American

EPA

‘I forgive him’

Reuters

What a piquant moment for Nine Inch Nails to be back on the road playing their version of David Bowie’s “I’m Afraid of Americans.”

At the Forum on Thursday, for the first show of a final two-night stand of the electronic-rock band’s Peel It Back arena tour, singer Trent Reznor didn’t elaborate on the freshly resonant subtext in Bowie’s song (one that Reznor remixed for the late Brit and, in its music video, played a Travis Bickle-esque creep).

But you could feel the sold-out Forum roil with new unease at that squelching industrial song, as Reznor muttered Bowie’s scabrous lyrics about “No one needs anyone … Johnny wants p— and cars … God is an American.”

At this point, who isn’t a little afraid of Americans? Nine Inch Nails thrive in the murk of base human instinct and tech-driven dread. Who better to help us limn out these feelings of disgust, rage and desolation right now?

Now in their fourth decade as a group, Nine Inch Nails — the duo of Reznor and producer/keyboardist Atticus Ross along with a closely held touring band — does two difficult things extraordinarily well.

For 15 years, Reznor and Ross have served as Hollywood’s eminent techno-intellectuals, with a pair of Oscar wins for their film scores including the brooding lashes of David Fincher’s “The Social Network” and the yearning ambiance of Pixar’s “Soul.” They have an upcoming film-music festival, Future Ruins, that will be the first of its kind and caliber in Los Angeles.

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1. Robin Finck of Nine Inch Nails. 2. Trent Reznor. 3. Fans react as Nine Inch Nails perform at Kia Forum. (Hon Wing Chiu / For The Times)

But Thursday’s Forum show was a decadent reminder of just how nasty and violent this band can be as well.

Opening on the smaller, in-the-round B-stage, Reznor took a solo-piano run through “Right Where It Belongs,” gradually adding Ross, bassist-keyboardist Alessandro Cortini and guitarist Robin Finck into a squalling “Piggy (Nothing Can Stop Me Now),” before finally introducing drummer Josh Freese on the calisthenic drum workout of “Wish.”

Freese was a last-minute addition to the touring band, after the group unexpectedly swapped percussionists with Foo Fighters days before Peel It Back kicked off. But Freese — an NIN veteran of the mid-2000s — has become a fan-favorite returning hero, bolstering this lineup with pure rocker muscle.

Back on the main stage, they redlined through “March of the Pigs” and seethed with fuzzbox rot on “Reptile.” They veiled the stage in gauze on “Copy of A,” casting dozens of Reznor shadows while he strutted and howled about a despondent, depersonalized modernity.

A second pass through the rave-ready B-stage gave a hint at what the band’s cryptically billed upcoming Coachella set might look like. “Nine Inch Noize” — implying an ongoing collaboration with their opener and collaborator, the German club music producer Boys Noize — took form here under a monolithic, blood-colored lightbox. Reznor, Ross and Boys Noize revved up a new single, “As Alive As You Need Me To Be” from the film “Tron: Ares,” but also revamped the eternal hit “Closer” and “Came Back Haunted” with an after-hours sizzle.

It’s impossible to imagine a single as desperately sexual, as sacrilegiously sacred as “Closer” ever making it to the Hot 100 today. For the Gen Z fans fascinated by Nails’ gothic-erotic aesthetic, it felt more transgressive than ever.

After slashed-up takes on “The Perfect Drug” and “The Hand That Feeds,” the band closed out the set with an opposing pair of songs that covered the full range of what its audience is likely going through today. How viscerally satisfying to scream “Head like a hole, black as your soul / I’d rather die than give you control” as American life seems to unravel with each passing hour.

But of course, the band closed on “Hurt.” Johnny Cash recorded his canonical version at 70, a cover now synonymous with a lion in winter starting down the grave. Just 10 years younger at 60, Reznor performed it Thursday with all the tightly coiled emotion and intimate grandeur of the kid who wrote it. American life is pain; Nine Inch Nails endures.

An American woman living in Yorkshire has revealed several British quirks that sometimes leave her lying awake at night because she can’t stop thinking about them

While the two cultures share much in common, an American woman living in the UK has revealed several British quirks she claims “sometimes keep her awake at night”.

Maxine Berry, known on TikTok as @yorkshireyank, has lived in the UK for the past 23 years. However, there are still some aspects of British culture that she finds perplexing. Some of the “wild” differences she has pointed out to her 15K followers include the British postcode system, the UK’s unusual laws around swans, and some of the nation’s quirkier dishes.

In a clip recently shared to her channel, Maxine, who lives in York but is originally from South Dakota, said: ‘As an American living in the UK, I thought I’d got used to the quirks living here.”

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She continued: “But these sometimes keep me awake at night. Sometimes not but sometimes they do.”

First off, she stated that she was “pretty sure the NHS is using shows like Homes Under The Hammer and Come Dine With Me as medicine”. She explained that she’d come to this conclusion as these two particular shows are always on the TV in hospital waiting rooms,” as reported by Daily Mail.

She continued: “It doesn’t matter which hospital you go to, the waiting room always has this tuned in. You know it’s true.”

The TikTokker then went on to claim that the British have “an utter obsession with carpets”, and wondered why they couldn’t opt for “nice tiles” on their floor instead as “it would be so much easier”. Though, she did admit that the UK has cold weather.

Continuing her catalogue of observations, Maxine took a jab at some of the UK’s “centuries-old laws” that are still in place and enforceable. For example, she cited the historical law around the protection of swans in the UK.

Since the 12 century, all “unmarked mute swans swimming in open waters” in the country have belonged to The Crown, while subsequent wildlife preservation laws prohibit anyone from disturbing or harming swans, including their eggs.

Maxine found this rather perplexing. She said: “I mean, I’m not technically allowed to eat a swan because it belongs to the King, but who’d want to do that anyways? I mean, does the King eat swans? I’m just asking.’

In fact, it is illegal to kill, eat or keep swans in the UK. Until 1998, it was even considered an act of treason to kill or injure a swan.

Other ‘Britishism’s Maxine pointed out included the postcode system, which she described as “pretty cool”. She enthused: “It literally finds a front door, can pinpoint you with satellite accuracy.”

Although, Royal Mail’s response to when the system fails has left Maxine bemused. “The Royal Mail will send you a card and say, ‘Sorry we can’t find you, the nearest depot is 45 miles away,'” she said.

Finally, British cuisine took a hit, as Maxine described the names of popular pub dishes as “quite wild”. She highlighted ‘toad in the hole’ and ‘bubble and squeak’ as being particularly quirky.

A new wave of family indoor water and adventure park hotels, that have been dubbed the ‘American Center Parcs’, are set to open in the UK for a fun-packed adventure

We’re all familiar with Center Parcs, the popular forest retreats dotted across the UK, offering a fun-packed getaway for families – but there could be a competitor on the way, offering a new indoor water and adventure park resort.

Great Wolf Lodge is essentially the US version of Center Parcs, with family accommodation, huge indoor waterparks with slides, various swimming pools, a wave machine and enough activities to keep the whole family entertained, from mini golf to arcade games.

With 23 locations across the United States and Canada, Great Wolf Lodge is now planning to expand to the UK with three resorts.

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The Telegraph reports that the North American brand, with the “largest family of indoor waterpark resorts,” is planning to build three lodges in Hampshire, Oxfordshire, and Derbyshire.

The overhaul of Great Wolf Lodge in the UK is said to bring a “world-class leisure facility to the region” while attracting tourists and providing “hundreds of job opportunities.”

According to the publication, construction for the first £200 million hotel complex has already begun and is being built on a former golf course in Bicester, Oxfordshire.

It will boast the famed adventure and waterpark, and offer family accommodation, along with various additional activities.

While there isn’t a planned opening date yet, it is thought that the new family getaway will boast similar features to the Great Wolf Lodge’s across the pond.

In America, it has what you’d expect to see at a family camp, with red cabin buildings, wooden structures, colourful interiors, grand fireplaces and even a mascot known as Wiley the Wolf.

