Tag: leisure and lifestyle

How scientists are decoding what the past smelled like | CNN

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Smells hover just below our conscious awareness, conjuring up emotions and memories that shape how we perceive and navigate the world.

An unexpected whiff of a long-forgotten snack or a dusty book can transport a person to years past — enabling a kind of time travel that makes hazy memories more vivid.

It’s puzzling then that smell is a sense that, according to scientists, has been largely — and unfairly — ignored in most attempts to understand the past. A growing number of researchers now want to reconstruct ancient aromas and use them to learn more about how we used to live.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, many people who caught the disease temporarily lost their sense of smell, prompting a newfound appreciation of the importance of odor in their lives. New research projects are underway to understand what the past smelled like and identify what contemporary scents should be preserved for posterity.

“It’s a very vital sense. Smell was also very important in the past and it was probably even more important because in the past not everything was so sanitized,” said Barbara Huber, a doctoral researcher of archaeology at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena, Germany.

The challenge of finding past smells is how to capture an ephemeral phenomenon: Archaeologists typically find and study things we can touch, and these are the artifacts we encounter in museums.

Odor compounds are volatile in nature — once their source is gone, they too disappear, evaporating into the air. And most smells stem from biological materials — plants, food, human and animal bodies — that decay rapidly, Huber explained.

Despite all these challenges, Huber said a few new and powerful biomolecular approaches are helping scientists decode ancient scents.

The key to unraveling smells of the past is often invisible to the naked eye.

Scientists can study imperceptible biomolecular residues left on incense burners, perfume bottles, cooking pots and food storage jars using techniques like chromatography, a process for separating components in a mixture, and mass spectrometry, which can detect different compounds by calculating the weight of different molecules.

The most informative biomolecules, according to Huber, include lipids — fats, waxes and oils — that aren’t soluble in water. They’re often found embedded in porous ceramics, after having been used in items such as lamp fuel or scented ointments people once put on their bodies or on corpses. Lipids are also found in feces.

Huber also studies secondary metabolites, organic compounds produced by plants and left by plant-based products used in the past, including resins, scented woods, herbs, fruits and spices. The compounds can reveal the ingredients, and scent of, incense, drugs and food.

Sequencing of ancient DNA and proteomics, the study of proteins found preserved in things like calcified dental plaque, have detected amino acids that signal conditions like gum disease — associated with bad breath.

But, as Huber’s research illustrates, collecting these olfactory clues is often only the beginning.

In her work, Huber has studied incense burners found in the archaeological site of Tayma, Saudi Arabia’s oldest settlement that dates back 5,000 years, in order to try and reconstruct the “olfactory landscape” of the ancient oasis.

She detected secondary metabolites that revealed the use of scented resins containing frankincense, myrrh and pistachio in private buildings, graves and temples, respectively. Huber then worked with a perfumer to try and recreate the scents, revealing what these places might have smelled like thousands of years ago.

“The resins looked really similar … but when you burn them, they have a totally different smell. So for example, the frankincense was really a rich smell — very balsamic — and you could really feel maybe this was used in order to kind of clean out the houses right to avoid an unliked smell or something like that,” Huber explained.

Sean Coughlin, a researcher of ancient and medieval thought at the Czech Academy of Sciences, is attempting to recreate the perfumes Cleopatra herself might have worn, based on recipes recorded in ancient Egyptian texts and from inscriptions on temple walls.

“The problem is a simple one. Normally, when you follow a recipe, you kind of know what you’re supposed to get. When you reproduce a historical recipe, you have no target,” Coughlin said.

“What we’re really trying to do is use organic chemistry to be able to tell us something about the process, because we think that the process was actually what would determine the range of possible scents,” he added.

Coughlin likens his experiments to the testing process of the cooking show “America’s Test Kitchen.” While the results have been hit-and-miss, he said they are making progress.

For example, one perfume recipe Coughlin studied known as Mendesian indicated that ancient perfumers heated oil for 10 days and 10 nights before infusing it with woods like cinnamon and resins like myrrh.

“That was a big mystery to us,” he said. “If you’ve ever cooked oil for 10 days it stinks.” But after his team heated oil in test tubes for up to 12 days, Coughlin found that the technique accelerated the natural process of the oil going rancid, removing any smelly compounds and ultimately allowing the perfume to last longer.

“There is also a stage, after heating the oil, but before making the perfume itself, where they added mildly aromatic things like roots, wine and resins. Our hypothesis is that these not only covered up the bad smell (by adding a pleasant scent), but also absorbed the bad odor in the oil,” he explained.

Most present-day perfumes use ethanol, a type of alcohol, as a base, Coughlin said, although some delicate natural scents still require the use of oil or fat, which needs to be refined in some way.

But today’s chemists still owe a lot to these ancient perfumers, he added. They pioneered many techniques still used in modern science, such as distillation and methods of fractionating liquids.

Similarly, researchers are now taking steps to preserve currently available smells to give future generations a sense of our time and the more recent past.

The Institute for Sustainable Heritage at UCL, a London university, identified the chemical recipe for old book smell — specifically capturing the scent of the library at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London prior to a renovation that started in 2018.

Visitors to the library, which until the renovation had changed little since it was built in 1709, often remarked they found the old book smell appealing.

“In the age of digitization, working with physical records is an increasingly rare practice, and therefore the opportunity to touch and smell the documents is perceived as valuable,” a 2017 study on the project noted.

Researchers used information from volatile organic compounds retrieved at the library to reproduce the historic book smell. They also put together an odor wheel — a tool used by perfumers and winemakers and a first step toward documenting and archiving smells of the past.

Cecilia Bembibre, a lecturer at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage, said preserving the scent of the library was important because the smell was an integral part of its identity.

“Since the space has been undergoing important conservation work in the last few years, and the collection was removed, it is reasonable to assume the scent has gone,” said Bembibre, who’s also a participant in Odeuropa, a European research project that aims to bring historic aromas back to life. “Now the preservation kit we created…(is) now the only existing archive of a lost heritage smell.”

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March 27, 2023
Not just casinos: Macao reimagines tourism post-pandemic | CNN

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Macao, China
CNN
—

Like many of his peers, Dan McAulay was furloughed from his job as a pilot during the pandemic.

Being based in Macao, a city that had one of the world’s strictest approaches to the coronavirus pandemic, he found himself with a lot of time on his hands.

McAulay and his wife, Rebeca Fellini, started learning how to distill alcohol as a lockdown hobby. And by the end of the nearly three years that Macao was a relative fortress, they had grown their pastime into a bona fide business – a gin brand called Owl Man, a play on the Chinese pronunciation of the city’s name “Ah Mahn.”

Now, McAulay is back in the skies with Air Macau and Fellini manages the distillery’s day-to-day business.

Even though their business was born during lockdown, they – like so many other businesses around the city – are pinning their hopes on the return of tourism.

Macao, an hour’s ferry ride from Hong Kong, is the only place in China where gambling is legal.

Often called the “Vegas of Asia,” in pre-pandemic times it wasn’t unusual to see a high-spending “whale” helicopter in and out of the city for a single afternoon at the craps table.

As a result, the city’s primary economy is the casinos and the businesses supporting them, from hotels to spas to high-end shops.

Macao only has about 600,000 residents – compared to seven million in Hong Kong – but brings in six times as much revenue as Las Vegas in a typical year.

Before the pandemic, 80% of Macao’s government revenue came from the gaming industry. Big players like Wynn, Venetian and MGM all have a significant presence in the city.

Covid threw that all into a tailspin. Nearly three years of intermittent lockdowns and blocked travel from the mainland and Hong Kong had a devastating effect on the city’s primary source of income.

But it also provided time for innovation.

“The government realized they can’t focus all their efforts on gaming and (tourists from) the mainland. Gastronomy is one of their big pushes,” explains McAulay.

“Being the only distillery in Macao, it’s working out amazing for us. The hotels and casinos are encouraged to support local food and beverage companies. It has given us quite a strong start.”

He isn’t the only entrepreneur who used the tourism slowdown to rethink his business model.

Asai, who uses only his first name professionally, owns several Portuguese restaurants and cafes around the territory. As a former Portuguese colony, Macao is known for food traditions like egg tarts, African chicken and bacalao (codfish fritters).

But Asai wants visitors to know there’s still an active, thriving Portuguese community in Macao – and they’re offering more than the usual favorites.

Egg custard tarts, or pasteis de natas in Portuguese, are one of the most popular souvenirs from Macao, with long lines at establishments like Lord Stow’s and Margaret’s.

Pasteis de Chaves is a small, trendy-looking cafe that wouldn’t be out of place in Brooklyn. Though it does sell egg tarts, its name comes from the signature offering – beef stuffed pastries that offer a savory complement to the sweet eggy ones.

Across the road, Three Sardines is a romantic, dimly lit spot specializing in petiscos, a Portuguese equivalent of tapas with small plates like fried octopus and grilled peppers.

“Competition is high for Portuguese restaurants, but many are localized twisted versions of Portuguese food,” says Asai, who has been in Macao for 18 years and stayed through the pandemic. “We try to offer more traditional and unique experiences. This is a niche and helped us survive the pandemic.”

Now, he is one of many local business owners looking outward for the first time in several years as tourists slowly trickle back to Macao.

Like Owl Man, Asai’s restaurant group has received government support as Macao diversifies its food and drink scene.

For instance, he and head chef Pedro Almeida worked with the Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) on a video to explain the origin of egg tarts and how they’re different in Macao and Portugal.

As the first international tourists began returning to Macao in February 2023, it was clear that a lot had changed.

Many small neighborhood restaurants closed during lockdown, and those that have reopened have had trouble staffing up after so many workers left the city permanently.

But new attractions have opened as well, with casinos trying to diversify their offerings and become more family-friendly.

The city’s first-ever outdoor zip line, ZipCity, opened at Taipa’s Lisboeta casino complex in January 2023. The timing worked out well, as mainland Chinese tourists flooded the city during Lunar New Year – a representative for the company says that ZipCity operated “at 90% capacity” during that holiday week.

Despite the pandemic, ongoing construction projects were still completed – if not necessarily on schedule.

Popular Japanese immersive art experience TeamLab opened an outpost at the Venetian in June 2020, and a new British-themed resort, The Londoner, opened in 2021 complete with penthouse suites designed by David Beckham.

Arguably the city’s most well-known landmark, the ruins of St. Paul’s Church, has been reinvigorated by a new on-site VR experience that enables visitors to see what the church looked like during different historical periods.

The city is rolling out incentives to bring back those tourists, as well.

People coming over via ferry from Hong Kong qualify for a buy-one-get-one free boat ticket if they’re staying at least one night in a hotel – an incentive to stay longer and not just make it a day trip.

Most businesses and vendors in Macao, including taxi drivers, will accept Hong Kong dollars – while very few of their counterparts in Hong Kong will accept the Macanese pataca.

Macao’s tourism authority also announced programs aimed at international travelers, including deals on package trips.

On the ground, things look lively.

Weekend ferries from Hong Kong have been selling out, and popular areas like Senado Square and the Guia Fortress – which is part of the city’s UNESCO-listed historical center – are thronged with visitors.

That includes casinos as well. On a recent mid-week visit, tables at the MGM and Venetian casinos were full of both gamblers and gawkers.

Macao dropped its mask mandate on February 26, with Hong Kong following suit a week later. However, many casino-goers still sported masks indoors once it became voluntary, perhaps due to the close quarters at blackjack tables.

