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How to watch Katy Perry, Gayle King head to space
Blue Origin and USA TODAY will provide a livestream for the roughly 11-minute spaceflight.
Gayle King, Katy Perry head to space in historic flight
Blue Origin’s “New Shepard” space vehicle will historically carry an all-female crew, including Katy Perry and Gayle King, to space.
The next group of celebrity space tourists are days away from blasting off above Earth’s atmosphere on a Blue Origin rocket to witness a view only a few other civilians have ever seen.
The all-women crew includes pop artist Katy Perry and journalist Gayle King, who co-hosts “CBS Mornings.” If Blue Origin’s spacecraft gets off the ground as planned Monday morning, Perry, King and four other women will experience a few minutes of weightlessness while gazing upon Earth from the edge of space.
The vehicle they’ll ride to orbit, Blue Origin’s New Shepard, is the same one that 48 others have rode to space on 10 previous human spaceflights from the company’s west Texas facility. The New Shepard’s maiden voyage in July 2021 with a crew even included billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who also owns the space technology company.
New Shepard is composed of both a rocket and a crew capsule, which is outfitted with large windows for its passengers to gaze out of during the roughly 11-minute spaceflight.
But for the rest of us, we’ll have to content ourselves with watching the launch on solid ground. Fortunately, Blue Origin will provide a livestream for a launch and spaceflight that is sure to grab plenty of headlines.
Here’s what to know:
When is the Blue Origin launch from Texas?
New Shepard’s launch window opens at 9:30 a.m. ET Monday, according to Blue Origin.
Like all of Blue Origin launches, the vehicle will lift off at Launch Site One, a private ranch in rural West Texas more than 140 miles east of El Paso.
How to watch Gayle King, Katy Perry go on all-female spaceflight
Blue Origin will provide a livestream of the takeoff beginning prior to the launch window opening on its website.
The company has yet to share any specific webcast details, but a YouTube simulcast is scheduled to go live on launch day. Blue Origin will also be covering the launch live on X starting at 8 a.m. ET.
CBS will also provide coverage of the launch on its network and through its streaming service Paramount+. Coverage begins at 7 a.m. EDT during “CBS Mornings” and continues at 9 a.m. with a special segment, “Gayle goes to Space.”
A livestream of the launch will also be available to watch via USA TODAY.
Who are the celebrities heading to space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard?
Six women were selected to be part of the next Blue Origin commercial spaceflight, a mission known as NS-31.
Here’s a look:
- Aisha Bowe, a former NASA rocket scientist, CEO of engineering firm STEMBoard and founder of LINGO, which teaches students technology skills.
- Amanda Nguyen, a prominent civil rights activist and bioastronautics research scientist who worked on the last NASA space shuttle mission, STS-135, and the U.S. space agency’s exoplanet-hunting Kepler space telescope.
- Gayle King, a journalist and television personality best known as a co-host of “CBS Mornings.”
- Katy Perry, a pop music artist and former host of “American Idol.”
- Kerianne Flynn, a film producer known for her contributions to “This Changes Everything,” a 2018 documentary about sexism in Hollywood.
- Lauren Sánchez, an Emmy Award-winning journalist who is the fiancée of Bezos.
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]
This story was updated to add new information.
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Our highs and lows from Saturday of Weekend 1
Coachella 2025: Charli xcx fans show off their best ‘brat’ strut
We asked a bunch of Charli xcx fans to show off their best “brat” struts ahead of the singer’s performance on Saturday, April 12, 2025.
Another Coachella day, another edition of our Coachella highs and lows. And this action-packed day featured no shortage of either, as Charli owned the stage while T-Pain (partially) flopped. But we’re going to keep this thing snappy as I’ve still got a Travis Scott set to catch (so the jury’s out on which part of this story that set would fit into).
THE HIGHS
Rock is alive and well at Coachella with Weezer and Green Day
There’s been a great deal of talk about how Coachella has strayed from its rock roots only to seemingly turn somewhat back toward them this year. But if this year’s festival was something of an unofficial trial on the question of whether booking big-name rock acts is still a viable path for the festival, Saturday’s early performances certainly delivered (The Misfits set was still to come as of this writing).
