UFC Sold $4billion, Becomes Largest Franchise Sale In World Sport History

UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) President Dana White on Monday morning, said that the mixed martial arts promotional company (UFC) has been sold for approximately $4 billion to a group of investors led by Hollywood talent agency WME-IMG. The sale will make it the largest in Sporting history for any Sports Franchise. White confirmed the sale in text messages to The Associated Press on Sunday night.

The Fertitta brothers and White purchased the promotion for $2 million in 2000, and the brothers’ casino fortune kept it afloat while MMA gained widespread acceptance and increasing popularity.

UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta is reportedly expected to step down as chairman following a transitional period, after which he and his brother, Frank Fertitta, will remain on as minority owners. Dana White is expected stay on as president and will also hold a minority stake, according to the report.

Will History Remember?

                      Veteran Anna Hoffman of New Jersey Regent. Source: sfcmac.wordpress
I once heard the parrots in a neighbor’s main lobby whisper that legacy is for the blind. I tried to reason like I always do with species beneath human best intelligence. But then, I was so furious I want to get into the discussion and have a debate like one of them “fellas”.

The unthoughtful may choose to forget, the careless care less anyways, the hardened may block reasoning, or newbies become blind to the sacrifices of past heroes but history will never forget those who fought hard for what we all enjoy even if taken for granted. Time passes all and moments speed by our notice but history will always remember those who fought hard, not the chickens.

If you were to go on a date with history, will history remember how hard you fought or care less because you are always looking for the easy. How hard are you fighting for your career, marriage, family, kids, spouse, community, nation, humanity? How hard are you fighting for your life?

Read full on ablethoughts

70 years after 14yr old boy executed in South Carolina in 1944 exonerated

70 years after 14 year old George Stinney Jnr. was executed for allegedly beating two young white girls to death in Alcolu, South Carolina, a judge yesterday Wednesday Dec 17th threw out his murder conviction.

When George was executed in 1944, he was so small he had to seat on a phone book in the electric chair. He's officially the youngest person to be executed in the U.S. in the 20th century.

George was found guilty of beating the girls, 11 and 8 years old with a railroad spike. His trial lasted only three hours and it took the a jury of all white people just 10 minutes to find him guilty - this was just 3 months after the girls were found murdered. This was back when there was a lot of segregation in America.

George was arrested after he confessed to the crime, but his older sister always maintained that George was coerced into confessing and couldn't have committed the murder because he was with her the day of the murder.

Civil rights advocates have been trying for years to clear George Stinney Jr's name. They managed to get the case reopened and yesterday morning, Judge Carmen Mullins tossed the murder conviction.

Ava DuVernay makes history as first black woman for Golden Globe director’s prize.

Director Ava DuVernay, front, and actor David Oyelowo pose for a photograph for their new movie "Selma" in Toronto on Wednesday, December 10, 2014.

Sandy CohenThe Associated Press
Ava DuVernay hasn’t had time to consider how she’s made history.

With her nomination Thursday for “Selma,” the 42-year-old became the first black woman on the short list for a Golden Globe director’s prize.

“I just turned in the film four weeks ago and now we’ve got nominations,” DuVernay said by phone from Toronto. “I haven’t had a real second to sit down and really think about it.”

“Selma” tells the story of Martin Luther King Jr. and his colleagues as they planned marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to demand voting rights in 1965. It opens in theatres on Christmas.

The civil rights drama earned four nominations in all, including best actor for star David Oyelowo, best original song for Common and John Legend’s “Glory,” and best picture.

DuVernay and Oyelowo said they’ll celebrate by taking a planned trip to Washington, D.C., to show the film to members of Congress and present a special honour to Rep. John Lewis (D-Georgia), who is depicted in “Selma.”

Robert Biedron makes history as first Poland gay mayor

In this Thursday Nov. 27, 2014 picture, Joanna Erbel, a bisexual candidate for the role of mayor of Warsaw, arrives for an interview with The Associated Press, in Warsaw, Poland.

