Article:
Hundreds of people in Britain mopped up flooded homes on Friday after a powerful storm that scoured northern Europe with hurricane-force gusts kicked up the biggest tidal surge in 60 years, swamping stretches of shoreline.

 The rising seas prompted evacuations along the eastern English coast, with 1,400 properties flooded and at least a half-dozen communities at great risk of exceptionally high tides and large waves.

 In London, the Thames Barrier — a series of huge metal plates that can be raised across the entire river — closed for a second time in as many days to protect the city from the surge.

 Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said there would be "exceptionally high tides" on Friday and Saturday, though they were not expected to reach Thursday's levels, when water swamped seaside promenades and flooded homes. In the town of Hemsby in eastern England, several houses fell into the sea as waves eroded cliffs.

 People walk during snowfalls caused by hurricane-force Xaver at Old Town in Gdansk, northern Poland. The death toll from Xaver sweeping across northern Europe rose to eight on Friday. (Renata Dabrowska/Reuters)

 Britain's Environment Agency said that sea levels late Thursday in some areas exceeded those in a 1953 flood in which hundreds died. But flood defences and evacuation warnings meant that only two people were killed in storm-related accidents.

 Accidents linked to the storm that roared across Europe Thursday have killed at least eight people, from Britain to Sweden, Denmark and Poland.

 Traffic ground to a halt on icy highways and train service was cancelled in large parts of Sweden. Tens of thousands of people lost electricity. Strong winds knocked down the city of Vaxjo's Christmas tree.

 Scores of flights were cancelled at airports in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany and Poland. More than 1,000 people spent the night at Copenhagen airport where 200 flights were cancelled Thursday and about 70 on Friday.

 Viking ships threatened

 Strong winds threatened a collection of Viking ships recovered from the bottom of a Danish fjord in the 1960s and put on exhibition. Museum workers boarded up the expansive windows of the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, 40 kilometres west of Copenhagen, amid fears water from the fjord would rise and shatter the glass.

 Police in Denmark ordered the evacuation of people in the towns of Frederikssund and Frederiksvaerk, 40 kilometres northeast of Copenhagen, because of imminent flooding. The towns lie on the Roskilde fjord, which has seen water levels rise noticeably.

 Hamburg airport, where almost all flights were cancelled late Thursday, was open for business on Friday but cautioned that there would be cancellations because of wind and snow. Trains northward from Hamburg to Denmark and some other destinations were cancelled.

 Tidal floods that hit Hamburg in the early morning were akin to those that drenched the city in 1962, causing the worst flooding in living memory. But higher and better coastal defences along the North Sea these days meant the impact of this week's storm on the city was negligible, with no reports of major damage or loss of life.

 A further tidal surge is expected to hit Hamburg Friday evening.

 Soccer club Werder Bremen, whose game Saturday against German champion Bayern Munich had been in doubt, announced on Twitter Friday morning that flood water hadn't topped a levee near its stadium and the match would go ahead.

 Meanwhile, wind farms in Germany reaped benefits from the storm.

 According to European Energy Exchange AG, an energy trading platform, production of wind energy in Germany surged in recent days.

 At 1 p.m. local time the country's vast network of on- and offshore wind turbines produced 25,205.8 MW of electricity — the equivalent of 25 nuclear plants and almost 35 per cent of the country's total energy output that hour. ||||| Story highlights Washington, Philadelphia will see snow Sunday, warm up Monday

 Very low temperatures remain across the United States

 Dallas should thaw out a little on Sunday

 Few takers for free football tickets in Dallas

 A frigid winter storm system that put Dallas in the deep freeze will hit the East Coast on Sunday. Lucky for those people, it should be a one-day affair.

 Snow, ice or freezing rain will fall on Washington, Philadelphia, New York City and Boston on Sunday, the National Weather Service said. On Monday, temperatures will rise into the 40s and any accumulation should start to melt, the weather service predicts.

 Folks in other parts of the country will need an extra blanket on the bed. Unseasonably cold weather will continue.

 On Sunday, temperatures are expected to only reach about 10 degrees in the northern and central Rockies, the northern Plains and the upper Midwest. Sleet and freezing rain is forecast from the Tennessee Valley to Mid-Atlantic on Sunday.

 Parts of Texas, the Upper South and the Midwest socked by the winter storm will warm up just a little bit on Sunday. The Weather Service said the temps will rise into the high 30s and 40s, but drop below freezing again Sunday night.

 How cold was it? On Saturday Southern Methodist University gave away tickets for its football game with Central Florida but didn't get many takers. All but a few seats in the stadium were empty.

 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – Snow covers buses for the Baltimore County Public Schools in Towson, Maryland, on Tuesday, December 10. Snow and ice snarled travel across parts of the United States, hitting major airline hubs in the Northeast. Hide Caption 1 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – A mirror reflects light snow on a sidewalk in New York on December 10. Hide Caption 2 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – A man makes his way across a parking lot during a snowstorm in Philadelphia on December 10. Hide Caption 3 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – Snow trucks plow along Route 1 in Plainsboro, New Jersey, on December 10. Hide Caption 4 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – A car drives up a snow-covered street in Brooklyn, New York, on December 10. Hide Caption 5 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – A woman walks past Independence Hall during a snowstorm in Philadelphia on December 10. Hide Caption 6 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – Baltimore Gas & Electric lineman Jim Thompson repairs a power line that was damaged by a tree limb in Towson, Maryland, on Monday, December 9. Hide Caption 7 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – An American Airlines jet is de-iced at O'Hare Airport in Chicago on December 9. Wintry conditions have caused numerous flight cancellations and delays. Hide Caption 8 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – A woman strolls past the Capitol Building in Washington on December 9, after an overnight ice storm hit the region. Federal agencies opened two hours late because of the weather. Hide Caption 9 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – Emergency personnel respond to an accident on southbound Interstate 43 in Mequon, Wisconsin, on Sunday, December 8. Hide Caption 10 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – Juan Carlos tries to free his vehicle from the snow on December 8 in Wilmington, Delaware. Hide Caption 11 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – The Detroit Lions and Philadelphia Eagles face off during heavy snow in Philadelphia on December 8. Hide Caption 12 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – A towing company employee works where a semitrailer jackknifed off Interstate 94 in Racine County, Wisconsin, on December 8. Hide Caption 13 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – Vehicle traffic on I-35 in Sanger, Texas, is at a dead stop due to icy road conditions on Saturday, December 7. Hide Caption 14 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – Motorists struggle to cross the icy bridge leading to Minnis Drive in Haltom City, Texas, Saturday, December 7. Large ice ruts made passage difficult. Ice remains Saturday after low temperatures refroze sleet from Friday's storm that had begun to melt. Hide Caption 15 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – Moisture from low-lying clouds coats trees in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park with a layer of ice and frost on December 7. Hide Caption 16 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. – A fountain stands frozen in Chandler's Cove at South Lake Union in Seattle on Friday, December 6. Hide Caption 17 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. – A pedestrian walks down the street after a heavy snowfall on December 6 in Carbondale, Illinois. Hide Caption 18 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. – Icicles hang from mailboxes in Owensboro, Kentucky, on December 6. Hide Caption 19 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – A worker at Wilson Air Center de-ices an airplane before it takes off from Memphis International Airport in Memphis, Tennessee, on December 6. Hide Caption 20 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – As freezing rain falls, Tyshun Lindsey, 15, rings a bell to get drivers' attention while selling bags of pecans in Memphis on Friday, December 6. Hide Caption 21 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – A man clears a path for Christmas tree shoppers in Indianapolis on December 6. Hide Caption 22 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – A tree, split in two, lays on two homes on December 6 in Dallas in this photograph taken by CNN iReporter Earl Wallace IV Hide Caption 23 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – A gust of wind collapses Joseph Mezo's umbrella as he walks to work on December 6 in light sleet and ice conditions in Dallas. Hide Caption 24 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – Matthew Eller catches air after sliding down a hill and jumping a ramp in Arlington, Texas, on December 6. Hide Caption 25 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – A bronze statue is covered in ice December 6 at Grand Prairie Municipal Airport in Grand Prairie, Texas. Hide Caption 26 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – Traffic moves slowly along an ice-covered highway in Dallas on December 6. Hide Caption 27 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – Jeff Chupp walks his ice-covered bicycle along Great Southwest Parkway in Grand Prairie on December 6. Hide Caption 28 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – Stephen LeFlore scrapes ice from his windshield in McAlester, Oklahoma, on Thursday, December 5. Hide Caption 29 of 30 30 photos: Photos: Ice storm spreads across U.S. Ice storm spreads across U.S. – An American Airlines employee hands out cots to stranded airline passengers at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on December 5. Hide Caption 30 of 30

 JUST WATCHED Winter storm shuts down Dallas Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Winter storm shuts down Dallas 02:51

 JUST WATCHED Huge ice storm slams southern states Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Huge ice storm slams southern states 02:29

 The high temperature at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport Saturday was 26 degrees -- the coldest high temperature ever recorded there on December 7 and the coldest December day in Dallas/Fort Worth in 23 years, CNN affiliate WFAA-TV reported.

 At least seven people have died in storm-related incidents, with the Texas State Patrol reporting two weather-related fatalities on Saturday but providing no details.

 In Lewisville, about 25 miles north of Dallas, the driver of a pickup lost control on an icy road, spun out of control on a road over Lake Lewisville, went over a guard rail and landed in the water. Firefighters dove into the frigid water and towed the truck to the bridge. The unidentified driver died. A passenger was killed Thursday when a vehicle lost control and crashed into another car in Hockley County, the Texas Department of Public Safety said.

