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Times
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
The charming Deep South city with movie-star good looks
Positioned around a series of garden squares, Savannah is one of those rare US cities that is easy to explore on foot. Built in 1733 as the capital of the thirteenth American colony established by Britain, Georgia's oldest settlement survived the Revolutionary and Civil wars — and still manages to look radiant. With its oil lamps, ornamental ironwork and oak trees dripping with spooky Spanish moss, it's so quintessentially Southern that Hollywood loves it, having used it as a location for plenty of films, including Forrest Gump. But there's more to this Southern beauty than magnolia-scented boulevards and wraparound verandas. Take a guided tour of its mansions and you'll unearth tales of ghosts and pirates. Wander the 18th-century harbourfront and you'll find paddle steamers, jazz cruises and dolphins. Head to the nearby barrier islands and you'll swap cobbled streets for the gorgeous beach used in the Baywatch film. • Morning: Green-Meldrim House• Eat at: the Lost Square• Afternoon: First African Baptist Church• Drink at: Better than Sex• Evening: Savannah Hauntings Ghost Tour• Dinner: Common Restaurant • Morning: Tybee Island• Eat at: the Olde Pink House• Afternoon: Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters• Drink at: Congress Street Up• Evening: Savannah Riverboat Cruises• Dinner: Fleeting • Savannah is full of grand homes offering guided tours, but none charts the American story quite like the gothic-revival Green-Meldrim House. General Sherman of the Union Army made it his HQ while he burnt his way across the Confederate South; the future of newly emancipated slaves was first planned here; and one of its most scandalous residents made the iconic pink suit worn by Jackie Kennedy when her husband was shot (£12; • Jingle Bells, Methodism and the I Have a Dream speech all have origins in the pretty chapels of Savannah. But you should also check out the unassuming First African Baptist Church. Built by enslaved people and the site of kidnappings of 'free blacks', it has air holes in the floorboards that enabled hidden runaways to breathe before escaping to freedom in the north (£11; Whether you believe in the supernatural or not, a ghost tour of the 'most-haunted city' in America is a fun way to explore its dark past. You'll wander around graveyards cloaked in spooky Spanish moss and hear tales of dismembered soldiers, cruel slavers and the pirate abductions that inspired Treasure Island (£22; The Georgian coastline is dotted with barrier islands where locals go to relax, surf and kayak among dolphins. It's a 16-mile drive (about £25 by taxi) to the pier, crab shacks and dune-flanked lighthouse of Tybee Island. While there, check out the Marine Science Center, which can arrange everything from marsh treks to turtle-hatching walks (from £18; The guides at the Owens-Thomas House and Slave Quarters do a fantastic job of bringing to life this Regency mansion, with its grisly history of slavers and the enslaved. Upstairs, you'll swoon over its Gone With the Wind-style glamour (the place is a fantasy of marble, mahogany, gilt and Greco motifs); downstairs, you'll hear heartbreaking tales of floggings and family separations (£24; See Confederate ramparts, a shipwreck and maybe a dolphin or bald eagle on a 90-minute, Mississippi-style sunset cruise down the Savannah River. Some paddleship cruises include live jazz or gospel performances. The highlight, though, is the £5 peach cobbler and ice cream sold in paper cups — delicious (from £28; This casual, rooftop hangout in the wharfside district has a menu that is part Mediterranean tavern, part American sports bar. There is great red shrimp with harissa, Calabrian chicken wings and black-eyed pea falafel with pickled fresno, tzatziki and lettuce (small plates from £8; Some of the innuendoes on the menu of this seductively lit cocktail and dessert lounge would make the Carry On writers blush, but the mixologists are creative geniuses. Think peanut butter whisky served in a glass with a white-chocolate rim or spiced rum topped with a crunchy pecan pie crust –— naughty (cocktails from £6; If Raymond Blanc and Grandma Walton opened a restaurant, it might be something like this place, which serves hearty Southern comfort food with a fancy European twist. Try fusion dishes such as short-rib ravioli, gumbo risotto, fried-green-tomato caprese and traditional shrimp and grits served with pancetta and hondashi aioli (mains from £16; • Read our full guide to the United