By Oscar Holland, CNN

(CNN) — During a routine house call to a private estate in Camden, Maine, auctioneer Kaja Veilleux made an unexpected discovery in the property’s attic: A 17th-century painting of a young woman wearing a cap and ruffled collar.

“On house calls, we often go in blind, not knowing what we’ll find,” said Veilleux, the founder of Thomaston Place Auction Galleries, in a press release. “The home was filled with wonderful pieces, but it was in the attic, among stacks of art, that we found this remarkable portrait.”

The artwork appeared to have been painted in the style of Dutch master Rembrandt — and a label on the frame’s reverse claimed it was by him. The paper slip, which appears to have been issued by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, also suggested the painting was loaned to the museum in 1970.

Very little is known about the portrait, however, and it is not widely recognized by scholars as part of Rembrandt’s oeuvre. While the auction house told CNN it believes the label to be genuine, the Philadelphia Museum of Art was unable to confirm whether it had ever borrowed the portrait. (A museum spokesperson added, via email, that “generally… a slip or label doesn’t necessarily verify a work of art — certainly more work would be required.”)

Thomaston Place would not disclose whether it consulted a Rembrandt expert about the attribution, but it proceeded to list the painting with an estimate of just $10,000 to $15,000. The portrait was described in sale materials as “After Rembrandt,” terminology denoting that a painting is believed to be a copy of — or was modeled on — a known artist’s style, and is not an autograph work.

But not everyone, it seems, was so sure.

After an opening offer of $32,500, more than double the high estimate, bidding at an auction last Saturday soon skyrocketed into six figures. Almost a dozen potential suitors, some of whom joined via phone from Europe, participated in the sale, according to Thomaston Place. Three telephone bidders remained until $900,000, before the last two pushed the final sale price up to $1.41 million.

The auction house believes this to be the highest sum ever paid for an artwork at a Maine auction. And the figure suggests that several collectors (including the winning bidder, identified only as a “private European collector”) believe there is enough chance that it is a genuine Rembrandt to be worth the gamble.

Lost from the records

Rembrandt scholar Gary Schwartz said a potential buyer had earlier sought his opinion on the Maine portrait. He advised the unidentified collector (who was not the winning bidder) to “go for it,” he said. The art historian told CNN he believes there is an “extremely large” chance the portrait was painted by the Dutch master.

While Schwartz stressed it is impossible to properly judge the work without seeing it in person, he pointed to a strikingly similar Rembrandt portrait, also depicting a young woman in a white cap, at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.

“The resemblance … is so strong that I am amazed that people accept one and simply dismiss the other,” he said on a video call from his home in the Netherlands, adding that he is “not surprised that somebody paid (over) a million when it came up to auction.”

Schwartz also points out that the Maine artwork featured in a catalog of Rembrandt’s work as recently as 1969. Listed under the title “Portrait of a young girl,” the painting is described as belonging to a private collector in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Although the catalog’s author notes that the attribution to Rembrandt is “doubtful,” Schwartz believes its inclusion is significant — and that the painting was simply never researched, as it was in private hands and inaccessible to scholars.

“When paintings fall out of interest, they just disappear into dark space,” said Schwartz, who published a 2022 book arguing that another downgraded painting, “Rembrandt in a Red Beret,” is in fact a genuine self-portrait.

Art historian Volker Manuth, who authored publisher Taschen’s 2019 monograph “Rembrandt: The Complete Paintings,” told CNN he was also approached by a potential buyer of the Maine portrait. He had only encountered it as a “poor black-and-white reproduction” in the aforementioned 1969 catalog, adding via email that he has “more doubts about the attribution to Rembrandt than not” (though he, too, stressed that attributions “should not be given without a thorough investigation of the original painting”).

“The price paid… might indicate that somebody has hopes that the cleaning of the rather dirty painting might turn it into a portrait with the qualities attributed to Rembrandt,” added Manuth, who is an art history professor at Radboud University in the Netherlands. “This happens more and more often. I would not be surprised to (see) the painting back on the market soon as ‘Rembrandt.’”

A matter of opinion

There is no single authority on questions of attribution, and the influential Rembrandt Research Project ceased operations in 2014 (having not, in Schwartz’s view, ever considered the Maine portrait). Over the past century, the number of paintings broadly accepted by scholars as genuine Rembrandts has fallen dramatically, with hundreds reattributed to followers or otherwise downgraded to “after Rembrandt” status.

But inclusion in a major catalog, or the backing of a big auction house, can increase a painting’s value manyfold. Take “The Adoration of the Kings,” which was valued at just $17,000 by Christie’s in 2021 but sold for almost $13.8 million last year after new research led Sotheby’s to declare it an authentic Rembrandt, not the work of an artist associated with him.

Schwartz suggested that, should the Maine portrait receive similar endorsement, it might be revalued at up to $5 million. Speaking to the New York Times, authentication expert Mark Winter meanwhile estimated a figure “in the area of $15 million.”

In either case, the painting may, one day, be worth significantly more than the amount paid at the Thomaston Place auction. Though this may only transpire if the portrait’s new owner invites scholars to inspect it.

“The great thing, really, would be to go to Vienna with this painting, hold it up there (next to the similar portrait and) have a discussion with a few experts,” Schwartz said, adding. “It (was painted) on panel, so you can date the panel, and very often you find that the wood is from the same slabs that have been used by other paintings form the Rembrandt workshop.”

“Nobody should express a definitive opinion without studying the object,” Schwartz said.

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EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) --SoldierCon, an event established in 2015 to support military families facing financial challenges, has grown significantly over the years.

Originally held at military installations, it now moves to larger public venues, with this year's event taking place at the Starlight Convention Center in El Paso, Texas.

The convention, back after the COVID-19 pandemic, featured three days of engaging activities including car shows, cosplay contests, and stunt exhibitions.

Highlights included a thrilling costume contest with characters like Chewbacca and Darth Vader, and appearances by notable voice actors Scott Dreier and Vic Mignogna.

The event not only drew local attendees but also welcomed visitors from across the country and beyond, reflecting the positive impact of SoldierCon on the community.

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By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN

(CNN) — Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are in their tennis era.

Swift and Kelce were among the famous faces shown on broadcast of the US Open men’s singles final on Sunday. Italy’s Jannik Sinner beat out American tennis star Taylor Fritz in the match, which aired on ESPN.

The couple walked into Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York holding hands and were dressed for the occasion, with Swift donning a red gingham sundress and Kelce sporting a white Gucci bucket hat.

Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs quarterback, and his wife Brittany Mahomes later showed up and joined Kelce and Swift at their seats. Mahomes and Kelce kicked off the 2024-2025 NFL season on Thursday, winning their season opener against the Baltimore Ravens.

The superstar power couple weren’t the only celebrities in attendance.

Matthew McConaughey and his wife Camila Alves were also seen in the stands. Rockstar Jon Bon Jovi, Eddie Redmayne, Rachel Lindsay, Martha Stewart and Rebel Wilson were also present at Sunday’s match.

Fritz is the first American man to advance to the US Open final since Andy Roddick in 2006.

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By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN

(CNN) — Pat Sajak is taking home a shiny keepsake to remember his final season as the host of “Wheel of Fortune.”

Sajak, who retired as the host of the long-running ABC game show in June after over 40 years, won an Emmy for outstanding host for a game show during the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony on Saturday.

He beat out Steve Harvey for “Celebrity Feud,” Ken Jennings for “Jeopardy!”, Keke Palmer for “Password” and Jane Lynch for “Weakest Link.” Sajak was not present to accept the award.

The last time Sajak was recognized by the Television Academy for his work as the host of “Wheel” was in 1998 when he won a Daytime Emmy. He previously won Daytime Emmys in 1993 and 1997 and was honored with a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. He has earned a total of 25 nominations throughout his career.

The outstanding host for a game show category was moved from the Daytime Emmys to the Primetime Emmys in 2023. Keke Palmer won the category last year for her work as the host of “Password.

Sajak made his hosting debut on “Wheel” in 1981 and took his final spin in June. He co-hosted the show alongside Vanna White since 1982, with the pair also serving as hosts for the “Celebrity Wheel of Fortune” spinoff.

White will remain on the show for two more years alongside her new co-host Ryan Seacrest, who is taking over Sajak’s hosting duties. Seacrest’s first episode as the new host of “Wheel” will air on Monday.

“It’s been an incredible privilege to be invited into millions of homes night after night, year after year, decade after decade,” Sajak said during his final episode, which aired on June 7.

Sajak continued to say he’s “always felt that the privilege came with a responsibility to keep this daily half-hour a safe place for family, fun, no social issues, no politics, nothing embarrassing I hope, just a game.”

The long-time host announced he’d be retiring in June 2023 on X, writing that his time on the beloved game show has been “a wonderful ride.”

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By Mike Valerio, CNN and Stephy Chung, CNN

Seoul, South Korea (CNN) — Near Seoul’s Gyeongbokgung Palace, a hotly anticipated auction is being brought to life by two global celebrities: American singer and Louis Vuitton men’s creative director, Pharrell Williams, and South Korea’s trailblazing K-pop star, G-Dragon.

The sale features dozens of items owned by G-Dragon – an avid collector of art, design and fashion – including works he created and customized himself.

Williams’ auction house, Joopiter, is hosting the online sale and an accompanying exhibition, at the Daelim Museum.

There’s a multicolor fur coat worn by G-Dragon on tour, a pair of sneakers he had embellished with Swarovski crystals, and portraits the 36-year-old rapper painted of Frida Kahlo and Salvador Dalí.

“His fanbase, and people who love what he does — they’re able to now get access to these things that were personal,” Williams tells CNN in the South Korean capital.

“I just like the idea that this guy has opened up his trove of things that were very close to him.”

G-Dragon — whose real name is Kwon Ji-yong — rose to fame in the noughties as the leader of K-pop megagroup Big Bang. With an eclectic sense of style, he became Chanel’s first Asian male global ambassador in 2016, and started his own fashion line, Peaceminusone.

Joopiter has collaborated with a slew of celebrities since Williams founded his “digital-first” auction house in 2022. But parting with treasured possessions isn’t always easy.

“Memories hold a lot of weight and possessions hold a lot of weight, and it’s not just because you possess them — but sometimes the weight of the memory possesses you,” says Williams.

“To see people go back and forth through that tug of war is always interesting.”

Often showcasing atypical auction items – from Chinese singer Jackson Wang’s fencing helmet to Williams’ own high school varsity jacket – Joopiter hopes to broaden traditional ideas of collecting, while enticing newer, younger buyers in the process.

“The traditional and institutional auction house, consumer and spaces could’ve been perceived as a bit stuffy,” Williams says of collecting habits in the 1990s, adding that the space has transformed from being a “narrow world” to one with broader tastes.

“Now that consumer (who participates in auctions) is much more curious about culture and subcultures.”

Speaking to CNN at the exhibition, Joopiter’s head of global sales Caitlin Donovan advises budding collectors to “collect what you love.”

“So, if what you love is sneakers, start at a lower, more affordable level, and start building,” she says. “The wrong attitude is going in and trying to become a collector.”

“I think it’s about amassing memories and things that make you happy, that you want to see on your walls and on your feet. That is how you build a really beautiful, special collection.”

She pointed to Joopiter’s inaugural auction — a sale of almost 50 items from Williams’ personal stash, that raked in over $5 million.

These items were all, Donovan added, “bought because they were a moment in time and that was why they had memories, not because they were something meant to be sold one day.”

The online auction “Nothing but a ‘G’ Thang: The Art & Archive of G-Dragon” runs until September 10. 

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By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN

(CNN) — Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar will be the headlining act for the Super Bowl LIX halftime show.

Lamar announced the news on Sunday on his social media pages, as did the NFL.

“Rap music is still the most impactful genre to date. And I’ll be there to remind the world why. They got the right one,” Lamar said in a statement on Sunday.

Super Bowl LIX will take place February 9, 2025 in New Orleans and air on FOX.

The NFL, Roc Nation and Apple Music announced the news on the first Sunday of the 2024-2025 regular season.

The “Not Like Us” rapper made his debut on the Super Bowl halftime show stage in 2022 when he performed alongside Eminem, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige and 50 Cent.

This will be his first time headlining the halftime show show, which is viewed by millions of people every year.

Jay-Z, whose company Roc Nation will serve as the strategic entertainment advisor of Lamar’s live performance, called the rapper a “truly a once-in-a-generation artist and performer” in a statement.

“His deep love for hip-hop and culture informs his artistic vision. He has an unparalleled ability to define and influence culture globally,” Jay-Z added. “Kendrick’s work transcends music, and his impact will be felt for years to come.”

Lamar is one of hip-hop’s most celebrated artists. He has won 17 Grammys and earned a Pulitzer Prize for his 2017 album “Damn,” becoming the first non-classical, non-jazz musician to win the coveted honor.

He released his fifth studio album in 2022 titled “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers” and his hit track “Like That,” a collaboration with Future and Metro Boomin, spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. His song “Not Like Us,” released in April amid Lamar’s so-called feud with rapper Drake, claimed the No. 1 spot on the chart for two weeks.

Usher was last year’s Super Bowl halftime show headliner. His set, a 13-minute walk down Millennial musical memory lane, was the most-watched halftime performance of all time, according to Billboard, drawing an average of 123.4 million viewers. Rihanna’s 2023 halftime show performance is the second-most watched set with 121 million viewers.

The Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers during Super Bowl LVIII in a thrilling game that became the most-watched American television broadcast in a generation, CBS said at the time.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- Theresa and David Fisher defied retirement stereotypes by swapping their careers in applied sciences for a life in winemaking.

After 55 years of marriage and decades as engineers, they embarked on a new adventure with their winery, Sombra Antigua Winery, located at 430 La Vina Road, Anthony, NM 88021.

Named in honor of Theresa's great-grandfather who she said traveled with Don Juan de Oñate.

Their vision for a modest tasting room quickly expanded into a thriving business, offering not only their own wines but also hosting a range of events from intimate gatherings to large celebrations.

Sombra Antigua Winery hand-harvests its grapes once a year and produces various wines, including a popular blend named after Theresa.

The Fishers pride themselves on creating a welcoming environment for guests, complete with live music and a relaxing venue.

For more click here or call Sombra Antigua Winery at (915)241-4349.

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By Leah Asmelash, CNN

(CNN) — A year ago, Lea’h Sampson felt like everything was crashing.

Though she had been doing stand-up comedy for six years, she was hitting a wall. Her jokes weren’t getting her booked, even in local comedy shows, and the feeling of defeat was settling in.

So when she got booked to do a show with Don’t Tell Comedy in Los Angeles, it was supposed to be her last. Sure, maybe she’d do a set here or there. But as far as pursuing stand-up full time? She was over it.

Then, Don’t Tell Comedy posted her full set on YouTube, along with a clip on TikTok, a minute-long bit about interracial dating. If you’re on the internet, you might have seen it. She starts with a bang: “Those of you who are into interracial dating, good for you. So was Thomas Jefferson.”

The crowd erupts, and she keeps them in the palm of her hand as she jokes about the differences in dating Black men (“I take my wig off in front of him, he’s like ‘Ooh, brr, it’s cold Little Bill’”) versus White men (“He’s like…’You could’ve told me that you have cancer’”).

That single TikTok video quickly blew up on the platform, bringing in upwards of 4 million views. Meanwhile, more than 800,000 people have seen the full 10-minute set on YouTube.

Overnight, her Instagram follower count doubled (now, she’s at 89,000). Her favorite reality stars left comments on the video. Comedy legends were sliding into her DMs. A few months later, she opened for Bill Burr at Madison Square Garden. She gets emotional talking about it now.

“I feel like I’ve always been a really good comic, a hard worker, and I just needed people to see me,” Sampson said. “And Don’t Tell did that for me.”

Don’t Tell Comedy is different from your average comedy show. Audiences don’t know the exact location until day of, or the lineup they’re going to see. There’s no drink minimum, which makes shows more affordable, and some events are even BYOB. And they’re popular: At a recent show in Atlanta, 149 people packed into a basement boxing gym to see seven local comedians perform.

For comics throughout the country, Don’t Tell creates more opportunities to perform outside of big city hubs. And, as Sampson can attest, Don’t Tell Comedy’s online presence is tremendous — with 5.2 million followers across YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.

Sampson is just one of dozens of comics who has found success through Don’t Tell Comedy. Since its start in 2017, comics say Don’t Tell has changed the comedy landscape for the better.

What is Don’t Tell Comedy?

One of the most influential things that Don’t Tell does, is actually quite simple: It gives comedians a platform, especially online.

Rather than hoping a clip posted on TikTok blows up, Don’t Tell gives comedians access to a built-in audience on social media, a rarity in today’s changing media landscape. One of its millions of followers might see someone’s clip, like it, follow the comedian, and later, buy tickets to their tour. When trying to build a fan base, that’s a huge win.

After all, it’s something of a weird moment for stand-up comedy. On one hand, while traditional industry pathways have shrunk, streaming services — most notably Netflix — have invested heavily in promoting and producing stand-up specials.

But the people who get opportunities on Netflix tend to be big names, said Don’t Tell founder and CEO Kyle Kazanjian-Amory. (These include comedians like John Mulaney, Dave Chapelle, or more recently, Joe Rogan, whose special premiered last month.) There’s a gap, one that Don’t Tell tries to fill, between mainstream comedians with big fan bases and those without.

“That’s the tough thing in comedy,” Kazanjian-Amory said. “You’re either living in a multimillion dollar house, or you’re scraping by to pay rent.”

That disparity wasn’t always the norm. Back in the 1980s, clubs were desperate for comedians to fill time slots in their venues. There were more spaces than comedians to fill them, said Jesse David Fox, a comedy critic and author of “Comedy Book.” That meant comedians could largely make a middle-class living doing stand-up in their own cities.

Eventually, some of those stars broke through, becoming names many of us still recognize, like Jerry Seinfeld or Ellen DeGeneres. But even if you weren’t a megastar, Fox said, that middle class lifestyle was still attainable.

A decade later, that 1980s comedy boom busted. In the 1990s, fewer venues meant there were fewer places for comedians to make money without already being famous. The definition of success changed: With a reduced path to the middle-class level of comedy, comedians hoped to build enough momentum to pitch a sitcom — à la Ray Romano or, later, Chris Rock.

This type of top-down level success continued into the 2000s. Comedy gatekeepers — like late night shows and Comedy Central — determined whether a comedian was funny enough to give them a platform, Fox said. Maybe they’d give a rising star a 10-minute set, then a half-hour special, then an hour, then maybe a development deal for a show. (Think Amy Schumer and Nick Kroll).

Now, in most cases, that whole pathway to make money has flipped. Comedians have to develop and nurture their fan bases through other avenues — like a popular podcast or newsletter — so fans will buy tickets to see them perform. Previous platforms have lost power; in their place is a more grassroots effort driven by social media like TikTok, Instagram reels and YouTube.

But the idea of a comedian having fans is a relatively recent one, Fox said. Sure, someone like Seinfeld could sell out arenas and have fans that will pay to see him perform. But for most working comics, they were just the name on the bill on a Friday night at the comedy club. Until now.

“All of it has allowed comedians of many levels to build fan bases,” Fox said. “And from those fan bases, you have a sustainable income because they’re your fans. It’s much more sustainable than the whims of certain gatekeepers.”

Comedians say Don’t Tell ‘set the bar’

Grace Johnson has been doing comedy since 2021. After meeting Kazanjian-Amory last year at the New York Comedy Festival, Don’t Tell Comedy produced and released her 10-minute special in June. While the special did give her a boost online, Johnson said that just having the credit was meaningful.

“Don’t Tell right now stands out as one of the premier places to go to for comedy, in the way that Comedy Central has been,” Johnson said. “Especially as someone who has been doing it for a shorter time than others, it’s been a really legitimizing thing.”

There are other tangible effects, too. Don’t Tell gives its comedians a “crisp, nice-looking video” that can then be used to apply to festivals or use in a reel, Johnson said. (To produce her set, there was a director of photography, six camera operators and a production designer.) These aren’t iPhone videos. These are high-quality, professional clips that will make others want to hire her, too.

Don’t Tell wants to democratize that access. The group doesn’t care how many Instagram followers you have, Kazanjian-Amory said. They just care if you’re funny. Scrolling through the feed, you’ll see comedians of all races, genders and so on. There’s no singular type of Don’t Tell comedian. Two comedians who recently went viral following the success of their sets, Susan Rice and Andy Huggins, are both in their 70s.

“That, I think, is the special secret sauce of Don’t Tell,” Johnson said. “It’s just like, ‘Is it good? Okay.’”

Now, Don’t Tell has become the go-to place to watch stand-up comedy, said comedian Jay Jurden, especially comics outside of the big names. Unlike other outlets, like TV or streaming, one could feasibly scroll for hours on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube, continuously watching more and more stand-up.

While the full 10-minute sets are posted on YouTube, Don’t Tell populates its other social media with shorter, minute-long vertical videos with giant captions, like digestible comedy nuggets, which then brings eyes back to those longer sets (like Sampson’s viral TikTok). It’s a tactic that keeps people engaged, and exposes audiences to more comedy.

When it comes to these intangibles — diversity, audience engagement, and vertical integration — Jurden said “Don’t Tell really set the bar.”

Where does comedy go from here?

By creating another pathway for comedians to get noticed both on the internet and locally, Don’t Tell has effectively paved the way for more comedians to propel their careers. Objectively, that’s a good thing — earlier this year, Vulture called the enterprise “Comedy’s Benevolent Gatekeeper.”

Yet there are limits to the format. Don’t Tell’s online audience is huge, but it doesn’t necessarily control what goes viral and what doesn’t. It might give a variety of people a platform, but just by being online, the group still operates at the whims of the algorithm.

“If you look at what else works on YouTube, or what else works on Twitter, it’s not just ‘goodness becomes successful,’” Fox said. “It is the work that gets a certain reaction out of people. And that reaction might not actually give people the right type of fans.”

The concern, Fox said, is that it might shift comedy toward comedians who are louder, noisier, or more reactionary — the things that tend to do better on social media. Or, it could create audiences that expect the entire stand-up experience to be like an Instagram reel or a TikTok video.

None of that is Don’t Tell Comedy’s fault. That’s just the internet. But if that’s the way people consume so much stand-up, rather than seeing it in-person, it could become a worry.

Still, comedians need exposure, and Don’t Tell has the ability to introduce more people to new types of comedians, at differing levels. That also means more audiences watching stand-up in person, supporting touring comedians, and just supporting stand-up comedy as an entire ecosystem.

“Don’t Tell is going to help a lot of people find some of their new favorite comedians, whose careers they will help to continue to thrive over the next few years,” Jurden said. “To me, that is ultimately very good and work that should be celebrated and commended.”

In the case of Sampson, and many other comedians like her, that work was life-changing.

