Latest news with #AARPTheMagazine
Perth Now
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
'It was mind-blowing': Jamie Lee Curtis cherished getting to sit in the front row at the Oscars
Jamie Lee Curtis "never thought" that she would get to sit in the front row at the Oscars. The 66-year-old star took home the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2023 for her part in the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once and recalled how the most exciting part of the ceremony was when she and her co-stars found out they would be sitting in prime position for the show. Jamie told AARP The Magazine: "As soon as Ke (Huy Quan) and Steph Hsu and Michelle Yeoh came and sat in the same row, I literally walked up to each one of them and I went, 'Ke, where are we?' And he said, 'We're at the Oscars.' 'And where are you sitting?' And he said, 'In the front row.' "(They) never, ever, ever thought that they would be sitting in the front row at the Academy Awards as nominees. That moment for me was the whole thing. It was mind-blowing. And still is." Jamie is the daughter of actors Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis and felt that her Oscars triumph was even more special as she had first-hand experience of the negative side of the industry. The Halloween actress said: "I was raised in show business, a business that is ageist, misogynist and pigeonholing. "I've watched the sad reality when show business no longer wants you. I watched it with my parents, who went from the height of their intense fame to nobody wanting them anymore." Jamie's latest movie is the body-swap sequel Freakier Friday with Lindsay Lohan and she credits her "constant curiosity" for allowing her acting career to flourish in her 60s. She said: "I am more alive today than I was when I was 37 years old. Or 47. Or 57. Way more alive." Jamie revealed recently that she isn't particularly picky about her career choices as she simply adores working in the movie industry. The True Lies star said: "I pretty much do the work that comes to me … I love my life. "I just love the fact that I get to be me, that I get to do what I do, that I get to do art and be a part of the art form that I get to be part of - entertainment. I love the combo platter of show business. I'm a marketing guru. I love marketing. And I just love the process of living a creating life. So I got no complaints."
USA Today
6 days ago
- Business
- USA Today
Whether by train, plane or dog sled, the US Postal Service has kept America connected
America's Founding Fathers had the foresight to recognize that an efficient postal service would be an essential tool of democracy. Odds are they didn't envision mailboxes stuffed with grocery ads, prescription medicines and AARP The Magazine. On Saturday, the United States Postal Service will mark 250 years of serving a mission unthwarted by rain, sleet, snow or gloom of night. A key mechanism of an informed citizenry, a building block of U.S. independence and a storied part of American culture, the agency has faithfully delivered letters nationwide, regardless of geographic distance, all for the price of a stamp — even as its challenges to do so without delay or a deficit have grown. 'The post office was created a year before the Declaration of Independence and has been there at every step along the American journey,' said Steve Kochersperger, the agency's postal historian. 'It goes everywhere Americans have gone and keeps us united.' To name a small handful of those who have carried mail to your door: Walt Disney; actors Morgan Freeman, Steve Carell and Rock Hudson; folk singer John Prine, jazz bassist Charles Mingus, vocalist Jason Mraz and guitarist Ace Frehley, a founding member of KISS. But just as it did more than two centuries ago, the postal service faces danger and uncertainty, this time in the face of financial and logistical challenges that threaten to see it privatized or merged with the U.S. Department of Commerce. Such a merger was proposed earlier this year by President Donald Trump, who called USPS "a tremendous loser for this country." According to the U.S. General Accountability Office, the agency has operated at a deficit for the last 15 years, with a net loss of $100 billion since 2007. Meanwhile, costs are outpacing revenue as once dependable First-Class Mail has fallen in volume, among other factors. In spite of its troubles, the postal service trails only the National Park Service in terms of public favor, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey. Meanwhile, the agency's new postmaster general, David Steiner, assured postal employees in a video address last week that he supported keeping the agency in its current form. "I do not believe that the Postal Service should be privatized or that it should become an appropriated part of the federal government," he said. "I believe in the current structure of the Postal Service as a self-financing, independent entity of the executive branch." Today, according to its website, the postal service serves nearly 169 million addresses nationwide with a staff of 640,000, the bulk of them career workers, and a fleet of almost 258,000 vehicles. In 2024, the agency handled more than 116 billion pieces of mail, most of it so-called junk mail. 'It was conceived as an expansive public service,' said Cameron Blevins, a professor of history and digital humanities at the University of Colorado Denver. 'It has changed a lot over its history, but that dedication to providing a service to American citizens, regardless of where you live, has been there since the beginning.' On Wednesday, USPS is marking its milestone with two separate stamp releases, including a Forever series depicting a mail carrier on her community rounds and a modern interpretation of a 5-cent stamp, first issued in 1847, that portrays Benjamin Franklin, the nation's first postmaster general. The agency's role is cited in the U.S. Constitution in a clause empowering Congress to establish post offices and their delivery infrastructure. At the time, American democracy was still an experiment in a world of monarchs and empires, dependent on a free exchange of ideas. 