Today

Today

Today, also called The Today Show, is an American news and talk morning television show that airs on NBC. The program debuted on January 14, 1952. It was the first of its genre on American television and in the world, and after 68 years of broadcasting it is the fifth-longest-running American television series.

Originally a weekday two-hour program from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., it expanded to Sundays in 1987 and Saturdays in 1992. The weekday broadcast expanded to three hours in 2000, and to four hours in 2007 (though over time, the third and fourth hours became distinct entities). Today's dominance was virtually unchallenged by the other networks until the late 1980s, when it was overtaken by ABC's Good Morning America.

Today retook the Nielsen ratings lead the week of December 11, 1995, and held onto that position for 852 consecutive weeks until the week of April 9, 2012, when Good Morning America topped it again. Today maintained its No. 2 status behind GMA from the summer of 2012 until it regained the lead in the aftermath of anchor Matt Lauer's departure in November 2017.  In 2002, Today was ranked No. 17 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. 

The entertainment magazine Variety reported the 2016 advertising revenue during the first two hours of the show was $508.8 million. 

The show's first broadcast aired on January 14, 1952 as the brainchild of television executive Sylvester Weaver, who was then vice president of NBC. Weaver was president of the company from 1953 to 1955, during which time Today's late-night companion The Tonight Show premiered. In pre-production, the show's proposed working title was The Rise and Shine Revue.  The show was first supervised by Jerome Alan Danzig 

Today was the first program of its genre when it premiered with original host Dave Garroway. The program blended national news headlines, interviews with newsmakers, lifestyle features, other light news and gimmicks (including the presence of the chimpanzee J. Fred Muggs who served as the show's mascot during the early years), and local news updates from the network's stations. It has spawned several other shows of a similar type, including ABC's Good Morning America, and CBS' now-defunct The Early Show. In other countries, the format was copied – most notably in the United Kingdom with the BBC's Breakfast Time and TV-am's Good Morning Britain, and in Canada with Canada AM on CTV.

Reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Today_(American_TV_program)

Christopher Nolan

Christopher Nolan

Christopher Edward Nolan CBE (/ˈnoʊlən/; born 30 July 1970) is an English-American filmmaker known for making personal, distinctive films within the Hollywood mainstream. His directorial efforts have grossed more than US$4.7 billion in theatres worldwide and garnered a total of 34 Oscar nominations and ten wins.

Born and raised in London, Nolan developed an interest in filmmaking from a young age. After studying English literature at University College London, he made his feature debut with Following (1998). Nolan gained international recognition with his second film, Memento (2000), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He transitioned from independent to studio filmmaking with Insomnia (2002), and found further critical and commercial success with The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005–2012), The Prestige (2006), and Inception (2010), which received eight Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. This was followed by Interstellar (2014) and Dunkirk (2017), the latter of which earned him Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Director.

Nolan's films are typically rooted in epistemological and metaphysical themes, exploring human morality, the construction of time, and the malleable nature of memory and personal identity. His work is permeated by mathematically inspired images and concepts, unconventional narrative structures, practical special effects, experimental soundscapes, large-format film photography, and materialistic perspectives. He has co-written several of his films with his brother Jonathan, and runs the production company Syncopy Inc. with his wife Emma Thomas.

Nolan has received many awards and honours. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2015, and in 2019, he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to film.

Nolan was born in Westminster, London, and grew up primarily in Highgate. His father, Brendan James Nolan, was a British advertising executive who worked as a creative director.  His mother, Christina (née Jensen), was an American flight attendant who would later work as an English teacher.  Nolan's childhood was split between London and Evanston, Illinois, and he has both British and US citizenship.  He has an older brother, Matthew, and a younger brother, Jonathan, also a filmmaker.  Growing up, Nolan was particularly influenced by the work of Ridley Scott, and the science fiction films 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Star Wars (1977).  He began making films at age seven, borrowing his father's Super 8 camera and shooting short films with his action figures.  These films included a stop motion animation homage to Star Wars called Space Wars. He cast his brother Jonathan and built sets from "clay, flour, egg boxes and toilet rolls."  His uncle, who worked at NASA building guidance systems for the Apollo rockets, sent him some launch footage: "I re-filmed them off the screen and cut them in, thinking no-one would notice," Nolan later remarked From the age of eleven, he aspired to be a professional filmmaker.  In his teenage years, Nolan started making films with Adrien and Roko Belic. Nolan and Roko co–directed the surreal 8 mm Tarantella (1989), which was shown on Image Union, an independent film and video showcase on the Public Broadcasting Service.[note 1][20]

Nolan was educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College, an independent school in Hertford Heath, Hertfordshire, and later read English literature at University College London (UCL). Opting out of a traditional film education, he pursued "a degree in something unrelated ... because it gives a different take on things."  He chose UCL specifically for its filmmaking facilities, which comprised a Steenbeck editing suite and 16 mm film cameras.  Nolan was president of the Union's Film Society, and with Emma Thomas (his girlfriend and future wife) he screened 35 mm feature films during the school year and used the money earned to produce 16 mm films over the summers. 