For now, though, tourism is mostly regional.

According to data from Macao’s tourism authority, the majority of visitors arriving in January 2023 were from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia.

In January 2019, 3.4 million tourists came to Macao, with most from mainland China. In January 2023, 1.4 million visited, most during the Lunar New Year holiday.

Hometown airline Air Macau has been steadily ratcheting up capacity to add more flights from Singapore and Taipei, two of Macao’s biggest markets. More mainland China routes will return by March 26.

Low-cost Asian carriers like Cambodia Airways and Thai Vietjet also brought back their pre-pandemic air links.

“I think everyone expected (tourism) to bounce back, but talking to all our friends in the hotels and casinos, they’re saying their fourth quarter predictions have bounced back faster than they anticipated,” says McAulay, the Owl Man co-founder.

“I think it’s re-energizing.”

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March 14, 2023
US Chess Federation investigates grandmaster following accusations of sexual misconduct | CNN

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CNN
—

A chess grandmaster is under investigation by the game’s governing body in the US following accusations of sexual misconduct, according to the US Chess Federation.

Two formal complaints were received last September by the federation regarding conduct by Grandmaster Alejandro Ramirez and the investigation “is ongoing,” the organization stated Thursday, adding that Ramirez’s membership has been suspended.

The announcement comes after two-time US women’s chess champion Jennifer Shahade posted on social media on February 15, “Time’s up,” accompanied by a two-page statement saying she was assaulted by Ramirez two times “9 and 10 years ago.”

Shahade wrote that she was speaking out now after other women had approached her with their own accounts of abuse by Ramirez.

CNN has reached out to Ramirez for comment about the accusations through his lawyer Albert S. Watkins, who replied, “I have been directed to respect the confidentiality I was advised would purportedly attach to pending investigative undertakings.”

The Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the accusations, quoted Watkins as saying, “At some point we are all compelled to take pause and reflect on the reality that unsubstantiated, temporally aged, and concurrent use of social media to incite a ‘Me Too’ call-to-arms runs afoul of every constitutional safeguard we have always held so dear. Superimposing today’s mores on erroneous recitals of acts of yesteryear is a recipe for disaster for both the accused and the accuser.”

Shahade told CNN she had notified the US Chess Federation and the prominent Saint Louis Chess Club – where Ramirez served as a resident Grandmaster – of the alleged transgressions in 2020. She again reported concerns about Ramirez in 2021 after learning of a separate allegation from a fellow chess player, she said.

Since her tweet last month, Shahade told the Wall Street Journal and CNN that other women have told her about alleged experiences of abuse by Ramirez.

US Chess said it “strongly respects the right of alleged victims to control when and to whom they tell their story. However, because US Chess did not receive complaints from, or sufficient information regarding, the allegations of the other women referenced in the WSJ article, we have not had the opportunity to investigate and consider those additional allegations. That process is underway.”

The Wall Street Journal reports Ramirez has resigned from his post at the Saint Louis Chess Club.

Ramirez had been a chess coach with Saint Louis University since the inception of the school’s chess program in 2016. A university spokesperson told CNN Thursday, “On February 16, at our request, the St. Louis Chess Club removed Ramirez as SLU’s coach. They have since assigned an interim coach to lead the team.”

Shahade told CNN Thursday, “I am relieved to hear Alejandro Ramirez resigned from the chess club and SLU. It is high time for a new chess era where we do all we can to make women, girls and all children feel fully safe and welcome.”

CNN has reached out to the Saint Louis Chess Club and the International Chess Federation (FIDE) for comment.

According to the Saint Louis Chess Club website, Ramirez was a chess prodigy and a FIDE Master when he was 9 years old. Ramirez earned his Grandmaster title by the age of 15.

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March 9, 2023
Everyone hates switching the clocks for Daylight Saving Time. So why is it so hard to get rid of? | CNN Business

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Everyone hates switching the clocks for Daylight Saving Time. So why is it so hard to get rid of?

CNN’s Harry Enten tells “Nightcap’s” Jon Sarlin why Americans switch the clocks back and forth twice a year, even though the time change is pretty universally hated. Plus, Los Angeles Times columnist LZ Granderson on how legal sports betting has changed March Madness. And CNN’s Clare Duffy explains why the FTC’s investigation of Twitter could be a real problem for Elon Musk. To get the day’s business headlines sent directly to your inbox, sign up for the Nightcap newsletter.

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March 9, 2023
A new bipartisan push for paid family and medical leave | CNN Politics

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CNN
—

A cocktail party on Capitol Hill is often hardly notable.

But at one recent soiree, the clinking of glasses had a different ring. Members of both parties joined together to kick off a renewed effort to solve a uniquely American problem: no universal paid family and medical leave.

It’s been 30 years since the Family and Medical Leave Act became law. It guaranteed workers the right to unpaid, job-protected time off.

But the United States is one of only seven countries in the world without some form of universal paid family and medical leave.

A bipartisan congressional duo is trying to change that.

“We live in the greatest nation in the world, and we do so many things well, but when you’re talking about families, this is one area that we have struggled,” Republican Rep. Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma told CNN during an interview in her Capitol Hill office last month.

Sitting beside her, nodding, was Democratic Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania.

“It’s frankly an embarrassment that we are one of the seven nations or so that doesn’t have this kind of focus on the family,” Houlahan said. “It’s really, really important that we lead by our example.”

At the end of January, determined to find a solution to the lack of universal paid family and medical leave in America, the congresswomen officially launched their House Bipartisan Paid Family Leave Working Group.

“We are action-oriented, and we are committed to having open eyes and ears,” Houlahan said, addressing policy advocates and politicians alongside Bice at the group’s launch party.

Their task force is composed of six House members: three from each party, including Democrats Colin Allred of Texas and Haley Stevens of Michigan and Republicans Julia Letlow of Louisiana and Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa. Such a partnership across the aisle, Bice insisted, is not that uncommon.

“More of that happens than people realize back home,” the Oklahoma Republican told CNN. “There’s a lot of bipartisanship that goes on behind the scenes, trying to bring everyone together and move the country forward. And this is one way we’re doing that.”

Houlahan represents a blue-leaning district in eastern Pennsylvania that includes parts of the Philadelphia suburbs. Bice represents a reliably red seat that includes parts of Oklahoma City. They’re both relatively new to Congress – elected in 2018 and 2020, respectively. They shared committee assignments – and previously a hallway in a House office building – and “just kind of connected,” said Bice.

But the two have something else in common: They’re both mothers with daughters.

Bice said she worked in the private sector when her daughters were born and had the ability to take paid family leave through her company. That was 20 years ago. “[It] was almost unheard of,” she shared. She said she doesn’t know what she would have done without that opportunity for paid time off.

The Oklahoma native acknowledges that her circumstance was the exception, not the rule, when it came to paid family leave. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 1 in 4 workers had access to paid family leave in 2022.

Families in the lowest 25% of wage earners had even less access. Only 13% of those low-income workers were eligible for paid family leave last year.

“I was incredibly fortunate,” Bice said.

Houlahan was an active-duty officer in the Air Force when her daughter was born 30 years ago. She recalled that the policy at the time was effectively six weeks of convalescence.

“And I know, I remember acutely that the child care on the base was a six-month waiting list,” Houlahan said. “I couldn’t figure out how to make ends meet.”

The veteran said she struggled to find a solution: Child care on the base was affordable but not accessible, and child care off base was the opposite.

“To be really honest, it was one of the reasons that drove me to separate from the military,” she admitted. “These are choices that are being made by husbands and wives and families across the country.”

A lack of paid family and medical leave doesn’t just create burdens for families, Houlahan said – it hurts the economy by taking women out of the workforce, causing what she called a “vicious cycle.”

“The domino effect of all of this kind of thing is real,” the Pennsylvania Democrat said. “When we’re talking about these issues, it’s not just about the mom. It’s not just about the family. It’s about the infrastructure and the economy as well.”

Bice and Houlahan face what many from the outside would call insurmountable odds: a deeply partisan and divided Congress, with narrow majorities in both chambers. But Houlahan said the razor-thin majorities present an opening.

“We have an opportunity-rich environment right now, to use a military term, to make sure that we take advantage of this really special time, honestly, where the majorities and minorities are so small and so slim that it really requires that we work together,” she said.

“We can pretty much assure that our far edges of both parties will not necessarily be interested in working collaboratively,” Houlahan added. “So we need to find that moderate middle.”

Bice hopes the growing number of women in the House GOP Conference will make a difference, too. There are now 33 Republican women serving in the chamber – the highest number ever. It’s still small in comparison with the 91 female House Democrats (soon to be 92) across the aisle, but it’s momentum nonetheless.

“Having that female conservative perspective, I think, is important to bring to the conversation,” Bice said. “Many of the women in the Republican Conference are young mothers. And so I think this conversation is ripe on our side of the aisle right now.”

Part of the frustration in Washington – and around the country – is that universal paid family and medical leave is quite popular across the political spectrum. A Morning Consult poll this past summer found that 85% of Democrats and 66% of Republicans supported congressional action on ensuring paid family leave.

But the two parties have deep philosophical differences about how to pay for it. It’s part of the reason successful legislation has eluded Congress – and a big obstacle for Bice and Houlahan as they start their work.

“We want to start with a clean slate,” Bice said. “Coming at this from maybe a new fresh perspective, looking at what’s been done in the past. What legislation currently in place isn’t working? And figuring out either do we expand on that or do we pull back and look at a new policy that would actually be much more effective?”

They’re also realistic about what’s possible. Houlahan is prepared for incremental change.

“If we’re able to give some family leave for benefits to our federal employees and then our uniform personnel and then this population and then that population, at least we’re making progress,” she said.

Bice and Houlahan are certainly not the first lawmakers to try to tackle the issue in recent years.

In 2021, House Democrats pushed to get 12 weeks of universal paid leave in the sweeping Build Back Better package. They eventually pared it down to just four weeks to get the necessary votes to pass in the House along party lines. But the $1.75 trillion social spending bill stalled in the Senate. Paid family leave was then left out of Democrats’ $750 billion climate, tax and health care package, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, that was enacted last summer.

Houlahan told CNN that she and Bice “stand on the shoulders of great people, mostly women,” who have worked on the issue for decades and across the Capitol. Currently, New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand and Louisiana Republican Bill Cassidy are among the senators working on solutions of their own in the upper chamber.

The House working group co-chairs also acknowledge the importance of bringing men into the conversation. Their six-member task force includes Allred, who made headlines in 2019 when he became the first member of Congress to take paternity leave.

“If we’re going to be pro-family, it’s going to be pro-family, Mom and Dad,” Bice said.

This February marked three decades since the Family and Medical Leave Act became law.

“We’ve been at this since I was pregnant,” Houlahan quipped at the launch party for their group, noting that her oldest daughter is 30 years old.

“It’s time for there to be additional progress on this issue. It’s wonderful that you now can’t lose your job for taking time off, but that’s not enough for us to be a competitive nation. I don’t think that embodies the American values of the strengths of families as well,” she told CNN in the joint interview.

Her Republican colleague agreed.

“It’s time for us to find a solution and take action,” Bice said. “Thirty years is too long. You can’t sit back and watch. You got to move forward.”

This headline has been updated.

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February 26, 2023
NFL star Aaron Rodgers went to a darkness retreat to contemplate his future. What is that and how does it work? | CNN

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CNN
—

For four days this week, home for Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers was a pitch-black room. There were no phones, no television, no lights or distractions. Just Rodgers, alone with his thoughts, in a cabin built specifically for prolonged isolation in the dark.