 In Arkansas man was killed late Thursday when a tree fell on his camper in Pope County, the Department of Emergency Management said. Highway Patrol officials in Oklahoma blamed at least one death, in Muskogee, on the weather. In New Mexico, one person died when a semi crashed near Clines Corners.

 The storm took a toll on travel, causing hundreds of car crashes and forcing the cancellation of hundreds of departures at Dallas/FortWorth International Airport. The FAA said Saturday operations had returned to normal. Abandoned cars littered the interstate outside Dallas.

 Winter came much earlier than usual in many sections of the nation.

 Farmersburg, Indiana, recorded up to 10 inches of snow Thursday and temperatures fell into the single digits at night. "This was early for us to have this much measurable snow late in the fall, but has happened before," Mark Ivy told CNN iReport. "It is more the cold that is unusual."

 In East Kingsford, Michigan, iReporter Jason Asselin said he's covering blankets to keep you the cold. "In December, our average temperatures are in the 20s," he said. "Currently it is zero degrees outside."

 Across the High Plains and into the Great Lakes, temperatures were expected to be 10 to 35 degrees below average, with wind chill values predicted to reach 35 to 45 degrees below zero in some areas.

 From the central Appalachians through central New England, snow is expected into early Saturday morning, the National Weather Service said.

 It was cold in Memphis, Tennessee, for a second straight day, with a high of 24 degrees. The weather will be a little warmer Sunday and Monday, with the mercury creeping up to 36 and 43 degrees, respectively.

 The governors of Tennessee and Arkansas declared states of emergency ahead of the worst of the storm. |||||Summary:

– Real-live winter in the South? You bet: Unlikely ice storms hammered southern states yesterday, depriving thousands of power, forcing hundreds of flight cancellations, and killing at least five people, CNN reports. It's not over, either: Storms are poised to strike regions from Dallas to Memphis until tomorrow and Arkansas through Monday. The north will also get its share, with sleet or snow hitting central New England through the central Appalachians into today, and blanketing the nation's capital tomorrow. In other details: Dallas/Forth Worth had it worst, canceling nearly 700 flights and the downtown Dallas holiday parade for the first time in 26 years. The storm cut out power for more than 200,000 customers. Temperature swings were shocking: In Hot Springs, Arkansas, a temperate 75-degree day on Wednesday turned into an ice storm yesterday. Most fatalities occurred on icy roads, including the death of Granby, Missouri, Mayor Ronald Arnall, whose car veered off a state highway in southern Missouri and hit a tree, Reuters reports. Oklahoma alone has recorded about 116 storm-related injuries. A new storm struck the Pacific Coast yesterday, dropping pretty heavy snow on Portland. Even Las Vegas might see snow today—up to 2 inches. But it's not so bad by comparison: In northern Europe, a powerful storm with hurricane-force winds kicked up a huge tidal surge and killed 8 people, CBC News reports.


The full text of all Editor's Choice articles and summaries of every article are free without registration

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 Only fellows can access the full text of case reports (apart from Editor's Choice) - become a fellow today, or encourage your institution to, so that together we can grow and develop this resource ||||| Image copyright SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

 Doctors have issued a warning about the potential harms of undertaking a radical new year detox.

 They highlight the case of a woman they treated last year who became critically ill after taking herbal remedies and drinking too much water.

 The 47-year-old needed intensive care at Milton Keynes hospital.

 She recovered with treatment, but her story is a reminder of the dangers of drastic detoxing, the medics say.

 While it may be tempting to cleanse yourself of the excesses of Christmas, the concept is not necessarily healthy and is not backed by medical science, they report in the British Medical Journal Case Reports.

 The woman they treated had taken a cocktail of herbs and alternative remedies including:

 milk thistle

 molkosan

 I-theanine

 glutamine

 vitamin B compound

 vervain

 valerian root

 Her partner said she had also been drinking lots of water, green tea and sage tea over the few days before she became ill.

 Shortly before being admitted to hospital, the woman collapsed and had a seizure.

 Medical tests revealed she had dangerously low levels of salt (sodium) in her body.

 Researching the herbal remedies used by the patient, her doctors discovered the case of a man with a history of anxiety who had had seizures due to a low sodium level.

 His symptoms developed after consuming a large amount of a herbal remedy that contained:

 valerian root

 lemon balm

 passion flower

 hops

 chamomile

 "The complementary medicine market is very popular in the UK and the concept of the new-year 'detox' with all-natural products is appealing to those less concerned with evidence-based medicine and more with complementary medicine," say the medics in their write-up.

 "Excessive water intake as a way of 'purifying and cleansing' the body is also a popular regime with the belief that harmful waste products can thus be washed from the body."

 However, they warn that "despite marketing suggesting otherwise, all-natural products are not without side-effects".

 The British Dietetic Association says the whole idea of detoxing is nonsense.

 "There are no pills or specific drinks, patches or lotions that can do a magic job," a representative said

 "The body has numerous organs, such as the skin, gut, liver and kidney, that continually 'detoxify' the body from head to toe.

 "Being well-hydrated is a sensible strategy, but drinking too much water can be as dangerous as not drinking enough.

 "It sounds predictable, but for the vast majority of people, a sensible diet and regular physical activity really are the only ways to properly maintain and maximise your health." |||||

Write a summary.

– After a woman wound up in the hospital in the UK last year after ingesting a medley of herbs for a New Year's "detox," doctors are issuing a warning: There is such a thing as too much water, and people need to be careful with supplements, even if they are all-natural herbs. In this case, the 47-year-old woman said that aside from mood issues she was healthy when she upped her fluids and use of herbal remedies, including milk thistle, molkosan, l-theanine, glutamine, vitamin B compound, vervain, sage tea, green tea, and valerian root. Doctors in September reported in the British Medical Journal Case Reports that she suffered from acute severe "hyponatremia," which occurs when there is abnormally low sodium in one's blood. She had gone to the ER after suffering a seizure. Most cases of hyponatremia occur after someone consumes a ton of water—more than 2.5 gallons in a day—but this woman's fluid intake wasn't that high. Then, a possible clue: Doctors found a similar case of a man with the same condition who also hadn't hit that intake level but had ingested valerian root. The doctors note that two case studies are insufficient evidence, but suggest it's possible the root "altered this threshold [of fluid intake], allowing severe hyponatremia to develop at an earlier stage." The British Dietetic Association tells the BBC that the whole notion of detoxing is without merit, as many of our organs (even our skin) regularly detoxify the body. It may sound less sexy, but they add that for most people "a sensible diet and regular physical activity" is best. (Experts are also rolling their eyes at the souping trend.)


Article:
Brendan McDermid/Reuters

 An $8 billion exchange merger is in the works that underscores how the global market for derivatives has eclipsed that for stocks.

 The owner of the venerable New York Stock Exchange is in talks to be acquired by an upstart commodities and derivatives trading platform, according to people briefed on the matter. The IntercontinentalExchange is expected to offer about $33 a share, with two-thirds of that in stock, one of these people said. That represents a premium of 37 percent to NYSE Euronext’s closing stock price on Wednesday.

 A deal could be announced as soon as Thursday morning, though these people cautioned that talks may still break down.

 Article Tools

 While the New York Stock Exchange, with its opening bell and floor traders, has been the public image of a stock market for two centuries, it is NYSE Euronext’s businesses in the over-the-counter trading of derivatives — including the Liffe market in London — that appear to be the main attraction in the merger talks.

 IntercontinentalExchange, or ICE, was founded in 2000 and is based in Atlanta. It competes fiercely with the CME Group, a derivatives trading powerhouse that owns the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade.

 More than a year ago, ICE teamed up with the New York exchange’s chief rival, the Nasdaq OMX Group, to make a hostile bid for NYSE Euronext. The two had sought to break up their older competitor’s plan to merge with Deutsche Börse of Europe, which would have created a powerful trans-Atlantic company with a big market share in the trading of stocks and derivatives.

 Under the terms of that deal, valued at about $11 billion, Nasdaq would have taken NYSE Euronext’s equities business, while ICE would have assumed the derivatives operations.

 But the Justice Department threatened to block that joint offer, on the ground that combining NYSE Euronext and Nasdaq would create an overwhelming monopoly in the world of stock trading.

 The planned merger of NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Börse itself fell apart early this year after European antitrust regulators opposed the combination, on the ground that it would corner too much of the market in exchange-traded derivatives.

 But the newest merger might pose fewer problems because ICE focuses on commodities like oil, natural gas and cotton, while NYSE Euronext plies mainly in stock and stock options and derivatives.

 And unlike several proposed mergers, like that of the Singaporean and Australian stock exchanges, which fell apart last year on nationalist concerns, this potential deal would take place between two companies from the same country.

 After its deal with Deutsche Börse collapsed, NYSE Euronext was left to conduct some soul-searching. At the time, the company said that it would most likely look to smaller acquisitions and cost-cutting.

 The trading of stocks has become a less attractive business. The New York Stock Exchange is now responsible for only about 11 percent of all stock trading, while NYSE Euronext’s electronic Arca platform accounts for another 12 percent, according to industry data.

 The average number of American stocks traded each day has fallen every year since 2009, and has continued to decline over the course of 2012, according to statistics from Credit Suisse. The volume of trading in futures and options, where ICE is focused, has also fallen since last year, but less than in stocks.

 A tie-up with ICE, however, would link NYSE Euronext to one of the industry’s fastest-growing exchanges. ICE has some of the highest profit margins in the business.

