List of All Articles with Tag 'person'

Chris Jericho has addressed the departure of CM Punk from All Elite Wrestling after the wrestler was fired earlier this week following a series of altercations. Punk, real name Phil Brooks, was fired from AEW by the promotion's co-founder Tony Khan following a confrontation with Jack Perry at Wembley Stadium during the record-breaking All In show on August 27th. Punk was also said to have 'lunged' at Khan following the incident which resulted in several monitors falling over. In a statement following Punk's firing, Khan said that he had never previously "feared for his life" at a wrestling show until that moment. The departure of the former world champion has cast an air of speculation and controversy around Punk, who still managed to open the show at Wembley with Samoa Joe in a widely praised match. Chris Jericho, one of AEW's other top names revealed that he spoke to Punk on the day to ask him about a spot in his match which ended in a joke about Punk's finishing move, the Go To Sleep (GTS), as reported by F4WOnline. Speaking on his Talk is Jericho podcast, the 52-year-old said: "I don't want to dwell on this or talk about it but I should address it. Of course, CM Punk no longer with AEW, and Wembley was his last match, what a way to go out. "I did talk to him briefly. I was going to do a Frankensteiner off the top and I know that he does that sometimes so I was just curious if he was doing it. I went and talked to him for a bit and asked him if he was doing it, he wasn't. Then I told him I was going to do the GTS with a straight face and I think for a second he thought that I was going to and I was joking, of course." Jericho continued by saying that it was a sad moment for the fledgling company but continued to praise Punk. "I did see him that day and once again, it's a regretful moment what happened but Tony Khan made his decision," Jericho added. "Like I said, CM Punk was a big part of AEW for the time he was here and if you're going to go out, he went out on top, for sure." Punk leaving AEW has sparked rumours that he could be returning to WWE, a promotion he left in 2014, also under controversial circumstances. However, resurfaced footage from Seth Rollins would suggest that not everyone in the WWE locker room would be too keen to see him return. After his match at Wembley, Punk also appeared to mouth the words 'goodbye' suggesting that he knew at that point his time in AEW was up. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Elon Musk formally renamed Twitter “X” in July, cementing the rebrand by bolting the symbol to the top of the social network’s San Francisco headquarters and replacing Larry the Bird, its mascot since 2012, with a grungy black logo soon afterwards. Linda Yaccarino, X’s new CEO, declared at the time of the rebrand: “X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.” Mr Musk had already renamed the company itself X Corp in March, six months after acquiring it for $44m, a purchase he described at the time as “an accelerant to creating X, the everything app”, his vision for a multipurpose competitor to China’s WeChat. The decision was just the latest example of the entrepreneur’s preoccupation with the 24th letter of the alphabet: his first business venture was X.com, he shortened the name of Space Exploration Technologies Corp to SpaceX, he launched the Tesla Model X and has a new artificial intelligence startup named xAI. He even calls his son X Æ A-12 just X for short. So what is the obsession about and where did it begin? His first venture, X.com, was an online banking and financial services platform launched in Palo Alto, California, in 1999 that would ultimately be