When the four-time NFL MVP announced plans earlier this month to contemplate his NFL future in isolation at a “darkness retreat,” many were left scratching their heads.

“It’s just sitting in isolation, meditation, dealing with your thoughts,” Rodgers said earlier this month. “We rarely even turn our phone off or put the blinds down to sleep in darkness. I’m really looking forward to it.”

Rodgers is no stranger to alternative therapies. He credits psychedelics like psilocybin and ayahuasca for helping to alleviate his fear of death and deepening a sense of self-love. The football star said he has done “many meditation and yoga retreats” in the past and defended his decision to try darkness therapy as one of several practices “that have stimulated my mind and helped me get in a better headspace and have a greater peace in my life.”

But what exactly happens in a darkness retreat? And is it just another new-age fad or perhaps something that could benefit the rest of us?

A darkness retreat is exactly what it sounds like: a prolonged stay in a space completely devoid of light. One of the centers offering the practice is Sky Cave Retreats, nestled in the Cascade-Siskiyou wilderness, in Southern Oregon, near Klamath Falls.

“The reasons for doing this range from people wanting to know themselves more, to people who want to rest, reset and relax, to those who want to explore consciousness and deepen their meditation practice,” said Scott Berman, who owns Sky Cave Retreats along with his wife Jill, adding the darkness helps illuminate what really matters by stripping away the constant bombardment of sensory input and stimulation many people experience in their hectic modern lives.

“When someone goes into the darkness, all these things that were important to them like money, fame, power, status, being worthy – they all become insignificant and meaningless in the dark,” Berman said. “In the dark, all you have is the present moment which reveals what is truly meaningful – whether it’s love, forgiveness, peace – and it begins to transform you as you truly authentically touch what is most important to you.”

The center currently operates three stand-alone cabins built specifically for prolonged isolation in the dark – earth-sheltered caves, which on the outside are somewhat reminiscent of a Hobbit home. Each space contains a bed, a toilet, sink and a bathtub, as well as a low table for eating and a carpeted area for yoga and meditation. Participants can leave at any time – the doors are never locked – and there is a light switch for emergencies which is protected by a childproof guard so it isn’t flipped on by accident.

The cost includes three meals a day, which Berman delivers personally all at once in the evening (through a lightproof double-sided food box) to minimize the disturbance. This is when participants have an opportunity for a conversation, which could be 10 seconds or 30 minutes, according to Berman, depending on the person’s needs.

Participants typically spend three to four days in the darkness at a cost of $250 a night and are encouraged to take an extra day before and after to integrate the experience.

Burak Dalcik, a 27-year-old salesman from Arlington, Virginia, said the four days he spent in the dark at Sky Caves Retreats in January gave him clarity about his priorities. He found he no longer labeled experiences as positive or negative, but rather allowed them to come and to go, which led to less stress and anxiety at work and in his personal life. He also said he started calling his mom, who lives back in Turkey, more frequently.

“It just really trims all the unnecessary fat and allows you to focus on some of the most important things and really allows you to understand who you are,” said Dalcik. “There’s nothing New Age about this – it boils down to can you just sit by yourself with yourself? And if you can’t, you should probably get pretty curious about why.”

Berman cautions the retreat isn’t for everyone, nor should it be seen as a quick fix to one’s troubles.

“It’s not like this magical, mind-blowing, amazing experience – it can be extremely difficult and uncomfortable,” Berman said. “But in the darkness, discomfort is the door to transformation. There’s an acceptance and a profound love that people start to experience when they’re no longer resisting that part of themselves.”

For now, there is limited research on how darkness retreats impact the human brain and body. Some centers claim the experience can help heal traumas or activate the pineal glad, another claim is darkness therapy increases melatonin production in the brain.

“That’s totally false,” said Dr. David Blask, the head of the Laboratory of Chrono-Neuroendocrine Oncology at Tulane University School of Medicine. “There may be some psychological benefits that people derive from a darkness retreat that they feel are important for them, but certainly not from a strict endocrine neuroendocrine or biochemical physiological standpoint.”

Dr. Marek Malůš, a psychologist at the University of Ostrava in the Czech Republic who has been studying darkness therapies since 2010, sees the technique as a promising therapeutic tool.

“Your thoughts, memories, emotions, inner world and mental processes become much more balanced and integrated,” Malůš said.

While he and his colleagues are working to secure funding for additional studies, Malůš said preliminary research showed just four days in a darkness chamber was enough to help increase mindfulness and self-esteem, lower symptoms of depression and anxiety, while improving parasympathetic nervous system functions, which helps with stress management and lowering burnout symptoms. Subjects reported feeling the benefits three weeks after the experience.

Berman said he hopes to see more scientific research into the benefits of darkness retreats, but cautions against anyone seeking to use the retreat for some sort of natural high.

“If somebody’s coming here because they want to have a so-called DMT experience, you’ve come into the wrong place,” he said. “But there is a lot of benefit in not looking outside of ourselves for confirmation of our worth and using the darkness to illuminate our true nature.”

For those who aren’t able to commit the time or money for a darkness retreat but want a taste of some of the benefits, Berman suggests starting small at home.

“It’s about becoming accustomed to authentically slowing down, putting the phone away, turning out the lights, closing the blinds and just resting,” he said. “Not to get somewhere, not to heal but just to be curious about what’s actually happening within yourself.”

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February 26, 2023
8 people injured in stabbing incident at an Oklahoma City nightclub | CNN

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CNN
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Eight people were injured, including two critically, after a stabbing incident in Oklahoma City, according to the Oklahoma City Police Department.

Police say a “large fight” broke out at a nightclub in the early hours of Saturday morning in the city’s Bricktown district.

“Several police officers were posted outside the club as part of security protocols and saw the fight occurring, with several injured people exiting the club onto the sidewalk,” police said in a Facebook post. Officers found two people “bleeding profusely” from what appeared to be “serious stab wounds.”

“Officers immediately began rendering lifesaving measures by applying tourniquets and direct pressure to stop the loss of blood,” authorities said.

So far, police say it’s “unclear” what caused the fight, and no arrests have been made.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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February 25, 2023
The dark side of the sports betting boom | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
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The sports gambling gold rush is coming at a high cost.

In 2018, the Supreme Court struck down a federal ban on commercial sports betting in most of the country. Thirty-three states have made sports gambling legal in the wake of the decision. Now, on Super Bowl Sunday, a record 50.4 million US adults are expected to bet on the game.

The booming sports betting industry, lawmakers and even the professional sports leagues themselves are making it easier, faster and more tempting for people to bet on games — and develop gambling problems, say gambling researchers and addiction specialists.

A flood of advertising, technology that allows for one-click betting at home, and nearly unlimited betting options during games have collided. There’s been a spike in inquiries to state gambling-addiction hotlines, states say.

In the past five years, there has been an explosion of online sports betting apps from companies like DraftKings, FanDuel and Caesars. These apps are often replacing illegal betting venues. At the same time, they also attract an influx of new gamblers who had never set foot in a casino or would have known how to place a bet with a bookie.

During the Super Bowl, there will be an onslaught of advertisements — most starring celebrity sponsors and athletes — meant to encourage new sign-ups and grab market share. DraftKings will air a commercial featuring Kevin Hart and David Ortiz, while Rob Gronkowski will attempt a field goal kick live in a FanDuel ad. (Any customer who places a Super Bowl bet of five dollars or more on FanDuel will win a share of $10 million in “free bets” if Gronkowski makes it.)

Hear why FanDuel CEO thinks this Super Bowl will be biggest day in company’s history

Sports teams and leagues were once fiercely opposed to gambling on the games. Now, they’ve partnered with sportsbooks.

These days, gamblers can also do much more than wager on the outcome of a game. There are options to bet in-game on every quarter, player, and event.

Resources for gambling addiction programs have long been thin in the United States and have been stretched further by the current wave of sports betting. In 2020, there were 5.7 million Americans with a gambling disorder, according to a nationwide survey by the National Association of Administrators for Disordered Gambling Services.

Focus on gambling disorders has historically been minimal in the United States, said Timothy Fong, a psychiatrist and the co-director of the UCLA Gambling Studies Program.

This is in part because people with gambling disorders have been viewed as foolish or lacking willpower, he said. “We equate the ability to hold onto money and win money with success and equate losing with greed.”

There is also sparse federal oversight of the gambling industry, and there are currently no federal funds designated for problem gambling treatment or research, unlike federal funding for alcohol, tobacco and drug addiction programs.

A patchwork of state legislation, lack of robust consumer protections in many states, and limited advertising restrictions are adding to the problems.

“Many states naively or some other way went about legalizing sports betting without adequately estimating the costs on problem gambling resources,” said John Holden, an associate professor of management at Oklahoma State University who studies sports gambling regulation.

“There is more that state lawmakers can do within the confines of commercial speech restrictions,” including authorizing extra funding to go after false and misleading advertising, Holden said.

Betting on sports can be a way for some people to develop, maintain or accelerate gambling disorders.

There are several features of sports betting that make it different from other forms of gambling and can lead to addictive behavior.

Many sports bettors tend to perceive their wages on games are safer and more informed by their own expertise and skills than luck, researchers say. This may give them a false illusion of control.

Additionally, live betting within games reduces the delay between risk and reward, and it’s increasing the speed and frequency of wagers, experts say.

“I got caught up in a lot of the live betting,” said one 24-year-old man with a gambling disorder who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity. He started betting on sports seven years ago through a bookie, but upped his wagers once he started using apps.

During football games, he would bet on the outcome of drives and which team would score the next touchdown. As he lost more during a game, he would try again to to win it back on the next play.

“You see the way the game is going and you think you know,” he said. “It’s not like back in the day with a bookie betting on who wins.”

He said he lost $100,000 on sports gambling, including money from student loans. He’s currently in recovery at Beit T’Shuvah, in Los Angeles, which provides inpatient and outpatient services for people struggling with gambling disorders.

Casey Clark, the senior vice president at the American Gaming Association, a trade group for the gambling industry, said that the legalization of sports betting has moved the black market of sports gambling into regulated marketplaces, benefiting states.

The gambling industry and sports betting operators work with regulators, professional sports leagues, media companies and advocates to set standards, provide gambling education for consumers and fund recovery efforts for people seeking treatment, Clark said.

“We’ve had a really fast escalation and movement towards giving American consumers access to the legal market that they clearly want. And so we have to continue to evolve that marketplace,” he said.

Advocates for people with gambling disorders say demand for help and treatment services has grown alongside the rapid expansion of legalized sports betting.

Inquires to the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey’s help hotline about sports gambling have increased 60% since it became legal in the state in 2018, said Felicia Grondin, the organization’s executive director.

Grondin feels helpless against the constant barrage of advertising encouraging betting on games.

“We consider it to be predatory advertising because it’s incessant and it glamorizes gambling,” she said.

Clark from the American Gaming Association said the group has created a responsible marketing code to set industry-wide advertising standards.

But self-enforcement by the industry cannot make up for robust oversight from regulators, said Keith Whyte, the executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling.

“Self-regulation tends to dumb itself down to the lowest common denominator, not the highest,” he said. “Some operators are definitely taking advantage of weak regulatory environments in some states.”

Every state where gambling is legal has a regulatory body that oversees it.

