Latest News Online

I’d record it, watch it countless times, and then discuss it at school — often until friends would just tune me out, or walk away. It was a show a lot older than I, and in the distant pre-YouTube era, I spent years catching up. There were lost weekends spent indoors, and lots of parental talk of my eyes falling out. But even now, as a decades-strong fan, it’s kind of crazy to think the BBC classic turns 50 — 50! — this November 23, continuing its reign as the longest running TV sci-fi series.
To me, Who was, and is, unique, occupying a niche beyond the reach of other sci-fi shows I loved as a child. It’s not as slick as Star Trek, nor as showy as Battlestar Galactica, and yet it’s a touch smarter than both. Engrossingly tumbledown, and almost stage-like in its pacing, it’s far more adventurous in scope, and braver in its simplicity. It has always worn its often cringe-inducing cheesiness on its sleeve; though at its core, it takes itself very seriously.
Case in point: this 1975 interaction between the Doctor and enemy Davros (creator of the doctor’s arch-nemeses robot race, the Daleks). Yes, it’s ludicrous: a rubber-masked, three-eyed alien hovering about in a chair — and a scarf-wearing posh guy basically telling him to settle down. But there is also genuine ethical debate here, and relatively complex thought experiments: “It is interesting conjecture,” as Davros himself says. Everyone looks so quirky, but is being so, I dunno, rational. It’s just all so British.
Indeed, I’ve always seen the doctor as a sort of hybrid of Sherlock Holmes, H.G. Wells’ Time Traveller and a passionate stamp-collector — the beyond-competent amateur filled with plucky optimism. But there’s a danger in pigeonholing both Doctor and show, because as any good fan knows, the key to its ongoing success is change, or rather, regeneration.
To date we have met 11 (soon to be 12) very different incarnations of the Doctor. From William Hartnell’s stately, lapel-clutching original, to Christopher Eccleston’s leather jacket-loving ninth incarnation, it is often asked: Who is best? Britons seem to think it’s No. 10, David Tennant. Many critics point to the fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker (pictured below) as the best in the series. I, for one, am guilty of the great Whovian bias: favoring the one you grew up watching. I will forever defend Sylvester McCoy’s seventh Doctor — the one who introduced me to the Who world more than a quarter-century ago — as the standout.

Who better to reveal the secrets of Doctor Who than an actual doctor? Meet Doctor Who expert Dr. Piers D. Britton. He might sound a Doctor Who expert we just totally made up, but he’s a real person who wrote a book on Doctor Who titled TARDISbound and teaches a class on the iconic show at the University of Redlands in California (if you’re a hardcore Doctor Who fan who had to sit through dull college electives, you’re probably feeling a surge of envy for Redlands students right now). With Doctor Who‘s eagerly awaited 50th Anniversary special “Day of the Doctor” set to be unveiled tomorrow on BBC America (2:50 p.m. ET), Dr. Britton reveals 15 strange and fascinating Doctor Who facts that you probably did not know.
 
– Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat was initially opposed to Matt Smith’s wish to wear his now-iconic bow tie.
– All the Silurians seen since 2010′s “The Hungry Earth” are played by the same three actors.
– Paul McGann is technically the longest-serving Doctor, though he appeared only once on television in 1996 (until last week!). Tom Baker is, of course, the longest serving on television, having starred in more Doctor Who shows than any other actor.
The Impossible Astronaut” (2011) was the first episode filmed in US in which the actors playing the Doctor and his companions actually participated in shooting; the earlier “Daleks in Manhattan” featured footage shot in New York, which was then digitally blended with the Welsh locations in which David Tennant and Freema Agyeman were shooting.
– The TARDIS has a six-sided control console because it was designed to have six operatives.
– “Rose” (2005) was the first episode ever named for a companion (though the title of the original pilot episode, 1963′s “An Unearthly Child,” does refer to the Doctor’s earliest companion, his granddaughter Susan).
– The TARDIS wheezes and groans during landing because Doctor leaves the brakes on.
– Two of the actors playing the Doctor have married actresses who had continuing or key roles in the series: Tom Baker was briefly married to Lalla Ward, who played the Time Lady Romana, in the early 1980s, and David Tennant is now married to Georgia Moffett, who played the Doctor’s daughter, Jenny (and is, coincidentally, the real-life daughter of the Fifth Doctor, Peter Davison).
– Peter Capaldi and Karen Gillan not only both had Doctor Who roles before they were cast as, respectively, the Twelfth Doctor and companion Amy Pond, but actually appeared in the same episode.
– The episodes “Human Nature” and “Blink” (2007) were based on an original Doctor Who novel written in 1995 as part of the New Adventures series that picked up where the classic series left off, and therefore originally featured the Seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy.
– The ancient race of aliens The Weeping Angels were inspired by a carved figure in a graveyard that Steven Moffat used to see when he went on family holidays. The graveyard was marked “dangerous,” which is what attracted Moffat’s interest.
– The TARDIS looks like an old fashioned police lock-up box because its cloaking device, the chameleon circuit, malfunctioned after his first visit to 1963 London.
– The Doctor’s sonic screwdriver has gone through multiple forms, and its functionality has changed a good deal: at times it can do anything from triggering mines to repairing transmit beacons; at others, it can’t even open a mortice lock (because it’s too simple). Producer John Nathan Turner had the sonic written out of the series in the early 1980s because he felt it made the Doctor’s life too easy; for Russell T. Davies, on the other hand, it was important that, whatever challenges he faced, the Doctor wouldn’t be limited by a locked door. In “The Day of the Doctor” we know for sure we’re going to see two sonics — Matt Smith’s and David Tennant’s, but from publicity photographs it looks very much as though the “War Doctor,” played by John Hurt, will be rocking something much more like the versions used by Tom Baker and Jon Pertwee. Only time will tell …

