The office of US Senator Dianne Feinstein has confirmed that the California Democrat was suffering worse health complications from a recent shingles case than she had previously claimed. A spokesperson for Sen Feinstein, 89, told CNN Ms Feinstein, the Senate’s oldest lawmaker, experienced Ramsay Hunt syndrome and encephalitis as part of the diagnosis. “While the encephalitis resolved itself shortly after she was released from the hospital in March, she continues to have complications from Ramsay Hunt syndrome,” the spokesperson said on Thursday. Ramsay Hunt syndrome can occur when a case of shingles affects the facial nerve close to the eye, sometimes causing facial paralysis and hearing loss, according to the Mayo Clinic. Earlier in the day, Sen Feinstein claimed to CNN she didn’t have encephalitis, saying, “It was really a bad flu.” The California senator’s health and mental fitness have long been subjects of scrutiny. Some of her colleagues have called on her to resign. She returned to the Senate last week after being absent for 10 weeks as she recovered from shingles. Upon returning to the Senate, Sen Feinstein told reporters that she had never left. “No, I haven’t been gone,” she said to LA Times’s Ben Oreskes when asked how her Senate colleagues have responded to her return, reported Slate. Mr Oreskes then asked her whether she had been working from home. “No, I’ve been here. I’ve been voting,” she said. “Please, you either know or don’t know.” The absence of Sen Feinstein halted the work of the Senate judiciary committee, where Republicans demanded the California Democrat either return to work or resign from the Senate, rather than allow a temporary replacement. The infighting halted the confirmation of federal judges, one of the main ways Democrats can cement their influence in a divided Congress. As The Independent has reported, Sen Feinstein is part of a generation of elderly leaders at the top of the US political system, leading critics to argue more should be done to make elected office accessible to young people. The present Congress contains the second-oldest Senate and third-oldest House in US history. Generationally, the US population fits roughly into four, equal-sized blocks of about 20 to 25 per cent: ages 0 to 18, 19 to 34, 35 to 54, and 55-plus. The composition of Congress, meanwhile, is drastically tipped toward the elder part of that range, with the median House member aged 57.9 and the median senator aged 65.3. According to Professor Munger, Kevin Munger, assistant professor of political science and social data analytics at Pennsylvania State University, author of Generation Gap: Why the Baby Boomers Still Dominate American Politics and Culture, the age of America’s most senior politicians – Sen Chuck Schumer is 71, Sen Mitch McConnell is 81 – often means that issues that matter to other generations don’t get top billing, leading both to disaffection and to bigger-picture existential issues, like a lack of serious climate legislation or the impending funding crisis of social security. “It’s been clear that because of the size of the boomer generation, at a certain point, we were either going to have to raise taxes on the workforce or cut the benefits,” he said. “We didn’t do either of those things. Sometime in the 2030s, it’s going to run out. They’re not going to cut benefits to boomers. Instead, younger generations are going to have to fully fund this obvious 30-year shortfall.” In the case of social security in particular, many of the leaders deciding on the issue are current recipients, while those younger generations who will likely pay more or get less in the future aren’t represented in office. A similar problem arises with climate change: the leaders holding up urgent action on the climate likely will not be alive to see the very worst impacts of their inaction. “The issues that matter to younger generations don’t get on the agenda at all,” Prof Munger added. Read More Dianne Feinstein’s decline is heartbreaking and difficult to discuss — but we can’t avoid it Democrats have behaved shamefully around Dianne Feinstein and Republicans are taking advantage The danger of America’s ageing politicians Diane Feinstein denies she was ever absent from US Senate California lawmakers block bill allowing people to sue oil companies over health problems Feinstein's office details previously unknown complications from shingles illness

The renowned artist, known for hits like 'What's Love Got To Do With It' confronted numerous health challenges during her career