But few have “really done more than the minimal amount to increase funding of problem gambling treatment,” said Holden. The sports gambling industry is most similar to financial markets, he said, but financial markets are much more regulated than banks.

Most states require that sports betting ads disclose the minimum legal age to gamble and responsible gambling messages, such as problem gambling hotlines. Those messages are brief and usually run at the very end.

Regulators are wary of how tightly they can curtail messages in gambling advertising without running afoul of First Amendment protections on commercial speech.

“A lot of state regulators have big First Amendment fears,” Holden said. “No one wants to fund litigation or lose a Supreme Court case over gambling.”

In most states, the legal age for sports betting is 21 years old. But ads during games, in stadiums, and with star athlete sponsors normalizes sports betting for kids and teenagers, critics say. The United Kingdom last year banned top athletes and celebrities from appearing in ads endorsing or promoting gambling to try to curb underage gambling. That’s unlikely to happen in the United States.

Additionally, researchers are troubled by the incentives and promotions some sports betting apps often provide to users, such as sign-up and referral bonuses, promo codes and bonus bets. One 2017 study of people with gambling addictions found that messages with an offer of risk-free kind of bonuses had a high impact.

The Ohio Casino Control Commission in January fined DraftKings, Caesars and BetMGM $150,000 each for advertising promotions or bonuses as “free” or “risk-free” when, in fact, users were required to lose money or risk their own money to obtain the promotion.

“I got more incentive to gamble with these apps that give you free play and match your deposit,” said the former sports bettor in Los Angeles currently in recovery. He enlisted friends to sign up to get referral fees, and looked at these enticements as free money. “I’d have to be an idiot to pass this up.”

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February 10, 2023
DeSantis appointees would oversee Disney’s theme parks under bill to revamp Reedy Creek | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Gov. Ron DeSantis may soon get to pick the people who govern Disney’s Orlando-area theme parks, a move that would give the Republican leader new authority over the state’s largest employer and a recent political foe.

Republican lawmakers on Monday unveiled a bill to turn over control of Disney’s special taxing district, called the Reedy Creek Improvement District, to a five-member board chosen by DeSantis. The proposal also comes with a rebrand; Reedy Creek would become the “Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.”

The move to take over Reedy Creek is the latest step in a yearlong spat between DeSantis and Disney over a bill to restrict certain classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity. DeSantis signed the bill into law over the objections of Disney’s then-CEO Bob Chapek.

In an act opponents decried as political retribution, DeSantis then pushed lawmakers to dissolve the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which for 55 years effectively gave Disney control of the land around its Florida properties. Republicans, who control the seats of legislative power, complied, and the district was scheduled to be sunset on June 1.

But the bill proposed Monday breathed new life into the taxing district and kept many of its special powers. Indeed, the final page of the 189-page bill states clearly: “The Reedy Creek Improvement District is not dissolved as of June 1, 2023, but continues in full force and effect under its new name.”

In a statement to CNN, Jeff Vahle, the president of Walt Disney World Resort, said the company is “monitoring the progression of the draft legislation, which is complex given the long history of the Reedy Creek Improvement District.”

“Disney works under a number of different models and jurisdictions around the world, and regardless of the outcome, we remain committed to providing the highest quality experience for the millions of guests who visit each year,” Vahle said.

The bill, introduced by state Rep. Fred Hawkins, also seeks to limit the damage that could be done to Disney, one of the state’s most vital tourism engines, and to taxpayers. It makes clear that the changes to Reedy Creek should not affect the district’s existing debt, previously estimated at about $1 billion, or any other contracts. Local governments last year expressed concern that dissolving Reedy Creek could lead to a debt bomb on the residents of Orange and Osceola counties. Reedy Creek, in a statement to bondholders last year, said the state couldn’t dissolve it without paying off its debt, or it would violate a 1967 state law.

The legislation would also remove some powers from the board, like the ability to build an airport or a nuclear power plant.

Democrats criticized the legislation, which was introduced in a special session called in part to address Reedy Creek’s future, while stopping short of endorsing Disney’s unique arrangement in Central Florida. State Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Miami Democrat, said Disney was “not a sympathetic victim in my book,” citing the company’s recent labor fight with unionized workers at Disney World. But he said that “the market should dictate these situations” and likened DeSantis moving in on a private company to “socialism.”

State Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, said of the bill: “Disney still gets perks but they’re now a political prisoner of the governor.”

DeSantis is supportive of the changes, which are likely to pass the Republican-controlled legislature within the next couple weeks.

“These actions ensure a state-controlled district accountable to the people instead of a corporate-controlled kingdom,” DeSantis spokesman Jeremy Redfern said.

Under existing law, the board for Reedy Creek has been made up of landowners with close ties to Disney. The bill introduced Monday makes clear that none of the appointees chosen by the governor can be recent Disney employees or their relatives, nor that of a competitor. The state Senate, where Republicans currently hold a super majority, would have final approval of the appointees.

In addition to addressing Reedy Creek, this week’s special session will also address two other contentious DeSantis priorities. Lawmakers have proposed allowing the DeSantis administration to transport migrants from anywhere in the United States, a significant expansion of a program that gained national attention last year after Florida paid for two flights that carried migrants from San Antonio, Texas, to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.

The state House and Senate will also consider giving DeSantis’ controversial new Office of Elections Crimes and Security the jurisdiction to prosecute crimes involving elections. The proposal comes after DeSantis initiated a crackdown on voter fraud that resulted in the arrest of 20 individuals but hit a legal snag when a judge dismissed a case against a Miami defendant on the grounds that state prosecutors had acted beyond their authority.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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February 6, 2023
Former Manhattan attorney says ‘many bits and pieces of evidence’ exist to charge Trump | CNN Politics

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CNN
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A former Manhattan special assistant district attorney who investigated Donald Trump said Sunday night there are “many bits and pieces of evidence” the district attorney could use to bring criminal charges against the former president.

Mark Pomerantz, a former senior prosecutor on the Manhattan DA’s team investigating Trump and his organization’s business dealings, said prosecutors weighing similar evidence against anyone other than the former president would have moved ahead with charges in a “flat second.”

Pomerantz made the comments in a “60 Minutes” interview promoting a new book about his time investigating Trump. He pointed to evidence he had access to during the investigation – principal among them, that Trump personally signed off on inflating his own net worth to obtain more favorable banks loans.

“There were many bits and pieces of evidence on which we could rely in making that case,” Pomerantz told CBS’s Bill Whitaker.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, filed a civil lawsuit against Trump, his eldest children and others alleging they were engaged in a decade long fraud by using inaccurate financial statements to obtain favorable loan and insurance rates and tax treatment. The burden of proof in a civil lawsuit is lower than what prosecutors need to prove a criminal case. Trump has called the lawsuit politically motivated and has denied any wrongdoing.

The allegations come nearly a year after Pomerantz resigned from the DA’s office in protest and days before the release of his new book, which has prompted pushback from District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Pomerantz resigned after Bragg, who was newly sworn into office, refused to give him a green light to seek an indictment against Trump. The district attorney’s office previously brought tax fraud charges against the Trump Organization and chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty.

Pomerantz resigned last February along with general counsel Carey Dunne.

“If you take the exact same conduct – and make it not about Donald Trump and not about a former president of the United States, would the case have been indicted? It would have been indicted in a flat second,” Pomerantz said Sunday. He called Bragg’s decision not to bring the case a “grave failure of justice.”

Pomerantz’s claims detailed in his forthcoming book have drawn the ire of his former boss and the DA’s Association of the State of New York, who claim that a former prosecutor speaking out about a case he used to be a part of could damage its integrity.

Bragg’s office asked to review the book before its publication out of concern it would reveal information obtained from a grand jury. Simon & Schuster, the publisher, moved ahead with publication.

“After closely reviewing all the evidence from Mr. Pomerantz’s investigation, I came to the same conclusion as several senior prosecutors involved in the case, and also those I brought on: more work was needed. Put another way, Mr. Pomerantz’s plane wasn’t ready for takeoff,” Bragg said in a statement to CNN.

Bragg added that he hasn’t “read the book, and won’t comment on any ongoing investigation because of the harm it could cause to the case. But I do hope there is at least one section where Mr. Pomerantz recognizes his former colleagues for how much they have achieved on the Trump matter over the last year since his departure.”

In January, a New York judge fined the Trump Organization $1.6 million – the maximum possible penalty – for running a decade-long tax fraud scheme, a symbolic moment because it is the only judgment for a criminal conviction that has come close to the former president.

Two Trump entities, The Trump Corp. and Trump Payroll Corp., were convicted last year of 17 felonies, including tax fraud and falsifying business records. Trump himself was never charged or convicted.

On Sunday Pomerantz expanded on what evidence he believes they had against Trump, including Trump’s signature on a Deutsche Bank loan certifying that all of his financial statements were accurate.

“He warrants that the financial statements are true and correct in all material respects. Finally of course on the guaranty is his sharpie signature, Donald J. Trump,” Pomerantz said. He also alleges he has documents proving Trump knew the accurate size of his 10,996-square-foot Fifth Avenue condominium, but lied anyways, claiming in 2015 and 2016 accounting documents that it was really 30,000 square feet.

CNN previously reported that some prosecutors did not believe they had enough evidence to prove Trump’s intent and they lacked a credible narrator to explain how the financial statements were put together.

In a letter to Pomerantz, Trump’s lawyer threatened legal action against the former prosecutor if he releases the book. The lawyer, Joe Tacopina, told CNN in a statement that Pomerantz’s “desperate attempt to sell books will cost him everything. Not to mention, it is clear that he was very much in the minority in his position that President Trump committed a crime.”

In the book, which publishes on Tuesday, Pomerantz compares Trump to John Gotti, the head of the Gambino organized crime family, according to an advanced copy obtained by The New York Times, and lays out the complicated investigation that saw many close to the former president charged with crimes.

Meanwhile, Bragg’s office last week accelerated its investigation into Trump’s alleged role in a hush money payment made to silence adult film star Stormy Daniel’s allegations of an affair. Trump has denied the affair.

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February 6, 2023
Viola Davis achieves EGOT with Grammy win for her audiobook | CNN

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CNN
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After winning a Grammy Award, Viola Davis has officially completed the holy grail of entertainment awards.

Davis’ Sunday win for the audiobook of her memoir “Finding Me” completes her EGOT collection. She previously won an Emmy for her role in “How to Get Away with Murder,” an Oscar for “Fences,” and two Tony awards for “King Hedley III” and “Fences.”

Davis, 57, won the award for “Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording,” according to a tweet from the Recording Academy, which hosts the Grammys.

In her acceptance speech, the multi-hyphenate performer paid tribute to her younger self.

“I wrote this book to honor the 6-year-old Viola,” she said. “To honor her life, her joy, her trauma, everything. And, it has just been such a journey – I just EGOT!”

Davis’ career has been studded with awards and firsts. In 2015, she became the first Black woman to win an Emmy for best actress in a drama and in 2017, she became the first Black woman to score three Academy Award nominations.

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February 5, 2023
Opinion: Biden doesn’t throw away his shot | CNN

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Editor’s Note: Sign up to get this weekly column as a newsletter. We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets.

CNN
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In Lord Byron’s satirical epic poem, “Don Juan,” the main character marvels at “the whole earth, of man the wonderful, and of the stars … of air-balloons, and of the many bars to perfect knowledge of the boundless skies — and then he thought of Donna Julia’s eyes.”

The balloon from China floating eastward over the United States last week riveted the nation’s attention for a lot longer.