Compared to the Subtropical Swimming Paradise at Center Parcs with its fake palm trees and cabanas, the waterparks at Great Wolf Lodge boast totem poles and wooden beams.

What’s more, it’s designed to be well-used during the colder months, with the temperature said to be set at around 29C in the indoor pools.

According to the Telegraph, a family of four can stay at Great Wolf Lodge for around £150 per night.

This isn’t too different from Center Parcs, which can charge around £659 for a family of four for four nights midweek and off-peak.

However, during peak times midweek, such as the October half-term, this could set a family back around £1,899.

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Financial services giant American Express (AXP 1.47%) is dipping its toes into digital waters. I mean next-generation digital stuff, adding blockchain tokens and Web3 features to its new app for high-end travel experiences.

But the company isn’t leaning into that detail. The marketing around the just-released AmEx Travel App is all about convenience and simplicity. The specific feature that relies on the Ethereum (ETH) is called AmEx Passport, designed to preserve memories for easy access after the trip. Most travelers miss getting stamps in their physical passport books these days, according to the press materials — so here are some digital stamps from AmEx instead.

And you’ll barely notice if you skim through the press release. The presence of blockchain tokens is easy to miss entirely when you use the app.

Is American Express approaching the newfangled blockchain and Web3 stuff in exactly the right way? I think so, and here’s why.

Inside the digital stamp

To find out exactly what’s happening in those digital Amex Passport stamps, I had to look at other sources. Crypto news site CoinDesk got some more detail directly from American Express.

Amex Digital Labs VP Colin Marlowe explained that the stamps are technically non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum blockchain. They don’t hold any value and can’t be traded or transferred. They add some keepsake details every time you use your Amex card while traveling, creating an everlasting memory collection on the public blockchain. That’s all. But again, American Express isn’t pushing the crypto connection in your face.

“We wanted to speak to it in a way that was natural for the travel experience itself, and so we talk about these things as stamps, and they’re represented as tokens,” Marlowe told CoinDesk. “We weren’t trying to sell these or sort of generate any like short term revenue. The angle is to make a travel experience with Amex feel really rich, really different, and kind of set it apart.”

How Amex keeps travelers happy (and still pays the bills)

That tracks. I’ve been an American Express cardholder since 2000 (yeah, I’m old) and the company always bends over backward to keep traveling cardholders happy. The company makes plenty of money. It charges above-average transaction fees from retailers, which is why some shops refuse to support these cards in favor of lower-cost Visa (V -1.22%) or Mastercard (MA -1.28%) options. High-end cards like The Platinum Card and Blue Cash Preferred come with beefy annual fees, too. But the customer can still come out ahead by taking advantage of generous American Express features like the rewards program, airport lounges, and included rental car insurance.

I’m not trying to sell American Express cards here. This is just how the company tends to work. Using American Express isn’t supposed to feel cheap or complicated. It’s meant to be a rewarding premium experience. The blockchain-based memory-making tools fit snugly in that broader approach to the credit card business.

Base, ERC‑721, and the nerdy bits you can skip

And it’s also a perfect fit for early Web3 apps.

The AmEx Travel App hides its crypto-ness under a warm blanket, easy to miss or ignore. As long as the memory-keeping features work, nobody really cares where the digital passport stamps and personal notes are stored. It’s a valueless ERC-721 NFT, but you shouldn’t really care about that geekery.

The trick is that the tokens really work for this purpose. Diving one more layer into the nerdy depths, Ethereum tokens can hold all sorts of data, making that stuff available worldwide, for as long as Ethereum exists.

Access and ownership are managed by Ethereum itself, by way of the Base network. Sorry for bringing in another technical quirk that won’t matter to most app users or Amex investors, but there’s a point to this connection. Working with Base makes an Amex partner out of its creator, crypto giant Coinbase Global (COIN 8.85%), while speeding up the Amex app’s Ethereum access.

All in all, that’s a professional crypto package — not too shabby for an early swing by an old-school financial giant.

Image source: Getty Images.

The quiet way to test Web3 at scale

I don’t know about you, but I think American Express is checking all the right boxes on the Web3 checklist.

The new app meshes nicely with the card issuer’s brand, offers simple data storage functions to its users, and lets you forget how the whole thing works. I can talk until I’m blue in the face about Web3 ideals like personalization, decentralized networks, and direct money flows from consumers to creators — but Amex can get your attention without saying a word.

It’s showing how Web3 should work, in a very simple format. The Passport could evolve into a customer loyalty program later on, but it’s a bare-bones memory helper for now.

Great job, American Express. Years from now, I just might remember this app as the start of mass-market Web3 launches.

American Express (AXP -1.15%) has quietly strung together a run of steady results while the company readies a sizable update to its flagship Platinum card in the U.S. The global payments company, which leans heavily on high-spending cardmembers, fee income, and a closed-loop network, continues to post healthy top-line growth and best-in-class credit performance. Shares have also marched higher in 2025 as investors reward that consistency.

There is no way to know how the stock will react to the Platinum card overhaul in the near term. But the underlying business numbers already point in the right direction, and a well-executed refresh could extend a multiyear trend of rising card fees and engagement. That combination makes the stock look attractive for investors with a longer horizon.

Image source: Getty Images.

Resilient growth backed by premium engagement

Recent results reinforce the strength of the business. In the second quarter of 2025, revenue rose 9% year over year to a record $17.9 billion, and earnings per share were $4.08. On an adjusted basis that excludes last year’s gain from the sale of Accertify, earnings per share increased 17% year over year.

Management also highlighted record cardmember spending and reaffirmed full-year 2025 guidance for revenue growth of 8% to 10% and earnings between $15.00 and $15.50 per share.

“We saw record Card Member spending in the quarter, demand for our premium products was strong, and our credit performance remained best in class,” said Chairman and CEO Stephen Squeri in the company’s earnings release. He also pointed to the upcoming Platinum refresh this fall as a driver to “sustain our leadership in the premium space, drawing on our competitive strengths.”

Under the hood, the company’s revenue mix continues to shift toward high-margin revenue. Net card fees — a key proxy for the strength of premium value propositions — climbed 20% year over year to about $2.48 billion in the quarter. That stream has compounded at roughly 17% annually since 2019, supported by strong acquisition, elevated renewals, and ongoing product updates.

Meanwhile, discount revenue (the fee American Express earns from merchants when a cardmember uses an Amex card to make a purchase) increased 6% and net interest income rose 12% as revolving balances grew, underscoring American Express’s broad-based growth drivers.

Importantly, credit metrics remain solid as well: Cardmember loan net write-offs held near 2% to 2.4% across recent quarters, and past-due rates stayed low, supporting the company’s confidence in its full-year outlook.

Why the Platinum refresh enhances the bull case

American Express all but confirmed this week on social media that the new U.S. consumer and business Platinum cards will debut this week, on Sep. 18.

The company’s playbook for card refreshes is well-rehearsed from previous refreshes: Add or tune benefits, boost the value for the cardmember, and attract new customers or upgrades from lower-fee products. Historically, this has translated into higher engagement and steadily rising fee revenue — exactly the trend visible in recent quarters. A fresh Platinum lineup may accelerate that trajectory by giving existing members reasons to stay and new prospects reasons to join while reinforcing the brand’s travel and lifestyle positioning.

Even before management has data on the overhauled card’s performance, the company is upbeat. Guidance implies another year of healthy growth, and the franchise has room to keep compounding via several levers: premium customer acquisition (including younger cohorts), resilient spend among affluent consumers, continued build-out of travel experiences and dining (including Centurion Lounges and restaurant initiatives), and disciplined risk management.

On valuation, shares at around $325 trade at roughly 21 times the midpoint of 2025 earnings guidance. That’s a reasonable price-to-earnings ratio for a payments and premium lifestyle platform with double-digit card-fee growth, record spend, and a long runway to add value to membership.