States Back in the city, American favourites are served beneath grand chandeliers and portraits of wigged grandees at this white-tableclothed stalwart. Crowd-pleasing dishes are put together with a creative flourish — such as the chicken and sweet potato, which comes with a pecan-vanilla butter, and crispy flounder topped with a sweet apricot and shallot sauce (mains from £14; You'll hear how the founder of Savannah accidentally killed a man in a bar fight (and later tried to ban alcohol) as you make your way through the only Prohibition museum in America to drink moonshine boilermakers and French 75s in this easy-mingling speakeasy (£23 including a cocktail; This swish, open-kitchen restaurant draws inspiration from the state's natural pantry, with lots of seafood, wild herbs and seasonal veg. Come during one of the regular pop-up evenings, when chefs don trucker caps and champion nose-to-tail cooking using trotters, snouts and less popular cuts (mains from £20; This article contains affiliate links that will earn us revenue Simple Southern charmBuilt on the site of John Wesley's former parsonage, the classy, no-nonsense Planters Inn is a short stroll from the riverfront, main shopping street and the best bars and restaurants. With four-poster beds, floral pelmets and freshly cut hydrangeas, it's elegant without being pretentious. Make sure that you're back at the lobby piano bar by 4.30pm for the free 'Communion wine' and cheese (room-only doubles from £105; Sleek urban oasisThis former power plant on the waterfront is Savannah's answer to Battersea, with art displays and upscale shops and restaurants in its turbine room. The suites are incredibly sexy, offsetting the industrial aesthetics with touches of purple crushed velvet and polished marble. Its rooftop cocktail bars and poolside cabanas, however, are as far removed from south London as you can get (room-only doubles from £228; • 10 of the most beautiful places in America Ice-cool retreatThis hotel-cum-members' club feels more Miami than Savannah, with its peach-and-green palette, palm-lined pool and chill-out bar. There are suite-like rooms, a stunning bird-cage atrium, a brooding cocktail lounge and one of the city's top restaurants, Saint Bibiana. There's also a huge gym and vitamin IV drips at the spa, in case you're not quite ready to strut around the pool (B&B doubles from £279; Virgin and British Airways fly via Atlanta or New York to Savannah airport, from where it's an £18 taxi ride into the city. Savannah is a doddle to explore by foot, but there are also free trolley buses and hop-on, hop-off tours (from £30; If you want to extend your journey through the historic South there are twice-daily trains between Savannah and Charleston in South Carolina. The journey takes 90 minutes and costs from £21 one Edwards was a guest of Visit Savannah ( and Savannah/Hilton Head airport ( Have you visited Savannah? Share your memories in the comments
Straits Times
7 days ago
- Health
- Straits Times
US couple welcomes baby boy from embryo frozen for nearly 31 years
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox Thaddeus Daniel Pierce began as an embryo in 1994, the same year that Forrest Gump hit theatres and the first PlayStation. Thaddeus Daniel Pierce took his first breaths at a hospital in Knoxville, Tennessee, on July 26. He weighed 3kg, had a modest tuft of hair, and technically was already more than 30 years old. His life began as an embryo in 1994, the same year that Forrest Gump hit theatres and the first PlayStation appeared on store shelves. Thaddeus had spent the intervening 11,148 days in cold storage, a tiny time capsule in liquid nitrogen, before being adopted by Ms Lindsey Pierce, 35, and Mr Tim Pierce, 34, from Ohio. The Pierces' son is believed to be the result of the longest-frozen embryo ever brought to term. Ms Pierce said they 'weren't trying for a record'. 'We just wanted a baby,' she said. 'He is so chill. We are in awe that we have this precious baby.' The embryo belonged to Ms Linda Archerd, now 62, who in the 90s turned to in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) after fighting infertility for years. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore Opening of Woodlands Health has eased load on KTPH, sets standard for future hospitals: Ong Ye Kung Singapore New vehicular bridge connecting Punggol Central and Seletar Link to open on Aug 3 Singapore New S'pore jobs portal launched for North West District residents looking for work near home Singapore HSA investigating teen who was observed to be allegedly vaping in MRT train Asia KTM plans new passenger rail service in Johor Bahru to manage higher footfall expected from RTS Singapore Tengah facility with over 40 animal shelters, businesses hit by ticks Business Property 'decoupling' illegal if done solely to avoid taxes: High Court Singapore 60 years of building Singapore Back then, the ability to freeze and thaw embryos was still something of a frontier. Ms Archerd's IVF treatments resulted in four embryos, and she had intended to use them all. The first one led to a daughter, but a divorce later left the remaining three suspended not only in nitrogen but also in limbo. For years, Ms Archerd paid the storage fees, first dutifully, then guiltily. 'I used to think of them as three little hopes,' she said. Eventually, she founded Snowflakes, a Christian-oriented embryo-adoption programme that lets donors choose adoptive families and maintain some degree of openness. It offered a compromise between letting the embryos expire and the more abstract anonymity of donation. Embryo adoption remains rare. Just 2 per cent of US births involve IVF, and an even smaller fraction involve embryos that began as someone else's. Meanwhile, an estimated 1.5 million embryos sit in freezers across the United States, awaiting either a second chance or an administrative decision. What do to with 'leftovers'? Dr John David Gordon, the Pierces' fertility specialist, said the problem 'is that we're very good at making embryos, but we're not very good at deciding what to do with the leftovers'. Dr Gordon's clinic, Rejoice Fertility, is known for accepting even the most geriatric embryos, sometimes shipped across the US in ageing containers. Of the three embryos that Ms Archerd donated to the Pierces, one did not survive the thaw. Two were transferred to Ms Pierce, and one was implanted. That single embryo – older than some of the nurses in the delivery room – became a living child. The achievement comes against a shifting legal backdrop. Earlier in 2024, Alabama's Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are legally equivalent to children, briefly throwing IVF clinics into panic. Legislators have since offered temporary liability protections, but the question of how to treat embryos – ethically, legally, emotionally – remains unsettled. Ms Archerd says she feels relief, mixed with a kind of melancholy. She has received photos of the boy from the Pierces and hopes one day to meet him. 'I would love to see him,' she said. 'Just to know that he's real, and that my little hopes are out in the world.'
Indian Express
01-08-2025
- General
- Indian Express
As I look back, I'm grateful for those ‘bad' grades. Resilience is built in the cracks of imperfection
By Siddharth Chatterjee The headlines are jarring. Every year, countless Indian students, crushed by the weight of poor exam scores and the pressure to secure a spot in a 'top' university, choose to end their lives. It is a tragedy rooted in a dangerous myth: That success is a straight line drawn by report cards, and failure to measure up in academics is a life sentence of worthlessness. But I am living proof that this could not be further from the truth. My school years were a litany of 'not good enough.' Academically, I lagged behind peers; numbers and formulas slipped through my grasp like sand. Sports? A disaster. I couldn't run a mile without gasping, let alone hit a cricket ball. When my 10th class board results arrived, they were underwhelming, to put it mildly. Teachers shook their heads; relatives whispered. In a culture that equates marks with merit, I was written off as a lost cause. But here's what no one saw: A quiet stubbornness. I refused to let a scorecard define me. My dream was the National Defence Academy (NDA), a place that valued grit as much as grades. The first attempt? Failure. The second? I scraped through, not because I'd suddenly become a genius, but because I'd learned to outwork self-doubt. At NDA, my grades remained mediocre. I struggled with lectures, often staying up late to decode lessons others grasped easily. But I showed up — for drills, for team exercises, for the early mornings when quitting felt easier than pushing on. Tenacity, I realised, was my superpower. Graduating from the NDA and the Indian Military Academy was my Forrest Gump moment — the kind of unscripted, seismic shift that makes you realise life's most defining chapters often arrive without warning. Then came the leap into an elite Special Forces unit, and something clicked: I started to excel, suddenly, almost effortlessly. It was as if an invisible force was guiding my steps, pushing me beyond every limit I'd once known. And when the gallantry award came, they felt less like