At first, the enormous balloon, carrying a smaller substructure roughly the length of three city buses, seemed to symbolize America’s wide-open vulnerability to what the Pentagon described as surveillance from a rising power.

But the downing of the balloon off the Carolinas Saturday gave President Joe Biden’s administration a way to unleash its fighter jets without any loss of life.

“I told them to shoot it down,” said Biden, peering at reporters through his Ray-Ban aviators at a Maryland airport. Referring to his national security team, Biden added, “They said to me let’s wait till the safest place to do it.”

The incident led to the abrupt postponement of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to China and an apologetic statement from Beijing calling it a “civilian airship” that had “deviated far from its planned course.” The US Navy and Coast Guard are taking part in an effort to recover the aircraft. which may yield evidence of its true purpose.

Some Republicans criticized the President for not shooting it down sooner. China called the downing of the balloon an “obvious overreaction” and said it “reserves the right” to act on “similar situations.”

In May 1937, the golden age of transcontinental passenger airships came to a catastrophic end in roughly 30 seconds after a spark set the hydrogen fuel on the Hindenburg ablaze, killing 36. But balloons for other uses survived, and they remain a tool of surveillance, even in the era of spy satellites.

“The question is whether China carefully considered the consequences of its actions,” wrote David A. Andelman. “Intentional or otherwise, if it was indeed monitoring air flows, their engineers might have suspected these weather phenomena would eventually take these balloons over the United States.”

He pointed out that China has an enormous fleet of satellites which can surveil other nations. “Between 2019 and 2021, China doubled the number of its satellites in orbit from 250 to 499.”

In the Washington Post, Sebastian Mallaby observed, “To understand how a balloon — at once menacing and farcically Zeppelin-retro — might become a defining image of the new cold war, consider how this alleged Chinese spy contraption captures both sides of the present moment. It is provocative enough to cause Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a much-anticipated trip to Beijing. It is clumsy enough to symbolize China’s immense capacity to blunder — a tendency that President Biden’s team has lately exploited, to devastating effect.”

“It is not hard to tidy up perfectly and completely in one fell swoop,” Marie Kondo wrote in the 2011 book that sold more than 13 million copies worldwide and launched her career as a Netflix star and curator of “joy.”

“In fact, anyone can do it.”

It was an apt sentiment at a time when striving for perfection at home and at work was the norm, despite it being a sometimes soul-crushing aspiration — and one that began to vanish with the arrival of the pandemic in 2020.

So it was understandable that people took notice when Kondo, who gave birth to her third child in 2021, recently said, “My home is messy, but the way I am spending my time is the right way for me at this time at this stage of my life.”

As Holly Thomas wrote, “Her benign comment, while welcomed with relief in some circles, prompted a surprisingly febrile reaction in others. … Kondo’s success was built on tidying, and encouraging us to tidy in turn. Where was her loyalty to tidying? How dare she pivot out of her well-ordered lane after selling us a way to live?”

But that’s the wrong way to look at it, Thomas added. “The discomfort … with Kondo’s personal rebrand demonstrates a rigidity that’s reflected across many areas of life. … On a more sinister level, there can be an implicit sense that once you’ve established a particular trait or activity as inherent to your identity, it is somehow greedy or unfaithful to try your hand at something new.”

Jura Koncius wrote in the Washington Post, “Kondo, 38, has caught up with the rest of us, trying to corral the doom piles on our kitchen counters while on hold with the plumber and trying not to burn dinner. The multitasker seems somewhat humbled by her growing family and her business success, maybe realizing that you can find peace in some matcha even if you drink it in a favorite cracked mug rather than a porcelain cup.”

The new Kondo might welcome a bill in Maryland that would provide tax breaks to companies that switch to four-day work weeks as a pilot project. “We are three years into a pandemic that upended work life (and life-life) as many of us knew it,” wrote Jill Filipovic. “We are living in an era in which out-of-work demands, most especially parenting and other forms of caregiving, are more extreme than ever. And we are living in a country that, unlike other nations, provides meager support as its people strive to balance it all…”

“No wonder so many workers report being fed up and burned out. No wonder so many women, who continue to do the lion’s share of the nation’s parenting, drop out of the workforce.”

The 2024 presidential campaign is just starting to come into focus. Former President Donald Trump has locked on to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the biggest threat to his campaign for the GOP nomination.

Trump “mercilessly slammed DeSantis again … first at a South Carolina campaign rally and then in remarks to the media,” Dean Obeidallah noted. “On his campaign plane, Trump berated DeSantis as ‘very disloyal’ and accused him of ‘trying to rewrite history’ in recent pronouncements about Covid-19 policy in Florida.”

If DeSantis enters the race, Obeidallah observed, “he’ll need to show the red meat-loving GOP base that he can punch back against Trump.”

Yet Trump’s derisive nicknames for DeSantis haven’t stuck, as SE Cupp said. “I know we’re just getting started, but this Trump doesn’t seem to pack the punch that 2016 Trump did. … Maybe he’s lost his touch as he’s faced one political storm after the other.”

Some other potential rivals are queueing up, with Nikki Haley, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, planning to announce her candidacy on February 15 and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo mulling a possible run.

“Haley is a formidable candidate who brings the executive experience from her days as governor as well as the foreign policy experience from her time as ambassador,” wrote Gavin J. Smith, who worked in both the Trump administration and Haley’s executive office in South Carolina. “This experience, paired with her ability to bring people together, her background as a mom and a military spouse, and her track record of fighting the uphill battle of running against old White men — is exactly why she is the right candidate, at the right moment, for Republicans to rally behind as we look to win back the White House in 2024.”

Mike Pompeo has lost 90 pounds on a diet and exercise regimen. He has a new book out that attacks the media and lambastes some of his Trump administration colleagues. “Based on a close reading of his book,” Peter Bergen wrote, “I bet he will take the plunge. Pompeo could be looking to benefit as Trump loses altitude among some Republicans, and at 59, Pompeo is a spring chicken compared with President Joe Biden and Trump, so if it doesn’t work out well this time around, he sets himself up for other runs down the road.”

When Biden sums up the State of the Union Tuesday evening, the camera will reveal one change from last year, reflecting divided party control of Congress: Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy — rather than Nancy Pelosi — will be in the backdrop, alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, as Biden speaks from the House podium.

David Axelrod, who served as a strategist and adviser to former President Barack Obama, has some advice for Biden: “Acknowledge the stress people feel, explain how you’ve tried to help but don’t tell them how great things are. Or worse, how great YOU are. You can’t persuade people of what they don’t feel — and will lose them if you try.”

“Rather than claim his place in history, the President should paint the picture of where we’ve been and, even more important, where we’re going…”

Biden met with McCarthy last week, as each staked out their positions on the coming battle over America’s debt limit.

In 2011, Obama and GOP leaders in Congress narrowly averted a default in US debt payments. Republican Lanhee J. Chen pointed out that one of the people “who facilitated the 2011 deal was none other than Joe Biden. Now, many in Washington are trying to predict what might unfold over the next several months as the once-and-future dealmaker approaches yet another debt ceiling crisis — but this time as commander in chief.”

“The current crisis presents an opportunity for moderates in both parties to unite around the need both to raise the debt ceiling but also to put in place lasting changes that will fundamentally improve America’s fiscal trajectory.”

For CNN Politics, Zachary B. Wolf spoke with Robert Hockett, a Cornell University law professor, who argues that the President would have legal grounds to ignore the debt ceiling entirely. Moreover, Hockett disputed the notion that US government debt is on an unsustainable path: “When we measure a national debt, we look at it as a percentage of GDP. It’s much, much lower than the Japanese national debt is, for example, relative to Japanese GDP. And you don’t see anybody worrying about the integrity or the worthiness of the Japanese national debt or whether Japan’s economy can sustain its debt.”

Following Biden’s speech on Tuesday, the new Arkansas governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, will give the GOP response. “The 40-year-old certainly provides a contrast to the 76-year-old former President Donald Trump by virtue of her age and gender,” wrote Julian Zelizer.

But the Trump approach is still in the background, he added. “Sanders represents a new generation of Republicans eager to weaponize the same outrage machine with familiar talking points about the threats of immigration, the so-called radical left’s attacks on education, and an economy in shambles under Biden — while showing that they can govern without the self-defeating chaos and tumult that rocked the nation from 2017 to 2021.”

For more on politics:

Elliot Williams: I had a security clearance. It’s easier to lose classified documents than you think

Frida Ghitis: The most important of George Santos’ secrets

The death of a young man after a traffic stop and brutal police beating in Memphis cries out for a response to a national problem, wrote Maya Wiley, CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “Tyre Nichols, who was laid to rest on Wednesday, was killed for driving while Black,” she wrote. “The former Memphis police officers fired for his killing will get an opportunity to defend themselves in court against the criminal charges, as they should. Nichols got no such opportunity…”

“The question we should be asking now is, why are Black people stopped so often for traffic violations? Why are so many across the United States dying at the hands, or tasers or guns of police officers during these stops? And what can be done to change this horrific situation?”

“Here’s one thing we know: Body cameras are not the answer. Body camera footage is not prevention; there was body camera footage of Nichols’ killing. It is evidence, not a prophylactic.”

In the summer of 1966, when the young civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael “climbed onto the back of a truck with generator-powered lights below, he looked as though he had stepped onto a floodlit stage.” Carmichael lamented that after six years of shouting for freedom, “We ain’t got nothing. What we’re going to start saying now is ‘Black Power!’”

Mark Whitaker, who wrote about that moment for CNN Opinion, is the author of a forthcoming book, “Saying It Loud: 1966 – The Year Black Power Challenged the Civil Rights Movement.”

The day after Carmichael spoke, “a short Associated Press story describing the scene was picked up by more than 200 newspapers across America. Overnight, the Black Power Movement was born. … In 1966, the Black Power pioneers established the principle that all Black lives deserve to matter.”

Florida’s governor is engaging in a bad faith attack on the College Board’s “proposed Advanced Placement African American Studies course, citing concerns about six topics of study, including the Movement for Black Lives, Black feminism and reparations,” wrote Leslie Kay Jones, assistant professor in the sociology department at Rutgers University. “Gov. Ron DeSantis said the course violates the so-called Stop WOKE Act, which he signed last year, and the state criticized the inclusion in the course of work by a number of scholars, including me.”

“By villainizing CRT (critical race theory) and then representing African American Studies as synonymous with CRT, the DeSantis administration paved the way to convince the public that the accurate teaching of African American Studies as a field of research was a Trojan horse for teaching students ‘to hate.’ … I must ask where ‘hate’ is being stoked in African American Studies? Is it in the factual teaching that enslaved Black people were considered 3/5ths of a human being?”

Manish Khanduri: ‘Blisters inside my blisters.’ Why we walked the entire length of India

Lev Golinkin: Germany’s quiet betrayal of victims of the Holocaust

Darren Foster: After 15 years of reporting on opioids, I know this to be true

Joyce Davis: How Russia outmaneuvered the US in Africa

AND…

Young adult author Judy Blume is the subject of a new documentary, set to air in April on Amazon Prime. One of her books, “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” is the basis for a new film, also aimed for an April release.

“To say Blume is widely loved would be an understatement, as the documentary shows,” wrote Sara Stewart. “It features interviews with some of the author’s more famous adoring fans, including Molly Ringwald, Samantha Bee and Lena Dunham. It also showcases her correspondence with now-adult women who wrote to Blume, initially, as teenagers — and she wrote back, beginning friendships that would last decades.”