Of course, there are some risks to bear in mind. A slower macro backdrop could temper spending growth, and a poorly received value and pricing change for the U.S. consumer and business Platinum card could spur churn. But taken together — reaffirmed guidance, strong fee momentum, stable credit, and a clear catalyst in the Platinum rollout — the return profile looks compelling.

There is no guarantee that the stock will react positively on launch day. Over a multiyear horizon, though, this looks like a great entry point for investors seeking a high-quality compounding business at a reasonable price.

Two assassination attempts on President Trump. The assassination of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband and the wounding of others. The shooting death of a top healthcare executive. The killing of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington. The storming of the U.S. Capitol by a violent mob intent on forcing the nation’s political leaders to their will.

And, on Wednesday, the fatal shooting of one of the nation’s most prominent conservative political activists — close Trump ally Charlie Kirk — as he spoke at a public event on a university campus.

If it wasn’t already clear from all those other incidents, Kirk’s killing put it in sharp relief: The U.S. is in a new era of political violence, one that is starker and more visceral than any other in decades — perhaps, experts said, since the fraught days of 1968, when two of the most prominent figures in the civil rights movement, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, were both assassinated in a matter of months.

“We’re very clearly in a moment where the temperature of our political discourse is extremely high,” said Ruth Braunstein, an associate professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University who has studied religion and the far right in modern politics. “Part of what we see when that happens are these outbursts of political violence — where people come to believe that violence is the only solution.”

While the exact motives of the person who shot Kirk are still unknown, Braunstein and other experts on political violence said the factors shaping the current moment are clear — and similar to those that shaped past periods of political violence.

Intense economic discomfort and inequity. Sharp divisions between political camps. Hyperbolic political rhetoric. Political leaders who lack civility and constantly work to demonize their opponents. A democratic system that many see as broken, and a hopelessness about where things are headed.

“There are these moments of great democratic despair, and we don’t think the political system is sufficiently responsive, sufficiently legitimate, sufficiently attentive, and that’s certainly going on in this particular moment,” said Jon Michaels, a UCLA law professor who teaches about the separation of powers and co-authored “Vigilante Nation: How State-Sponsored Terror Threatens Our Democracy.”

“If we think there are no political solutions, there are no legal solutions, people are going to resort to forms of self help that are really, really deeply troubling.”

Michaels said the country has been here before, but also that he worries such cycles of violence are occurring faster today and with shorter breaks in between — that while “we’ve been bitterly divided” for years, those divisions have now “completely left the arena of ideas and debate and contestation, and become much more kinetic.”

Michaels said he is still shaken by all the “defenses or explanations or rationalizations” that swirled around the country after the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City in December — which some people argued was somehow justified by their displeasure with UnitedHealthcare’s policies or frustration with the American healthcare system.

That the suspect, Luigi Mangione, would attract almost cult-like adoration in some circles seemed like an alarming shift in an already polarized nation, Michaels said.

“I understand it is not the beliefs of the typical person walking down the street, but it’s seeping into our culture slowly but surely,” he said — and in a way that makes him wonder, “Where are we going to be in four or five years?”

People across America were asking similar questions about Wednesday’s shooting, wondering in which direction it might thrust the nation’s political discourse in the days ahead.

How will Kirk’s many conservative fans — including legions of young people — respond? How will leaders, including Trump, react? Will there be a shared recognition that such violence does no good, or fresh attempts at retaliation and violence?

Leaders from both parties seemed interested in averting the latter. One after another, they denounced political violence and defended Kirk’s right — everyone’s right — to speak on politics in safety, regardless of whether their message is uplifting or odious.

Democrats were particularly effusive in their denunciations, with Gov. Gavin Newsom — a chief Trump antagonist — calling the shooting “disgusting, vile, and reprehensible.” Former President Obama also weighed in, writing, “We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy.”

Many seemed dismissive of such messages. In the comments on Obama’s post, many blamed Obama and other Democrats for rhetoric demonizing Republicans — and Trump and his followers in particular — as Nazis or racists or fascists, suggesting that the violence against Kirk was a predictable outcome of such pitched condemnations.

Trump echoed those thoughts himself Wednesday night, blaming the “radical left” for disparaging Kirk and other conservatives and bringing on such violence.

Others seemed to celebrate Kirk’s killing or suggest it was justified in some way given his own hyperbolic remarks from the past. They dug up interviews where the conservative provocateur demonized those on the left, suggested liberal ideas constituted a threat to Western civilization, and even said that some gun violence in the country was “worth it” if it meant the freedom to bear arms.

Experts said it is important to contextualize this moment within American history, but with an awareness of the modern factors shaping it in unique ways. It’s also important to understand that there are ways to combat such violence from spreading, they said.

Peter Mancall, a history professor at USC, has delved into major moments of political violence in early American history, and said a lot of it stemmed from “some perception of grievance.”

The same appears to be true today, he said. “There are moments when people do things that they know are violating their own sense of right or wrong, and something has pushed them to it, “ he said. “The trick is figuring out what it is that made them snap.”

Braunstein said that the robust debate online Wednesday about the rhetoric of leaders was a legitimate one to have, because it has always been true that “the way our political leaders message about political violence — consistently, in public, to their followers and to those that don’t support them — really matters.”

If Americans and American political leaders truly want to know how we got here, she said, “part of the answer is the intensification of violent political rhetoric — and political rhetoric that casts the moment in terms of an emergency or catastrophe that requires extreme measures to address it.”

Democrats today are talking about the threats they believe Trump poses to democracy and the rule of law and to immigrants and LGBTQ+ people and others in extremely dire terms. Republicans — including Kirk — have used similarly charged rhetoric to suggest that Democrats and some of those same groups, especially immigrants, are a grave threat to average Americans.

“Charlie Kirk was one of many political figures who used that kind of discourse to mobilize people,” Braunstein said. “He’s not the only one, but he regularly spoke about the fact that we were in a moment where it was possible that we were going to see the decline of Western civilization, the end of American society as we know it. He used very strong us-vs.-them language.”

Particularly given the wave of recent violence, it will be important moving forward for politicians and other leaders to reanalyze how they speak about their political disagreements, Braunstein said.

That’s especially true of Trump, she said, because “one of the most dangerous things that can happen in a moment like this is for a political leader to call for violence in response to an act of violence,” and Trump has appeared to stoke violence in the past, including in the lead-up to the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and during racist marches through Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.

Charlie Kirk speaks during a town hall meeting in March in Oconomowoc, Wis.

(Jeffrey Phelps / Associated Press)

Dr. Garen Wintemute, director of the Centers for Violence Prevention at UC Davis, agreed messaging is key — not just for responding to political violence, but for preventing it.

Since 2022, Wintemute and his team have surveyed Americans on how they feel about political violence, including whether it is ever justified and, if so, whether they would personally get involved in it.

Throughout that time frame, a strong majority of Americans — about two-thirds — have said it is not justified, with about a third saying it was or could be.

An even smaller minority said they’d be willing to personally engage in such violence, Wintemute said. And many of those people said that they could be dissuaded from participating if their family members, friends, religious or political leaders urged them not to.

Wintemute said the data give him “room for hope and optimism,” because they show that “the vast majority of Americans reject political violence altogether.”

“So when somebody on a day like today asks, ‘Is this who we are?’ we know the answer,” he said. “The answer is, ‘No!’”

The job of all Americans now is to reject political violence “out loud over and over and over again,” Wintemute said, and to realize that, if they are deeply opposed to political policies or the Trump administration and “looking for a model of how to resist,” it isn’t the American Revolution but the civil rights movement.

“People did not paint over how terrible things were,” he said. “People said, ‘I will resist, but I will resist without violence. Violence may be done to me, I may die, but I will not use violence.’”

Brittney Dzialo and her friend were travelling around Europe and looking to fly from Rome to Nice, France, when they made a huge mistake that left them miles away from where they thought they were

Throughout the history of travel, there have been countless instances where individuals have taken a wrong turn, boarded the wrong boat, wandered down the wrong street, or ended up on the wrong plane.

