JASHPUR, Chhattisgarh — The residents of a village in Chhattisgarh’s tribal-dominated Jashpur district have decided to boycott Lok Sabha polls in protest against what they claimed was lack of road and water facilities there.

Residents of Darupisa village in Dokda panchayat have put up a banner declaring their intent to skip polls scheduled in their area on April 23.

The village is part of the Kunkuri assembly segment and Raigarh (ST) Lok Sabha seat.

“Public representatives have never paid heed to our long pending demands for a connecting road and water facilities. Due to this apathy, we don’t have access to education and health facilities,” said village head Alex Toppo.

While politicians, campaigning for last year’s Assembly polls, had promised to look into their demands, they forgot about it once the elections were over, Toppo alleged.

“Tired of hollow promises, the villagers have decided to boycott Lok Sabha polls,” he said.

A banner displayed outside the village takes a dig at politicians and public representatives by proclaiming “As no development works have been done in our village, we have decided to boycott election. We as villagers are embarrassed that we could not make a road for politicians. Meet us in next election”.

Kunkuri Congress MLA UD Minj said the village will get basic facilities after the Lok Sabha polls are over, citing the model code of conduct in place since March 10.

“We will talk to villagers. Since the model code of conduct is in place, the issue of road and drinking water will be addressed after Lok Sabha polls are over,” Minj claimed.

MUMBAI — Actor-turned-politician Urmila Matondkar on Monday approached police for protection after a clash between Congress and BJP supporters during her poll campaign in north Mumbai.

The scuffle took place near Borivali station where Matondkar, Congress candidate from Mumbai North Lok Sabha constituency, was campaigning, police said.

The BJP workers chanted slogans outside the Borivali railway station, shouting ‘Modi, Modi’ as they confronted the Congress workers, an onlooker said.

BJP has fielded sitting MP Gopal Shetty from the constituency.

Matondkar told reporters that she lodged the police complaint for her safety after some BJP workers barged into her rally.

She said she was shocked by the “blatant violation” of model code of conduct by the workers of the ruling party and blamed the BJP for “creating fear”.

“This is just the beginning and may take a violent turn. I have asked for police protection as there is a threat to my life. I have filed a police complaint,” she said.

Matondkar said those who “barged” into the rally were not common people, but of the BJP. The common people will not behave in “violent ways” like these persons, she added.

“Those who confronted our rally indulged in vulgar dancing and used abusive language. May be they wanted to scare the women who were walking near us,” she said.

She said she was contemplating approaching the Election Commission on the issue.

“Shocked at the blatant violation of code of conduct and hostile acts by BJP workers.. I was constrained to lodge police complaint for my own safety and to save the dignity of my female supporters..,” Matondkar tweeted.

Mumbai goes to polls on April 29 in the fourth phase of the general election.

Matondkar, 45, joined the Congress last month. She said she was in it for the long-term and wanted to fight against the politics of hate.

To say series two of Fleabag has “grasped viewers” is like saying Godmother in the show is “not very nice” but in the wake of the finale, I’m struggling to find the words.

I write (and talk) about television a lot but never has a series – and one that consists of 30-minute instalments at that – dominated conversations on this level. Whether I’m chatting with work colleagues, friends or people I’ve met once down the pub, the question always comes up: “Are you watching Fleabag?”

I’ve had entire WhatsApp chats that consist solely of emojis, exclamation points and the word “priest”, all conducted while frantically pressing play on an episode I’ve already watched twice. Women have shared their miscarriage experiences after seeing Claire’s, “Hair is everything” has been shouted across dining tables and when, I ask you, has the word “kneel” ever sparked such passionate discussions?

Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s writing is magic and I’m not going to pretend for one second that I’ve worked out why and how this series hit so hard. But she somehow captured perfectly what it is to be a human – and more specifically, a woman – who fucks up a lot, fights with her family and has sex with increasingly inappropriate people.

Her characters all make mistakes and shout at each other, trading punches and then swapping them for punchlines (“I look like a pencil”). On a sliding scale of shittiness, Godmother and Martin sit somewhere near the bottom, while Claire and her Dad are arguably at the other end and Fleabag – whose betrayal of Boo still hangs over her – swerves between them, stolen statue often in hand.

From the moment when, in her first look to camera at the start of episode one, Fleabag says, “this is a love story”, the series has felt like a dare to be romantic. I (an unsentimental person, it is more than fair to say) found myself putting faith in the relationship between Fleabag and a PRIEST, that when you take a step back was so clearly going to fail.

Lines that I’d usually find cheesy in another show or film – “I can’t have sex with you because I’ll fall in love with you” – were weirdly beautiful. Going into the finale, I was willing this incredibly attractive priest, who might be harbouring an alcohol problem, to turn his back on a faith that seemed to have saved him. He could see she was breaking the fourth wall, for god’s sake! If that isn’t intimacy, then what is.

Maybe they could walk off into the sunset, without a church painting ominously clattering to the ground behind them? After all, Claire leaves Martin and runs off to chase her namesake to the airport – a simultaneous win for both womankind and romance.

When the finale opened with the Priest laying in bed next to Fleabag, it bolstered my faith in the romance and the way he glanced towards her as he delivered the wedding homily made me forget to listen to what he was actually saying. 

Fast forward to the end, when he then took a seat next to her at the bus stop, the same one we’d seen them sit at just one episode prior, it took just seconds for me to realise it was never going to work out. It’s obvious now that it wasn’t going to be but thanks to Phoebe’s writing, it really did seem possible.

The last minute of the series is testament to it as a whole; it’s devastating and devastatingly funny. The Priest’s last look and “I love you too” will break even the hardiest of viewers (aka me) but then there’s the fox  – a fox! – and Phoebe’s final quip: “He went that way.”

Then there were just a few things left. She pulled out the statue, smiled through tears and began to walk away. As if she could somehow hear our cries for more episodes, Fleabag then turned and gave a shake of her head, before a wave. Without moving her lips once, she said all we needed to know. Fleabag is definitely gone for good. But what a glorious two seasons it was.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday evening accused Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal of having done “yet another U turn” in the ongoing discussions between the two parties for a pre-poll electoral alliance for the seven seats in Delhi.

Putting the ball firmly in Kejriwal’s court, Gandhi tweeted: 

This is the first direct comment by Gandhi on Kejriwal after talks between the two parties resumed to explore the possibility of a pre-poll alliance.

Gandhi’s comments come a day after Kejriwal said at a press conference, following a meeting of opposition parties over concerns relating to the EVMs, that the “country is in danger. We will do anything to save it. Our effort to save the country from Narendra Modi and Amit Shah will continue.”

The AAP chief was quick to respond to Gandhi and tweeted, “What u-turn? Talks were still on. Your tweet shows that you don’t really wish to have an alliance, but are only pretending to want one. I am disappointed with your statement. Today, the need to save the country from Modi-Shah is of paramount importance. It is a misfortune that you are splitting the anti-Modi vote in other states and helping Modi ji.” 

While AAP wishes to ally with the Congress in some other states, including Haryana, apart from Delhi, the Grand Old Party has agreed for a pre-poll alliance only in the national capital. Following Gandhi’s tweet, the ball is now in AAP’s court.

Where are my dragons?! Look no further than “Game of Thrones” superfan Kristen Bell. 

We still don’t know who will come out on top when the final season of the HBO fantasy series comes to a close, but we’ll just go ahead and nominate “The Good Place” star to take the Iron Throne for this epic dragon costume.

Bell attended a premiere bash, complete with appropriately-themed snacks like “Hodoritos” and “Dragon’s Slop,” alongside husband Dax Shepard to celebrate the show’s Season 8 kickoff on Sunday night.

The actress committed and then some to her look, rocking a skin-tight dragon costume with a tail, wings and icy blue contacts. 

She completed the getup by attaching what looks like an action figure for the Night King on her back, leading many fans to believe she dressed up as the dragon Viserion, which was resurrected as an ice dragon in Season 7. 

Shepard also got into the spirit, seemingly dressing as Bran Stark ― he even channeled the character by pretending to have a vision ― while Bell’s “Veronica Mars” co-star Ryan Hansen gave his best Robb Stark. 