Weezer delivered a barrage of hits early in the day, Jimmy Eat World brought a full-blown rock show to the Coachella Stage in the mid-afternoon and then Green Day delivered a commanding and energetic highlight set that was heavy on spectacle and seemed to be making a clear argument that while this was somehow Green Day’s first time playing Coachella, it should not be the last of a rock band of their ilk. The massive crowd seemed to eat it up, and I hope Goldenvoice CEO Paul Tollett did too, and will act accordingly when booking future festivals.
Charli XCX delivered a magical golden-hour set
Sometimes the Coachella stars really align and you end up with something like Charli XCX’s unforgettable golden hour set. A bonafide superstar clearly at the height of her powers, Charli XCX oozed unfathomable levels of charisma as she worked through the hits that defined Brat summer, only to cap things off with her OG classic “I Love It.” She also didn’t disappoint on the special guest front as she deployed her beloved collaborators Troye Sivan, Lorde and perhaps most exciting of all Billie Eilish.
But that was all icing on the cake as Charli is every bit a commanding star in her own right and showed it as she owned the stage in her sunglasses despite the lack of backup dancers or even much in the way of set pieces. Seriously, Lady Gaga may be the best performer who has graced the stage so far at Coachella 2025 but Charli is certainly the coolest — and also pretty great herself.
Medium Build offered an uplifting party vibe
I didn’t have much in the way of expectations when I wandered into Media Build’s 2:10 p.m. Gobi set. I only loosely knew who he was after listening to a couple songs with my wife during a road trip to the coast we took last weekend. Which is why I was totally blown away by what a fun, charismatic and talented performer he turned out to be. From the luscious locks of the wig get ups he repeatedly donned during the show to his gorgeous voice and exaltations to stop worrying about what everyone else thinks and enjoy your life, Medium Build proved to be a perfectly uplifting way to start the day.
The weather = idyllic
Oh what a difference a day makes! One day after we suffered through 100-degree temps that made for one of the sweatiest days at Coachella I can recall, the weather gods changed their tune and blessed us with a forecast that showcased why Coachella can be among the best locations for a music festival anywhere — after the sun sets, that is. The evening temperatures were mild, the wind was light and the sunset created an explosion of color across the sky just as thousands were gathering on the lawn in front of the main stage in anticipation of Charli XCX’s set.
THE LOWS
People making too much noise during the sets
I am a Coachella diehard, which means I often find myself having to defend the festival when talking to people who bemoan that it has turned into an influencer fest for people who care more about posting the perfect Insta story than the music. Which is why it was so disheartening to have several experiences today when people around were loudly laughing, talking, taking photos and generally making tons of noise at some of the key moments of several sets, such as the dramatic closing minutes of Above & Beyond’s. Look, I’m all for people having fun and enjoying Coachella however works for them but ya’ll need to chill.
T-Pain’s lack of actual singing
Look, I know and generally accept that backing tracks are a thing. But it still felt like T-Pain, who is already famous (infamous?) for being the artist more associated with the use of Auto-Tune, took things a little far as he let song after song pass with him only bothering to sing or rap a few words (if that) while blaring backing tracks that obviously did 90% of the work. This is not to say, however, that this set was bad necessarily.
While it was disappointing that T-Pain chose to relegate himself to hype man for most of the set, he is still a pretty incredible hype man and the crowd scarcely seemed to mind as they raucously danced to hit after hit. Seriously, who remembered T-Pain was part of so many early 2000s bangers? Like remember “Kiss Kiss” and “Alcohol?” Wow. And T-Pain was definitely singing (seemingly with less Auto-Tune than usual?) when he delivered a unique Coachella moment by covering Chris Stapleton’s “Tennessee Whiskey” and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.”
Less-than-ideal scheduling
Jimmy Eat World starting moments after Weezer ended when there was a lengthy walk between the stages and only a few high-end rock acts playing the whole weekend? Frustrating. Nearly Above & Beyond’s entire set overlapping with Green Day’s? Unforgivable. Fine, am I one of the few Coachellagoers who probably enjoys both top-notch pop punk and emotive, trancy EDM in equal measure. Well, maybe. But still, this is my highs and lows and I didn’t appreciate it.