'Democracy needed to have informed voters and the post office was integral in making sure they had the information they needed,' said Christopher Shaw, author of 'First Class: The USPS, Democracy and the Corporate Threat.' Notable figures have labored in its service. President Abraham Lincoln served as a local postmaster before pursuing law and politics; so too did Nobel Prize-winning American novelist William Faulkner, though not as effectively. 'He preferred playing cards or leaving early to go golf,' Kochersperger said of Faulkner. While its delivery modes, offerings and workforce have changed throughout the years, its basic mission of ensuring an informed and connected public has not. That tradition endures as books, magazines and newspapers continue to enjoy reduced shipping rates; so do mailings by charities and other nonprofit organizations like arts entities and political advocacy groups. 'If you look at post-Second World War social movements – the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, all those organizations – the main way they raised money and let supporters know what was happening was through the mail,' Shaw said. 'So historically, it's been a bedrock of democracy and getting information.' The agency's role was crucial from the beginning, Kochersperger said. In 1775, as the fight for American independence began, the Second Continental Congress appointed George Washington as commander in chief of the Continental Army. But how to communicate with its military? The American revolutionaries couldn't very well use British-established postal channels for correspondence that would have been seen as treasonous. 'They needed a postal service, so they picked Benjamin Franklin to head that up,' Kochersperger said. Franklin, who'd spent nearly four decades as Philadelphia's postmaster, had a genius for efficiency, Kochersperger said. He devised a system in which military correspondence was delivered by messengers on foot and riders on horseback, forging a major advantage for colonial forces in their war against the British. 'The same orders from London would take two months,' Kochersperger said. 'The postal service was crucial to American independence.' A vital part of Western expansion In 1848, as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico bequeathed half of its territory following a U.S. war of aggression against its southern neighbor. The U.S. gained what is now California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and parts of four other states. Hundreds of thousands of people streamed into the American West, said Blevins of CU Denver, many pursuing newly discovered gold in California, thousands of miles away from their communities and population centers in the East. Seeking to facilitate their communications with families, neighbors and business associates back home, the U.S. leaned on the postal service to do the job. The agency farmed out some duties to contractor operations such as the famed Pony Express, whose riders delivered mail on horseback from Missouri to California from 1860-61. As contracts and correspondence traveled back and forth across the miles, the postal service served as the connective tissue of Western expansion, carrying news of engagements and growing families, of business booms and busts. 'It did not discriminate on the basis of distance,' said Blevins, whose research focuses on role of the federal government in the American West of the 1800s. 'A gold miner who went to the fields of southwest Colorado, thousands of miles away from his family in say, Ohio, could mail a letter back home for the same price as his cousin living in Ohio a couple of counties away.' Many early post offices were not the familiar standalone government facilities staffed by uniformed workers familiar to people today. Instead, businesses such as general stores collected commissions in exchange for distributing incoming and outgoing mail. 'You would go in and buy flour or coffee,' Blevins said, 'and ask if you had any mail.' Sled dogs and hovercraft In the 1890s, postmaster general Jon Wanamaker, a former retail wizard, pushed for the postal service to expand free mail delivery service to rural areas and conceived the notion of commemorative stamps that people could collect and not necessarily use. Mail was delivered by stagecoach, steamboat and then railway, sorted on board moving trains. Other modes of delivery have included sled dogs, mules, reindeer and hovercraft, but the agency's most transformative upgrade occurred in 1918 with the development of airmail at a time when airports were still a budding concept. 'The post office had to build runways, install radios and train its own pilots,' Kochersperger said. In the 1920s, the postal service again relied on contractors to provide many of those services, forming the foundations of today's airline industry as some providers found they could boost profits by transporting people. 'That really helped kickstart aviation in this country,' Shaw said. 'The majority of early revenues, before passengers, came from transporting U.S. mail.' ZIP codes, introduced in 1963, allowed mail to be more efficiently sorted – and ultimately for American consumers and voters to be categorized and profiled. 'Try to do something today that doesn't involve a ZIP code,' Kochersperger said. 