Bell and Shepard may just be the biggest “Game of Thrones” celebrity fans.

The two attended the Season 6 premiere back in 2016, sporting fake matching chest tattoos and tank tops that hilariously read “Stark in the streets, wilding in the sheets.” 

The die-hard duo also debuted their Dothraki best, portraying Khal Drogo and Khaleesi for Halloween back in 2013. 

But their “Game of Thrones” pièce de résistance was a music video they dropped ahead of the Season 7 premiere, showing the two dressed as various characters pretending to play along to the series’ theme song. 

“Words can not express our horniness for the Game Of Thrones Premiere,” Shepard captioned the video at the time. “Hopefully this video will.” 

Now, we definitely believe them. 

Well, his legs still work like they used to before, but Ed Sheeran’s “Game of Thrones” character apparently didn’t get away unscathed after his season 7 cameo.

During a scene featuring Bronn (Jerome Flynn) visiting a brothel in the “Game of Thrones” season 8 premiere, the various women he’s with discuss the Lannister soldiers who were attacked by Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) and Drogon in season 7.

“I hear the dragon burnt up a thousand Lannister men,” says one of the women.

Among the ones discussed is a redheaded soldier named “Eddie.” 

Woman 1: That boy Eddie...

Woman 2: The ginger?

Woman 1: That’s him. Came back with his face burnt right off. He’s got no eyelids now.

Woman 2: How does he sleep with no eyelids?

Yep. Apparently, his face crumbled like pastries after all.

[Cue: Sheeran singing “I See Fire.”]

We didn’t learn the name of Sheeran’s character or his companions when the English musician made a cameo as a Lannister soldier in the season 7 premiere. However, the brothel workers also mention a “tall” and “handsome” soldier named “William.” One of the actors who appeared in the scene with Sheeran was William Postlethwaite, so it seems like the banter is an inside joke about Sheeran’s divisive appearance, which — years later — still has disgruntled fans thinking out loud.

In the season 7 scene, Arya (Maisie Williams) happens upon some random Lannister soldiers on the road, including Sheeran, who is singing a song.

“It’s a new one,” he tells her.

“Game of Thrones” has featured cameos from musicians before, but perhaps no one has been as blatantly noticeable as Sheeran putting on a concert for Arya. (The singer was included in the HBO series as a surprise for Williams, who’s a fan.) Many, including former “Game of Thrones” star Kristian Nairn, complained that it took you right out of the show.

“I was like, ‘Why is Ed Sheeran here?’ I mean, Ed Sheeran’s great. He’s a great guy, great musician, but why is he in ‘Game of Thrones’?” Nairn told HuffPost in 2018.

The appearance inspired a relentless stream of jokes about the character, and Sheeran was rumored to have left Twitter because of the backlash, though he denied this in an Instagram post:

I came off Twitter Coz I was always intending to come off Twitter, had nothing to do with what people said about my game of thrones cameo, because I am in game of thrones, why the hell would I worry what people thought about that. It’s clearly fuckin’ awesome.

Following Dany’s dragon attack on the Lannisters in the season 7 episode “Spoils of War,” there were a lot of questions about whether Sheeran’s character survived. At the time, the director of that episode, Matt Shakman, told Mashable, “I don’t think literally those soldiers were there.”

Sheeran never seemed to have plans to reprise the role. He told MTV he was happy with the cameo, but he added: “No one wants to see me come back.” He thought his character probably wasn’t long for the world of Westeros:

I doubt I’m going to survive for that long, to be honest, when there are dragons in the world.

If the “Eddie” mentioned in the show is indeed Sheeran, it looks like he made it after all. HBO may have just given the cameo a cheeky burn of its own. 

Less than a year ago, I could scarcely remember what going on a first date felt like. It had been over a decade since I’d been on one. But I was about to find out. My husband and I had separated after eight years of marriage, which meant that suddenly, for the first time in my life as a parent, I had two free nights a week to do as I pleased.

At first, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I’d sit around, maybe go for a run, probably cry, then microwave a frozen burrito for dinner and spend the night watching Netflix. The sad burrito routine got old pretty quick, though. I started going out with friends and having fun instead. Before I knew it, I felt ready to put myself out there — out into whatever the modern dating world looked like for single moms.

All I knew was that it would involve apps and set-ups and divorced men. And that I might want to buy a new razor. Aside from that, I was clueless. I didn’t waste a lot of time imagining. For the first time in a long time, I felt ballsy. Intrigued. Excited. I wanted to embrace this new freedom. In fact, the freedom aspect felt like the only perk of going through a difficult separation. Truthfully, it was a pretty big perk. I’d felt lonely for most of my marriage. Though I still care about my ex-husband as a friend and co-parent, we weren’t a good match for the long haul. But I’d felt starved for love, sex, romance and maybe even a compatible partner. So, even though I didn’t know what I was looking for, I went looking anyway.

I got on Bumble and told friends to set me up. “I think my mortgage lender just got divorced?” My bestie was grasping at straws. I was only 33 at the time. I’d been the first one to get married and likewise the first one to call it quits. I found that I had to make dating a priority if I wanted to meet people, so that’s what I did. After all, I wanted to make connections and have new experiences. I said yes to blind dates, to set-ups and went to town swiping. When I started going on first dates, I was surprised by how quickly I became interested in some of the men I met. It was likely because I was at a point in my life where I was open to whatever kind of chemistry might come my way. It was chemistry I didn’t know if I would find at all, but there it was. 

I met a man I had an instant connection with. We had passion, and that felt like life being breathed back into my fireless soul. Without giving thought to how quickly it all had happened, I fell crazy in love. Practically as soon as we met, we started spending all our spare time together. It was like being lit up and finally being able to rest all at the same time. I was joyful and comforted and genuinely happy ― I couldn’t remember the last time I felt those things.

But being wrapped up in a new love wasn’t all fun like I imagined it would be, or how it had felt in a past life. Because, as a mother and an ex-wife, I felt like I was constantly bearing the weight of everyone else’s emotions while trying to manage my own. From whatever my kids were struggling with to how difficult it was for my ex-husband to know that I was in a serious relationship, I felt constantly torn and conflicted in ways I had never really experienced. At times, it was like playing tug of war with my old and new selves, trying to figure out how to balance love and practicality. 

Either way, before I knew it I was in deep. And even though I never would’ve imagined falling so hard, so fast, it had undeniably happened. I thought I’d be far less impulsive than I once was, 10 or 15 years ago. Now, here I was, a separated mother of two, acting like a teenager (and feeling like one!) when it came to being lost in my affection for someone new. I couldn’t slow it down, or maybe I just didn’t want to. Maybe that’s what happens when you’ve spent so long feeling more or less alone. When connection comes, operating from your head instead of your heart becomes a near impossible feat. I’d been in the safe cocoon of my marriage for so long, I didn’t even pause to think about the fact that I might get hurt.

I got hurt. That is not an accurate way to describe how I truly felt in the aftermath of my first post-marriage breakup. Even “pummeled, blown apart, gutted” fall short. Because the truth is, when we hit a hard place and ultimately broke up, I was beyond devastated. I cried so hard behind the closed door of my bedroom each time my kids went to sleep that I had to drag myself out of bed early and hold an ice-pack to my face each morning. Nothing about this loss felt familiar. And the shock of it all was very real, mostly because I thought I had been so prepared. I’d left my marriage and felt grounded and healthy after doing so, and that made me believe that I’d be ready for anything.

Post-marriage me was supposed to have known better. I wasn’t supposed to have let this happen. I was the mother to two children who needed me and, though I found ways to get through the days, I was guilt-ridden at being this weaker version of myself. I’d been through so many things since the last time I’d been out in the world dating. And I told myself that because of it, I should’ve been better, smarter, stronger.

I didn’t know how to feel grounded again. I didn’t even know where to plant my feet. I’d gone right from my marriage to a few months of casual dating to the person I thought was my next great love. I had had this amazing support system ― this person that I told everything to. Suddenly, while I hadn’t really known what I’d been missing for so long until it swooped into my life, now all I could do was miss it. Because it had made even the hard things feel easy. I hadn’t even remembered what it was like to feel so connected to someone. In a way, post-marriage love was almost like falling in love for the first time. Hard, fast and nearly impossible to let go of.

