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Congratulations are in order for little Miss Guided. Dylan Efron is one of four remaining faithful who made it all the way to “The Traitors” finale.

The third season of the Peacock series, based on a Dutch format, airs its finale and reunion Thursday (9 p.m. EST/6 PST).

Efron, four years younger than actor brother Zac Efron, emerged as an early fan favorite after producers positioned him as scrumptious eye candy. The “Down to Earth” producer, who’s also worked as a stuntman and in film production, is among those gathered in a Scottish castle, duking it out to determine who among them are traitors ‒ masterfully pulling off “murders” undetected ‒ and who are honest faithful. The last player(s) standing are awarded a cash prize of up to $250,000.

“I’m all for that,” Efron, 33, says of his ab-baring onscreen moments. “If you see my Instagram, I have my shirt off 90% of the time.”

Efron, a staunch “faithful,” grew up fantasizing about taking home the $1 million payday on “Survivor” and jumped at the chance to appear on “Traitors.” This season has already purged 2011 “Survivor” champ Rob Mariano (traitor); Britney Spears’ ex-husband, model Sam Asghari (faithful); and “RuPaul’s Drag Race” winner Bob the Drag Queen, who dubbed Efron “Miss Guided” in an attempt to throw Efron off his traitorous scent.

Efron loves the moniker and even added it to his Instagram bio. “I wasn’t expecting it to be such a moment,” he says. But “watching it, I was like, ‘Oh, wow! That’s a nickname.’”

Bob, born Christopher Caldwell, also stunned those gathered for deliberation when he said Zac Efron is “not a good” actor.

Dylan Efron says he and Bob have not talked about the moment but is confident it will be addressed at the reunion. “He’s just an entertainer,” Efron says of Bob, appearing to hold no grudges. “I don’t think he meant it.”

Dylan adds that Zac laughed off the remark and has been “enjoying” the show, teasing, “I’m saving for the reunion what he told me” about Bob’s comment.

The Feb. 27 episode concluded before the results of the roundtable were revealed. Traitors Danielle Reyes and the recently recruited Britney Haynes, both former “Big Brother” contestants, piggybacked off faithful Dolores Catania’s (“The Real Housewives of New Jersey”) suspicions of faithful Ivar Mountbatten, an extended member of Britain’s royal family. Efron, Mountbatten and their fellow faithful Gabby Windey (“The Bachelorette”) voted to banish Reyes. Reyes and Mountbatten were excused from a tie-breaking vote in which Efron and Windey doubled down on Reyes, while Catania locked in on Mountbatten. The episode ended before Haynes could reveal her vote.

Efron predicts Reyes will have the most to answer for at the cast reunion. She has been criticized for comparing fellow traitor Carolyn Wiger to Forrest Gump (a move Efron deems “below the belt”) and allegedly swearing on her grandchildren that she was a faithful.

“When you sign up to play that role, you’re going to get a lot of backlash and a lot of people want to put their two cents in,” Efron says. “But she did it and she did a great job being the villain.”

Efron attributes his longevity in the game to being able to play the part of “naïve rookie” and developing genuine relationships with his cast.

Alan Cumming spills on his ‘stern castle daddy’ persona for ‘The Traitors’ Season 3

He’s open to doing more competition reality TV and continuing to document his global travels for YouTube and the small screen. He’s even ready to try his hand at acting, which frightened him before.

“As a kid, I was a little shy to step into those (roles) and said, ‘No, my brother is the actor; I couldn’t act,’” Efron recalls. “But as I gain more confidence, I think I can do a lot of things, and it’s fun to constantly prove to myself what I can do.”

One week after Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, were found dead, an investigation continues with key questions still unanswered.

Authorities in New Mexico found Hackman, his wife and their dog dead on the afternoon of Wednesday, Feb. 26. A search warrant said that the “French Connection” star was discovered in a mudroom near his cane, while his wife was in an open bathroom near a space heater. An open prescription bottle and pills were scattered on a countertop nearby, and Arakawa had “body decomposition, bloating in her face” and mummification of her hands and feet.

Authorities are continuing to investigate the mysterious deaths, and no cause has been released, though the findings from a probe for gas leaks and carbon monoxide has been revealed.

Here’s all the latest on the investigation.

Gene Hackman death March 4 updates: Conflicting details emerge on dogs, health

Results of gas leak, carbon monoxide testing revealed

On Tuesday, the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office shared the results of the New Mexico Gas Company’s “extensive investigation for gas leaks and carbon monoxide at Gene Hackman’s home,” conducted on Feb. 26. The investigation appeared to definitively rule out the possibility of a gas leak inside the home.

Gene Hackman’s life in Santa Fe: How actor pursued anonymity

“There were no significant findings,” a news release said. “NMGC did issue five (5) red tags. One red tag was for a minuscule leak (0.33% gas in air – not a lethal amount) at one of the stove burners. The other four red tags were for code enforcement violations – not involving gas leaks or carbon monoxide – involving a water heater and gas log lighters installed in three fireplaces.”