In the era before social media, such mix-ups were commonplace, but only those directly involved, their immediate circle, and their loved ones would be privy to these blunders.

Nowadays, a travel mishap can quickly become global news. This is precisely what happened to two American tourists who found themselves in Tunis, Tunisia, when they believed they were en route to Nice, France, reports the Manchester Evening News.

While Hamlet never said ‘Tunis or To Nice, that is the question’, it’s a query many are now posing to American TikToker Brittney Dzialo, who took to the social media platform to share her travel predicament.

The issue arose when she and a friend, while on a European tour, intended to fly from Rome, Italy to Nice on the French Riviera. However, due to a misunderstanding at the airport, they found themselves on a flight to Tunis, the capital city of Tunisia in Africa, according to Le Parisien.

As per their social media posts, the penny didn’t drop until they were seated on a Tunisair aircraft, ready for take-off.

Upon realising their error, they decided to go with the flow and enjoy the unexpected journey. Brittney later stated: “The airline employee misheard us and booked us a flight to TUNISIA, AFRICA instead of Nice, France.”

Upon landing in Tunis, a whopping 400 miles from their intended destination of Nice, the duo tried to rebook another flight and rectify the situation.

According to The Tab, the travellers made allegations about the airport staff after discovering they had to fork out for another plane despite having already paid for the original, mistakenly boarded flight.

They shared: “They are making us pay for a new flight, saying we can’t get on the next one tonight, everyone is rude, two men who are the supervisors yelled in my face, in tears.

“So as a last resort I had to bring out my bestie chat and found out about EU regulation and now they are taking us a bit more seriously so we can get to NICE asap.

“After the last supervisors said it was impossible to leave, I had a feeling to go try one more time and there was a new supervisor in there instead of the man that yelled at me.

“I cried to her and she saw how stressed, tired, and defeated I was and got us on a flight (that we had to pay for) and had the captain hold the entire plane for us.”

After publicly sharing their blunder and incorrectly referring to Africa as a country rather than a continent, the pair were inundated with both sympathetic and unsympathetic comments.

One person offered some comfort, stating: “Honestly of alllllll the places in Africa you could have ended up, Tunis is actually very close to Nice.”

Another retorted: “Did no one read the sign AT THE GATE? ? ?”.

A flight attendant immediately took action when she heard the rude passenger, and confronted the woman before kicking her off the flight, which was travelling to Dallas

A passenger has learnt the hard way what happens when you tell a flight attendant to “shut up”.

A traveller on American Airlines got into an argument with a flight attendant during a safety demonstration. In a video shared to social media, a woman could be heard telling the flight attendant “she should shut up” during the flight from Costa Rica to Dallas, Texas.

The flight attendant can be approaching the passenger and bluntly asking: “Do you want to get off the plane?” while directing her peers to turn off the address system. She continued: “Because I don’t feel comfortable with you if you’re not going to follow instructions.”

In response, the passenger tries to claim, “I can’t hear” – but the flight attendant shut her down by saying: “You’re not on my list as someone who can’t hear. So I’m going to ask the pilot to remove you because you’re not complying. You know what you did, right?”

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The footage, uploaded to Instagram with the caption “ever wonder what happens if you tell a flight attendant to shut up?”, also showed the passenger being called out for not switching her phone off. The clip then cuts out when the passenger agrees to comply with orders, but resumes to show the woman claiming she is being harassed by the airline employee.

The woman was escorted from the plane, according to the footage and her seatmate, who filmed and posted the video with the caption: “empty middle seat is a win for me”.

Jay Crenshaw, who had been sitting next to the woman and saw the ordeal unfold, told The New York Post: “She was having a bad morning and was obviously disturbed or irritated about something she was on the phone talking about.

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“The flight attendant might have caught a stray. I think the passenger knows she was wrong. She mentioned that she also lost her phone and had to borrow one.

He continued: “I’m definitely not excusing her behavior [but] we’ve all had bad days and have said bad things because of it, but we weren’t filmed. I hope people can remember this and give her a bit of grace.”

The Mirror has contacted American Airlines for comment.

It comes after a man revealed how a family attempted to lie to a flight attendant so that they could take his plane seat from him – until he scuppered their plans.

In a post on Reddit , the man explained he decided to book business class on a recent flight because he could bag himself a window seat while guaranteeing that the middle seat remained vacant, meaning he’d have a bit more room.

READ MORE: Pilot explains what uncomfortable ‘sinking’ feeling really means during take-off

After boarding his flight, he took his seat across from an older man sitting in the aisle seat on the other side of him. Moments later, however, the other man’s wife and son came in and asked if he would switch seats with them to allow the family to sit together.

But there was one problem – the wife and child were in economy class, so swapping seats would have meant a downgrade.

The man refused this unfavourable offer, and the family made a counteroffer in which the son would sit in the free middle seat with his dad while the mum went back to economy. It turned out they lied to flight attendants on board the plane to make this deal happen.

In his Reddit post, he wrote: “His wife and son came in, asking me to switch (business for economy) so they could all sit there. Then, [they] told me that if I didn’t switch with the wife, the son would sit in the middle at least. [The dad] reasoned that I didn’t need an empty seat next to me and claimed the stewardess allowed it.

“Turned out, [the flight attendant] said it was possible if the other passenger agreed, to which they replied that I was family, so I would 100% agree.”

The man refused to move and told the flight attendants the truth, and the family were eventually made to go back to the seats they had been assigned.

He added: “I didn’t budge. The son and wife had to stay in the economy, and his father spent almost four hours muttering passive-aggressive comments. Whenever I took off my headphones, he was still going…”

Shares of American Eagle Outfitters (AEO 0.21%) rallied 19.8% in August, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

American Eagle capitalized on July’s optimism regarding its new ad campaign starring actress Sydney Sweeney when President Trump endorsed the company’s campaign in early August. Then later in the month, American Eagle announced a collaboration with Kansas City Chiefs tight end and Taylor Swift fiancée Travis Kelce.

American Eagle’s investment in celebrity pays off

American Eagle’s stock got a bump in late July when it launched a controversial ad with actress Sydney Sweeney with the byline, “Sydney Sweeney has Great Genes Jeans.” While the stock then faded after an initial lift, President Trump weighed in in early August, writing on his social media platform Truth Social that the ad was, “the HOTTEST out there…the jeans are flying off the shelves.”

In response, investors bid up the stock, thinking the controversy might boost publicity for the brand and therefore subsequent sales.

Then later in the month, American Eagle announced a limited addition collaboration with Travis Kelce’s “Tru Colors” clothing line, which Kelce began in 2019. The new limited edition collection is to be unveiled in two “drops,” with one on Aug. 27, and another upcoming on Sept. 24. As luck would have it, the collaboration announcement came one day after Kelce announced his engagement to music star Taylor Swift.

So, American Eagle nabbed a marketing coup in both late July and into August, grabbing support from the President, as well as arguably two of the biggest celebrities in sports and entertainment.

Image source: Getty Images.

What will it mean for the stock, though?

The high-profile marketing push — both planned and unplanned – appeared to boost American Eagle’s near-term outlook. On Sept. 3, the company reported its second-quarter earnings results for the quarter ending Aug. 2, beating analyst expectations even though sales and comparable-store sales were each down 1%.

However, management said it was seeing “an uptick in customer awareness, engagement and comparable sales,” as a result of the Sweeney and Kelce campaigns, and projected comps to return to positive low single digits in both Q3 and Q4. That improvement would appear to validate the impact of the Sweeney and Kelce campaigns.

That said, despite a near-20% gain in August and a 20%-plus gain in September thus far, American Eagle’s stock is only up about 12.8% on the year and is still actually 2.3% below where it was one year ago. A cautious consumer, high interest rates, and the Trump administration’s tariffs have all acted as headwinds to the clothing retailer, as it has to many retailers.

Some other year, under some other president, Republican Young Kim might have been a shoo-in to represent a majority-minority congressional district containing pieces of Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.

