Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus will stage the final performances of “The Greatest Show on Earth” in May, ending a 146-year run.
The announcement comes after the show saw a steep drop in ticket sales, after the circus’ owners ended the use of live elephants in performances. The circus was involved in protracted legal battles with animal rights groups over the use of elephants in the show.
“Ringling Bros. ticket sales have been declining, but following the transition of the elephants off the road, we saw an even more dramatic drop,” Kenneth Feld, chairman and CEO of Feld Entertainment which owns the circus, said in a statement issued Saturday night.
Animal rights groups welcomed the news of the circus’ imminent end.
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A circus performer hangs upside down during a Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus performance in Washington, D.C., on March 19, 2015. ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP – Getty Images
Britain’s Prime Minister finally laid out her plans for Brexit Tuesday, nearly seven months after the shock U.K. vote to quit the European Union (EU).
Theresa May, who came to power after the referendum result prompted the resignation of her predecessor David Cameron, said Britain will seek a so-called ‘hard Brexit’ — meaning the U.K. wants to quit the EU completely after four decades of membership, along with the single market for goods.
The European single market affords preferential rates between EU member states, something many in Britain saw as a key benefit of the trading bloc. However, it also requires the free movement of citizens across EU borders, leading to high levels of immigration. Populist concern over immigration was successfully exploited by the “Leave” campaign.
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Pound coins site beside dollar bills. Matt Cardy / Getty Images
After his election, Donald Trump quickly settled a series of business disputes — but just days before his inauguration, the president-elect’s company is still waging a legal battle against a Florida shop owner over an unpaid bill.
The matter could have been settled for what amounts to pocket change for a billionaire, but the Trump Organization decided to take its chances in court.
Now Trump stands to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. And if he wins, it could force a small businessman — one of hundreds who say they were stiffed by Trump over the years — possibly into bankruptcy.
That businessman, Juan Carlos Enriquez, owner of The Paint Spot, won the first round of the legal skirmish last summer when a judge found a lien he slapped on the Trump National Doral golf resort was valid.
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Then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump drives himself around the golf course on March 6, 2016, in Doral, Florida. Luis M. Alvarez / AP
Sen. Bernie Sanders haunted Donald Trump and Republicans with the ghost of Twitter past on Wednesday.
The Vermont senator printed an oversized tweet of Trump’s to use as a visual aid during the Senate’s debate over the future of Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act. The president-elect’s tweet from May 2015 claimed that he was the only Republican candidate “to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid.”
Trump punctuated the tweet with a jab at former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
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Senator Bernie Sanders addresses the Senate floor while displaying a poster of a tweet by Donald Trump. NBC News
Well before the family came in to the Batson Children’s Specialty Clinic in Jackson, Mississippi, they knew something was wrong. Their child was born with multiple birth defects, and didn’t look like any of its kin. A couple of tests for genetic syndromes came back negative, but Omar Abdul-Rahman, Chief of Medical Genetics at the University of Mississippi, had a strong hunch that the child had Mowat-Wilson syndrome, a rare disease associated with challenging life-long symptoms like speech impediments and seizures.
So he pulled out one of his most prized physicians’ tools: his cell phone.
Using an app called Face2Gene, Abdul-Rahman snapped a quick photo of the child’s face. Within a matter of seconds, the app generated a list of potential diagnoses — and corroborated his hunch. “Sure enough, Mowat-Wilson syndrome came up on the list,” Abdul-Rahman recalls.
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DNA double helix strand viewed with a phone Stanislaw Pytel / Getty Images
The world lost superstar musicians, stars of stage and screen, some of the greatest athletes of all time and larger-than-life political figures in 2016.
Here’s a look at some of the many famous figures who died this year. Click through to read full obituaries.
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Ron Glass
Ron Glass, 71, the veteran television and film actor known for his Emmy-nominated role as NYPD Det. Ron Harris on the classic cop sitcom “Barney Miller,” and later the deeply religious preacher Derrial Brook on the cult sci-fi show “Firefly,” died on Nov. 25.
Truvada, the other “little blue pill,” is taken daily to prevent HIV and has been touted as a miracle drug responsible for lowering HIV rates across the United States. But soon, the daily pill may be overshadowed by an even simpler method—a single flu shot-like injection at the doctor’s office, once every two months.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced last week that it was entering the first-ever global clinical trial of an injectable HIV-prevention drug called cabotegravir. The trial is taking place in eight countries across three world regions—the Americas, Africa and Asia—and researchers are enrolling 4,500 gay and bisexual men along with transgender women, pulling from groups with the highest rates of new infections.
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HIV, the virus that causes AIDS BSIP/UIG Via Getty Images
On Tuesday, 55-year-old Sara Kelly Keenan received something in the mail she’s been waiting for her entire life: an accurate birth certificate.