 It might also reap some of the benefits that have driven a decade-long spree of consolidation among exchanges. Such companies have long sought to gain the greater scale and cost savings that come from combining back-end operations and staff cuts.

 Still, the potential merger would sharply expand ICE, which despite its bigger market value is a smaller company. It has a little more than 1,000 employees, while NYSE Euronext has 3,077.

 It isn’t clear whether other exchanges would seek to break up the proposed transaction. The CME Group is a candidate to express opposition. But the firm appeared to have little appetite in bidding for NYSE Euronext last year, and it may run into antitrust concerns.

 Other potential spoilers, including the Hong Kong and Singaporean exchanges, could run into nationalist concerns.

 Shares of NYSE Euronext rose more than 21 percent in after-hours trading, to $29.20, after The Wall Street Journal reported news of the talks.

 Nathaniel Popper contributed reporting. ||||| Article Excerpt

 The New York Stock Exchange, the cornerstone of American capitalism for 220 years, agreed to be sold as part of an $8.2 billion takeover by IntercontinentalExchange Inc.

 If regulators and shareholders approve, the combined company would own 14 stock and futures exchanges and five clearing operations that serve as middlemen between buyers and sellers of futures and other contracts, doing more things in more places than any other rival.

 The takeover also would seal the triumph of electronic trading over "open outcry" floor trading that long dominated financial markets, as well as the push by exchanges to embrace new and ... |||||Summary:

– InterContinentalExchange Inc. has agreed to buy NYSE Euronext, the company that owns the New York Stock Exchange, for $8.2 billion, the two companies announced this morning. ICE, an Atlanta-based commodity exchange, says it intends to leave the NYSE's branding alone, and would explore an IPO for Euronext, spinning it off into a continental European entity, the Wall Street Journal reports. It will pay $33.12 a share for the elder exchange, or about a 37% premium on yesterday's close. You might remember ICE from its last attempt to buy the NYSE, which failed thanks to antitrust concerns from regulators. While the 12-year-old company may lack the name recognition of the iconic NYSE, it's much larger in terms of market capitalization, at $9.3 billion to NYSE Euronext's $5.8 billion—a sign, the New York Times observes, of how completely commodity trading has outpaced stock trading in relevance.


Here is a news article: amfAR Gala Cannes—25th Anniversary Edition!

 The unforgettable evening featured spectacular performances by Sting and Shaggy, Grace Jones, Ellie Goulding and Jason Derulo, and a stunning fashion show curated by longtime amfAR supporter Carine Roitfeld. The looks were then auctioned off as a collection, which fetched $1.7 million. Other auction highlights included a Pierce Brosnan original painting, which sold for $1.4 million; a restored 1964 S3 Bentley Convertible, introduced by Heidi Klum and Benicio Del Toro, which sold for over $800,000; and a Joe Bradley painting, which brought in nearly $1 million.

 The black-tie event was presented by Bold Films and Chopard.

 Event produced by AAB Productions/Andy Boose

 DATE

 Thursday, May 17, 2018

 LOCATION

 Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc

 Cap d’Antibes, France

 HONORARY CHAIRS

 ALESSANDRA AMBROSIO

 POPPY DELEVINGNE

 LINDA EVANGELISTA

 SILVIA FENDI

 AILEEN GETTY

 KATE HUDSON

 SCARLETT JOHANSSON

 MILLA JOVOVICH

 HEIDI KLUM

 DAPHNA KRIM

 KAROLINA KURKOVA

 SIENNA MILLER

 ANGELA MISSONI

 MARY PARENT

 KATY PERRY

 NATASHA POLY

 AISHWARYA RAI

 VANESSA REDGRAVE

 JOELY RICHARDSON

 CARINE ROITFELD

 CAROLINE SCHEUFELE

 IRINA SHAYK

 LARA STONE

 DONATELLA VERSACE

 MICHELLE YEOH

 CONTACT FOR SPONSORSHIP/LEADERSHIP

 Andy Boose at (212) 219-0297 or aboose@aabproductions.com

 CONTACT FOR TICKET/TABLE INFORMATION

 Christina Christofi at (212) 806-1611 or amfargalacannes@amfar.org

 CONTACT FOR PRESS INQUIRIES

 Bennah Serfaty at (212) 806-1607 or bennah.serfaty@amfar.org

 Presenting Sponsors

 Signature Sponsor

 PHOTO GALLERY

 ... ||||| Pierce Brosnan I Got $1.4M for My Dylan Painting!!! Buyer Has Kimye Ties

 Pierce Brosnan's Bob Dylan Painting Sold to Kimye's House Buyer

 EXCLUSIVE

 Pierce Brosnan's Bob Dylan painting sold for more than $1 million, and TMZ's learned the new owner is none other than the woman who plunked down $17.8 mil on Kim and Kanye's Bel-Air mansion.

 We're told Ukrainian billionaire Marina Acton snapped up 007's painting of Zimmy earlier this week at the 25th annual amFAR Cannes charity gala.

 Pierce, who first took up painting back in the '80s, has gotten more serious about it, and the price tag on his work proves it -- Marina dropped $1.4 million.

 As for Acton ... she's quickly building a rep for pricey Hollywood collectibles. You already know about the Bel-Air crib Kim and Kanye initially bought for $9 million back in 2013.

 Not long after that purchase, Acton also shelled out another $2 million for some Beatles history.

 Kanye, Dylan and the Fab Four? She has good taste and deep pockets. ||||| Pierce Brosnan really is somewhat of a double agent.

 The former James Bond star, 65, who was trained as a commercial artist and worked as an illustrator, just auctioned off one of his original paintings for $1.4 million. Brosnan donated the piece, depicting the singer Bob Dylan, for the 25th annual gala amFAR Cannes charity event, Cinema Against AIDS on May 17.

 Courtesy Pierce Brosnan

 Along with the celebrity auction, this year’s event included performances by Grace Jones, Sting and Shaggy and Ellie Goulding. Brosnan, who has been painting for more than 20 years, also included a lunch date with himself in the sale.

 At home in Malibu with his wife of 16 years, Keely Shaye Smith, the actor has an art studio in the couple’s bedroom. “I paint in oils, I paint in acrylics,” Brosnan told Origin magazine last year. “I paint figurative and landscape portraits. It’s all in my own kind of style.”

 Pierce Brosnan at the amfAR Gala Dave Benett/WireImage

 Despite his success as an actor, Brosnan told the magazine that in recent years his art has “gotten more serious. Thinking about and hoping I will put on an exhibit and make a book shortly,” he added. “Maybe next year.” ||||| The former James Bond star Pierce Brosnan has been open about his side gig as an artist—he even got in trouble with TSA when he accidentally packed a knife for sharpening pencils in his carry-on luggage. Now, his prowess with a paintbrush is paying off. Last week, the actor sold his portrait of Bob Dylan for $1.4 million at the 25th annual amFAR Cannes charity gala.

 The painting’s new owner also won a lunch date with the 65-year-old actor, reported People.

 “I started painting in 1987 when my late wife had cancer,” Brosnan told the crowd, according to the Daily Mail. His first wife, Cassandra Harris, died in 1991 of ovarian cancer, the same disease that claimed the life of their daughter Charlotte in 2013. “I had been painting out of pain, and now the pain sometimes comes through in color.”

 The actor was reportedly speechless when the bidding stopped. He described himself as “deeply proud, humbled and just plain old over the moon joyous” in a post on Instagram.

 Before getting into the movie business, Brosnan studied commercial illustration at St. Martin’s School of Art in London. He nevertheless described his current brand of landscapes and figurative paintings as “self-taught” in an interview with ORIGIN magazine in 2013. “I’ve painted for many, many years. Now the last few years it’s gotten more serious. Thinking about and hoping I will put on an exhibit and make a book shortly.”

 The amFAR benefit, titled Cinema Against AIDS, was held Thursday night, and also included the sale of an $800,000 restored 1964 S3 Bentley Convertible and a nearly $1 million painting by Joe Bradley. The evening also featured a fashion show presented by former Vogue Paris editor Carine Roitfeld, the looks from which were then auctioned off as a collection for $1.7 million.

 Follow artnet News on Facebook: |||||
A summary of this is?

– Pierce Brosnan has joined the ranks of celebrity painters in a major way, reports People. A portrait of Bob Dylan painted by the former James Bond star sold for $1.4 million at the 25th annual amFAR Cannes charity auction held in Antibes last week. "I am deeply proud, humbled and plain old over the moon joyous following the sale of this painting for 1.2 million euros at last nights auction," Brosnan posted on Instagram the next day. The buyer was Ukrainian billionaire Marina Acton, who paid $17.8 million for Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s Bel-Air mansion, reports TMZ. Brosnan, who took up painting in 1987, according to artnet, is a trained commercial artist and has worked as an illustrator. He even has a studio in his bedroom, where he paints landscapes and portraits in oils and acrylics. (To read about a painter-in-chief, go here.)


