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Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Kanye West gets honorary doctorate degree in Chicago

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He quit college when he was 20, calling his first album The College Dropout. But Kanye West has finally graduated. He's been given an honorary degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. That's right, not just any old degree, a doctorate. It means he's now technically Doctor West. He was recognised for "transformative, genre-defying work" at a ceremony there. But the man who doesn't usually seem to lack confidence admitted he did feel the nerves. "I don't feel that feeling a lot, the nerves of humility and modesty when being honoured," he said. "A humanisation a reality of being recognised. And all I thought as I sit here kind of shaking a little bit is 'I need to get rid of that feeling.'" In his acceptance speech he said: "I am a pop artist. So my medium is public opinion and the world is my canvas". He also argued people shouldn't feel the need to apologise for their opinions. 'I'm sorry' is something that you can use a lot, it gives you the opportunity to give your opinion, apologise for it, and give you opinion again," he laughed. He claimed the honour would make it easier for people to "defend him" too. "It's these Floyd Mayweather belts that are needed to prove what I've been saying my entire life. "Where there's the co-sign of Paul McCartney grabbing me and saying 'It's OK, he doesn't bite white people' or The New York Times cover, or the Time most influential cover", he said. "And now a doctorate at The Art institute of Chicago", he continued. "When I was giving a lecture at Oxford, I brought up this school because when I went on that mission to create in other spaces, apparel, film, performance. "It would have been easier if I could have said that I had a degree at the Art Institute of Chicago," he said. The college decided to honour the star after a member of staff read that the he'd always wished he'd gone there.

Strong Storms Linger Into Monday Night From Texas to New York

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A potent storm system will continue across the Central states into Monday night, but this time the activity will be farther to the east. After violent thunderstorms rattled the Plains both days of the weekend, the threat zone will shift eastward from the Lower Michigan Peninsula to southern and coastal Texas.



"The area of low pressure that caused so much weather havoc the last few days will lift north into the Great Lakes region on Monday," stated AccuWeather.com Meteorologist Becky Elliott.



"As it does, it will send a cold front through the midsection of the country," Elliott added. This front will be the focal point for the violent thunderstorms.

"The tornado threat will be greatly diminished from the last few days," continued Elliott, "with damaging winds, hail and flash flooding existing as the main threats. However, with as potent as this storm system has been, an isolated tornado cannot be ruled out."
While the threat for blinding and flooding downpours will be equal throughout the day, the concern for damaging winds and hail will be highest through the evening.

Strong storms will linger into Monday night in two main areas; one batch of storms will move through upstate New York southwest into eastern Kentucky while another batch of storms will linger across Texas and Louisiana. The main threats will be locally damaging winds and flash flooding.
The storm will push thunderstorms into the Northeast on Tuesday, but widespread severe weather is not expected.
However, a small number of Tuesday's storms may still produce gusty winds or small hail.
The greatest threat into Tuesday night looks to be flash flooding across Texas as rain will once again visit some areas that were frequented by torrential downpours over the weekend.

    Olive Garden Breadsticks to Debut in Lunch Sandwiches

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    Olive Garden, faced with steadily declining sales, announced plans to capitalize on perhaps its most popular menu item, breadsticks. The restaurant chain, owned by Darden Restaurants, says it will use its breadsticks for chicken parmigiana and meatball sandwiches starting June 1. Consumers ordering the new items will, of course, get unlimited breadsticks. The breadsticks used for sandwiches will be shorter and wider than the regular ones, said Justin Sikora, a Darden representative. Olive Garden’s breadsticks gained attention last year during a dispute with an investor, Starboard Value. Among other criticisms, Starboard said Darden wasn’t being disciplined in its distribution of breadsticks to customers. It also said the quality of the breadsticks seemed to have declined. Shortly after, Starboard won its bid to take control of Darden’s board. The new sandwiches will be available only on the lunch menu. The meatball sandwich will cost $7 and the chicken parmigiana $8, Mr. Sikora said.