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‘SNL’ Easter cold open spoofs Trump’s tariffs reversal
Trump’s tariff pause brings little relief as recession fears linger
Donald Trump’s move to postpone most of his new tariffs for 90 days seems to have brought only fleeting relief for markets. After a huge rally on April 10, April 11 saw Asian stocks head lower again.
Another year, another Easter monologue by President Donald Trump on “Saturday Night Live.”
For the third consecutive year, the sketch show celebrated Easter on Saturday with a cold open where Trump (James Austin Johnson) spoke directly to the audience and compared himself to Jesus. This time, the monologue drew a parallel between Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple and the economic uncertainty that followed Trump’s April 2 tariffs announcement.
After Jesus (Mikey Day) declared at the start of the sketch that he would “rid this place of all its money,” Trump entered and asked, “Remind you of anyone? Wow, I also got rid of money last week, but instead of one temple, I did whole country, maybe even the globe. The money’s gone!”
Trump continued by calling himself “the Messiah” because of “the mess I made out of the economy.” On Wednesday, the real Trump announced a 90-day pause on some of his tariffs to countries other than China. So in the “SNL” cold open, Johnson’s Trump declared his “beautiful” tariffs were “working so well that I had to stop them.”
“But now, everything is back exactly how it was, minus a few trillion dollars,” he said, adding, “The stock market did a Jesus: It died, then on the third day it was risen, and then on the fourth day, it died again, possibly never to return.”
Trump’s tariffs were a theme that continued throughout Saturday’s “SNL” episode. Another sketch depicted a financial news show for people living paycheck to paycheck, which discussed how Americans can save money amid market turmoil.
Playing an international commodities correspondent, Kenan Thompson said, “I used to eat Cap’n Crunch cereal before the price went up, so today, I buy this: Sergeant Munch. Lower rank, lower price, flavor bad.”
‘SNL’ gives ‘The White Lotus’ Season 3 a Trump makeover
Trump’s tariffs also factored into a parody of “The White Lotus,” with a sketch titled “The White Potus” slotting Trump and his allies into the HBO show’s third season.
In “The White Lotus,” Jason Isaacs played a man on vacation who doesn’t want his wealthy family to find out that they’re about to lose everything they have when they go back home. So the sketch imagined Trump having that same reaction while on vacation and seeing he has triggered a recession in the United States.
“We are so lucky that America will always be a rich and powerful nation,” said Melania Trump (Chloe Fineman), who was modeled off of Parker Posey’s “White Lotus” character. “Can you imagine how awful it would be if America lost all of its money and no one in the world respected us anymore?”
“You would never let our economy go to pieces, right hun?” she asked Trump.
The sketch also featured host Jon Hamm as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Sarah Sherman as a parody of Aimee Lou Wood’s “White Lotus” character Chelsea, and even a cameo by Scarlett Johansson as Ivanka Trump, who was shown fleeing a monastery like Piper on the HBO show.
Kieran Culkin crashes Jon Hamm’s ‘SNL’ monologue
Johansson wasn’t the only A-lister to make a cameo in Saturday’s episode. Oscar-winner Kieran Culkin also popped up during Hamm’s monologue, just after the “Mad Men” star joked that cameos can help energize a monologue that’s “feeling aimless.”
While Culkin was there, Hamm, pretending to be upset that the actor was upstaging him, swiped, “‘Mad Men’ was better than ‘Succession.’”
This was the second week in a row that Culkin, who’s performing in “Glengarry Glen Ross” on Broadway, appeared on “SNL.” He was also seen as a member of the audience clapping along while Jack Black danced through the crowd during last week’s monologue.
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What time does Megan Thee Stallion perform at Coachella 2025? How to watch
Coachella campers face festival traffic nightmare
Coachella campers arrived ahead of the start of the famed festival only to face massive traffic lines.
Megan Thee Stallion is performing at Coachella again, coming back to the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, on Sunday night.
Megan Thee Stallion will make her first appearance at the famous music festival since 2022, when she made her debut.
Coachella’s first weekend events runs from April 11 to 13, while the second weekend is April 18-20.
Here is what you need to know about Megan Thee Stallion’s performance at Coachella 2025, including her set time, how to watch from home and more.
When is Megan Thee Stallion performing at Coachella?
Megan Thee Stallion is set to make two performances at Coachella 2025. The first will be on Sunday, April 13, and the second one scheduled for Sunday, April 20.