– If the idea of watching a game of chess online sounds a little dull, then perhaps you're not familiar with the Chessbrahs on the gaming website Twitch. A stream can last up to four hours, during which "you might see chairs thrown amid a torrent of f-bombs, freestyle rapping mid-game, and a never-ending barrage of trash talk," writes Kevin Lincoln at Topic. "This is the new, online era of chess—set to the soundtrack of dance music." But the Chessbrahs, the brainchild of 25-year-old Canadian grandmaster Eric Hansen, occupies just one end of the spectrum of online chess, which turns out to be more popular than you might expect. A more conservative option would be the YouTube videos of 31-year-old International Master John Bartholomew. Just ask one of his 50,000 subscribers. Somewhere in the middle is perhaps the biggest player of all, Chess.com, led by IM Danny Rensch, 32, who also is a major chess presence on Twitch. All are finding their niche, connecting with fans through live streams, chats, instructional videos and more. Lincoln provides an overview of the options and the growing success. "A game doesn’t survive for hundreds of years if it doesn’t change to fit the spirit of the times, and with streaming, chess has entered a new age," he writes. The story also takes note of one drawback unfortunately common in gaming—sexism. For example, rising player Alexandra Botez, 22, stopped streaming temporarily because of the steady stream of vulgar comments. A moderator has since helped. Click to read the full story.

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When you think of chess, what do you picture in your head? Chances are it’s either Bobby Fischer staring at a set of chess pieces like he wants to light them on fire, or it’s two kids in glasses sitting at one of those tables with the built-in gameboards, playing after school while they wait for their parents to pick them up.

 Compare that to a typical session with the Chessbrahs , the most popular chess streamers on Twitch. Over the course of one of their streams, which can last up to four hours, you might see chairs thrown amid a torrent of f-bombs , freestyle rapping mid-game , and a never-ending barrage of trash talk . This is the new, online era of chess—set to the soundtrack of dance music.

 Twitch, for the unfamiliar, is a website where people watch other people play video games. If that sounds insane to you, then you probably aren’t one of the 150 million users and 1.5 million broadcasters who visit every month, nor are you likely part of the reason it sold to Amazon for nearly a billion dollars in 2014 . “eSports”—competitive, livestreamed video gaming—has grown into a $1.5 billion industry that’s expected to reach $2.3 billion in just five years. While video games like League of Legends and Counter-Strike are what Twitch is best known for, chess, when played online, also qualifies as an eSport, and there’s a significant and growing community of chess players on the site. Of all the chess players regularly streaming on Twitch, among the most popular are world top 10 and multiple-time US champion Hikaru Nakamura and the Chessbrahs, founded and anchored by 25-year-old Canadian grandmaster Eric Hansen.

 “A lot of people don’t do chess or try chess because they’re afraid of what their friends will think.”

 During the early 2000s, Hansen was a misbehaving kid with an ADHD diagnosis growing up in Calgary. He began playing chess after school as a way to keep his mind occupied. By the time he was a teenager, he’d gotten serious about the game. He earned his grandmaster title—the highest honor available to a chess player, given by the world organizing body FIDE—at the age of 20, after spending a year playing for the University of Texas at Dallas on a chess scholarship, and then moving to Europe to play professionally.

 During Hansen's stint in college, he also became one of the first people to livestream himself playing chess. He started streaming purely for fun, sometimes for as many as 10 hours a day on the old Livestream platform, even when only 2 or 3 people were watching. In 2014, after a few years playing in Europe, he returned to Canada. There, burnt out from traveling and hustling on the pro circuit and inspired by the rise of eSports—Hansen was also a serious Counter-Strike player in high school—he decided to see if there might also be an audience for live chess online.

 Hansen would sometimes stream for 60 or 70 hours a week, attracting just 10 or 20 viewers. But as he grew his channel, which he called Chessbrah, Hansen drew inspiration from public fitness gurus who invited fans and followers on social media into their lives and their habits. “There might be these top players in the world, but they’re very inaccessible,” he explains to me over the phone. “You don’t know what Magnus Carlsen’s life is like.” Carlsen, a 27-year-old Norwegian who is the youngest-ever player to make world number one and the reigning world champion, is basically the LeBron James of chess, and his name is often mentioned as a catchall for the top levels of the game, in terms of both celebrity and skill. “Usually he doesn’t do a lot of interaction with the crowds,” says Hansen, “because either the organizers don’t organize these things or the players aren’t using Twitter and Instagram. So I was like, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to try to utilize all this modern stuff.”

 From the start, the brashness of Chessbrah belied the stereotypes that tend to plague chess: that it’s stodgy, quiet, the domain of old Russians and lonely kids. Hansen and his chess-player friends were into dance music and partying, and they’d get together to drink beer, goof around, and go to raves. They were typical twentysomething Canadians in every way—except that their parties often involved high-speed chess. Rather than conform to notions of what the chess world was like, they decided to make it their own.

 “We always thought the stereotypes were something we could change and that didn’t even apply to us, and it wasn’t necessarily fair for the whole game itself,” Hansen says. “One of the reasons why I did Chessbrah, and why it’s called Chessbrah, is that a lot of people don’t do chess or try chess because they’re afraid of what their friends will think.. But the game itself is really fun, and I’m sure a lot more people could like it than the current numbers indicate.”

 In Europe, Hansen explains, the game enjoys a different, hipper, “nicer” status as a sport. People of all ages and all genders play, sometimes in bars; during his time there, he says, girls clamored to meet him and his fellow players. Part of Hansen’s genius is combining the communal, European embrace of the game with the North American penchant for being loud, controversial, and, well, a bit of a bro. (Like so much of the internet, it’s hard to tell how much of Chessbrah’s frat-boy persona is genuine and how much is a kind of pro-wrestling put-on—seeing Hansen curse and throw a chair after losing to Nakamura, you’re reminded that the Twitch audiences reward this kind of outlandish behavior—but there’s no question that it’s about as far from visions of golf commentary and hushed tones as it gets.)

 “You might see chairs thrown amid a torrent of f-bombs, freestyle rapping mid-game, and a never-ending barrage of trash talk. This is the new, online era of chess.”

 Chessbrah, of course, has its critics: Hansen says that the channel was extremely unpopular with the vibrant chess community on Reddit at first. The comments his stream initially received from Redditors were often brutal. In addition, his approach could be mystifying to more conventional chess players and fans, who tended to see the game as incompatible with dance music and trash talk.

 But detractors had to contend with the fact that Hansen is also really, really good: He’s currently the 152nd-ranked player in the world, and the Chessbrah channel is filled with other grandmasters, including universally respected GM Yasser Seirawan, whose regular presence adds some gravitas.

 “It was a really hated stream for the first year or so. I didn’t mind because—and again, this is more part of the North American culture—but if you don’t have haters you’re not being yourself and expressing your opinions,” Hansen says. “It’s something that I have no issue with, taking criticism and negative feedback. People will really insult you, but we’re not a PC stream. We’re just all over the place, and we knew that would generate controversy and that chess was very conservative. But the whole point was to disrupt some of the traditional chess ideas.”

 At the other, more traditional end of the online chess spectrum, at least in terms of demeanor, is John Bartholomew. Bartholomew, 31, is an International Master (IM), the rank just below GM, every chess player’s ultimate goal. Though, according to the World Chess Federation there are 1,598 GMs and an additional 3,674 IMs, Bartholomew stands out from the pack thanks to the 50,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel , where he’s become one of the best sources online for learning how to play the game well.

 Though it’s often said there have been more books written about chess than all other games and sports combined —a claim that probably dates back to the early 1900s , a time of great development and theorizing for chess—one of the biggest problems with learning chess from books is that many of them don’t become comprehensible until well into a student’s journey. Even works for beginners can be daunting if one isn’t familiar with, or interested in, the notation and move variations that fill their pages.

 Bartholomew, on the other hand, is remarkably easy to understand, simplifying his explanations to the point that even a brand-new player can follow his beginner videos with relative ease. His “ Chess Fundamentals ” series features the 31-year-old playing through a number of games online with a particular focus on the cornerstones of solid chess, like undefended pieces , typical beginner mistakes , and pawns . Collectively, the five videos have generated more than 400,000 views, making them among the most popular on his channel.

 Bartholomew has been teaching chess for a decade. Growing up in Minnesota, he began playing in the second grade, honing his skills against an old-school chess computer. Once he beat the 72nd and final level of the computer program, a process that took him a year and a half, Bartholomew started playing in tournaments and working with a local Russian coach. At the age of 15, he became National Master, the level below IM, making him the youngest NM in the history of the state of Minnesota, a record since broken by another popular online player, GM Andrew Tang. That triumph was followed by numerous victories in national tournaments and, eventually, a full-ride scholarship to play chess at the University of Texas at Dallas. (Yes, full-ride scholarships for chess do exist.)

 “The thing that chess has is it’s a great game. It’s like getting vegetables, but you don’t realize you’re getting vegetables.”

 After graduating in 2009 with a degree in business—which was followed by one semester in law school—Bartholomew decided to commit to teaching chess full time. He quickly found that, even though he’d moved to New York, most of the teaching he was doing was happening online. He returned to Minnesota in 2012 and launched his channel the following year with the idea that an audience would keep him accountable to practicing and playing more. Also, he wanted to prove that he wasn’t nuts.

 “I had been really working hard at building my teaching business, trying to make a legitimate career out of chess—or at least enough money to support myself and prove that it was a viable thing going forward, and that I wasn’t crazy for foregoing using my degree or dropping out of law school,” Bartholomew explains.

 Back then, a few other players were also dabbling in the YouTube world—the German IM Christof Sielecki, whose information channel Chessexplained served as an early model, and American IM Greg Shahade , now the commissioner of the PRO Chess League —but he was still surprised by how quickly his audience grew. After a month or two, he posted one of his videos on the chess subreddit , where he remains beloved among the 85,000 or so subscribers. The channel took off from there.