Vanessa GeraThe Associated Press
Robert Biedron already made history once in Poland by becoming the first openly gay lawmaker in parliament in 2011. On Monday, he became the country’s first openly gay mayor.

The 38-year-old’s political successes are a marker of how quickly this deeply conservative and Catholic country has changed in the decade since it joined the European Union. Back then, in 2004, gay rights marches were still being banned and homosexuality was treated as a huge taboo. Since then a growing acceptance of gays and lesbians has arrived hand-in-hand with a flourishing economy.

“I see how fast Polish society has learned its lesson of tolerance,” Biedron told The Associated Press in an interview two days before he was elected Sunday to be mayor of Slupsk, a city near the Baltic Sea in northern Poland. “So I am very optimistic and happy with Polish society — and proud.”

But it’s not just him. In what the Polish media are calling “the Biedron effect,” a record number of candidates also came out publicly before the local elections, which took place in two rounds over the last two weeks.

After 25yrs Montreal massacre still divides Parliament

Ryan Remiorz A memorial plaque to the victims adorns a wall of the Ecole Polytechnique on December 6, 2011 in Montreal. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

Jennifer DitchburnThe Canadian Press
Twenty-five years after Marc Lepine killed 14 women at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique, the massacre is still creating sharp political divisions on Parliament Hill over the nature of the crime and the proper response to it.

Gun control remains a polarizing element of Dec. 6 discussions. While families of the victims and supporters demand tighter regulations, the Conservatives have argued that law-abiding Canadian gun owners should not be treated like criminals.

A bill is currently making its way through the Commons that reclassifies certain weapons and eases transportation restrictions around firearms, among other measures. The government eliminated the long-gun registry two years ago.

“Only our Conservative government will always stand up for Canada’s hunters, trappers, and sports shooters,” MP Robert Sopuck said in the Commons Tuesday.

Myla Dalbesio Makes History As Calvin Klein’s First “Plus-Size” Model

US Size 10 model, Myla Dalbesio, has made history as Calvin Klein’s first “plus-size” model for an underwear campaign. But there is controversy surrounding the fact that she is being referred to as “plus-size.”

 

Dalbeiso, 27, who is 5ft 11inches tall, and hails from Wisconsin, is considered plus-size by the fashion industry’s standards. However, plus-size by normal standards, is usually classified as size 12 and up, Daily Mail reports.

 

“It’s kind of confusing because I’m a bigger girl.  I’m not the biggest girl on the market but I’m definitely bigger than all the girls Calvin Klein has ever worked with, so that is really intimidating,” she said.

Photo | Garden of remembrance in Glasgow, Scotland

Veterans and members of the public, attend the opening of the garden of remembrance in George Square on Nov. 4 in Glasgow, Scotland. On Remembrance Day a two minute silence will be observed across the country, to honor those who fell during World War I and World War II, among others

100 Years Landmark | Poppy Lives On As Symbol

Queen Elizabeth Walk Across A Poppy Plantation

SYLVIA HUI | AP
William Sellick pinched the tiny scarlet petals with deft ease, turning them into paper poppies and pressing them into a wreath.

The flowers are a potent symbol of remembrance and patriotism that sprang up in the aftermath of World War I to honor the war dead and raise funds for survivors. A century since the Great War, the poppies live on: They are hung as wreaths or worn on lapels across Britain - from Prime Minister David Cameron to "X-Factor" celebrities to countless commuters braving the blustery streets of London - as the nation prepares to mark Armistice Day on Nov. 11.

Each handmade flower evokes the image of poppies springing up from destruction and decay in Belgium's Flanders Fields, home to many of the Great War's bloodiest battlefields. The haunting scene was immortalized in a war poem by Canadian army doctor John McCrae: "In Flanders fields the poppies blow/Between the crosses row on row."