Keenan was born intersex, with male genes, female genitalia and mixed internal reproductive organs. Now, Keenan, who uses female pronouns, is making history. Hers is believed to be the first birth certificate ever issued in the United States that reads “intersex” in the gender field, instead of “male” or “female.”
Lambda Legal attorney Paul Castillo commended the New York City agency “for issuing an accurate birth certificate.”
“In the United States, birth certificates often provide access to a wide range of public services and critical identity documents, such as state IDs and passports,” Castillo said. “Having birth certificates with gender designations other than male or female provides an enormous sense of validation for a number of non-binary and intersex people.”
The death of Debbie Reynolds just one day after her daughter Carrie Fisher passed away is a reminder of the crushing effect grief can have on the body.
The 84-year-old Oscar-nominated performer reportedly suffered a stroke Wednesday. The official cause of death has not yet been disclosed.
“She wanted to be with Carrie,” her son Todd Fisher told Variety.
“Broken heart syndrome,” or stress-induced cardiomyopathy is a very specific medical condition that has been well-documented in recent years. It can be caused by an intense emotional event, like the death of a loved one, giving a public speech, or even from a surprise birthday party. And many times broken heart syndrome has been blamed in cases when one spouse dies soon after the other.
What scientific discoveries will 2017 bring? What technological innovations? Probably not time travel — or time-shares on Mars. But no one really knows for sure, and when we asked some of the biggest names in in science and technology to share their predictions for the coming year, there was a bit of pushback.
“I normally don’t make predictions for anything less than two trillion years in the future,” Arizona State University cosmologist Lawrence Krauss told NBC MACH. It’s easier to make predictions that far out, he added jokingly, when “no one will be around to check them.”
Ultimately, Krauss came through with some fascinating forecasts. Read on to see them, along with predictions from legendary astronaut Buzz Aldrin and nine more thought leaders in science and tech (the submissions have been lightly edited).
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Scott Kelly / NASA
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Click link below for article and predictions for 2017:
In the world, human beings are facing various problems. People who are full of greed, anger, and ignorance are seen to be fighting with each other in words and deeds. As the fighting continues, various problems such as civil wars, wars of aggression, and wars of aggression are occurring. As world peace is being destroyed, humans are facing unbearable problems. Innocent children and women are not getting the rights they deserve and deserve. I can't think of one thing every time. What is it? The United Nations. If we look at the responsibilities and duties of the United Nations, I think it is not suitable for solving the problems that are happening in the world today. In fact, the United Nations and the World Security Council, such an organization must rule the world, must be able to give orders, and must have various ways to obey orders. There must be no organization that can influence more than that organization. There should be experts from each country. They can even dominate the superpowers like the US, China, and Britain. Only then will global peace be achieved quickly. Now, if a country with power develops more militarily, economically, or socially than its own country, then powerful countries will jealously seek out enemies and wage war. Or they will attack with fighter jets. In this, innocent people are losing their lives. No one understands the value of a life. You should think about how to achieve global peace by controlling these. If the US continues to be the permanent president of the UN, world peace will never be achieved. If you think carefully, no one sees that they are working for the common good, but for their own benefit, for the benefit of their own country. The permanent president of the UN and the Security Council has rejected this, As a young Rohingya, I have come to realize that only by electing the president and secretary from among the countries in the world through a secret ballot system and governing the world fairly can we achieve global peace. The United Nations and the Security Council are organizations in which any country must govern, give orders, and make them obey their orders. For example, only when a defendant is tried in court can we hold the leaders of the countries in check and control them, can we achieve global peace smoothly. Otherwise, it will not be easy for powerful countries to use various excuses to end this war every year, every year, for the benefit of themselves and their countries. No country's leaders pay any attention to the words of the United Nations and the Security Council. If we look at it in practice, look at the Rohingya issue. Myanmar is a small country. Even that country has been under siege for 8 years. What action can be taken? Why is the UN and the Security Council Powerless? Without such Power, how can the organization bring about global peace? Everyone should think about it. Whether there is a veto or a strong one, all countries in the world can only achieve global peace if they are subject to the UN and the Security Council. Seek peace in the quiet embrace of nature. Peace is an indispensable need of the human race. It is not as if one person can kill another person, and it is as if one country can attack another country, but instead of trying to build peace, we must try to destroy the peace now, and the world is getting hotter and is on the verge of collapse. I especially appeal to all the world experts to urgently try to bring about peace in all parts of the world. Mr, Noor Muhamed Arkhan Rohingya Youth Myanmar
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
A circus performer hangs upside down during a Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus performance in Washington, D.C., on March 19, 2015. ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP – Getty Images
Jim Smeal/BEI/BEI/Shutterstock / Shutterstock
Scott Kelly / NASA