 Since then, along with his series for beginners, he’s produced hundreds of videos that feature him analyzing his own games against other titled players and skilled opponents. He maintains a friendly, almost gentle demeanor, like the nicest guy you knew in high school if he was really good at chess. Bartholomew’s videos usually involve visuals of the game he’s playing placed alongside footage of him talking into a webcam. While this might sound monumentally dull to the uninitiated, it’s the chess equivalent of being able to see an NFL game through the quarterback’s eyes as you listen to his thoughts. (Bartholomew’s audience isn’t there just for the chess: as is so often true on YouTube, they’re also there for the personality.)

 In a testament to how invested his audience is, Bartholomew’s recent videos chronicling his progress toward becoming a GM, which he hopes to accomplish in the next year, have been receiving thousands of views, even though they’re just Bartholomew summarizing his performance in earlier over-the-board games. He recently received a $1,369 donation while streaming on his new Twitch channel. One of the reasons the platform is so appealing to players is that audience members have the option to subscribe to streamers, and watching someone react to a donation is a major part of the draw.

 “If you’ve watched a top-level chess player analyze, oftentimes they’ll do these variations and they’ll just rattle them off, and the person who’s interviewing them at a tournament or asking them about the game is completely lost,” Bartholomew says. “I think that’s one reason that chess has actually been lagging behind in the online space compared to some other games. I think for a long time, top-level players have either not wanted to talk down to normal chess players or even completely casual players, or they haven’t been able to do that en masse, and only now are you starting to see guys like me, Eric Hansen, and Christof emerge.”

 If Hansen and Bartholomew represent two different ends of the chess streaming spectrum, then Chess.com and IM Danny Rensch, 32, are what occupy the center, giving online chess a firm foundation and a place from which it can build. The company, which began in 2005 with the savvy acquisition of its URL, functions like a combination of ESPN and a worldwide amateur sports league. It features a slate of original programming and top-level competitions with commentary, while also hosting 1 million amateur chess games a day. While there are other chess-specific platforms online, including the popular lichess.org , Chess.com is the biggest and most robust. At any given time, you can see titled players online and drop in on their games; you can take lessons and practice tactics; and you can watch ChessTV, which offers up content like GM-led teaching shows and live broadcasts of competitive tournaments.

 Rensch, who describes himself as the CCO—Chief Chess Officer—of Chess.com , is also the face of ChessTV. A young phenom who made National Master at 14, becoming the youngest-ever NM from the state of Arizona, Rensch had his career stunted by a series of health issues in his late teens. He used the illness-generated downtime to get acquainted with the growing world of YouTube, Google AdWords, and e-commerce, and, in 2007, bought the URL chesscoaching.com and set off on a career in teaching. Soon afterward, he crossed paths with Erik Allebest and Jay Severson, the owners and founders of Chess.com , and within a year he was on salary at their new company.

 Chess.com runs the most significant competitions in online chess, including the second year of the PRO Chess League, which features 32 teams from around the world. (Magnus Carlsen plays for the Norway Gnomes and Hikaru Nakamura for the Seattle Sluggers. Bartholomew and Hansen are also featured, the former on the Minnesota Blizzards and the latter on the Montreal Chessbrahs.) In addition to driving enormous amounts of traffic to the site, these leagues and tournaments have served as significant signposts in the evolution of chess into a major eSport. The 2016 Speed Chess Championship, which featured a final between Carlsen and Nakamura , was the third-most-watched stream on Twitch, with 195,220 unique viewers and a maximum concurrent audience of 30,942. Last year’s rematch boasted twice as many unique viewers and a maximum concurrent audience of just under 35,000.

 Building this sort of audience and programming wasn’t instant—or easy. Five years ago, Rensch was tasked with figuring out what the future of chess broadcasting might look like. One of his first ideas was reaching out to Twitch, where Chess.com became one of the platform’s earliest partners and, in another marketing coup, he secured the Twitch.tv/chess URL. Second, he realized that Chess.com ’s original approach to programming, which focused on shows anchored by one player and coverage of over-the-board—chess-speak for IRL—events, just wasn’t working. What was working, however, was a show he hosted called “Bullet Brawls,” in which he simply turned on a webcam, played chess, and chatted with fans.

 “I was shocked by the success of [it],” says Rensch. “[It] was something that I didn’t understand about the chess community that the Chessbrahs have frankly done better than all chess streamers combined, which is that they get to know the people in the chat and the fans, and they engage, and they just hang out and listen to music and act like idiots, right? And it’s like, what are you doing? But guess what, people love it!”

 The success of “Bullet Brawls” led to further discoveries, supported by data and analytics. The fans liked commentary and analysis, but at a level they could understand. They liked faster games with less time for players to complete their moves. These shorter time controls led to more mistakes and more suspense. (Think of what the shot clock does for basketball.) This learning greatly influenced the way Chess.com designed its leagues. There was an operation that already existed called the US Chess League, run by the IM Greg Shahade, but it had longer time controls and required players to show up in person, negating two of the major assets online chess has over over-the-board play. When the two organizations ultimately partnered up in 2016 , they adopted the Chess.com rules, shortening the time controls and letting players play from home.

 “What’s made the PRO Chess League successful? The fact that Magnus Carlsen can play in his pajamas with his shirt off!” Rensch says.

 As for their non-league programming, Rensch and the other Chess.com streamers began integrating even more fan interaction, including programs like Amateur Hour, where Rensch partners with lower-level players and gives them feedback on their games.

 “Chess was very conservative. But the whole point was to disrupt some of the traditional chess ideas.”

 One of those players, former-NFL-offensive-lineman-turned-MIT-math-PhD John Urschel, 26, has been a particularly popular, and frequent, guest on the program . Urschel freely confesses that he wants to become a master—and considering he once played at the highest levels of professional football, it’s hard to doubt his prospects. Since his retirement, he’s become an avid chess player and frequent streamer. Aside from his appearances on Chess.com ’s programming, where he’s also played celebrity games against the popular videogame-streamer Hutch and has a show called Urschel Learns Chess , he streams regularly on Twitch, something he was encouraged to do by Rensch.

 “I actually really took to it. The best part is interacting with so many people all across the world who also love chess, who also want to learn and also want to get better,” Urschel says. He also praises Hansen and GM Aman Hambleton, another face of the Chessbrahs. “[They] have done so much to popularize chess and dispel this notion that chess players are just these strange fringe people who sit in a room by themselves all day and just study chess, don’t talk to anyone, are antisocial,” he said. “Chess can be very collaborative, it can be very fun, and it can be cool.”

 Aside from the pure entertainment of it, Urschel sees chess as a game with immense potential to help people, including kids, engage their intellectual capacities.

 “The thing that chess has is it’s a great game, but at the same time, it’s something that’s really, really training your quantitative skills in a really good way,” Urschel says. “It’s like getting vegetables, but you don’t realize you’re getting vegetables.”

 Of course, chess isn’t immune from one particular dilemma that plagues eSports, not to mention the rest of the Internet and the world: sexism. The gender gap in chess is a longstanding and controversial problem , and it’s hardly a shock that bringing the sport to the male-dominated world of Twitch and online streaming didn’t help to solve the issue. While there are a number of master-level female players who feature in Chess.com ’s coverage and programming, one doesn’t have to spend much time on one of their streams to see the typical dynamics play out—comments about looks and assumptions about how being a woman affects players’ qualifications and opinions.

 Alexandra Botez, 22, a Woman FIDE Master (WFM), the title with slightly lower rating requirements open only to women, recently made $850 in donations in about four hours streaming on Twitch. Botez is another Canadian. The 22-year-old won a number of Canadian girls’ national titles as well as the US girls’ title when she was 15, then she went to Stanford, where she founded a startup. For Botez, making “a month’s rent over two two-hour streams” is a perk of using Twitch. But for women, streaming comes with a price men don’t have to pay.

 “A lot of the streams are super-masculine. People love to see streamers get super upset or super excited.”

 Botez says that last year when she was streaming on Chess.com , “half of the messages started turning out extremely sexual, the kind of stuff that is totally R-rated and nobody wants to deal with. … It was just offensive and I felt terrible.”

 She stopped streaming soon after that, wanting to avoid the medium entirely. But after about a year away, Botez decided to return, and the addition of a moderator—an anonymous individual who goes by chessbae94 and moderates a number of chess Twitch streams—has helped to rectify the problem.

 “She moderates my chat, she takes out all of the negative stuff, and somehow we’ve managed to grow it slowly, but still have a very positive community,” Botez says. “I’m also not as sensitive anymore to the male culture. I know that a lot of the streams are super-masculine, and that’s the kind of thing that people like to watch on Twitch. People love to see streamers get super upset or super excited. But I decided that either way, if I want to stream and I want to have a good time doing it, I’m going to have to be myself anyways.”

 The question of what people want to watch is at the center of chess’s future as an eSport. Hansen believes that the viewer experience for streaming chess still has room for improvement, citing the robust production values and public visibility of other eSports as well as the continuing conservatism of much of the game’s culture. Bartholomew, meanwhile, is focused on building his own Twitch presence and making GM, a title he thinks is within reach this year. As for Chess.com and Rensch, they solidified their presence on Twitch with a recent deal that makes Chess.com and its streamers the centerpiece of chess coverage on the platform, in addition to offering benefits to streamers who partner with Chess.com . (The topic is of enough interest to the chess community that Bartholomew’s exclusive deal with Chess.com was the subject of a thread on the chess subreddit that received over 150 comments.)