“All of these women speak about the ways Blume’s books changed them, made them feel seen and understood in a way that their parents often did not.” At a time when books touching the topics she covers are increasingly being banned in schools, Blume’s voice rings out.

At 84, she “is still fighting the good fight,” wrote Stewart. At the Key West, Florida, bookstore Blume co-founded, “the shelves bear signs proclaiming, ‘We Sell Banned Books.’”

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February 5, 2023
Union members are poised to reject Disney World contract offer | CNN Business

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Jonathan Pulliam has been working at Disney World since 2018, dressing up as everything from beloved Disney cartoon characters to Star Wars villains. And while he loves his job, he says he can’t afford it any longer.

“Me loving it, that’s not enough to pay the bills,” he said about his $15.85-an-hour salary that usually earns him about $550 a week. With rent for a typical apartment in the Orlando area costing about $1,800 per month according to Realtor.com, he says he couldn’t get by if he wasn’t living with his sister.

“I’d probably be living in my car. I know several who are living in cars because they can’t afford to pay rent,” said the Kansas native, who remembers annual childhood trips to Disney World with his family. “It’s a tourist area. Everything’s expensive.”

On Thursday and Friday, about 32,000 Disney employees will be voting on a contract offer from management. These workers do everything from performing as characters to working in restaurants and shops, driving buses, trams and monorails as well as working at front desks and performing housekeeping duties at hotels.

Those working under this contract, all of them full-time employees, represent more than 40% of all workers at Disney World. Currently, the park has 75,000 cast members, as the company refers to its employees, including full-time and part-time, hourly and salaried staff. It is comparable to Disney World’s pre-pandemic employment levels.

The company’s five-year offer would raise salaries for cast members by a minimum of $1 an hour per year, taking most workers to at least $20 an hour by 2026. That would be $5 an hour more than the Florida minimum wage, which is in the process of being increased from the current $11 an hour to $15 an hour by 2026. The company said 46% of cast members will get more than a $1-an-hour raise in the contract’s first year.

This is a “very strong offer” with guaranteed raises each year of the five-year agreement, said Andrea Finger, a Disney spokesperson. She said the majority of employees will see raises totaling 33% to 46% during the life of the contract.

The company’s offer would pay housekeepers and bus drivers at least $20 an hour immediately and culinary staff would start at $20 to $25 per hour, depending on their role.

There will also be retroactive pay increases dating back to October 1, when the previous contract expired, providing lump-sum pre-tax payments of about $700 to full-time workers.

But union leadership is urging members to vote no. The unions say Disney presented this as its best offer and that is why it’s going to membership for a vote – not because there is a tentative agreement, which is the point at which an offer normally goes to rank-and-file union members for a vote.

And this time around, all indications are that the company’s offer will be rejected.

The six union locals working under the current contract want an immediate $3 an hour raise, or a 20% raise, for what it says is 75% of the members currently making $15 an hour, plus an additional $1 an hour raise every year after that.

“The unions have been clear from our very first bargaining session that a dollar in the first year is not enough,” said Matt Hollis, president of the Service Trades Council Union, the collection of six union locals that are negotiating with Disney management. “A dollar does not afford Disney workers with the ability to keep up with the skyrocketing rent increases. And a dollar does not afford Disney workers with the ability to continue to purchase basic necessities, such as food, gas and utilities.”

Pulliam, the character performer who says he can’t afford a dollar-an-hour raise, lives about an hour’s drive from the theme park, and says he’ll be voting no because he can’t get by with the wages being offered.

“I’m filling my car three times a week,” he said. “I would love to ask these execs if they could get by on $1 an hour more. It’s disheartening. They don’t have to decide [whether]...to eat or get gas.”

Pulliam said he’s angered by recent news reports about fired former Disney executives who left the company with huge pay packages, such as ex-Disney CEO Bob Chapek, who received a $20 million severance package when he was fired by the board in November, or Geoff Morrell, who received $10.3 million for his three months overseeing corporate and public affairs, or more than $100,000 a day.

Negotiations on a new union contract have been ongoing since August. Despite widespread expectations that unions’ rank-and-file will reject this offer, no strike deadline or strike authorization vote has been scheduled.

Union leadership said they hope that Disney will return to the table with a better offer once union members reject this one. Disney doesn’t rule out further negotiations, saying that after no votes on contracts there typically are additional rounds of talks.

“While Disney insists at the bargaining table that this is the best offer, we know Disney can do better, and Disney knows they must do better,” said Hollis. He said the workers who would get more than a $1 an hour pay increase are in jobs where Disney is having trouble filling openings and retaining workers.

Unions have represented workers at Disney World since soon after the park’s 1971 opening, but employees have never gone on strike. Disney reported that its parks, experiences and products unit, which includes Disney World and other park locations worldwide, had revenue of $7.4 billion and operating income of $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2022, which ran through October 1. (The first six months of that fiscal year were affected by surging Covid cases.)

Revenue was up 36% and profits more than doubled from the previous fiscal year. And both revenue and operating profits are above what the company posted in fiscal year 2019, before the pandemic, with a 12% rise in revenue and a 10% gain in earnings.

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January 29, 2023
Mega Millions draws numbers for $1.35 billion jackpot — the 2nd largest in history — on Friday | CNN

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Friday the 13th might end up being someone’s lucky day. The Mega Millions jackpot has reached an estimated $1.35 billion – the second-largest in the lottery’s history – for the drawing set on Friday.

The jackpot soared from $1.1 billion after Tuesday night’s drawing when no winner snagged the big prize, the lottery said in a news release Wednesday.

The estimated jackpot ($707.9 million in cash) is surpassed only by the lottery’s record of $1.537 billion won in South Carolina in 2018, the lottery said.

“Now at $1.35 billion, the Mega Millions jackpot is moving up and making history as the second highest Mega Millions jackpot ever,” the lottery said. “Our member lotteries raise funds for many good causes, ranging from education to conservation programs. We’re proud to support these efforts.”

The Mega Millions’ massive jackpot topped the billion-dollar mark after nearly three months without a winning ticket drawn.

The last jackpot was won at $502 million on October 14, when there were two winning tickets from California and Florida, the Mega Millions said. Since then, more than 33 million winning tickets have been sold, including 68 players who took home $1 million or more, the lottery added.

There have been six previous jackpots won on Friday the 13th – and four of them were in Michigan, the release said. Prizes have also been won on Friday the 13th in New York, Ohio and Rhode Island.

Mona Rawal owns the 7-Eleven in Fort Myers, Florida, where in October 2022 one of the two winning Mega Millions tickets was sold with a jackpot of nearly half a billion dollars. The lucky ticket sale came less than a month after the area was hard hit by Hurricane Ian.

She can’t say if her store is lucky or not but tells CNN that one of her customers won $50,000 a few weeks ago and another won $1,000 last week. She hopes that luck continues with the Mega Millions drawing Friday night. Lottery ticket sales have been steady this week at her store, she told CNN, and she expects lots of last-minute lottery customers to head to her store as the 11 p.m. drawing nears.

Jim Frye, who plays the Powerball and Mega Millions every week but has never won “anything big,” said he played at Rawal’s 7-Eleven because he heard about the winning ticket in October.

“I say you can’t win if you don’t play, that’s my motto, and I’ve been playing for a long time,” Frye told CNN. “Let’s wait to see if I win first and then I’ll decide what I’m going to do with it. It’ll help a lot of people that’s for sure.”

Mega Millions is played in 45 states, along with the District of Columbia and the US Virgin Islands.

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January 13, 2023
What to expect at work this year | CNN Business

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The pandemic has transformed work over the past three years in ways few expected. It normalized remote work, created a shortage of critical workers and drove home to organizations that employees’ mental health and need for a sane work-life balance are critical to retention and engagement.

So what does 2023 likely hold for you at your job, regardless of your industry?

There are welcome and unwelcome developments on tap, along with some potentially confusing ones, too.

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first.

Regardless of whether the United States slips into a recession, there will be more widespread job cuts than what we’ve seen happening so far in industries like tech, media and finance.

“We’re starting to see more layoffs pick up in other industries. I do anticipate rising layoffs in most sectors,” said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

But that shouldn’t be surprising, given that layoffs in 2021 and 2022 were at their lowest levels since 1993.

That said, the job market has cooled a bit — but it’s still running hot, with a high level of job openings per job seeker.

The overall slowdown in hiring is likely to continue, with employers more likely to reinstate performance-improvement plans for underperforming employees and performance-related layoffs, Challenger predicts.

And, of course, should there be a real recession, the layoffs would cut much deeper.

While there is still tension between executives and employees about how many days people should be physically present at work, hybrid work and work flexibility isn’t going away.

“Today, the majority of employers (66%) are permitting hybrid working and an additional 9% give employees the option to work from home every day,” according to benefits consulting firm Mercer.

Nevertheless, this may be the year employers start to actually enforce their minimum-days-in-the-office mandates, Challenger said.

Just this week, for example, Disney CEO Bob Iger ordered employees to return to corporate offices four days a week beginning March 1.

Front-line employees like retail workers, health care aides and security guards, whose jobs require them always to be on site, may be offered other forms of flexibility, said Emily Rose McRae, senior director of research at Gartner, a workplace consulting firm.

That could include being given a regular schedule, as opposed to working “on demand,” where they don’t know their schedule in advance, McRae said. It also could mean getting more paid leave, or that front-line workers could opt out of working certain shifts or certain days.

McRae said she sees more employers offering what she calls “proactive rest” options this year.

The idea is to actively help people recover before becoming fully depleted not only by work, but by the upending of their lives from the pandemic and the social and political upheaval of the past few years.

“The big shift is in recognizing our work force is in trouble,” McRae said.

Proactive rest can take many forms. Some employers may offer days off — whether it’s a whole week or just one day a week for a set period of time. Or it could simply mean branding a given workday as a no-meeting day.

Information technology professionals will continue to win the day at work when it comes to who gets the biggest raises and bonuses.

“Most organizations are anticipating the talent market to remain as competitive, or more competitive, at least in the first half of this year,” said Tony Guadagni, a senior principal in Gartner’s HR practice. “They will do what they have to to attract that critical talent.”

Employers’ projected increases for this year in terms of merit increases (3.9%) and total pay (4.3%) are the highest they’ve been in 15 years, according to workplace consulting firm Mercer. But given that inflation is still pacing higher than those levels, you may not feel the raise you get is making a huge difference in what you can afford — unless your skills are in high demand.

It used to be difficult to figure out whether you were being paid competitively for your talents, since companies weren’t open about what they paid others and colleagues wouldn’t discuss their pay.

But now that New York City, the state of California, and a handful of other states and localities have implemented pay transparency rules for job postings, it will be easier in 2023 to confirm you’re being paid fairly relative to your teammates, and to determine the salary range on offer if you’re looking for a new job.

Still, these laws are very new, and companies have not been uniform in how they’re handling the new rules. Some recent job postings, for instance, have advertised unhelpfully wide pay ranges — think $50,000 to $200,000.

Beyond the big benefits employers typically offer full-time staffers (e.g., subsidized health insurance, a 401(k) match, etc.), they also offer a range of secondary benefits or perks, such as tuition reimbursement, supplemental life insurance, a stipend for home office supplies or financial coaching.

Gartner and Mercer are seeing more companies let employees decide how best to spend these perk dollars by letting them direct a fixed amount of money across the secondary benefits that are most important to them.

