family said he died peacefully while they were at his bedside and they were “very grateful for all the letters of support and wishes during the term of Ronnie’s illness.”
With his health failing, Irish music stars released a tribute song in February entitled The Ballad of Ronnie Drew. Proceeds went to the Irish Cancer Society.
Those involved included U2, Bob Geldof, Sinead O’Connor, Andrea Corr, Chris de Burgh, Ronan Keating, Shane MacGowan, The Chieftains and The Dubliners.
Dorival Caymmi, one of the founders of modern Brazilian music, passed away Saturday from multiple organ failure, surrounded by family and friends at his Rio de Janeiro home, at 94 years of age, local press reported.
“We’ve lost the greatest professors of life,” said singer Tom Ze, who like Caymmi hails from the central coastal state of Bahia, where the sun-drenched lifestyle of fishing villages and sultry women inspired Caymmi’s more than 50 lifetime music albums.
From his first and immediately popular song written at 16, O que a baiana tem?, Caymmi’s rhythmic style and deep, sultry voice were adopted by Bossa Nova singers and performed by Joao Gilberto, Tom Jobim and other greats.
An indefatigable worker, Caymmi gave his last performance and cut his last record on his 90th birthday four years ago.
Booze-fuelled Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher compared troubled singer Amy Winehouse to a “destitute horse” in a stinging rant on his fellow musicians Friday.
The surly loudmouth, known for his scathing outbursts, hit out during an interview on BBC Radio One.
The 41-year-old rocker, who was infuriated by New York rapper Jay-Z headlining the Glastonbury Festival, compared soul diva Winehouse, 24, to a “destitute horse.”
Mark Ronson, who remixed The Zutons’ track Valerie for Winehouse and the Kaiser Chiefs’ tune Oh My God for singer Lily Allen, also came under fire.
“He wants to write his own tunes instead of ruining everyone else’s,” Gallagher said.
“Mark Ronson needs to learn three chords on the guitar and write a tune.”
He branded pop band Scouting For Girls “Scouting For Idiots” and attacked the Kaiser Chiefs, saying: “The Monkees haven’t split up, they’re just going under the name of the Kaiser Chiefs.
“I did drugs for 18 years and I never got that bad as to say, ‘You know what? I think the Kaiser Chiefs are brilliant.’
“Anybody whose drummer writes the songs are not to be trusted.”
Songwriter Gallagher also compared British celebrity Jade Goody’s scent to “stale urine” and suggested Live Aid supremo Bob Geldof’s daughter Peaches should be stamped on.
Goody, a former contestant on British television’s Big Brother, is in India, reportedly to appear in a similar reality show hosted by Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty, whom she was accused of racially taunting on the British version.
Gallagher joked about putting out his own aftershave, Eau de Toerag, “for the working class gentlemen.”
He said Goody’s scent “smells like stale urine, and that’s not the perfume.”
Of Geldof’s newly-married daughter, he said: “God almighty, I have respect for Sir Bob ... stamp on her though.”
Gallagher admitted he was drunk and had had only two hours’ sleep.
A BBC spokesman told the Daily Mail newspaper: “Noel Gallagher was very clearly briefed in advance and monitored during the live interview.
“We have not received any complaints.
“As ever, Noel was a lively and opinionated guest. Of course Radio One does not condone drug abuse and if we felt our guest was drunk we would not put him on air.”
President William Lai (賴清德) has championed Taiwan as an “AI Island” — an artificial intelligence (AI) hub powering the global tech economy. But without major shifts in talent, funding and strategic direction, this vision risks becoming a static fortress: indispensable, yet immobile and vulnerable. It’s time to reframe Taiwan’s ambition. Time to move from a resource-rich AI island to an AI Armada. Why change metaphors? Because choosing the right metaphor shapes both understanding and strategy. The “AI Island” frames our national ambition as a static fortress that, while valuable, is still vulnerable and reactive. Shifting our metaphor to an “AI Armada”
When Taiwan was battered by storms this summer, the only crumb of comfort I could take was knowing that some advice I’d drafted several weeks earlier had been correct. Regarding the Southern Cross-Island Highway (南橫公路), a spectacular high-elevation route connecting Taiwan’s southwest with the country’s southeast, I’d written: “The precarious existence of this road cannot be overstated; those hoping to drive or ride all the way across should have a backup plan.” As this article was going to press, the middle section of the highway, between Meishankou (梅山口) in Kaohsiung and Siangyang (向陽) in Taitung County, was still closed to outsiders
The older you get, and the more obsessed with your health, the more it feels as if life comes down to numbers: how many more years you can expect; your lean body mass; your percentage of visceral fat; how dense your bones are; how many kilos you can squat; how long you can deadhang; how often you still do it; your levels of LDL and HDL cholesterol; your resting heart rate; your overnight blood oxygen level; how quickly you can run; how many steps you do in a day; how many hours you sleep; how fast you are shrinking; how
“‘Medicine and civilization’ were two of the main themes that the Japanese colonial government repeatedly used to persuade Taiwanese to accept colonization,” wrote academic Liu Shi-yung (劉士永) in a chapter on public health under the Japanese. The new government led by Goto Shimpei viewed Taiwan and the Taiwanese as unsanitary, sources of infection and disease, in need of a civilized hand. Taiwan’s location in the tropics was emphasized, making it an exotic site distant from Japan, requiring the introduction of modern ideas of governance and disease control. The Japanese made great progress in battling disease. Malaria was reduced. Dengue was
RSS