 The goal, as Rensch sees it, is a groundswell of support for both streamers and their audiences that can help further establish chess as a major eSport, with that popularity trickling down to all aspects of the game. “We believe that the market has been proven for chess on Twitch. Twitch believes the market has been proven. And now we want everybody to believe that they can stream,” Rensch says. “Just like in eSports, there’s the huge events, the championships, but where all of those players are building their brands and making money is they have their own personal Twitch channels all year, and they have huge followings.”

 As with other eSports, streamed chess is now adding an IRL component. Chess.com and Twitch recently announced that the finals of the PRO Chess League would be held in San Francisco this year in a two-day event at the Folsom Street Foundry, where the players will appear live and the games will be streamed on Twitch, with Rensch and Botez providing commentary. Sure, it isn’t exactly Bobby Fischer versus Boris Spassky at the height of the Cold War—but an event at a San Francisco brewpub being streamed across the world is about as emblematic of chess in 2018 as Fischer and Spassky’s match was in 1972. A game doesn’t survive for hundreds of years if it doesn’t change to fit the spirit of the times, and with streaming, chess has entered a new age.

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– In a candid conversation with Marc Maron on the comedian's WTF podcast this week, David Harbour revealed he was once committed to a mental asylum. The actor, now 43, said that when he was 25, about a year and a half after he got sober, he got involved with mystical Catholicism and had a manic episode. "“I really had like, a bit of a break where I thought I was in connection to some sort of God that I wasn’t really in connection to. It was like I had all the answers suddenly," said Harbour, who plays Sheriff Jim Hopper on Stranger Things. He noted that he wasn't on drugs and that his parents were the ones who took him to the asylum, People reports. He was ultimately diagnosed with bipolar disorder. "That’s actually when the drugs came in," he noted. "I’ve been medicated bipolar for a long time. And I’ve had problems going on and off. I’ve had a struggle, going on and off the medications." He added that every time he's had a similar episode, "it’s always coupled with spirituality," which is why, for his mental health, he needs cheeseburgers and video games more than yoga and meditation. "Because like the minute I get close to that—what I consider a flame—of like 'the answers' and the mysticism … it’s like I’m out of my mind." On Tuesday he tweeted a link to the podcast along with the note, "If someone you love still suffers shame about a diagnosis, or a fellow parent worries that their bipolar kid won’t be able to make it, our @WTFpod could soothe." Listen here; the conversation starts around the hour-and-seven-minute mark.

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 With a lot of laughter and acknowledgment of how pedestrian it is to be a part of the tribe nowadays. If someone you love still suffers shame about a diagnosis, or a fellow parent worries that their bipolar kid won’t be able to make it, our @ WTFpod could soothe. Last 30mins https://twitter.com/toofab/status/1004110773927505920 … |||||


News article:

Story highlights Scavino took down the post

 The airport replied, "Thanks, Dan."

 Washington (CNN) As Hurricane Irma began pelting southern Florida with roaring winds and heavy rains on Sunday, White House social media director Dan Scavino tweeted a video of what he said was a waterlogged Miami International Airport, only to be corrected by the airport itself.

 Scavino then deleted the erroneous post, one of many ostensible Hurricane Irma tweets that he said he was sharing with President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

 "Sharing #HurricaneIrma on social media with President @realDonaldTrump & @VP Pence hourly. Here is Miami International Airport. STAY SAFE!!" Scavino wrote, adding a video of an airport covered in water.

 Miami International Airport responded to the tweet: "This video is not from Miami International Airport."

 This video is not from Miami International Airport. — Miami Int'l Airport (@iflymia) September 10, 2017

 Scavino, in turn, acknowledged the mistake and replied to the airport after deleting the tweet.

 Read More |||||

 White House social media director Dan Scavino in March. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

 President Trump’s social media director, Dan Scavino, spent most of Sunday sharing with the world videos of Hurricane Irma’s fury in Florida — of a spinning stop sign and streets becoming rivers.

 He posted a photo of Trump and Vice President Pence in a briefing room, too: hands folded, faces somber as they studied the storm.

 And in a late-afternoon tweet, Scavino wrote that he was regularly sharing his tweets with both men — offering as apparent example a video of Miami’s flooded airport:

 Which raised a host of questions almost immediately, after Miami International Airport informed Scavino, Pence and the president that the video was fake.

 This video is not from Miami International Airport. — Miami Int'l Airport (@iflymia) September 10, 2017

 Or, more accurately, that it’s not a video of Miami — or even of Hurricane Irma, apparently.

 The White House did not respond to questions about why Scavino thought it was, or how he was verifying posts he shared with Trump — or how and whether Trump was using that information.

 But the video appeared on YouTube and other sites more than a week ago, when what is now called Hurricane Irma was still far out at sea, as rains from Hurricane Harvey pummeled the gulf region.

 The flooded runway in Scavino’s tweet was not in Miami, but in Mexico City, according to the video titles — though The Washington Post has not verified that.

 [Irma is not a ‘Category 6’ hurricane: A running list of viral hoaxes about the storm]

 For whatever reason, people started posting the clip on Twitter early Sunday afternoon, mislabeled as Miami.

 And then, around 4 p.m. Washington time, Scavino erroneously lent the weight of the White House to the fake story.

 He deleted the tweet soon after the airport corrected him. “It was among 100s of videos/pix I am receiving,” Scavino wrote. “In trying to notify all, I shared.”

 It’s unclear what he meant by notifying all, or whether it was one of the posts he said he shared with Trump as he oversees the federal response to the storm.

 In any case, Miami International Airport is busy correcting countless others who believed the White House. ||||| Go to the Legal Help page to request content changes for legal reasons. |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– President Trump's social media chief had to post a retraction Sunday after sharing a video that he wrongly believed showed the impact of Hurricane Irma. "Here is Miami International Airport. STAY SAFE!!" tweeted White House social media director Dan Scavino, posting a video of flooding at an airport. He was swiftly corrected by Miami International Airport itself, which pointed out that the video was not from the airport, CNN reports. The real location and date of the video has not been verified, though it was posted on YouTube on Aug. 31 with a title suggesting that it is Mexico City's airport. It resurfaced on Twitter Sunday mislabeled as Miami. "It was among 100s of videos/pix I am receiving," Scavino tweeted after being corrected. "In trying to notify all, I shared - have deleted." The error was noteworthy because when Scavino shared the video, it was an example of the tweets he said he was sharing with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence hourly, raising questions about the accuracy of his information, the Washington Post reports. The White House declined to comment on how Scavino was verifying posts that he shared with Trump and Pence. Miami International Airport, meanwhile, says it will be closed until at least Tuesday while damage assessment is carried out. (Irma made landfall in Florida for a second time Sunday.)


Summarize this article:

UPDATE, 11:19 a.m. A statement from American Airlines, posted by Staff Writer Terry Maxon on our Airline Biz Blog.

 This morning Flight 2332 had left the gate at DFW bound for Chicago, when an incident occurred involving some of the cabin crew. The aircraft returned to the gate, where it was met by Department of Public Safety officers. Two flight attendants were taken to local hospitals for treatment. We continue to investigate the details and circumstances and will have no further comment at this time. We will ensure that the affected flight attendants receive proper care, and we commend our other crew members for their assistance in quickly getting the aircraft back to the gate so that customers could be re-accommodated. Our customers were not in danger at any time. The cabin crew was replaced. The flight departed for Chicago at 9:46 a.m., and is scheduled to land around noon. We apologize for any inconvenience to our customers and we appreciate their patience and understanding.

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 UPDATE, 11:04 a.m. Here's the Chicago Tribune's story. It doesn't add much.

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 UPDATE, 10:55 a.m. Lydia Maese, spokeswoman for the FBI said: "AA is handling all the inquiries. We did respond, we assessed the situation and we determined there was no need for a federal investigation."

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 UPDATE, 10:41 a.m. The flight took off for Chicago shortly before 10 a.m. -- about 80 minutes late.

 Here's a flight-tracker site where you can watch the aircraft's progress (or, for that matter, the progress of any domestic flight.) Below is a screen-grab from this site.

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 UPDATE, 10:34 a.m. The Federal Aviation Administration, without offering any new details, confirms that something happened. "We were told there was an altercation," said FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro "They requested to be met by D/FW police and TSA."

 ====

 We're receiving numerous unconfirmed reports, via email and Twitter, that a flight attendant aboard an American Airlines flight at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport got on the intercom system and began ranting in a way that alarmed passengers and authorities.

 According to passengers, the flight attendant was subdued by passengers, and the plane, Flight 2332, which was about to take off for Chicago, was returned to the gates.

 The flight attendant "came on the PA system ranting about AA bankruptcy and then telling them the plane was going to crash," said the sister of one woman on the plane.

 "She was addressing the captain, telling him not to take off, that it would not be her responsibility when the plane crashes and that it was going to crash. Then she was tackled by first-class passengers, who threw her against the wall."

 Another passenger told as friend, according to an email from that friend, that "the flight attendant went crazy, screaming abut 9-11 and crashing. Six men held her down."

 Here's a version of the story from Unfair Park,

 A second flight attendant may have been injured in the scuffle.