Your organization may engage in “quiet hiring” this year, if it hasn’t already.

It’s a misleading term, in that it is neither quiet nor does it involve actual hiring.

Rather, your company will want to repurpose existing employees — possibly you, if you have relevant skills — for the employer’s highest priority projects this year.

That could be a great opportunity if you hate being limited to the same tasks of your official job, or if you want to develop new skills and work with new people in your company.

It also could be highly frustrating, especially if a company is simply putting everyone on rotation to make sure understaffed, critical tasks get done by anyone with the adequate skills to do so.

Either way, “quiet hiring” may offer an initial taste of a broader trend likely to unfold over the next several years that could spell the end of “jobs” — and specifically job descriptions as we know them, according to consulting firm Deloitte.

That’s because many employers want to transition away from being a jobs-based organization to a skills-based one so they can quickly adapt to change, address talent shortages and provide their workforce with opportunities to develop professionally, said Arthur Mazor, a principal global leader at Deloitte’s Human Capital Practice.

So instead of viewing you as a holder of Job X, your company is likely to view you as a person with an array of skills that can be deployed in many ways.

Early adopters this year can be found across various industries, Mazor said — from software makers to auto manufacturers to financial services to health care.

Even at companies that have not formalized a shift to being a skills-based organization, the change is happening anyway. Roughly 70% of workers say they’re already doing work outside of their job, according to Deloitte.

One recent example, cited in Deloitte’s latest work report, comes from M&T Bank, a leading Small Business Administration lender. Its chief talent officer told the firm, “when the Paycheck Protection Program was rolled out during the pandemic, we had to stop thinking about jobs and start thinking about skills. … By focusing on skills versus jobs — and rapidly mobilizing talent in an agile way — we outperformed our peers.”

It’s too early to determine exactly how this will play out for employees, in terms of incentives offered for switching to a new project or pinch-hitting for another department, how an employee’s work will be assessed and rewarded, and how much say they will get in the projects assigned.

But done right, Mazor said, employees should have the opportunity to share on an internal database their skills and what areas they wish to develop before being matched with a new assignment.

“This isn’t a clandestine effort. It involves worker input.”

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January 11, 2023
Tuesday’s Mega Millions jackpot soars above $1 billion. Here are the winning numbers | CNN

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The winning numbers for Tuesday night’s $1.1 billion Mega Millions jackpot drawing were 7, 13, 14, 15, 18 with a Mega Ball of 9, the lottery said on its website.

The jackpot grew to top the billion-dollar mark after no ticket matched all winning numbers over roughly the past three months.
If there’s a winner in Tuesday’s drawing, it would be the third-largest jackpot in Mega Millions history, the lottery announced in a news release.

It’s the fourth time in just over four years the top prize has exceeded $1 billion, Mega Millions said.

The estimated $1.1 billion jackpot ($568.7 million cash) is surpassed only by the lottery’s record of $1.537 billion won in South Carolina in 2018 and the $1.337 billion prize won in Illinois in July.

Even as the top prize has gone untouched, the game has boasted more than 27 million winning tickets sold since the jackpot was last won on October 14, including 52 players who snagged $1 million or more, Mega Millions said.

“It’s especially nice to see the jackpot grow throughout the holidays and into the new year,” Pat McDonald, lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium, said in the release. “We are thankful for the support of our customers and retailers, which allows each of our 47 member lotteries to generate funds for good causes within their jurisdiction. As the jackpot grows, we encourage our players to keep within their entertainment budget and enjoy this jackpot run right along with us.”

There have been 24 drawings since the last jackpot was claimed in October, the lottery said.

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January 10, 2023
Prince Harry says ‘heinous, horrible’ stories have been ‘spoon-fed’ to press from the palace | CNN

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Prince Harry told CBS’ 60 Minutes Sunday he hasn’t spoken with his brother, Prince William, for “a while,” in the second of two major interviews ahead of the publication of his memoir, “Spare” on Monday.

The Duke of Sussex told Anderson Cooper he doesn’t “currently” speak with the Prince of Wales, “but I look forward to us being able to find peace,” he said. It follows an interview with ITV’s Tom Bradby, ahead of what is likely to be an explosive week for the British royals with the release of Harry’s memoirs.

The interviews address a wide range of topics from the death of Prince Harry’s mother, the Princess of Wales, his frustration towards the British press, the treatment of his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and the subsequent fallout with his family since his marriage.

Buckingham Palace has repeatedly declined to comment on the contents of Prince Harry’s forthcoming memoir.

In the interview and in excerpts from his memoir shared by ITV, the Duke of Sussex addressed how strife in his family has been fueled by the relationship between Buckingham Palace and media outlets.

“We’re not just talking about family relationships, we’re talking about an antagonist, which is the British press, specifically the tabloids who want to create as much conflict as possible,” Prince Harry told Bradby. “The saddest part of that is certain members of my family and the people that work for them are complicit in that conflict.”

He also stated that the “leaking” and “planting” of “a royal source” to the press “is not an unknown person, it is the palace specifically briefing the press, but covering their tracks by being unnamed.”

Prince Harry added that he thinks “that’s pretty shocking to people. Especially when you realize how many palace sources, palace insiders, senior palace officials, how many quotes are being attributed to those people, some of the most heinous, horrible things have been said about me and my wife, completely condoned by the palace because it’s coming from the palace, and those journalists have literally been spoon-fed that narrative without ever coming to us, without ever seeing or questioning the other side.”

He spoke about how his mother was hunted by paparazzi, recalling the traumatic night his father told him Princess Diana had died from injuries sustained in a car crash.

“I don’t want history to repeat itself. I do not want to be a single dad. And I certainly don’t want my children to have a life without a mother or a father,” Prince Harry said in the interview.

The Duke of Sussex also talked about his decision to write the book, saying, “thirty-eight years of having my story told by so many different people, with intentional spin and distortion felt like a good time to tell own my story and be able to tell it for myself. I’m actually really grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to tell my story because it’s my story to tell.”

Prince Harry pointed out that he has tried over the last six years to resolve his concerns with his family privately.

“It never needed to get to this point. I have had conversations, I have written letters, I have written emails, and everything is just, ‘No, you, this is not what’s happening. You, you are imagining it,’” he said. “That’s really hard to take. And if it had stopped, by the point that I fled my home country with my wife and my son fearing for our lives, then maybe this would have turned out differently. It’s hard.”

The duke said he wants “reconciliation but first there needs to be some accountability,” with respect to his family.

“You can’t just continue to say to me that I’m delusional and paranoid when all the evidence is stacked up, because I was genuinely terrified about what is going to happen to me,” he said.

“And then we have a 12-month transition period and everyone doubles. My wife shares her experience. And instead of backing off, both the institution and the tabloid media in the UK, both doubled down,” he added.

Still, the duke said, “forgiveness is 100 percent a possibility,” during the interview.

“There’s probably a lot of people who, after watching the documentary and reading the book, will go, how could you ever forgive your family for what they have done? People have already said that to me. And I said forgiveness is 100% a possibility because I would like to get my father back. I would like to have my brother back. At the moment, I don’t recognize them, as much as they probably don’t recognize me,” Prince Harry said.

On Monday, the duke’s interview with “Good Morning America” co-anchor Michael Strahan will air on the ABC show, followed in the evening by a half-hour special on ABC News Live. And to top things off, the duke will make an appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” hours after his book is released on Tuesday.

With that all to come before the public is even able to get their hands on book, one has to wonder if there will be any revelations left to read. For days now, leaks from the upcoming tome have sparked headlines around the world.

It is now known the duke has made a slew of damaging accusations against the British royal family in “Spare” after several outlets obtained early copies of the book before the weekend. CNN has not seen a copy of the book but has requested an advance copy from the publisher Penguin Random House.

Perhaps the most incendiary revelation to emerge was Prince Harry’s claim of a scuffle with the Prince of Wales during an argument over his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex in 2019, as he described while reading in an excerpt of his memoir on air on Sunday.

Prince Harry said his brother never tried to dissuade him from marrying Meghan, but expressed some concerns and told him, “‘This is going be really hard for you,’” Prince Harry recalled during his interview.

“I still to this day don’t truly understand which part of what he was talking about,” Prince Harry continued. “Maybe he predicted what the British press’s reaction was going to be.”

His relationship with Prince William is just one of a series of incredibly candid accounts of life as the “spare heir” in his memoir. The book’s title of “Spare” – a reference to a nickname the duke lived with while growing up. Prince Harry’s version of events also tackles his final moments with the late Queen Elizabeth II, his attempts to seek closure after his mother’s death, and other deeply personal conversations with members of “The Firm.”

One part of the book that is seeing some backlash is his reported remarks on killing 25 Taliban fighters during his time in the British Army in Afghanistan. In addition to disclosing the figure, the duke is also quoted as describing the insurgents as “chess pieces” taken off the board rather than people, according to UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph.

Prince Harry’s comments have prompted criticism from some British security and military figures – and an angry rebuke from the Taliban.

Before publicity ramped up around the duke’s book, the Sussexes had previously opened up about the challenges and hardships of royal life in their Netflix docuseries and to Oprah Winfrey.

In both those royal exposés, the couple outlined their acrimonious split with the House of Windsor and blamed the media for invasive, unrelenting coverage, particularly of Meghan.

The Sussexes announced in 2020 that they were stepping away from their roles as senior royals and planned to work towards becoming “financially independent.” The following year, the palace confirmed the couple had agreed with Queen Elizabeth II that they were not returning as working members of the royal family.

In the recent six-part Netflix documentary, Prince Harry didn’t hold back when he blamed the press for placing undue stress on his wife, saying it led to her having a miscarriage and suffering suicidal thoughts.

Meghan said she wanted to go somewhere for help but claimed she wasn’t allowed to because of the optics on the institution, without specifying who she believed stopped her. She made similar comments in her explosive 2021 interview with Winfrey.

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January 8, 2023
Hundreds of drones are lighting up the night sky in Dubai | CNN

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In recent years, Dubai has set a number of world records with its impressive fireworks displays. To ring in 2023, fireworks and laser shows were seen across the United Arab Emirates, including at the Burj Khalifa, which aimed to hold the biggest laser display of all time.

But the aerial illuminations aren’t over yet. The city is taking its festive spectacles to a whole new level with a light show featuring more than 500 drones.

Based in the UK and Singapore, Skymagic specializes in drone-based light shows that have lit up the skies from Zurich, Switzerland, to Sydney, Australia, and even featured at Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in 2022.

“We think of the sky as the biggest canvas that there is in order to tell our stories, so the technology is very much driven by that,” Ollie Howitt, a senior creative at Skymagic, told CNN.

