8 mundane things that made stranger things possible

Click here to read the full article. “ Stranger Things 4” proved bittersweet to some fans in how it introduced an instant fan favorite like Joseph Quinn’s Eddie, but also sidelined original main characters like Charlie Heaton’s Jonathan. As the cast of “Stranger Things” has gotten bigger over the years, it’s been harder to juggle every single main character. No wonder creators Matt and Russ Duffer are planning to cut back on new cast additions for the show’s fifth and final season. “We’re doing our best to resist [adding new characters] for Season 5,” Ross Duffer told IndieWire . “We’re trying not to do that so we can focus on the OG characters, I guess.” More from Variety Casting Director Made a 10-Year-Old Millie Bobby Brown Cry by Saying She's 'Too Mature' to Act: 'So Hurtful' Nielsen Streaming Top 10: 'Stranger Things' Holds Strong at No. 1 While 'The Sea Beast' Reaches No. 2 'Stranger Things' Star Nikola Djuricko to Host Serbian Edition of 'Hollywood … [Read more...] about ‘Stranger Things’ Creators Trying Not to Add New Characters to Final Season, Just Focus on Original Cast

Photo-Illustration: The Strategist The state of sales is truly excellent as we close out the week with sizable discounts on a number of Strategist-favorite brands across the kitchen, home, and fashion worlds. There’s the best blender for making multiple smoothies at once, 50 percent off a truly excellent bike helmet , writer Molly Young’s favorite foot peel , and much more. (As always, if you want even more deals sent straight to your inbox, sign up for our email newsletter .) Birkenstock Arizona Big Buckle Slide Sandal $160 now 26% off From $119 We’re starting things off strong with some rarely on-sale Birkenstocks at Nordstrom. Designed for high summer, the usual black soles have been swapped for white with the typically neutral straps making way for a much cheerier green. From $119 at Nordstrom Buy Le Creuset 9 1/2-Inch Square Griddle Pan $100 $168 now 40% off $100 For … [Read more...] about 19 Things on Sale You’ll Actually Want to Buy: From Ninja to Isabel Marant

LOS ANGELES — Anne Heche, the Emmy- and Tony-nominated actor whose work in “Six Days Seven Nights,” “Another World” and dozens of other projects dovetailed with a groundbreaking romance with Ellen DeGeneres that challenged homophobia in Hollywood, has died. She was 53. Her son Homer confirmed her death in a statement to the Los Angeles Times on Friday. “My brother Atlas and I lost our Mom. After six days of almost unbelievable emotional swings, I am left with a deep, wordless sadness,” he wrote. “Hopefully my mom is free from pain and beginning to explore what I like to imagine as her eternal freedom. “Over those six days, thousands of friends, family, and fans made their hearts known to me. I am grateful for their love, as I am for the support of my Dad, Coley, and my stepmom Alexi who continue to be my rock during this time. Rest In Peace Mom, I love you, Homer.” Heche was removed from life support after being hospitalized after crashing her car into a Mar Vista home, … [Read more...] about Anne Heche, TV, film and stage actor, dies at 53 from injuries sustained in LA car crash

Even as police offered new details into the execution-style slayings of at least two Muslim men in Albuquerque, the long, sprawling record of alleged violence by the chief suspect in the murders came into focus. Among the wild array of arrests for battery and domestic violence detailed in court records obtained by The Daily Beast against Muhammad Syed, the 51-year-old has allegedly threatened to kill his daughter’s boyfriend, beat his wife in a state building, lacerated his son’s head with a metal spoon, kicked a Walmart employee, and punished his daughter after she refused to take her brother to college with her as an escort. But despite the alleged years-long abuse, Syed never faced charges, in part, because his family always seemed to downplay the incident once police arrived at the scene. On multiple occasions, police officers had difficulty taking reports because the family said they did not speak English, and required the help of a telephone translation service in their … [Read more...] about Albuquerque Suspect Allegedly Abused His Family for Years