McCrae noticed that the resilient red corn poppy was the first plant to flourish in the churned-up landscape. The poem, penned in 1915 shortly after McCrae buried a friend, struck a chord around the world and started poppy symbolism in the English-speaking world.

Music | Taylor Swift’s New Album Is About To Make History

Getty Image

Jessica Toomer | Uproxx

This is panning out to be a pretty big week for Taylor Swift (and it’s only Tuesday). Besides becoming New York’s official celebrity ambassador, hosting rooftop and living room listening parties for fans, hanging out with her cats and serving as mentor on a little show called The Voice, the country princess turned new Queen of Pop just released her highly anticipated fifth studio album 1989 and it’s already breaking records.

According to Billboard, the latest album had an initial sales forecast of 750,000 which was upped to 800,000 and finally anticipated to sell 900,000 records in its opening week but now, after only one day of sales, 1989 is on track to break the million mark by the end of the week. If that holds true, Swift will be the first artist to have three albums sell that many copies in one week (both Red and Speak Now also broke that threshold). Those numbers will also make 1989 the 19th album to break one million in one week since Nielsen SoundScan started tracking sales in 1991 and first studio album to sell one million copies in 2014.

History In Making | World's First Baby Delivered Via Transplanted Womb

For the world's first baby born to a woman with a transplanted womb -- a medical first -- only a victorious name would do.

Which is why his parents named him "Vincent," meaning "to conquer," according to his mother.

The 36-year-old Swedish mother learned she had no womb when she was 15 and was devastated, she said Saturday in an interview with The Associated Press.

"I was terribly sad when doctors told me I would never carry my own child," said the woman, who asked not to be identified.

More than a decade later, she heard about research led by Dr. Mats Brannstrom, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Gothenburg and Stockholm IVF, on transplanting wombs into women who didn't have one. She immediately signed up.

"Mats told us there were no guarantees, but my partner and I, maybe we like to take risks, we thought this was the perfect idea," she said.

The woman's mother had wanted to be a donor but wasn't a match. Instead, she received her new womb from a 61-year-old family friend, who had previously had two sons.

Cartoon | Disney Movies Sorted In Order of Historical Setting

 

Photo: Keke Palmer Makes History At First Cinderella on Broadway

Meet the world's first black Cinderalla on Broadway. Actress and talk show host KeKe Palmer pictured above getting very emotional as she made history on September 9th in New York City as the first black Cinderella on Broadway.

Breaking Bad and Modern Family Make Emmy History for Best Drama and Best Comedy

Modern Family won its fifth Emmy Award for best comedy Monday night, and while Breaking Bad may be gone from our TV screens, it's still racking up honors.

In addition to the show taking best drama, Bryan Cranston picked up his fourth lead-actor Emmy for playing teacher-turned-meth cooker Walter White on Monday night, Aaron Paul garnered his third supporting-actor award, co-star Anna Gunn became a two-time winner, and the show was also honored with a writing award.

"Thank you so much for this farewell to our show," said creator Vince Gilligan. "You have been very kind to us indeed."

Gunn pointed out her TV husband Cranston and called him "the baddest and the best human being," and the first guy Paul thanked was Gilligan.

"My God, Breaking Bad has changed my life and I'm standing up here because of one man," Paul said. "Thank you for believing in me and letting me play this guy. I miss him."

Cranston joked that even he thought about voting for True Detective star — and recent Oscar winner — Matthew McConaughey.

"I don't know why I've been blessed," Cranston said. "I love to act and I will do it to my last breath.
"I dedicate this award to all the Sneaky Petes of the world who thought that settling for mediocrity is worth it. It's not."

Julianna Margulies won her second lead-actress Emmy for The Good Wife and third overall, beginning her acceptance speech with a proclamation: "What a a wonderful time for women on television."

She also mentioned her recently written-off co-star, Josh Charles. "I miss you every day," she said. "What were you thinking?"