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By Maureen O’Hare, CNN

(CNN) — No sooner have airports introduced new scanning machines so you don’t need to unpack your carry-on bags, than a trend emerges where you photograph all your loose items in your airport security tray.

The “airport tray aesthetic” has taken off on TikTok, Instagram and Pinterest as people share artfully arranged shots of their sunglasses, shoes, toiletries and reading material inside the regulation polypropylene dishes.

Don’t expect crumpled plastic bags stuffed with toothpaste and Pepto-Bismol. This is aspirational travel, where your 35mm film camera nestles between your vintage loafers and your first-edition copy of “On the Road.”

It’s the latest in a line of trends where people curate their possessions for a public showcase, from bookshelves to bedside tables to even the insides of our refrigerators. (Yes, “fridgescaping,” which involves storing flowers and picture frames alongside your butter and eggs, is now a thing).

However, the trend is ruffling more than a few feathers, due to the airport security line being one of the top places in the world where it’s imperative to avoid dilly-dallying.

Think-pieces have naturally been spilling forth.

The New York Post slammed the “time-consuming trend” as an influencer-led blight upon the nation’s TSA lines.

The UK’s Metro newspaper said that “‘the anxiety-inducing trend’ risks you becoming the most hated person in the airport.”

Comments on Shop Pursue’s TikTok video showing young women preparing for a “girls’ trip” by organizing their Adidas Gazelles and Louis Vuitton bags on a bench range from “ik the people behind yall were annoyed waiting” to “you would get tased in JFK for this.”

However, like many things happening online, all is not quite what it seems.

In a TikTok video with 82,000 likes so far, New York-based influencer Chelsea as of Late gives a step-by-step tutorial on following the trend and not being a nuisance.

The key, she says, is to do it after going through security: Find a quiet spot and “if you have time set up a few different trays, cause why not?”

That, however, is still an area intended for travelers who need it for necessary repacking of items or for a more urgent rest stop.

Let’s also not forget that with all those shoes passing through security trays, you may as well be laying your items straight out on the floor. In 2018, a European study found that airport trays are the least hygienic part of the airport, carrying more germs than toilets.

So while hand sanitizer doesn’t typically feature in these airport tray photos and videos, it should probably play a key part in the aftercare.

The trend has unsurprisingly been a huge hit with marketing teams around the world, with brands including clothing and homeware retailers Anthropologie and book publishers Faber all posting their stylized boxes.

Storage solutions brand Stackers told CNN, “This trend specifically aligned perfectly for us, curating an aesthetic selection whilst focusing on our travel-friendly products.”

A lot of the most delightfully organized boxes don’t involve a trip to the airport at all.

In one of the most popular TikTok videos on the “airportaesthetic” hashtag, with 1.8 million views, Chicago-based content creator Piper Taich gives a tutorial explaining that her airport security tub was purchased on Amazon and her boarding pass was edited on Photoshop.

She then curates her travel-themed selections to her heart’s content.

“If you’re asking what the point of this is, the point is that it’s fun and that it’s art,” she says. “It’s a really fun way to express my love of fashion and thrifting and artistic direction.”

The rise of social media and increasingly advanced and accessible filming and editing software means that individuals are able to put together home-created masterpieces like never before, from dance videos to comedy sketches to makeup tutorials.

Against these pros, there are the cons. With rose-tinted snapshots of other people’s lives flooding our feeds 24/7, the social comparison is having a big impact on mental health, especially for younger people.

As for the airport tray aesthetic, while people might be getting het up at the idea of Gen Z holding up the line for some navel-gazing, the US Transport Security Administration is sanguine about the risk.

“The TSA has become aware of this trend recently,” a spokesperson told CNN. “As long as the staged glamor photos are not causing delays or issues with other passengers in the checkpoint, there are no issues. Travelers should take care to secure their IDs, passports and any light items on top that could be swept out of the bins when they go into the machines.”

For a screen break during their flight, some virally minded travelers might consider “rawdogging” – what we used to call staring out the window. And when you reach your destination, you can always put your phone down and go for a swim or a hike – life has to be lived before we can document it.

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By Julia Buckley, CNN

(CNN) — It was the years-long cruise that was supposed to set sail, but saw its departure postponed… postponed… and postponed again.

The Villa Vie Odyssey was set to depart in May for the trip of a lifetime: three and a half years chasing the sun around the globe, allowing its passengers to wallow in an eternal summer.

But more than three months on, the ship has yet to depart. It is holed up in the harbor at Belfast, Northern Ireland, still waiting on certification that it is safe to set sail.

If this sounds familiar, it’s not déjà vu. Another company, Life at Sea Cruises, had scheduled a three year round-the-world cruise – the first of its kind to be relatively affordable – for departure in 2023. That voyage was postponed again and again, before being canceled definitively in November.

However, there’s one crucial difference between Life at Sea and Villa Vie Residences, the company attempting the 3.5-year cruise: Villa Vie has a ship.

The company took possession of the Braemar from Fred. Olsen Cruises in March. The 31-year-old vessel, now renamed and refurbished as the Odyssey, has just completed sea trials – essentially a test drive – in the waters off Belfast.

And while the weeks may be dragging on, many would-be passengers – who have arrived in Belfast in May ready for boarding – are keeping their mood buoyed.

“We’re having a good time,” said Lanette Canen, who is booked to sail with her partner, Johan Bodin. The pair – who were previously living in Hawaii – paid $100,000 for their cabin, which will remain theirs for the ship’s lifetime, estimated to be around 15 years. They then pay a $3,500 monthly fee to be onboard.

Canen and Bodin spoke to CNN from Stirling, Scotland, which they were visiting after Edinburgh and Glasgow. The pair have spent the summer traveling northern Europe, taking in nine countries, from Sweden – where Bodin is originally from – to Scotland.

“We’re not stuck in Belfast, we’ve been traveling,” she said.

“It’s a start-up and we’ve both run businesses – we know there will be hiccups when starting something so we weren’t that worried,” said Bodin.

“It’s been three months but they’ve been transparent about what the hiccups are. We’ve learned a lot about ships.”

Starting from scratch

They’re not the only ones. Villa Vie CEO Mike Petterson had told CNN on July 27 that the ship was ready to sail on July 30 – but it did not. He blames a longer than usual certification process for the delay.

The ship finally had sea trials – a kind of monitored test drive for both the vessel and its crew – on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.

Petterson said that the company has already been given the results: “Everything was good, we passed everything.”

He said that they were given “a couple of takeaways” of “adjustments” to be made, including regarding staff training, but that these wouldn’t impede the certification and departure of the ship. He said that “any outstanding items will be done over the weekend.”

Sea trials are one of the last stages in getting PSSC (Passenger Ship Survey Certification), which allows the vessel to start its voyage.

The final stage is getting coastguard clearance, which he hopes will happen on Monday or Tuesday, enabling the ship to set sail next week.

Petterson said that the delay has been down to the ship – constructed in 1993 – being held to the standards of a new vessel.

Fred. Olsen had taken the Braemar out of service during the pandemic, and retired it when its operations started up again after the lockdowns. This meant the certifications had expired – and instead of simply renewing them, Villa Vie was obliged to start from scratch.

Petterson said that issues have arisen where DNV – the company conducting the certification, which he says has always certified the Braemar – has asked for documentation of past repairs to the vessel, which Fred. Olsen has not supplied.

Other work was recommended in the past but not done, he says – adding that one bearing was recommended to be replaced in 2003, and that DNV will not let Villa Vie set sail without replacing it, although the ship had previously been recertified multiple times. He said that because Villa Vie doesn’t have the documentation of a 2007 repair to an engine, a new repair must be undertaken – and documented thoroughly.

“There is an evident double standard between what’s acceptable for us now and what was acceptable in 2017 and 2019 [when the ship was last inspected],” he said. “Fred. Olsen has been around a long time – it’s a relatively low risk company. I expected continuity, but I got zero credit. Boy have I learned a lot.”

He said that when despite vowing in July that the ship would leave in days, “Every time I’ve given a date I’ve been wrong.”

He said that DNV has launched an investigation into how the ship previously had its certifications renewed in the circumstances.

A spokesperson for DNV said that it does not comment on individual clients’ cases. Samantha Stimpson, CEO of Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines, told CNN:

“We enjoyed many happy years of sailing with this ship, and completed thorough and regular maintenance throughout her operational time. She was in lay up during the pandemic.

“Prior to the sale, the ship was subject to a full and independent survey and technical inspections by the team at Villa Vie.

“We wish Villa Vie every success in their upcoming venture with this wonderful ship.”

‘We’ve been in Belfast longer than the lord mayor’

There’s a lot riding on the Odyssey’s departure for those who have bought places. Some have sold their homes to go on the trip of a lifetime. Others lost money to Life at Sea but have thrown the dice one more time.

Fran Paroissien, a retired teacher from Melbourne, Australia, paid $57,000 for a cabin on Life at Sea, and has yet to receive a penny back.

Having paid her deposit for Villa Vie once it had confirmed a ship, she’s been waiting in Belfast since May 25.

Paroissien isn’t as mobile as some of the other passengers – she has osteoarthritis and uses a walker to get around. So while others have spent the summer traveling Europe, she’s stayed close to Belfast.

“I was sick of sitting in my apartment in Melbourne – I’ve been sitting there for 10 years since I was widowed – and I really hate airports,” she said.

“The company has offered opportunities to the Canary Islands and the Seychelles but I really hate flights. So I’ve been on two ferries: to Liverpool and Glasgow, and the train to Edinburgh, but only for a few days at a time.”

For the rest of the time she has been at Belfast. “Everyone has been great,” she said. “Last Monday the lord mayor of Belfast had us over for morning tea. There were about 60 or 70 of us there. He said we’d been in Belfast longer than he’d been lord mayor.” Micky Murray, the lord mayor, has been in position since June 3.

The company is pledging to pay stranded passengers a per diem, which they can claim back in onboard credit for their monthly fees, she said.

“I’m confident about Villa Vie,” she said. “Life at Sea didn’t even buy a ship. This is a ship. It has new rudders, engines. They have employed staff, repaired kitchens and rooms. They have funding – it’s going to happen. It’s just that the powers that be are treating it as a new ship so everything has to be 100%.”

Booted off for negativity

Not everyone is so relaxed.

“Some people need the details – where did you get that from, why did it take so long?” said Paroissien. “They’re interested in the details of why we are still here. I’m interested in the fact that it’s a beautiful day, what shall we do today?”

And anyone voicing doubts might have concerns about repercussions. Petterson says that as well as seven people canceling their trips, two have been booted off the cruise for making “negative statements” about Villa Vie to their fellow residents. The two passengers involved dispute this. One, Bonny Kelter, told CNN: “We had long-standing contracts and they were unilaterally canceled by Villa Vie Residences without warning.” Kelter, 66 – who says she was hoping to live on the ship “for the rest of my life” – has not yet been refunded, Petterson admitted.

If the cruise does depart as planned in the coming days, things will have changed. “We’ll have missed all of segment one and most of two,” said Paroissien. Since the plan was to chase the sun, they will skip ahead, and possibly loop back to the original destinations at the end. “It depends on what the people who are on it by then want,” said Paroissien, who plans to stay onboard for as long as she can. “I hope I’ll outlive the ship,” she said, saying she doesn’t want to end up in an old people’s home in Australia.

‘Not what we were expecting’

Americans Angela and Steve Theriac, who say they’ve taken around 50 cruises together in the past, say that they plan to set sail but then might leave the ship and pick it up again once it reaches the Caribbean, since he gets seasick, and the Odyssey is a relatively small ship.

“It’s definitely not what we were expecting, and it’s been frustrating at times, but we know we’re about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime,” said Angela.

The pair arrived on May 27, and have taken two cruises and traveled around Spain, Denmark and Liverpool in the intervening weeks.

“We’ve done all the touristy things around Belfast,” said Angela. “We’ve been to Bushmills, the Giant’s Causeway, we went to Dublin and did the Guinness tour.”

The pair are now back in Belfast and have been eating their meals on the ship for the past two weeks. Villa Vie is covering their hotel stay.

The couple – she is a retired high school teacher, and he was a sheriff’s deputy – are in an ocean view cabin.

“Some people say, ‘How can you live in such a small space?’,” said Angela. “Firstly, I’d live in a tent if it meant I can travel. Secondly, that’s just my bedroom – the ship is my home and you should see my back yard.”

For Steve Theriac, the ship’s smaller size is a bonus – “its easy to get around,” he said.

The pair moved to Nicaragua after retiring, which they think has helped them deal with the delay better.

“We’re used to the ‘hurry up and wait’ mentality,” said Angela. “If we didn’t have Nicaragua so ingrained in us we probably wouldn’t be able to handle it, but we’ve turned it into adventures.”

The couple have also been upgraded from an interior room to an ocean view, which has likely helped their mood. They’ve started a YouTube page to document their journey, as have Canen and Bodin.

For the Theriacs, the delay has just brought the passengers closer together. “Our big bond is that we’re all in this together, all waiting, all getting impatient – we are coming from all over the world but we are all travelers at heart,” said Angela.

In the meantime, they wait and hope that their dream to chase the sun lives on.

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By Maureen O’Hare, CNN

(CNN) — In travel news this week: booze-free bars are on the rise, the unexpected perks of traveling with kids, plus the countries whose tourism economies are booming.

Why tourism matters

The United States is the world’s most powerful travel and tourism market, bringing in a record-breaking $2.36 trillion to the nation’s economy in 2023, a new report by industry body the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) has revealed.

This has been a tricky year for tourism globally, with protests across Europe and local communities pushing back against damage to their environment and their lifestyles. Just this week, New Zealand tripled its tourist tax and Rome is thinking about limiting access to the world-famous Trevi Fountain.

However, “travel and tourism is not only back on track, but also set to achieve unprecedented growth,” says WTTC CEO Julia Simpson. And tourism will continue to be a big driver for global economies.

China is the No. 2 market worldwide, with a $1.3 trillion contribution to its GDP, followed by Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom.

France, the world’s most popular destination in terms of actual visitor numbers, is in sixth place for 2023, but those numbers might jump for 2024 thanks to the Paris Olympics.

Well done to the United States on its success, but if you’re looking to avoid those crowds at Disney World, Yellowstone and the rest, here are 25 underrated destinations still flying under the mass tourism radar.

Food and drink trends

Sober bars that serve non-alcoholic drinks are opening across the United States, and some say they’re redefining nightlife. Here’s why mocktails aren’t just for the designated driver.

And it seems the hottest thing to liven up one’s coffee isn’t a splash of whisky but a dollop of salty cream. Yes, Vietnamese specialty coffees are catching on around the world – so grabbing the salt instead of the sugar might not be the mistake you think it is.

Finally, if you’re visiting friends in Japan, you’d best ask your local contact to order at the restaurant.

Foreigners have been surging into the country thanks to the weak yen, and many business owners have resorted to charging tourists a different price to locals. Now restaurants in Lisbon, Portugal’s tourist-laden capital, are doing it, too.

A family affair

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan and her husband, Teddy, never saw the point of traveling with their young children. Then the New York family hit the road for a year and discovered it came with unexpected perks.

Travel adventures can begin at any age. “Grandma Joy” Ryan didn’t get a passport until the age of 91, but a year after becoming the oldest person to visit all 63 National Parks in the US, she set off on a new worldwide challenge with her grandson Brad Ryan.

If you’re a parent raising a future globetrotter, our partners at CNN Underscored, a product reviews and recommendations guide owned by CNN, have put together this guide to the 15 best travel strollers, according to experts.

Wild ride to another world

The Caledonian Sleeper is Britain’s oldest sleeper train service and takes travelers from the hubbub of London to the wilds of the Scottish highlands. Here’s what it’s like on board.

In case you missed it

An airline’s new first-class seats are so heavy that it’s having to rebalance its planes. 

And that’s before the super-rich put their crowns in the overhead bins.

She got back in touch with a vacation fling from over 15 years ago. 

What happened next was unexpected.

An Austrian man was arrested for having sex in a Japanese shrine. 

It’s not the first time people have been detained for disrespecting places of worship.

Now is “the best time of year to go pretty much anywhere.” 

So what are you waiting for?

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EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- The iconic Christmas light show display, put on by Fred Loya, will now be returning to the Loya home after being held at Ascarate Park for the last two years.

"We're very excited to bring back the show to its original place, its original birthplace. And we think the people of El Paso have also asked for it," said Fred Loya. "We are very grateful to the county for the two years they hosted us, but we think we can give it back, the original focal point, that it had here in a way that we could not do it at the park."

Project Manager, Scott Brown, said preparation for the light show has already begun. Brown said it takes over a month to set up all the decorations and lights. This year, he said the team is expecting to put up about 800,000 light fixtures throughout the property.

"The amount of work that goes into this show is unbelievable. There will be about 35 people here starting to build it in October, everyday putting this thing together," said Brown.

The show will begin November 29 and run through Christmas Day.

El Paso County Parks and Recreation Director, Tim Fulton, released the following statement:

"El Paso County has had a great partnership with Fred Loya over the past two years. Overall, we felt Holiday Lights on the Lake was a successful family-oriented event. The Loya team informed us they wanted to bring back the focus to the “show” theme rather than just a light display.

This provides us with the opportunity to create a new unique event for the community. Both years of LOL, the community expressed to us they wanted a drive through light display. Our staff is working to provide a light show that can be experienced in a vehicle. We will also be adding three family-oriented events to compliment the show. In addition, the County is looking for new partners who may be interested in working with us to create a fun experience at Ascarate Park, arguably El Paso’s most popular and frequented park."

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By Forrest Brown, CNN

(CNN) — One of the hottest places on Earth is getting even hotter.

Death Valley National Park had its hottest meteorological summer (June-August) on record, with an average 24-hour temperature of 104.5°F (40.3°C), according to a National Park Service news release.

That sustained scorcher surpasses the old record of 104.2°F (40.1°C), which was set in 2018 and then tied in 2021.

July created an ovenlike atmosphere when the park’s weather station at Furnace Creek recorded its hottest month ever, the news release said. The park had nine straight days of 125° F (51.7° C) or higher, and only seven days in total where temperatures did not reach 120° F (48.9° C).

The highest temperature this summer was 129.2° F (54° C) on July 7. But it wasn’t the just the daytime that was sizzling.

Not much relief at night

Overnight lows also played a big role in the extreme heat, NPS said.

The average low temperature of 91.9° F (33.3° C) meant there was little relief when the sun set. The temperature fell below 80° F only five times from June 1 to August 31, and there were nine days when overnight lows never fell below 100° F, the release said.

Park rangers were called to numerous heat-related incidents, including two fatalities where heat was a contributing factor, the news release said. In another incident, a man had to be rescued from sand dunes after losing his flip flops and getting burns on his exposed feet.

If you’re planning a trip there soon, don’t expect it to be exactly pleasant just because we’re into September now. The park said you can expect triple-digit temperatures into early October. CNN Weather had a forecasted high of 116° F for Saturday at Death Valley.

So caution is still the watchword.

“Visitors are advised to stay within a 10-minute walk of an air-conditioned vehicle, drink plenty of water, eat salty snacks, and wear a hat and sunscreen,” the NPS release said.

Death Valley is the lowest point in North America, where Badwater Basin sits at 282 feet (86 meters) below sea level and is covered in salt flats. That altitude (or lack thereof) contributes to the extreme heat. Hot air can’t rise over the steep, high mountains surrounding the area, and it gets trapped in ultra-low valley.

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Are streaming services being abandoned for better options?

Concept of streaming service illustrated by hand with remote in foreground, blurred background of streaming choices on tv screen.

Streaming services are becoming the norm for a lot of our entertainment needs, but it has plenty of shortcomings. This is why it’s simultaneously surprising and also a little bit unsurprising that physical media is making a small comeback. According to Giant Freakin Robot, the BBC reported that entertainment retailer HMV reported “physical visual” sales rose by 5 percent in the first half of 2024, with 4K and Blu-ray releases doing “particularly well.”

Phil Halliday, managing director of HMV, claimed that the increase in sales is likely due to the changing conversation around streaming services, saying, “When streaming first came out, I think a lot of people saw it as cheap and with huge breadth of choice,” and, “but I’m not sure people see it like that now.”

Halliday also noted how CD and vinyl sales have increased in recent years, so clearly there’s something to people wanting more physical media in their lives.

Some Streaming Services Are Profitable, But At A Price

Halliday’s statements about streaming services aren’t necessarily wrong from a social sentiment standpoint, as many people have complained about the anti-consumer decisions of companies like Netflix in recent years. Price hikes, crackdowns on password sharing, and other decisions have made people angry with their streaming options, and it doesn’t help that there’s so much competition in the streaming space that you have to pay more than cable just to watch all of your favorite shows.

Physical Media Isn’t Subject To Corporate Whims

Physical media may be pricey too, but it has the added advantage of letting you own your favorite shows and movies, rather than leaving them to the whims of a bunch of corporate streaming rights battles.

There’s also the fact that even if you’re subscribed to every streaming service out there, you might still not find the content you want. Some films and TV shows only live in the physical media world, with no option to stream them anywhere. There’s also the fact that the streaming version of shows and films don’t come with all of the bonus features and content you get with a DVD or Blu-ray.

Of course, this bit of good news about an increase in physical media sales comes with the caveat that we’re only looking at the numbers of one major entertainment retailer and not necessarily the industry as a whole. Meanwhile, streaming services like Netflix have outperformed Wall Street expectations in recent years and continue to be major players in the entertainment industry.

Physical Media Is A Commitment

While it’s good to see physical media get some love, it’s safe to say that streaming is still going to be the more convenient and affordable choice for many.

Streaming services are also pretty low commitment, as you can get access to hundreds or thousands of shows and films even if you might not like them.

When you go to buy physical media, it’s pretty likely that you’re already a fan and just want to own a copy for your collection or to ensure you always have a quality version on hand to watch. Still, it’s great to know that physical media is still important to many and that we’re not completely at the whims of streaming corporations.

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By Dan Heching, CNN

(CNN) — You can call her a misunderstood artiste or a “stepmonster,” but any way you put it, Catherine O’Hara’s Delia Deetz in 1988’s “Beetlejuice” is a devilishly delicious pop culture mom in a class of her own.

Through the lens 2024, the character – who returns in this week’s sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” – is in many ways a hair-dye-and-formaldehyde-soaked antidote to the tradwife trend dominating social media. Married to a square and stuck in a rural house that she hates in the first movie, Delia soothes her displeasure with her commitment to art – outlandish sculpture pieces that became part of the visual signature of the Tim Burton classic – along with self medication (or, “Prince Valium”).

That is, before the undead take her on a ride that has her household terrorized by a trickster demon named Beetlejuice. Deila’s very specific verbal tics and facial expressions – not to mention an incredible lip sync performance – made her unforgettable, and, thanks to O’Hara, one of the biggest draws for this week’s new installment in the franchise.