Kim’s profile is as compelling as it is rare for someone running under the GOP banner: an immigrant, an Asian American and, perhaps most important, a woman in a year when female voter enthusiasm is surging. If she wins, she would be the first Korean American woman elected to Congress.

All of these facets might help her navigate the demographic changes that have been eroding Republican support for decades in the 39th Congressional District, where roughly two-thirds of residents are either Asian or Latino and immigrants make up about a third of the population.

But in this year’s tough midterm election, likely to be a referendum on Donald Trump’s divisive presidency, Kim will be forced to stitch together a majority out of disparate factions: die-hard Trump supporters, Trump-averse minorities and affluent suburban women. Kim, 55, finds herself in a race that’s virtually tied in a district where retiring GOP incumbent Ed Royce won the last three elections by double digits.

Republicans face big risks in contested California races as Democrats fight for control of the House »

On the campaign trail, she says, she’s faced questions about the president — his tweets, his policies, his tone. Kim says that Trump’s rhetoric concerns her and that his disparaging remarks about immigrants and women can be frustrating.

“I try to tell them I’m not running to be his spokesperson or represent Donald Trump in the White House,” she says.

Many GOP House candidates — in similarly diverse districts from the Virginia exurbs outside Washington to the bedroom communities east of Denver — share her plight.

In Southern California, Republicans’ tactics for dealing with Trump range from avoidance, as with two-term Rep. Mimi Walters of Laguna Beach, to a full embrace by Diane Harkey, who is running for a seat left open by retiring Rep. Darrell Issa of Vista.

Kim’s 39th Congressional District includes Chino Hills, Fullerton, Yorba Linda — the birthplace of Richard Nixon — and Diamond Bar.

Here, a taqueria can share a parking lot with a Taiwanese cafe. Spanish, Korean, Mandarin and Tagalog can be heard along with English in the upscale ethnic supermarkets that dot the area.

Will California flip the House? The key races to watch »

As she travels the region, Kim has tried to drive home two major points: that people living here know her, and that she understands their stories. She’s spent decades in the public arena, first as a longtime district staffer to Royce and then as a one-term state assemblywoman. She was once a TV talk show host on Korean-language television.

Kim speaks with a knowing ease about the sacrifices immigrants make for a shot at prosperity.

She often shares memories of interpreting for her parents and picking up cans and bottles on the beaches of Guam — a way station between Seoul and Hawaii, where her family later settled — to help raise money for their church.

“My personal experience of being an immigrant, having gone through what this diverse immigrant community has gone through, struggling,” Kim said. “Those are real life experiences that really helped me understand … the district.”

Kim, who owns a government affairs consulting business, moved to Southern California 37 years ago to attend USC. She lives in Fullerton with her husband, Charles; they have four adult children.

One recent Saturday at a campaign office in Rowland Heights, Kim bowed and greeted supporters with “Annyeonghaseyo!” — “Hello!” in Korean — before Saga Conroy took the stage.

“President Trump is not on the ballot, but his agenda is totally in this midterm election,” said Conroy, trying to pump up volunteers. “If we lose the majority in Congress, everything he achieved could be lost.”

It was a departure from Kim’s attempts to cast herself as an independent voice who will call out the president when she disagrees but is willing to work with him on policies that help the district. Kim’s campaign manager, wincing at the remarks, felt compelled to point out that Conroy isn’t a staffer but a volunteer coordinator for the California Republican Party.

“Voters want somebody to stand up to Trump and put a check on him,” said Ben Tulchin, a veteran pollster helping strategize for Kim’s opponent, Democrat Gil Cisneros. “A Republican who worked for a Republican member of Congress is not the person they’re looking for.”

As supporters snacked on spicy Korean rice cakes and egg rolls at the campaign office, one young woman approached Kim with a contribution and an invitation to speak at the next Rotary Club meeting in Fullerton.

“There’s three rotary clubs in Fullerton, so which one?” Kim said without missing a beat. “The main one,” the woman replied.

Kim insists that her strategy of showing up to dozens of groundbreakings, cultural fairs and community events will insulate her from national politics in a way she couldn’t manage in 2016, when she sought reelection to her Assembly seat.

Her Democratic opponent plastered the district with mailers featuring Kim’s face alongside the polarizing GOP presidential nominee and even released an ad disguised as a music video featuring lyrics declaring “Young Kim is like Donald Trump.” It contributed to her loss in the swing district.

Back then, Kim tried to sidestep the issue, saying she’d never met Trump and calling the tactic “desperate.” This time, she’s drawing sharper distinctions between her views and the president’s.

In an interview, Kim maintained that her party has not been captured by one man. “There is no party of Trump,” she said, banging her hand on a table. She’s running, she said, “because I’ve been here, I’ve been working here, I’ve raised my family here, I know the district…. I’m not running for the party of Trump.”

Still, Trump so dominates political discussion these days Kim can’t help but be drawn into the conversation. Her strategy is to ignore the president and his serial controversies as best she can. Kim, for instance, declined this week to comment on Trump’s mocking of Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.

Coverage of California politics »

Kim has sought to carve out her own identity on issues by opposing, for instance, Trump’s policy of separating children from their parents who crossed the border illegally, saying it “does not live up” to American values. She vows to fight for a pathway to citizenship for young people brought to the country illegally as children.

She also breaks with Trump by supporting what he refers to as “chain migration,” which allows citizens to sponsor family members to join them. Like many in her district, Kim’s family has benefited from the long-standing policy. Kim’s adult sister, who had married an American serviceman and joined the military herself, was able to sponsor her, both of her parents and four siblings.

But Kim echoes Trump in other ways.

She called California’s so-called sanctuary state law an “affront to law-abiding citizens and a threat to public safety.” She praised a decision by the Trump administration to weigh in on a lawsuit against Harvard that alleges the university’s admissions policies discriminate against Asian Americans.

One of her first campaign ads emphasized how her family came to the country legally “and not because we wanted handouts.”

Bernie Overland, left, speaks to Democratic congressional candidate Gil Cisneros, center, at his home in Fullerton.

(Christine Mai-Duc / Los Angeles Times)

Those positions may help Kim hold on to support from the Republican base, but they alienate others who want no part of Trump and his presidency. There are frequent reminders of the fine line she walks.

Bernie Overland, a 78-year-old Republican, opened his door in Fullerton one recent Saturday when Cisneros, the Democrat, came knocking. Cisneros was there to speak to Overland’s wife, who’s a Democrat, but he first asked Bernie what issues he cares about most.

“Well, Trump is certainly one,” he said with a laugh.

He’s angry about Trump’s plans to build a border wall (he called it “a waste”) and is incensed by the risk of ballooning national debt from recently passed tax cuts.

“I just think he is taking this country down the garden path to disaster,” Overland said in an interview later. Overland says that he wants to send a message to Trump in this midterm election and that nothing Kim does and says will change his mind.

His plan: Vote for any candidate who is not a Republican.

[email protected]

Twitter: @cmaiduc

American Eagle Outfitters (AEO 30.10%) reported its Q2 2025 results on July 1, 2025, delivering revenue of $1.28 billion (down 1% YoY) (GAAP), operating income up 2% YoY to $103 million, and diluted EPS up 15% YoY. Management highlighted significant customer acquisition driven by high-profile marketing campaigns, robust turnaround in Aerie brand comps (+3% YoY), and outlined explicit strategies for tariff mitigation, SG&A discipline, and ongoing store optimization. Below are three actionable, insight-driven themes with direct investment impact.

Brand collaborations accelerate AEO customer growth

American Eagle’s Sydney Sweeney and Travis Kelce campaigns generated over 700,000 net new customers since launch, fueling strong positive traffic and denim sellouts. But the combined cross-gender reach and omnichannel impact of these campaigns drove unprecedented new customer acquisition.