Gene Hackman, wife’s deaths ‘suspicious’: Grim details emerge in search warrant

The sheriff’s office said these results “are not believed to be a factor in the deaths of Gene Hackman, Betsy Arakawa or their dog,” though the findings were still sent to the Office of the Medical Investigator “for consideration.”

The sheriff’s department previously ruled out carbon monoxide poisoning as a cause of death after negative test results. Hackman’s pacemaker showed that “his last event was recorded on Feb. 17, 2025,” indicating this is likely when the actor died.

Hackman’s nephew doesn’t ‘want to speculate’ on cause of death

The actor’s nephew, Tim Hackman, spoke with Us Weekly in an interview published Tuesday and said the family does not want to speculate about his death before all the facts are available.

Gene Hackman’s refuge – and mysterious death – at his Santa Fe home with wife Betsy Arakawa

“We’re waiting on toxicology. That will tell us everything,” he said. “It’s hard to theorize. There are lots of theories out there and I don’t want to speculate. It’s easy to speculate negative theories.”

He added, “The family wants to keep it positive for now and when we know the truth we will deal with it.”

Exclusive details: Sheriff’s office makes error about Gene Hackman’s dog

But Tim Hackman told Us Weekly that the description of the scene where his uncle was found has raised questions. “My uncle was 95 years old at an age where you think about, ‘OK, it’s time,’” he told Us Weekly. “But from the circumstances now things have changed a bit. It’s a major change.”

In a previous statement to USA TODAY, Hackman’s daughters, Elizabeth and Leslie Hackman, and granddaughter Annie said they were “devastated” by his death.

“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our father, Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy,” they said. “He was loved and admired by millions around the world for his brilliant acting career, but to us he was always just Dad and Grandpa. We will miss him sorely.”

Hackman and his ex-wife Faye Maltese shared three adult children: Christopher, Elizabeth and Leslie.

Hackman and wife were ‘joined at the hip,’ flight instructor says

Andy Wells, a flight instructor who flew with Hackman, spoke about the couple’s close relationship in an interview with Fox News published Wednesday. He said he first met Hackman and Arakawa in 1987, four years before they married in 1991, though he had not seen them for years.

“The two of them were joined at the hip practically,” Wells said. “So, if he became reclusive, I think she did, too. And she was very quiet. Anyway, if she went out on her own and was in the same grocery store with me, it would be easy to not see her. She was small and quiet and very, very focused. I thought she was great.”

Wells also remembered Arakawa as “so sweet and beautiful and smart.”

In the middle of a family farm of cork and olive trees in Portugal’s remote agricultural region of Alentejo an extraordinary site is under construction: a mazelike complex of concrete walls that look as if they were made of rammed earth, inspired by those historically built in the area to protect both plants and animals.

While currently resembling a massive Roman ruin, it is conceived as the energy centre for a small international community. “It will be a place for people to gather to take part in the rituals of agriculture,” says the Portuguese pilot and hospitality pioneer João Rodrigues, “from cheesemaking to breadmaking to winemaking to the harvesting of honey and the preserving of vegetables.” The project, Herdade No Tempo, is conceived as something of a modern utopian development, an opportunity, says Rodrigues, to reconnect with the land and each other, and “elevate what we inherit”. 

Architectural and ideological projects like his, which allow nature and craft to dictate the design and community ethos, are growing in number, and attracting people from around the world. Many with the privilege of means or jobs that allow mobility are seeking that quality of life in Portugal and moving there full-time, facilitated first by the golden visa programme (introduced in 2012, it was so popular that the government revamped it in 2023 so that property is no longer a qualifying investment) and then the digital nomad visa. (It also doesn’t hurt that non-residents only pay a 25 per cent flat tax on income earned in the country.) In September 2024 alone, 1,554 families were awarded residence permits; 567 permits were given to Americans and 234 to those from the UK.  

“Many people are unhappy with the state of the world — politically and socially — and that there is a lack of integrity, morals and respect for the environment,” says Rodrigues. “More and more, people are feeling the need to live in harmony with nature.” And more people are also seeking to build communities to accommodate that need, seeing it as both a challenge and an opportunity. 

Fifteen years ago, when Rodrigues asked the now award-winning architect Manuel Aires Mateus to help him design a family retreat in Comporta, he could not have foreseen that it would lead to master planning this development. That first project — which he dubbed Casas na Areia (“Houses in sand”) — featured a surreally beautiful living room and kitchen with a floor of fine sand that captured the attention of the design world; in 2010 it was selected to represent Portugal in the Venice Architecture Biennale. 