Being witchy was good for Jessica Lange and Kathy Bates at the Emmys.

Both American Horror Story: Coven stars won their respective categories, Lange for lead actress in a miniseries and Bates for supporting actress.

"I'm profoundly surprised at this, but very grateful," Lange said of her third Emmy win.

Bates said she didn't think she was going to win because she saw some of the award handlers in the green room. "They caught my eye and they both tilted their heads in that social-worker 'I'm sorry' way."

Fresh off a lucrative new deal, The Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons won his fourth award for lead actor in a comedy.

"There's no accounting for taste, and due to good fortune I stand up here tonight," Parsons said. He also paid tribute to his late father, who encouraged him to be an actor. "In a career that hinges on confidence so much of the time, I thank him."

Julia Louis-Dreyfus won her third consecutive award for lead actress in a comedy. After kissing Cranston on the way to the stage, she thanked her show's cable home, HBO: "Honestly, I've worked in a lot of places in this town, and it's my favorite place I've ever worked."

Cary Joji Fukunaga won for drama-series directing for True Detective, and HBO's The Normal Heart won for best movie made for TV, with director Ryan Murphy dedicating the award to AIDS activist Larry Kramer.

"After 30 years, it took the powers of Erin Brockovich and the Incredible Hulk to get this made," Murphy said, referring to stars Julia Roberts and Mark Ruffalo.

"This is for all the hundreds of thousands of artists who've passed from AIDS since 1981. Their passion burns through us and this is for them."

Sarah Silverman won for variety-show writing, the Tony Awards' Glenn Weiss got the Emmy for directing a variety series, and The Colbert Report was named best variety/comedy series for the second straight year.

"It has been a ton of fun to do this show for the last nine years," said Colbert, who is ending his show and moving into David Letterman's late-night spot on CBS in 2015. "I love my wife and I love my children, and thank you for all your patience with me."

Fargo nabbed the honor for best miniseries, and Sherlock won three Emmys: lead actor in a miniseries for Benedict Cumberbatch, supporting actor for Martin Freeman and a writing award that went to Steven Moffat.

USToday

Winnie the Pooh Turns 100 Years Old Today

The cover art for Winnie the Bear, M.A. Appleby's 2011 biography of the bear cub that inspired the world-famous fictional character. (Dominion Street Publishing)

One hundred years ago today a Canadian soldier adopted a black bear cub and named it after his adopted hometown of Winnipeg, launching the saga of Winnie the Pooh.

Lt. Harry Colebourn, a Canadian veterinarian and soldier with the Royal Canadian Army Veterinary Corps, came across the orphaned female bear cub on Aug. 24, 1914.

"It's such a fascinating story to me that something from such a different, ancient time and far away is so directly connected to this city of ours," said Mary Anne Appleby, a Winnipeg author who penned the 2011 biography Winnie the Bear.

As the story goes, when Colebourn's troop train stopped in White River, Ont., he met a hunter who had shot and killed the bear cub's mother, without whom the cub was almost certain to die.

Colebourn offered the hunter $20 for the cub, whom he named Winnipeg Bear to commemorate the city where he had lived before the war. The name was soon shortened to Winnie.

Winnie accompanied Colebourn to England, where the cub played with Canadian soldiers during their off-hours in their encampment on the Salisbury Plains.

Colebourn later donated Winnie to the London Zoo, where the bear inspired the creation of A.A. Milne's famous children's book character. Winnie died at the zoo in 1934.

The Winnie the Pooh story endures a century later. A survey in the United Kingdom named Milne's book the most beloved children's book of the past 150 years, while the "silly old bear" came in second to Anne of Green Gables' Anne Shirley in CBC Books' Great Canadian Character Showdown.
Appleby, whose father was a close friend of Colebourn's son, says this weekend is a time to celebrate a wee bear that has become a household name.