Never did I imagine that less than a year after my separation, I’d be struggling to heal from the worst heartbreak of my life. I’d been blindsided. I’d moved too quickly, fallen too hard and completely forgotten how to bounce back.

On my off-duty nights, when my kids were with their dad, I stayed on my couch. I didn’t know if I was healing or just feeling sorry for myself. But either way, I needed time to get to know who I was in the walk of life and what I needed from another person. I needed time alone, and I certainly took it. But when it came to dating, I realized I would likely need more trial and error. More love and loss. And all of that meant eventually making myself vulnerable again. I didn’t know if I had it in me. My post-marriage dating experience had been amazing at first, yes. But then it had been brutal. The irony is that I couldn’t have fallen in love without my vulnerability, but my vulnerability was the thing that left me shattered. Somehow, I had found that bravery once, though. Deep down, I knew it was still there. After a few months of grieving that first heartbreak, I decided to get brave again.

While before I had been so hopeful, overly hopeful perhaps, now I understood why other single moms around me didn’t date at all: It was all so emotional. It wasn’t just fun and games like I thought when I first excitedly ventured out on my first dates. It required time and energy and getting your hopes up. And not only that, if you did develop a relationship, that meant you could wind up wounded ― every bit as wounded (if not more) as you were when you were young and naive because love, as they say, is blind. That doesn’t really change after a marriage. In fact, if you’re feeling things you haven’t felt in eons, it might even be truer now. And then, if things crumble, you still have to get up every day and be a parent. There just isn’t as much time to cater to yourself, to cry, to vent to friends, to mend your broken heart.

It would’ve been easy to settle back into my sad-burrito and Netflix routine for good. But I wasn’t ready to resign myself to that completely. The truth was, I was still hopeful. On my first few dates back, I started to take notice of little things about myself. I noticed what made dates comfortable or uncomfortable. I saw my habits and ingrained patterns more clearly. This time, I didn’t just feel like I was meeting someone new and getting to know them. I also felt like I was becoming an expert on myself, on learning who I was now and what that meant for me in terms of building new relationships, too. That felt like a huge awakening ― that dating could be about more than just meeting someone I liked, or could even love, but also about learning so much about myself. 

When those good connections came again, and they did come, I let them. But I also made efforts to stay planted in my own life. I kept seeing my friends and made dating just something to do on the side. I wasn’t ready to fall in love again anyway, so I intentionally kept my feet on the ground. I found that I was learning to do that slow dance of staying vulnerable without letting go of myself completely that I’d never quite learned before. None of it meant that I wouldn’t ever get hurt again. I knew I might. But the further I got from marriage and the heartbreak that followed it, the more I understood that I was already happy to stand on my own two feet. Knowing I was truly fine on my own meant that anyone who came along would be just a bonus.

In the end, I realized that dating, post-marriage, could be more amazing than I hoped and more painful than I imagined. And that it doesn’t always get magically better with age, like you might expect. It takes work, it takes knowing yourself, it takes patience and readiness, and maybe a few earth-shattering breakups. The funny thing is that, even after the most jarring heartbreak of my life, I didn’t want to give up. Maybe that resilience is the blessing that comes with dating after a marriage, with loving and losing. Because I have been utterly broken, yet I am still so full of hope at what might be out there for me. Now I know that after you crumble, it’s a perfect time to rebuild yourself ― better, stronger, smarter, after all. I am all three, and growing all the time.

NEW DELHI — Technology was on India’s side in the Balakot air strikes, Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa said on Monday, asserting that the results would have been further tilted in the country’s favour if Rafale jets were inducted in time.

The Indian Air Force chief was addressing a gathering at a seminar on aerospace power of the future and the impact of technology.

“In the Balakot operation, we had technology on our side, and we could launch precision stand of weapons with great accuracy. In the subsequent engagements, we came out better because we upgraded our MiG-21s, Bisons, and Mirage-2000 aircraft,” he said.

“The results would have been further skewed in our favour had we inducted the Rafale aircraft in time,” Dhanoa said.

The Air Force struck a Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist training camp in Pakistan’s Balakot area on February 26, in response to the February 14 Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed.

The Pakistan Air Force retaliated the next day by unsuccessfully targeting various military installations in Jammu and Kashmir.

Dhanoa said in his speech, “In the proposed induction of the Rafale and S-400 surface-to-air missile system, in the next two-four years, once again the technological balance will shift in our favour, like it was in 2002 during Operation Parakaram during the last stand-off.”

India inked an inter-governmental agreement with France in September 2016 for the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore. The delivery of the jets — capable of carrying a range of potent weapons and missiles — is scheduled to begin from September.

In October last year, India and Russia signed a multibillion dollar deal for S-400 ‘Triumf’ long-range air defence missile systems. It has the capability to destroy incoming hostile aircraft, missiles and even drones at ranges of up to 400 km.

The seminar on ‘Aerospace power in the 2040s: Impact of Technology’ was held at Subroto Park to mark the birth centenary of the late Marshal of the IAF Arjan Singh.

The event was hosted by the IAF along with the Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS), an autonomous defence research and analysis body.

“Among all arms of the military, technology affects us the most.. land forces mainly fight with men, naval and air force officers operate machines and in the Air Force this technology has to be packed in smaller machines and subject to extreme temperature and pressure conditions,” the IAF chief said.

And, air power is more sensitive to technological change, he said.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last week complimented the IAF for its “flawless execution” of the February 26 Balakot operation and subsequent thwarting of the Pakistani response while addressing top IAF commanders.

At the event on April 11, Dhanoa emphasised on further enhancing the IAF’s capability in the field of space, cyber, artificial intelligence and drone technology to further boost its overall combat capability.

Various IAF veterans, at the seminar paid tribute to Singh, who led the Indian Air Force during the 1965 India-Pakistan war, died in September 2017 at the age of 98.

An icon in the country’s military history, Singh led a fledgling IAF in the 1965 Indo-Pak war when he was just 44 years old.

Born on April 15, 1919, in Lyallpur in Punjab in undivided India, his father, grandfather and great grandfather had served in the cavalry.

“This event is a fitting tribute to IAF Marshal Arjan Singh,” Dhanoa said.

With all of the fanfare surrounding Netflix’s new additions including Queer Eye and Our Planet, you’d be forgiven if you missed them quietly adding a new comedy series, titled Special.

However, after watching all eight episodes in the space of one afternoon, we’re here to tell you that it is a must-watch.

Written and starring memoirist Ryan O’Connell as a young gay man living with cerebral palsy, the show sees his character attempting to take the reins of his life, and dealing with the way he’s viewed by those around him.

It’s moving, it’s funny, and it’s generally really, really lovely. Here’s why you need to tune in immediately...

1. More diversity is always a good thing

Since it made the shift to creating original content, Netflix has repeatedly won praise for its diverse approach to storytelling.

While the streaming service is obviously not perfect (putting an abrupt end to shows like Sense8 and One Day At A Time while forking out to hold onto a 20-year-old sitcom about six straight white folks, for example), there’s no denying that Special is a great example of Netflix giving a platform to a voice that we wouldn’t usually get to hear in mainstream television.

Not only is Special about a young man navigating the world with cerebral palsy, the story also sees him searching for his place within the gay community as somebody with a disability.

2. Special doesn’t sugar coat anything

Some of the humour in Special might verge on cheesy at times, but the show itself doesn’t shy away from getting real about issues relating to having a disability and being a minority within the LGBTQ+ community.

We won’t spoil anything for you by getting into the specifics, but certain scenes reveal just how reliant on his mother Ryan has become at 27 years old, and how this has affected their relationship.

Away from Ryan, the show also explores how having a son with a disability has affected his mum’s life, while his friend Kim gives us all a reminder that the smiles and gloss we see on someone’s Instagram Stories and blog posts doesn’t always give us a true indication as to what’s going on in their lives. 

3. The show has a refreshing attitude to sex

When it comes to mainstream shows with LGBTQ+ characters, realistic sex scenes are few and far between (the last time we remember being particularly impressed with a gay sex scene was the Australian show Please Like Me, a full four years ago).

