The man who composed the pop hit “You Light Up My Life” ended his own life Sunday, New York police said.

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‘You Light Up My Life’ writer kills self

Grammy-award winning songwriter Joseph Brooks has died of an apparent suicide, New York police said Sunday. The songwriter, whose biggest hit was 1977′s “You Light Up My Life,” was awaiting trial on charges that he molested a woman in 2009. In January,…

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Songwriter Joseph Brooks Apparently Kills Self

The writer of “You Light Up My Life,” who was awaiting trial, is believed to have killed himself, the police said.

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City Room: Oscar Winner Facing Sex Charges Is Found Dead

In 2007, the Italian tenor Giuseppe Filianoti gave a triumphant New York performance in Francesco Cilea’s opera “L’Arlesiana” at Carnegie Hall. Filianoti, 33, had won fans in his Metropolitan Opera debut; this performance cemented the love. “Remember his name,” said the Associated Press. “He’s going to be a major tenor.” In 2008, Filianoti was in the headlines again — because La Scala had uninvited him from its opening night at the very last minute. In Milan, Filianoti was supposed to sing the title role of Verdi’s “Don Carlo,” a significantly heavier part for his light, lyric voice. Was the problem a mistake he made during the dress rehearsal; general backstage intrigue; or the fact that he was over-singing, taking on roles that were too big for him? Read full article > >

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Promising tenors, hitting a low note

“ The Devil’s Light ,” Richard North Patterson’s ambitious novel of nuclear terrorism, opens with Osama bin Laden in a cave in western Pakistan, discussing with two followers a plan to explode a nuclear weapon above an American city on Sept. 11 of this year, the 10th anniversary of the original 9/11 attacks. In the real, nonfictional world, bin Laden was killed by American forces at about the time this novel was reaching bookstores. Patterson and his publisher could be forgiven if they wondered if this otherwise welcome news might be bad news for his novel — writers and publishers think like that — but I suspect it will not hurt the book’s prospects and might even enhance them. Bin Laden’s death certainly put the once-elusive terrorist back in the news, and the novel presents an interesting portrait of him, not only as a mass murderer but as a visionary, even a kind of poet. Moreover, if bin Laden had in fact set in motion a massive 10th anniversary attack, it might well be as complex and bloodthirsty as the one pictured here, and it would almost certainly be going ahead despite his death. In that sense, we won’t know until Sept. 11 just how much fact there is in Patterson’s fiction. Read full article > >

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Patrick Anderson reviews Richard North Patterson’s ‘The Devil’s Light’

Venezuela halts plans to develop nuclear power in the light of the crisis in Japan, but Chile says it will keep the nuclear energy option open.

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Venezuela freezes nuclear plans

Apple’s “smart cover” is like the refrigerator door: open it and the light goes on, revealing the inside.

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New iPad Cover Opens to Instant Gratification

Sunderland manager Steve Bruce signs a new contract committing him to the Stadium of Light club until 2014.

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Sunderland extend Bruce contract

Researchers propose a method to detect the light emitted near spinning black holes, suggesting that the twisting of space-time twists the light itself.

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Spinning black holes twist light

The wait is finally over, and in a joint announcement Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures have informed us that British actor Henry Cavill has landed the coveted role of Superman in the new film, to be directed by Zack Snyder. Cavill is one of those guys who’s been lingering around the edges of Hollywood, just itching to burst out in a big way. You may already be familiar with some of his work from the show The Tudors (where he plays Charles Brandon), or from some of his bit roles in films like Whatever Works, Stardust and Blood Creek. Prior to seeing him don the famous cape in 2012, you’ll be able to see Cavill star as Theseus in Immortals (where he’ll get his Greek God battle on), as well as the character of Will Shaw in The Cold Light of Day (opposite Bruce Willis… Read More Read Comments

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Meet Your New Superman – Henry Cavill!

After years of speculation, Warner Bros. finally has its newest superhero. Henry Cavill, a relatively unknown actor who just finished production on The Cold Light of Day and is a regular on the TV show The Tudors, will play Clark Kent and his…

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Henry Cavill Is New Superman

Tim Bradley targets a fight with Britain’s world champion Amir Khan to unify the light-welterweight division after beating Devon Alexander in Michigan.