But Delia isn’t the only out-there mom O’Hara has portrayed on the big or small screen. Here’s a look at some other titles in which the beloved Canadian actress was able to flex her madcap maternal instincts:

Kate McCallister in ‘Home Alone’

Never has a one-word movie line become so iconic as when O’Hara, as the frazzled mom of five in this classic Christmas movie, uttered “KEVIN!” after realizing she left one of her brood at home during their holiday trip to France. The movie hinges on her quest to be reunited with Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) and is ultimately quite heartwarming, but O’Hara still gets to fly a bit of her unique flag in certain moments, like when irritably pleading with the staff at the airport to move mountains to get her home (fat chance).

While she’s gone, of course, Macaulay’s Kevin has to fend for himself against bumbling burglars, and the child endangerment at the center of this tale shows that it took some guts for O’Hara to play a mom who makes a pretty serious mistake before “Bad Moms” was a celebrated cinema category.

Beatrice Lever in ‘Home Fries’

This odd darkish comedy is made all the odder by O’Hara’s meddling and kinda homicidal mother character Beatrice, who puts her sons up to scaring (and ultimately killing) her two-timing husband. From there, she tries to convince the pair of young men to hunt down the other woman, an unassuming and adorable fast food worker played by Drew Barrymore. O’Hara’s insecure histrionics play like a slow-motion car wreck in the movie, giving it one of its brighter spots.

Moira Rose in ‘Schitt’s Creek’

O’Hara gained many new fans and admirers thanks to her performance as Moira Rose, a role that netted her an Emmy in 2020. A wayward posh actress who finds herself stuck in a rural place, Moira is at her most amusing – and cringeworthy – when trying to mother her disillusioned children Alexis (Annie Murphy) and David (Dan Levy).

Ultimately, though, her awkward and stilted efforts prove to be endearing, with the star of “The Crows Have Eyes III: The Crowening” occupying a position adjacent to Delia Deetz in the pantheon of timeless and bizarre onscreen moms.

Honorable mention: O’Hara’s hilarious role as formerly promiscuous dog mom Cookie Fleck in “Best In Show.”

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By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) — Sérgio Mendes, a singer and composer who helped popularize the bossa nova music of his native Brazil, died Thursday in Los Angeles, his family shared in a statement with CNN.

Mendes was 83.

“His wife and musical partner for the past 54 years, Gracinha Leporace Mendes, was by his side, as were his loving children,” the family’s statement read.

They added that he had recently been struggling with the effects of long-term Covid.

Mendes recorded more than 35 albums over the course of his six-decade career. He last performed to crowds in Paris, London and Barcelona in 2023.

“There’s a word in English that I love: serendipity,” a quote from Mendes on his website reads. “That’s the story of my life.”

Mendes was born in Niteroi, Brazil in 1941. He studied classical music in his youth and developed an affinity for jazz music after hearing a Dave Brubeck record, according to his website.

He began playing in trios and quartets before moving to United States with his group Brasil ’66. Their Portuguese-language single “Mas Que Nada” brought them success, along with the smooth hit “The Look of Love.”

Mendes collaborated with a star-studded list of artists over the years, like Herb Albert, Frank Sinatra, Quincy Jones, Burt Bacharach and Stevie Wonder. Some of his other memorable songs include “Scarborough Fair,” “Night and Day,” and “Never Gonna Let You Go.”

The 2020 documentary “Sergio Mendes: In the Key of Joy” explored his career and work with other contemporary artists, including will.i.am, Common and John Legend. Mendes and Legend received a 2012 Oscar nomination for best original song for “Real in Rio” from the animated film “Rio.”

Mendes reflected on his career longevity and many musical partnerships in a 2020 interview with NPR.

“I’ve been very fortunate to have had such experiences because that has enriched my life. Working with different people from different countries, from different cultures, I think it just helps you grow and learn new things. … I love that because you don’t program that; it’s about the magical encounter,” Mendes said. “I think it’s a beautiful thing in life.”

This story has been updated.

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By Francesca Street, CNN

(CNN) — To Erin Tridle, it felt as though the universe paved the way for her to meet the love of her life years before their actual meeting.

“There was a lot of happenstance, fate, whatever you want to call it, that played into this,” is how Erin puts it to CNN Travel today.

The first step on the path was paved way back in 2016. A then-24-year-old Erin was on a train, speeding through the French countryside, praying against the odds she’d make her flight home to the US.

Erin’s original train had been canceled. She’d stood for ages at the station, analyzing arrival boards, Googling bus options.

Eventually, Erin got on a train that seemed to be heading back to Paris. Still she knew, in her heart of hearts, that making that flight was a lost cause, which was a stressful thought. It didn’t help that she couldn’t understand the French train announcements.

Trying to calm her anxieties, Erin turned to the guy in the seat next to her.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak French,” she said. “But do you know if this train’s going to Paris?”

“I sure hope so,” laughed her seat neighbor. To Erin’s surprise, he spoke in English, with an American accent and the two twentysomething US travelers started chatting.

The guy was friendly and the conversation passed the time, alleviating Erin’s nerves.

But if you’re assuming he was the love of Erin’s life, hold tight – there were a few more twists in the tale to come, a few more stones still to be laid on her path to happiness.

A series of fortuitous events

When the train arrived in Paris, Erin and her seat neighbor went their separate ways, and Erin figured she’d never see him again.

Then, as predicted, she missed her flight home. Trying not to be disheartened, Erin took the opportunity to extend her time in Paris, staying in the city for an extra few days.

“The next day, I’m walking over to the Musée d’Orsay, and I run into this guy again, the guy from the train,” recalls Erin. “I was like, ‘Okay, we’ve got to hang out, right?’”

The two Americans spent a couple of days touring the city – as friends. They went to karaoke, and visited the Palace of Versailles, and chatted about their experiences as Americans in Paris.

“And during that time, he recommends his hostel to me,” recalls Erin. “He’s like, ‘I’m staying at this really great hostel. It’s called the Generator, and it has a great rooftop bar.’ And I love rooftop bars, so I remembered that.”

Erin returned to the US, and she quickly lost touch with her train friend. As time went on, he all but receded from her mind.

But when, some two and a half years later, Erin found herself considering another solo visit to Paris, she recalled the guy from the train and his hostel recommendation.

“I’m planning this big trip to Europe, I’m figuring out what hostels I’m going to stay in, and I look into Paris, and then that pops into my mind,” Erin recalls. “It was slightly more expensive than the other hostels, but I was like, ‘You know what? It’s worth it. I like a rooftop bar, and it’s already been recommended to me.’”

Erin had always hoped to return to Paris, but the circumstances that led her back there, at age 28, were less than ideal.

“I wasn’t the happiest I’d ever been at the moment,” says Erin. “I decided to book a trip to kind of make me happier, to bring up my outlook on life.”

By then, Erin was working as a TV producer in Los Angeles. While her show was off air over the summer months, she had an extended summer break.

“So it was kind of the perfect time for me to go on this big, long trip to Europe, starting in Paris.”

A rooftop meeting

When Erin arrived at the Generator Hostel in June 2019, she headed straight to bed – it was the morning, but she was jet lagged and exhausted from her flight.

Some hours later, she woke up, slightly groggy. It was 3.p.m local time. Erin dragged herself out of bed, determined to make the most of her time in Paris, as she was only there for two nights.

A sign in the hostel lobby suggested the rooftop bar had just opened for the evening, so Erin headed up, hoping to see a great view of the city before the bar became busy.

It was still early, so the roof was deserted, but inviting – dotted with chairs, tables and fairy lights. And the view was as stunning as Erin had hoped. She spotted the Eiffel Tower and the white-domed Sacre Coeur church illuminated in the sunshine. Erin stood there, feeling content, as she surveyed the panorama of Paris chimneys and famous landmarks.

Pretty much the only other person on the rooftop was the bartender. He met Erin’s eyes as she snapped photos of the panoramic view on her phone. She smiled at him, and he smiled back.

“Instantly, upon meeting him, I thought he was cute,” says Erin.

It felt like there was something between them, like they were both drawn to each other.

The bartender asked Erin if she wanted a drink, switching from French to English when he realized she was American.

Erin ordered a glass of chilled Chardonnay, her favorite white wine. And then, partly because she was the only customer on the roof, and partly because of this spark of potential between them, Erin and the bartender started chatting.

He introduced himself as Jordan, a twentysomething Frenchman who’d been living in Paris for a couple of months in between his studies. Jordan asked Erin questions about her travels, her life in America. He seemed genuinely interested in her responses, and kept smiling at her.

Not only is he cute, thought Erin, he’s nice too.

“But I wasn’t thinking too far into it,” she clarifies. “I was just like, ‘Oh, cute, nice bartender. Cool.’”

Still, there was that feeling that hung between them – a mix of possibility and chemistry. It felt significant, even then.

Erin didn’t know it yet, but here he was: the future love of her life.

‘Un coup de foudre’

If a series of small but significant decisions led Erin to the rooftop bar that day in 2019, the same was true – perhaps even more so – for bartender Jordan.

That year, Jordan had been feeling fed up with his college studies. He started dreaming about leaving France, seeing the world.

“So I took a break from school and just left,” Jordan tells CNN Travel today. “I took a giant bag with me, just put everything inside, and said, ‘Let’s go.’”

Jordan, who has asked for his last name not to be included in this article for privacy reasons, went to the Caribbean first. Then he returned to France, planning to stop off briefly in Paris to get his paperwork and visa sorted for his next stop, Australia.

“I’m from the southwest of France, not Paris,” explains Jordan. “So back then, I don’t know anyone in Paris. I don’t know Paris, I don’t know anything about it.”

Jordan figured he needed a cheap place to stay for a week, and that a hostel would serve that purpose. He Googled “best hostels in Paris” and the Generator popped up. Jordan figured the reviews were decent, the prices OK – and the rooftop bar looked appealing. He booked a room for a week – enough time to sort his papers and then continue on with his travels.

“The first day, I went on the rooftop,” recalls Jordan. Like Erin, he was impressed with the view. Sure, he was from France, but he didn’t know Paris very well. He was still starstruck at the sight of the city’s landmarks, laid out in front of him.

It was evening and the bar was busy.

“The bartender on the rooftop was running around everywhere,” recalls Jordan. “He gave me a drink, and I started speaking with him.”

Jordan told the guy he was doing a great job managing the bar solo – he’d worked as a bartender before and he could tell the guy at the Generator was slammed. Jordan expressed his sympathies – he’d been there, it wasn’t easy.

“Then the bartender said, at that moment, ‘Oh, you’re a bartender too? We need someone for the summer,’” recalls Jordan. “It was April. He said, ‘Stay here and work with me.’”

Jordan remembers hesitating. He was pretty set on his Australia plan and didn’t want it derailed. But some more money in the bank could be useful. Then the bartender called over his manager, who, as it turned out, was from Australia.

“She said to me, ‘Just stay here all summer with us, we’ll give you a room and you’ll make more money to go to Australia,’” recalls Jordan.

It sounded like a pretty good deal. Jordan agreed, and started working at the Generator that week.

By the time Jordan met Erin, he’d been serving up cocktails on the Parisian rooftop for a couple months.

He actually wasn’t supposed to be working that day in August, but one of his coworkers was sick, so he offered to cover for them.

To Jordan, looking back, the twists of fate that led him to the Generator Hostel that summer, that led him to meet Erin, seem both “crazy, weird and lucky.”

Jordan recalls being struck by Erin the moment she stepped onto the rooftop.

“We say in French, ‘un coup de foudre’ – a lightning strike. We say that when you fall in love with a person instantly. That’s exactly what happened to me that first day,” says Jordan.

He enjoyed chatting with Erin and wanted to impress her by making her a complex cocktail, but Erin was happy with her Chardonnay.

And then the bar started to fill up, and it was no longer quite as easy for Jordan to focus on Erin.

“Come back at sunset,” he told her.

During the summer months in Paris,  the sun doesn’t set until almost 10 p.m. That was around the time Jordan closed up the bar for the evening. It was his favorite time of day – he had the rooftop to himself and got to enjoy the city skyline streaked with gold and amber hues.

“Come back then, it’s really beautiful,” said Jordan. “I’d love to see you again, to talk properly.”

Although Erin had only just met Jordan, she felt at ease, comfortable in his presence. The idea of hanging out with him on the rooftop at sunset was very appealing.

“So I came back later,” says Erin. “I wore my best outfit that I’d packed, which was a cherry red jumpsuit. I was so ready.”

But then, several hours later, the bar was “wall-to-wall people, I mean, shoulder-to-shoulder, it was way too packed,” recalls Erin.

Erin felt anxiety rise up in her stomach. But then Jordan waved and got her attention.

“Through the crowds, he spotted me instantly,” she recalls. “He stopped and walked over to me. From the beginning, he showed me that I was a priority, in everything he did.”

But when security started ushering people off the rooftop in preparation of closing, Erin found herself among the crowds shuffling downstairs. She wasn’t sure how to explain to the other employees that Jordan had asked her to stick around.

Meanwhile, Jordan couldn’t follow after Erin until he’d finished cleaning the bar. Panicked he’d lost sight of her forever, he tidied up as quickly as he could, and rushed downstairs some 45 minutes later. To his relief, Erin was sitting in the lobby, waiting.

“Are you ready to go out?” Jordan asked her, smiling.

“Yes, let’s go,” said Erin, smiling back.

The two not-quite-strangers walked out of the Generator Hostel hand in hand, towards the city’s canals.

“It was nighttime, and kind of magical,” says Erin. “The lights were reflecting on the river.”

They considered going to another bar, but instead, Erin and Jordan ended up sitting, side by side, on a bench looking over the river Seine.

“We talked till four in the morning,” recalls Erin. “And sometime during that time, he made his move and kissed me.”

Back at the hostel, Erin and Jordan said goodnight, even though it was already dawn. They met up again a few hours later – Jordan wasn’t on the rooftop that day, thanks to him covering the unexpected shift the night before.

“And that was the day where I really got to see how much this wasn’t just like a flirtation for him, how serious he was, and realizing how serious I was as well,” says Erin.

A Parisian surprise

When they reconvened for a late breakfast, Jordan told Erin he had a surprise for her, but it wouldn’t be ready until later in the day.

Erin was intrigued, but had no idea what it could be. She put the idea out of her mind as she and Jordan spent the day together, enjoying the moment.

“We go to the Seine and sit on a grassy area near the Seine, and kiss. It’s very cute. We have a really lovely day in Paris,” recalls Erin. “And then he gets a text message. He looks at me, and he’s like, ‘Okay, your surprise is ready.’”

The two walked back to the hostel. When they got to the lobby, Jordan told Erin to pack her bags.

It was a risky move – they’d known each other less than 24 hours.

“I could have said no,” says Erin.

But she didn’t. She trusted Jordan.

“So I pack my bags, and then he hands me a key – a room key – to what turns out to be a rooftop suite that has its own balcony overlooking Paris,” says Erin.

The suite was at the top of the hostel. Erin couldn’t believe it when she walked into the room and saw the view. The balcony overlooking the beautiful cityscape would have been enough, but there were more surprises.

“He’d gotten his friends who worked at the hostel to get me a dozen red roses, and my favorite bottle of wine that they sell at the hostel,” says Erin. “Jordan was like, ‘This is just for you. I do not need to be here tonight.’ It was my last night in Paris. I was going to Milan the next morning, so he was like, ‘I just want you to have a really good last night in Paris.’”

Erin was speechless. She’d never been on the receiving end of such a grand gesture before. It was “a really nice and romantic and beautiful thing,” she says.

“Then, that night, there was a party, an organized event on the rooftop,” Erin recalls. “So he took me upstairs and introduced me to every one of his co-workers.”

Earlier that day, Erin had questioned whether Jordan regularly romanced American hostel visitors – their bond seemed genuine, but she couldn’t help but wonder.

But the efforts he’d gone to that evening reassured Erin their connection was special. He seemed “serious about this – he was introducing me to people in his life,” says Erin.

“And then, of course, he definitely did stay in that hotel room. He was invited,” she says. “So we had a really lovely night, and hung out in the room and hung out on the balcony, and just kind of got to know each other even more.”

Jordan says he was aware the gift of the hotel room might be too much, might be unwelcome, might be misconstrued. But he felt it was a gamble worth taking – he wanted Erin to have an amazing time in Paris, with or without him.

“A lot of people say this feeling, love at first sight, doesn’t exist,” says Jordan. “But it’s exactly what happened to me that first day. I don’t have a lot of explanation, I just have to say she was totally perfect in my eyes.”

But before long, the reality of Erin’s upcoming departure started to hit – her flight to Milian was set to leave early the next day.

“We hadn’t slept, it was 3 a.m. and I was packing for Milan,” recalls Erin. “I started sobbing, like, just outright sobbing.”

Erin was crying at the thought of leaving Jordan – a guy she barely knew. She shocked herself by how heartbroken she felt at the prospect.

“That’s when he turns to me and he says, ‘I love you and I want you to be my girlfriend,’” recalls Erin.

Erin stopped crying, in part because she was so shocked.

“I kind of glitched for five seconds because I wasn’t anticipating that,” she says today. “No one had ever been so forward with me, in such a loving way, in my whole life, romantically.

And then I realized, ‘Oh, I’m sobbing because I love this man and I don’t want to leave him. I’m in love too.’ So I said, ‘I love you back. And yes, I want to be your girlfriend.’”

That’s how Erin arrived in Paris, single, but left, a mere 36 hours later, with a French boyfriend.

On the plane to Milan, Erin thought back over the past couple of days and tried to get her head around what had happened. The whole thing was surreal, but it also just felt right.

Making a choice

From there, Erin enjoyed a few days in Milan and then headed to Nice, in the south of France, for the weekend.

Jordan arranged some time off work and came down to meet her by the sea.

“We were chatting every day,” says Jordan. “Then we spent the weekend together.”

After Nice, Erin was planning to head to San Sebastián, in Spain’s Basque region – inspired by an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s show “Parts Unknown.”

“I was doing what I call an Anthony Bourdain pilgrimage,” Erin explains. “Going to a spot he visited on one of his shows that I really enjoyed.”

But in the end, Erin abandoned the San Sebastián plans to spend the rest of her vacation in Paris with Jordan.

“I decided that really seeing what we could make of it was the most important thing I could do,” she says. “So I went back to Paris, got an Airbnb, and we spent as much time together as we possibly could.”

When Jordan was working, Erin kept him company at the rooftop bar. On his days off, they explored the city together. They grew closer and closer.

Before Erin returned to the US, they vowed to get to San Sebastián one day, together. In the meantime, Jordan promised he’d visit Erin in Los Angeles as soon as he could.

“He had never been to the United States,” says Erin. “But he got his ESTA visa immediately, and he was in the United States the very next month.”

Erin’s friends and family were a little taken aback when Erin told them she’d fallen in love in Paris. They were pleased for her, but apprehensive. But then Jordan came to visit, and they saw how happy he made Erin.

“I told them just how wonderful he was to me, and then they actually got to see it in person, and they were really, really happy upon meeting him,” says Erin.

By then, fall had arrived, and Jordan’s summer stint at the rooftop bar was ending. He decided to put the Australia plan to one side and to spend three months in Los Angeles, with Erin, instead.

“So he moved in with me for three months,” says Erin. “It was the best freaking three months. It was so much fun.”

During that period, their relationship began to feel less like a vacation romance, and more and more like something that could be real, could be lasting. Erin and Jordan were looking forward to the future.

Unexpected separation

Jordan’s three months in the US came to an end at the beginning of 2020, and Erin booked a trip to France that February, coinciding with Valentine’s Day.

By then, Covid-19 was splashed across newspapers in the US and France, but Erin and Jordan couldn’t predict what was to come.

“I flew back, but then the borders shut down,” recalls Erin.

She’ll never forget her shock at seeing the headline, realizing what that reality meant for her and Jordan.

“That was the beginning of nine months in which we didn’t get to see each other,” she says.

Erin and Jordan’s Covid-enforced separation was difficult for them both. As they weren’t married, they had no grounds on which to reunite. It wasn’t clear how long this limbo would last. Plus, the pandemic was a worrying, scary time.

“Once or twice a month, I would just break down sobbing,” says Erin. “I had a really hard time with it, as did he. So we just mutually came to the conclusion that we never wanted to be apart again.”

So Erin and Jordan got engaged over the phone, promising to spend the rest of their lives together, to reunite as soon as they could.

In late 2020, US and French Covid rules permitted the couple to finally meet, and so Erin flew to France to meet Jordan.

Erin’s got a blurry, emotional video of the moment they reunited after nine months apart.

“I wanted to be able to go back to it and remember it,” says Erin. “Our faces aren’t even in the video, because I was just frantically running towards him, not even paying attention to how I was holding my phone. It was the best feeling in the world.”

But another long period of separation followed in 2021, as the French borders closed again in the wake of the Omicron Covid variant.

But by summer, the pandemic had waned and Erin and Jordan were able to spend three months together in France.

It was a significant summer in more ways than one. When they first started talking about their future together, the couple had always assumed Jordan would move to the US, given Erin had an established career in Los Angeles in the television world.

But things had started to shift.

“I’d been in LA for a really long time, and it made sense, practically, with my work,” says Erin. “But when I came to Paris, every time I was here, I just felt really happy. And obviously the majority of that happiness was him. But there was a part of me that just really connected with the city and started thinking about, ‘Hey, maybe we could be here instead.’”

Erin started looking into the logistics of moving abroad, and the couple started planning their wedding.

A ‘perfect day’

Erin and Jordan got married in July 2023, in the district town hall building in the 8th Arrondissement, a Paris city center neighborhood that includes the Champs-Élysées.

It was a small but special celebration, “a perfect day,” as Jordan puts it. A handful of Erin’s closest friends flew out from the US for the celebrations. Her family attended too, as did Jordan’s loved ones.

Having everyone together felt significant and special, but one of Erin’s favorite moments of the day was shared just with Jordan.

“We got a little moment before the reception to be alone. We had a little break, and we had a little Champagne,” she recalls. “And I just remember thinking, ‘We did it, we did the damn thing.’ And it was just the best day.”

In October 2023, Erin officially moved to France. She was excited and apprehensive – she’d left her job in television, left her friends and family in Los Angeles and she still didn’t speak fluent French.

But she felt ready for this new chapter.

“I kind of got used to the idea slowly over time, that this could become my home,” Erin says of Paris.

And the move was made easier thanks to the welcome she received from Jordan’s friends and loved ones.

“I don’t have a very big family, but everyone absolutely adores her,” says Jordan, who says his mother treats Erin like the daughter she never had.

“She’s super proud of her and her achievements,” says Jordan.

For Erin, as much as she loved Paris – “looking at the Eiffel Tower and being like, ‘Oh right, I’m going to wake up and see this every day’” – the true reward was finally living with Jordan full time.

