TV News LIES

For more than a half century, Tom Stoppard was one of the most acclaimed playwrights in the English-speaking theater. He has died at age 88. Stoppard won a Laurence Olivier Award and five Tony Awards for Best Play. His work, including Travesties, The Real Thing and The Invention of Love was known for its language, wit and intellectual curiosity.

Stoppard's death was reported by his agent.

Stoppard wrote erudite plays that touched on a broad range of topics – from his 1966 absurdist comedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead about two minor characters from Hamlet — to his 1993 drama Arcadia which included dialogue about Chaos Theory and Garden Landscaping. But when Arcadia opened in New York, Stoppard told me his plays were always about people, not abstract ideas.

For more than a half century, Tom Stoppard was one of the most acclaimed playwrights in the English-speaking theater. He has died at age 88. Stoppard won a Laurence Olivier Award and five Tony Awards for Best Play. His work, including Travesties, The Real Thing and The Invention of Love was known for its language, wit and intellectual curiosity.

Stoppard's death was reported by his agent.

Stoppard wrote erudite plays that touched on a broad range of topics – from his 1966 absurdist comedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead about two minor characters from Hamlet — to his 1993 drama Arcadia which included dialogue about Chaos Theory and Garden Landscaping. But when Arcadia opened in New York, Stoppard told me his plays were always about people, not abstract ideas.

"I'm not some kind of intellectual who's importing very special ideas into the unfamiliar terrain of the theater. I don't see it like that at all," he said. "There's something about the way the plays are written about which makes people think that they're somewhat exclusive. And an exclusive playwright is a contradiction in terms."

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Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd, was stabbed by another inmate and seriously injured Friday at a federal prison in Arizona, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

The attack happened at the Federal Correctional Institution, Tucson, a medium-security prison that has been plagued by security lapses and staffing shortages. The person was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the attack and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity.

The Bureau of Prisons confirmed that an incarcerated person was assaulted at FCI Tucson at around 12:30 p.m. local time Friday. In a statement, the agency said responding employees contained the incident and performed “life-saving measures” before the inmate, who it did not name, was taken to a hospital for further treatment and evaluation.

No employees were injured and the FBI was notified, the Bureau of Prisons said. Visiting at the facility, which has about 380 inmates, has been suspended.

Messages seeking comment were left with Chauvin’s lawyers and the FBI.

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NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch's announcement on Wednesday that she will remain in her post after Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani takes office was widely praised by people across the political spectrum.

Police unions and former law enforcement officials immediately lauded Tisch’s appointment – even the NYCLU, a frequent department critic, said it “appreciated” the commissioner’s leadership. But some of Mamdani’s progressive allies fear Tisch could stand in the way of the mayor-elect’s ambitious public safety proposals.

Political observers say Tisch’s broad appeal and tough-on-crime reputation make her a wise choice for Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist who was bashed by his opponents throughout the primary for his past criticism of the police.

“It just makes all the sense in the world,” said Greg Krieg, media director at the Democratic consulting firm Slingshot Strategies. “ I think it's really a smart political move and also a smart governing decision.”

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O.J. Simpson's estate agreed to pay nearly $58 million to Ron Goldman’s father, decades after the former NFL star was acquitted of murdering Goldman and Simpson's ex-wife.

Fred Goldman filed a creditor claim in July 2024, originally seeking just over $117 million, after a civil jury found Simpson liable for the June 1994 deaths of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson and ordered him to pay millions of dollars in damages.

The money was never fully paid before he died last year from cancer.

Simpson was criminally charged with murder in 1994 but was acquitted in a shocking televised trial.

Brown Simpson and Goldman, who were friends, were found stabbed and slashed dozens of times outside her Los Angeles home. Goldman had been returning sunglasses that Brown Simpson’s mother had left at a restaurant where he worked when he was killed, authorities said.

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It was as if Alysa Liu couldn’t believe it. 

As her free skate ended and the crowd rose to their feet, the 20-year-old figure skater threw her hands on her head. She needed a big day on Sunday, Nov. 16 to win first place at 2025 Skate America, and she felt like she didn't perform as well as she could've.

"In my opinion, I did not skate that good," Liu said. "That's why I was just like 'ah, silly mistake.'"

Despite how she felt her program went, the day ended with the hardware around her neck matching the color of her dress: gold. 

Liu delivered a powerful free skate to win Skate America for the first time in her career, and continue her stellar run as she heads toward returning to the Winter Olympics.

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Alice Wong, a writer and disability rights activist who was born with muscular dystrophy and whose independence and writing inspired others, has died. She was 51.

Wong died Friday at a hospital in San Francisco due to an infection, said Sandy Ho, a close friend who has been in touch with Wong’s family.

Ho called her friend a “luminary of the disability justice movement” who wanted to see a world where people with disabilities, especially those of marginalized demographics who were people of color, LGBTQ+ people and immigrants, could live freely and have full autonomy over their lives and decisions.

The daughter of Hong Kong immigrants, Wong writes about her own story – about growing up with a neuromuscular disease, coming into herself and her activism – and about how US policies and systems fail disabled people, queer people, immigrants and people of color. She used a powered wheelchair and an assistive breathing device and described herself as a “disabled cyborg”.

In her 2022 memoir, Year of the Tiger, Wong tells of the discrimination and bullying she faced growing up in Indiana, which sparked her unwavering commitment to dismantling systemic ableism.

Wong founded the Disability Visibility Project in 2014, initially as an oral history project designed to collect the stories of disabled people. She has shared these histories in two books, Disability Visibility and Disability Intimacy.

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