11+ min ago (903+ words) This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Maria Laposata, 32, the founder of travel consultancy Travelries. Her words have been edited for length and clarity. Life made me realize I needed a break. My husband and I had moved in together just before the pandemic, and our one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles had become both our offices. We were making it work, but I could feel the walls closing in. We both love to travel, so in an effort to dream a little, I said, "Let's make a list of all the places we want to go." I'm a bit of a spreadsheet nerd, so I took his list and mine, ranked them, and combined them into one massive spreadsheet. It was my little form of stress relief. At the time, I was working on the operations team at…...

11+ min ago (903+ words) This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Maria Laposata, 32, the founder of travel consultancy Travelries. Her words have been edited for length and clarity. Life made me realize I needed a break. My husband and I had moved in together just before the pandemic, and our one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles had become both our offices. We were making it work, but I could feel the walls closing in. We both love to travel, so in an effort to dream a little, I said, "Let's make a list of all the places we want to go." I'm a bit of a spreadsheet nerd, so I took his list and mine, ranked them, and combined them into one massive spreadsheet. It was my little form of stress relief. At the time, I was working on the operations team at…...

12+ min ago (545+ words) Senator Cory Booker is married after a whirlwind romance to Alexis Lewis, he announced Sunday. Booker, 56, shared pictures of his two wedding celebrations with Lewis, 38, on Instagram. Their first wedding celebration was an intimate courthouse affair in Newark, NJ, with their parents present. Their second celebration was held with more guests in attendance in Washington, DC. Lewis wore a high-collared white dress with a cape and black heels at the courthouse wedding, then rocked a stunning strapless white lace gown for the second celebration. The two made it legal at the courthouse on Nov. 24, while the wedding party took place on Nov. 29, the New York Times reported. They had an interfaith ceremony " both a rabbi and a pastor blessed the couple " as Lewis is Jewish and Booker is Christian. "Overflowing with gratitude," the couple wrote in a joint Instagram post. "We…...

13+ min ago (440+ words) My own Thanksgiving: I was the guest of'Luigi Romaniello, the Waldorf's managing director, in the hotel's new Lex Yard restaurant. Just months old, Lex Yard is beyond terrific. D'cor, service, menu. As I left, there came an unfamiliar phone caller. She quickly spoke about'Victoria Gotti. Her dad, of course, was gangster John Gotti, who died in prison in '02. I knew him. We shared lawyer'Barry Slotnick. I took Anthony Quinn to Gotti's trial. Gotti's playground was nightclubs. My husband worked nightclubs. In New York, Italian restaurateurs would slam a bottle of unrequested red wine on our table with another unrequested "Courtesy of John G." I was the only one Gotti spoke to from prison. In July '03 at a party I gave, I reported Victoria's stilettos were so high she could barely walk in them. In '08 she was unloading her Long Island home…...

13+ min ago (440+ words) My own Thanksgiving: I was the guest of'Luigi Romaniello, the Waldorf's managing director, in the hotel's new Lex Yard restaurant. Just months old, Lex Yard is beyond terrific. D'cor, service, menu. As I left, there came an unfamiliar phone caller. She quickly spoke about'Victoria Gotti. Her dad, of course, was gangster John Gotti, who died in prison in '02. I knew him. We shared lawyer'Barry Slotnick. I took Anthony Quinn to Gotti's trial. Gotti's playground was nightclubs. My husband worked nightclubs. In New York, Italian restaurateurs would slam a bottle of unrequested red wine on our table with another unrequested "Courtesy of John G." I was the only one Gotti spoke to from prison. In July '03 at a party I gave, I reported Victoria's stilettos were so high she could barely walk in them. In '08 she was unloading her Long Island home…...

16+ min ago (517+ words) President Donald Trump has doubled down on his push to revoke some Americans" citizenship. In the wake of Wednesday"s shooting of two National Guard members in D.C. by an Afghan national, Trump declared that he would "denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility" in a Truth Social post. On Sunday, a reporter questioned Trump aboard Air Force One about his vow to "denaturalize" American citizens. "You mean people that are in here that shouldn"t be here?" replied Trump, who was flying back to D.C. after spending Thanksgiving weekend at his resort in Palm Beach. "Well, that became Americans," the reporter said. "Are you trying to revoke their citizenship?" "We"ll see, I mean, yeah, we have criminals that came into our country and they were naturalized maybe through Biden or somebody that didn"t know what they were doing," the 79-year-old…...

16+ min ago (517+ words) President Donald Trump has doubled down on his push to revoke some Americans" citizenship. In the wake of Wednesday"s shooting of two National Guard members in D.C. by an Afghan national, Trump declared that he would "denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility" in a Truth Social post. On Sunday, a reporter questioned Trump aboard Air Force One about his vow to "denaturalize" American citizens. "You mean people that are in here that shouldn"t be here?" replied Trump, who was flying back to D.C. after spending Thanksgiving weekend at his resort in Palm Beach. "Well, that became Americans," the reporter said. "Are you trying to revoke their citizenship?" "We"ll see, I mean, yeah, we have criminals that came into our country and they were naturalized maybe through Biden or somebody that didn"t know what they were doing," the 79-year-old…...

22+ min ago (465+ words) Hilary Duff was intimidated by Jennifer Coolidge while working on the 2004 movie "A Cinderella Story" together. The "Lizzie McGuire" alum reminisced about working with the "American Pie" star and how Coolidge got into character as Fiona, the wicked stepmother of Duff's character, Sam, in the modernization of the classic fairy tale. "By the way, it's just so much fun to watch her career," Duff, 38, said of the Emmy-winning actress. "She just goes there in such a big way that it was really impressive and slightly intimidating as a teenager." "And she was mean to me, so it was a little scary, 'cause I was only like 15 and she was just, you know, mean to me 'cause she's my evil stepmother," she recalled. Duff admitted Coolidge, 64, was so good in character that it made her uncomfortable. "At the time, I was…...

23+ min ago (404+ words) A Muslim father and his two sons tied up his teen daughter and drowned her in a swamp because they believed her "Western behavior" was shaming their family, according to Dutch prosecutors. The body of Ryan Al Najjar, 18, was found gagged, bound with tape and submerged in a marsh May 28, 2024, six days after she vanished from the family's home in Joure in the north of the Netherlands,the NL Times reported. Her male relatives allegedly murdered her after she adopted a "Western" lifestyle that included her refusing to wear a headscarf, associating with males and using social media. Mohamed Al Najjar, 23, and his brother Muhanad, 25, are charged with murdering the teen, while her father, Khaled, 53, is accused of orchestrating and participating in the killing before escaping to Syria. Ryan was picked up from a house in Rotterdam by her brothers…...

24+ min ago (459+ words) It is common nowadays for playwrights to go back and forth between stage and screen assignments, but Tom Stoppard, whose death at 88 was announced on Saturday, was an early adopter of the practice, with TV credits going back to the early 1960s. Some entries in his impressively lengthy collection of screenplays were originals, but he was especially in demand both as a script doctor (usually uncredited) and as a go-to scribe for literary adaptations. In that latter capacity, he was able to tackle novels by writers as wildly different as John le Carr, Leo Tolstoy, E.L. Doctorow, Vladimir Nabokov, J.G. Ballard and Ford Madox Ford. Below you will find a selection of films with Stoppard screenplays that are available on major American streaming platforms. (Those curious about his work on Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "Despair," a Nabokov adaptation, will have to poke around YouTube.)…...