“It was less about like, ‘Oh, I live in Paris,’ and it was more, ‘I don’t ever have to wake up in a bed alone again. I get to wake up next to my favorite person in the world,’” recalls Erin.

As for Jordan, he says he’s thankful for the “stability” of their lives now. After their years navigating long distance, he feels like they’re building “something safe and strong.”

With Erin’s encouragement and cheerleading, Jordan went back to college and graduated with a degree in visual effects. He’s currently working as a bartender at a prestigious hotel as he figures out his next steps.

Meanwhile Erin’s segued into content creation. She chronicles her life as an American in Paris on TikTok and Instagram @erintridle.

Erin and Jordan both credit each other with encouraging them as they find their feet in life.

“We complete each other,” is how Jordan puts it. “I consider her my best friend, as well as my wife.”

Erin suggests her more “emotional,” spontaneous personality is complemented by Jordan’s “cool, calm and collected” vibe.

“He helps me logic my way out of whatever I’m dealing with,” she says. “He just kind of takes me through it step by step. It’s very kind of him. And he makes me laugh more than anybody else.”

“She has some stuff that I really need, that she gives me, and also that goes in reverse,” says Jordan. “That makes it even stronger between us.”

A ‘foundation of love’

Five years since they met on the rooftop in Paris, Jordan says he’s still struck by how “statistically impossible” their meeting was – how so many fortuitous events and choices led them to both be there that day in 2019.

“Something happened that’s almost impossible,” he says of their meeting.

As for Erin, she considers that if someone had told her younger self: “You’re going to marry a Frenchman, end up in Paris, you’re going to fall in love within 36 hours,” she wouldn’t have believed them.

“I would’ve been like, ‘You’re crazy,’” she says, laughing.

But meeting Jordan upended Erin’s world, and her outlook, in the best way.

“So if I had gone back in time and told myself, even 48 hours after I met him, ‘Hey you’re going to marry this guy, and you’re going to end up in Paris, I’d have been like ‘Yeah, that tracks, honestly,’” she says.

Today, looking back on how they met – tracing it all back to that train encounter years previously – makes Erin “giddy with happiness” and Jordan “proud.”

The couple are currently planning their honeymoon to San Sebastián – the destination Erin missed out on in 2019. And they hope to one day make it to Australia, given Jordan never got there.

Whatever the future brings, the two are confident they’ll enjoy it together.

“There’s just a foundation of love there that I can’t quite describe, if I’m being quite honest,” says Erin. “There’s not a lot of good nouns and adjectives I can throw at it. It’s just something that is strong and is there at all times.”

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By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) — What’s to say about a show featuring Mormon mom TikTok influencers, a sex scandal and Ben Affleck’s cousin? Plenty.

Buckle in for “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” which debuts Friday on Hulu. The series follows current and former members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) embroiled in drama over alcohol use, unwed pregnancies, male strip shows and partner-swapping.

It all starts with influencer Taylor Frankie Paul, who is credited with forming “MomTok,” by pulling together a group of fellow Mormon mothers on TikTok. Many of the members have millions of followers, sharing glimpses of their lives for lucrative sponsorships.

Paul caused a scandal in 2022, when she announced that she was getting divorced after she said she violated the terms of her open marriage. She also shared that she and her now ex-husband had participated in “soft swinging” with other couples in their Utah community, which involved trading sexual partners in their social circle.

The storyline of the show heaviy involves the fallout from Paul’s revelation, as well as her subsequent pregnancy with boyfriend Dakota Mortensen, whom she became involved with while married.

“I don’t regret where I am right now,” Paul told CNN of her relationship choices. “I am happy to be where I am. But do I wish I had went about things differenty? Absolutely.”

“I would have never opened my relationship and my marriage. I feel like that was a disaster waiting to happen,” she added. “I think announcing it to the world, I wish that hadn’t had to happen as well, but also it got us where we are today.”

The season highlights a feud between Paul and cast member Whitney Leavitt, who seems to be aiming for Paul’s MomTok throne, as the women work to repair friendships and secure their continued influencer work.

“I never really felt a competitive nature with Taylor,” Leavitt told CNN. “I think it was more so I missed getting together with all of the girls and creating content together. So I just started planning content days and then it turned into something that wasn’t what it was.”

The past and present LDS affiliation of the women has sparked both controversy and interest. While the Church has not commented on “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” directly, the organization seemed to allude to it in a message on their website the same day a trailer for the show debuted last month.

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, like other prominent global faith communities, often finds itself the focus of the attention of the entertainment industry,” the statement read. “Some portrayals are fair and accurate, but others resort to stereotypes or gross misrepresentations that are in poor taste and have real-life consequences for people of faith. While this is not new, a number of recent productions depict lifestyles and practices blatantly inconsistent with the teachings of the Church.”

Cast memberJennifer Affleck, who is a distant cousin of actor and director Ben Affleck, told CNN she’s taking online criticism to their portrayal in stride.

“It’s probably good that we’ve gotten a little bit of backlash [early] just so we can prepare us for when the real stuff comes out,” Affleck said.

“There’s eight episodes for people to give more backlash on,” her castmate Mikayla Matthews added. “I think we are going to have to go through it with each episode.”

Cast member Jessi Ngatikaura told CNN she understands the mixed reaction given come of the conservative teachings of the LDS faith, but found the uproar before the series even aired to be “wild.”

“We knew the title was going to get controversial opinions, but I really hope once people see it they can give it a second chance and realize it’s so much more than a two-minute trailer and a name,” she said. “I’m super proud of what we did…and I think once they watch it, they’re going to realize it’s a super empowering show about women and our struggles.”

The eight episodes of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” are now streaming on Hulu.

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By Silvia Marchetti, CNN

(CNN) — For many people, the idea of moving to France usually conjures up dreams of romance or – because this is the land of Michelin stars and cafe culture – food.

US woman Jane Satow found both. Not only that, but in a country renowned for showing disdain toward the cuisines of foreigners, she has also found work teaching locals how to cook.

Satow, 56, left her home in Virginia two decades ago to start a new life in the bucolic southern French region of Provence.

Hailing from a family of farmers with a passion for the kitchen, she had a background in catering before making the move, and her love of food fueled her ambition of one day moving to the French region known for its Mediterranean menus as well as its rolling fields of bright purple lavender.

“My first jobs were in restaurants and I finally worked for several fine dining restaurants (in the US), which inspired my passion for fine food, wine and cooking,” she tells CNN.

Satow attended a cooking school in Colorado, where she completed a course in French techniques and joined a “seriously nerdy weekly wine club.”

Eventually, after a spell living in Chile, her British husband’s job took the couple across the Atlantic and in 2005, they relocated near to Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, a picturesque town south of the medieval city of Avignon, where they raised their three children.

“It was a dream come true for me to move to Provence, and I never looked back,” she says.

The marriage didn’t last, but after divorcing she decided to remain.

“I truly love my adopted country and even at the risk of remaining on my own, although I have many dear French friends, I was absolutely sure about staying put in France.”

Fairytale romance

Satow met her new “handsome” French partner, Christophe Daumas, in 2019 at a salsa dance class and says he literally “swept her off her feet” like in a fairytale.

She credits Daumas with helping her pursue a long-held desire to share her knowledge of food with others.

“I have had this dream of wanting to open a teaching kitchen since I arrived in France, and finally with the support and encouragement of Christophe, I started looking for a place to buy to create a dedicated space where I could offer cooking classes.”

Satow found a rundown 17th-century townhouse in the historic center of Saint-Rémy in 2019 but had to press pause on renovations and opening the school during the pandemic.

Though disappointed, she says she used the time to develop fresh recipes and test old ones in her new kitchen.

Her venture, La Cuisine Provençal, finally opened in 2021. She says she now has clients from all over the world, mostly travelers coming to Provence for the first time, but also locals.

“In the winter when there are less tourists we offer classes geared towards French people such as creating a holiday meal from A-Z and foie gras quatre façons (four ways).”

Satow holds a titre de séjour, a sort of French green card that gives her residency and rights to work and now, after living almost 20 years in Provence, she plans to apply for French nationality.

After initially grappling with the language, she says she now speaks fluent French.

‘Dream come true’

She still lives in the country house she shared with her ex-husband in Egalières, a village 12 kilometers (about 7 miles) outside Saint-Rémy, that she also rents out to vacationers in summers.

When it’s full of guests, Satow moves to her old townhouse in Saint-Rémy where the “kitchen” is.

“I was very lucky to purchase the townhouse before Covid as the house prices went up by around 30% since then due to lots of Parisians buying second homes in Provence afterwards,” she says.

She paid 200,000 euros (about $222,000 by today’s conversion rates) for the 85-square-meter historic townhouse and spent another 60,000 renovating the 30-square-meter kitchen on the ground floor and the two bedrooms on the upper floors.

“It was a dream come true, and I could never have imagined how much success we have had,” she says of her cooking school venture.

“Christophe actually made me think that moving to France was my destiny.  He helped me realize my dream of starting my cooking school, doing all the renovations himself – as he’s a contractor. It was really a labor of love which we put our hearts and souls into completing together. I really don’t think I could have done it without his support.”

She says she likes to stick to teaching authentic local cuisine with a few twists.

“It is important to me to pay homage to the local Provencal cuisine which developed over hundreds of years and is still made by local people in their homes.”

Satow confesses she was quite concerned that at the beginning, as an outsider, she might have her attempts at tackling classic French cooking rejected.

“When I first moved to France as an American, albeit a very foodie one, I was totally intimidated by French chefs and could not imagine competing with them.

“Since then I’ve learned so much, mainly on my own – cooking and reading hundreds of recipes learning lots of tips and discovering French regional dishes, taking many cooking classes over the years in France and wine tasting at domaines.”

French people, she says, are passionate about food. It’s their favorite subject to discuss and, whether at the butcher or the cheesemonger, they will tell you their favorite preparation for whatever you are buying on any given day.

She defines herself as a traditionalist who also likes to stick to classic French cooking, but with a touch of nouvelle cuisine as per France’s culinary culture.

“For me it’s important to mètre en valeur (make relevant or let shine) the local traditional recipes which I’ve lightened up a bit.”

Keeping it local

La Cuisine Provençal offers collective group cooking classes in English and French with a maximum of 50 participants, and also organizes private dinners.

It only uses fresh ingredients sourced from within a 50-kilometer radius and produce from local farmers, plus plenty of local olive oil and very little cream or butter.

Satow feels lucky to have access to amazing lamb, fresh fish from the Mediterranean, and farm-raised, grass-fed poultry and meats. She says French people take so much pride in raising their livestock and the animals are often grazing upon herbs de Provence which grow naturally and perfume the meats and cheeses.

Among her signature dishes are lamb provençale with roasted tomatoes, guinea fowl with creamy chanterelle sauce and sautéed green beans, aioli with sea bass façon beurre monté (in butter), fried zucchini blossoms and coque au vin blanc (chicken with white wine and coco beans).

Crudités with traditional Provençal anchoïade are one of her musts, with a “fabulous” dip for raw vegetables made from a base of homemade garlic mayonnaise and cured anchovies.

Other dishes she teaches are fresh grilled sardines on garlic-scrubbed toast with roasted red peppers and parsley; and cod-poached façon beurre monté with fresh thyme.

Her caviar d’aubergine is very popular among guests – it features roasted eggplant, roasted garlic, the best extra virgin local olive oil, lemon, fleur de sel from the Camargue, fresh ground pepper and fresh basil.

“I’ve taken those recipes and refined them with the nouvelle cuisine and chef techniques I learned in the US, and I’ve added my own personal touches,” she says.

For example, Satow blanches the green beans for four minutes then sautées them in garlic and olive oil to add some color and enrich the flavor, so they are a bit more done than al dente. 

To make her special ratatouille, she says she sautées each vegetable separately because each one needs to be cooked differently – the zucchini and yellow squash are delicately browned on high heat in a light coat of olive oil, the tomatoes are slow-roasted separately in the oven to enhance flavor, the eggplant is seared on high heat and nicely browned and the red pepper and onions are slightly charred.

“I then mix all of the vegetables together and add a splash of red wine vinegar, finishing salt, freshly ground coarse peppercorns and lots of fresh basil.”

Cultural clashes

Apart from the food and romance, living in the south of France has several other perks.

The cost of living is much lower than that of the US, says Satow. For instance, fresh vegetables and fruits, and specialty products like French cheeses, charcuterie and wine are much cheaper.

Saint-Remy was an easy choice, she says.

“It’s very charming and has a special light. I fell in love with the countryside, olive trees and lavender fields.”

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing at the beginning.

Other than the language barrier, she had to face a series of red tape-related obstacles and overcome some cultural clashes.

“Challenges with bureaucracy were having to show proof of residency to get a bank account, for example when we just moved to France and didn’t yet have a fixed residence.

“It was a bit tough… it just took time.”

The biggest issue for foreigners, especially Americans, Satow says, is the French tendency to say “no” right away before considering whether it’s possible to work through something.

“Being persistent, positive and trying to find a solution is imperative,” she adds.

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By Yahya Salem, CNN

(CNN) — To the untrained eye, a tennis court is merely an amalgamation of nine parallel and perpendicular lines, converging to define the limitations of movement for both ball and player. But to American photographer and journalist Nick Pachelli, a tennis court is the harmonious union of surface, sound, and spectators, complemented by the natural elements and the inherent intensity of tennis.

“Tennis is our only sport where the canvas on which we play can change so dramatically,” Pachelli, a former amateur tennis player himself, told CNN, highlighting each court’s “unique persona,” as he describes in his new photobook, The Tennis Court.

During more than 500 days of travel, Pachelli visited 172 courts (of the roughly 200 in the book), crisscrossing more than 250 cities and towns in his pursuit of spotlighting the world’s most aesthetic, esteemed, and even idiosyncratic tennis courts.

From cliffside clay courts pocketed between the peaks of the Swiss Alps, to the salsa capital of the world that is Cali, Colombia and the vibrant purple and green hardcourts of Yangpyeong, South Korea where the background noise isn’t the cheers and gasps of crowds, but a DJ creating a partylike atmosphere.

The result was not only an anthology of captivating, vivid visuals and evocative essays, but also, essentially, a love letter to the sport and an homage to its patrons and communities.

“The book constantly asked this question of, what do we think about when we think about tennis?” said Pachelli, “We take that question as the spectator, the newcomer to the game, the die-hard player, the professional, the groundskeeper; every single role you could think of around this sport.”

Pachelli’s inclusive approach challenges historical preconceptions of elitism and inaccessibility which have long blemished tennis. In Pachelli’s view, tennis institutions must reckon with this convoluted history in order to advance the sport and elevate its global community. Pachelli gives the example of Lawn Tennis Clube da Foz in Porto, Portugal and the Junior Tennis Champions Center in Maryland as bastions of preserving tennis’ prestige while simultaneously uplifting their local communities through initiatives such as waiving fees for low-income youths, empowering female coaches and curating programs for disabled players.

The expansiveness of Pachelli’s journey is also a reflection of tennis’ surging popularity. In 2023, the ATP (the worldwide top-tier tennis tour for men organized by the Association of Tennis Professionals) and WTA (the principal organizing body of women’s professional tennis) tours recorded more than 1.84 billion in combined global audiences, while the United States Tennis Association marked four consecutive years of participation growth with nearly 24 million Americans playing the sport. Pachelli partially credits local grassroot initiatives with this surge, and also notes Hollywood’s recent investment in tennis with films such as King Richard and Challengers.

“There’s so much exciting grassroots tennis happening,” said Pachelli, “There are young tennis communities emerging that are finding their own tennis sensibility.”

Yet despite his extensive travels, Pachelli still finds his peace cushioned between the seats of Grandstand and Court 17 in Flushing Meadows, New York, watching US Open games with some friends and some food, to a serene sunset backdrop.

“There’s no energy like the US Open. It’s wild and congested and a little drunk,” Pachelli said. “There’s no other place in the world like the US Open to experience every type of viewing of professional tennis.”

“I hope that sort of global tennis community interconnectedness is what will hopefully inspire some people to go experience it in new places,” said Pachelli, “because I think that’s the ultimate way to learn about yourself, see the world, and engage with your fellow tennis obsessives somewhere else.”

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The Tennis Court by Nick Pachelli (Artisan Books) is out now.

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By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN

(CNN) — Taylor Swift spent her Thursday night at Arrowhead Stadium watching her boyfriend and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce play, play, play. And win.

Wearing a denim corset, matching denim shorts and red knee-high boots, Swift strolled into the stadium over a hour before the game began, according to footage posted to social media. Welcome to the second season of “Football (Taylor’s Version).”

The Chiefs beat the Baltimore Ravens in a nail-biter 2024-2025 season opener, which aired on NBC.

Swift at one point was seen sitting next to the three-time Super Bowl champ’s dad Ed Kelce, who was proudly repping both of his sons in a “New Heights” podcast ball cap. Swift was later shown on NBC’s broadcast celebrating one of Kelce’s successful catches with his mom, Donna Kelce.

Swift and Kelce have been romantically linked since September 2023, when the singer first showed up to one of Kelce’s football games after he detailed his efforts to connect with her during an Eras Tour concert stop in Kansas City.

She went on to become a fixture at his games – and on our TV screens during game-day broadcasts – throughout last season while showing up to support Kelce during breaks from her tour.

Her presence at the games became an oft-discussed topic.

Many embraced her connection to the league and the new female audience that she brought with it, while some NFL loyalists took issue with the amount of attention she received during each game’s broadcast.

The “Fortnight” singer acknowledged the conversation surrounding her NFL exposure in an interview with Time magazine last year, saying, “I’m just there to support Travis.”

“I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads, and Chads,” she said.

Kelce’s teammate Patrick Mahomes, the leading Quarterback in the NFL, previously spoke about how “extremely cool” he thinks it is that Swift kept showing up to their games, despite the discourse.

“Obviously, she’s just here to support Travis in the best way possible,” he said in February during a pre-Super Bowl press conference. “It has done a great job of bringing more people to football and how great the sport is.”

Mahomes added that as “a father to a daughter as well, I love that she watches the games and loves football.”

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By Alli Rosenbloom and Leah Asmelash, CNN

(CNN) — Atlanta-based rapper Rich Homie Quan, known for his 2013 hit “Type of Way,” has died, according to a statement from the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office. He was 33.

Quan, whose full name is Dequantes Devontay Lamar, died on Thursday at Grady Memorial Hospital, according to Jimmy Sadler, the senior medical examiner investigator with the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office.

An autopsy is scheduled for Friday, Sadler said.

Details on the cause of death were not provided.

Quan was a significant part of raising Atlanta’s trap hip-hop sound to the mainstream.

Alongside rappers like Young Thug, Quan became known for his melodic approach to rap – heard in hits like 2013’s “Type of Way” and 2014’s “Lifestyle.” The latter song, which also featured Young Thug and Birdman under the group name Rich Gang, went platinum in the US and helped jumpstart both his and Young Thug’s careers.

The following year, he dropped “Flex (Ooh, Ooh, Ooh),” another commercial success. It became one of Quan’s highest charting songs, and his dance moves from the track’s music video became so ubiquitous, particularly on now-defunct Vine, that it spurred the phrase “Hit the Quan.”

Quan was scheduled to perform at Nick Cannon’s Wild ‘N Out Live: The Final Lap tour in Atlanta later this month alongside Waka Flocka, Nardo Wick and Boosie.

“RIP Rich Homie Quan,” rapper Meek Mill, who collaborated with Quan on a “Type of Way” remix, wrote on his Instagram story on Thursday. “Prayers to his family.”

Rapper 2Chainz, who recently collaborated with Quan on a track titled “Ah’chi,” released this year, wrote on his Instagram page that they had just spoken about shooting a music video together.

“Remember me as an original. As (an) artist who did it his way,” Quan told Revolt in an interview published in July, speaking about the legacy he hoped to leave. “Remember me as a hard kid from Atlanta with a dream, who believed in himself and bettered himself — and won.”

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By Pete Muntean, CNN

(CNN) — Airlines’ highly lucrative – and sometimes mysterious – frequent flyer and credit card rewards programs are now subject to an unprecedented federal consumer protection probe.

The Department of Transportation told executives of the country’s four major airlines on Thursday to divulge details and data surrounding the policies and practices of how passengers can accrue and spend miles.

“Our goal with this inquiry is to ensure that customer rewards are protected from any practices that would diminish their value, benefit, or availability,” says the letter to the CEOs of American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines, which now have 90 days to respond to the Department of Transportation.

The DOT’s probe is focused on how consumers could be affected by the devaluation of earned rewards, extra fees, hidden or dynamic pricing and reduced competition and choice.

The department aims to protect customers from “potential unfair, deceptive, or anticompetitive practices,” it said in a news release.

In Thursday’s announcement, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said airline miles “have become such a meaningful part of our economy that many Americans view their rewards points balances as part of their savings.”

Industry group Airlines for America said in a statement that consumers “have the power of choice” when selecting airlines for their travels and carriers offer loyalty programs as a way to reward travelers for their “return business and brand loyalty” in a fiercely competitive environment.

“Millions of people enjoy being a part of various loyalty programs, which allow them to accumulate rewards to apply toward travel or other benefits,” Airlines for America said. “U.S. carriers are transparent about these programs, and policymakers should ensure that consumers can continue to be offered these important benefits.”

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EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- During a recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Grammy-winning artist Billie Eilish mentioned that she had previously recorded songs in El Paso hotels.

"We're always finding ourselves working in the most kind of random places," Eilish explained. "We've recorded in like little hotels in El Paso. It's nothing like that cool, but it's fun because it's so casual and normal. We're just in the back of this car on Phineas' laptop."

On the show, a clip then played of Finneas and Billie Eilish working together in the back of a car, driving through a city.

Eilish mentioned Dyer Street, but did not specify which hotels she had stayed in. Eilish also mentioned working on songs on tour buses and on the road during a tour in Brazil.

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By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) — Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s romance is entering its second season. Of football.

Thursday marks the second installment of what came to be known by some as “Football (Taylor’s Version),” a moniker born after Swift attended a Kansas City Chiefs game in September 2023 to watch Kelce, the team’s tight end, on the field amid romance rumors.

Though it is not known whether Swift will attend the first game of the season – and if she does, you’ll likely see her on the broadcast – the pair has kept busy during the off-season, including Swift drafting up plays for the Chiefs that perhaps the team will put into action.

Here’s a look back at the alchemy that got us to this era and what the couple has been up to this summer:

July 2023

Kelce is very familiar with Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium since that’s where his team, the Kansas City Chiefs, play. But on July 8, 2023, he was there for a different reason – to see Swift perform as part of her “Eras Tour.”

A few weeks later he shared the story on his podcast “New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce,” which he co-hosts with his brother, about how he had attempted to get Swift his phone number via a Swiftie-style friendship bracelet.