She is scheduled to kick off her performance on the main Coachella stage at 8:35 p.m. local time for both this Sunday and next Sunday’s performance.
How to watch Megan Thee Stallion’s Coachella performance live
Coachella performances are available on YouTube, according to the company, and streams started on Friday, April 11. People will be able to watch multiple stages from their couch simultaneously, while a vertical livestream option featuring DJ sets will also be available.
YouTube is also allowing viewers to watch the show with content creators on their respective channels.
“New to the desert this year, Watch With allows creators to react to live events with commentary and real-time reactions, giving you the experience of watching Coachella alongside your favorite creator,” the video platform shared.
Coachella 2025 set times
A complete list of day-by-day set times can be found on Coachella’s website or in an Instagram post below:
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected] and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.
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What time does Post Malone perform at Coachella 2025? How to watch
Coachella campers face festival traffic nightmare
Coachella campers arrived ahead of the start of the famed festival only to face massive traffic lines.
Post Malone is making a headlining return to Coachella, coming back to the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, on Sunday night.
Post Malone will make his first appearance at the famous music festival for the first time since 2018, when he headlined. In recent years, he has made guest appearances at the festival, including one in 2023, when he appeared with Bad Bunny.
Coachella’s first weekend events run from April 11 to 13, while the second weekend is April 18-20.
Here is what you need to know about Post Malone’s performance at Coachella 2025, including his set time, how to watch from home and more.
When is Post Malone performing at Coachella?
Post Malone is set to make two performances at Coachella 2025. The first will be on Sunday, April 13, and the second one scheduled for Sunday, April 20.
He is scheduled to kick off his performance on the main Coachella stage at 10:25 p.m. local time for both this Sunday and next Sunday’s performance.
How to watch Post Malone’s Coachella performance live
Coachella performances are available on YouTube, according to the company, and streams started on Friday, April 11. People will be able to watch multiple stages from their couch simultaneously, while a vertical livestream option featuring DJ sets will also be available.
YouTube is also allowing viewers to watch the show with content creators on their respective channels.
“New to the desert this year, Watch With allows creators to react to live events with commentary and real-time reactions, giving you the experience of watching Coachella alongside your favorite creator,” the video platform shared.
Coachella 2025 set times
A complete list of day-by-day set times can be found on Coachella’s website or in an Instagram post below:
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected] and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.
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Crossword Blog & Answers for April 13, 2025 by Sally Hoelscher
There are spoilers ahead. You might want to solve today’s puzzle before reading further! Under the Weather
Constructors: Olivia Mitra Framke & Sally Hoelscher
Editor: Amanda Rafkin
Comments from Today’s Crossword Constructor
Olivia: I’m always on the lookout for good crossword titles/revealers, and when a friend said they were feeling “Under the Weather” I quickly whipped together a theme based on it! What a great opportunity to represent one of my favorite gaming genres, with the farming sim SUN HAVEN. Also, I think RAIN CHECK is especially fun for this, since you might need to take one if you’re feeling “Under the Weather”! Happy to have Sally on board for this collab, as always. 💖
Sally: Olivia sent me this theme almost fully-formed. I’m grateful to her for looping me in, as it’s always a joy to collaborate with her.
Random Thoughts & Interesting Things
- ADHD (1A: “___ Is Awesome” (Penn and Kim Holderness book)) Penn and Kim Holderness are internet personalities known for their family-centered parodies and skits. They were also competitors on the 33rd season of The Amazing Race. (Spoiler alert: They won.) Penn Holderness has been open about having ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), often mentioning it in their videos. In 2024 Penn and Kim Holderness published the book ADHD Is Awesome: A Guide to (Mostly) Thriving With ADHD.
- INNING (18A: Seventh-___ stretch) This clue feels timely for baseball season. Anybody stop and sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” when you came to this clue?
- AKA (29A: Kamala Khan ___ Ms. Marvel) In the Marvel Universe, Kamala Khan, AKA Ms. Marvel, is a Pakistani American teenager from New Jersey with shapeshifting abilities. She took over as Ms. Marvel when Carol Danvers became Captain Marvel. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Kamala Khan is portrayed by Iman Vellani.