Microsoft's Xbox One launch was marred by problems with its online services early on Friday which took down the official website Xbox.com, as well as microsoft.com and Office 365, Microsoft's cloud-based software service.
Users were shown error messages referencing a DNS failure.
A spokesman said services are now fully restored and said it would update customers once the cause was found, though previously component failure and a certification issue have caused outages for Azure, Microsoft's cloud platform.
The Register speculated that an internal DNS issue may be to blame but was told by Microsoft that it was still investigating.
"We can confirm that these issues were not caused by Windows Azure. We will keep our customers updated as information becomes available. The service interruption that affected Windows Azure Storage was a separate issue and has been resolved. All Windows Azure services are running as normal."
Mervyn Kelly, marketing director at infrastructure firm Ciena, said that particularly in the US, the success of internet-connected, data-hungry games consoles would depend on the underlying network.
"Without realising it, average households are beginning to slide into domestic data usage patterns that would mark them out as power users," said Kelly.
 
"The growth in demand for data-heavy networked and multiplayer games, online television and rich content sourced from the internet, all over a computer console, will undoubtedly make an impact on networks and data centres."
 Separately, Xbox vice president Phil Harrison appeared to admit that the company would struggle to meet consumer demand for the console, telling the site MCV that "there will be difficulty getting stock through until Christmas but we will do everything we can to accelerate that".
"Our job on a tactical level is to ensure we get enough supply to retailers and customers as we possibly can to meet demand, and that will be a struggle but we are doing our best," said Harrison.
A spokesman said: “We have been blown away with the demand for Xbox One by our fans. Pre-orders are over double the amount when we launched Xbox 360. We are doing everything we can to make sure Xbox fans have an Xbox One under the tree this Christmas but they should definitely shop early this year.”
He pointed to an interview with Harvey Eagle, Xbox marketing head, which explained that any short supply would be determined by whether individual retailers chose to hold back stock or not.
"We have been clear with retailers in telling them their day one allocation," Eagle told MCV in an interview earlier this week.
"It’s the retailer’s decision whether they hold back any stock for on-shelves. Currently pre-orders are in excess of supply, but ultimately we leave those kind of decisions to retailers."

Microsoft on Friday crowed that more than a million Xbox One consoles were snapped up within 24 hours in 13 countries after hitting shelves for the first time in the morning.


The US-based technology titan described it as the biggest launch in Xbox history, setting a new sales record at the company.
Xbox One consoles were sold out at most retail shops, according to Microsoft.
"We are humbled and grateful for the excitement of Xbox fans around the world," said Xbox corporate vice president of marketing Yusuf Mehdi.
"Seeing thousands of excited fans lined up to get their Xbox One and their love for gaming was truly a special moment for everyone on the Xbox team," he continued.
"We are working hard to create more Xbox One consoles."
Sale of the keenly-awaited system began in more than a dozen countries including New Zealand, Australia, France, Britain, Brazil and the United States as day dawned in respective time zones.
Xbox fans queued at consumer electronics shops to be among the first to get their hands on Microsoft's beefed-up console that extends beyond gaming to online films, music, social networking and more.
"It's a big upgrade, a big change," said 23-year-old Jonathan Guerrero, who staked out a spot at the front of the line at a Best Buy electronics shop in Northern California 13 hours before the consoles went on sale a minute into Friday.
"You are jumping from okay to super great."
Hassan Ali, 34, said he queued to get an Xbox One because he has an ideal television for the rich graphics it pumps out. He described his set as a 3-D, high-definition, smart television with a 65-inch screen.
"It's kind of amazing that you can look at the game and it looks like real life," said Ali, who spoke of loving video games since his first Sega device in 1985.
Sony last week unleashed the PlayStation 4, its new champion in the long-running console war.
The Xbox One, successor to the Xbox 360, the top-selling console in North America, debuted at $500 while Sony's PS4 is priced at $400.
Sony said it sold more than a million PS4 consoles in the 24 hours after its release on November 15 in only North America.