 We're working to get confirmation and details. ||||| An American Airlines flight attendant disrupted a flight Friday morning as it was about to take off from Dallas-Fort Worth en route to Chicago, saying over the aircraft intercom system that the plane was going to crash, alluding to 9/11 terrorist attacks and ranting about the airline's bankruptcy reorganization, passengers said.Passengers ended up restraining the female flight attendant in a forward seat of the cabin until the plane returned to the gate and airport police arrived.Two flight attendants were injured in the incident and were taken to a local hospital. No passengers were injured, and they were never in danger, an airline spokeswoman said.The flight attendant who caused the commotion shrieked as she was handcuffed by police and placed into a police car, passengers on the flight told the Tribune after they exited the plane at Chicago O'Hare "I will never get that sound of her screaming out of my head," said Bethany Christakos of Plano, Texas. "It took a good 10 minutes, it felt like, to get her off of the plane."Other passengers said the incident ended after about 15 minutes, but it made them nervous. "We were pretty frightened," said Elmhurst resident Greg Lozano. "I was glad we weren't in the air. That was the primary thing I was thinking."The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed there was an "altercation" involving American Airlines Flight 2332, which eventually landed at Chicago O'Hare at 11:46 a.m., more than an hour late.According to reports by passengers, the trouble began Friday morning as the plane taxied to the runway for takeoff. A flight attendant who had been giving preflight safety instructions began speaking incoherently over the intercom system, confusing and startling passengers.The attendant said the plane had a mechanical issue and was going to return to the airport gate. However, other flight attendants interrupted and said there were no mechanical issues and that the plane was preparing for takeoff.The upset flight attendant then said over the public-address system that it would not be her fault if the plane crashed. She began speaking in incomplete sentences, using the words "bankruptcy" and "American Airlines," passengers said. She also referred to the 9/11 terrorist attacks at one point, passengers said.Some passengers then began using mobile phones to call 911.Other flight attendants on the plane attempted to calm the woman, but she continued to be agitated. Three or four passengers then left their seats and went to the front of the plane to help restrain her as the plane returned to the gate, a move requested by the pilot, the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed.Brad LeClear of Fox Lake was among the passengers to help. He was returning to Chicago from a business trip. He and several of his Sam's Club colleagues helped restrain the flight attendant. "She was making erratic statements over the PA and mentioned that everybody was going to crash," LeClear said. "That's when it really got out of control."Steve Termunde, also returning from the Sam's Club business trip, said passengers thought at first that the flight attendant didn't realize she was speaking over the public-address system. But as she continued a rant, they realized something was wrong. "When she said 'crash' twice, we knew something was wrong," he said. "That's when everyone started to undo their seatbelts, and we were ready to take action ourselves."A pilot who was catching a ride on the plane in first class approached the woman, who was standing near the pilot's cockpit door, along with other flight attendants. "He got up and tried to subdue her, tried to take the mic away because she kept talking on the mic and getting everybody a little nervous and upset," Termunde said.That's when other passengers came to help. "It was a good wrestle to get her to her seat," he said. "There were about five people holding her down."Some passengers said the woman appeared to be having a mental breakdown. One passenger said the flight attendant mentioned that she suffered from a bipolar condition and that she had not taken her medication."She was in a manic-type state," LeClear said. "I tried to talk her down and calm her down a little bit. She said she was bipolar. We continued to hold her until authorities arrived and when they showed up we helped get the cuffs on."A flight attendant who appeared to be injured while attempting to restrain the woman was placed on a gurney and taken away in an ambulance. |||||

– Details are still sketchy, but something seriously weird and unpleasant happened aboard an American Airlines flight set to take off from Dallas to Chicago today. Early accounts suggest that one of the flight attendants got on the PA system and began ranting about how the plane was going to crash and about the company's financial troubles, report the Chicago Tribune and Dallas Morning News. At that point, several passengers apparently subdued her. Two other flight attendants suffered injuries in the melee, and the plane returned to the gate. The airline has confirmed that an "incident occurred involving some of the cabin crew" and said it is still investigating, as is the FAA. The Dallas newspaper quotes an email from a passenger to a friend: "The flight attendant went crazy, screaming about 9-11 and crashing. Six men held her down."


– Nearly half of all Americans—49%—have no money in their savings account or no savings account at all, CNBC reports. “It’s worrisome that such a large percentage of Americans have so little set aside,” a financial analyst for the site that conducted the survey tells Market Watch. “They likely don’t have cash reserves to cover an emergency and will have to rely on credit, friends, and family." The survey of 5,000 people found that 62% of Americans have less than $1,000 saved, while only 14% had more than $10,000 in their savings account. These numbers come despite a September survey showing Americans are getting more interested in—and being more effective at—saving money, CNBC reports. Last month's numbers for interest, effectiveness, and effort toward saving were the highest ever for the survey. However the survey did come to the obvious conclusion that the country's biggest earners—those making more than $100,000 a year—were by far better at saving money than those in a lower income bracket. According to the federal government, Americans on average saved 4.6% of their disposable income in August.

Expand this summary.

The data from GOBankingRates.com conflicts with a recent survey by America Saves, a campaign from the Consumer Federation of America, that found people's interest, effort and effectiveness to personally save was on the rise in September.

 America Saves surveys 1,000 people three times per year for its Personal Savings Index to gauge perceptions about savings.

 "While no trends over the past two years are yet evident, it is encouraging that the latest Personal Savings Index numbers are so high," said Stephen Brobeck, executive director of the Consumer Federation of America and a founder of America Saves, in a statement.

 America Saves surveys continue to find that top earners have higher levels of savings interest, effort and effectiveness than the rest of the population. For example, 84 percent of people who earn more than $100,000 annually reported to be interested in saving compared with 72 percent of people with annual incomes between $50,000 and $75,000 and 68 percent of people who earn less than $25,000. ||||| Personal Savings Interest, Effort, and Effectiveness Rebounds from May Lows to New Highs in September

 Contact: Katie Bryan, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., 202-939-1018

 Washington, D.C. – The interest, effort, and effectiveness of Americans to save personally, as measured by the triannual Personal Savings Index (PSI) surveys of America Saves, jumped substantially from May lows to new highs in September.

 During this latest trimester, savings interest rose from 63 to 75 percent, effort from 58 to 65 percent, and effectiveness from 55 to 62 percent. The September numbers are the highest recorded in the seven triannual surveys conducted to date, as the table below shows.

 Table 1: PSI Percentages in Last Seven Trimesters

 Date Interest Effort Effectiveness Sep-13 71% 62% 58% Jan-14 65 58 56 May-14 71 63 58 Sep-14 71 62 60 Jan-15 70 61 59 May-15 63 58 55 Sep-15 75 65 62

 “While no trends over the past two years are yet evident, it is encouraging that the latest Personal Savings Index numbers are so high,” noted Stephen Brobeck, Executive Director of the Consumer Federation of America and a founder of America Saves.

 The extent to which various factors including perception of one’s own financial condition and that of the whole economy, as well as one’s actual income and ability to save, affect the PSI numbers is unclear. However, the PSI surveys clearly show that income is critically important: In general, the higher one’s income, the higher one’s savings interest, effort, and effectiveness, as the table below shows.

 Table 2: PSI Percentages for September 2015 by Household Income

 Income Interest Effort Effectiveness Under $25k 68% 58% 55% $25k-$50k 77 65 63 $50k-$75k 72 67 58 $75k-$100k 78 69 62 Over $100k 84 76 71

 “Our surveys are consistent with other research showing that those with low incomes are more likely to struggle financially in the present, and be less likely to focus on saving for the future, than are those with high incomes,” noted CFA’s Brobeck.

 The surveys are undertaken for America Saves by ORC International, which surveys a representational sample of 1,000 adult Americans by cell phone and landline. The latest ORCI interviews were between September 10 and 13. Respondents were asked to respond to the three questions about interest, effort, and effectiveness on a 10-point scale ranging from “no interest” to “very great interest,” and these responses were converted into percentages. The survey’s margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.

 America Saves, a campaign managed by the nonprofit Consumer Federation of America, seeks to motivate, encourage, and support low- to moderate-income households to save money, reduce debt, and build wealth. The research-based campaign uses the principles of behavioral economics and social marketing to change behavior. Nonprofit, government, and corporate groups participate in America Saves nationally and through local, regional, and statewide campaigns around the country. America Saves encourages individuals and families to take the America Saves pledge and organizations to promote savings year-round and during America Saves Week. Learn more at americasaves.org and americasavesweek.org. |||||


News article:

As U.S. Rep. Thad McCotter's short-lived presidential run fizzled last year, the Livonia Republican turned to another aspiration: writing a TV show.

 "Bumper Sticker: Made On Motown" starred McCotter hosting a crude variety show cast with characters bearing the nicknames of his congressional staffers, his brother and a drunk, perverted "Black Santa." They take pot shots about McCotter's ill-fated bid for the White House while spewing banter about drinking, sex, race, flatulence, puking and women's anatomy. It features a cartoon intro and closing snippet with an Oldsmobile careening through Detroit and knocking over the city's landmarks. The double-finned car has a Michigan license plate reading: "Made on MoTown."

 The News obtained a copy of the script from a former staffer who offered it as evidence of what the five-term congressman was pitching while in elected office and the tawdry humor unbecoming of a public official who had become disinterested in serving the 11th Congressional District.

 McCotter told The News the work was unfinished and was given to a reporter without his permission. He said the show was a "cathartic" creative outlet that helped him through the humiliation of the presidential campaign flop. "Bumper Sticker" brought to life a possibility of something that could be worse than his political failure — being trapped in a bad TV show that takes away "any shard of dignity left," he told The Detroit News.

 McCotter maintains he didn't write the show on the taxpayers' time: "Most of my writing is done in my garage … where I can smoke." He circulated the idea to at least one filmmaker and shared the script with some staffers, he said.