"I just want to try and get this story out there as much as I can because I think, you know, in Winnipeg we're quite familiar with it. The rest of Canada doesn't know it as well," she said.

Appleby said in conducting her research, she came across a rare short video of Winnie eating an orange at the London Zoo.

Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park is home to the Pooh Gallery, which houses a permanent collection of Winnie the Pooh artifacts and memorabilia.

Featured prominently in the gallery is the painting Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Pot by E.H. Shepard, the original illustrator of Milne's series.

Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, viewed the painting during their visit to Winnipeg in May.

A bronze statue of Colebourn and Winnie is located at the park's Nature Playground.

CBC

Who Still Remembers Outrageous Canada’s Groundbreaking Drag Film

Craig Russell in Outrageous!

When it comes to drag cinema, Canada is queen.

Long before RuPaul or Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, when drag on film was the domain of straight actors wearing bad wigs for cheap laughs, there was the 1977 Canadian Outrageous!

Directed by the unknown Richard Benner and starring an all-Canadian cast working on a shoestring budget, Outrageous! defied the odds to become an international hit, and one of the first widely distributed gay-themed films in North America.

The loosely autobiographical film follows Robin Turner (played by Canadian female impersonator Craig Russell), a Toronto hairstylist who finds he has an outrageous talent for drag. From Bette Davis to Judy Garland, Robin’s specialty is impersonating movie starlets from the Golden Age of film.

After being fired from his hair salon gig for openly performing in drag, he packs up his wigs and eyeliner and moves to New York with dreams of becoming a star. Things get complicated when long-time friend, now escaped mental patient, Liza Connors (Hollis McLaren) starts rooming with him.

Groundbreaking for its open portrayal of drag culture, the film inspired actor Harvey Fierstein (himself a female impersonator at the time) not to give up on a performance career, and The Kids in the Hall’s Scott Thompson to come out as gay.

The story was inspired by Canadian writer Margaret Gibson’s 1976 short story Making It. Gibson, who struggled with mental illness, roomed with Russell in the early 1970s and based the work on her experiences with him.

After scrounging up barely enough funds to start shooting, having to pump some of their personal finances into the $167,000 project, producers clashed with Benner. He wanted a purely auteur film; they wanted commercial appeal. What we got was something equal parts authentic and entertaining. It was dangerous and conventional all at once, allowing the film to find huge appeal beyond its niche subject matter.

Russell won Best Actor at the 1978 Berlin International Festival for his role in Outrageous! and has the rare distinction of winning both Best Actor and Best Actress at the Virgin Islands Film Festival.
A sequel was made, again directed by Benner and starring Russell, 10 years later. It failed to find an audience. A musical version was also produced for stage in 2000.

You can watch Outrageous! in full on YouTube here:http://youtu.be/sq3KlxwV4_8

How Stephen Harper Government Manipulates Canadian History

The callous rebranding of the Thérèse Casgrain Volunteer Award into a "Prime Minister's Volunteer Awards" has been rightly criticized from all sides.

More than just a lesson in pretentiousness, this action is the mark of an appalling lack of respect for the historic role played by Thérèse Casgrain and other renowned champions of the women's emancipation movement in Quebec and the whole of Canada. This action is yet another manifestation of what historian Yves Frenette calls "the conscription of the Canadian past by the Harper government".

This conscription is meant to imprint, in the collective memory, the Prime Minister's narrow and self-serving interpretation of Canada's history. There is little place in that interpretation for such progressive feminists as Thérèse Casgrain. This is why Stephen Harper flushed her, only to replace her with his own image. In the same vein, this government:

• removed from a banknote the faces of Thérèse Casgrain and five other Canadian feminists;
• removed (until very recently) two Alfred Pellan masterpieces from the Foreign Affairs lobby, to replace them with a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II;
• ploughed thirty million dollars into a hyperbolic commemoration of the war of 1812 while slashing our instruments of memory and knowledge: archives, libraries, statistics, national parks, Canadian Studies programmes, research institutions, public radio and television...
• emasculated our world-renowned Museum of Civilization, turning it into a museum of history bereft of one of the fundamental missions of such museums: promoting a critical understanding of history;
• allocated two-thirds of Canadian Heritage's budget set aside for the 150th anniversary of Confederation to military themes;
• arranged for eight out of ten of the Canadian Museum History Corporation's activities (some 85 percent of its approved financing) to focus on war;
• devoted two-thirds of the illustrations in its new Canada Citizenship Guide for new Canadians to military themes;
• ignored the thirtieth anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; etc...
In short, he is running the history of Canada through his ideological mill.

We must pay tribute to the courage and sacrifices of our soldiers, past and present, and highlight their essential contribution to peace and democracy. It is a solemn duty. But we must also highlight the other remarkable aspects of Canadian history. The 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation is almost here and its preparations are lagging.

Photo: 888,246 ceramic poppies are planted in memory of Veterans

A Chelsea Pensioner walks amongst ceramic red poppies in the moat at the Tower of London in London. It is slowly turning red as some 888,246 ceramic poppies are planted in memory of the British and Commonwealth dead from World War I.

Europe Marks WW1 anniversary

(LtoR) Britain's Prince Harry, Belgium's Queen Mathilde, Duchess of Cambridge Catherine, Belgium's King Philippe, Britain's Prime minister David Cameron and Britain's Prince William attend a ceremony at the Saint Symphorien Military cemetery in Mons, Belgium, during commemorations marking 100 years since the invasion of Belgium by Germany at the start of World War I. (JOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images/Newscom)

The French and German presidents commemorate the 100th anniversary of Germany’s declaration of war on France on August 3, 1914.

Francois Hollande and his German counterpart, Joachim Gauck, made a joint tribute in Alsace to soldiers killed during World War One.

They  lay the first stone for a memorial at Vieil Armand cemetery.

On Monday events were held in Belgium to mark Britain’s declaration of war on Germany.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron will take part in that ceremony in recognition of the day that Britain went to war.

Some 30,000 men were killed in the mountains around Vieil Armand, known in German as Hartmannswillerkopf.

The cemetery there contains the remains of 12,000 unidentified soldiers.

Hollande and Gauck will pay tribute to the sacrifice those men made and celebrate the importance of the modern Franco-German relationship in Europe.

They will lay the foundation stone for a Great War memorial and exhibition centre on the site, which is due to open its doors to the public in 2017.

The two leaders will meet again on Monday in the Belgian city of Liege, where heads of state from across Europe will mark the escalation of the war after Germany invaded Belgium.

Footprints of Tyrannosaurs Discovered in British Columbia

The tyrannosaur footprints discovered by hunting guide Aaron Fredlund were each more than 60 centimetres long. (Aaron Fredlund)

It would have been terrifying to run into a tyrannosaur like Albertosaurus. The massive creature that roamed western North America about 70 million years ago was as long as a bus, with a wide smile of razor-sharp teeth and claws to match. But here's the worst part — it probably wasn't alone.

Tyrannosaurs, it seemed, travelled in packs.

Scientists came to that conclusion after carefully analyzing an extremely rare find — three sets of tyrannosaur tracks found in northeastern B.C.



Tyrannosaur tracks are so rare that this is the first time more than a single print has ever been found in one place.

That made the discovery exciting to begin with, since it allows paleontologists to see how the animal walked, said Richard McCrea, lead author of a new study in the journal PLOS ONE describing the tracks

The fossil tracks were discovered in the fall of 2011 by Aaron Fredlund, a hunting guide in Tumbler Ridge, B.C. He was guiding a group of moose hunters and looking for a place to cross a river when he spied a promising looking rock ledge.

Fredlund said he spends all day looking for animal tracks as part of his job. He had never seen dinosaur tracks himself, but knew others had been found in the region.

CBC