'You can't even order a pizza without a ZIP code.' Postal workers throughout the years have faced various degrees of peril. Franklin's revolutionary mail carriers faced capture by British soldiers. Frontier carriers dodged thieves and robbers. Weather, terrain and faulty equipment posed their own deadly obstacles; flying accidents claimed the lives of 34 airmail pilots from 1918 to 1927. Today, the most common danger is dogs. More than 6,000 dog bite incidents were recorded nationwide in 2024, USPS senior spokesman David Coleman said. 'The best ideals of American democracy' Until 1971, said author Shaw, the post office was a federal department that historically operated at a slight deficit. Postage accounted for most of its revenue, he said, with U.S. Treasury funds making up the difference. Under the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, the department was restructured as the United States Postal Service, an independent federal agency under executive control, with the idea that it would be self-funded. Recent decades have brought financial struggles, most notably the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which both limited how the agency could make money and required it to pay billions into a fund to finance future healthcare obligations for retirees. Then came the financial recession and the rise of online bill pay, both of which took a bite out of postal revenue. 'All these things kind of hit at once,' Shaw said. 'On the other side, expanding e-commerce has meant new revenues. There's less mail being delivered but more packages being delivered, so it has balanced out a bit.' While the post office still exists to provide information and communication, it's under more intense financial pressure to do so with Congress no longer offsetting its shortfalls. That has prompted talk of privatization, a move Shaw fears would inhibit the agency's ability to adapt with the times. 'The post office provides a lot of economically inefficient services,' Shaw said. 'A for-profit company would not want to be delivering mail to the most rural Americans. But because the mission of the postal service is to bind the nation together, it provides universal service to everyone.' In that sense, Shaw said, part of the postal service's ongoing legacy is that whatever its flaws, it still embodies the nation's democratic ideals. 'The federal government through the postal service commits to serving everybody equally whether you're rich or poor, rural or urban, whether you live in Alaska or New York City,' he said. 'It's been an expression of the best ideals of American democracy and demonstrated the ability of the government to actually deliver on that promise…. It's still around, and for an institution to exist for 250 years shows there's a reason for it to exist and that it's doing something right.'
Metro
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Hollywood legend, 80, reveals why he has 'no real intentions' of acting again
Michael Douglas has explained why he hasn't taken up an acting role since 2022 after a career spanning six decades. The 80-year-old actor has had an incredible career, appearing in iconic films including Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, Ant-Man, Franklin, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. After making his first on-screen appearance in 1966, the actor has explained why he thinks his 2025 role in Looking Through Water could be his last on-screen appearance. While at the conference at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic, Michael explained: 'I have not worked since 2022 purposefully because I realised I had to stop. 'I had been working pretty hard for almost 60 years, and I did not want to be one of those people who dropped dead on the set. I have no real intentions of going back,' he said per Variety. He clarified: 'I say I'm not retired because if something special came up, I'd go back, but otherwise, no.' He then added that he does have 'one little independent movie' that he is 'trying to get a script out of'. But he concluded by saying that in the spirit of maintaining a good marriage,' he is 'happy to play the wife' to his partner Catherine Zeta-Jones. While at the conference, he also spoke about his tongue and throat cancer diagnosis in 2010 that he previously attributed to stress, his previous alcohol abuse, and years of heavy smoking. 'Stage four cancer is not a holiday, but there aren't many choices, are there?,'he said. 'I went with the program, involving chemo and radiation, and was fortunate. He added that had he needed surgery, his career would have been impacted: 'The surgery would have meant not being able to talk and removing part of my jaw, and that would have been limiting as an actor.' The actor has previously said that fatherhood is his priority rather than his career, as it once was. 'My career was the most important thing in my life, followed by marriage and children,' Michael told AARP The Magazine in 2010. 'And it's completely reversed now. I never anticipated starting a family and the joy of raising kids at my age.' More Trending The actor has three children: a son named Cameron, 46, from his first marriage to Diandra Luker, another son named Dylan Michael, 24, and a daughter named Carys Zeta, 22, from his second marriage to Catherine Zeta-Jones. In 2010, he also told The Guardian: 'During my first marriage, my career was the most important thing in my life. 'I clearly know I made mistakes. There were absences. My eldest son, Cameron, is in the middle of a very, very difficult and tragic time. Cameron has made a couple of big mistakes in his life. He's paid the price. On the other side of it, he's sober. The kids really miss him, and he misses them. I've taken them to visit. 'Now that my own priorities are entirely different, I'm always encouraging people to wait to have a family – get yourself sorted career-wise first as much as you can.' Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you.