250 meters (820 feet) high. Opened in October 2021, Ain Dubai is offering a range of tickets, including shared or private cabins, along with “social cabins” where drinks are served on the roughly 40-minute journey. Prices start at 130 AED ($36). ” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading’)’ height=”900″ width=”1600″/>

2,400 fiberglass and stainless steel panels, adorned with Arabic calligraphy. ” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading’)’ height=”900″ width=”1600″/>

14 million liters of water, it is at least four times as big as any other in the world. Beneath the surface are artificial wrecks and ruins waiting to be explored. The facility offers snorkeling, SCUBA and freedive lessons and sessions. Prices start at 400 AED ($110).” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading’)’ height=”2226″ width=”3958″/>

Infinity des Lumières hosts a show projecting paintings by Van Gogh on a vast and immersive scale. See works including “Sunflowers” and “The Potato Eaters” as you’ve never seen them before and gain a fresh perspective on the Dutch Impressionist’s work. Adult tickets 125 AED ($35). ” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading’)’ height=”900″ width=”1600″/>

Calligraphy House and the Coin Museum on the way. ” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading’)’ height=”1622″ width=”2432″/>

2018, when it received a new lease of life as a static hotel, restaurant and events space. Visitors can soak up the ship’s distinctly period charms and hit the deck for a spot of afternoon tea from 15:00-17:30. Prices start at 145 AED ($40) (no shorts or flip-flops, thank you very much).
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Address Beach Resort is the place to be if you want to cool off with one of Dubai’s best views. Nearly 1,000 feet (294 meters) up, the infinity pool is nearly twice the length of an Olympic-sized swimming pool, but a mere 4 feet (1.2 meters) deep. There is a catch, however: the pool is only open to hotel guests 21 years old and over. ” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading’)’ height=”900″ width=”1600″/>

Ja Hatta Fort Hotel mountain resort have you covered. ” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading’)’ height=”1625″ width=”2437″/>

Meydan Racecourse is the home of horseracing in the city. Racing kicks off in November and takes place on either Thursdays or Saturdays (some weeks both), culminating in the Dubai World Cup, the emirate’s blue ribbon event, on March 26. ” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading’)’ height=”900″ width=”1600″/>

golden ratio, Dubai Frame is also a golden opportunity to see a lot of the city in one go. It contains exhibitions including 3D projections of old Dubai, before taking visitors to the top for 360-degree views, before descending to another exhibition imagining Dubai in 50 years’ time. Open 09:00-21:00 every day (sunset is a popular time). Prices from 50 AED ($14). ” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading’)’ height=”2310″ width=”4107″/>

Palm Jumeirah is iconic hotel and resort Atlantis, The Palm. The hotel’s Underwater Suite has floor to ceiling windows into its giant aquarium. Evening diners can visit Ossiano, the hotel’s restaurant with underwater views (would it be insensitive to order the fish?). If you’d just like a tour, it’s open between 10:00-21:00 (book tickets online).” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading’)’ height=”900″ width=”1600″/>

620 hectares on the banks of Dubai Creek. A peaceful idyll a stone’s throw from the hubbub, the wetland is home to 450 animal species including 180 types of bird, such as the greater spotted eagle, kingfishers and, in winter, thousands of flamingos. Open 07:30-17:30 between October and March.
” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading’)’ height=”1908″ width=”3672″/>

all manner of live performances. There’s opera, but also live stand up, ballet, musicals and stage plays, all between now and the end of the Expo (some performances require proof of vaccination for ticket holders). If you want to learn more about the building, book a tour for 75 AED ($20).” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading’)’ height=”2978″ width=”4818″/>

At the Top, Burj Khalifa Sky” includes entry to the outdoor terrace and lounge on the 148th level — 555 meters (1,821 feet) high — offering dizzying views, while the 125th level has a 360-degree observation deck. Prices from 379 AED ($104).” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading’)’ height=”900″ width=”1600″/>

What to do when you’re visiting Dubai

The company is in Dubai coordinating two nightly shows which run from December 15 to January 29, at Bluewaters Island, near the Dubai Marina.

Both shows, which last around five minutes, feature 3D animations and are focused on the theme of Dubai. The first follows a day in the life of a tourist, starting off with images representing Dubai International Airport, which then merge into animations of the city’s iconic sites. The second show gives viewers a sense of Dubai as an innovation hub, featuring a robot that goes on a journey to explore the city in the future.

It’s estimated that over half a million spectators will watch the drones light up the Dubai sky throughout the festive season. Suhail Maitreya, a project manager for the show, says coordinating such a large live event takes months of preparations.

“We start planning as early as July, so about six months in advance,” said Maitreya, “We get on the site about 10 days before the first show and we run tests every night in advance. We start with flying one drone, going to five, going into 20. Finally, about three days before the first show, the entire fleet of 500-plus drones go up in the air and we start seeing the show coming together.”

Skymagic says the drones are much smaller than delivery drones, weighing between 200 and 500 grams. “Our newest fleet is a lot more wind resistant and rain resistant to how it has been in the past, which makes it very good in terms of weather conditions … (which is) always something that you need to consider when putting on a drone show,” says Howitt.

Drones could also be a greener alternative to fireworks, which can release toxic metal particles into the air and can cause adverse health effects as well as environmental damage.

“The key benefit is that it has no residue. It is completely sustainable,” says Maitreya. “I think going forward, more and more cities across the world will be using drones instead of fireworks.”

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January 6, 2023
Nine suffocate to death in Uganda New Year’s firework crush | CNN

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Reuters
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At least nine people, including a 10-year-old boy, suffocated to death as crowds rushing to see a New Year’s firework display got stuck in a narrow corridor in a shopping mall near Uganda’s capital, police said.

People started pushing through a passage in the Freedom City Mall just after clocks struck midnight, the force said.

“Very many people got stuck as they were entering in large numbers to see fireworks. In doing so, many people suffocated to death. So far nine people are confirmed dead,” the police statement read.

People had been celebrating the New Year at the mall which is on a highway linking Kampala to Entebbe airport.

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January 1, 2023
Opinion: How 17 syllables a day can change your life | CNN

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Editor’s Note: Tess Taylor is the author of the poetry collections “Work & Days,” “The Forage House” and most recently, “Rift Zone” and “Last West: Roadsongs for Dorothea Lange.” Views expressed in this commentary are solely hers. Read more opinion articles on CNN.

CNN
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As 2022 fades away and 2023 begins, you might be pondering what practices to begin in the new year, what intentions to set. Some intentions might arrive as a desire to work out more, have a dry January, lose weight; some might be a willingness to deepen or engage a new habit.

I wanted to share a practice that’s been useful to me, as a writer: To write a haiku, or a loose haiku, every day. For me this habit began in a dark phase, when I realized I just wasn’t getting much creative time. I was feeling depleted. The pandemic was on, my kids needed a lot and I felt brittle and far from my heart.

A long time ago, I had a poetry teacher at the 92nd Street Y, in New York City, Marie Ponso t. She had raised nine children as a single mother and had gone years without publishing a book of poems. She was a wonderful poet, and deeply wise. She urged everyone she met to nurture their own creative practice, each day. “You can always write one line of poetry,” she’d say. “You can always write one line.”

Her words came back to me during this strange hard year and I decided, from birthday to birthday, to mark each day with a version of that one line – a rough haiku.

What I mean by “rough” is this: My haiku didn’t have to be seventeen syllables exactly. It didn’t really have to be 5/7/5 the way sometimes people teach other people to make haiku.

Instead, I tried to follow guidelines that the poet Robert Hass has described as operating in the haiku of the wise practitioner Matsuo Basho: to include an image that would share the moment in time and an image that would let us know the season of the year.

Basho’s poems move between wider vistas and specific images like this:

A cool fall night—
Getting dinner we peeled
eggplants, cucumbers.

Or this:

Many nights on the road
and not dead yet:
the end of autumn.

I love how in the first poem, early fall is embodied precisely in seasonal eggplants and cucumbers; how in the second poem, many nights on the wild road become a figure for the autumn’s-end sense of needing to be home. I love the way these poems gain energy by rapidly shifting their scale. I decided I’d model my rough haiku after them. Each day, I’d find a precise image from the day, and an image from the wider arc of month or season. This practice would anchor me.

With this resolution, I was off and jotting. What surprised me was how much this tiny game unlocked a curiosity and energy in the weeks that followed. Maybe the haiku would come first thing in the morning, in minutes before email or coffee. Maybe a little verse would worm its way in between meetings. Maybe I’d notice a bird, dog, child or spider. Maybe I’d record the glinting puddle after the first California rain.

Whatever it was, I felt more buoyant, more watchful. Looking for the day’s haiku was a way of being present.

Slowly, I made 365 rough haiku, 365 one-sentence poems. Some days, suddenly, I had a burst of aliveness. Some days I had more poem in me – a letter to a friend, a bit of an essay. Other days, I’d find a bleary deadness and was sure I had no internal life at all beyond spreadsheets and groceries and logistics and deadlines and family illness and afterschool plans for my children. But then the haiku would help me center. I’d scratch out a couple lines, and I’d send a plumbline to the heart.

Here are a couple I wrote that first December:

Alarm clock in the early dark.
The legs of my dreams
scurry like spiders.

Or:

Midnight, half-hearted, rain comes:
Clap clap, clap clap.
Then at once: an all-night applause.

When my haiku year was over, I stopped writing them for a while. But soon I found I missed the way the practice had inspired me. I missed the watchfulness of looking to record some part of even the busiest day. Things have been full here. Our whole family had Covid-19. My husband had surgery. Days crashed over like waves.

So I started again. My first two haiku were these:

O sick child in my bed
I camp outside
holding health on the sofa

and

Where did they go,
the horses who left
huge cloudy tails on this winter sky?

When I started talking to friends about my daily haiku, I found I wasn’t alone. Suzanne Buffam, a poet who teaches at the University of Chicago, connected me with Luke Rodehorst, an account executive at Google, who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Rodehorst is also a poet who shares a once-a-week email newsletter of his haiku to a wide network of family and friends.

He has written over 4,440 haiku over the last 10 years. For him, the practice also started as a New Year’s resolution – a way to make himself begin writing. “If I can’t write a poem, I can at least get 17 syllables,” he told me.

He described how the haiku practice quite literally became an anchor through deep injury. Two years ago, on the eve of his 33rd birthday, while playing with his one-year-old daughter, he felt a searing pain. He’d suffered a brain hemorrhage; a malformation between certain brain cells had led to dangerous bleeding. Rodehorst survived, but the injury led to loss of work and a long, uncertain and even now unfinished road toward healing.

Over these years, Rodehorst has found that his haiku practice helped him each day. He can do it no matter what is happening to him, good or bad, hospital or no, sick or well. “The creativity helps me fill and map the space that exists,” he told me. “Whatever moment you choose, there’s always something interesting in trying to make sense of it.” For him, turning the creative lens on a moment is like “its own immune system.”

He elaborated for me: “If you have a creative practice,” he says, “you have this force within you, a way of meeting your life wherever it is.” Which is to say: When we meet our lives with curiosity and the desire to capture, transform, notice and savor, we nourish ourselves and build up our own internal resilience.

Here are some of Luke’s haiku, which are often bittersweet:

In hospital bed
Lilly curled up next to me
And all these wires.

Through a pinched eye, I
See a spinning world – and joy
In unsteadiness.

Blood in my brain, but
It’s the IV of all things
That makes me queasy.

And this one, which is also joyful:

Through kitchen window –
You laugh, I laugh. Tea kettle
Whistles along too.

As the new year begins, I’ll start 2023 by continuing to reflect on Luke’s thoughts about having an art practice as a way of building a kind of immune system. I love the vision of the haiku as a way to steer our attention, just a little, in a world which often wants to use our attention for other purposes. It is good to connect to the selves we want to be, the selves we want to give to others. Of his writing Luke said: “You become aware of the time and attention you are giving to any moment. It’s a way of taking control of your joy.”

I love the idea of having more awareness and more joy. I love the idea of finding more space, even in the messy world we have, to find the beauty that is already around us. There is always time to write one line. Perhaps you’ll also find that there are 365 one sentence poems leading you a bit closer to your own heart, too.

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December 31, 2022