- GIRLS (33A: “This One’s for the ___” (Martina McBride hit)) This One’s for the GIRLS” is a 2003 song by Martina McBride. The song’s lyrics salute women of various ages, with the overarching message, “You’re beautiful the way you are.”
- ENYA (40A: Singer for whom an Orinoco River fish was named) The fish named after ENYA is Leporinus enyae, which was discovered in the Orinoco River drainage area in 2017. One of ENYA’s hits is “Orinoco Flow” (1988).
- SPORCLE (54A: Trivia quiz website) SPORCLE is a trivia website on which users can take quizzes on a range of subjects.
- PAW (57A: Feline foot) My cat, Willow, is showing off both of her front PAWs in this photo.
- PADDLE (67A: Dog ___ (simple swimming style)) I am not a strong swimmer, but I can dog PADDLE. Happy to get some dog representation in the puzzle for Olivia’s dog, Charlie.
- ECHO (68A: Marvel character portrayed by Alaqua Cox) The Marvel character ECHO, AKA Maya Lopez, has the ability to perfectly copy other people’s movements. Alaqua Cox portrays ECHO in the Disney+ miniseries Hawkeye (2021) and in the spin-off miniseries ECHO (2024).
- SKIP (71A: Bypass, like a speedrunner to a cutscene) A speedrunner is one who plays a video game with the goal of completing it as quickly as possible. To help achieve this goal, a speedrunner will SKIP a cutscene (a non-interactive sequence in a video game).
- AGO (1D: “A long time ___ in a galaxy far, far away…”) It’s an official Olivia and Sally collaboration: we worked in a Star Wars clue and a cat clue. Fun fact: In all but one of the Star Wars movies (Return of the Jedi), the opening crawl of the movie ends with a four-dot ellipsis (technically an ellipsis plus a period): “A long time AGO in a galaxy far, far away….”
- SPIDER (5D: Shelob or Charlotte) Shelob is the fictional giant SPIDER in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Shelob appears in The Two Towers (1954). Charlotte is the title SPIDER in E. B. White’s book, Charlotte’s Web (1952).
- IDIOM (8D: It’s raining cats and dogs,” e.g.) We thought this IDIOM paired nicely with the “Under the Weather” theme.
- SUN HAVEN (9D: Video game where players grow shimmeroot) SUN HAVEN is a farm sim video game. Players arrive in the town of SUN HAVEN, where they can farm, fish, and mine. Shimmeroot is a SUN HAVEN crop that players can plant. Shimmeroot can be harvested 14 days after planting, and the crop may be sold.
- MPG (10D: Irrelevant stat for EVs)The abbreviation EVs, standing for electric vehicles, alerts solvers that the answer will be an abbreviation, MPG for miles per gallon. Since EVs don’t use gas, MPG is an irrelevant stat.
- HEALS (11D: Drinks a red potion, in a Zelda game) This is a reference to The Legend of Zelda video game franchise. The original Legend of Zelda was released by Nintendo in 1986. In the games, a red potion HEALS and replenishes the Life Gauge.
- POLISH (47D: Language spoken by Iga Swiatek) IGA Świątek is a professional tennis player from Poland (where POLISH is the official language). She won the French Open in 2020, 2022, 2023, and 2024, and the U.S. Open in 2022.
- ROSES (55D: Flowers used in some parade floats) The ROSE Parade is held annually in Pasadena, California in conjunction with the ROSE Bowl college football game. Fun fact: The parade came first! The ROSE Parade began in 1890, and the football game was added in 1902 to help fund the parade. All of the floats in the parade are covered in natural materials; in addition to ROSES, seaweed, seeds, bark, vegetables, and nuts are used.
Crossword Puzzle Theme Synopsis
- HAIL MARY (3D: Desperation-mode football pass)
- SUN HAVEN (9D: Video game where players grow shimmeroot)
- RAIN CHECK (37D: “May I take a ___?” (“Another time?”))
- SNOW PEAS (41D: Veggies with edible pods)
UNDER THE WEATHER: The top word of each vertical theme answer is a WEATHER-related term. Therefore, the rest of each theme answer is UNDER THE WEATHER.