 Some congressional staffers included in his 42-minute pilot episode dated Oct. 17, 2011, were the same longtime employees who handled the collection of petition signatures that botched his chances of getting on the Aug. 7 primary ballot. The character named "Wardo," the nickname others acknowledge is used for District Director Paul Seewald, dresses in a matador costume, gets drunk on a whisky-laced Slurpee and runs off stage after puking.

 "Chowsers," the nickname for Deputy District Director Don Yowchuang, leers at women's body parts and snaps cell phone pictures of them, goes "cougar hunting" and repeats the line "I'm Thai."

 Seewald and Yowchuang received substantial pay increases in the first quarter of this year — 19 percent and 32 percent, respectively, compared with previous quarters, according to records from Legistorm. McCotter was bounced from the ballot when 87 percent of his collected signatures were deemed invalid. The Michigan attorney general's office is investigating. McCotter maintains he did nothing differently than in the past by trusting the same longtime staffers to handle the petitions and has welcomed the probe.

 Asked who would find the humor in the script funny, McCotter said he wasn't trying to reach a broader audience. He said the show was "deliberately designed to be a train wreck" to further assault the dignity of the central character — McCotter the host, who is already humiliated from the presidential run.

 "The very fact that people wouldn't find that funny and the suffering of the protagonist of having to be involved in it was what was funny," McCotter said.

 "It's really a one set piece," he said of the show, inspired by the 1977 show "Fernwood Tonight," starring comedian Martin Mull. "Because once he's humiliated, it's kind of it. How can you do that five nights a week?"

 "Bumper Sticker" is not McCotter's first foray into media. He was a regular on Fox News' overnight Red Eye show, a commentator on Breitbart.com and a guest political insider on a Washington, D.C., local morning show. He also published a book in February 2011 called "Seize Freedom! American Truths and Renewal in a Chaotic Age." But it didn't gain any traction.

 But the creative musings he drummed up for a television pilot reveal a different side of the mind of the congressman.

 McCotter had been planning to leave Congress in 2014, he told The News, so he was preparing a career outside elected office and making connections with Hollywood conservatives.

 Other creative endeavors

 McCotter, who has played in a congressional band and cited rock lyrics in House floor speeches, formalized his pursuit of creative endeavors in 2010 when he started a registered corporation with the state of Michigan, Screaming Lemur Productions. McCotter said forming the company was necessary so he could join the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and register a piece he and Jon Kahn, a musician and screenwriter, had done for Andrew Breitbart, the late conservative commentator and publisher.

 Screaming Lemurs is the name of the band he plays in with his brother, Dennis, a school teacher in Livonia. According to former congressional staffers, McCotter was also pitching a script for a movie with the working title, "Think Dink," starring a character played by his brother, Dinky McSweeny, running for a Senate seat.

 McCotter says he first wrote the idea in novel form when he was a Wayne County commissioner before being elected to Congress, inspired by the idea of what would happen if a political candidate said whatever he wanted. Asked if he had pitched the movie idea to Kahn, McCotter said they discussed if anybody was ever interested, he'd have to give away rights to the work and someone else could write it while he was in Congress.

 Reached by e-mail, Kahn says he "dig(s) McCotter … creative guy." He wasn't available for a phone interview.

 Local Republicans have castigated McCotter for fouling up the most basic political task of getting on the ballot, and critics say he has been disengaged from his job of serving his constituents in Wayne and Oakland counties.

 McCotter rejects the notion his writing hindered his job performance. Some politicians play golf, but creating things — writing, music, painting — is his outlet to deal with the "destructive" environment in Washington.

 A train wreck of a show

 In "Bumper Sticker," conservative commentator S.E. Cupp is cast as guest on the pilot. Cupp, a regular guest on cable political shows, also has appeared on "Red Eye" and co-hosts MSNBC's "The Cycle."

 McCotter tries to ask serious questions of the columnist, while his sidekicks chime in by asking how she "keeps that great stripper bod?" and whether "D-Cupp" is dating anyone. In the script, Cupp is disgusted by the "train wreck" of the show.

 It's unclear whether Cupp knew of her role in the pilot. Reached by e-mail, she didn't want to talk about McCotter.

 McCotter also casts Stephen K. Bannon, the conservative filmmaker, as the reluctant producer of "Bumper Sticker." In the show, Bannon is not amused McCotter doesn't have a second guest lined up and McCotter has to interview Bannon instead.

 Reached by phone, Bannon, who now runs Breitbart's media enterprise, said he didn't realize McCotter cast him in the script. He recalls McCotter emailing him an earlier version, but he chalked it up to "musings" McCotter would send periodically to Breitbart and himself after his presidential run failed.

 As a filmmaker who reads plenty of professional work, Bannon said he didn't take McCotter's scripts seriously, but rather as cathartic musings to burn off the anger and hurt from his book and presidential campaign flopping.

 Presidential run not a lark

 McCotter, he said, is a serious man with serious policy ideas in a town — Washington D.C. — filled with unserious people. Bannon said he and Breitbart told McCotter they didn't think a presidential run was a good idea. While some may have thought McCotter's run was a lark, to him it "wasn't a lark at all. He made a very serious attempt," Bannon said. When he was shut out of debates and not embraced by conservatives, McCotter took it as a rejection of his ideas that were worthy to be part of the national debate.

 "I think he took that a lot harder than what people think," Bannon said.

 "Thaddeus McCotter was a serious voice and I hope he remains a serious voice somehow," said Bannon, who calls McCotter one of the smartest people on Capitol Hill.

 Any future in hosting a variety show? "God, no," he says.

 mschultz@detnews.com

 (313) 222-2310 ||||| Rep. Thaddeus McCotter failed to gin up much interest in his short-lived presidential campaign. Then the Republican failed to get on the ballot in Michigan so he had to drop his bid for re-election to Congress.

 His political career flailing, McCotter now hopes to succeed in the arts. He has written a TV pilot, according to The Detroit News.

 Mayberry it isn't, according to the News, which describes McCotter's creative endeavor as chock full of "banter about drinking, sex, race, flatulence, puking and women's anatomy."

 If any congressman is qualified to make the jump from politics to screenwriting, it might be McCotter, 46, who is one of the quirkiest lawmakers in Washington. He's the lead guitarist in a congressional rock band. He makes campaign videos brimming with cringe-worthy fruit puns. And he quotes John Lennon in House floor speeches.

 To his friends, at least, McCotter's latest foray into coarse screenwriting is "no surprise."

 "Whatever Thad chooses to do will be outside the norm," said former Rep. Kenny Hulshof, who plays drums with McCotter in their bipartisan band, The Second Amendments. "Everybody has a unique personality and Thad's is especially unique.

 "There's very little that Thaddeus could do that would surprise me," Hulshof, a Missouri Republican, said, noting that "if any retiring member [of Congress] could make it [in Hollywood] Thaddeus could."

 McCotter did not return ABC News' request for comment.

 His script for the 42-minute pilot episode of "Bumper Sticker: Made On Motown" was leaked to the Detroit News by a disgruntled former member of McCotter's congressional staff. The episode stars McCotter as the host of an off-color fictional talk show in which he banters with an array of characters based off his congressional staffers and his brother.

 The guests lewdly chide McCotter for his failed presidential bid and for botching a petition drive to qualify for re-election. McCotter, who will vacate his House seat at the end of his term, told the Detroit News that creating the show was "cathartic" because it proved there were worse things in life than his congressional and presidential failures, like being trapped in a bad TV show that takes away "any shard of dignity left."

 Hulshof said McCotter was "genuinely disappointed" that his presidential bid fizzled nearly as soon as it started. McCotter never met the polling threshold of 1 percent support to appear in a national presidential debate.

 "That was something I think he was hoping for or counting on not necessarily to propel him as a front-runner but to give his candidacy a little more legitimacy," Hulshof said.

 While Hulshof has not seen the script, he said, the show seemed fitting because McCotter's sense of humor has always been "self-depreciating" and "outside the norm."

 "In a matter of words, he can be humorous and rip you to shreds," Hulshof told ABC News.

 McCotter told the Detroit News that the show was "deliberately designed to be a train wreck" in order to further humiliate the main character, aka himself.

 "The very fact that people wouldn't find that funny and the suffering of the protagonist of having to be involved in it was what was funny," McCotter said.

 The script is not McCotter's first foray into writing. He published a book, "Seize Freedom!" in 2011. And was "fairly prolific on the song-writing front," Hulshof said.

 Whether it's writing rock 'n' roll songs or quixotic screenplays, Hulshof said, McCotter would likely be doing something "nontraditional" after he leaves Congress in January.

 "I don't know where he goes," Hulshof said. "Who knows, maybe he could be the new 'Sham Wow' guy. I don't know." |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– There are bad months, and then there are months like the one Rep. Thaddeus McCotter has had. The Michigan representative today announced he's resigning, and issued a statement that seems straight out of a soap opera. In it, he called the last month and a half "nightmarish" and wrote of "calumnies, indignities, and deceits [that] have weighed most heavily upon my family." ABC News explains that bad things have come in threes for the five-term Republican: His bid for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination failed miserably, his staff didn't collect enough valid petition signatures to get him on the Aug. 7 primary ballot, and a "racy TV pilot" he wrote was handed to the press by an ex-staffer this week. And his statement sounds pretty glum: "I do not leave for an existing job and face diminishing prospects (and am both unwilling and ill-suited to lobby)." Still, he closes by saying this to Michigan’s 11th Congressional District: "Thank you for the privilege of having worked for you." Click to read more about the "tawdry" pilot, which featured a "drunk, perverted Black Santa."