Author: admin

New York CNN  —  Yet another podcast has inked a deal upwards of $100 million. Brothers and NFL stars Jason and Travis Kelce signed a deal with Amazon’s podcast studio Wondery for their “New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce” podcast. The agreement brings exclusive ad-sales and distribution rights for all audio and video episodes to Wondery. It also includes the entire back catalog. A source familiar with the Kelce brothers’ deal tells CNN the agreement is in the $100 million range. The deal goes into effect this month, just in time for the latest NFL season. “New Heights,” entering…

After a lifetime spent reciting the eternal love story of the Taj Mahal, veteran tour guide Vishu Das says his faith is shattered. “The story we have been telling all these years – what if it turns out to be a lie?” he asks, distraught as he looks at the monument from a nearby rooftop. His desperation leads to a radical suggestion: “Could we not just run a DNA test on the Taj Mahal?” The moment ends with a bleak conclusion: “We are spreading a lie.” This is a scene from Indian director Tushar Goel’s controversial film “The Taj Story,”…

Brisbane, Australia  —  Children across Australia woke up on Wednesday with no access to their social media accounts under a world-first ban designed to shelter those under 16 from addictive algorithms, online predators, and digital bullies. No other nation has taken such sweeping measures, and the rollout of the tough new law is being closely watched by legislators around the globe. Most of the 10 banned platforms – Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Snapchat, YouTube, TikTok, Kick, Reddit, Twitch and X – say they’ll comply with the ban, using age verification technology to identify under-16s and suspend their accounts, but they don’t…

Sydney, Australia  —  For parents and campaigners who’ve long argued that incessant scrolling is damaging young minds, the start of Australia’s world-first social media ban for under-16s on Wednesday is just the beginning. Wayne Holdsworth, the father of Mac, who took his life at 17 after being targeted by a sexual extortion scam on social media, joined other parents who’d lost children to suicide at a select gathering at the prime minister’s official residence in Sydney. “It’s really sad. I shouldn’t be here because he should have been protected,” Holdsworth told CNN at the event to mark the law, which…

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have released photos from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate Friday showing the many powerful figures in the late sex trafficker’s orbit, including President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton, Steve Bannon, Bill Gates, Richard Branson and others. Many of the men have been previously linked to Epstein, though the photos may shed new light on the extent of those relationships. Taken collectively, the images – which the Democrats on the committee said came from Epstein’s estate – reinforce the financier was tied in the past to a wide variety of powerful and high-profile people whose ties…

The Indiana state Senate’s vote against a new congressional map that President Donald Trump had pressured it to adopt is one of the most extraordinary examples to date of Republicans standing up to Trump. But it wasn’t even the only example Thursday. Indeed, Trump got a series of brushback pitches in his efforts to dominate his party and American politics. The day seemed to reinforce the emerging limits of Trump’s ability to force others to bow to him, as his poll numbers drop and he trends towards lame-duck status. Indiana was certainly the biggest example. Despite months of pressure from…

London  —  British photographer Mark Meth-Cohn had spent four days trekking through the Virunga mountains in Rwanda in search of gorillas when his patience and determination finally paid off. There he encountered a young male gorilla who was keen to show off his dancing skills, something that Meth-Cohn captured on camera and which has now earned him the top prize in this year’s Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards. In a press statement, Meth-Cohn said of his image, “High Five,” which also won the award for the mammals category: “One young male was especially keen to show off his acrobatic flair: pirouetting,…

Friday featured yet another drop in the drip-drip-drip of new information from the Jeffrey Epstein files. This time: new pictures released by House Democrats that feature Donald Trump and other powerful people like Bill Clinton, Steve Bannon and Richard Branson, culled from tens of thousands of photos from Epstein’s estate. But Epstein’s associations with these men — none of whom has been accused of wrongdoing by law enforcement — have been a matter of public record, and the pictures by themselves don’t tell us a whole lot. Indeed, the more surprising news on this front Friday morning might have come…

The Rhode Island governor said authorities will debrief at a later stage to look at whether Brown University campus buildings were safe enough after the Providence mayor said the exterior doors of the building where the shooting took place were unlocked at the time. “Everything needs to be looked at on a daily basis and we do that, and we prepare for emergencies,” said Gov. Daniel McKee. “This is no exception… Until we actually know more, it’s difficult to make comment in terms of whether the situation was as safe as it should be, but we’ll follow up.” Providence Mayor…

A JetBlue flight from the small Caribbean nation of Curaçao halted its ascent to avoid colliding with a US Air Force refueling tanker on Friday, and the pilot blamed the military plane for crossing his path. “We almost had a midair collision up here,” the JetBlue pilot said, according to a recording of his conversation with air traffic control. “They passed directly in our flight path. … They don’t have their transponder turned on, it’s outrageous.” The incident involved JetBlue Flight 1112 from Curaçao, which is just off the coast of Venezuela, en route to New York City’s John F.…