USA Today
21-06-2025
- Business
- USA Today
Dump your spouse, not your assets: 7 tips for surviving 'gray divorce'
For a midlife man or woman trapped in a failing marriage, a 'gray divorce' can bring liberation. And financial ruin. A man can expect his standard of living to decline by 21% after a gray divorce. A woman's standard of living will plunge by 45%. Both partners see their wealth decline by half. Despite those perils, the divorce rate has doubled since 1990 for Americans over 55. Women are more likely to initiate a gray divorce, researchers say. They also tend to fare worse financially after the split. Here are seven tips for managing your finances in a gray divorce, from AARP and other expert sources. Don't expect the same lifestyle after a gray divorce In a divorce, spouses typically split their assets. After the breakup, however, don't expect your monthly expenses to go down by half. Each partner will now likely face separate housing payments, utility bills and insurance premiums. 'It's really starting over with basic financial planning 101,' said Michelle Crumm, a certified financial planner in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The lifestyle adjustment can be especially brutal for women, who often stay in the family home, but with a vastly diminished income. 'And they can't afford the house, and they can't afford the three pets that they have,' said Niv Persaud, a certified financial planner in Atlanta. Don't get hung up on the family home In a common gray divorce scenario, one partner keeps the home and gives up a trove of other assets to stay there. That can be a mistake, experts say. Homes aren't the same as money in the bank. They're costly to maintain. The partner who gets the home can wind up house poor. 'A lot of times, people want to stay in the family home for sentimental reasons,' said George Mannes, executive editor at AARP The Magazine. 'But it can be a trap.' Remember: You're still going to retire Retirement savings loom large in gray divorces. 'Generally speaking, what most people have is retirement accounts and equity in their home,' said Monica Dwyer, a certified financial planner in West Chester, Ohio. Just like the family home, retirement accounts 'tend to elicit strong emotions, particularly from the spouse whose name is on the account,' Diane Harris writes in an AARP report on gray divorce. In divorce, a couple's collective retirement savings may be redistributed into equitable shares, one for each partner. But how that works depends on where you live. In any of nine 'community property' states, the court splits the assets down the middle, according to Investopedia. In more numerous 'equitable distribution' states, the court divides the assets equitably, but not necessarily down the middle. Financial planners strongly recommend that divorcing couples complete a qualified domestic relations order, or QDRO. It's a legal document that spells out how retirement savings are divided. The form 'can be great,' Dwyer said, as a tool for dividing other assets in divorce. A spouse who receives funds under a QDRO generally doesn't pay a tax penalty for withdrawing them. Don't assume all assets are equal When divorcing spouses are deciding how to divvy up assets, a financial adviser can play a crucial role in divining what different assets are actually worth. For example: $500,000 in a bank account is more valuable than the same amount in a 401(k). Why? Because the retirement savings have not yet been taxed as income, and withdrawing them early can trigger a penalty. By the same token, $500,000 in a Roth IRA is worth 'a ton more' than the same amount in a traditional IRA, Crumm said: The Roth funds have already been taxed. Diamonds are forever. Alimony is not. Alimony is generally awarded in divorce to a spouse who earned less, to help them keep up the lifestyle they enjoyed during marriage. Alimony can be awarded more or less permanently, or until a spouse dies or remarries. But that arrangement is becoming far less common, AARP reports. While details vary from state to state, alimony 'is now typically designed to last just long enough for a lower-earning spouse to figure out how to become self-supporting,' Harris writes. Crumm, the Michigan financial planner, counsels her clients to save 'a good chunk' of their alimony payments. 'Alimony probably doesn't last forever,' she said. 