merged with Confinity to become PayPal, which was in turn then sold to eBay for $1.5bn in 2002, Mr Musk using some of the capital he earned as its largest shareholder to found SpaceX. Julie Anderson Ankenbrandt, a former PayPal executive, explained how Mr Musk’s platform got its name in a Quora post in 2016. “Elon, the other founders of the company that was X.com… and I sat around a backroom table at a long-defunct bar called the Blue Chalk in Palo Alto, trying decide what the name of the company should be… and the question at hand was whether to be Q, X or Z dot com,” she wrote. “Finally, when the waitress/female server brought the next round of drinks Elon asked her what she thought, and she said she like[d] X.com. Elon pounded the table and said ‘That’s it then!’ and everyone laughed, but in the end that was pretty much how it was decided.” Not everyone was happy with the decision, according to Mr Musk’s biographer Ashlee Vance, who told NPR: “Everyone tried to talk him out of naming the company that back then because of the sexual innuendos, but he really liked it and stuck with it.” He liked the name so much he bought the X.com domain back from PayPal in 2017 and thanked the company in a tweet, explaining that it had “great sentimental value” to him. The domain now redirects to the social network that has since taken on its old moniker. Elsewhere, the Tesla Model X – a midsize luxury crossover SUV with falcon wing doors – was named so that, with three other models, the range would spell out “S3XY”, giving you an insight into Mr Musk’s gawky sense of humour. As for his son, the boy’s mother Grimes explained in a tweet of her own that the symbol is used in algebra to denote any unknown variable, perhaps suggesting the child is free to grow up to be whatever they choose to be. The rebranding of Twitter to X sparked a great deal of musing about the letter’s possible significance (or lack thereof), with Lora Kelly of The Atlantic writing: “The letter is associated with such varied contexts as Christian symbolism, middle-school-math equations, gender neutrality, pornography, a kiss.” In Psychology Today, Leon F Selzer discussed its “nihilistic” values, noting that it has associations with everything from the Nazi swastika to a skull-and-crossbones danger warning on a bottle of poison to Roman numerals, voting and Christmas (at least when abbreviated to “Xmas”) and therefore can mean everything and nothing. Meanwhile, in The New York Times, Stella Bugbee suggested the choice was arguably a bit dated and perhaps represented a case of Mr Musk showing his age as a member of, appropriately enough, Generation X. “For marketing purposes in the 1990s, X had a certain cool,” she explained. “It conferred a rejection of authority.” While that observations rings true of such turn-of-the-millennium cultural detritus as, say, the arrival of Microsoft’s XBox in 2001 or Vin Diesel’s action film XXX (2002), it has also been used in the same way before and since: think of country star Loretta Lynn’s notoriety-courting 1972 single “Rated X” or the cult 1980s Los Angeles punk band X, for instance, or the more recent Ti West horror film X (2022). As Lora Kelly observed: “X both reinforces absence and electrifies objects with meaning. It is sacred and profane.” Read More Elon Musk ‘borrowed $1bn from SpaceX’ at same time as Twitter acquisition SpaceX abandons YouTube for live streams of launches in favour of X/Twitter Elon Musk threatens to sue the Anti-Defamation League over lost revenue on X Elon Musk ‘borrowed $1bn from SpaceX’ at same time as Twitter acquisition Starship ‘ready to launch’, Elon Musk says Elon Musk vows to sue ADL for calling him antisemitic over X campaign