Much has been made of a sex scene involving Ryan in the show’s third episode, and there’s a reason for that – it’s really, really good, and will hit home for a lot of gay people, in a way that other shows who have attempted to portray same-sex relationships on screen have not.

Not only is the realism refreshing – how often do we actually get to see someone retrieving a bottle of lube on screen? – the moment tackles the act of having sex with a disability brilliantly, and also takes a no-shame approach to sex work, again rarely done on mainstream shows.

Plus, we’re always happy to see Brian Alvarez (best known for his fast-paced and hilarious web series The Gay And Wondrous Life Of Caleb Gallo), who brings his usual charisma to his Special character.

4. There’s a very relatable family storyline 

Yes, Special is a show about disability with a gay character at its centre, but the real heart of the show is the relationship between Ryan and his mother, Karen.

When we first meet the mother-and-son duo, they’re still living together, and spending pretty much all of their free time together too, so when Ryan decides he wants to venture out into the world on his own, gain some independence and reinvent his life, there are obvious repercussions for his mother, who we very quickly see developing empty nest syndrome.

Scenes between Ryan and Karen can flick very quickly between touching and upbeat to strained, heartbreaking and even deeply uncomfortable in the space of an episode, and even if you don’t necessarily identify with the central themes of Special, these are the moments that almost everyone will recognise to some degree.

5. The impressive cast

Ryan O’Connell wrote the book on having mild cerebral palsy and being gay (literally, the show is based on his memoir I’m Special: And Other Lies We Tell Ourselves), so he brings a lot to his namesake character.

Jessica Hecht also brings a lot of heart to her portrayal of Ryan’s mother, Karen, in a way we never got to see her act in her best-known role as Susan, the misunderstood wife of Ross’ ex in Friends.

Elsewhere, we have a lot of love for Punam Patel, who plays the effervescent Kim (and who we previously caught in a brief role in the aforementioned web show Gay And Wondrous Life Of Caleb Gallo), while Breaking Bad’s Patrick Fabian takes on a new romantic role.

And if you’re anything like us, you’ll spend every moment Augustus Prew is on screen trying to work out where you know him from, so we’ll save you a job and tell you he was Rachel Weisz’s son Ali in About A Boy.

6. Although one character in particular totally steals the show for us

Actress Marla Mindelle is a new one to us, but she’s someone we’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for in the future.

In Special, she plays Ryan’s ludicrous boss Olivia, the head of a website aimed at socially-conscious millennials called Eggwoke, who urges her staff to expose their souls in article form to generate clicks and headlines. She’s also a complete scene-stealer, thanks to her Karen Walker-esque lack of awareness about her staff’s feelings, outrageous one-liners (including allusions to her dubious relationship with her cousin) and all-round selfishness.

We promise you, Special is worth watching for her alone. 

7. The fashion

A quirky comedy primarily focussing on gay men in West Hollywood, we’re glad to see that Special delivers on the fashion front.

While we get to see leading character Ryan’s personal style develop as his confidence grows across the eight episodes, Punam Patel has plenty of brilliant fashion moments as the high-flying social media influencer Kim.

Even Ryan’s mum Karen gets her own makeover scene, when she discovers the confidence something as simple as a new dress can bring her.

8. The run time 

Oh and the best bit? While Netflix has been accused of dragging things out too much in some of their best-known shows (hence the phrase “the Netflix bloat” which critics have been prone to using in recent years), there’s none of that with Special.

Each episode clocks in at an average of just 15 minutes, making it perfect for the commute, and if you’ve got a spare two hours, you can fly through the whole thing. Ideal!

But we have to warn you, the show doesn’t have the happy ending you think it’s going to (potential spoilers ahead)

Special really comes into its own after the third or fourth episode, so we found ourselves blowing through the entire series in the space of an afternoon. What we weren’t anticipating, though, was what a downer the last episode would end up being.

We won’t go into too much detail, but for a show that is predominantly fun, its final moments were jarringly dark, to the point we’re already craving a second series as a palate cleanser.

Special is now available to stream on Netflix.

BENGALURU — Despite talk of ‘Digital India’, the country is steadily creeping into a heavily censored Internet that bears no small resemblance to the Great Chinese Firewall. It’s no less effective for being done in a thoughtless, piecemeal manner where dozens of agencies vie to block off parts of the Internet.

The Madras High Court ordered a ban on TikTok at the start of April, directing the central government to prohibit the download of the app. It said that the app hosts inappropriate content, including pornography, available for access to children.

It’s not wrong, but this order doesn’t seem to acknowledge the whole vast Internet out there. Why TikTok, specifically, has been called out for these elements is not addressed. The government will also have to order Google to prevent downloads—which has not been done so far as the app remains available.

“By becoming addicted to TikTok App, and similar apps, or cyber games, the future of the youngsters and mindset of the children are spoiled,” the court said in its interim order.

“Majority of the teens are playing pranks, gaffing around with duet videos and sharing with split screen to the strangers. The children who use the said application are vulnerable and may expose them to sexual predators,” the court observed.

India has a long history of Internet bans

This is just the most recent development though. According to reports, PUBG Mobile has around 50 million players in India and in just the last few months, it has seen bans in multiple Indian cities because authorities fear it will promote violence, or distract children from their studies, and 10 people in Gujarat have been arrested for playing a game on their phones.

There’s also the now long-running ‘porn’ ban, blocked by court orders to protect children. “The porn ban has just been silly because anyone can just use proxies or VPN to get around the ban entirely,” said Saravanan K, a security consultant based in Bengaluru. “It’s very low tech, and if you Google ‘how to unblock porn India’, there are literally hundreds of Indian news sites falling over themselves to teach people to do this.”

But a number of other innocuous websites are also getting banned, with little or no explanation. Reddit and Telegram are some of the sites that have been getting blocked for some months now. The blocks appear arbitrary, with some ISPs carrying them out but not all; and there is no explanation given on the reason for blocks.

There have also been numerous cases that saw blanket-bans on websites for short periods, on the suspicion of film piracy, where movie producers have asked courts to take out orders against unidentified entities, colloquially called John Doe orders, to prevent a crime (film piracy, in these cases) - to shut down sites that might allow their films to be downloaded.

“It’s not making any sense, what’s happening,” Apar Gupta, executive director at the non-profit Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) said in an earlier interview. “A lot of these blocks are also happening in such a way that no notices are displayed.”

The UPA government had been hugely criticised when it blocked 254 URLs in the name of security. It was very rightfully criticised for this sweeping order. The latest porn ban blocked over 857 sites but not enough has been said about it.

A matter of free speech

TikTok has countered by stating to the Supreme Court that a ban will hurt free speech. A ban “amounts to curtailing of the rights of the citizens of India...who have been using the platform everyday to express themselves and create content,” the company said in a court filing.

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to stay the order passed by the Madurai bench of the Madras High court over the ban of TikTok. 

Speaking to HuffPost India, the company also said: “At TikTok, we are committed to abiding by local laws and regulations. We fully comply with the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011.”

“Maintaining a safe and positive in-app environment at TikTok is our priority. We have robust measures to protect users against misuse, protect their privacy and digital wellbeing. This includes easy reporting mechanisms that enable users and law enforcement to report content that violates our terms of use and comprehensive Community Guidelines. In order to better coordinate with law enforcement agencies, we have appointed a Chief Nodal Officer based out of India.”

The problem is that the bans aren’t happening at random. There are usually good reasons for people to worry about what their kids are doing online, and it leads to decisions like these. The catch is that each decision adds up, and we’re building a firewall around the Internet by patchwork as surely as if it were by intent.

Platforms need to do more

In the case of TikTok, a detailed BBC investigation last week found that hundreds of sexually explicit comments have been found on videos posted by children as young as nine. Not surprisingly, this is fueling fears among parents as well.

While TikTok deleted the majority of explicit comments directed at children when they were reported, most users who posted them were able to remain on the platform, despite TikTok’s rules against sexual messages directed at children, the BBC reported.

Responding to the BBC, TikTok tried to deflect the issue, and said that child protection is an “industry-wide challenge.”

Parents in India too talk about such fears. “The other day a bunch of my friends had come over with their kids,” said Shalini Verma, a media professional in Bengaluru. “So there were a bunch of girls around the same age as my daughter who is 13. We grown-ups were all talking in the drawing room, and the kids were all playing in her bedroom.”