an end and more like a marker — proof that sometimes, when you surrender to the journey, the path finds you. But destiny's unseen hand had other designs. A quiet, gnawing unrest took root in me — a subconscious doubt about using arms to muffle dissent. It began in Nagaland, where years of grinding counterinsurgency felt like a cycle without purpose, a fight that yielded little beyond weariness. I couldn't shake the conviction that this wasn't the path I was meant to walk. So I stepped away from the Army. And in that choice, a new chapter began: As a junior security officer with the United Nations, trading the familiar rhythm of uniformed service for a role that felt, in its own way, just as vital — though vastly different. I quickly understood that to thrive and advance in my work with the UN, I'd need to dig deeper — pursue more education, arm myself with greater knowledge. Stagnation wasn't an option; growth, in this arena, demanded a deliberate commitment to learning, a choice to keep expanding the boundaries of what I knew. I decided to apply to Princeton University, friends laughed. 'You? An Ivy League?' they said. My academic record was far from stellar, but I wrote about resilience in my essays — the nights I'd studied by candlelight after a power cut, the way I'd led a team project despite not being the smartest in the room. I got in, not because of perfect grades, but because I'd learned to frame my story around growth, not gaps. Life after that? A 12-year career in the Army, where discipline and adaptability mattered more than report cards. Then 29 years with the UN, rising to become its top diplomat in China. None of this was possible because I aced exams. It was possible because I kept going — even when I felt unworthy, even when the world said I'd peaked. What carried me through? Four pillars. One, tenacity. Success is rarely a sprint. It's showing up, again and again, even when progress is invisible. Two, self-belief. I stopped waiting for others to validate me. I chose to trust that my worth wasn't tied to a percentile. Three, mindfulness: When stress threatened to overwhelm, I learned to breathe, to focus on the now instead of rehashing failures. A five-minute pause to center myself became non-negotiable. And four, positive affirmations: 'I am more than my mistakes' became a daily mantra. It wasn't denial—it was a reminder that setbacks are detours, not dead ends. To the students drowning in the pressure of scores: Your life is a book, not a single test. The pages ahead hold chapters no exam can predict. I failed more times than I can count, but I never stopped turning the page. Today, as I look back, I'm grateful for those 'bad' grades. They taught me that resilience is built in the cracks of imperfection. So don't quit. Not when the world doubts you. Not when the scorecard screams 'no.' Your story isn't written yet—and tenacity, not marks, will be its boldest ink. Never give up. Your greatest victories are waiting, just beyond the next try. The writer is UN Resident Coordinator to China
New York Post
30-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
How bureaucrats torture the little guy — and trample our rights
Americans like licenses. People think they make us safer. We license drivers. We license dogs. But most government licensing is useless. Or harmful. It limits competition, raises costs, leaves consumers with fewer choices and blocks opportunity for people who want to work. Michelle Freenor, a tour guide in Savannah, Ga., gets good reviews from customers. But her business almost didn't get off the ground because local politicians said, 'No one can be a tour guide without first getting a government license.' Bill Durrence, a Savannah alderman at the time, told me why it's important. 'I hear a lot of tour guides saying things that make me cringe. The licensing and testing I thought was a good idea just to make sure people had the accurate information.' While they were at it, the politicians added other requirements. Anyone who wanted to give tours had to get a criminal background check including urine and blood samples, take a physical fitness test, pay fees to the city and pass a difficult history test. 'A college-level history exam with tons of obscure, gotcha questions,' Freenor told me. 'It could be three to five months of studying and studying. It was 120 pages!' Ironically, the test asked no questions about subjects covered by the most popular Savannah tours — ghost tours and 'Forrest Gump' tours (the movie's bench scenes were filmed in the city). Freenor complained to a city official: 'There's no ghost questions on this test!' His response: 'Ghosts aren't real.' Why would a city pass rules that block people merely from speaking? 