“I was disappointed that she doesn’t talk before or after her shows because she has to save her voice for the 44 songs that she sings,” he told the world after his brother Jason asked about attending the concert. “So I was a little butthurt I didn’t get to hand her one of the bracelets I made for her.”

“If you’re up on Taylor Swift concerts, there are friendship bracelets, and I received a bunch of them being there, but I wanted to give Taylor Swift one with my number on it,” Kelce said.

When Jason asked if his brother meant his jersey number or his phone number, the Kansas City tight end quipped, “You know which one.”

September 2023

From there, Kelce found himself fielding questions about what, if anything, was going on between him and Swift.

“I’m not gonna talk about my personal life,” he said during an interview with NFL+ host Andrew Siciliano.

That didn’t stop the speculation that the pair were dating, and Kelce shared during an appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” that he had invited Swift to watch him play.

“I threw the ball in her court,” the football player said. “I told her, ‘I’ve seen you rock the stage in Arrowhead, you might have to come see me rock the stage in Arrowhead.’ We’ll see what happens in the near future.”

Swift eventually took him up on it and appeared at his game on September 24, sitting next to his mother, Donna Kelce, in the family suite.

Swifties, as her hardcore fan base is known, promptly lost it, heralding the kickoff of mania over the pair.

October 2023

The NFL began leaning in to “Traylor,” “Tayvis,” “Swelce” or whatever you choose to use as their couple nickname.

The league’s official X account posted about her plenty when on October 1 Swift and some of her famous friends including Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds cheered Kelce and his team on against the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium.

Everyone felt swept up in the excitement over the two, and Donna Kelce told CNN that all the attention surrounding her son and Swift felt “unreal.”

“I tell everyone that it’s kind of like an alternate universe that I just happened to be in,” Donna Kelce said. “Like, I went through a third wall into another dimension. That’s what it feels like.”

And in a case of “we can show you better than we can tell you,” Kelce and Swift appeared to confirm their coupledom when they were photographed holding hands in New York City after they both made separate surprise appearances on “Saturday Night Live’s” season 49 premiere on October 14.

Swift gave definite girlfriend vibes a week later when she and Brittany Mahomes, the wife of Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes, showed off their special handshake during a successful Chiefs play against the Los Angeles Chargers. Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes are besties as well as teammates.

November 2023

There was no doubt that Swift and Kelce were indeed a couple once he traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, for her November 11 “Eras Tour” stop.

Not only was Kelce there with Swift’s dad, she swapped the “Karma” lyric “Karma is the guy in the screen coming straight home to me” – which many thought was about her ex-boyfriend actor Joe Alwyn – for “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs coming straight home to me.”

And if that wasn’t swoon-worthy enough, video of her running off stage into Kelce’s arms for a smooch had those rooting for the superstar singer to find her person singing “It’s a love story, baby, just say ‘Yes.’”

Later that month Kelce was the cover star of WSJ Magazine’s and opened up about their relationship.

“Obviously I’ve never dated anyone with that kind of aura about them…. I’ve never dealt with it,” Kelce told the publication of Swift’s life in the spotlight. “But at the same time, I’m not running away from any of it…. The scrutiny she gets, how much she has a magnifying glass on her, every single day, paparazzi outside her house, outside every restaurant she goes to, after every flight she gets off, and she’s just living, enjoying life. When she acts like that I better not be the one acting all strange.”

December 2023

Kelce wasn’t the only one willing to talk about their relationship.

Swift was named Time magazine’s 2023 “Person of the Year” and in an interview with the publication, she cleared up speculation that they became official at that first September football game she attended.

“By the time I went to that first game, we were a couple,” she told Time.

She added, they “would never be psychotic enough to hard launch a first date” in the public sphere like that. Makes sense.

January 2024

Not only did Kelce and Swift ring in the new year together with a sweet kiss, but she also met his brother Jason for the first time.

The then-Philadelphia Eagles center and his wife Kylie Kelce hung out with Swift during the Chiefs’ playoff game against the Buffalo Bills,

Suffice it to say, Jason Kelce made quite the impression as he stripped off his shirt, guzzled beer and hopped out of the suite window to have some fun with the fans.

Afterwards the brothers talked about it during an episode of their podcast and Jason Kelce said his wife had warned him to be on his “best behavior” for his first meet up with his beloved brother’s girlfriend.

“I was like, ‘Kylie, the first day I met you I was blackout drunk and fell asleep at the bar,” he said during the podcast. “This is part of the charm. This is part of the Jason Kelce charm. I wanna make my best first impression.’”

It apparently worked as Travis Kelce told him, “Tay said she absolutely loved you.”

February 2024

Love was in the air the month of Valentine’s Day – not just between Swift and her boyfriend, but for his sports fans.

His team made it once again to the Super Bowl, which allowed the NFL to further cash in given that Swift had been boosting ratings with her attendance at the games.

And while some thought the league was overdoing it with all the shots of the singer during the games, Mama Kelce was excited for the new audience Swift was attracting.

“I think it’s amazing that more and more people are embracing the NFL. I love sports. I especially love football because my boys have been doing it for so long,” Donna Kelce told CNN at the time. “I truly believe that it’s bringing families closer. Sports tends to do that.”

“I’ve gotten letters, texts and comments when I’m in the airport about how fathers are so happy that their daughters are finally coming to them to try to understand the game,” she added. “And they couldn’t have thought that would have ever happened before now.”

Her son Travis and his Chiefs went on to win the Super Bowl, their third in five years and their second in a row.

And because we must know how did it end, Swift and Kelce gave us that movie moment when he turned from celebrating with his mother, told Swift “Come here girl,” and the pair embraced and exchanged a few kisses on the field.

There was much partying and Swift even joked in a TikTok video about ending up in a nightclub with her parents as they celebrated the historic win.

Later that month Kelce thrilled concertgoers in Australia when he flew out to join her when she played her Sydney tour stop.

April 2024

Good luck remembering who played Coachella because all eyes were on Swift and her man as they enjoyed the annual music festival. It was so serious that a video of a lip reader trying to interpret what the couple said to each other while they jammed went viral.

But that was nothing compared to the excitement when Swift dropped her new album “The Tortured Poets Department” on April 19.

Immediately, Swifties were trying to decode which songs/lyrics might be about Kelce.

The singer scored with all the sports references in her track “The Alchemy,” which led many to believe that the song about having an intense attraction to a new lover was inspired by Kelce.

“So when I touch down/Call the amateurs and/Cut ‘em from the team/Ditch the clowns, get the crown/Baby I’m the one to beat,” Swift sings. “Cause the sign on your heart/Said it’s still reserved for me/Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy?”

May 2024

Kelce proved to be Swift’s number one fan and revealed his favorite Swift ‘era.’

“I’m a big ‘1989’ fan,” Kelce told “Access Hollywood” during his second annual Kelce Jam music festival. “But I’m not going to lie, I may be a little biased towards ‘The Tortured Poets Department.’ Just a little bit.”

The pair also enjoyed a romantic vacation in Lake Como, Italy, while Swift was on break from the European leg of her Eras Tour.

June 2024

Speaking of Europe, Swift posted a selfie of her, Kelce, Prince William and his two oldest kids, Prince George and Princess Charlotte, from her London concert, which also counted as his first Instagram-official shot on her feed.

Kelce wasn’t just along for the ride, it turns out.

He made his debut at her Wembley Stadium concert in London where he donned a top hat and tails for a cameo on stage with Swift.

Swift posted about her performance at the stadium, writing, “And I’m still cracking up/swooning over @killatrav’s Eras Tour debut.”

July 2024

Kelce gave listeners of his podcast the behind the scenes of his surprise debut, sharing that “It was an absolute blast.”

“It was such a fun, playful part of the show and it was like the perfect time for me to go up there, just be a ham and have some fun, not only with [Swift]… but the crowd and really try and get everybody excited for the rest of the show,” he said. “It was awesome.”

His main focus? Not to fumble.

“The golden rule was ‘Do not drop Taylor. Get her to the couch safe,’” he said.

“Do not drop the baby” is what he thought, and as usual, Kelce won.

The football player attended her favorite songbird’s concerts in Amsterdam and Germany before heading back to the US for training camp with his Kansas City Chiefs.

Absence made the heart grow fonder as Kelce danced to “Shake It Off” at the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship Tournament and dedicated his karaoke win to his girlfriend.

August 2024

Swift performed her last show along the European leg of her Eras Tour at London’s Wembley Stadium. Days later, she commented for the first time on the thwarted terror attack that led to the cancellation of three shows in Vienna earlier in the month.

In her statement, Swift expressed her gratitude to the authorities involved because even thought she felt guilt for the cancellations, “we were grieving concerts and not lives,” she wrote.

Kelce has not commented about the incident.

Swift and Kelce reunited later in the month to throw a star-studded bash at her Rhode Island mansion to celebrate her taking a break from her tour. Guests included other couples like Jason and Kylie Kelce, Patrick and Brittany Mahomes, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, and Bradley Cooper and Gigi Hadid.

Kelce also became a minority owner of a racehorse named, wait for it, Swift Delivery.

And Swift apparently is more involved in Kelce’s career than we knew.

“She’s really interested in football and she asks a lot of great questions,” Mahomes told NBC’s Chris Simms in a recent interview. “She started drawing up plays, we might have to put one in.”

This story was originally published in July 2024.

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CNN’s Alli Rosenbloom contributed to this report.

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Lauren del Valle and Jean Casarez , CNN

(CNN) — An empaneled Manhattan grand jury is hearing a new case against Harvey Weinstein, according to a transcript of a hearing held Tuesday.

The grand jury could potentially hand up an indictment related to sexual assault allegations from three accusers as early as Friday, when its session is expected to end. Prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office stated at the hearing that the three women do not include Jessica Mann and Mimi Haley, whose allegations are tied to the charges Weinstein is set to be retried on in November.

His conviction on the charges tied to Mann and Haley was overturned in May.

Prosecutors described the three accusers’ allegations but declined to identify the women by name. The judge presiding over the hearing did not compel them to do so, despite pleas from Weinstein’s defense attorney.

Two of the alleged assaults occurred between 2005 and 2006, while a third woman claims she was assaulted by Weinstein in 2016, according to the transcript.

Weinstein’s defense team was notified by prosecutors on August 13 that they were presenting a case to the grand jury, according to the transcript.

Arthur Aidala, Weinstein’s attorney, had indicated in previous hearings that the former producer might testify before the grand jury. As of Wednesday, he had not done so.

Judge Curtis Farber held the last-minute hearing Tuesday over the typically secretive grand jury proceedings because of a potential conflict of interest between Aidala and the grand jury judge hearing the presentment, the transcript shows. The two are best friends, Aidala said at the hearing.

Should prosecutors secure an indictment against Weinstein on these allegations, it will initially be treated separately from the case currently set to be retried in November, the parties said. Prosecutors have indicated they’d like to combine the cases should there be a new indictment, which Weinstein’s defense opposes.

Weinstein remains in prison while he appeals a separate 2022 conviction in Los Angeles, when he was found guilty on three sexual assault charges andsentenced to 16 years in prison.

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By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) — Anna “Delvey” Sorokin is not shying away from her controversial past as she readies to compete on the new season of “Dancing with the Stars.”

Sorokin was convicted in 2019 of grand larceny and other financial crimes after pretending to be a German heiress with a trust fund. She served two-years in prison and an additional 18 months detained by immigration authorities for overstaying her visa.

Sorokin has recently been living under house arrest in New York with an ankle monitoring device while she appeals her deportation order. She told People she sought and received permission from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to travel to Los Angeles where the show is produced.

Netflix dramatized her story for the popular 2022 series “Inventing Anna.”

Far from staying away from all of that, both Sorokin and ABC appear to be leaning into what made her famous in the first place.

In a press release from the network to announce the Season 33 cast, Sorokin was listed as “Notorious ankle bracelet fashionista Anna Delvey.” She will partner with professional dancer Ezra Sosa for the season.

“Some view her as a cunning scam artist, while others see her as a charismatic and ambitious entrepreneur who took advantage of New York City’s social elite in an effort to open a prestigious art studio,” her bio on the press release states. “Her case has also sparked discussions about wealth, privilege and social climbing in modern society. Her story continues to captivate the public’s imagination.”

Sorokin’s press photo for the reality dance competition shows her wearing her court-ordered ankle bracelet.

CNN has reached out to ABC for comment.

The other contestants for the new season are as follows:

Super Bowl Champion Danny Amendola with partner Witney Carson

Notorious ankle bracelet fashionista Anna Delvey with partner Ezra Sosa

From “The Bachelor,” Joey Graziadei with partner Jenna Johnson

NBA Champion Dwight Howard with partner Daniella Karagach

TV star Chandler Kinney with partner Brandon Armstrong

Olympic rugby player Ilona Maher with partner Alan Bersten

Model and cover girl Brooks Nader with partner Gleb Savchenko

Olympic gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik with partner Rylee Arnold

Reality royalty Phaedra Parks with partner Val Chmerkovskiy

Movie star Eric Roberts with partner Britt Stewart

TV icon Tori Spelling with partner Pasha Pashkov

From “The Bachelorette,” Jenn Tran with partner Sasha Farber

Sitcom and movie actor Reginald VelJohnson with partner Emma Slater

The pairs will be judged by renowned ballroom experts Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli and Derek Hough when the new season of the show premieres on September 17.

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By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) — Paula Abdul is straight up heartbroken to have to disappoint her fans, but she’s taking some time off to take care of herself.

In a statement shared on social media Wednesday, the singer and songwriter announced with “an incredibly heavy heart” that she “recently sustained” some injuries.

“In an effort to keep going, I’ve received targeted injections that will allow me temporary relief, but the demands of an entire tour is a different story,” her post read. “After multiple consultations with my doctors and exploring all available options, I’ve been advised that one of my injuries requires a minor procedure followed by a 6-8 week recovery time, therefore it will prohibit me from proceeding with the Straight Up! To Canada Tour as well as the dates in Alaska and North Dakota.”

The “Rush, Rush” singer added her “deepest apologies,” writing that her supporters “mean the world to me” and that the situation “truly breaks my heart.”

“I’ve been looking forward to the energy, love, and connection we always share when we’re together,” her statement continued. “I promise I’ll be back, stronger and better, dancing my heart out and performing for all of you very soon, to give you the show you deserve.”

The former Los Angeles Lakers cheerleader and famed choreographer launched her music career in 1988 with her debut album “Forever Your Girl.”

Abdul has also served as a judge on popular reality shows, including “American Idol” and the American version of “The X Factor.”

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By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) — Michael Keaton can’t even remember how he came about his professional name.

“I was looking through — I can’t remember if it was a phone book,” the “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” star told People about the origin of his use of Keaton. “I must’ve gone, ‘I don’t know, let me think of something here.’ And I went, ‘Oh, that sounds reasonable.’”

The now 72-year-old actor explained that while he was born “Michael Douglas,” he was unable to use that name in Hollywood given that another Oscar-winning actor and the son of Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas, was already using it.

Mike Douglas was also spoken for by the famous talk-show host.

The Screen Actors Guild prohibits two performers from using the same name, so Keaton chose Keaton. And while he’s made quite an accomplished name for himself, the actor would like to be known professionally as “Michael Keaton Douglas.”

He planned on doing just that for his recent directorial effort “Knox Goes Away.” In the hustle of making the film, however, Keaton forgot to seal it on screen.

“I said, ‘Hey, just as a warning, my credit is going to be Michael Keaton Douglas.’ And it totally got away from me,” he explained. “And I forgot to give them enough time to put it in and create that. But that will happen.”

His latest starring project, the sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” has him listed as “Michael Keaton.”

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By Francesca Street, CNN

(CNN) — Concorde flight engineer Warren Hazelby gets chills recalling his first supersonic flight from London to New York in 2002.

Hazelby remembers stepping onto the flight deck and taking it all in. The interior was smaller than the Boeing 707s and 747s he’d worked on for much of his career, but the controls were more complex.

Hazelby felt a mixture of excitement and apprehension as he took his seat behind the pilots, facing the colossal panel of knobs and dials that controlled Concorde’s aircraft systems, engines, fuel and hydraulics.

Despite traveling faster than any other commercial passenger plane in history, Concorde was never updated with 21st century technology. The computer responsible for handling this complex equipment was human.

As the flight engineer, it was Hazelby’s job to operate the controls – to make the adjustments needed to ensure the aircraft safely punched through the sound barrier to reach speeds of over Mach 2.

That first day, Hazelby looked at the floor to ceiling panel and felt “very nervous.” Flight engineer colleagues had warned him Concorde duties were all consuming – he’d barely have time to eat or drink a cup of coffee for the duration of the flight.

But while six months of training on a Concorde simulator – and two decades as a flight engineer on other aircraft – went some way to preparing Hazelby for this logistical challenge, nothing could compare him for how thrilling it all was.

Hazelby grew up plane-watching near Concorde’s birthplace in southwest England. He began his career as a 16-year-old engineering apprentice for British Airways forerunner BOAC. He admired Concorde for years and then, finally, he found himself behind the controls of a supersonic jet.

“The first time you go through the sound barrier, that’s quite an experience,” Hazelby tells CNN Travel today.

And despite the nerves, despite the stress, despite the all-consuming nature of the job, Hazelby discovered an unbeatable satisfaction which came with fulfilling this high pressure role.

“Concorde was the ultimate aircraft for a flight engineer to work on,” says Hazelby. “When you get everything right, and Concorde performs well, then you get a huge feeling of achievement. At the end of the flight, you’re exhausted, but you’ve got through all those different stages, and got the passengers safely to their destination in three and a quarter hours. It felt quite special when you got to New York.”

The brains behind the plane

Today, when Hazelby tells people he used to be a flight engineer on board Concorde, he gets blank looks.

“Everybody’s heard of pilots. No one’s ever heard of a flight engineer,” says Hazelby, who also worked on Lockheed Tristar L1011s prior to his stint on Concorde.

“And even people who’ve heard of a flight engineer are not really quite sure what they are or what they do,” Hazelby adds. “They think the guy sitting behind the pilots is probably the navigator or something.”

This confusion’s not helped by the fact the role’s been obsolete for over 20 years – computers have now fully taken over the flight engineer’s duties, at least in the commercial aviation sphere.

Still, even back in the 1970s and ‘80s, flight engineers were the more low key members of an airplane crew – the role never had the flashy connotations of a pilot, or the glamor associated with flight attendants.

But flight engineers were crucial in those early decades of jet travel, responsible for monitoring the aircraft systems throughout the flight.

Then, in the late 1980s, the landscape started to shift. Newer commercial aircraft models started to incorporate computer technology which covered the flight engineer’s job. In the 1990s, this change accelerated.

“Boeing started making the 747-400, which was the first aircraft designed for long haul that had no flight engineers,” says Hazelby. “That was a big deal. As soon as that was introduced, and British Airways started buying them, then our numbers declined.”

Hazelby saw this change happen up close – in the ‘90s, he was British Airways’ chief flight engineer. The around 600 flight engineers he oversaw at the beginning of the decade had drastically decreased in number by the decade’s end.

But even as the 21st century rolled around and the flight engineer profession hung in the balance, there was one aircraft that still relied on in-flight technical wizards: Concorde.

While aircraft manufacturers were constantly updating and upgrading aircraft like the Boeing 747, Concorde remained largely unchanged from its 1970s heyday. Flight engineers were crucial to the operation.

And on top of that, Concorde was a “dynamic” aircraft, as Hazelby puts it, operating unlike any other commercial plane.

“It’s the most complex passenger aircraft ever made and so there were more things for the flight engineer to do on Concorde than any other aircraft,” he explains.

On board Concorde

Hazelby joined the Concorde crew as an experienced flight engineer, but he soon realized that doing the job on a supersonic jet was a whole other ball game.

“On the 747, once you took off – once you’d done the after takeoff checks and got into cruise – the aircraft pretty much ran itself. You just had to deal with the navigation, a little bit on the fuel system, but it was pretty much automated for the rest of it,” Hazelby says.

“On Concorde – because all the time, we were changing speed, changing altitude – there was never a phase where there was very little to do. There was always something for the flight engineer to do. Everything needed to be turned off and on, to be monitored. You had to watch the temperature gauges, you had to make sure there were no fuel leaks, you had to make sure everything was working correctly.”

That’s why colleagues warned Hazelby that Concorde flight engineer duties were all-consuming, and food would become an afterthought.

“They said that after about a year, if you could actually eat something during the flight you were doing well. Because you either had things to do, or you were thinking, ‘What’s the next thing coming up? What should I be doing next?’” says Hazelby.

“You were really getting to grips with the job if you felt you could have five, 10 minutes to eat a meal. That was you starting to feel more confident. And although you were eating a meal, you were still scanning all the instruments the whole time, so you were still working during your meal.”

As the on-board technical expert, if there was any kind of issue mid-flight, it was the flight engineer’s job to try and resolve the problem.

“You had to either switch that component off, or possibly switch the standby system on. Or if it was a leak – obviously a fuel leak or hydraulically – you had to diagnose that,” Hazelby recalls.

For much of the flight, the flight engineer would sit at a 90-degree angle behind the Concorde pilot and first officer, facing a monitoring panel. But the flight engineer’s seat was also moveable, and during take-off “the seat could swing forward so you were facing forward, so you were virtually in between the two pilots,” explains Hazelby.

This is because take-off was the most “critical time,” he says. During take-off, the flight engineer needed to closely monitor Concorde’s engine gauges, as well as the aircraft’s speed.

“Concorde had these very complicated wings. They’re very thin, which you need for high speed flight, but they don’t produce any lift on the ground, which is a real problem for takeoff, obviously,” says Hazelby. “So what you need for takeoff is a lot of speed. And so the engine power on takeoff was absolutely critical.”

Teamwork in the flight deck

On board Concorde, Hazelby quickly learned that the pilot, first officer and flight engineer worked as “a very close-knit team.”

“Much more so than on some of the other aircraft,” he says.

The trio would sync their watches as soon as their shift began (“Everything had to be tied to the second,” explains Hazelby.). Throughout the flight, each member of the flightdeck relied on the other.

“With the Concorde, pilots couldn’t do certain things without the flight engineer, and the flight engineer couldn’t do certain things without the pilot,” says Hazelby. “So you had to work very much as a close-knit team, and make sure everybody was in the loop about what was going on when.”

The smaller pool of Concorde employees also led to a “very personal fleet.”

“On other fleets, like the 747 – because the fleets were so big, and there were so many crew – you might fly with someone and then never fly with them again the rest of your career. But on Concorde, everybody flew with everybody regularly, because there were so few of us. So you got to know each other very well,” says Hazelby.

While there wasn’t much opportunity for personal conversations on board – there was too much to do – crew would often go out for dinner upon arrival in New York and catch up.