“The American Eagle Sydney Sweeney campaign was intended to be a brand and business reset, and it has. Let me be very clear. Sydney Sweeney sells great jeans. She is a winner. And in just six weeks, the campaign has generated unprecedented new customer acquisition. To be clear, that consumer acquisition is coming from every single county in the US. This momentum is national, and it is pervasive. We experienced denim sellouts of items that Sydney has worn. We have strong positive traffic throughout this quarter, and as Jen mentioned, a staggering 40 billion impressions. But a brand campaign is not to be judged in just one day, one week, or even one month. A brand campaign endures. We are off to a start beyond our wildest dreams. As we track consumer sentiment over the past six weeks, we have seen consideration and purchase intent meaningfully up. And now it’s our opportunity to continue to convert this buzz into business and to convert these new customers into repeat customers. That’s the work of the work ahead.”
— Craig Brahmers, American Eagle CMO

Tariff mitigation reduces profit headwinds for AEO

Incremental tariff costs are estimated at approximately $20 million in Q3 2025 and $40 million to $50 million in Q4 2025, the sourcing team reduced unmitigated tariff exposure from $180 million to $70 million for the back half of FY2025 through country-of-origin rebalancing and vendor negotiations. China sourcing will drop to low single-digit penetration in the back half of the year, compared to mid-single digits year-to-date, according to management on the Q2 2025 earnings call.

“Our unmitigated number was closer to $180 million versus the $70 million we are guiding to. So combination of rebalancing, country of origin, cost negotiations with our vendors, optimizing freight between air and ocean costs, some price and then some pricing. So I’d say pricing is down the list. We are taking our shots there. We have increased some tickets. This gives us some flexibility in promoting those items. Where we haven’t seen really any customer resistance to some of those increases, but it’s not real it’s not the largest mitigation strategies. There’s other components I just talked about that the team has done a great job for the mitigating the back half impact and the annual impact go forward. I guess just relative to that, down mid-single digit AUR. The second quarter, what are you expecting for the back half?”
— Mike Mathias, CFO

Effective tariff mitigation minimizes margin erosion and demonstrates disciplined cost management, differentiated positioning, and multi-segment loyalty renewal.

Aerie and men’s initiatives drive AEO’s category renewal

Aerie reversed a negative Q1 by delivering 3% comp growth and record sales in Q2 FY2025, attributed to innovation in intimates and loungewear.

“Starting with Aerie, we drove a nice rebound from the first quarter, delivering comp growth of 3% and achieving record second-quarter revenue. Performance was driven by positive demand across a number of major categories, including intimates, soft dressing, sleepwear, and our activewear collections at offline. While shorts were the most challenging seasonal category, we are focused on driving improvements here as well. Among the highlights, intimate has been a key area of focus within our long-range plan, and we will recapture share in the return of this category to growth. We are pleased to see customers responding to new fits and fabrics in undies and bras and more regular fashion drops. For example, in July, we introduced the Parisian romance fashion capsule, which embraced feminine touches like lace and chic combos of our most loved silhouettes. Our Aerie customers loved it, and it was the page-turner we needed to enter the fall season strong.”
— Jen Foyle, President, Executive Creative Director

Looking Ahead

Consolidated comparable sales for the third quarter to date are up mid-single digits, with management guiding for low single-digit comp growth and operating income of $95 million to $100 million for Q3 2025, despite $20 million in incremental tariffs. The outlook for Q4 FY2025 also calls for low single-digit comp growth and operating profit of $125 million to $130 million, absorbing $40 million to $50 million in tariff impact. American Eagle anticipates closing 35 to 40 stores by year-end, opening 30 Aerie/offline locations, and maintaining capital expenditures at approximately $275 million for the year; no additional share repurchases announced after completion of the $200 million program earlier in 2025.

Georgia Fowkes is a travel advisor who spends a lot of time in the UK and says there is one beach that is so special it gives her ‘goosebumps every single time’

A travel adviser has revealed the one UK beach that gives her goosebumps every time she visits. Georgia Fowkes, a travel advisor for Altezza Travel, which boasts a 5/5 rating on TripAdvisor with over 2,000 reviews, is an American based in Pittsburgh who frequently travels the globe and spends ample time with family in the UK.

She has declared Bamburgh beach in Northumberland as her personal favourite. “Bamburgh is the raw North in its purest form: endless sand with a castle rising straight out of the dunes”, she says. “You walk the shoreline and the dark fortress walls reflect in the wet sand, the sea stretching out like the castle’s extension.

“For me, Bamburgh is the best beach in Britain because it ties the vastness of the ocean to the weight of history. This isn’t just a holiday sea – it roars the same way it did centuries ago, when the castle walls faced the same waves I’m watching now. Standing there gives me goosebumps every single time.”

While Bamburgh Beach isn’t the only UK beach where a castle majestically overlooks the sea below, with other examples including Llansteffan and Harlech in Wales, as well as Tintagel in Cornwall, it still stands out as a unique feature of the UK coastline, boasting pristine sand, drifting sand dunes, and a magnificent view of the castle from almost every angle, reports the Express.

Bamburgh has been crowned the UK’s top seaside spot for five consecutive years, earning five-star reviews for its beach, seafront, scenery, and tranquil atmosphere.

One visitor to Bamburgh shared their love for the place with Which?, saying: “It’s a gem. The beaches are sandy, clean, and stretch for miles. There are walks galore, the food on offer is top-notch, the feel is of a time gone by, and there’s enough history to delve into to last several holidays.”

The castle, which boasts a history spanning 3,000 years, is now in the hands of Francis and Claire Watson-Armstrong.

“There is nowhere like Bamburgh. You can see dolphins, the sunsets, the sunrises. You just stand there and breathe in – the smell of the sea. It is unique. As it has been over the centuries, there is something about the soul of the place,” she expressed.

Despite the unpredictable British weather on the harsh North Sea coast, Bamburgh is increasingly becoming a worldwide attraction, drawing tourists from across the globe. It offers several dining and drinking options, including a seafood shack named Creel and Reel, the Victoria Hotel pub, and the Potted Lobster restaurant.

Georgia also mentioned Holkham beach in Norfolk as another favourite spot. She described: “Holkham is cinematic in scale. Dunes and a flat sweep of sand run to the horizon, so far you lose all sense of boundaries.

“It’s no surprise filmmakers chose it for Pride and Prejudice and Shakespeare in Love – standing here, you see why: the landscape itself looks like a film still. I’d call it England’s best beach because it turns a simple walk into a moment you want to hold on to. Empty yet majestic, it’s where sea, sky, and infinite sand shrink you down – but make you feel lucky to be part of the vast picture.”

Getty Images

Long-time Vogue employee

Reuters

Political activism

Wintour to continue oversight role

AN American rock band has canceled their remaining tour dates, with the frontman making a confession about the ‘hardest decision’ he had to make.

Earlier this month, The Dangerous Summer, which was formed in 2006, revealed their summer tour would expand into the fall – but this is not the case anymore.

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Fans are gutted after learning that the band has unexpectedly canceled all of their remaining tour dates for the year.

Their frontman AJ Perdomo penned a touching statement about needing to step away from music for a while.

He penned, “There is no easy way to say this, but I am burning out from being on the road so often.

“It is the hardest decision in the world to make, but I have decided to cancel the remaining tour dates for the rest of the year.”

He added, “I need to go home and be a father, a fiancé, and a creative. I need to work on my life at home for a moment.

“I have the dreamer’s disease. Next year will be 20 years since this band has started.

“It has become such a large part of my existence, and how I value myself as an individual. I have been overworking to fill a hole in my heart that no amount of shows or success will be able to fill.”

Opening up further, AJ continued, “When I am standing up on stage singing a song like ‘What’s an hour really worth?’ I start to think about the life that is passing me by while I am away from home.

“It broke my heart to tell my band, my manager, and my team of agents—but they have been extremely supportive of my decision to take some time away from touring.”

Reassuring the band’s fans, AJ urged that this was not the end.

“This isn’t the end, and in fact, making new music is one of the driving factors in this decision,” he explained.

“Creating music is where my heart truly lies, and I need to get back to it.

“Please continue supporting live music, and the bands/venues that we had intended on hitting this fall/winter.