Illustration: Cold War Steve Showman, chief executive, troll , international lover: The visual record of Elon Musk shows a man becoming ever-more resolute about who he is and how he should express himself. We reviewed the photographic literature on Musk and found a discernible history of big hustle. Also? If you look at thousands of pictures of Elon Musk, you become convinced that he’s really happy. Photo: Paul Sakuma/AP/Shutterstock October 20, 2000 In this moment, everyone here has recently survived the Y2K bug , a hasty corporate merger, but has not yet experienced 9/11, though they are well into the great downward slide of the dot-com bust. Elon Musk is a newlywed, having married Justine Wilson at the start of the year. He is also newly a twice-fired CEO and about to nearly die from malaria. By his own account , Peter Thiel would take over as CEO of PayPal a few days after this photo. So Thiel is smiling because he has just deposed Musk … [Read more...] about An Elon Musk Photo Diary

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 8 NEW YORK - Even when you know what to expect, the results are disconcerting: 17 richly painted reproductions of ancient sculpture interspersed among Greek and Roman originals, creating a riot of color amid the more subtle hues of marble and bronze. The colorized works are part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition "Chroma: Ancient Sculpture in Color," displaying reconstructions of what ancient sculpture may have looked like, based on scientific analysis of pigment fragments from many surviving antiquities. Scholars have long known that the ancients painted and gilded their statues and embedded metals, precious stones and other materials to make them seem more lifelike. But the belief that ancient sculpture was monochrome - white as marble or uniformly patinated bronze - remains more durable and persistent than the scholarship. In its new … [Read more...] about What if the ancient Greeks and Romans actually had terrible taste?

From Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman and Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde to Katherine Waterston in Alien: Covenant and Dafne Keen in Logan , 2017 has already proven to be the year of the kickass big-screen heroine. Felling adversaries with both intensity and style, each of them has triumphed in infusing the traditionally male-oriented genre with a dose of enlivening anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better ferocity. More stunning still, however, is that this development has also corresponded with what might best be called Action Movie Escalation, a movement in which directors and stars strive to one-up competitors (and predecessors) in terms of one-against-many scenarios, complex choreography and punishing combat. It’s a trend epitomized by Atomic Blonde ’s jaw-dropping stairwell throwdown, an ingeniously staged sequence of virtuosic violence which, among other things, firmly established Theron as cinema’s most ferocious female enforcer . Or, at least, it seemed to, until … [Read more...] about ‘The Villainess’: Inside the Most Kickass Action Movie of the Year

As more details emerge about the criminal history of Muhammad Syed , 51, charged in the murders of two Muslim men in Albuquerque , and a prime suspect in the killing of two more, the family of one of the victims blames police for not intervening sooner. Sharief Ahmadi Hadi, the brother of murder victim Mohammad “Zahir” Ahmadi, says that prime suspect, Muhammad Syed, regularly harassed his family and slashed the tires of his wife’s car in the years prior to his brother’s murder. Hadi says he believes Syed targeted his family because they are Shiite Muslims. Hadi’s brother, Muhammad Zahir Ahmadi, 62, was the first victim in a string of recent murders that have rocked the Muslim community of Albuquerque. Ahmadi was found gunned down in the rear parking lot of the market he ran with his brother on Nov. 7, 2021. Syed has not been charged with his murder but police say he is their main suspect. Hadi, who owns a Halal grocery store and cafe on San Mateo Boulevard in Albuquerque, … [Read more...] about How Domestic Violence Spilled Over Into Albuquerque Terror

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 5 PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A major economic bill headed to the president has “game-changing” incentives for the nuclear energy industry, experts say, and those tax credits are even more substantial if a facility is sited in a community where a coal plant is closing. The transformative bill provides the most spending to fight climate change by any one nation ever in a single push. Among the many things it could do nuclear energy experts say is spur more projects like one Bill Gates is planning in Kemmerer, Wyoming. Gates' company, TerraPower, plans to build an advanced, nontraditional nuclear reactor and employ workers from a local coal-fired power plant scheduled to close soon. Companies designing and building the next generation of nuclear reactors could pick one of two new tax credits available to carbon-free electricity generators, such as wind and solar. To ensure coal … [Read more...] about Climate bill: Could coal communities shift to nuclear?