Stand up on the plane too early? You could be risking a fine
This week in travel news: A park that's home to the real Batcave, Asia's underrated adventure destination, and a Canadian-American romance that happened in Mexico.
We all want to get off the plane as soon as it lands, but that can become a disorderly scramble, even before the aircraft has come to halt. Now the Turkish government has decided enough is enough.
A memo from the country's Directorate General of Civil Aviation says that passengers can be fined if they 'stand up, go to the corridor, open the overhead bins and proceed along the aisles … despite the announcements about the rules during taxi after landing, when the aircraft has not yet reached the parking position and the seat belt warning lights have not turned off.'
The amount of the fine was not mentioned, and it's unclear if anyone has actually been given one. But considering that IGA Istanbul Airport is the best connected airport in the world and this rule applies to all commercial flights entering the country, there are a lot of travelers who could potentially come under scrutiny.
Besides the people who stand up before the plane is safely at the gate, fines can also be issued to 'passengers who use or attempt to use smoke-producing devices or products (aka vapes) on the aircraft.'
Even if you live in an urban area, there are still ways to get out and enjoy the great outdoors this summer.
CNN's Sara Sidner finds happiness on horseback in LA's Griffith Park, which might just be the greatest city park in the US.
Among the highlights: a Merry-Go-Round that inspired a guy named Walt Disney to think about building a theme park, various hiking and biking trails, Griffith Observatory, the Los Angeles Zoo, and any number of spots where your favorite movies and TV shows were filmed — including the real Batcave from the original '60s TV show.
If your summer travel dreams take you farther afield, one Asian destination is becoming a major hub for wellness and outdoor pursuits.
Taiwan is home to an inviting mix of different landscapes. Locals flock to Sun Moon Lake and Taroko Gorge, but there are also 260 peaks over 3,000 meters (9,800 feet), plus beaches, campsites, hiking trails and scenic train rides to choose from.
Planning to get in the water this summer? Our friends at CNN Underscored, a product reviews and recommendations guide owned by CNN, have tried and tested the best one-piece swimsuits for women of all body types.
It sounds like the plot of a romcom: a Canadian librarian ran off with an American yacht captain during the heady summer of 1968.
But it's all true.
Beverly Carriveau and Bob Parsons met in Mazatlan, Mexico. She says that it was like 'a thunderbolt' when she first glimpsed Parsons through a window in the hotel gift shop.
Later, he sent a bottle of white wine over to the table where she was dining with her friend.
From there, it was history. The couple were married for 52 years until Parsons' death five years ago.
This is just one of the many stories of how travel can build lifelong connections. Check out Chance Encounters for more — or to submit one of your own.
A man lost an AirPod under his train seat.
It took 11 firefighters to rescue him — and the AirPod.
This Japanese airport got a Sanrio makeover.
Now landing at Hello Kitty International.
Southwest will start charging for checked bags.
Prices begin at $35.
New Zealand has named its 'bug of the year.'
It's an ancient worm that spits poison goo.
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Yahoo
31 minutes ago
- Yahoo
‘Time is of the essence': Pause on international student visa interviews sends schools on another Trump-induced scramble
At Mount Holyoke College, a liberal arts school some 90 miles west of Boston, administrators have few answers so far for their perspective international students who are no longer certain they will be allowed to study in the US. The Trump administration's order directing US missions to pause new visa interviews for international students has thrust schools into a scramble to assess the impact on institutions and their students. 'This is supposed to be a celebratory time where they're looking forward to coming to the United States, going here for their education, and suddenly, all of that's, you know, been thrown up in the air,' said Kavita Khory, a professor of politics at Mount Holyoke and director of the school's center for global initiatives. The women's college admitted 140 international students for the upcoming academic year, but only about 50 of those students have received their visas, Khory said. The majority are in limbo for appointments. 'And even if they have secured appointments, it's not clear that they'll get their visas,' Khory said. Mount Holyoke's situation is true for many colleges and universities. But with few answers, and amid heightened concerns about being critical of the Trump administration's actions, few schools are willing to discuss it. CNN reached out to 50 schools and heard from fewer than 10 about how they are handling this period of uncertainty. The half-dozen university officials who spoke with CNN, representing schools across the country, said it is too soon to assess the financial implications of the State Department directive on their schools. The lack of official answers surrounding the length of the pause has left students seeking guidance that schools are not able to provide. Stett Holbrook, a spokesperson for the University of California president's office, said the school system is 'very concerned' about the State Department's directive. About 9% of the system's 2024 undergraduate enrollees were international students. The timing isn't only problematic for students who are in the middle of their application or visa processes, but also for schools that are in the middle of their annual budget planning for next year. If they can't guarantee the revenue stream that international students will bring, that creates a ripple effect, from how many faculty members they have to how many janitors they keep on. 'Our international students and scholars are vital members of our university community and contribute greatly to our research, teaching, patient care and public service mission,' Holbrook said in a statement. 'It is critical that interviews resume as quickly as possible to ensure that applicants are able to go through the process and receive their visas on time so they can pursue their education.' Another aspect of the uncertainty is the potential for specific countries to be targeted differently. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said the US would 'aggressively' revoke visas for Chinese students. About 1 in 4 international students in the US are Chinese. 'We have followed every rule,' Zilin Ma, a recently graduated Harvard University PhD student from China, said on CNN's 'The Situation Room' on Wednesday. 'We have got our visa, we have passed all of the checks, and we have paid a ton of taxes in federal, state, and sometimes even Social Security that we may never benefit from.' 'We are contributing to the US scientific research, education and economy, and we shouldn't be the one facing uncertainty at this point,' Ma, whose work includes AI research, added. Other officials spoke to CNN on the condition that their name or institution not be published to give a frank assessment of the situation or avoid their school being singled out. 'I think the impact is dependent on how long the pause is,' one official who works in global initiatives at a research university on the East Coast said. 'If it's a few days, universities can withstand that, but this is a time of year when students make these appointments, have been accepted to these institutions and have accepted these institutions' offers.' The directive not only affects new students, but also current students who need to renew their visas, the official noted. 'Time is of the essence for these students,' the official said. 'The uncertainty piece of it is what's making it challenging.' An official at a different leading research university agreed and said: 'The damaging part of some of these policy announcements is how they're being rolled out.' The administration, they said, does 'not provide clarity for actual informed decision-making.' Asked on Friday how long the pause is expected to last, the State Department referred CNN to an earlier press briefing by its spokesperson, Tammy Bruce. During that briefing, Bruce declined to give specifics on a timeline, but said more guidance would be released in the coming days. 'The Trump administration is focused on protecting our nation and our citizens by upholding the highest standards of national security and public safety through the visa process specifically,' said Bruce, who added that every visa adjudication is a 'national security decision.' The second university official said that beyond a potential financial hit, which won't be as burdensome at their school because of its size, they fear the policy will impact recruitment and the school's reputation internationally. 'There is sort of a chilling effect,' the official said. The move comes as President Donald Trump has pressured institutions of higher learning into falling in line with the administration's policies and vision for how their schools should be run. The bulk of the administration's recent actions against colleges have focused on elite universities like Harvard, where the administration first moved last month to prevent the school from enrolling international students. Harvard sued to stop the order targeting its international students from taking effect, and a judge temporarily paused the prohibition. That order does not impact the latest State Department directive to US missions to pause visa interviews for students. But the new directive could have wider implications: More than 1.1 million international students lived in the United States during the 2023-2024 school year, according to the nonprofit NAFSA: Association of International Educators. The group's analysis found that those students contributed nearly $44 billion to the US economy during the 2023-2024 academic year. 'International students already represent the most tracked and vetted category of nonimmigrants in the United States,' the nonprofit's executive director and CEO, Fanta Aw, said in a statement. 'It is a poor use of taxpayer dollars to devote resources to screening students who are already subject to extensive background checks, while business visitors and tourists are not tracked at all.' Trump has suggested that if schools like Harvard accept fewer international students, more domestic students would take their place. But Khory, from Mount Holyoke, said it's not that simple. 'It's not the zero-sum game the way the Trump administration has been presenting it, 'If you have fewer international students, you will bring in more domestic students.' That's not how this sort of works,' she said, adding that's particularly true in the near future, when students can't be immediately recruited to replace those who are lost. A former university official described three buckets of anxiety being felt by universities: the revenue impact, the talent impact and the human impact. Small, private universities without large endowments are in the most precarious positions, this former official said, as public schools often have the ability to go to their state to fill revenue shortfalls. On the talent impact, graduate schools will take more of a hit than undergraduate colleges. At the graduate level, foreign students are a critical part of the machinery. They are the teaching assistants, the researchers, the grant writers — and the next generation of professors. 'If those students can't or won't come, some graduate programs could collapse,' the former official said. And regarding the human impact: Students are members of campus communities. Graduate programs can take years — five, six or seven, in some instances — to complete. 'Everyone is anxious for friends and colleagues,' the former official said. There is also the long-term worry about brain drain and competition. 'These universities are not just in competition for talent with other US universities,' the former official said. 'There is a short-sightedness to this that university administrators are really feeling as well: 'Will we be able to be the place for global talent to come if they can't or don't feel comfortable for the US?'' Karen Edwards, dean of international student affairs and exchange visitors at Grinnell College in Iowa, lamented that the political climate in the US may deter prospective international students. That shift, she said, runs contrary to the mission of her 30-year career. 'It really breaks my heart,' Edwards said, 'to think that we wouldn't see the incredible value in enhancing the presence of global learning and international education, international students in our classroom — as opposed to, you know, fighting against it.' CNN's Maria Moctezuma contributed.
