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Did J.R.R. Tolkien take the name of our planet and stick the word Middle in front of it? Or is there a deeper reason why the land is called Middle Earth? Most likely, it’s the latter. Tolkien was, after all, a very creative writer and didn’t seem like the type to name things haphazardly or without full consideration. RELATED: LOTR: What Was Weathertop Before It Fell To Ruin Therefore, there must be some reason why the land in Lord of the Rings is called Middle Earth....

RELATED: Lord Of The Rings: Important Characters From The Books Who Weren’t In The Movies With so much of the action now happening in Numenor, there’s even more from Tolkien’s myth and legend collection to impress the dedicated readers who know the books and have their knowledge of the lore intact. What are some Lord of the Rings Easter eggs in Rings of Power episodes 3 and 4 that only readers of novels would have picked up on?...

Whitaker, who played from 1977 to 1995 with the Detroit Tigers, ranks among the best second basemen in baseball history by various sabermetrics — sixth by Wins Above Replacement, seventh by Wins Above Average, and 12th by JAWS according to Baseball-Reference.com. But Whitaker drew just 2.9 percent of the vote for Cooperstown in 2001, his only year on the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s ballot, disqualifying him from future consideration by the writers....

The sold-out show on Thursday night in The Anthem venue in the capital saw multiple revelers take to social media to plead with the crowd behind them to stop surging. A video from the concert shows the “Two of Us” hitmaker urging the crowd to “back it up a bit.” The clip was first shared by CBS 6 Richmond News reporter Scott Wise. “Everyone c’mon it’s a team effort, it’s a team effort,” Tomlinson is heard saying from the stage during the pause....

The Dutchman, who has been under incessant pressure this season, took off young striker Marcus Rashford and played winger Ashley Young as a centre forward in the second half at White Hart Lane. United had restricted Tottenham before the break without offering much goal threat, but rather than switch the lively Anthony Martial to a central role, he left the Frenchman wide and played Young out of position. Young barely got a kick and Tottenham scored three goals in six minutes through Dele Alli, Toby Alderweireld and Erik Lamela to keep their Premier League title hopes alive and leave United struggling to finish in the top four....

Van Persie is currently with Louis Van Gaal for the World Cup campaign with the Netherlands and both are expected to return to Manchester United after the World Cup campaign. Speaking to The Sun, the striker said, “I have enjoyed the past two years with Holland a great deal.” “He is very clear in what he says. I am now going to go through another two-year process with Van Gaal and I am looking forward to it....

Michele Sutton, CEO of North Oaks Health System located in Hammond, Louisiana, spoke of how hospitals are struggling to cope with the fourth wave of COVID infections as there is not enough space for patients and dozens of staff members are testing positive for the virus. Sutton spoke along with several public health experts and doctors during a press conference on Monday explaining why they are backing Governor John Bel Edwards’ plans to reinstate a statewide mask mandate....

Green Lantern is the story of a regular human being who is suddenly thrust into an intergalactic organization beyond his wildest imagination. Instead of leaning into gritty realism, DC should use this unique opportunity to employ a new genre that would reflect the feelings of confusion and disillusionment that this experience would cause. RELATED: A Green Lantern Game Would Have a Lot of Potential Now more than ever, horror is a malleable genre....

The grand marble Supreme Court building is a few miles and a world away from the neighborhood where Sams grew up. But his life story might as well be exhibit A in a landmark gun-rights case the court will hear next spring. Dick Heller, a 65-year-old security guard who lives in a once drug-ridden D.C. neighborhood, challenged the city’s gun ban. With backing from a group of libertarian attorneys who had been searching for just the right gun case to bring before the Supreme Court, Heller argued the law violates his Second Amendment right to bear arms....

Last year, Bush came before Congress as a man who refused to cede any ground on Iraq, lambasting Democrats for their “defeatism” on the war. Last night was a different story, as Bush essentially pleaded with Democrats and many Republicans to stick with him on his plan to send additional troops to Iraq. “This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we are in,” Bush somberly admitted, urging lawmakers to “give it a chance to work....