    Tornado’s Destruction Cuts Deep in a Small Texas Town

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    VAN, Tex. — Pete Lucas, 75, sat outside his home in this debris-strewn East Texas town on Monday and stared at J.E. Rhodes Elementary School next door. A giant tree had toppled onto a school playground, sparing the yellow twisting slide. A section of aluminum roofing dangled from the branches of his front-yard tree. Inside the classrooms, shattered glass, chunks of yellow insulation and holes in the ceiling clashed with construction-paper drawings, racks of Elmer’s glue and Cat in the Hat stickers. Mr. Lucas and other residents of this town of 2,600 said they were thankful, at least, that the tornado that wrecked Van hit on Sunday night, when the school buildings and playgrounds were empty. “If the kids had been here, it would have been devastating,” Mr. Lucas said. In a state with a long list of historic and deadly disasters — hurricanes, industrial explosions, wildfires — the tornado that swept through Van on Sunday seemed rather small scale. Two people were killed, 47 others were sent to hospitals with injuries and 100 homes were damaged or destroyed in the area, the authorities said. But in such a small town, 73 miles east of Dallas in Van Zandt County, the destruction seemed to touch everyone and everything, and to cut deeper than if it had unfolded in a larger and more urban area.
    Two of the town’s five schools, Rhodes Elementary and Van Intermediate School, were heavily damaged. The two people who died, a husband and wife, were more than just anonymous fatalities. Melinda Sherbert, whose damaged roof was covered with a blue tarp, saw the wife on Sundays at Van United Methodist Church, where the woman had worked. The day after the storm, late Monday afternoon, it was not those she knew well who were on Ms. Sherbert’s mind. It was those who were strangers to her, dozens of them, who had come to her house and cleaned up debris on her lawn and made repairs.
    “It really does give you faith in mankind,” said Ms. Sherbert, whose mother, whom she lives with, has called Van home for all but five of her 92 years. “Neighbors, strangers, everybody. Have we known nine-tenths of the people working in our yard? No.” Tornadoes killed at least four people and left dozens injured in North Texas and Arkansas on Sunday night. In Nashville, Ark., in the southwestern part of the state, a tornado on Sunday left two people dead — another married couple, whose young daughter survived, officials said. In Lake City, in western Iowa, a tornado tore the roof off a high school while more than 100 people were inside it for an assembly. In Van, an official with the National Weather Service said that based on a damage assessment, the twister on Sunday was a Category 3 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, which measures tornado strength on a scale of 0 to 5, with 5 being the most destructive. Three people were still missing, said Chuck Allen, the Van Zandt County fire marshal and emergency manager, who did not identify the couple who died. Gov. Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster in Van Zandt and six other counties, and state law enforcement officials were taking part in search and rescue efforts.
    “It’s a terrible thing for a city to come out like we did, but it’s a great thing the way the people have responded,” Mayor Dean Stone said. The town’s name has nothing to do with a vehicle or with Van Zandt County. Van was named for two local men, according to the Texas State Historical Association: a schoolteacher, Henry Vance, who established a post office in town in 1894, and for a resident named Vannie Tunnel. V. L. Davidson, 90, who has lived in a corner house for 47 years, hunkered down in the bathroom as the wind picked up on Sunday night, and he emerged without a scratch. He was walking outside his house on Monday, in his once-quiet neighborhood near Rhodes Elementary, in his once-quiet town. A helicopter circled overhead. The sounds of crunching, roaring and rumbling seemed to blot out his voice — chain saws, power crews repairing downed lines, construction vehicles and the snap and crackle of his footsteps on a street caked with bits and pieces of trees, debris, glass and shards of his neighbors’ homes. “It happened so fast,” Mr. Davidson said. “It wasn’t five seconds. I mean, that was it.” Mr. Lucas hid underneath a queen-size mattress in a hallway with his wife and his son. No one was injured, and Mr. Lucas’ house had foundation and roof damage but was spared any major damage. None of the windows of his house even shattered. “When I was a kid, we were in one in Broken Arrow, Okla.,” he said. “My auntie told us to put one window up on the east side and one window up on the west side. We still got them open. They tell you now not to do that. But I still take old auntie’s advice.”

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