The Hill
33 minutes ago
- The Hill
Too little, too late: A media in crisis blames Democrats for the Biden cover-up
In May 2025, days before it was announced that former President Biden had been diagnosed with cancer, NBC ran a sensational headline: 'Biden didn't recognize George Clooney at June fundraiser: new book.' It cited 'Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,' co-authored by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios's Alex Thompson, detailing how the president's team concealed his cognitive and physical decline — and raising ethical questions about transparency. Tapper now claims that the White House 'was lying … to the press, the public, their own Cabinet.' But as a journalist, Tapper's surprise is both revealing and disingenuous. His book shifts blame to Democrats, ignoring how the media aided the cover-up. It's the latest in a string of reputation-saving moves from a media industry in crisis. Credibility in journalism — hard to earn, easy to lose — once demanded rigorous objectivity. Olivia Nuzzi was fired from The New Yorker merely for private contact with RFK Jr., not even for proven bias. But such standards already seem archaic. During COVID-19, CNN's Chris Cuomo used his show to flatter his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), masking Andrew's deadly mismanagement of nursing homes and corruption, behind jokes about Q-tips. The abandonment of objectivity accelerated with Donald Trump's rise. In 2016, New York Times writer Jim Rutenberg and Univision's Jorge Ramos argued objectivity should give way to moral clarity. But this rationalization led to partisan reporting, such as the Russiagate exaggerations and slanted pandemic coverage. In trying to 'save democracy,' journalists undermined the very pillar that sustains it. By Biden's inauguration, the press seemed to have learned nothing. CNN's David Chalian likened spotlights to Biden's 'arms embracing America.' Wolf Blitzer said Biden 'put his soul' into his speech. NBC's Chuck Todd dubbed him 'the Better Angels president.' Meanwhile, the media dismissed or mocked concerns about Biden's mental acuity, even as video evidence suggested otherwise. Biden confused even basic facts — calling himself the 'first Black woman' to serve in the White House and declaring that 'I wouldn't have picked vice president Trump to be vice president,' not to mention his glitch at a concert and his lack of focus at a G-7 event. Each time, the press downplayed the issue. MSNBC dismissed cognitive concerns as 'hysteria' and used terms like 'cheap fakes' to discredit video evidence. Others, such as The View's Whoopi Goldberg, dismissed the importance of the president's cognitive abilities, and exclaimed that she does not care 'if he's pooped his pants,' she is voting for him anyway. Similarly, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough responded to those questioning Biden's cognitive ability with an 'F you' on the air. Scarborough had argued a mere three months before the debate that Biden 'is far beyond cogent … in fact, I think he is better than he has ever been,' and this is 'the best Biden ever.' This dismissal continued even after a Department of Justice investigator, Robert Hur, described Biden as a 'well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.' In response, media personalities attacked Hur instead of engaging with the facts. However, now new audio has leaked of the interviews, giving weight to Hur's contention that Biden behaved like an unfocused and confused elder. Biden's disastrous June 2024 debate, where he blanked mid-sentence and claimed 'We finally beat Medicare,' ended the charade. He soon dropped out. When Kamala Harris's chaotic campaign also failed, media credibility cratered. MSNBC lost 61 percent of its key demographic post-election, while audiences turned to outlets like MeidasTouch. In response, some journalists tried rebranding. Chris Cuomo adopted populist critiques of both parties, conveniently forgetting his own CNN record. Tapper, meanwhile, portrays himself as deceived, positioning his book as a reckoning. But 'Original Sin' evades the real question: did this cover-up begin before the election? The answer is yes — and Tapper was part of it. Concerns about Biden's cognition emerged well before 2020. During a 2019 debate, Julián Castro asked the president if he was 'forgetting' his own statements. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) publicly worried about Biden's ability to 'carry the ball' without 'fumbling.' Yet the press framed criticisms as attacks on a childhood stutter. Around that same time, journalist Ryan Grim described Biden's debate performance as 'staggeringly incoherent.' -The press failed to adequately address these concerns until five years later. Even by 2020, the year of the election, the red flags were impossible to miss. Biden fabricated stories about being in a war zone, called a voter 'fat' for no apparent reason, told Charlamagne Tha God 'If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black' and misnamed his own campaign website as 'Joe 3-0-3-3-0' instead of These were just a few of the many moments, captured on video and widely shared on YouTube, that fueled concerns about Biden's cognitive decline before he ever took office. Tapper's interviews, so far, have conveniently sidestepped the question of whether this cover-up started before the election. For example, in 2020, just prior to the election, Lara Trump raised Biden's cognitive issues on Tapper's show. Tapper responded by dismissing her assertion, and scolded her for making children who stutter feel bad. The media knew Biden's mental decline was an issue in 2019. By 2020, it was impossible to ignore. But fearing a Bernie Sanders upset in the primary, Democrats and their media allies closed ranks. Tapper's post-facto outrage avoids this context — and his own complicity. Journalism isn't stenography. Blaming sources for lying ignores the journalist's job: to interrogate power, not merely repeat it. The public deserves better than a press that performs truth only when it's convenient. Now, with Trump back in office, journalists claim they'll be watchdogs again. But the public isn't buying it — not after watching the media abandon objectivity when it mattered most. Credibility, once lost, isn't easily reclaimed. And the damage isn't just to journalism, it's to democracy itself. Nolan Higdon is a founding member of the Critical Media Literacy Conference of the Americas, Project Censored National Judge and university lecturer at Merrill College and the Education Department at University of California, Santa Cruz. All of his work is available at Substack. He is the author of 'The Anatomy of Fake News: A Critical News Literacy Education,' 'Let's Agree to Disagree: A Critical Thinking Guide to Communication, Conflict Management, and Critical Media Literacy' and 'The Media And Me: A Guide To Critical Media Literacy For Young People.' Higdon is a regular source of expertise for CBS, NBC, The New York Times and The San Francisco Chronicle.
Miami Herald
34 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
Bill Clinton Weighs in on Joe Biden's Health
President Bill Clinton has weighed in on Joe Biden's health, saying he never doubted the former president's mental state once. Biden was diagnosed with an "aggressive form" of prostate cancer with metastasis to the bone, his office revealed on May 18, after Biden faced significant scrutiny over his health throughout his presidency and during his brief 2024 reelection campaign. The news has sparked speculation about whether Biden and the White House knew about his declining health earlier while carrying out a cover-up. But Clinton has said Biden was in "good shape" when he saw him last. "I saw President Biden not very long ago, and I thought he was in good shape," he told CBS Sunday Morning. "I had never seen him and walked away thinking, he can't do this anymore." He went to say that he had not read Original Sin, a book written by CNN journalist Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson in which several named insiders claim the former U.S. president was faltering physically and cognitively in a decline that was hidden from the American public. "I didn't want to because he's not president anymore, and I think he did a good job," Clinton said. "I think we are facing challenges today with our president in our history. And some people are trying to use this as a way to blame him for the fact that Trump was reelected." This is a developing story - more to follow. Related Articles Donald Trump Shares Baseless Conspiracy That Biden Was 'Executed in 2020'AOC Viewed Positively by More Americans Than Trump and Harris-PollWhite House Calls on Jill Biden to Testify to Congress Over 'Coverup'Jake Tapper Slams 'Left-Wing' Podcast for Joke About Son Wanting to Be Cop 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