“I went in to see how they were getting along, and they were all playing with TikTok, singing songs,” she said. “It was very cute, they were all having fun. But then later, I was thinking, who actually gets to see these clips? At least with Facebook, the rule is that she had to add me as a friend, so I can check her friend list. Here, I don’t know what’s going on, and it’s scary.”

The Internet Freedom Foundation in India agreed that the privacy of children merits urgent attention, but felt that the interim order of the Madras HC might be an overreach on the Fundamental Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression.

“It [TikTok] is a social networking application that is aimed towards video creation and sharing. The average length of videos ranges from 10-60 seconds,” said the IFF. “While such a format has been socially critiqued for a range of impacts, the Hon’ble High Court of Madras has passed three harsh directions which merit to be contested.”

“The first direction prohibits the download of the application, the second prohibits the television telecast of videos created through it and the third directs a response from the Union Government on it’s position to legislate a statute analogous to the Children Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).”

The way it’s been done is bad

“We have filed a PIL before the Gujarat High Court challenging the PUBG Ban and the subsequent arrests as violative of Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution,” said the IFF.

“While we are thankful for the public statement by the Ahmedabad police that the ban will not be renewed, there is nothing stopping it legally from happening. What is worse are the legal prosecutions that have resulted from it.”

“While the PUBG ban may seem absurd and amusing at first glance, it is no laughing matter. Out of the twenty one people arrested, at least thirteen were young college students,” the IFF said. “For a young student who is worried about his family’s reaction and future career prospects, being arrested by the police can be a deeply traumatic experience. To us the PUBG Ban is fuelled by moral panic and the harms from video games require scientific study and then non-legal methods of engagement.”

Without transparency about whose orders the blocks are coming on, or what laws are being used for the blocks, we are left in a situation where anything could easily be banned. Right now, the fight is over pornography, which people will not want to stand up for, and gaming, which isn’t taken very seriously in India.

Last year, Corey Price, vice-president Pornhub — one of the biggest websites in the world, pornographic or otherwise — told HuffPost India that it wanted to work with the government to solve the issue of access by children.

“Similar bans have been enforced in other countries, such as Russia, where a solution was found to allow Pornhub to keep operating. We plan to handle this ban in India in the same manner, working closely with the government,” said Price.

So far, there’s been no visible progress, even as people on different online forums have complained that more and more workarounds are being taken down.

Tomorrow, a court might decide that soap operas have a deleterious effect on the mind — and while a lot of people may agree with that view, bans like these are not the solution. Technology might be able to answer at least the question of who is accessing what material.

“It is very concerning just how easy it is for someone to lie about their age or who they are online - it makes it very easy for people with malicious intent to groom young people online, and puts children and young people at great risk of seeing explicit content,” said Shantanram Jonnalagadda, Country Head India, Yoti, a digital identity platform. “We believe technology should protect society. Children should be shielded from stumbling across and accessing age-restricted content, and adults should have their privacy and identity protected when proving their age.”

“It is becoming increasingly apparent that online platforms need to ensure their content can only be accessed by individuals of the appropriate age. The technology now exists to let individuals securely prove their age online. Using digital identity technology, individuals can share specific details - for example just their verified age, date of birth, or even an ‘over 18’ attribute. This ensures only those of the appropriate age can access the platform and its content, whilst protecting their privacy and personal information.”

As flames continued to ravage Notre Dame cathedral, Parisians gathered in the shadows of the burning building to sing ‘Ave Maria’ in a sombre show of solidarity.

A video showing crowds kneeling and paying poignant tribute was shared as local officials warned the world-famous landmark could be destroyed by the blaze.

The short clip, shared by a correspondent for the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, has already been viewed more than two million times.

Earlier, people across the world watched in shock on television and social media as the spire of the cathedral toppled.

Photos and videos on social media showed the roof of the 850-year-old Gothic building covered in flames, sending a huge plume of smoke across the city’s skyline.

The heartbreaking moment when the spire collapsed was captured on video as onlookers gasped from down below. 

Officials said the blaze may be linked to renovation work at the 850-year-old building, with pictures showing the scaffolding around the cathedral alight.

On Monday night, firefighters were battling to prevent one of the main bell towers from also collapsing.

Flames that began in the early evening burst rapidly through the roof of the centuries-old cathedral and engulfed the spire, which toppled, quickly followed by the entire roof.

Authorities responded to a massive fire at Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral on Monday that spread rapidly through the historic monument, toppling its spire and appearing to spread inside one of its two towers.

Firefighters responded to the scene around 7 p.m. local time on Monday, HuffPost France reported.

While authorities feared in the fire’s early hours that the entire historic monument could be destroyed, city officials confirmed around 11 p.m. local time that the main structure was “saved and preserved.” By early Tuesday morning, Paris police confirmed to CNN that the fire was under control. 

“The next hours will be difficult,” France’s President Emmanuel Macron said earlier in an address to the crowd gathered outside the cathedral. “But thanks to [the firefighters’] courage, the facade has not been damaged.”

He added that there will be a national effort toward making the repairs.

“We will rebuild Notre Dame, because it’s what the French people expect,” he said. “It’s what our history deserves. It’s our profound destiny.”

The gravity of the fire is still to be determined, but firefighters said the blaze began in the cathedral’s attic. About two-thirds of the building’s roof was destroyed.

The fire is “potentially linked” to renovation work in the building, firefighters told Agence France-Presse.

One firefighter was seriously injured, Paris Fire Brigade commander general Jean-Claude Gallet said. No other injuries or deaths have been reported.

Several online videos captured the monument’s towering spire collapsing as onlookers gasped from down below. Later videos at the scene captured firefighters shooting water into one of the cathedral’s two front towers where flames appeared to be glowing inside.

As the religious monument burned into the night, Pierre Tremblay, a reporter with HuffPost France in Paris, described watching ashes fall from the sky over hundreds of people as they cried in silence.

“The atmosphere was the same as after a terror attack. A lot of tourists but more Parisians than usual in this neighborhood,” he said.

One video posted on Twitter showed a group of people somberly singing as flames lit up the sky in the distance.

Earlier, when the fire’s reach was still uncertain, a spokesperson for the cathedral expressed concern that the destruction would be beyond repair.

“Everything is burning. The framework, which dates from the 19th century on one side and the 13th century on the other, there will be nothing left,” the spokesman André Finot told Le Monde. “We have to see if the vault, which protects the cathedral, will be affected or not.”

Laurent Nuñez, secretary of state of the interior, told AFP at the time that it was “not a given” that they would be able to save Notre Dame.

“The firefighters are battling this fire with 18 fire hoses, from the outside and also the inside, to try to save this building, which at this time is not a given,” he said.

According to Le Monde, first deputy to the mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said on local station BFM TV that they have begun working “to try to save all the works of art that can be [saved.]” 

Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, said officials had saved several prominent artifacts from the cathedral’s collection that had been safeguarded for centuries. Hidalgo noted that the Crown of Thorns, a religious item referred to as Notre Dame’s “most revered object,” was rescued alongside the Tunic of Saint Louis and other treasures.

“Thanks to the @PompiersParis, the police and the municipal agents,” Hidalgo wrote, according to a translation of her tweet. “The Crown of Thorns, the Tunic of Saint Louis and several other major works are now in a safe place.”

Macron postponed a major speech Monday evening due to the incident and arrived at the site in person. In a Twitter message, he said he shared the country’s emotions amid the flames.

“Like all our compatriots, I am sad tonight to see this part of us burning,” he stated.

Construction on the medieval Catholic cathedral, famous for its French Gothic architecture, began in 1163, making parts of it 856 years old, according to Notre Dame’s website.

The cathedral faced substantial damage and plunder during the French Revolution in the 1790s. In the 1800s, it underwent a 25-year restoration that recreated the original glass and sculptures and added a reconstruction of the original spire. That spire collapsed Monday.

In the 1900s, the cathedral again went through several rounds of restoration, including after World War II, to replace medieval glass damaged by bullets. 

Approximately 13 million visitors per year visit the monument, which does not charge admission. Financial efforts to restore and preserve the church have been underway for some time amid concerns that it is eroding and crumbling.