I hope you are not feeling UNDER THE WEATHER today! Because all four theme answers are relatively short (8 or 9 letters long), we took care while building this grid to make sure that the rest of the Down answers were shorter than 8 letters. We wanted to make sure it would (hopefully) be obvious which answers were theme answers. Thank you to Olivia for collaborating on this puzzle, and thanks to Amanda for great editing. Most importantly, thank you for solving!
For more on USA TODAY’s Crossword Puzzles
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‘White Lotus’ speech is wrong about women and friendship
Women now have the freedom to do anything we want to do, but many of us still find ourselves unhappy and are baffled as to why.
‘The White Lotus’ star reveals why her storyline can be triggering
“The White Lotus” star Michelle Monaghan talks to Ralphie Aversa about how the female friendship story line is so relatable and toxic.
The Season 3 finale of “The White Lotus” included a powerful monologue by a character named Laurie, played brilliantly by Carrie Coon. Fans loved what she had to say about women’s roles and expectations in our modern world.
During a final dinner at the White Lotus resort in Thailand, Laurie tells two of her childhood friends that she’s sad and feeling lost.
“I have no belief system,” she says. “Well, I mean, I’ve had a lot of them. I mean, work was my religion for forever, but I definitely lost my belief there. And then, and then I tried love and that was just a painful religion − just made everything worse. And then even for me, just like being a mother, that didn’t save me either. But I had this epiphany today: I don’t need religion or God to give my life meaning, because time gives it meaning. We started this life together. I mean, we’re going through it apart, but we’re still together. … I’m just happy to be at the table.”
Laurie’s point about female friendships was beautiful. But as much as I adore my girlfriends, and have long-standing friendships as far back as second grade, Laurie’s conclusion about friendship wasn’t the best part to me. It was instead her observations about the modern woman’s dilemma that fascinated me most. It tapped into something a lot of women feel but can’t or won’t express.
Women have achieved so much but are still unhappy
Women in the United States are doing better than ever before.
According to the Pew Research Center, the gender gap in pay has narrowed in the past 20 years. Last year, women earned an average of 85% of what men earned, up 4 percentage points from 2023.
Women earn more college degrees than men. Single women own more homes than single men. Strong majorities of both women and men say women are now doing much or somewhat better in careers and education than 20 years ago.
Yet, research also shows that women are more unhappy than ever before, just like Laurie in “The White Lotus.”
A 2024 study, “The female happiness paradox” by researchers with Dartmouth College and University College London, found that women have worse mental health than men, including problems with anxiety, depression, fearfulness, sadness, loneliness and anger. Women also “have more days with bad mental health and more restless sleep.”
The researchers found that women are “less satisfied in the moment in terms of peace and calm, cheerfulness, feeling active, vigorous, fresh, and rested.”
Laurie’s monologue isn’t popular just because she concluded that friendship is the key to happiness. I think fans applauded the scene because she found words to describe a common female experience, especially for women in midlife.
Laurie asked something so many American women find themselves wondering. We have more now than ever before. More equality, more pay, more education and more rights. Why are we still unhappy?
Feminism hasn’t brought us happiness
Perhaps that’s because the things we thought would bring happiness − career success, money, status and material goods − aren’t able to deliver.
Women have been told that equality at work and in society as a whole would bring satisfaction and fulfillment. Yet, the feminist movement has pushed women so far in the direction of pursuing career and self interests that it has backfired. Because self-centeredness goes against many women’s God-given desires.
Laurie describes this angst so well: Work was her religion, then love was, but both failed. Being a mother didn’t satisfy her ache for something more, and even God didn’t fulfill her needs. She can’t figure out why she’s so unhappy.
Like Laurie, women now have the freedom to do anything we want to do, but many of us still find ourselves unhappy and are baffled as to why.
In the name of equality, many feminists declared that they didn’t need men or children. They needed only their work, girlfriends and a glass of wine. Some women have even knowingly copied the toxic habits of angry and isolated men as a declaration of independence.
The modern feminist movement has sold women a yarn of lies, and many of us listened. Women now delay or forgo marriage, have no interest in children, find passion in careers and gave up God for yoga. They also seek purpose not in traditional values like faith and family but in politics. Abortion rights and women’s marches have become rallying cries not just on specific issues but also on what it means to be a woman.