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Elon Musk, billionaire and self-confessed 'power-mage' (albeit decent with a sword and katana), might've put his foot in it once more following his comments regarding work-from-home; especially when considering his prior tweeting about what he does in his 'spare time'. Specifically, how can someone who says they work 20-hour days, or 17-hour days, also complete an intensive video game- within months of release? Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Elon Musk has performed a number of interviews recently, and it seems like he's been given an easy ride. People are starting to pick up on the fact that nobody has asked him about Elden Ring: People want Elon Musk to be asked about Elden Ring. Well, Indy100 are more than happy to help - 'Timothy Faust'. In an interview segment with CNBC titled Tesla CEO Elon Musk: ‘The laptop class is living in la-la land’ over work-from-home, Musk declared that remote working is a 'moral issue'. He believes that because a working class commutes to working locations to build cars or cook food - that other workers should also commute. Musk has said before that he works 20 hours a day. He says in the above interview that he sleeps six hours a day. He has routinely said he commits to 80-100 hour workweeks. During his early days at Twitter, he said he was working 24/7. Musk works a lot. Based on the latest interview where he says he sleeps six hours a day, Musk has around 18 hours per day to either work or not work. There are 168 hours in a week. Based on the 80-100 hour workweek comments, Elon, at maximum, spends 60 per cent (14 hours a day) of his time working, leaving nine hours for sleep and recreation. If he sleeps six hours, he has three or four hours for everything else - including Elden Ring. He admitted that on May 23rd that the game was the 'most beautiful art he had ever seen.' Elon, I cannot disagree. As someone who spammed Rivers of Blood to murder four end-game bosses in an hour with a raging headache following weeks of failure, Elden Ring to me is also art. However, when he is saying he has experienced Elden Ring in its entirety, and that his workweek is so intense, there's a contradiction. My playtime with Elden Ring is around 120 hours. I played it damn near every day in marathon stints with a few week-long pauses when my own rapid deaths in a playthrough were mangling my mind. I finished the game in June. I started it in February. It took me - apparently - until early March to beat the first three bosses in my list of achievements on Xbox - Leonine Misbegotten, Margit the Fell Omen and Shardbearer Godrick. I am somewhat awful at the game. I beat the game. I do wish I recorded my pre-patch decimation of Radahn, though. I won't go into the description of Musk's build, but it's terrible. Kotaku went in on it. My build was pretty cheesy and I could bonk enemies on the head and kill them in seconds. If I took 120 hours to experience close to everything in Elden Ring, there's no way Elon completed it quicker with the build that had him 'fat rolling' all over the place. My experience has me completing Elden Ring in 100 days - give or take. That's 1.2 hours per day. I do not work the number of hours a day that Elon says he does. Assuming Elon completed Elden Ring in the same time as I did, he'd spent around 25 percent of his non-working time playing Elden Ring until completion. That's based on him having around four hours to himself without working or sleeping. The only figure we've got to use for Elon's completion date is the day he posted 'Elden Ring experienced in its entirety most beautiful art he had ever seen' - May 24th 2022. This is 87 days after Elden Ring's US release on February 25th. Assuming Elon completed the game on May 24th, and assuming he started on February 25th, that gives him 348 non-working hours in the 87 days between release and completion. If he spent 120 hours on Elden Ring (like my completion time) alone, a third of his non-working time between February and May was spent playing Elden Ring. For a person as busy as Elon appears to be, I feel like it's also fairly implausible to suggest a duel business owner (at the time) and parent who says they work that much could spend a third of their non-working time playing a video game. There are 8760 hours in a year. Elon sleeps for 2190 hours (25 percent of his time), he works for 5082 hours (58 percent of his time with two days off accounted for) and has around 1489 hours spare (17 percent of his time.) Obviously, this is all estimation and approximation - Musk may not be entirely serious when he says what he says, and every day is probably going to differ. Alas. That means that he spent 8 percent of his spare time last year playing Elden Ring. That in itself is not specifically odd, but by Elon's own admission, he has less time than everyone else as he is so busy. A man who had so little time spent so much of it gaming. That is pure dedication or exaggeration. To take the words, well, word-for-word, it'd seem obvious that Musk is exaggerating, or twisting words to make a more brutal point than needed. At the same time, it feels odd to say that in an interview where you're hitting WFH employees over the head - you'd want to be taken seriously, right? He was asked off the cuff. He replied off the top of his head. There's no problem, except that the context of Musk's words in the interview relates to dismissing remote working and the 'laptop class'. Where did Elon actually find the time to play Elden Ring? Was becoming Elden Lord classed as work in his mind (probably, and fair enough). The only way to test this is to get a brave Twitter/Tesla/SpaceX employee to say that playing Elden Ring on company time counts as 'work'. Then we'll see what happens. As for Elon and remote working, let those without sin cast the stones, and perhaps let your workers breathe a little. That's the real moral issue. 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.

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Stoke City fans who headed to the Bet365 Stadium to watch them take on Leeds this week were left baffled when the football ground seemingly turned into a rave. In a clip posted to X (formerly Twitter), by @stokeyyg2, fans could be seen looking around in confusion as Darude's 'Sandstorm' blared out of the speakers, and lights and lasers lit up the stadium. However, even when the song's iconic drop kicked in, the fans, who were wrapped up for the cold Wednesday night game, didn't seem to be getting on board with the party atmosphere. Click here to sign up for our newsletters.

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 7, 2023--

Lachune's mind-blowing rendition of Coldplay's 'Yellow' on 'AGT' Season 18 left the judges and fans astounded and in awe of her unprecedented talent