Such restoration efforts led to last week’s removal of several copper statues representing the 12 apostles and four evangelists from the church’s spire. The statues were being sent to southwest France as part of a $6.8 million renovation project, The Associated Press reported.

Michel Picaud, president of the group Friends of Notre-Dame, which was behind philanthropic efforts to finance part of the renovations, told Le Monde that renovations on the church were expected to last about a decade and would be financed largely by the state for 150 million euros, or approximately $170 million.

“Our program of fundraising had 10 million euros in donations, of which 3.8 million were dedicated at the end of 2018 to renovate the spire. The whole world gives for Notre Dame, notably the Americans, who give practically as much as the French,” Picaud said.

In addition to the spire collapsing, the cathedral’s belfry, where the bells are housed, has been damaged. The condition of the bells was not immediately known, he said. 

“Some works of art were able to be evacuated, but we’ll have to start everything over again, and that’s heartbreaking,” Picaud said. “We’re fighting to restore this magnificence, and all of our efforts were just destroyed in a few hours.”

Gallet, the commander general of the Paris Fire Brigade, expressed particular concern about the cathedral’s massive bells to reporters at the scene.

“If the bell falls, it’s the tower that collapses. There are firefighters inside and outside. The next hour and a half will be crucial,” he said, according to CNN.

Audrey Azoulay, director general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which designated the cathedral a World Heritage Site in 1991, said her organization is standing by to aid France amid the historical tragedy.

“UNESCO is closely monitoring the situation and is standing by France’s side to safeguard and restore this invaluable heritage,” she tweeted.

U.S. President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and first lady Melania Trump were among those expressing condolences on Twitter.

Additional reporting by Marina Fang.

This article has been updated with a report from Paris’ mayor about treasures that were rescued from the cathedral.

The staff of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, on Monday received a special citation from the committee awarding the Pulitzer Prizes, one of journalism’s highest honors, for its coverage of last year’s mass shooting in their newsroom, which killed five of their colleagues. 

The award honors the reporters’ “unflagging commitment to covering the news and serving their community at a time of unspeakable grief,” and the newsroom will receive $100,000 “to further the newspaper’s journalistic mission.”

Several other news outlets also won awards for their coverage of mass shootings in their communities. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel won the award for Public Service, in honor of its coverage exposing bureaucratic failings before and after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, last year.

“Feeling overwhelmed & grateful. But also sad that we won the greatest journalism award — the Pulitzer — because of a tragedy that never should happened,” Sun-Sentinel reporter Scott Travis tweeted Monday.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette won the breaking news award for its coverage of the October shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue, which “captured the anguish and resilience of a community thrust into grief,” the committee said in its citation.

And the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School’s student newspaper, the Eagle Eye, received a shoutout during Monday’s awards announcement.

Other awards included prizes for The New York Times team investigating President Donald Trump’s questionable business practices and tax evasion; and The Wall Street Journal’s reporting on Trump authorizing his former lawyer Michael Cohen to violate campaign finance laws by paying off Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, who alleged extramarital affairs with the then-presidential candidate, the subject of several federal investigations.

In the international reporting category, the committee honored the Associated Press reporters investigating Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s vicious war on drugs and extrajudicial killings.

They shared the prize with international reporters at Reuters, including Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who have been imprisoned for their coverage of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

The late singer Aretha Franklin also received a special citation “for her indelible contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades.”

The Pulitzer Board announced Monday that it was honoring Aretha Franklin with a posthumous award, commemorating the Queen of Soul in the category of “special citations.”

At an announcement ceremony at Columbia University, Pulitzer Prize administrator Dana Canedy specifically highlighted Franklin “for her indelible contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades.”

The Pulitzer Prize is yet another feather in Franklin’s cap. In 2005, President George W. Bush awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. She also won 18 Grammys. 

Rolling Stone said Franklin had “America’s greatest voice” following her death in August 2018, and wrote about her ability to reach people.  

“This woman ain’t entertainment,” Luther Vandross, Franklin’s friend and producer, said in 1982, according to the publication. “She’s done opened the books to my life and told everybody. Like Roberta Flack used to say in ‘Killing Me Softly,’ ‘I thought he found my letters and read them all out loud.’ She was the spokesperson for a lot of people and how they feel.”

The Pulitzer Board awarded this year’s prize in music to Ellen Reid for her “bold new operatic work” called “p r i s m.”

Last year, the board awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music to Kendrick Lamar for his album “Damn”; the rapper was the first nonclassical or jazz artist to win the award.

People across the world watched in shock on television and social media as the spire of Paris’s world famous Notre Dame cathedral toppled amid a massive fire.

Officials said the blaze may be linked to renovation work at the 850-year-old building, with pictures showing the scaffolding around the cathedral alight.

Hundreds of people on bridges around Notre Dame gathered to witness as fire engulfed the famed cathedral.

Photos and videos on social media showed the roof of the 850-year-old Gothic building covered in flames, sending a huge plume of smoke across the city’s skyline.

The heartbreaking moment when the spire collapsed was captured on social media as onlookers gasped from down below.

Labour MP Yvette Cooper said she is in Paris and saw the spire of Notre Dame fall, but “can’t bear to watch any more”.

“Have just come away from the bank of the Seine after the spire fell as I can’t bear to watch any more,” she tweeted.

“Fearful for anyone close to the flames, and aghast that centuries of history & beauty could disappear into smoke so fast.”

The Paris fire brigade can be seen in videos dousing the blaze with water.

A church spokesman said all of the cathedral’s frame is burning after the spire collapsed.

The emergency services are trying to salvage the priceless artworks stored in the cathedral.

US President Donald Trump suggested on Twitter that the fire should be put out with “flying water tankers”.

“So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris,” he wrote.

“Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!”

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo described it as a “terrible fire” and urged people at the scene to stay safe.

French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted: “Our Lady of Paris in flames. Emotion of a whole nation. Thought for all Catholics and for all French. Like all our countrymen, I’m sad tonight to see this part of us burn.”

Ashley Huntington, 21, an American university student studying in Paris, said: “Our class ran what was supposed to be 30 minutes walking but we probably got here in 20 running.

“You could just get close and see the smoke. The smoke is everywhere in the sky. It seems like more pieces of the scaffolding are currently falling.”

She added: “It just looks like it’s out of control. I’ve never seen a fire in real life but the flames keep getting bigger and bigger. I don’t think it’s getting better at all.

“The police right now are definitely making sure the public is cleared away. We keep getting pushed further and further away.”

“A Song of Ice and Fire” author George R.R. Martin is known for making characters that aren’t wholly good or wholly evil, but seven seasons into “Game of Thrones,” one of the only things we know about the White Walkers is they want death, death and more death.

Would it kill a White Walker to just stop and ask the director, “What’s my motivation here?” and report back?

Though the White Walkers’ intentions have been shrouded in mystery since the start of the series, one of the clues to their overall motivation thus far has been their symbols left around Westeros like calling cards since the Season 1 premiere.

The symbols showed up again in the first episode of Season 8.

Beric Dondarrion (Richard Dormer), Tormund Giantsbane (Kristofer Hivju), Dolorous Edd (Ben Crompton) and various others stumble upon the symbol at Last Hearth, the seat of House Umber in the North. It’s a spiral made of limbs, with the young lord of House Umber, Ned Umber (Harry Grasby), pinned to the wall in the middle. (Poor kid just wanted wagons for his people to help join the fight and now he’s part of a White Walker art installation.)

“It’s a message from the Night King,” says Beric.

The boy then springs to life, scaring the living heck out of anyone not keen on horror movies.

“It was scary, wasn’t it?” Richard Dormer said to HuffPost after the premiere in New York City earlier this month. “It was exactly like it was on-screen. The sets they make are incredible.”

According to Dormer, the symbol on the wall was a surprise to him, too.

“Coming down the stairs, David Nutter, who directed it, wouldn’t let us see what’s on the wall ... I was holding up the torch and was literally lighting that, going, ‘What are we looking at?’ And it’s only through the flames we started to see there were limbs and a pattern. We went, ‘Oh, my God.’ So he caught that [on film].”