Gen Z, millennial women push back with tradwife movement
Some younger women have pushed back. A small number of millennial and Generation Z women have embraced the “tradwives movement,” which promotes a stereotypical, romanticized view of stay-at-home motherhood and marriage.
Tradwives make a lot of people angry for a lot of reasons. The women often seem like they are cosplaying at being wives and mothers.
But I think the tradwives movement also angers women because it taps into a desire that’s hardly progressive but still innate. Many women would love to be happily married to a healthy, masculine man, raise kids and work from home while they keep an eye on their sourdough bread baking in the oven. It’s not for everyone, of course, and that’s OK. Still, some women have those desires but feel like our society tells them they shouldn’t.
I don’t want to go back to the 19th century, when women had few rights and were forced to accept marriage and children as their only purpose. I don’t want to go back even to the 1970s, when women still had to have a male cosigner to get a credit card. Women fought hard for a long time to achieve equal rights, and I celebrate those women who sacrificed so much for women like me. I can write a column like this only because I stand on their shoulders.
Women do need friendships, and I thank God for the women in my life. But Laurie in “The White Lotus” wrote off everything else that makes us happy. Married women on average are happier than single women. (Laurie is divorced; I am as well.) Married women with children tend to be happier than those without children. Women in equal partnerships − where their partner or spouse helps carry household responsibilities and the mental load of modern life − tend to be happier. Women who seek community and religion also tend to be happier than those who are nonreligious.
Conservative women in general tend to pursue most of these things. Yet, as a conservative woman I’m often excoriated for talking positively about marriage, children and faith. I adhere to a belief system that is the opposite of Laurie’s − conservative politics, kids, God. I am hated for this. And every time I object to abusive comments from angry progressives, I am met with more disdain. It’s almost like progressives fear that I’m right.
Laurie was right to be sad. Friendship is vital, but it was never intended to replace those deeper relationships that give life meaning and deliver true happiness and joy.
Nicole Russell is a columnist at USA TODAY and a mother of four who lives in Texas. Contact her at [email protected] and follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @russell_nm. Sign up for her weekly newsletter, The Right Track, here.
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Mariska Hargitay, Christopher Meloni pose together in new photo
Hargitay and Meloni’s friendship stretches back to 1999 when they started working together on “SVU.”
Tracy Morgan delays Knicks game after throwing up courtside
Tracy Morgan, a well-known Knicks superfan, became ill courtside during a game at Madison Square Garden, forcing a brief delay.
unbranded – Entertainment
“Law & Order: SVU” co-stars Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni are BFFs.
The former co-stars sat court-side together for the New York Knicks’ home game against the Cleveland Cavaliers at Madison Square Garden on Friday.
Hargitay and Meloni, who portrayed Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler together on the long running NBC crime show, held hands in a photo posted by the Knicks official social media accounts.
“DUN DUN,” a caption shared by the Knicks’ social team read, in reference to the legendary sound of all “Law & Order”shows. USA TODAY reached out to reps for Hargitay and Meloni for comment.
The duo donned casual looks as Hargitay wore a gray long-sleeve “L.A. Strong” crewneck sweatshirt while Meloni wore a black jacket and matching black t-shirt with blue jeans.
Hargitay and Meloni’s friendship stretches back to 1999 when they started working together on “SVU.” The pair starred as detective partners Stabler and Benson for 12 seasons on “SVU” before Meloni left the show in 2011.
Meloni’s character Stabler, whose wife and five children became part of the show’s storyline, retired from the force as a way of writing the character off the series at the start of Season 13.
Since “SVU,” Stabler and Benson have reunited briefly for the “SVU” spinoff series “Organized Crime,” in which Meloni returns as Stabler to head up an organized crime unit in the New York Police Department.
Are Mariska Hargitay, Chris Meloni dating?
While some fans have long speculated about a romance between the former co-stars, Hargitay and Meloni have respective spouses. Meloni, 64, has been married to Doris Sherman Williams since 1995. Hargitay, 61, is also married – to “SVU” co-star Peter Hermann since 2004.
But in 2021, Meloni tweeted a steamy photo of himself and Hargitay coming in for a near-kiss teasing fans and sparking a playful social media exchange between the actors.
(This story has been updated to add new information.)
Contributing: Bill Keveney and Amy Haneline, USA TODAY
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