After earning his bachelor's degree in English literature in 1993, Nolan worked as a script reader, camera operator, and director of corporate videos and industrial films.  In 1995, he began work on the short film Larceny, which was filmed over a weekend in black and white with limited equipment and a small cast and crew.  Funded by Nolan and shot with the society's equipment, it appeared at the Cambridge Film Festival in 1996 and is considered one of UCL's best shorts.  He filmed a third short, Doodlebug (1997), about a man chasing an insect around a flat with a shoe, only to discover when killing it that it is a miniature of himself.  Nolan and Thomas made their first attempt at a feature in the mid-90s, an "arty" student angst film called Larry Mahoney, which was scrapped and never released.  During this period in his career, Nolan had little or no success getting his projects off the ground; he later recalled the "stack of rejection letters" that greeted his early forays into making films, adding "there's a very limited pool of finance in the UK. To be honest, it's a very clubby kind of place ... Never had any support whatsoever from the British film industry." 

Reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Nolan

Yaara

Yaara

Yaara (transl. Friend) is an Indian Hindi-language crime drama film  directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia. The film stars Vidyut Jammwal, Shruti Haasan, Amit Sadh, Vijay Varma and Kenny Basumatary.  The film is produced by Tigmanshu Dhulia Films and Azure Entertainment and is a remake of the French film A Gang Story (2011).  The film is about the rise and fall of four friends' rustling operations across the India–Nepal border. Initially intended for theatrical release, the film premiered on digital through ZEE5 on 30 July 2020.

Reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaara

Eid-ul-Adha

Eid-ul-Adha

Eid al-Adha (Arabic: عيد الأضحى‎, romanized: ʿīd al-ʾaḍḥā, lit. 'Feast of the Sacrifice', IPA: [ʕiːd alˈʔadˤħaː]) , also called Eid Qurban (Persian: عيد قربان‎), is the second of two Islamic holidays celebrated worldwide each year (the other being Eid al-Fitr), and considered the holier of the two. It honors the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his son Ismael as an act of obedience to God's command. But, before Ibrahim could sacrifice his son, God provided a lamb to sacrifice instead. In commemoration of this intervention, an animal, usually a sheep, is sacrificed ritually and divided into three parts. One share is given to the poor and needy, another is kept for home, and the third is given to relatives.

In the Islamic lunar calendar, Eid al-Adha falls on the 10th day of Dhu al-Hijjah, and lasts for four days. In the international (Gregorian) calendar, the dates vary from year to year shifting approximately 11 days earlier each year.

In languages other than Arabic, the name is often simply translated into the local language, such as Eid Qurban (Persian: عيد قربان‎), Qurban Bayrami (Azerbaijani: Qurban Bayramı), Tafaska tameqrant (Berber languages: Amazigh), English Feast of the Sacrifice, German Opferfest, Dutch Offerfeest, Romanian Sărbătoarea Sacrificiului, and Hungarian Áldozati ünnep. In Spanish it is known as Fiesta del Cordero  or Fiesta del Borrego (both meaning "festival of the lamb"). In Kurdish it is known as (Cejna Qurbanê / جەژنی قوربان). It is also known as Eid Qurban (عید قربان) in Persian speaking countries such as Afghanistan and Iran, Kurban Bayramı[6][7] in Turkey, Qurban Bayramı in Azerbaijan, কোরবানীর ঈদ in Bangladesh, as عید الكبير the big Feast in the Maghreb, as Iduladha, Hari Raya Aidiladha, Hari Raya Haji or Hari Raya Korban in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines, as بکرا عید "Goat Eid" or بڑی عید "Greater Eid" in India and Pakistan, Bakara Eid in Trinidad and Tobago, as 𞤔𞤓𞥅𞤂𞤁𞤉 𞤁𞤌𞤐𞤑𞤋𞤐 or Juulde Donkin in the Fulfulde language, as Tabaski or Tobaski in The Gambia, Guinea, and Senegal (most probably borrowed from the Serer language – and an ancient Serer religious festival ), and as Odún Iléyá by the Yorúbà people of Nigeria. 

The following names are used as other names of Eid al-Adha:

عیدالاضحیٰ (transliterations of the Arabic name)  is used in Urdu, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, and Austronesian languages such as Malay and Indonesian.

العيد الكبير meaning "Greater Eid" (the "Lesser Eid" being Eid al-Fitr)  is used in Yemen, Syria, and North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt). Local language translations are used لوی اختر in Pashto, Kashmiri (Baed Eid), Urdu and Hindi (Baṛī Īd), বড় ঈদ in Bengali, Tamil (Peru Nāl, "Great Day") and Malayalam (Bali Perunnal, "Great Day of Sacrifice") as well as Manding varieties in West Africa such as Bambara, Maninka, Jula etc. (ߛߊߟߌߓߊ Seliba, "Big/great prayer").

عید البقرة (eid al-baqara) meaning "the Feast of Cows (also sheep or goats)" is used in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Middle East. Although the word ‏بقرة‎ properly means a cow, it is also semantically extended to mean all livestock, especially sheep or goats. This extension is used in Hindi and Urdu as a very similar name ईद-उल-अज़हा (īd-ul-azhā, 'the Feast of goat') is used for the occasion.