“Music and art need your support more than ever.”

Fans were quick to react to the sad news of the tour being canceled, but were understanding of AJ’s reasoning for doing so.

One fan replied to his post on X saying, “’ll speak for every fan and say take all the time you need! Cherish those moments with your fam and we’ll see you again later.”

A second added, “That sucks but totally understand AJ. Do what you need to do and see ya back on stage at some point.”

While a third wrote, “Much love and respect, AJ. Enjoy the time with your family.”

The Dangerous Summer had a “messy breakup” before reuniting.

They were initially together from 2006 until 2014 when they disbanded.

They then reunited in 2017.

When the band was not together, AJ had settled into a more lowkey lifestyle.

He had gotten into the groove of raising his daughter with his wife in L.A, as per a report three years ago.

“I loved the life I created,” AJ told Metro Times in 2022, adding, “I kind of loved having a nine-to-five. You know, the grass is greener.”

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For the first time in nearly three years, investors (finally!) have something to talk about that isn’t related to artificial intelligence (AI).

The latest buzz on Wall Street comes from a familiar but controversial corner of the stock market: special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). And perhaps unsurprisingly, the sponsor behind the deal is none other than Chamath Palihapitiya — often referred to as the “SPAC King.”

While his early launches drew enormous hype, Palihapitiya’s SPAC stocks have been anything but royal — often leaving retail investors holding the bag. This track record has led some to question whether SPACs are good investments at all.

Still, Palihapitiya is back in the arena — this time with American Exceptionalism Acquisition Corp., a name as ambitious as the investor behind it. The question now is whether this latest venture signals a genuine comeback or simply another high-profile gamble in a market rife with wary investors.

Will Palihapitiya’s new SPAC succeed? Read on to explore what history shows and what it could mean for investors.

Who is Chamath Palihapitiya?

Chamath Palihapitiya began his career in management roles at AOL and Facebook (now Meta Platforms). Outside of those corporate posts, he proved fortunate — and shrewd — in backing early-stage start-ups that ultimately found lucrative exits through acquisitions by larger companies.

Eventually, Palihapitiya left Facebook to pursue investing full-time — launching his own venture capital firm, Social Capital.

Fast-forward to the SPAC boom between 2020 and 2021, and Palihapitiya instantly became one of the most vocal voices and recognizable personalities in the space.

Some of his high-profile deals included SoFi Technologies (NASDAQ: SOFI), Virgin Galactic, MP Materials, Clover Health, and Opendoor Technologies.

SOFI data by YCharts

While admirers paint Palihapitiya as a bold contrarian investor willing to challenge Wall Street’s status quo, the uneven performance of many of these SPACs has given critics plenty of ammunition.

What is a SPAC?

A SPAC, often referred to as a “blank check company,” is a shell entity that raises money from investors through a public offering with the sole purpose of merging with a private company. Once a target is identified, the SPAC combines with that company — instantly taking it public without the lengthy, complex process of a traditional initial public offering (IPO).

The main difference between a SPAC and an IPO comes down to structure and timing. In an IPO, a company works with an investment bank to underwrite the deal — a process that can take months as bankers conduct roadshows, pitch to accredited investors, and determine an appropriate valuation.

By contrast, a SPAC is already listed on an exchange, so merging with it allows a company to bypass much of the regulatory and logistical friction.

For companies, SPACs provide a quicker, simpler alternative to the traditional IPO process. For investors, they offer exposure to buzzy businesses — often unicorns — that might otherwise be off-limits before they go public.

Image source: Getty Images.

Are SPACs good investments?

Just like traditional IPO stocks, determining whether a SPAC is a good investment ultimately comes down to “it depends.” While Palihapitiya’s most recognizable SPACs are often cited, it’s important to remember that he also backed some companies that later delisted or even went bankrupt. Taken as a whole, Palihapitiya’s personal track record in the SPAC arena has been disappointing.

That said, not every SPAC has fared poorly. Some companies have managed to carve out a path to success.

HIMS data by YCharts

Hims & Hers Health has become something of a darling among retail investors thanks to its bold entrance into the red-hot weight loss market, going toe-to-toe with GLP-1 juggernauts Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. Moreover, AST Spacemobile and Rocket Lab have attracted speculative enthusiasm from investors captivated by the space exploration economy. Meanwhile, Vertiv has enjoyed tailwinds from the AI boom as its liquid cooling systems prove critical to ongoing data center infrastructure investment.

These examples come with important caveats. Winners like these tend to be outliers, often driven by retail hype or unique secular catalysts. A detailed study from the University of Florida underscores this point: Between 2012 and 2022 SPAC stocks delivered returns of negative 58% one year following their merger. Moreover, the median SPAC performance across industries from 2009 through 2025 has drastically trailed the broader market.

In other words, while some SPACs have thrived, these seem to be exceptions rather than the norm. American Exceptionalism Acquisition Corp. may succeed in capturing headlines, but for smart investors, it should be viewed as a speculative bet rather than a proven opportunity.

Considering both Palihapitiya’s past ventures and the results of the broader SPAC landscape, history suggests caution is warranted.

Mohammed Ibrahim, a 16-year-old Palestinian American, has been held in Israeli prison without contact with his family since being illegally detained in February. His relatives and rights groups are calling for his release, citing his worsening health and lack of due process.

Aug. 22 (UPI) — The man believed to be the last surviving World War II official American ace naval fighter pilot has died at age 103.

Described in his legacy.com page as a compassionate and humble soul, Don McPherson, of Nebraska, died Aug. 14.

McPherson enlisted in the U.S. Navy in February 1943 and was qualified for a naval aviator’s golden wings and an ensign’s commission in August 1944.

He was posted in February of 1945 aboard an aircraft carrier as part of a fighter squadron equipped with Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat planes. McPherson served in the war campaign on Okinawa, Japan, in which he was credited with five aerial victories and bestowed flying ace status.

McPherson left active service in November of that year, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal and three gold stars. He then completed his Navy Reserve obligation in October of 1956.

Nearly 60 years later, McPherson was named to the Nebraska Aviation Hall of Fame in January of 2015, and then in May of that year was one of 37 fighter aces presented with the Congressional Gold Medal in Washington.

McPherson also had a final Hellcat flight, as at age 102 he flew a restored fighter. He turned 103 in May and died last week in his home state.

“As we’ve celebrated 80 years of WWII victory, I’ve been humbled by the incredible stories of service members like Donald McPherson — who was America’s last-living WWII Ace,” Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen wrote on X Wednesday. “After bravely serving our country, he committed himself to his faith, his family, and his Nebraska community.”

“Donald McPherson built an amazing legacy in our state — and will forever be an American hero,” he concluded.

Like most Americans, including White House reporters apparently, I’ve tuned out Donald Trump’s incessant Big Lie that he won the 2020 presidential election — “by a lot.” That means his nonsense about rigged voting and Democrats’ cheating goes mostly unchallenged, and he continues to undermine faith in U.S. elections. After all, it’s not like anyone can shut him up.

Still, it’s time to quit tuning out. Whether a reporter on the beat or a citizen in conversation anywhere, pay attention and push back against Trump’s un-American blather. Because in recent days the power-drunk president has in various ways telegraphed that his Big Lie isn’t just about a past election but a pretext for what he could do to disrupt the next one, the 2026 midterm elections for Congress.

Other 2020 election liars are paying a big price, literally. Just this week, right-wing Newsmax agreed to pay $67 million to Dominion Voting Systems, on top of $40 million in March to Smartmatic, to settle defamation lawsuits based on Newsmax’s false reporting (echoing Trump) that the companies rigged voting machines for Joe Biden. Newsmax’s penalty is of course dwarfed by the $787 million that Fox News paid to Dominion in 2023; in a pending trial, Smartmatic seeks $2.7 billion from Fox.

All the while, the president of the United States continues to spout the same slop, all but immune to legal action, as he sets the stage for 2026.