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Bradley eyes Khan after victory

“Slowly a humped shape rose out of the pit, and the ghost of a beam of light seemed to flicker out from it. Forthwith flashes of actual flame, a bright glare leaping from one to another, sprang from the scattered group of men. It was as if some invisible jet impinged upon them and flashed into white flame. It was as if each man were suddenly and momentarily turned to fire. “Then, by the light of their own destruction, I saw them staggering and falling, and their supporters turning to run…” read more

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Tom Engelhardt | In the Crosshairs: Tucson – Kabul

LAS VEGAS — I spotted this at the otherwise forgettable Oscoo booth. It’d make a great stocking stuffer for the nerd in your life. Although if you decide to include the beer, I can think of a few better choices than Bud Light Lime.

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Adult Nerd Toy: A USB Stick and Bottle Opener

By Ta-Nehisi Coates John McWhorter draws a powerful sweeping sketch : If there were no way to sell drugs on the street at a markup, then young black men who drift into this route would instead have to get legal work. They would. Those insisting that they would not have about as much faith in human persistence and ingenuity as those who thought women past their five-year welfare cap would wind up freezing on sidewalk grates.  There would be a new black community in which all able-bodied men had legal work even in less well-off communities–i.e. what even poor black America was like before the ’70s; this is no fantasy. Those who say that this could only happen with low-skill factory jobs available a bus ride away from all black neighborhoods would be, again, wrong. That explanation for black poverty is full of holes. Too many people of all colors of modest education manage to get by without taking a time machine to the 1940s, and after the War on Drugs black men would be no exception.  And in this new black community, young black men, much less likely to wind up in prison cells or caskets, would be a constant presence–and thus stay in the lives of their children. The black male community would no longer include a massive segment of underskilled, drug-addicted ex-cons churning in and out by the thousands year after year, and thus black boys growing up in these communities would not see this life as a norm. They would grow up to get jobs, period.  And something else these boys would not grow up with is a bone-deep sense of the police–and thus whites–as an enemy. Because there would be no reason for the police to prowl through his neighborhood. Before long, the sense of blacks as America’s eternal poster children–generated from within the black community as well as from without–would fade away.  Think about it. No more ritualistic “forums” held by people like Tavis Smiley and MSNBC articulately reinforcing the notion that to be black is to have no meaningful control over one’s fate. After last winter I have refrained from participating in any more of these; they miss the point, which is the War on Drugs. A person or two points out that America Remains a Racist Country and is applauded. The panelists who have urged the black community to look inward are considered to have “made some good points” as well. But the general impression is of a draw, which sparks no decisive, universal commitment to work in one direction. Nothing changes.  No more episodes like Henry Louis Gates supposing that an encounter with a policeman on his front porch might be about race. His suspicion made sense in the light of blacks’ relations with police forces under Prohibition, but those relations would be vastly different post-Prohibition. Ever wonder when that “next” beer summit was going to be? The reason there hasn’t been one is that there would be nothing more to talk about–unless the topic was, yes, ending the War on Drugs.   And no more books with titles like–I just cherry-picked this one– Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Trauma and Violence in the Lives of Young Black Men or The New Jim Crow  (that one chosen deliberately as a particularly hot title of the past year). Eliminating the War on Drugs would pull the rug out from under all of this. If there were no reason for the police to hunt people carrying or selling drugs, then there would be vastly less reason for such a concentration on black neighborhoods or black people in law enforcement. Perhaps too sweeping. I’m not a drug policy expert, but the lack of specifics and hard stats, the conflation of inchoate televised conversation about black America with the lives of actual black people raises an alarm. I’m obviously with John on the broader goals. It would be nice if African-Americans, who make up .6 percent of the world’s population, did not make up 8 percent of the world’s prison population. That stat is a travesty of government policy. It would also be nice if the relentless, tiring, and overblown fatalism that haunts any discussion of black people went the way of the dinosaurs. But when John proposes legalizing all drugs , I wonder precisely, specifically, what that means, and what would be the effects of it. Would we be faced with more drug addiction? Would that drug addiction be concentrated more among the poor, and thus among blacks? Would we have to put more money into treatment? Would that, in and of itself, become a race issue? Would we see more children addicted to drugs? Are we prepared for the spectacle of kids ODing on legal drugs? How much would we cut the prison population? Would states be willing to put out money to make sure ex-cons were reintegrated into society? And what does it even mean to legalize drugs? Is this a matter of state law? Federal law? How would this actually happen? I don’t mean to be overly harsh here. But I’ve heard this argument before, but I’ve never seen it sketched out in a detailed way. I’m willing to be convinced, but I’d like to see the downsides confronted.

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Black America Without a War on Drugs