The Feast of Sacrifice is used in Uzbekistan.

The Hajj Feast   is used in Malaysian and Indonesian, in the Philippines.

Big Sallah in Nigeria, as it is considered to be holier than Eid al-Fitr (which is locally known as the "Small Sallah").  "Ram Sallah" is also used, as it refers to the rams that are being sacrificed on that day.

Reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_al-Adha

Anil Murali

Anil Murali

Anil Murali (died 30 July 2020) was an Indian film actor in Malayalam cinema.  He acted in more than 150 films. He started out in the film industry as a villain before later taking on character roles.

He died on 30 July 2020 suffering from liver disease. 

He was born to Muraleedharan Nair and Sreekumari Amma at Thiruvananthapuram. He has an elder brother and a younger sister. Anil was married to Suma. They have a son, Adithya and a daughter, Arundathi. 

He passed away on 30 July 2020 at Aster Medcity, Kochi due to liver disease  

Reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anil_Murali

ميغان فوكس

ميغان فوكس

ميغان دنيز فوكس (بالإنجليزية: Megan Denise Fox)‏ (ولدت في 16 مايو 1986) وهي ممثلة وعارضة أمريكية.بدأت مهنها في التمثيل في 2001 في عدة شخصيات ثانوية في البرامج التلفزيونية والأفلام. ولعبت دوراً متكرر في هوب & فيث.في 2004 بدأت التمثيل في الأفلام في دور في فيلم "اعترافات مراهقة ملكة الدراما (Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen)".في 2007 لعبت دور ميكايلا بانيس، عشيقة لشخصية شيا لابوف في فيلم المتحولون وهي شخصية ساهمت بشكل كبير في تطويرها وجعلتها تترشح بجائزة "اختيار المراهقين (Teen Choice Awards)".ميغان واصلت الشخصية في الجزء سنة 2009 من الفيلم "المتحولون : انتقام المهزومين (Transformers : Revenge of the Fallen)".في وقت لاحق في 2009، بدأت بتأدية الشخصية الرئيسية في فيلم "جسم جينيفر (Jennifer's Body)".

المصادر

https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%BA%D8%A7%D9%86_%D9%81%D9%88%D9%83%D8%B3

Michael Portillo

Michael Portillo

Michael Denzil Xavier Portillo (born 26 May 1953) is a British journalist, broadcaster, and former Conservative politician. He was first elected to the House of Commons in a by-election in 1984. A strong admirer of Margaret Thatcher, and a Eurosceptic, Portillo served as a junior minister under both Thatcher and John Major, before entering the cabinet in 1992. A "darling of the right", he was seen as a likely challenger to Major during the 1995 Conservative leadership election, but stayed loyal. As Defence Secretary, he pressed for a purist Thatcherite course of "clear blue water", separating the policies of the Conservatives from those of the Labour Party.

Portillo unexpectedly lost the hitherto safe Conservative Enfield Southgate seat at the 1997 general election. This led to the coining of the expression "Portillo moment". Returning to the Commons after being given the Conservative candidacy in the 1999 by-election in Kensington and Chelsea, Portillo rejoined the front bench as Shadow Chancellor, although his relationship with Conservative Leader William Hague was strained. Standing for the leadership of the party in 2001, he finally came in third place behind Iain Duncan Smith and Kenneth Clarke.

Portillo retired from the House of Commons and from active politics at the 2005 general election, and has since pursued his media interests, presenting and participating in a wide range of television and radio programmes. Portillo's passion for steam trains led him to make the BBC documentary series Great British Railway Journeys, beginning in 2010, in which he travels the British railway networks, referring to various editions of Bradshaw's Guide. The success of the show led Portillo to present other series about railway systems in other countries.

Portillo was born in Bushey, Hertfordshire, to an exiled Spanish republican father, Luis Gabriel Portillo (1907–1993)  and a Scottish mother, Cora Waldegrave (née Blyth) (1919–2014).  Portillo's father, a devout Catholic, was a member of left-wing movements in the 1930s and fled Madrid when it fell to General Franco in 1939, settling in England.  He became head of the London Diplomatic Office of the Government in Exile in 1972.  Portillo's maternal grandfather, John Blyth, was a prosperous linen mill owner from Kirkcaldy. 

Portillo was registered as a Spanish citizen at the age of 4, and, in accordance with Spanish naming customs, his Spanish passport names him as Miguel Portillo y Blyth. 

In 1961, Portillo appeared in a television advertisement for Ribena, a blackcurrant cordial drink.  He was educated at Stanburn Primary School in Stanmore, Greater London, and Harrow County School for Boys[10] and then won a scholarship to Peterhouse, Cambridge.  While at school Portillo had supported the cause of the Labour Party;  he attributed his embrace of conservatism at Cambridge to the influence of the right-wing Peterhouse historian Maurice Cowling  In 1999, Portillo gave an interview in which he discussed homosexual relationships he had whilst at university. 

On 12 February 1982 Portillo married Carolyn Claire Eadie. 

Reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Portillo