“It was very eerie and very strange, especially seeing a little boy pinned up on the wall,” he added.

The pinned-up Umber boy seems to be a callback to the pilot, when a brother of the Night’s Watch came across a dead wildling fastened to a tree.

As mentioned, a symbol was left from that first White Walker encounter, too:

Following the Season 8 premiere, fans questioned the meaning of the symbols, which have appeared over and over again.

In Season 3, Mance Rayder (Ciarán Hinds) memorably says, “Always the artists,” while looking at a White Walker spiral left after the army of the dead attacked the Night’s Watch:

In Season 7, Jon Snow (Kit Harington) shows symbols found in the Dragonstone caves to Daenerys (Emilia Clarke):

And in Season 6, the Children of the Forest seem to have a spiral setup when the White Walkers are being created:

“I overheard somebody say, ‘Is it the symbol of the Lannisters? That spiral?’” Dormer told us, speculating himself that it’s a universal symbol for life or something eternal.

“The spiral means something. It’s the thing that they leave everywhere, so you can read into that in the universe. It’s the universal building structure of life, like, you know, spiral galaxy, swirling coffee, the way water goes,” he said.

Dormer thinks it may always be a mystery, but he’s OK with that.

“I think [it’s] George R.R. Martin being very clever on a subconscious level, dipping deep into the human psyche, and we’re probably not even going to know why they do that. I think that’s genius. It makes us think really deeply about images and things, and it just opens up the whole world.”

When asked if the symbol could represent time, or a time loop, which is a theory we brought up to Isaac Hempstead Wright a couple of years ago, Dormer said, “That’s what I’m talking about. It’s like a spiral, a continuum, a thing that is eternal. That is all around us.”

David Benioff, one of the showrunners, talked about the images before in a behind-the-scenes video from Season 7, saying:

The White Walkers didn’t come up with those images; they derived them from their creators, the Children of the Forest. These are patterns that have mystical significance for the Children of the Forest, we’re not sure exactly what they signify, but spiral patterns are important in a lot of different cultures in our world, and it makes sense that they would be in this world as well. 

Given the cryptic nature of the spirals and the real-world inspiration brought up by Benioff, HuffPost reached out to experts to get their perspectives.

Paleoanthropologist Genevieve von Petzinger, who’s studied some of the oldest cave art in the world and is also a fan of the show, joked that she already works “back in the time of the First Men.”

″[‘Game of Thrones’] has a lot of spirals and circular imagery or like pinwheeling almost, like the circular motifs, which is so interesting because we think of them as being really ancient, but in reality they’re almost nonexistent during the ice age. They actually start right towards the end of the ice age, which is interesting in its own right because it suggests something new is starting to happen,” she said.

She also sent some photos her husband, Dillon von Petzinger, took of similar-looking art found in the real world.

Interestingly, Genevieve von Petzinger is doing her own research on spirals now, which she reiterates are rare in her work but come up during the very late Ice Age.

“Spirals, usually what people have suggested, is that they could relate to some sort of spiritual practice, like shamanism or something like that [...] it may be a real-world landscape feature as well. Again, there’s some interesting stuff in ‘Game of Thrones’ where they’ve made landscape features match with the symbolism, so I think the jury is out as to what it means.”

Though the real-world meaning of spirals is still debated, Genevieve von Petzinger agreed that time could be one of the meanings for the show.

“I think in later time periods, spirals can certainly be associated with time and repeating of things, right? Like, the endless spiral is a very powerful symbol,” she added. “New beginnings, continuations, sort of repeating time wheels, all that stuff. I think that’s where they’re going in the show if I had to guess.”

Miranda Aldhouse-Green, a British archaeologist and emeritus professor at Cardiff University, who’s behind books such as “Celtic Art: Symbols and Imagery,” doesn’t watch the show but had some insight on the symbols, telling HuffPost: “The circles with lines or crosses and the spirals are well-known as prehistoric European ritual symbols. They appear on stones in Neolithic (New Stone Age) passage graves, and seem to be symbols of light in the darkness of death and also may represent life after death.”

She added that the circles with a single line through the middle “might be a symbol of division, of breaking the circle of life and of time.” The spirals could represent the “passage of the sun (or moon) through the sky during day and night (so representing time), but spirals can also be associated with ritual dance, in particular the dance through the sacred labyrinth, the weaving of people in trance states through meandering, convoluted spaces.”

After hearing a description of the White Walkers, Aldhouse-Green also said the skeletal or X-ray figures could represent the “otherworld.”

“In some indigenous cultures, these X-ray figures represent shamans, people who have the power to move in soul-flight between the material world of people and the otherworld of the spirits. The leaving of the symbols by the White Walkers suggests to me that these beings are marking their presence as killers belonging to alternative dimensions. In a sense, the symbols are the White Walkers themselves.”

We can speculate on the symbols all we want, but Dormer suggests the ending of “Game of Thrones” is something no one will expect.

“I think everybody’s got an idea of what might happen, but I think everybody’s going to be totally surprised. People are going to talk about it for a long time after it’s finished.”

UPDATE: April 15, 6:00 p.m. ET — Following the “Game of Thrones” Season 8 premiere seemingly referencing Ed Sheeran’s Season 7 cameo, the musician responded on Instagram, thanking the show for keeping him alive:

PREVIOUSLY:

Well, his legs still work like they used to before, but Ed Sheeran’s “Game of Thrones” character apparently didn’t get away unscathed after his Season 7 cameo.

During a scene featuring Bronn (Jerome Flynn) visiting a brothel in the “Game of Thrones” Season 8 premiere, the various women he’s with discuss the Lannister soldiers who were attacked by Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) and Drogon in Season 7.

“I hear the dragon burnt up a thousand Lannister men,” says one of the women.

Among the ones discussed is a redheaded soldier named “Eddie.” 

Woman 1: That boy Eddie...

Woman 2: The ginger?

Woman 1: That’s him. Came back with his face burnt right off. He’s got no eyelids now.

Woman 2: How does he sleep with no eyelids?

Yep. Apparently, his face crumbled like pastries after all.

[Cue: Sheeran singing “I See Fire.”]

We didn’t learn the name of Sheeran’s character or his companions when the English musician made a cameo as a Lannister soldier in the Season 7 premiere. However, the brothel workers also mention a “tall” and “handsome” soldier named “William.” One of the actors who appeared in the scene with Sheeran was William Postlethwaite, so it seems like the banter is an inside joke about Sheeran’s divisive appearance, which — years later — still has disgruntled fans thinking out loud.

In the Season 7 scene, Arya (Maisie Williams) happens upon some random Lannister soldiers on the road, including Sheeran, who is singing a song.

“It’s a new one,” he tells her.

“Game of Thrones” has featured cameos from musicians before, but perhaps no one has been as blatantly noticeable as Sheeran putting on a concert for Arya. (The singer was included in the HBO series as a surprise for Williams, who’s a fan.) Many, including former “Game of Thrones” star Kristian Nairn, complained that it took you right out of the show.

“I was like, ‘Why is Ed Sheeran here?’ I mean, Ed Sheeran’s great. He’s a great guy, great musician, but why is he in ‘Game of Thrones’?” Nairn told HuffPost in 2018.

The appearance inspired a relentless stream of jokes about the character, and Sheeran was rumored to have left Twitter because of the backlash, though he denied this in an Instagram post:

I came off Twitter Coz I was always intending to come off Twitter, had nothing to do with what people said about my game of thrones cameo, because I am in game of thrones, why the hell would I worry what people thought about that. It’s clearly fuckin’ awesome.

Following Dany’s dragon attack on the Lannisters in the Season 7 episode “Spoils of War,” there were a lot of questions about whether Sheeran’s character survived. At the time, the director of that episode, Matt Shakman, told Mashable, “I don’t think literally those soldiers were there.”

Sheeran never seemed to have plans to reprise the role. He told MTV he was happy with the cameo, but he added: “No one wants to see me come back.” He thought his character probably wasn’t long for the world of Westeros:

I doubt I’m going to survive for that long, to be honest, when there are dragons in the world.

If the “Eddie” mentioned in the show is indeed Sheeran, it looks like he made it after all. HBO may have just given the cameo a cheeky burn of its own. 