The Irish and American flags flew at half-mast yesterday at the John F Kennedy Memorial Park, a few kilometres from the Co Wexford farm where the late president’s great-grandfather grew up before emigrating in 1848
 

“My favorite poet was Aeschylus.” So said Senator Robert F. Kennedy, speaking to a traumatized crowd in April of 1968. Kennedy had come to a poor black neighborhood in Indianapolis to make a routine campaign speech, but learned en route that Martin Luther King, Jr., had been assassinated; it fell to the New York senator to announce the dreadful news. As he struggled to find appropriate language for the day’s carnage—which, of course, would inevitably have recalled to his mind, and the minds of his audience, the assassination of his brother John five years earlier—it was to Aeschylus’ “Oresteia” that Kennedy turned, the grand trilogy about the search for justice in a world filled with metastasizing violence. In the verse he quoted, the Chorus of city elders ponders the meaning of violence and suffering:
 
  Kennedy concluded his remarks with an exhortation to heed the wisdom of the ancient classics: “Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.” That the savageness could not be tamed was demonstrated, with a dreadful Greek irony, three months later, when Kennedy himself was murdered. The lines he cited on the night of King’s death were used as the epitaph on his own tombstone.

It was a day of sunshine but immeasurable gloom. There was a stadium filled with nearly 63,000 fans too subdued to generate much excitement for a crucial late-season NFL game where the outcome seemed secondary to the staggering events of the past two days.
 
Indeed, many Americans questioned whether the game should even be played.
It was the most solemn atmosphere I've ever experienced at a sporting event.
So it was, 50 years ago, on the afternoon of Nov. 24, 1963, when the New York Giants played host to the St. Louis Cardinals at Yankee Stadium, only 48 hours after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. I was a 13-year-old junior high school student watching with my brother from our family seats overlooking the 35-yard-line in Section 20 of the original Stadium, an arena I always considered much grander than its remodeled and smaller successor that re-opened in 1976.
There was little pregame buzz about whether the conference-leading Giants could handle the second-place Cardinals. Instead, many fans turned on transistor radios to follow the latest shocking news: accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald had been gunned down in a Dallas police station.

In this sombre Texas city, there was silence where 50 years ago there was gunfire. Instead of screams, bells pealed across Dealey Plaza. And there was order and reflection in place of chaos and panic.
The sky was grey, but this was Dallas’s moment of clarity: a day when a demonised city faced its past in front of the world, hoping that by paying tribute to John F Kennedy’s life, it will no longer be defined by his death.
 
Sleeked by drizzle and shivering in the cold, thousands gathered outside the Texas school book depository, from whose sixth floor 50 years earlier Lee Harvey Oswald fired the three shots that killed the 35th president of the United States.
At 12.30pm, the time when Kennedy was struck as his motorcade passed along Elm Street, a short period of quiet was observed, broken by the ringing of bells followed by a rendition of of America the Beautiful by the US naval academy men’s glee club.
The half-hour ceremony, called The 50th, was Dallas’s first major public commemoration of the killing. It featured prayers, hymns and speeches and was a tribute to Kennedy’s life rather than a reprise of his murder. Later, in the evening, a candlelit vigil was held at the location where a police officer, JD Tippit, was fatally shot by Oswald.
At a location that resonates so vividly of death, even half a century later and even for people who were not born or have ever visited the US, little needed to be said 22 November 1963.
The ceremony addressed the consequences, not the conspiracies. The mayor of Dallas, Mike Rawlings, told the crowd that the US had been forced to “grow up” on the day Kennedy died. He called the murdered president an “idealist without illusions who helped build a more just and equal world”.

Few could have predicted 11 long months ago, that a young pop star — a former Disney child actress — would make headlines for a series of deliberately provocative moments  (and introduce, to once blissfully ignorant millions, the act of twerking)?

Sure, it’s likely that these were carefully orchestrated events meant to maximize exposure, but there’s no denying that Miley Cyrus is having her moment.
To mark her 21st birthday — which she’ll celebrate on Saturday, Nov. 23 — we’ve put together this timeline of Miley Miley-stones.

NEW YORK -- Michael Weiner, the plain-speaking, ever-positive labor lawyer who took over as head of the powerful baseball players' union four years ago and smoothed its perennially contentious relationship with management, died Thursday, 15 months after announcing he had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. He was 51.
The Major League Baseball Players Association said Weiner died at his home in Mansfield Township, N.J.
 