On Friday, after Trump’s bro-fest summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the war in Ukraine, Trump happily recounted to Fox’s Sean Hannity in Alaska that the two presidents digressed to discuss the 2020 U.S. election and — what do you know? — Putin, the KGB-trained master manipulator and well-known arbiter of honest elections (not) supposedly assured Trump that, yes, he actually won big but the election was rigged against him.

As an aside here, recall that Hannity and other Fox network stars privately trashed Trump’s 2020 election lie, according to filings in the Dominion lawsuit, and that Hannity testified under oath: “I did not believe it for one second.” Yet in Anchorage, Hannity nodded along as Trump told him that Putin said Trump won in 2020 “by so much,“ but “your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting. … It’s impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections.”

Assuming Putin said what Trump claims, the Russian was playing to Trump’s longstanding, groundless gripes not only against the 2020 election but against voting by mail, which Democratic voters use much more than Republicans do. And Trump, ever the Kremlin’s useful idiot, took his cue: First thing on Monday morning, he declared in a long, error-filled and much-capitalized social media diatribe that he’d “lead a movement” to ban mail ballots and voting machines.

Trump repeated Putin’s falsehood that the United States is “the only Country in the World that uses Mail-In Voting. All others gave it up because of the MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD ENCOUNTERED.” But in fact, dozens of countries use mail ballots and, as with other forms of voting, research, along with the courts, has found that fraud is vanishingly rare.

The president’s stance on mail ballots is like his position on a ceasefire in Ukraine: He was for it before he was against it (and he was for both things before getting ensnared in Putin’s web on Friday). In 2024, bending to Republican officials’ pleadings that he drop his opposition to mail ballots, Trump urged supporters to vote by mail — as he typically, and hypocritically, does — and even recorded a video promotion.

Now that Trump is back to opposing mail ballots, in Monday morning’s social media rant he yet again contradicted the plain words of the Constitution to claim powers he doesn’t have, that he can order states to get rid of mail ballots and voting machines. “Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes,” he wrote. “They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them.”

Here’s the Constitution on that: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.”

It’s just more proof that both times Trump took the oath of office to uphold the Constitution and “see that the laws are faithfully executed,” he lied then, too.

The president has since repeated that he, with Republican allies, will “do everything possible” to end mail ballots. And he’s saying the quiet part out loud: Without mail-in voting, he told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, “you’re not gonna have many Democrats get elected. That’s bigger than anything having to do with redistricting.”

There you have it. Trump’s “movement” against mail ballots, along with his push for red states to redraw congressional district lines to elect more Republicans, is all part of how he’s trying rig elections in 2026, in what is expected to be a bad year for his party given his unpopularity. And it’s all predicated on the Big Lie about nonexistent Democratic election cheating.

There are other warning signs: Trump’s military takeover of the District of Columbia. (Every day brings another announcement of a Republican governor sending National Guard troops.) His occupation of Los Angeles. Repeated threats to send troops to other big, blue cities. All on specious grounds and over the objections of elected local and state leaders.

It’s wholly imaginable, then, that on trumped-up claims (pun absolutely intended) about potential election fraud, Trump would militarize Democratic vote-heavy cities in time for next year’s elections. At a minimum, that would surely intimidate some would-be voters. At worst, well, I don’t even want to speculate about the worst.

When Trump entered presidential politics a decade ago, it took a while for journalists to get comfortable applying the L-word: Liar. But he earned it. Now he’s all but inviting us to expand the nomenclature to include autocrat, dictator or even the F-bomb, fascist.

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A Balkan woman opened up about her experience in America while visiting supermarkets – she could not get over the portion sizes or difference in products sold. Her honest opinions have divided people

A tourist visiting America has divided opinion after being left gobsmacked by a number of culture shocks while shopping in a US supermarket. You may not realise just how used to your native country you are until you go on a long holiday or move abroad and start missing things from back home. It’s no secret that American stores are renowned for having significantly larger portions, but one woman, named Lucija, who is from the Balkans, was shocked by a number of things she has never seen while shopping before.

Sharing a video online, Lucija created quite a stir with her post, which has raked in over 6.9million views on TikTok. She listed “things in American supermarkets that would put Europeans into coma”.

Bread

Lucija was shocked to learn was ‘normal’ bread looks like in US supermarkets as she found endless rows of burger buns.

Typically, American families buy bread which lasts a longer time, rather than a fresh loaf like in many European stores. The bread sold in the US tends to have higher levels of added sugar, preservatives, and dough conditioners, particularly when compared to bread sold in the UK. These ingredients are used to extend shelf life and enhance sweetness.

Our sister site, Daily Express, previously reported that in an investigation is was discovered that a standard-sized loaf of Warburtons contains 17g of sugar, whereas the same-sized loaf of Wonder bread packs a staggering 50g of sugar.

“USA, the land of sugar and additives,” commented one individual on the post. “American bread is anything but normal,” wrote another.

READ MORE: B&M shoppers left divided after discovery on shelves that’s ‘ruining Christmas’

Size of portions

Lucija could not get over how big a bag of popcorn is in supermarkets – or the unique flavours like cheddar cheese flavoured popcorn. “Cheddar cheese popcorn… I feel sick,” commented one individual.

She was also gobsmacked by a “lifetime supply” of Vaseline in a giant tub that is bigger than her hand.

One American pointed out: “US is a big country everything is far each other unless you live in the city. They don’t like to go out every time to go to the store. They like to store food that last. Weeks or months that’s why they sell it big portion.”

Another agreed and shared: “The root cultural difference is that America is too damn big. for most people, grocery store is too far away. European countries smaller, grocery stores are closer. Europeans more likely (or more capable of) going grocery multiple times/week. Americans want to go once a week or less.”

“When people buy food to last a week, not a singular meal,” said another. One other insisted: “Oh come on Balkan families would be excited to use products with that size.”

Cookie-flavoured bath products

Lucija was shocked after she spotted the Dove Crumbl cookie flavoured bath and shower products she spotted in supermarkets. “I have no words for this one,” she said.

Earlier this year the Crumbl company, which has become one of the fastest selling dessert chains in the US, collaborated with Dove to roll out dessert-scented body washes, hand washes, and body scrubs. The three scents are Confetti Cake, Lemon Glaze, and Strawberry Crumb Cake.

“What/s wrong with the Dove one? It’s just a selection of scents,” added another. “The Dove is the greatest of all time, I want that in Europe,” insisted another.

Bright orange Fanta

“ORANGE Fanta,” wrote Lucija in her baffled post.

There’s nothing like tucking into a cold Fanta on a warm day, but in many European countries, the colour of the treat looks a lot different to other continents. While in the UK and other European countries, it looks light a deep yellow or light orange, in the US it is a bright and bold orange colour. The colour varies because of the ingredients used and regulations.

One US-based Redditor shared their experience drinking the fizzy beverage in Europe, explaining the colour difference was due to different ingredients and varying levels of sugar content. “Fanta in Italy has no dyes or artificial flavours,” they wrote, alongside a photo of the pale yellow drink

They added: “Slightly less sugary and a bit more tangy. It’s the same soda only by name.”

One other commented: “You’re so right about everything but I will not accept Fanta slander. Fanta in Europe is just sparkling orange juice.”

Another shared: “I’m from the Maldives and the Fanta here has the same neon orange colon, isn’t it supposed to be like that?”

“I am from an African country and orange Fanta is so nice but once you move to a European country their Fanta is just disgusting,” another insisted.

Skittles drinks

Lucija was shocked to see what she has dubbed “radioactive soda” after she found Skittles drinks on the shelves of US supermarkets. She found a purple, red and green version of the beverage.

Pre-made hard boiled eggs

Lucija could not believe her eyes as she saw 12 hard boiled eggs in a sealed plastic, grab-and-go bag. “Just ew,” she wrote.

“Hard boiled eggs? Can’t you just boil them by yourself?” commented one confused individual.

Another shocked person said: “HARD BOILED EGGS IN A BAG!? I wonder how it smells when you open that hard boiled bag.”