'The city was making a nice amount of money for people failing this,' said Freenor. When I confronted Alderman Durrence about this, he admitted, 'There were a couple of points that maybe went a little too far in the licensing process. Having to have the physical exam periodically. Maybe the cost of the test.' But he's a big fan of regulation. 'Little by little,' he said, 'we've managed to get control of some things, but we still don't have control over a lot.' Keep up with today's most important news Stay up on the very latest with Evening Update. Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters What? They control much too much. With the help of the libertarian law firm the Institute for Justice, Freenor sued Savannah and won. Now Savannah has no licensing rule. Washington, DC, killed its rule after IJ sued, too. IJ also won in Philadelphia and Charleston, where a court ruled that the licensing requirement was unconstitutional because, as IJ attorney Robert McNamara put it, 'The First Amendment protects your right to speak for a living, whether you're a journalist, a comedian or a tour guide.' Good point. My point is we don't need most of these complex consumer protection laws. Competition alone protects customers. Freenor says it well: 'The free market is taking care of itself. Bad tour companies don't last.' Exactly: A competitive market helps consumers much more than licensing laws ever will. If such laws were once needed (they weren't), they definitely aren't needed now that the Internet exists, because it's so easy for consumers to learn about what's good and what's not. But politicians always want more control over us. Eight years have passed since the Institute for Justice fought Freenor's case. Despite their victories in court, cities like New Orleans and my home New York City still have tour-guide-licensing rules. New York guides are told to pass a 150-question exam. Many tour guides ignore the rules, knowing bureaucrats are not likely to enforce them. That expands the 'illegal' underground economy, inviting actual harm. Government's rules almost always have nasty unintended consequences. Licensing bureaucrats should regulate much less. We're supposedly free people. It should be up to us how we spend our money. John Stossel is the author of 'Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media.'
Daily Mirror
27-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Tom Hanks' 'best performance of his career' now ready to watch on BBC iPlayer
A Tom Hanks film with "relentless tension" has been released on BBC iPlayer, more than a decade after it made its global debut. Tom Hanks delivers "one of the best performances of his career" in a "relentlessly intense" thriller now available on BBC iPlayer. From Big and Castaway to Saving Private Ryan and Forrest Gump, Tom Hanks is a Hollywood icon with a career spanning over four decades. However, it was in October 2013 that Hanks made a triumphant return to the silver screen in the action-packed thriller Captain Phillips. Based on true events, Captain Phillips tells the story of the 2009 hijacking of the US cargo ship Maersk Alabama by Somali pirates, with Hanks portraying the eponymous captain. Now, 12 years after its initial release, the Tom Hanks thriller can be watched for free. Captain Phillips was added to BBC iPlayer on Saturday, July 26, allowing fans to enjoy the film at their leisure without needing a subscription. All that's needed to access the streaming service's content is a registered email address. The biographical drama received numerous award nominations, and actor Barkhad Abdi clinched the 2014 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Captain Phillips also resonated with audiences, earning an impressive 93% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Fans haven't been able to help themselves from praising for the gripping drama in the comments section. One viewer wrote: "A truly incredible suspense movie that'll have you on the edge of your seat. "From the moment the pirates arrive, it's tension filled until the very end. Tom Hanks' performance here is stellar." Another viewer concurred: "Captain Phillips is a movie of relentless tension but it's that final scene that makes it a great movie. "Tom Hanks delivers an outstanding performance throughout the running time but it's the finale that catapults him into a new acting league." Meanwhile, a third simply declared: "Tom Hanks puts on one of the best performances of his career in Captain Phillips.." Captain Phillips can be streamed on BBC iPlayer.