Michael Weiner worked even thru his sickness. He didn't look at it as an excuse to quit," tweeted Pittsburgh's Andrew McCutchen, the NL MVP. "He never gave up on us even when at his worst."
As Weiner's health deteriorated this summer, a succession plan was put in place. Former big league All-Star Tony Clark took over Thursday as acting executive director and is to be approved as Weiner's successor when the union's board meets from Dec. 2-5 at La Jolla, Calif.
"Words cannot describe the love and affection that the players have for Michael, nor can they describe the level of sadness we feel today," Clark said in a statement. "Not only has the game lost one of its most important and influential leaders in this generation, all involved in the game have lost a true friend."
Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig called Weiner "a gentleman, a family man, and an extraordinarily talented professional who earned the trust of his membership and his peers."
"Our strong professional relationship was built on a foundation of respect and a shared commitment to finding fair solutions for our industry. I appreciated Michael's tireless, thoughtful leadership of the players and his pivotal role in the prosperous state of baseball today," Selig said in a statement. "Michael was a courageous human being, and the final year of his remarkable life inspired so many people in our profession."
At Weiner's last public speaking engagement, a 25-minute meeting with baseball writers on the day of the All-Star game in July, he was confined to a wheelchair and unable to move his right side. Yet, he wanted to respond to questions about his illness and issues in the game, and did so with the grace and humor he was known for throughout his life

Just over ten years ago, Aaron Carter was at the top of his game. He had a number of hit singles, including “I Want Candy” and was dating the darling of the Disney set, Hilary Duff. In great demand like his brother, Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys, Carter appeared on television shows, toured extensively and even had his own action figure. It was an amazing life for a boy not even out of his teens.

Now, at age 25, despite efforts to make a comeback, Carter is broke. He has claimed in court documents that he has assets worth just $8,232.16 – including computer and music equipment and $60 in cash – but owes creditors more than $2 million in liabilities. A big chunk of his liabilities is owed to the Internal Revenue Service: he has an outstanding tax bill totaling $1,368,140.
Carter’s tax bills date back to 2003. In 2009, the IRS slapped Carter with a million dollar lien – the same year he appeared on the ninth season of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars with professional dance partner Karina Smirnoff. Smirnoff said about the tax lien and Carter’s debts at the time, “I don’t see why he can be held responsible. He was a baby when all that… happened.”
In 2003, Carter was just 15 years ago. He was old enough to earn millions and be subject to tax but likely too young to understand his financial responsibilities. That’s what management is for, right?
Carter has a new management team now but his prior management team included Lou Pearlman. Yes, you’ve heard of him. Pearlman created Trans Continental Records and was responsible for creating the boy bands ‘NSYNC and The Backstreet Boys – big brother Nick Carter’s former band and the best-selling boy band of all time. He also dabbled in reality television, “finding” the boy band O-Town on the first season of ABC’s Making The Band (Pearlman would bow out for season two as P. Diddy took over search duties).

Only hours after returning to work following her brain surgery six weeks ago, Ms Fernandez replaced key figures in her government.
 
She chose a new cabinet chief, economy and agriculture ministers and replaced the head of the central bank.
The changes are expected to deepen Ms Fernandez' interventionist policies.
The new economy minister, Axel Kicillof, who was previously deputy-minister, is widely expected to tighten exchange controls further.
Mr Kicillof has overseen the renationalisation of the main airline, Aerolineas Argentinas, and the expropriation of assets from Spanish oil giant Repsol in 2012.

Under the measures Mr Maduro will be able to govern without consulting Congress for 12 months.
After signing the bill, he promised to keep prices down and conduct a "ground-shaking" anti-corruption offensive.
The president says the aim of the new powers is to tackle the economic crisis. However, critics fear he may use them against the opposition.
Venezuela is facing shortages of food and other essential goods, as well as power cuts and about 54% inflation.
Mr Maduro has already forced retailers to slash prices by up to 60%, as part of his fight against what he calls "economic sabotage".

On Wednesday, Mr Santos announced his intention to run again for the office he has been holding since 2010.
But Vice-President Angelino Garzon says he will not be part of the president's ticket in the 2014 elections.
President Santos said he wanted to finish what he had started. One of his main goals has been the ongoing peace talks with the rebel group Farc.
After nearly a year of negotiations, the government and the left-wing militant group have agreed on two issues of a six-point agenda.
Speaking on national television on Wednesday, Mr Santos said he had a duty to see the process through.

Paul Flowers, 63, was filmed allegedly handing over £300 for cocaine and discussing buying other illegal drugs.
Following the revelations he was suspended from both the Methodist Church, where he was a minister in Bradford, and the Labour Party.
He left his position as deputy chairman of the Co-op Group in June.
In a statement, West Yorkshire Police said: "Officers have... arrested a 63-year-old man in the Merseyside area in connection with an ongoing drugs supply investigation.
"He has been taken to a police station in West Yorkshire where detectives will continue their enquiries."