I understand that for parents, this may be a time of confusion and even shock. You might think you did something wrong, and you might blame yourself. Please know that this isn’t something you did, and it also isn’t something you can change. The most important thing you can do for your child is to affirm their identity — and it’s important that you affirm versus accept. Affirming means you’re stating it as a fact and offering emotional encouragement and support....

A Plague Tale: Innocence had a nuanced and, at times, both dark and uplifting narrative that helped to center the stealth action; a trend the sequel will no doubt continue. A Plague Tale: Requiem has had a teaser trailer and a gameplay trailer released so far, so players have been able to see a little of what the upcoming game will offer. However, it’s the screenshots that were released at the end of last year that has really given a strong indication of how the game will look and the variety of environments that players will encounter....

But, while individual brilliance often takes the centre stage, let us not forget that cricket is, after all, a team sport. An individual may lead his side to a win or two but, for a team to conquer territory after territory it is the collective effort that becomes the need. A great team is often the one with just the right combination of individuals who can complement one another. Having said that, the history of cricket doesn’t boast of a sizeable number of great teams which went on to establish their reign over the cricketing world for many years....

Here is my “halftime report” as to where the race stands and what each candidate should do to win, as the campaigns enter their final phase after the conventions. I’ll start with an understatement: This race has been greatly impacted by the Chinese coronavirus and the killing of George Floyd. These unique overlapping, and now integrating sets of circumstances (not to mention living in the wake of the Mueller investigation and impeachment) make this election unlike any other in American history....

Asia’s forests are being destroyed at a staggering rate, and the finger of blame is now pointing at China. Over the past three decades, Japan’s hunger for timber helped destroy the rain forests of the Philippines and Borneo. Ecologists now fear China will chop down the rest, thanks in part to a cruel irony. In 1998, after the People’s Republic was hit by devastating floods caused by deforestation, Beijing banned logging along the upper reaches of the Yangtze and Yellow rivers–and called for a drastic reduction in other provinces....

The game has not yet been officially announced yet, and with E3 2011 passed by and Comic-Con 2011 coming up, Activision might make the move to announce the game a midst hundreds of thousands of nerds and gamers this weekend. Take a look at the gallery below to get an idea of what a truly next-gen GoldenEye can look like. [gallery order=“DESC” columns=“2” orderby=“title” exclude=“96414”] Updated graphics and multiplayer through Xbox LIVE and PSN should be more than enough reason for people to want to at least investigate GoldenEye whenever it comes out....

We’ve had the opportunity to study poverty deeply. Rep. Lee has chaired the Congressional Task Force on Poverty and Opportunity since 2013. Rep. Jayapal chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Both of us worked closely with the Poor People’s Campaign to produce a “People’s Agenda” for pandemic recovery. Even before the pandemic, more than two in five people in this country were poor or low-income, just $400 or less away from financial ruin....

But it was a better-known Bay Area baseball player who made headlines upon A-Rod’s milestone: Barry Bonds. MORE: Padres walk off with grand slam | Tanaka to return | Astros want Cueto? With his 1,996th RBI, Rodriguez tied Bonds for second on the official RBI list. The same Bonds rooting for Rodriguez to surpass fellow Giants superstar and godfather Willie Mays on the career home run leaderboard. The same Bonds who, yes, like Rodriguez, has an unofficial asterisk next to his stats because of suspicions of performance-enhancing drug use....

The project kicked off on February 1, when Penguin invited users across the world to help write a new novel. Each visitor was given the power to begin adding to Jane Eyre’s opening line (“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day,”) and a few initial paragraphs. Starting with grad students from Leicester’s De Montfort University, a surge of traffic soon flooded into the “Million” Web site. Legions of bookish visitors quickly sent the company scrambling in search of new servers and shattered the novel’s narrative into countless bits....