Published: Aug 15th, 2019 – 6:29am (EDT) Updated: Aug 15th, 2019 – 6:29am (EDT) RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Author Nicholas Sparks says keeping the private Christian school he founded in his North Carolina hometown headed in the right direction was tough during a 2013 spell before cutting ties with the new headmaster he deemed unfit for the job. The author of “Message in a Bottle” and “The Notebook” is expected back in a federal courtroom Thursday. MORE: Trial starting in defamation lawsuit against author Sparks Sparks told jurors school headmaster Saul Hillel Benjamin lied about his previous work experience, disappeared without explanation during school hours, berated employees and accused parents and others of being bigots or racists. Benjamin alleges in his lawsuit against Sparks, his foundation and Epiphany School of Global Studies in New Bern that the writer defamed him by telling parents, a job recruiter and others that the Benjamin suffered from mental health problems. ...
For all the perceived glamour of piracy, its practitioners lived poorly and ate worse. Skirting death, mutiny, and capture left little room for comfort or transformative culinary experience. The greatest names in piracy, wealthy by the day’s standards, ate as one today might on a poorly provisioned camping trip: dried beef, bread, and warm beer. Those of lesser fame were subject to cannibalism and scurvy. The seas were no place for an adventurous appetite. But when one gifted pirate permitted himself a curiosity for food, he played a pioneering role in spreading ingredients and cuisines. He gave us the words “tortilla,” “soy sauce,” and “breadfruit,” while unknowingly recording the first ever recipe for guacamole. And who better to expose the Western world to the far corners of our planet’s culinary bounty than someone who by necessity made them his hiding places? William Dampier witnesses the reunion of Miskito men on the Island of Juan Fernandez. Chronicle / Alamy British-born ...
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