'The person who's receiving the alimony is at a disadvantage if they aren't planning well. When that ends, it's a cliff.' Don't fight over prized possessions Many divorcing couples wage protracted feuds over cherished possessions: Keeping a favorite painting for yourself, or punishing your ex-spouse by taking it away. For a divorcing spouse who really wants to antagonize a sports fan, 'you go after the football tickets,' Crumm said. She has seen couples spar over seats at Michigan Wolverines games. When spouses can't agree on who gets what, the judge decides, and that scenario often doesn't end well. 'You're punishing yourself when you go to court, really,' Dwyer said. A better solution, she said, is to divide marital assets through mediation or 'collaborative law,' striving for a settlement outside of court. Get on with your life You aren't just divorcing your spouse: You're also divorcing yourself from their finances. Take care to remove a former spouse from your financial accounts, experts say. Change beneficiary designations on investment accounts and insurance policies to ensure your ex doesn't inherit your stuff by mistake. A divorcing spouse may need to rebuild their credit, especially if most accounts were in the ex's name. 'Be extra careful about credit cards that you have shared,' said Mannes of AARP. 'Make sure your spouse doesn't keep the account open.' It's also a good idea to monitor your credit report, Dwyer said, to make sure a former partner's history doesn't muddy your own. 'Your ex does have your Social Security number,' she said. 'If we're talking about somebody who had a problem with gambling, if we're talking about somebody who has a spending problem, then you want to lock everything down, split everything up.'
Irish Daily Mirror
01-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Daily Mirror
Helen Mirren issues four-word verdict on romance with Liam Neeson
Hollywood legend Helen Mirren, 77, has candidly reflected on her bygone romance with cinema heavyweight Liam Neeson, 70. The duo, who shared a four-year love story over three decades ago, have since acknowledged that their relationship was "not meant to be" even though Mirren fondly recalls Neeson as "amazing". While discussing her unique habit of crafting custom shirts for her beaus, Helen confessed: "I did make one for Liam, oddly enough. We loved each other. We were not meant to be together in that way, but we loved each other very, very much. "I love him deeply to this day. He's such an amazing guy," the distinguished actress divulged in a heartfelt chat with AARP The Magazine. The ex-lovers have openly spoken about their lasting connection, which was evident during a heartwarming get-together on The Graham Norton Show. Their 2018 appearance on the program saw them joyfully reflecting on their former flame. When the show's host, Graham, 59, inquired about their past liaison, Mirren didn't shy away from expressing how "lucky" she felt to have been involved with the Academy Award-nominated star, reports the Express. She gushed: "We didn't date, we lived together for four years. We were a serious item for a while. Lucky me!". Liam added his own charming anecdote: "Before I met her and we worked together I had read somewhere that if she fancied a guy she would imitate his walk behind his back and I turned around one day and she was doing that to me." The star of Taken opened up about being utterly enchanted by Helen Mirren from the moment they met on the set of the 1981 flick Excalibur. Liam nostalgically shared: "I remember being on the set and standing with Ciaran Hinds as Helen walked towards us dressed in her full Morgana Le Fey costume and we both went, 'Oh f**k' and I was smitten. I think Ciaran was too but I was very smitten!". Which prompted an entertaining comeback from Helen: "I never knew that. You've never told me that before, it's amazing." Yet fate had its own agenda for Helen, who ended up marrying American filmmaker Taylor Hackford in 1997. The two encountered each other shortly after Helen's breakthrough performance in The Long Good Friday, culminating in an audition with Hackford for his movie White Nights. The acclaimed actress, an Oscar winner for her role in The Queen, once amusingly pondered how playing this character may have influenced her nuptials. At the 2015 Gotham Awards where she received a lifetime achievement recognition, Helen captured everyone's attention with her speech. With her wit, she remarked: "I have to tell you a story about f------ the queen." During the Venice Film Festival showing of The Queen, Helen recounted: "When The Queen was first screened at Venice, I'd never seen it before, and neither had my husband Taylor. "In the first scene, I'm in full regalia, and I turn and look at the camera and there's silence in the cinema. And my husband lets out this huge laugh. So I lean over to him and say, 'Darling, do you think you'll ever f--k me again?'".