These dinners were soundtracked by laughter. Hazelby describes the relationship between Concorde flight engineers and pilots as defined by mutual respect, with a generous sprinkling of good humor.

“Because our roles were slightly different, there was always banter between flight engineers and pilots. But it was all very good natured,” says Hazelby. “All flight engineers know at least five pilot jokes. We used to joke that flight engineers weren’t rich enough to get divorced – but the pilots seemed to go through quite a few different marriages. That was one of the old jokes.”

Another long-running gag, recalls Hazelby, stemmed from the fact that historically, Concorde’s captain, first officer and flight engineer couldn’t all eat the same meal mid-flight “in case we all got food poisoning.”

“Being the most senior, the captain got first choice – so the joke was the captain always went for the steak. The first officer was the second most senior, so he went for the lamb. And then the poor old engineer always had the chicken – which wasn’t always true, but that was the joke,” says Hazelby, chuckling.

In turn, pilots ribbed flight engineers about their under-the-radar status and the fact “no one had ever heard of us,” says Hazelby.

“But we also got a lot of respect from the pilots, especially when things went wrong. We could give the captain lots of technical advice about what we should do next.”

Former Concorde pilot John Tye, who was among a group of former Concorde pilots who spoke to CNN Travel about their experiences in 2023, calls the flight engineer a “vital” member of the flightdeck team.

Tye also points out that while comparatively few people experienced what it was like to travel on Concorde, and even fewer know the feeling of piloting this super-fast aircraft – the experience of sitting in the flight engineer seat is rarer still. While there were once hundreds of flight engineers working at British Airways, there were only ever 57 who operated the airline’s Concorde aircraft.

The flight engineer, as Tye puts it, “was often under-appreciated and recognized, yet his skills and knowledge formed the backbone of every supersonic operation.”

Many former Concorde employees remain close today, often hosting get-togethers at Brooklands Aviation Museum in the south of England, which is home to one of the 18 surviving Concorde aircraft.

Celebrity Encounters

Prior to his stint on Concorde, Hazelby had enjoyed the odd brush with celebrity: on a number of occasions he’d worked on airplanes ferrying members of the British Royal Family – including the Queen and Princess Diana – across the globe.

But Concorde’s steep prices meant celebrity passengers were much more common. And while flight engineers were usually too busy to mingle, on charter flights famous faces were impossible to miss.

“One of the most fascinating flights I did was two weeks before Christmas. It was a Barbados trip and we had 54 passengers on board – and every single person on board was famous, which was quite bizarre,” says Hazelby.

Among the famous faces were Mick Jagger and Bianca Jagger. Hazelby recalls a memorable – albeit slightly awkward – interaction with the latter. Bianca Jagger was waiting in the line for the bathroom, and Hazelby cut in front.

“I said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t be off the flight deck for very long. So I’m going to have to push you in front of you,’” he recalls. “That’s my claim to fame – pushing in front of Bianca Jagger to get into the loo.”

As well as celebrity sightings, Concorde crews also enjoyed spotting natural wonders.

“We couldn’t really see much out the front of the aircraft in the flight deck, but you could see out the side windows, and once you got to 60,000 feet you could see the curvature of the earth,” says Hazelby.

“And if it was a night flight, if you were very lucky you could see the Northern Lights. Once you get to that sort of altitude, the sky is a really dark blue, so it’s quite a wonderful experience.”

Hazelby also never tired of the fact that, because Concorde flew so quickly, on evening flights from London to New York, the sun would appear to set and then rise again.

“As we accelerated towards New York, we were going faster than the Earth rotations and the sun would come back up again,” he recalls. “You’d actually see the sunrise in the West, which is not something that many people have seen.”

The final flight

For Hazelby, working as the flight engineer for the last ever Concorde flight in November 2003 was “very emotional.” He’d hoped to operate the controls of the supersonic jet for a lot longer – in the end, Hazelby only had a year qualified on Concorde before British Airways retired the aircraft. Air France had grounded its Concorde aircraft some months previously.

Hazelby remembers driving to the airport that morning iin 2003, listening to the radio.

“The presenters were all talking about the last flight of Concorde. It was really weird, you know, thinking, ‘Oh, that’s me. They’re talking about me on the radio.’”

For its final flight, Concorde flew from London Heathrow to an airfield at Filton, near Bristol in southwest England, where its story began four decades previously.

Already a symbolic journey, this flight had extra significance for Hazelby.

“I was born in Southmead Hospital, in Filton,” he says. “Pure coincidence, but quite a bizarre one.”

Concorde flew over Southmead Hospital that day in November 2003.

“My uncle was suffering from cancer at the time and was actually in Southmead having treatment,” recalls Hazelby. “They wheeled his wheelchair out as we went over. He saw us go over. It was a very emotional day.”

After the Concorde landed for the final time, one of the pilots invited Hazelby and the rest of the crew to his house for dinner, where the group toasted Concorde into the early hours of the morning.

“It was a very special end to my flying career,” says Hazelby.

The Concorde aircraft that operated the final flight is now on display at the Aerospace Bristol Museum. Visitors can tour the aircraft, which was signed by passengers and crew in 2003. Hazelby’s name is among the signatures.

20 years later

In the lead up to Concorde’s final flight, Hazelby was interviewed in the Wall Street Journal about the demise of the flight engineer.

In the 2003 write-up Hazelby was optimistic – against the odds – about the future of his profession, predicting ultra long-haul jetliners might have a need for a flight engineer in the future.

“That hasn’t been the case,” reflects Hazelby today. “Aircraft’s virtually fully automated now.”

Hazelby’s long since reconciled to this fact his beloved career is a relic of the past.

“Being replaced by computers – that was on the cards for a good 10-15 years before my retirement,” he says. “It was something we had to live with.”

Some of Hazelby’s younger British Airways flight engineer colleagues retrained as pilots, while some older flight engineers took early retirement. A handful of former flight engineers became train drivers.

As for Hazelby, he remained at British Airways for several years, becoming head of air safety.

It’s now been over two decades since Hazelby sat in a flight deck, preparing an airplane for takeoff. Despite the time lapsed, Hazelby still has anxiety dreams that he’s en route to work on Concorde and running late to the airport.

The home he shares with his wife – a former British Airways flight attendant he met on the job – has Concorde photos and mementos on the wall. And Hazelby’s uniform still hangs proudly in his wardrobe.

Today, Hazelby and his wife travel a lot, making the most of their retirement. Sometimes, when he’s sitting on a delayed flight, listening to a pilot explaining, over the intercom, that “technical issues” are holding up departure, Hazelby can’t help but try and diagnose the problem. He’ll sit there, cycling through various scenarios and their solutions, wondering if a flight engineer could be the fix.

“I would have liked flight engineering to have gone on much longer,” says Hazelby. “But I guess technology was coming – and it had to end. So I think most people were fairly realistic. And to be the last flight engineer in British Airways was quite special, really, I’m quite proud of that fact.”

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By Jacqui Palumbo, CNN

(CNN) — As students return to school, one patterned textile now synonymous with uniforms will make its seasonal reappearance on pleated skirts, jumpers and ties: plaid. The design has long been a mainstay in both classrooms and in pop culture, bringing to mind the hilarious Irish teens of “Derry Girls,” the bold ‘90s fashion of “Clueless” or the provocative outfits of the early 2000s pop duo t.A.T.u.

Plaid has become a catch-all term in the US, but includes patterns with distinct histories, including tartan, from Scotland, which is more associated with Catholic school uniforms, and madras, from India, which became a staple of American collegiate prep looks popularized by the likes of Ralph Lauren and Brooks Brothers in the latter half of the 20th century. It’s a family of textiles with broad scholarly appeal, with both religious and secular schools worldwide incorporating plaid into uniforms, from Mexico to Japan to Australia.

But how did a cloth like tartan, once the symbol of Scottish Highlander identity and rebellion, wind up on the fictional American teen Cher Horowitz as the ultimate twist on schoolgirl fashion? The reasons for the wool textile’s success as both a national identity marker and school dress code are one and the same.

“It really communicates a sense of belonging,” said Mhairi Maxwell, co-curator of the exhibition “Tartan,” which showed at the V&A museum in Dundee, Scotland, last year. “Any club, any society, any school, can design their own tartan. You’re part of this larger club, but you’re also your own little clique within it.”

Thousands of variations have been officially added to the Scottish Register of Tartans, making it a pattern that both follows strict rules and allows for “infinite possibilities” in design, Maxwell explained. There’s the highly recognizable red, blue, green, white and yellow weaves of the Royal Stewart (or Stuart) tartan — both the official tartan of the British monarchy and one of the most popular variations adopted by the punk movement — the blues and pinks of Vivienne Westwood’s MacAndreas tartan, worn by Naomi Campbell in the 1990s; and the crimson, white and black pattern made official by the University of Alabama in 2011.

Possibly the earliest existing scrap of tartan known today is a 16th-century piece found in a bog in Glen Affric, Scotland, which the V&A Dundee studied before the exhibition. The Scottish Tartans Authority commissioned dye analysis and radiocarbon testing on the textile, which has now been dated to between 1500 and 1600. It’s known that tartan existed for centuries before, though how long is often contested.

“Tartan’s origins are so elusive — it’s really hard to pinpoint (their) origin story,” Maxwell said in a phone interview, noting that many cultures around the world have grid-patterned textiles in their histories, leading to the differing claims of where and when tartan was first woven. The pattern has specific rules, however, that distinguish it from check or gingham patterns as well as madras.

Shifting associations

Tartan’s history within Scotland has been debated as well. Centuries of romanticizing Highlander clanship and identity has likely influenced our contemporary understanding of the textile, Maxwell noted. The popular idea that tartan designs, dyes or techniques were rigid identifiers of a particular community is dubious, she pointed out — the clans weren’t siloed off, but imported and exported their materials.

However, it was the Jacobite military leader Charles Edward Stuart — known as Bonnie Prince Charlie — who made tartan a powerful symbol, leading his tartan-clad forces during an unsuccessful uprising in 1745 to restore his family’s Catholic leadership to the British throne.

“(He) made tartan the plaid of the people, and used it to create a movement to fight for his cause,” Maxwell said. “He was already capitalizing on that idea that it was a cloth of allegiance that bound people together to fight for something they believed in.”

After Stuart’s defeat, tartan was restricted in its use for decades in Scotland through Great Britain’s Dress Act, but it had a fashionable revival in the early 19th century that received royal support, particularly from Queen Victoria. The era saw an “elite appropriation” of Highland craft and lifestyle, Maxwell explained. Previously a formidable sight to encounter on the battlefield, it now represented a different kind of pride in the form of status and wealth, making it an ideal textile to use in schools promoting prestige and heritage.

“I can’t really think of another textile which has all this baggage with it,” Maxwell said. “It’s a traditional cloth, but it’s super rebellious at the same time.” It also became a fabric with imperial implications, as it made its way around the world through the uniforms of Scottish Highland regiments at war, British colonial exports and the transatlantic slave trade.

A collective identity

In the US, tartan was first introduced when the states were still British colonies. But the textile didn’t become a fixture of school uniforms until the 1960s, according to historian and educator Sally Dwyer-McNulty, who authored “Common Threads: A Cultural History of Clothing in American Catholicism” in 2014. That decade saw the textile “explode” in popularity, she explained in a phone interview, brought to market by major Catholic school uniform suppliers at the time, including Bendinger Brothers and Eisenberg and O’Hara (now Flynn O’Hara), who often had contracts with entire networks of diocesan schools.

“It’s like virtuous consumption, where Catholics, like lots of other post-war families, had a little bit more money to spend,” she explained in a phone interview. “The companies that had exclusive contracts wanted to tap into the resources that families had and make the (uniforms) attractive.”

Plaid already had ties to Catholicism, and it also visually stood out, she said. And, like across the pond, it allowed schools to brand themselves through their uniforms with a textile that allowed for a lot of variance without any external adornments.

“It creates this collective identity that’s important. It gives students this kind of embodied pride that they have regarding their school — or they can also express their rejection of that uniformity by letting their socks fall down to their ankles,” she joked. (Dwyer-McNulty herself attended two different Catholic schools in Philadelphia, wearing plaid uniforms through high school).

Uniforms were only associated with parochial and private schools until the late 1980s, but public schools began piloting them as well, allowing plaid’s influence in American classrooms to spread. (President Bill Clinton was a particular proponent of them during his administration the following decade, believing they would help reduce student crime). By the 1990s, the styles were no longer just available by contracted uniform companies, either, Maxwell noted, as stores like Gap and The Children’s Place stocked up on plaid skirts and jumpers.

Globally, plaid has been revived, remixed and deconstructed any number of ways today, as designers, subcultures and television and film continue to play on the trope. For Maxwell, 1995’s “Clueless” remains a favorite interpretation. It’s also one that keeps giving, as the bright yellow plaid skirt-suit set worn by Alicia Silverstone is continually replicated, last year by Kim Kardashian for Halloween, and redesigned by Christian Siriano (and worn by Silverstone) for a Superbowl ad.

“That Valley Girl appropriation of tartan is really cool,” Maxwell said. “It’s playing off that heritage of preppy Ivy League, but flipping it on its head and making quite a feminist statement about what it is to be educated, young and aspirational.”

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By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN

(CNN) — In his scripted television debut in 2020, Travis Kelce, playing a hot-headed athlete-turned-astronaut, fell into a desert sinkhole and died. His career in Hollywood, however, is alive, well and seemingly with more prospects than ever for the Kansas City Chiefs tight end who appears to be exploring the career he wants to build beyond the goalposts.

Thursday marks Kelce’s return to the field for his 12th season in the NFL as the league’s highest paid tight end. But he’s doing so with more eyes on him than ever, which is saying a lot for a three-time Super Bowl champ.

He’s entering this season having just landed roles in the Ryan Murphy-produced FX show “Grotesquerie” and Adam Sandler’s hotly-anticipated “Happy Gilmore” sequel. In September, he will debut as the host of Prime Video’s upcoming game show “Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?” He also just inked a deal upwards of $100 million to bring his popular sports podcast “New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce,” now in its third season, to Amazon’s Wondery.

“We positioned Travis to be world famous,” André Eanes, who with his brother Aaron Eanes manages Kelce, told the New York Times in an April interview. “We didn’t know how it would happen, or when it would happen, or what would help push that further along. But it’s always been the thought in the back of our minds.”

Kelce is far from the first to attempt to go from touchdowns to Tinseltown. Former NFL-ers Terry Crews and Michael Strahan and college football players Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Carl Weathers and Mark Harmon are among those who did it successfully. What he has made clear – both through the projects he chooses to pursue and his just-happy-to-be-here approach to being Taylor Swift’s boyfriend – is that Kelce is charting a path for himself in Hollywood in his own way and writing a new playbook for tackling showbiz.

Breakthing through

At the time he booked “Moonbase 8,” Kelce wasn’t a household name and had little acting experience. His only Hollywood job up until that point was starring in the 2016 E! dating reality show “Catching Kelce.” (Spoiler alert: It didn’t work out.)

John C. Reilly, who co-created the space comedy alongside Fred Armisen, Tim Heidecker and “Portlandia” executive producer Jonathan Krisel, told The Ringer in 2020 that they booked Kelce for the job after former New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski passed on the role.

“When Gronkowski said no we were like, ‘We’re gonna make Gronkowski regret this! We’re gonna get the kid who’s nipping at his heels!’” Reilly joked. “And guess what, our little Travis Kelce went right ahead of Mr. Gronkowski and won the Super Bowl.”

Kelce played a satire of himself, coming off as a bossy and entitled football star who was commissioned by NASA as a PR ploy to join three aspiring astronauts (Reilly, Heidecker and Armisen) who were attempting to qualify for their first lunar mission at a moon base simulator in Winslow, Arizona. He only appeared in one episode.

“I think like anyone dipping into new territory, Travis required a bit of warming up to the whole acting thing but after a few takes he felt very natural and funny,” Heidecker told CNN via email, recalling his time on the set with Kelce. “I don’t think I was begging him to quit his day job but he was extremely dedicated, open minded and a real pleasure to work with, so it’s no surprise to me he’d find success in whatever field he’s interested in!”

Heidecker, also a musician who has a new album coming out next month, added: “It’s been cool to see him break out in such a wholesome and admirable way.”

After “Moonbase 8,” Kelce appeared to toggle between winning Super Bowl rings and making buzzy appearances on “Saturday Night Live.”

Just one month after the Chiefs won the big game in 2023, Kelce made his “Saturday Night Live” hosting debut. The next time Kelce appeared on “SNL” was in an October 2023 cameo alongside Swift and then in February 2024, he scored his third Super Bowl ring when the Chiefs beat the San Fransisco 49ers in a nail-biter rout.

Overall, the reception to his “SNL” appearances were so positive that it sparked buzz about his Hollywood pursuits, something he was asked about during a Super Bowl press conference in February.

“I’m comedy all the way… I just like to have a fun time and make people laugh,” Kelce said at the time, speaking about which genre he’s most interested in pursuing. “I’ll dabble in everything though just to see if I have fun doing it and I know there’s definitely Hollywood talks out there.”

Perhaps dabbling across all genres is a good strategy but he may also consider take cues from other athletes-turned-actors like “The Rock,” who previously spoke about one of the most important parts of his transition from college football player to professional wrestler to Hollywood star.

“I was done trying to be someone I’m not to conform to Hollywood,” Johnson wrote on his Instagram page in 2020. “Instead, I decided to be my own man and Hollywood would eventually conform to me.”

Booking gigs

In recent months, Kelce has become attached to several upcoming projects, marking what appeared to be a busy off-season.

In April, Prime Video announced that Kelce had been selected to host the streamer’s upcoming game show “Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?” And then in May, Kelce landed a role on Ryan Murphy’s horror drama “Grotesquerie,” acting alongside Niecy Nash, Courtney B. Vance and Lesley Manville.

Kelce had admitted that he had some some nerves about the gig.

“I feel like an amateur right now, but it’s definitely a fun challenge, and I’m enjoying every bit of it,” he said in an interview with “Good Morning America” in June. “I’m coachable. That’s one thing I know from being in sports, I am a coachable guy.”

Kelce is also set to make a cameo in the upcoming “Happy Gilmore 2” movie, according to Adam Sandler, who is returning to star in and co-write the long-awaited sequel to the 1996 golf comedy.

During a recent episode of Kelce’s “New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce” podcast, Sandler teased the scene Kelce is in, saying, “We’re gonna have fun because the scene you’re doing is with so many great golfers. It’s going to be amazing, you’re going to be funny as hell.”

The sequel will stream on Netflix.

Earlier this year, Kelce also became a first-time executive producer when he invested in the indie movie “My Dead Friend Zoe,” a dark comedy starring Sonequa Martin-Green, Natalie Morales, Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman. The movie premiered at SXSW and won the SXSW Film Festival’s Audience Award.

Then there’s the podcast, the one that started as two NFL stars and brothers casually talking sports. Now, it’s a chart-topping production that has the brothers signing nine-figure deals that eclipse the ones that they signed to stay on the field.

Kelce co-hosts “New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce” with his brother Jason, who retired this year from the Philadelphia Eagles after 13 years in the NFL.

If he wanted to, Kelce could arguably just keep on chatting with his brother on “New Heights” in his NFL afterlife, but history shows that Kelce isn’t one to be happy on the sidelines, particularly when the Hollywood game is calling his name.

For now, at least, Kelce maintains that he’s happiest just being the “guy on the chiefs.”

“I just love football and how it takes me away from life and gives me something I can feel genuinely happy about,” Kelce said on Tuesday during a Chiefs pre-season press conference. “I have so much excitement doing it, it’s going to be hard trying to figure out when to call it quits or not.”

But as someone once sang, Trav, who are we to fight the alchemy?

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By Rebecca Cairns, CNN

(CNN) — Dubai’s super-sized skyline is already home to the world’s tallest skyscraper. Now, it is set to welcome the world’s second tallest, too.

The Burj Azizi broke ground in January this year, but its exact height was not disclosed at the time as its developer awaited approval from Dubai authorities, including the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), which is involved in planning for “supertall” buildings.

On Wednesday, however, real estate firm Azizi Developments announced that its skyscraper will tower over neighboring landmarks — all but one, that is — at a staggering 725 meters (2,379 feet) tall.

“From the outset, we had plans for two designs — one for the initially approved height of 526 meters, and the other for the taller, now-approved 725 meters,” Mirwais Azizi, the founder and chairman of Azizi Developments, told CNN in a written statement.

The developer kept its “options open for both scenarios” when it began preparatory works earlier this year. But with the green light given for the building’s more ambitious proposal, additional work to the foundations and piling is “well underway,” Azizi added.

The 131-story skyscraper will feature apartments, an all-suite “seven-star” luxury hotel and a seven-floor “vertical” shopping mall.

Located on Sheikh Zayed Road, in Dubai’s World Trade Center district, Burj Azizi will still stand almost 340 feet shorter than the 2,717-foot-tall Burj Khalifa, less than two miles away. But it will handily beat local competition for the city’s second-tallest title, exceeding the current holder, Marina 101 (1,394 feet).

Once topped out, it will also exceed the world’s current second-tallest building, Malaysia’s 2,227-foot-tall Merdeka 118.

The tower is anticipated to set several records, including the world’s highest hotel lobby (on level 11), the world’s highest nightclub (on level 126) and the world’s highest observation deck (on level 130), according to Azizi Developments. The developer also said the building will clinch the record for Dubai’s highest restaurant (meaning its 122nd-floor venue will be higher than the Burj Khalifa’s 122nd-floor restaurant, At.mosphere) and the city’s highest hotel room, on the tower’s 118th floor.

In a press release, Azizi said investment in the project has surpassed 6 billion dirham ($1.6 billion).

“My vision for Burj Azizi is to create a lasting legacy, a tribute to Dubai as a destination of choice for both residents and visitors and a monumental achievement in engineering,” said Azizi in the release.

Dubai currently has more towers measuring over 300 meters (984 feet) than any other city worldwide, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.

The city is no stranger to superlative structures. It boasts the world’s highest infinity pool, the world’s largest natural flower garden, and the world’s largest picture frame, to name a few.

There are many more under construction, too: The Franck Muller Aeternitas Tower hopes to claim the title of the world’s tallest residential clock tower when it opens in 2027, and Ciel Dubai Marina, scheduled for completion later this year, is expected to become the world’s tallest hotel. The Burj Binghatti Jacob & Co Residences, meanwhile, is set to become the world’s tallest residential structure (and Dubai’s third-tallest building) at 1,952 feet.

Burj Azizi is slated for completion in 2028, with apartments expected to go on sale in February 2025.

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By Lilit Marcus, CNN

(CNN) — It’s a common quandary: a traveler planning a vacation wants to be responsible, stay at a locally-owned hotel instead of a big chain and hire local guides who can take them off the typical tourist trail. But how?