Breaking down college football upsets picks for Week 2 of the 2023 season with three SEC teams and a Pac-12 team showing all kinds of Red Flags.

Republican presidential hopeful Chris Christie says Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis put “politics ahead of his job” by declining to meet with President Joe Biden during Biden's weekend visit to survey Hurricane Idalia’s damage in DeSantis’ state

Members of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee say Russian President Vladimir Putin is committing genocide in Ukraine

According to an NBA insider, the Lakers have signed Christian Wood. How likely is Wood to crack the Lakers starting rotation?

Barcelona are set to receive 50% of the profit that Aston Villa make from selling Philippe Coutinho to Qatari side Al Duhail.

The Rolling Stones announced the details of their new album, "Hackney Diamonds," in a live-streamed interview with comedian Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday in London, marking the release of their first new music in 18 years.

A federal judge ruled that the jury hearing E. Jean Carroll's defamation lawsuit will only need to decide how much money Donald Trump will have to pay her, after the judge found the former president was liable for making defamatory statements.

Kepa Arrizabalaga discusses his loan move to Real Madrid after being "close" to joining Bayern Munich and Mauricio Pochettino asking him to stay at Chelsea.

One of Vladimir Putin's commanders used two military helicopters to transport his pet cat during the war in Ukraine, a defected Russian pilot has claimed. The cat was airlifted in the military-grade helicopter for around one hour, while another flew alongside it to provide cover during the 114-mile journey, according to former Russian airman Maksim Kuzminov. Mr Kuzminov spoke out in an interview with The New Voice of Ukraine after choosing to leave Russia’s armed forces. Asked for examples of any illogical uses of aviation during the war in Ukraine, Mr Kuzminov said: “Our commander needed to transport a cat, which had some impressive pedigree. To do this, two Mi-8 and Mi-24 [helicopter] crews were assigned. “So, two helicopters transported this wonderful animal, so to speak, from Rostov to Yeysk [air base] — the Mi-8 was flying the cat in, while the Mi-24 was circling to provide cover. “We burned a lot of fuel, resources. Furthermore, the crews aren’t always allowed to rest.” The former pilot said six military personnel were on board for the mission despite Russia experiencing a lack of pilots. Mr Kuzminov, 28, has reportedly been paid £398,000 for defecting and is now urging his former Russian colleagues to follow suit. “The truth is, there are no Nazis or fascists,” he told the Ukrainian news outlet, to counter the message Mr Putin has used to justify the “special military operation” launched in February last year. He said he got in touch with representatives of the Ukrainian military intelligence about the possibility of changing sides and he was offered safety as well as the financial reward. Mr Kuzminov landed his Russian Mi-8 helicopter in Ukraine’s Poltava Oblast on August 23 - giving the chopper to his new bosses as well as spare parts for the aircraft. “It’s a real disgrace what is happening here,” he said of the war. “Murder, tears, blood. “People are simply killing each other. That’s all I can make of this and I don’t want to be a part of it. What is going on now is simply the genocide of the Ukrainian people. Both Ukrainian and Russian.” Read More Russia-Ukraine war – live: 16 killed in missile strike on market town during ‘evil’ attack Ukraine destroys ‘Russian-occupied warehouse’ in drone strike CCTV captures Russian shell landing on Ukrainian market killing at least 16 The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary

Daniel Dubois’s promoter Frank Warren has appealed the result of the British heavyweight’s fight with Oleksandr Usyk, while pushing for a rematch. Dubois was stopped by Usyk in Round 9 on Saturday 26 August, after the Briton floored the unified heavyweight champion in Round 5, only for his body-shot attempt to be ruled a low blow. Usyk was therefore granted five minutes to recover, and the Ukrainian used approximately three of those minutes before the bout in Wroclaw, Poland, resumed. Usyk, 36, then dropped Dubois, 25, in the eighth round and did the same in the ninth, with the Briton failing to beat the referee's count. With the result, Usyk remained unbeaten and retained the WBA, WBO, IBF and IBO heavyweight titles. Warren has now lobbied for a No Contest and a rematch, he told the BBC, while boxing journalist Dan Rafael took to X to post a screenshot of what appears to be the appeal. The appeal to the WBA (World Boxing Association) centres on the claim that Usyk would not have beaten a hypothetical referee’s count if Dubois’s punch in Round 5 had not been ruled a low blow. “Owing to what this appeal argues were errors in judgement made by the bout’s referee, Luis Pabon, Daniel Dubois was unjustly denied of his rightful status as unified world heavyweight champion,” read the apparent appeal shared by Rafael. It continued: “Approximately 20 seconds into the fifth round, Mr Dubois landed a body blow that dropped and severely hurt Mr Usyk and, seemingly, crowned Mr Dubois the heavyweight champion. However, the blow was incorrectly adjudicated as low by Mr Pabon. “Instead of being knocked out, Mr Usyk was given a substantial recovery period, which allowed him to regain his strength and continue the bout without impediment.” Usyk won the unified heavyweight titles with a decision victory over Anthony Joshua in 2021, before repeating the trick against “AJ” in 2022 to retain the belts. The southpaw has been linked with a fight against Tyson Fury for the best part of a year, though the WBC champion is due to fight ex-UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou in October. Click here to subscribe to The Independent’s Sport YouTube channel for all the latest sports videos. Read More Chris Eubank Jr’s coach remanded in custody following airport arrest Oleksandr Usyk remains heavyweight champion but where does he go from here? Finally, Ricky Hatton has his happy ending