Investment giant JP Morgan is seeking to snap up a slice of Twitter, insiders tell the Wall Street Journal . The firm’s new $1.2 billion Digital Growth Fund is in talks to acquire a minority stake in the microblogging site in a deal that would value Twitter at around $4….
Continue reading …The last doughboy has died. Frank Buckles, the last surviving American veteran of World War I, died peacefully of natural causes at his farm in West Virginia aged 110, the Washington Post reports. Buckles, who was born in Missouri in 1901, lied about his age to get into the military…
Continue reading …Herman Cain—currently the only declared GOP candidate for 2012—came in first in a straw poll of Tea Party supporters at an event in Phoenix. The conservative radio host from Georgia received 22% of the on-site ballots cast at the event organized by the Tea Party Patriots, the Los…
Continue reading …Anonymous—fresh from taking down the Westboro Baptist Church —is now targeting the Koch brothers to support Wisconsin protesters. The hackers have taken down the website of a free-market advocacy group funded by the billionaire brothers, Gawker reports. Anonymous says “Operation Wisconsin” is payback for the brothers’ meddling in state…
Continue reading …Worst Academy Awards ever? E! thinks so, calling it “clunky, amateurish, and pretty much lacking in actual entertainment value for those of us not picking up awards,” and New York suggests that the obituary reel “should include a mention of this show.” Some of the highlights—or, in many cases,…
Continue reading …And they’re off! After an opening montage involving all of the best picture nominees—and, uh, Back to the Future —the Oscars are in full swing. The montage was “enjoyably silly,” writes David Edelstein in New York , featuring a trip inside the mind of Alec Baldwin, Inception -style. As for…
Continue reading …Oscar Night is finally here, and over at New York magazine, the Fug Girls only have one question: How crazy does Helena Bonham Carter look? To find out, click through some of their thoughts on the best and worst looks in the gallery, or view their complete live blog . For…
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Over the past three weeks of turmoil in Egypt hundreds were arrested and detained by security services. Many have yet to be released and are reported missing by their families. The Guardian is compiling a database of the detained with information from Egyptian human rights groups. Some have been released but others are still to be accounted for
Continue reading …There’s blood and chaos in the revolutions wracking the Arab world, but there’s also a new dignity and hope rising from the smoldering ashes of years of repression, reports Jeffrey Fleischman in the LA Times. Such feelings were an important part of the pan-Arabism of the 1950s, but decades of…
Continue reading …For a guy who only dabbled unsuccessfully in Craigslist dating, Chris Lee resigned post-haste, and Gawker thinks it now knows why: Two more women, both transgender and one a prostitute, have come forward to say that they corresponded with the ex-congressman after seeing an ad in which he sought “a…
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