Mark Olsen, CEO of Tourism Tropical North Queensland, has a name for these kinds of travelers: “conservation-curious.” He describes them as “people who are interested in conservation but don’t know how their holiday and conservation can come together.”

Enter Guardian of the Reef, a website where people planning visits to the Great Barrier Reef can watch informative videos to unlock 10-20% discounts off of hotels or book custom experiences that aren’t available elsewhere. The platform, created with online booking company Expedia, is aimed at travelers who want to spend their money in productive ways but don’t want to spend weeks online researching every single hotel and tour operator.

According to data from Expedia, 90% of its users say they are interested in sustainable options when traveling.

Some of the bookable Guardian of the Reef experiences are traditional tourist activities like snorkeling trips and whale-watching cruises led by certified, licensed eco-guides. Others are specifically about conservation: visitors can help restore seagrass, an important habitat for sea turtles, or place “baby” corals on reefs where they can grow.

Still, there are limits on what the site can provide.

“It doesn’t book your flights,” says Olsen, who adds that travelers should also purchase carbon offsets.

Balancing tourism and ecology

Australia has long struggled to find a happy medium between supporting tourists who want to visit and spend money at the UNESCO World Heritage site and also caring for the reef, which has suffered mass coral bleaching events amid global climate change.

According to Statistics Australia, tourism brought in $57 billion AUD ($38 billion USD) in the 2022-2023 fiscal year, about 2.5% of the country’s total economy.

Many of the travelers who come to Australia head to the Great Barrier Reef, which at 133,000 square miles is about the size of California. It alone is responsible for about $6 billion AUD of the country’s total tourism revenue. An estimated 64,000 people have jobs that depend on reef tourism.

Guardian of the Reef addresses some of those environmental issues head on, acknowledging that climate change is the single biggest challenge to the Reef. However, Olsen believes that tourism is a pro, not a con.

“There’s so many things that consumers can do actively on the Great Barrier Reef, but we say the single most important thing you can do is see it. We know you’re going to fall in love with it, and you’re going to be a part of its conservation for the future,” says Olsen.

More and more destinations are asking – or, in some cases, requiring – travelers to follow certain environmental regulations during their visit.

One the most famous examples is the “Palau Pledge,” where the South Pacific nation asked all visitors to promise to the children of Palau, in writing, to “preserve and protect your beautiful island home.” The pledge is mandatory for visitors and those who break the rules can be fined. The pledge was launched in 2017.

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By Oscar Holland, CNN

(CNN) — In recent years, the giants of European horology have been locked in a heated battle to design the world’s thinnest mechanical watch.

Luxury brands Bulgari, Piaget and Richard Mille have all, since 2018, held the coveted record, which was most recently broken by Bulgari’s sleek 1.7-millimeter-thick Octo Finissimo Ultra Mark II, in April.

But now, an independent Russian watchmaker and inventor may have trumped them all.

Moscow-based Konstantin Chaykin says his new ThinKing prototype, which he debuted at the Geneva Watch Days fair in Switzerland last week, is just 1.65 millimeters (less than one-fifteenth of an inch) thick. He also believes it to be among the world’s lightest watches, weighing just 13.3 grams (less than 0.47 ounces), without its strap.

In an email to CNN, Chaykin said he has developed various innovations to make his design thinner “without compromising its functionality,” including a winding mechanism that is integrated into the barrel of the watch. The ThinKing also features a “double balance” wheel that allowed Chaykin to reduce the number of layers in the watch movement.

Mechanisms for winding the watch and adjusting its dials are, meanwhile, found in a separate 5.4-millimeter-thick carrier case, freeing up space (though the ThinKing can also be wound with a key). Chaykin said he has filed several patent applications, though none have yet been granted.

The watch is made using stainless steel and tungsten carbide, a light but exceptionally rigid compound. Chaykin, who is the only Russian member of the prestigious Académie Horlogère des Créateurs Indépendants, said he is also considering using sapphires or diamonds in future versions of the watch, according to his brand’s website.

With the hour and minute displays separate from one another, the design resembles a face — a hallmark of the watchmaker’s signature Wristmons collection. The dials are each protected by 0.35-millimeter-thick (0.014-inch) sapphire crystals.

Thinner and thinner

Producing ultra-slim watches that are reliable, accurate and durable enough to wear has posed a major technical challenge to the world’s watchmakers. But the race to design ever-thinner watches appears to have accelerated in recent years.

Swiss brand Piaget debuted its 2-millimeter-thick Altiplano Ultimate Concept, then the world’s slimmest, in 2018, before putting it into production two years later. Luxury giant Bulgari then took the crown with the first iteration of its Octo Finissimo Ultra, which came in at just 1.8 millimeters.

Watchmaker Richard Mille soon went 0.05 millimeters thinner — a difference equivalent to a piece of printer paper — in 2022, with its RM UP-01 Ferrari. Bulgari then reclaimed the title this year with its aforementioned Octo Finissimo Ultra Mark II, a limited-edition model that was widely reported to cost over $500,000.

Whether Chaykin’s ThinKing can now be considered the record-holder, however, may be a matter of debate in horology circles. (Guinness World Records does not currently list an independently adjudicated record for thinnest watch.)

For one, the ThinKing is currently just a prototype — and its functionality and accuracy are yet to be independently assessed. Describing it as “more of a design and engineering study at this point,” James Stacey, lead editor of online watch magazine Hodinkee, wrote last week that he was “sure any sort of record-setting will be with (a) for-production (rather than) than non-production” timepiece.

The design is also so thin that it requires a special strap, featuring titanium supports and elastic inserts, to protect it from the shocks and stresses of everyday wear.

Chaykin nonetheless believes his prototype’s timekeeping accuracy and 32-hour power reserve qualify it as the new record-holder. He welcomed outside assessment, telling CNN that during the five-day Geneva Watch Days fair “hundreds of people” were able to inspect his creation.

“Visitors were able to hold the watch in their hands, check the time and test its functionality,” he said. “It is quite a bold step on our part to show the prototype in this way.  But the watch, to our delight, works perfectly, and to the delight of the visitors, it was possible to touch the watch… However, we are prepared to carry out all the necessary independent tests.”

The watchmaker said he will present a “final” version of his design at the Watches & Wonders trade show, also in Geneva, next April. By that time, the updated design should feature improved accuracy, power reserve and “tightness,” among other things, he told CNN. He added that the watch’s price “is not yet known.”

In a separate statement, Chaykin, who founded his eponymous watchmaking brand in 2003, said he became interested in slim timepieces after encountering an ultra-thin 19th-century Bagnolet pocket watch around 20 years ago.

He was inspired to make one after being challenged by a client to design an ultra-thin watch of his own. “I initially considered many possibilities and dedicated an entire Moleskine (notebook) to finding technical solutions,” he is quoted saying.

Chaykin’s statement also compared the process of configuring the watch’s inner workings to a puzzle. “As with any good puzzle, I had to tinker, look for non-trivial solutions, choose the best options and calculate the energy flows,” he added.

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By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN

(CNN) — HBO has responded to comments made by author George R.R. Martin that criticized creative choices made on the network’s show “House of the Dragon,” which is based on Martin’s 2018 novel “Fire & Blood.”

In a blog post that appears to have been taken down, Martin raised several issues with creative decisions that showrunner Ryan Condal and HBO made in their TV adaptation of his book. According to Variety and screenshots of Martin’s comments, his criticism stemmed mostly from the choice to omit the toddler-aged son of Helaena Targaryen (Phia Saban) and King Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) named Maelor. Not having the child in the show reduced the emotional impact of some pivotal scenes that were part of this season and will do so again down the line, according to Martin.

The comments comes after Martin wrote in a separate blog post last week that he had planned to publish a post outlining his thoughts on “everything that’s gone wrong” with “Dragon.”

On Wednesday, HBO issued a statement in response to Martin, who serves as a co-creator and an executive producer of the series. (HBO, like CNN, is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.)

“There are few greater fans of George R.R. Martin and his book ‘Fire & Blood’ than the creative team on ‘House of the Dragon,’ both in production and at HBO. Commonly, when adapting a book for the screen, with its own format and limitations, the showrunner ultimately is required to make difficult choices about the characters and stories the audience will follow,” the statement read.

The statement added: “We believe that Ryan Condal and his team have done an extraordinary job and the millions of fans the series has amassed over the first two seasons will continue to enjoy it.”

CNN has reached out to a representative for Martin for comment.

“Fire & Blood” is in the same universe as Martin’s popular “A Song of Ice and Fire” book series that spawned eight seasons of “Game of Thrones.” The stand-alone novel outlines the history of the Targaryen dynasty.

In his blog post on Wednesday, according to Variety, Martin did note that the ramifications of eliminating Maelor would likely only be noticeable to book readers, writing that viewers who’d never read the book “would still find the scenes heart-rendering.”

Condal, for his part, previously acknowledged the decision to write Maelor out of the show during an appearance on Wednesday’s episode of the “The Official Game of Thrones Podcast: House of the Dragon.” He said that due to the character’s young age and the passage of time, “we had to make some compromises in rendering that story so that we didn’t have to recast the whole cast multiple times.”

“It did have a ripple effect. And we decided that we were going to lean into it and try to make it a strength, instead of playing it as a weakness,” Condal added.

“House of the Dragon” debuted in 2022 and stars Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy and Matt Smith, among others.

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By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) — Daniel Craig’s response to hypothetical question about a gay James Bond may be up for debate, but what’s clear is people aren’t going to stop looking for diversity when it comes to the beloved spy character.

Craig spoke at the Venice Film Festival, where his latest film, “Queer,” premiered. The movie is an adaptation of a William S. Burroughs novella, a gay romance set in 1940s Mexico City.

The Bond actor stars opposite Drew Starkey in the film, which tells the story of an American expat who becomes involved with a younger man. When asked at a festival press conference about the possibility of a gay James Bond depicted in a future film, Craig, the last to play Bond on the big screen, rolled his eyes.

“Guys, let’s be adults in the room for a second,” “Queer” director Luca Guadagnino responded to the question.

“There is no way around the fact that nobody would ever know what James Bond desires, period,” the director said. “The important thing is that he does his missions properly. Having said that, I have been an admirer of this gentleman for a long time.”

“You have to make movies, you cannot daydream,” Guadagnino added.

When Craig’s name came up while casting “Queer,” the director said his initial reaction was “I thought about him, but he’s never going to say yes.” The person who suggested Craig, however, said “Let’s ask,” Guadagnino recalled.

“And [Craig] said yes. And the yes was a definitive yes, he’s one of the greatest actors,” the he continued. “It’s a privilege to work with someone like him.”

Over the years there has been debate and speculation about expanding depictions of James Bond, with some advocating for a Black actor to portray Bond.

When Idris Elba’s name was suggested, the actor said last year he was flattered by the conversation, though there has been some racism attached to it.

“Those that weren’t happy about the idea made the whole thing disgusting and off-putting because it became about race,” Elba said. “It became about nonsense dude, and I got the brunt of it.”

“Queer” is expected to hit theaters in the US before the end of the year.

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By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) — “Reesa Teesa” is coming to television.

Natasha Rothwell of “Insecure” and “The White Lotus” is set to star in a TV adaptation of “Who TF Did I Marry,” a story of heartbreak that went viral on social media earlier this year, according to a report from Variety.

Tareasa “Reesa Teesa” shared on TikTok the story of what she says was a marriage gone horribly wrong. Her more than 50 compelling, five to 10-minute TikTok videos in which she shared her experiences captured the fascination of millions.

Rothwell reportedly acquired the rights to adapt the story via her Big Hattie Productions after a bidding war.

Earlier this year, Johnson told CNN she did not regret sharing the story about her relationship in which she said she discovered her husband had lied to her consistently.

The former couple met on a dating app shortly before the pandemic, moved in together to quarantine, married in 2021 and split six months later.

“I’ve had a lot of messages from people who were telling me ‘You know, I went through something very similar,” Johnson told CNN at the time. “‘Your story has helped me make decisions in my own relationship.’ So, I definitely would say the overwhelming support has definitely made this worth it.”

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By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN

(CNN) — The colorfully cubic world of Minecraft is coming to life.

The first teaser trailer for “A Minecraft Movie,” the upcoming live-action adaptation of the popular was unveiled. The movie stars Jason Momoa, Danielle Brooks and Jack Black.

In the trailer, Momoa – donning a truly wild shoulder-length wig with choppy bangs – enters pixelated Minecraft world with Brooks, “Wednesday” star Emma Myers and Sebastian Eugene Hansen.

As they embark upon a magical adventure, they encounter several Minecraft characters like bah-ing bleats, evil piglins and a random guy named Steve (Black.)

“Anything you can dream about here, you can make,” Black says in the clip, as “The Magical Mystery Tour” by The Beatles blares in the background.

Momoa’s character Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison and his three fellow misfit friends “find themselves struggling with ordinary problems when they are suddenly pulled through a mysterious portal into the Overworld: a bizarre, cubic wonderland that thrives on imagination,” an official synopsis for the movie reads.

In order to get home, their adventure challenges them to “be bold and to reconnect with the qualities that make each of them uniquely creative…the very skills they need to thrive back in the real world.”

From Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures, “A Minecraft Movie” is directed by Jared Hess, whose previous work includes “Napoleon Dynamite” and “Masterminds.” It is the first-ever life-action adaptation of the popular video game that debuted in 2011. (Warner Bros. Pictures, like CNN, is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.)

The Minecraft video game allows users to explore and craft unique worlds while building anything you want with virtual three-dimensional blocks.

“A Minecraft Movie” will premiere in theaters on April 4, 2025.

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By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) — Lee Daniels may have a hit on Netflix with his latest project “The Deliverance,” but it has not come without controversy.

The director has responded to backlash over the character Alberta, played by Glenn Close.

The film is inspired by the true story of a Black family who said they were plagued by demons in their home back in 2011. It stars Andra Day, Mo’nique and Close as the mother of Day’s character.

While there has been some conversation about Close as a white mother in the mostly Black cast, the true uproar has been over a fateful line delivered by Close in a scene in which her character, possessed by a demon, undergoes an exorcism.

“I can smell your nappy p—y,” the character tells Day’s character.

The scene prompted discussion on social media, with one person writing, “Lee Daniel’s (sic) you will pay for your crimes for having Glenn Close say this.”

Daniels responded, “Had to do it.”

It’s not as if he didn’t prepare the audience.

Daniels shared a scene from the film on X prior to its release.

“Y’all are not ready for Glenn in this,” the director wrote at the time.

He may have been right.

Daniels also wrote, “Every Black person knows an Alberta.”

“She’s part of the fabric of our community, but we’ve never seen her on screen before,” he added. “Thank you Glenn for bringing her magnificently to life.”

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By Marnie Hunter, CNN

(CNN) — Act fast. For a limited time, Southwest Airlines is offering a promotional Companion Pass, which would allow a passholder’s companion to fly with them nearly free on unlimited flights for two months early next year. The designated companion owes only taxes and fees when accompanying the passholder.

Through a flash promotion available through September 5, members of the airline’s Rapid Rewards program (you can sign up here) can register for a promotional Companion Pass. To qualify for the pass, the rewards member must book one qualifying round-trip or two one-way tickets by 11:59 p.m. CT on September 5, 2024, for travel from now through November 20, 2024. The promotional pass earned will be valid for use between January 6, 2025, and March 6, 2025.

“We love offering this Companion Pass promotion because it allows our Members to experience one of the many benefits of our award-winning Rapid Rewards program,” said Jennifer Bridie, vice president of marketing at Southwest Airlines, in a news release. Bridie added that rewards program members for the first time can use points, a combination of cash and points or other eligible forms of payment to book flights that count toward the Companion Pass promotion.

Typically, full-year passes are earned by flying 100 qualifying one-way flights or earning 135,000 qualifying points in a calendar year. The pass earned through those means is good through the remainder of the calendar year in which it was earned and the full following year.

Interested travelers can register here for the two-month promotional pass and then book the qualifying flight or flights. The designated companion can then accompany the passholder on unlimited flights for two months at the beginning of next year for the cost of only taxes and fees, which start at $5.60 one way.

Southwest made headlines in July when it announced it is getting rid of its longstanding open seating policy, which will allow the airline to charge a premium for some of the seats on its planes. The change marked a departure from its decades-long business model and brand identity.

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El Paso, TX (KVIA-TV)— Soldiercon returns for a three-day celebration of comic books, cosplay, cars, and more. The event began in 2015 after the founder noticed the financial strain on military families wishing to experience local comic cons.

The founder of Soldiercon, Carlos Molina, wants to provide a pop-culture convention that is friendly and welcoming to service members and everyone across the region. Aside from the impressive vehicles, the event will feature an impressive list of artistic talents. For a full list of guests, visit c4soldiercon.com.

The event will occur September 6-8, 2024, at the new Starlight Convention Center (6650 Continental Dr), next to the El Paso International Airport.

 Tickets are now available for pre-order. Admission is free for all branches of active-duty service members.

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CNN

By Alexandra Banner, CNN

(CNN) — US regulators want to investigate Shein and Temu for selling dangerous baby products. This comes as the two e-commerce websites are facing scrutiny over a litany of issues, including how they’re able to sell goods at such strikingly low prices.

Here’s what else you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day.

1. Georgia school shooting

The community of Winder, Georgia, is grieving the deaths of two 14-year-old students and two teachers who were killed in a mass shooting at Apalachee High School on Wednesday. Nine others were wounded and hospitalized, all of whom are expected to survive. The suspected gunman is in custody and was identified as a 14-year-old student at the school, which is about an hour outside of Atlanta. There is no known connection between the shooter and the victims, authorities said, adding an investigation is underway to determine his motive. The teenager will be charged with murder and will be tried as an adult. The shooting is at least the 45th school shooting in 2024 and the deadliest this year, according to a CNN analysis.

2. Presidential debate

ABC News on Wednesday officially announced the rules of the upcoming presidential debate on September 10. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have agreed to the format that microphones will be muted while the other is speaking. However, the Harris campaign again laid out their objections to the muted mics condition, insisting that they believe the vice president will be “disadvantaged” by the format. In a Fox News town hall Wednesday, Trump said he was “going to let her talk” when asked about his upcoming debate with Harris. However, the former president also spread baseless allegations that he had “already heard” that Harris’ team would “get the questions in advance.” The rules set out by ABC News do not allow for notes and the candidates will be standing behind podiums.

3. Gaza ceasefire talks

A prospective hostage and ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas is 90% completed but disputes remain over the exchange of prisoners for hostages and the redeployment of Israeli forces in Gaza, according to a senior US official. US officials, with Qatar and Egypt, have for months worked to broker a deal to bring an end to the nearly yearlong conflict. Talks remain ongoing but Hamas said this week that militants guarding Israeli hostages in the buildings and tunnels of Gaza had “new instructions” to kill them if Israeli troops closed in. Meanwhile, an Israeli newspaper reported Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu derailed a potential hostage deal in July by introducing a raft of new demands.

4. Hunter Biden

Hunter Biden is set to go on trial today for alleged tax crimes. The case was once seen as a potential liability for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign before he dropped out of the 2024 race. Hunter Biden, 54, is accused of failing to pay $1.4 million in federal taxes and executing a tax-evasion scheme. He pleaded not guilty and said he belatedly paid all of his tax debts after regaining his sobriety in 2019 amid a lifelong struggle with alcohol and drug abuse. The trial, which could last about a month, will feature salacious details about Hunter Biden’s extravagant partying and spending during the peak of his addiction, including money for strippers, escorts and luxury cars — all while allegedly failing to pay taxes. Political experts say the stakes are high for Hunter Biden, who was also convicted of three gun felonies in June and will be sentenced for those crimes after the election.

5. Hotel strikes

Most of the 10,000 hotel workers who went on strike during the busy Labor Day weekend returned to work Wednesday, but one group of 700 union members in San Diego will stay on strike for the foreseeable future. Those workers, employed at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront, will remain on strike until there is a contract agreement, their union says. Over the weekend, many guests at Hilton, Hyatt and Marriott properties across the US had to deal with noisy picket lines and reduced service from skeleton hotel crews. The strike, which affected as many as 25 hotels in nine US cities, was planned as a limited-duration walkout. Union leaders and members are still pushing for a deal that includes better pay and improved working conditions.

BREAKFAST BROWSE

Chipotle launches Halloween costume collection
The fast-casual chain created a costume collection featuring a napkin, fork, water cup and a burrito. Or in this case, you can say you’re a boo-rrito.

Asteroid burns up in Earth’s atmosphere over the Philippines
Sky-gazers saw an asteroid burn up in Earth’s atmosphere over the Philippines near Luzon Island on Wednesday. See a photo here.

Southwest brings back buy-one, get-one-free promotion
Southwest Airlines is offering a flash promotion that amounts to a buy-one, get-one-free offer for companion flights. Act fast if you’re interested — the deal ends today.

Russian watchmaker upends race to design world’s thinnest wristwatch
Luxury giants are locked in a heated battle to design the world’s thinnest mechanical watch. But an independent Russian watchmaker and inventor may have trumped them all.

What parents can do to reduce the likelihood of kids getting sick and missing school
As more children head back to school, some will likely catch and spread illness. A doctor tells CNN how parents should prepare for virus risks this school year.

TODAY’S NUMBER

7.67 million
That was the number of available jobs in the US in July, according to new data released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s the lowest number of openings since January 2021.

TODAY’S QUOTE

“As a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this.”

— Republican former Rep. Liz Cheney, announcing Wednesday that she will vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in November because of the “danger that Donald Trump poses.” Cheney, who is the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, has been a vocal critic of former President Trump for years. The youngest son of the late Sen. John McCain also told CNN this week that he changed his voter registration to Democrat and plans to vote for Harris in the 2024 election.

TODAY’S WEATHER

Check your local forecast here>>>

AND FINALLY …

The Eiffel Tower could be permanently changed
Officials in Paris are considering making the Eiffel Tower’s Olympic rings a permanent fixture — and reception to the idea is mixed. Hear Parisians react.

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By Niamh Kennedy, Christian Edwards and Saskya Vandoorne, CNN

Paris (CNN) — Parisians won’t be saying “adieu” to the Olympic Games as early as they expected after the city’s mayor announced plans to leave the Olympic rings as a permanent fixture on the Eiffel Tower.

“I want the spirit of celebration to remain,” Mayor Anne Hidalgo told the Ouest-France regional newspaper, saying she did not want the Games to be “a side note” in Parisian history but rather a symbol of “the transformation in the city.”

“As mayor of Paris, the decision is mine,” she said.

But the plans have irked the descendants of Gustave Eiffel, the engineer who designed the famous tower, who say it was “not intended as an advertising platform.”

“We do not think it appropriate that the Eiffel Tower… should be permanently associated with an external organization, whatever its prestige,” the Eiffel family said in a statement.