Minutes after a fire began to engulf the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Fox News anchor Shep Smith interviewed a man he described as a “French elected official” who immediately characterized the blaze as “the French 9/11” and said only the “politically correct will tell you that it’s probably an accident.”

Actual French officials are still early in the process of determining the exact cause of the fire ― but that didn’t stop America’s most-watched cable TV news source from amplifying the fantasies of a conspiracy theorist.

As it turns out, Smith’s guest, Philippe Karsenty, is no elected official. A basic Google search reveals that he is a media analyst and conspiracy theorist who was previously convicted of defamation for making false accusations against a French TV network.

Smith cut him off, but the damage was done.

Inadvertently or otherwise, Fox News had joined a conspiracy chorus that hummed loudly in the minutes after the fire broke out.

Those looking to social media for answers would find white nationalists like Faith Goldy or Infowars writer Paul Joseph Watson claiming that the fire was deliberate.

They’d find far-right chuds like Twitter user @Partisangirl declaring matter-of-factly, to 112,000 followers, that French President Emmanuel Macron “has probably set fire to Notre Dame to try and make the yellow vests look bad,” referring to the protesters who have beleaguered his regime of late.

Officials initially said that the fire was “potentially linked” to renovation work in the building.

Those who sought out news on YouTube were met with videos of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. On Twitter, white nationalist Richard Spencer hoped that the fire “serves to spur the White man into action.” Noted Islamophobe Pam Gellar opined that Islam had something to do with it.

And of course, the QAnon adherents had to weigh in. Some of the folks who insist pedophiles have long controlled the U.S. government used a shotgun approach and pushed any and every conspiracy theory at once: It’s British Prime Minister Theresa May; it’s former first lady Michelle Obama; it’s Pope Francis himself, “burning evidence” of “ritual sacrifice” of children.

Conspiracy theories abound after most crises, regurgitated by prominent voices and often online. Mass shootings are called “false flag” operations by loud people like Infowars host Alex Jones. QAnon followers cried hoax when bombs were sent to top Democrats and others last year. President Donald Trump himself has been criticized for pushing conspiracy theories about a number of groups, including immigrants on the southern border and Muslims.

Such mindless specualtion is often dangerous, and can lead to more violence. The fire that razed the Notre Dame Cathedral seemed to bring all of these conspiracy theories into the same room, all at once ― and for a time, that noise was louder than any other.

A fire engulfed the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Monday.

Photos show flames leaping from the historic cathedral and emergency personnel pouring water onto the fire to try to bring it under control.  

See the latest dramatic photos below. 

It seems that everything is coming full circle (or full spiral) on “Game of Thrones.”

The first episode of the HBO series’ final season aired on Sunday, and after viewers had their share of elephant jokes, Bran memes and Drogon interpretations, fans pointed out some parallels between the most recent episode, “Winterfell,” and the show’s pilot.

Here’s a breakdown of all the major callbacks fans have brought to light of the seven.

The Opening Scene at Winterfell

Some of the most obvious callbacks happen at the top of the episode when Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) arrive at Winterfell with an enormous army and two dragons (that Sansa, played by Sophie Turner, has no idea how to feed).

The scene begins with a boy excitedly running past Ayra Stark (Maisie Williams), who is standing among commoners gathered to receive the new monarch. The boy eventually climbs a tree to get a better look of the grand display of the Unsullied and Dothraki armies descending on his home.

The boy’s route calls back to Arya and her brother Bran (Isaac Hempstead Wright) in the pilot. A young and rebellious Arya bucks tradition and sneaks away from her family to observe the arrival of King Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy) on her own terms, while Bran climbs the castle’s tower to get a better view of Robert’s procession. In the pilot and “Winterfell,” Ayra also catches glimpses of The Hound (Rory McCann), yet in the pilot she is awed by him, while in the most recent episode, she looks bewildered or disturbed, wondering why a man she left for dead is still alive.

When Sansa greets Dany and Jon in the courtyard of Winterfell, more symmetry is displayed as she assumes the past roles of her parents and haughtily welcomes the foreign queen into her home.

“Winterfell is yours, Your Grace,” she says to Daenerys, imitating her father’s long-ago words to Robert, with a tad more sass.

Like the pilot episode, Arya is not present when the Stark family greets their royal guests. When Jon asks where Arya is, Sansa says she has no idea, much like when their mother questioned Arya’s whereabouts in the pilot.

King Robert’s Wish to Join House Baratheon and House Stark

Some of Twitter had a whole lot of fun tweeting a quote by King Robert during Ayra and Gendry’s (Joe Dempsie) reunion scene in “Winterfell.”

In the pilot, King Robert attempts to talk Ned Stark (Sean Bean) into marrying off their children, Joffrey Baratheon (Jack Gleeson) and Sansa.

“I have a son. You have a daughter. We’ll join our houses,” Robert says to Ned.

Though Sansa and Joffrey never got hitched, fans speculated that Ayra and Gendry’s possible romance — and the revelation that Gendry is the bastard child of Robert — might make Robert’s wish for the two houses to be “bound by blood” a reality. 

Jon, Arya, and Needle

Jon’s reunion with his favorite “sibling” in the Season 8 premiere mirrors the last time the two saw each other, which was in the pilot episode.

Both scenes involve Arya jumping into Jon’s arms for a hug. In the pilot, Jon also surprises his little sis with Needle, a sword he had made especially for her. In the most recent episode of “Game of Thrones,” Arya shows Jon that she still has the sword he gifted her so long ago. 

When Jon asks his brutal assassin of a sister if she’s ever had to use it, Arya delivers a response dripping with dark humor:

“Once or twice,” she replies.

That Creepy Spiral Symbol

The White Walkers love for unsettling body art is featured in the pilot of “Game of Thrones” and in “Winterfell.”

In the pilot, bodies of the White Walker’s victims were put on display for the living to see.

In “Winterfell,” poor Ned Umber (Harry Grasby) becomes the focus of their latest piece at Last Hearth. Yet what do these symbols actually mean? We’re not entirely sure, but some fans have a few ideas.

Jon Finally Learning the Identity of His Mother

It’s surprising that, given Bran’s new love for bluntness, the truth about Jon’s parents wasn’t revealed at the top of “Winterfell.” But, as one Twitter user pointed out, many believe there’s a reason for this — and it’s all about a callback.

In the pilot episode, Jon asks the man who he believes is his father, Ned, about his mother — who Ned has never spoken about — before Jon leaves for the Wall and Ned leaves for King’s Landing.

“The next time we see each other, we’ll talk about your mother,” Ned promises Jon before they go their separate ways. Ned dies before this conversation could ever take place, and his bones are placed in the Winterfell crypt.

In “Winterfell” there is a scene when Jon visits the crypt to light a candle for Ned’s statue.

This also happens to be the moment when Jon’s friend, Samwell Tarly (John Bradley), reveals to Jon that not only is his mother Ned’s sister, Lyanna Stark, but that his father is Rhaegar Targaryen, not Ned.

Many viewers interpreted the scene taking place by Ned’s statue as the late lord keeping his word since Jon found out about his mother’s identity the next time they “saw” one another.

Yet, this is not the first time Jon has seen Ned’s statue since the two spoke. Jon visited the crypt in Season 7 and had a conversation with Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen) in front of Ned’s statue.

So, unfortunately, Ned did not keep his promise but he was technically there for the reveal. So, there’s that.

The Jaime and Bran Reunion

In the pilot episode, the main plot is kicked into gear when a young Bran climbs a tower in Winterfell and witnesses Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) having sex with his twin sister, Cersei (Lena Headey). Out of fear that their dirty little secret — and the true paternity of all of Cersei’s children — will get out, Jaime pushes Bran out the window, hoping the fall will kill him.

In “Winterfell,” Bran mentions to Sam that he’s waiting for a friend. It turns out that the friend he’s waiting for is none other than Jaime, whose harsh decision to kill Bran in the pilot led Bran down the path of becoming the Three-Eyed Raven. The episode ends with the two acknowledging each other with long, emotionally-fueled stares — Jaime’s of utter fear and Bran of, well, who knows?

We’re not entirely sure how Bran will actually receive Jaime until the next episode airs, but effectively harkened back to the very beginning of the show.