The five rings – 95 feet (29 meters) wide and 43 feet (13 meters) high – were installed on the tower before the Olympics opened in July and were expected to be taken down after the Paralympics Closing Ceremony in September, before Hidalgo’s intervention.

Because the rings, which weigh 30 tons, are too heavy to remain on the tower permanently, they will be replaced with lighter versions, Paris’ deputy mayor, Pierre Rabadan, told CNN.

“We have so many questions not resolved yet because the original rings were heavy and built for temporary times, so we’ll bring them down and create new ones to keep them for a long time,” he said.

“We are not changing the Eiffel Tower, we are just adding something for some time,” he said, adding that Hidalgo would “say more about it” next week.

Parisians and tourists near the tower on Wednesday were divided on the issue, with some wanting to preserve the memories of the Games and others happy to see the back of them.

Residents of the city set up a petition demanding that the rings be removed from the tower after the Games. More than 36,000 people had signed by Wednesday afternoon.

“I think it’s an eyesore,” one said, adding that although the rings bring “something different,” the Eiffel Tower is not a landmark that “needs to change.”

Another resident said the rings would be a “nice addition” and preserve the “memorable” moments of the Olympics. “I think that impression should remain here in Paris,” he said.

The move has drawn criticism from the country’s culture minister, Rachida Dati, who said that although the rings are a symbol of unity, the “protection of shared heritage” is equally important.

Highlighting the tower’s status as a “protected monument,” Dati said any “substantial modification” would need “authorisation.”

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By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) — Ina Garten is known for making things beautiful, but her new memoir details how her childhood was not that.

The Food Network star and author reflected on her difficult upbringing in an interview with People as she promoted her upcoming book, “Be Ready When the Luck Happens.”

Garten, who grew up in Connecticut with her brother Ken, said she was “terrified” of their late father Charles Rosenberg, who was a physician.

“I was physically afraid of my dad,” she told the publication. “I literally remember thinking he would kill me if I did something. I was physically afraid of him. And my mother just was unsupportive.”

Garten said she that as a child she would lock herself away in her room.

“If there’s a threat of violence, you’re always afraid, even when it’s not happening. So I basically spent my entire childhood in my bedroom with a door closed,” she said. “I think it was just protection. It was just to keep myself safe.”

Her relationship with her late mother, Florence Rosenberg, was also not ideal.

“She really didn’t know how to have a relationship, which is why I think, as I’ve gotten older, having relationships is so important to me,” Garten said.

One such relationship has been with her husband of many years, Jeffrey, whom Garten met when she was 16 years old.

“[My mother] thought I was too young to get married,” said Garten, who married her love in 1968 after four years of dating. “But it was the first time in my life when I just said to her, ‘I know you don’t think this is a good idea. And for the first time, I’m really sorry to tell you this, but I don’t care. I’m doing this.’”

“Be Ready When the Luck Happens” is due out on October 1.

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By Barbie Latza Nadeau, CNN

Rome (CNN) — A lightning strike knocked a chunk of stone off Rome’s ancient Arch of Constantine, just meters from the Colosseum, amid a sudden violent storm that struck the Italian capital late Tuesday, according to archaeological authorities.

No one was injured and all of the debris was collected and will be assessed for damage. The 4th century arch was undergoing renovations, which will now turn to repair work, the superintendent of the Colosseum Archaeological Park said in a statement.

“It seems important to us to underscore that just two days ago the restoration site of the southern front of the Arch of Constantine began and therefore we can confirm that it is a case that combines scheduled maintenance (relative to the restoration already planned) and emergency protection promptly carried out,” the statement reads.

Several tourists seeking shelter from the heavy rain said they heard the lightning strike the arch and then saw the debris fall, according to Reuters.

Roads were closed at the nearby Circus Maximus track after two large trees fell, damaging several cars and partially collapsing a grandstand set up for a concert. The Trevi Fountain also flooded in the storm, police said.

The storm, which was not predicted in earlier forecasts, was similar to the downburst that sank a luxury yacht off the coast of Sicily on August 19, killing seven people including British tech titan Michael Lynch, according to Italy’s Civil Protection agency. More than 60 millimeters (2.36 inches) of rain – the average monthly amount for September – fell on Rome in less than an hour, the agency said.

The arch, which was built in 315 AD to honor the emperor Constantine’s victory over Maxentius, is more than 80 feet tall and stands inside the Colosseum archeological compound, where tourists queue to enter the ancient amphitheater.

The storm also flooded the lower tunnels of the Colosseum, which remained closed on Wednesday. Rome’s mayor, Roberto Gaultieri, met with the head of the Civil Protection, the Department of Public Works and the Department of the Environment along with local law enforcement to assess the damage. “We made an initial provisional assessment – tomorrow we will make the definitive one – of the damage of the incredible water bomb that hit the center of Rome, of the preventive interventions already carried out and those carried out today on an emergency basis,” he wrote in a post on X.

More severe weather is forecast for Thursday in the Italian capital.

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By Will Noble, CNN

London (CNN) — The words “Croydon” and “destination” are not what you’d call soulmates. “I’m certain that of all the places I’ve visited,” writes Tom Chesshyre in “To Hull and Back,” a travelog that sets out to visit the lesser-appreciated parts of Britain, “I’m least likely to return to Croydon.”

The south London town is widely mocked for its none-too-idyllic high-rise skyline, a direct product of a megalomania of office-building between the late 1950s and early 1970s.

True, there’s a small hotel district in the east of the town, flagged by glowing signs for Leonardo and Hampton by Hilton. But it’s unlikely guests are planning a sightseeing tour of Croydon courtesy of one of the lime green trams snaking through the town. They invariably have an early morning flight to catch from Gatwick Airport, which lies just 16 miles southwest of Croydon. It’s far cheaper to stay here than to get an airport hotel.

Gatwick Airport, though, wasn’t always around. Just over a mile and a half southwest of Croydon’s modern hotels lies a Neoclassical hotel at the side of the busy Purley Way road.

The bar is usually propped up with sapped business people, but it was once populated with pilots with nicknames like “Dizzy” and Scruffy “the Undertaker” Robinson. They swigged beers and swapped stories about dense fog and near-misses, while their own framed caricatures hung behind the bar. This was – indeed, still is –  the Aerodrome Hotel, the first purpose-built airport hotel in the world.

And next to it stood Britain’s first international airport.

A byproduct of war

“My brother and myself went into my parents’ bedroom with its big brass bedstead and my father took us to the window and we saw this silver Zeppelin, lit up by searchlights, with the bursts of anti-aircraft shells exploding around it.”

This is the recollection of David Lean, who director of “Brief Encounter” and “Lawrence of Arabia,” but who was at the time a frightened young boy living in Croydon.

While the thought of London being bombed conjures up images of a smoke-shrouded St. Paul’s Cathedral in the Blitz, London and its surrounds were already under attack during World War I. Croydon was a target, and following a particularly devastating raid in 1915, a plot of land to the southwest of the town was requisitioned under the Defence of the Realm Act, and turned into Beddington Aerodrome.

From here, Sopwith Camels and Bristol Fighters sortied into the night sky, attempting to bring down the inflatable German “baby killers.”

Soon though, war came to an end, and it looked as though Croydon’s tenure as an airbase would too.

But then something happened. Hounslow Heath Aerodrome – which had technically operated Britain’s first international flights – was requisitioned by the War Office. Beddington joined up with the neighboring airfield at Waddon, which’d briefly been used to test new aircraft. Together they became Croydon Aerodrome.

Winging it

Croydon 1.0 was hardly in the league of Singapore’s Changi International.

It was essentially a collection of cobbled-together wooden buildings and old army huts. The control tower was another hut, this one on stilts accessed by a ladder. Inside it, one visiting journalist found “magicians playing about with little levers and handles.”

The customs house was a glorified barn with signs tacked up above two doors: “British” and “Non-British.”

Imperial Airways’ first PR man, Robert Brenard, said the whole scene “reminded one forcibly of a Wild West township.”

Sheep had to be shooed off the runway. With no radar to speak of, pilots swooped low over train stations to glimpse the sign on the platform and figure out where they were.

One pilot claimed that when looking to land, he sniffed the air; if his nostrils picked up the ripe aroma of Beddington Sewage Works, he knew he was almost home. It’s unclear if he was joking.

The struggle to attract passengers was real. Flying in the early 1920s was an especially expensive affair, and many were anxious about it too – not surprising given how frequent accidents were.

As a forerunner to the deals offered by airlines today, there were special season tickets to Paris, and Easter holiday discounts. These had little effect.

The British government didn’t exactly help matters. “Civil aviation must fly by itself,” said Winston Churchill, who was secretary of state for air between 1919 and 1921. “The government cannot possibly hold it up in the air.” Churchill didn’t mention that he himself had taken flying lessons at Beddington, crashed and very nearly died.

While countries like France, the Netherlands and Germany enjoyed generous subsidies from their respective governments – and already had nascent versions of Air France, KLM and Lufthansa – the Brits were left to fend for themselves.

This could sometimes lead to some embarrassing situations. In “The Seven Skies: A Study of B.O.A.C. and Its Forerunners Since 1919,” John Pudney mentions an episode in which airline staff were ordered to pretend to be passengers during a flight to Germany. The flight would have otherwise been totally empty, save a renowned American lecturer, who the Brits didn’t want to embarrass themselves in front of.

Things take off

Gradually, the tide turned and the government realized air travel wasn’t going away. In 1924, Britain’s first national airline, Imperial Airways, was formed. A race was set up between an Argosy airliner, the “City of Glasgow,” and the “Flying Scotsman” steam train, between London and Edinburgh. As it transpired, the “City of Glasgow” only pipped the train by 15 minutes, but there was now little doubt: flying would become the superior mode of transport.

Things gradually grew more sophisticated, destinations more ambitious. Harry Beck, who’d designed the iconic “circuit board” London Underground map, was commissioned to come up with a similar-style map flaunting Imperial Airways’ routes. Instead of Goodge Street, Dollis Hill, Ladbroke Grove and Camden Town, the “lines” led to Gaza, Delhi, Luxor and Cape Town.

Flights, though, were anything but direct. The “Kangaroo” route from Croydon to Charleville in Australia involved 28 stops – plus a train between Paris and Brindisi for good measure. On the plus side, passengers got to see so much more of the world when they traveled.

Slowly but steadily, passenger confidence (and numbers) grew. In 1927, 92-year-old Elizabeth Reeves, dressed, as the “Evening Standard” newspaper described her, in “Victorian period” clothes, took her first flight, becoming surely the oldest person at that time to ascend into the heavens, and come back down again. “I really don’t feel at all afraid,” Reeves smiled as she stepped onto the plane at Croydon, “but I had two small nips of whisky before I left home.”

While the birth of Imperial Airways had been a boon to British air travel, what turned it into a shining beacon was Croydon’s stunning Neoclassical airport complex, opened in January 1928.

Here was the first purpose-built air traffic control tower, departure lounge and airport shops. Walking in through the doors, passengers were greeted by an octagonal clock showing details of flights and departures.

A board on the wall detailed what the weather was doing in different corners of the globe. You could even buy French newspapers.

The Aerodrome Hotel opened next door at the same time, offering French-language menus. All of a sudden, Croydon was the height of sophistication.

Though you could fly from Croydon to almost anywhere, its flagship flight was Imperial Airways’ Silver Wing service, which departed from Croydon to Paris Le Bourget daily at 12.30 p.m., and from 1930 were flown on the majestic Handley Page HP-42s.

As these planes leveled out, white-jacketed stewards offered a choice of four Champagnes and 10 cocktails, and a six-course meal served on blue and white china, with metal cutlery, real glasses and damask tablecloths. The food had been sourced from Croydon’s Surrey Street market that morning.

Some of Croydon’s passengers still preferred to bring their own, as was the case with eccentric millionaire Nubar Gulbenkian, who had his valet prepare dishes of game consommé on board.

Croydon might not have had all the creature comforts of modern-day air travel, but the interwar years were undeniably a golden era.

It’s true that passengers had to go through the ordeal of being individually weighed.

It’s also true that the seats weren’t as comfortable as though on today’s airliners, made as they were from wicker.

The HP-42s pootled along at what we’d consider a snail’s pace (95 miles-per-hour top whack). Then again, from entering the airport, it took as little as 10 minutes to board your flight.

If the cabin got stuffy, you could open a window and feel the breeze in your hair. As planes flew low back then, you often had a scenic view out of the window.

In-flight movies didn’t come as standard of course, although Croydon did screen the first full-length in-flight movie. The year was 1925, and the film was “The Lost World,” based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s sci-fi dinosaur fiction. The pilot thoughtfully steered through dense clouds to darken the cabin.

As for the Aerodrome Hotel, it was a hit, not just with overnight guests, but with day-trippers too.

“It must be particularly emphasized,” reads the hotel’s literature from the time, “that the Aerodrome Hotel is not a mere terminus hotel, but is used frequently as a holiday resort and sightseeing base by tourists and motorists.”

Between 1932 and 1933, almost 70,000 took advantage of the hotel’s bar, restaurant and rooftop viewing platform, from which they could watch planes take off and land.

Others were happy to watch the wealthy female passengers making their way across the airport apron, while commenting on their choice of clothes.

Croydon became not just a destination, but the destination.

Celebrities – including Babe Ruth, Fred Astaire, John F. Kennedy, and Hollywood couple Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks – came.

Charlie Chaplin was familiar with Croydon too. Landing here in 1921, he was “kidnapped” by an overzealous cinema owner, who’d put on a fake mustache, pretended to be Chaplin’s chauffeur, and instead of driving him to the Savoy, had taken him to his picture house in the London district of Clapham.

In 1935, Agatha Christie published the Hercule Poirot novel “Death in the Clouds,” in which a woman is found murdered on a flight as it comes into land at Croydon.

Croydon had become part of popular culture.

Fall from grace

Though the 1928 airport complex was a big step up from the original aerodrome, Croydon was still blighted by problems.

It was a distance from central London, and without its own railway station. Worse was the fog – thick and tenacious, thanks to Croydon’s location at the foot of the Surrey North Downs.

December 9, 1936, witnessed the biggest disaster ever to happen at Croydon, when a KLM airliner attempting to take off in the fog crash-landed into a house soon after, killing more than a dozen passengers and crew. Among them was a former prime minister of Sweden, and Juan de la Cierva, inventor of the autogyro.

Tragedies like this certainly didn’t help Croydon’s reputation, but something else would prove the coup de grâce.

Just as World War I had breathed unlikely life into Croydon Airport, World War II more or less took it away. The RAF took over, and civilian flights stopped. The airport was damaged by bombing, and lost many of its personnel in conflict too.

Though Croydon reopened after the war, in 1946, Heathrow took the reins as the country’s premier international airport. Croydon’s incredible story was coming to an end.

While the Aerodrome Hotel remains, so too does a large chunk of the Neoclassical airport, now a business center known as Airport House.

The closest you’ll get to traveling to Pakistan from here today is a chicken karahi from the Imperial Lounge restaurant, nestled in one corner of the ground floor. And yet, thanks to its remarkable preservation, you can still get a real sense of the airport in its heyday – particularly on its monthly open days.

Here, tour guides will lead you on fascinating tours taking in the departure lounge, its original mezzanine and skylight still intact; wicker chairs on which passengers were once whisked to far-flung lands; vintage booklets providing “Hints for Lady Passengers” (”Do not use much powder during the flight, as the temperature varies a good deal’).

It’s quite something to think that nearly two million passengers have bustled through this place.

Out the front of Airport House is a plinth-mounted de Havilland DH.114 Heron – frozen in mid-flight. It’s the same model of plane in which Geoffrey Last (talk about nominative determinism) flew Croydon’s final flight back in 1959. Such was the sense of loss from Croydonians, that as they watched the plane vanish into the skies, they set light to an effigy of the minister of transport and civil aviation. Up in the old control tower – also in fantastically good condition – meanwhile, you will find a framed poem by Ken Steel, “The Lost Airport.” It concludes:

Alas those happy times have passed and gone.

No more the neon beams its welcome light.

Croydon is dead, her halcyon days are done.

No more her klaxon stirs the summer night.

Croydon is dead, but though her sun has set,

In airmen’s hearts her fame is living yet.

Croydon, though, is far from dead. The airport may not be operating anymore, but just as it was back in the 1920s and ‘30s, it remains an attraction in its own right – still bringing in people from near and far, and in doing so, making Croydon the unlikeliest of destinations.

Croydon Airport Visitor Centre opens for public tours on the first Sunday of every month. Book ahead, as they often sell out.

“Croydonopolis: A Journey to the Greatest City That Never Was” by Will Noble is published by Safe Haven on September 5, 2024.

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By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) — Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder are really taking that “married under the eyes of God” thing seriously.

During an episode of the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, Ryder revealed that she and her former costar still text regularly and “we always say who it is, even though it says it on the text.”

“So like on his birthday I go, ‘Happy birthday, my husband’ and then he’s like, ‘Hey, my wife, I love you KR 57,’” Ryder said. “Like on each birthday he’s like KR 57 or whatever his age is. He’s always done that.”

The pair costarred in the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola directed drama “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” in which their characters had a wedding scene.

In a 2018 interview to promote their rom-com “Destination Wedding,” Ryder said she believed she and Reeves had actually wed.

“In that scene, Francis [Ford Coppola] used a real Romanian priest,” she explained. “We shot the master and he did the whole thing. So I think we’re married.”

Three years later, Reeves talked about it during a video he shot for Esquire.

“We did a whole take of a marriage ceremony with real priests,” he said. “Winona says we are [married]. Coppola says we are. So I guess we’re married… under the eyes of God.”

During the recent podcast, Ryder raved about working with Reeves. However, the “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” star demurred on possibly doing a “John Wick” action film because “involves a lot of stunt” and she’s “thinking of my bones.”

“I would literally do anything though with him,” she said about costarring with Reeves. “He is so special.”

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Originally Published: 03 SEP 24 16:54 ET

Updated: 03 SEP 24 16:57 ET

By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN

(CNN) — A trial date has been set for two of five people charged in connection with the death of beloved “Friends” actor Matthew Perry.

Dr. Salvador Plasencia and alleged drug dealer Jasveen Sangha, who prosecutors have also refer to as the “Ketamine Queen,” will be tried together.

The trial is scheduled to begin on March 4, 2025. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for February 19.

Plasencia and Sangha were arrested on August 15 and indicted on respective charges that include falsifying medical records and conspiracy to distribute, among others, according to the US Attorneys office.

Both Sangha and Plasencia, who prosecutors say are responsible for contributing to Perry’s death by distributing ketamine to the actor during the final weeks of his life, have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The three other individuals charged in connection with Perry’s death – Dr. Mark Chavez, Perry’s personal assistant Kenneth Iwamasa and an acquaintance to Perry, Erik Fleming – are cooperating with prosecutors and have reached plea agreements. Fleming and Iwamasa have sentencing dates set for October and November, respectively.

Sangha remains in federal custody and Plasencia is free on bond, according to the Department of Justice.

Perry died in October 2023 at age 54 because of “acute effects” of ketamine and subsequent drowning, according to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office autopsy report. His body was found floating face down in a hot tub at his Pacific Palisades home.

Plasencia was charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine, seven counts of distribution of ketamine and two counts of altering and falsifying documents or records related to the federal investigation, according to the US Attorney’s office.

Plasencia allegedly sold vials of ketamine that he obtained from Chavez to Perry and Iwamasa “outside the usual course of professional practice and without a legitimate medical purpose” in the weeks leading up to his death.

He is also accused of teaching Iwamasa how to inject Perry with the drug and personally injecting Perry on one occasion, despite being informed that the actor’s ketamine addiction “was spiraling out of control.”

If convicted, Plasencia faces up to 10 years in federal prison for each ketamine-related count and up to 20 years for each falsification count.

In addition to having legitimate medical uses, ketamine is increasingly popular as a party drug.

“In Hollywood, you have parties you have after parties and people like to feel altered… it’s become popular in that circle,” said Dr. David Mahjoubi, who runs one of the hundreds of ketamine clinics that have proliferated in recent years.

Clinics like Mahjoubi’s use forms of the drug in controlled doses and controlled environments as therapy for mental health conditions like depression, anxiety and PTSD. Doctors are given discretion to use medications for so-called “off-label” uses “as long as it’s within acceptable guidelines” and “not causing harm,” according to Mahjoubi.

“If somebody wanted to get high off ketamine, they’re gonna go buy it from the street,” Mahjoubi added. “It’s gonna be a lot cheaper than coming to see a physician getting an infusion.”

When the Ketamine clinic that was treating Perry declined to increase his dose, prosecutors say, he went first to Plasencia, and then due to the cost, to Sangha.

Sangha, whom authorities call the “Ketamine Queen” of North Hollywood, ran what amounted to “a drug selling emporium” in her home and had sold vials of ketamine to Fleming on Perry’s behalf, according to Fleming’s plea agreement.

Prosecutors also claim that Sangha was “aware of the danger of ketamine” and continued to sell it even after she was made aware that the ketamine she sold to aspiring personal trainer Cody McLaury in August 2019 contributed to his overdose death.

Federal agents and LAPD detectives found over 70 vials of ketamine, among other “fraudulently obtained” and illegal drugs, after executing search warrants at Sangha’s residence, according to a press release from the US attorney’s office.

She is charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine, one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, one count of possession with intent to distribute ketamine, and five counts of distribution of ketamine.

Sangha is facing a maximum sentence of life in prison.

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Originally Published: 03 SEP 24 16:17 ET

By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN

(CNN) — Rock and roll legend Elton John is in healing mode.

The “Rocket Man” singer shared on his Instagram page on Tuesday that he’s been “dealing with a severe eye infection that has unfortunately left me with only limited vision in one eye.”

“I am healing, but it’s an extremely slow process and it will take some time before sight returns to the impacted eye,” John wrote, before thanking the “excellent team of doctors and nurses and my family” for taking such good care of him over the last few weeks.

“I have been quietly spending the summer recuperating at home,” he wrote, adding that he is “feeling positive about the progress I have made in my healing and recovery thus far.”

John did not elaborate on the nature of the infection. CNN has reached out to a representative for John for comment.

While John officially retired from touring in 2023 after decades of performing live, he is still sharing his life with the world through an upcoming Disney+ documentary titled “Elton John: Never Too Late.”

“Never Too Late” will feature a new song from the Grammy-winner, according to a news release, and is billed as an “emotionally charged, intimate and uplifting full-circle journey” that follows John as he looks back on his 50-year career.

The film will also chronicle the preparation ahead of his final concert in North America at Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium, as he recounts “the extraordinary highs and heartbreaking lows of his early years and how he overcame adversity, abuse and addiction to become the icon he is today.”

Disney+ previously released the “Elton John Live: Farewell from Dodger Stadium” special, which earned John an Emmy and cemented his status as an EGOT-winner.

“Elton John: Never Too Late” will be available to stream on Disney+ on December 13.

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