When people asked to rent Casas na Areia it sparked the launch of boutique hospitality company Silent Living, which now includes several other properties, including Casa No Tempo, a house on 1,000 acres of farmland that Rodrigues inherited. 

Later, after guests began to ask them to help them build their own houses, Rodrigues and Aires Mateus started to dream up a bigger, more permanent community on the farm, Herdade No Tempo. (Herdade means “homestead” in Portuguese). They carefully chose 14 lots where nature would not be disturbed. “The rocks and trees have been on this land for centuries, so we [wanted to] build around them,” says Rodrigues. 

Each of the families that buys a house will have to contribute to farm responsibilities and as the word ‘tempo’ expresses, commit to [giving] what is most precious to all of us — our time

Halfway through designing the project, Covid happened, and the ethos behind Rodrigues’ Silent Living community became even more relevant; the waiting list for the 14 houses doubled. While project completion is set for 2028, later this month Rodrigues plans to send the people on the list two books he has self-published about the past, present and future of Herdade No Tempo, in order to communicate the project’s manifesto of regenerative agriculture and community.

Active monthly contributions to farm responsibilities will include those pertaining to carbon retention, biodiversity, water protection, food production, soil health, animal wellbeing and waste and energy management. “Each of the families that buys one of the nine big houses will have to work alongside our team on these areas and, as the word ‘tempo’ expresses, commit to [giving] what is most precious to all of us — our time.” Serviced homes these are not.

He hopes the books will help interested buyers understand that they are signing on as caretakers of that land, not real estate speculators. 

While he understands that most owners will not be living here all year round (Silent Living can rent the homes out to guests if the owners like), he says he will choose buyers based on their skills and enthusiasm to support the project. “Any potential homeowner should understand that we are building a community, as well as a blueprint for a healthier and nature-forward way of living.”

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Seven years ago, American tech investor Andrew Rosener moved to Lisbon with his young family. For him, at first, Portugal’s appeal was that it’s an ideal place to raise children. “I have lived all over the world — Germany, Panama, Australia — but Portugal represents to me classic family values. People don’t come here to work, they come to live.” He adds, “Now I can see what’s happening: creatives and entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds come here searching for something intangible. Eventually, many of us find exactly what we were looking for, which is deep authenticity: 2,000-year-old olive trees; like-minded people that value wine made like it was 500 years ago and textiles made by hand that took 80 hours to weave; and undeveloped coastline and pristine nature.”

During the pandemic, Rosener and his family spent much of their time at São Lourenço do Barrocal, a historic farm estate of just over 2,000 acres near the ancient hilltop settlement of Monsaraz, which over 14 years was thoughtfully transformed into a resort with 24 rooms and suites and 16 cottages. Rosener recently bought the first of 25 houses that will eventually be built on the property. (Two, including Rosener’s, will be completed this summer.) 

I have lived all over the world — Germany, Panama, Australia — but Portugal represents to me classical family values. People don’t come here to work, they come to live

Barrocal’s original designer and co-owner, José António Uva, who, along with his architect wife Ana Anahory runs Estúdio Lisboa, has spent the past decade applying for permits, choosing lots and designing the houses that will be built, like the resort, from local materials; all of the houses, due for completion across the next seven years, have already been sold at an average price of €400,000 per plot (most plots are about 7,000 sq m, with house construction costs averaging at around €1.2mn).

Uva describes the design as being “born among stones and trees, and like them, simple, stripped, and vernacular in their essential forms: from handmade bricks to the use of lime and local stone (granite, limestone and shale), to the inclusion of salvaged tiles, roof terraces, deep recesses and big chimneys.” His inspiration, he shares, is the utopian Sea Ranch community in northern California, built by a group of architects overseen by Lawrence Halprin in the 1960s. 

“Portugal has become the new California,” says Claus Sendlinger, founder of Design Hotels, who, in 2019, moved from Ibiza to Portugal with his two boys. In the past 10 years or so, the country has attracted a mix of tech entrepreneurs and creative dreamers who are drawn to “the golden light, the laid-back beach lifestyle and the mild climate”, he says. Pair that, he says, with the fact that Portugal still has large swaths of abandoned agricultural land, and you have fertile ground for experimental developments. 

He should know. Sendlinger’s latest enterprise Slowness is very much focused on community-based projects, from the Flussbad campus in Berlin to the upcoming Casa Noble hotel and cultural salon in Lisbon that will act as a meeting house for a farm estate they are trying to develop on the Arrábida Peninsula. Trying, he says, because, “When you come to Portugal to build something, patience is key.” But he believes that ultimately that is a positive thing because it encourages more thoughtful, sustainable development. 

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In the semi-abandoned agricultural village of Barrosinha, part of the municipality of Alcácer do Sal, the foundations for a similar ideological development are being laid.

A little over a decade ago, former corporate financier Mircea Anghel, who was living in Lisbon, went searching for a woodworker to learn how to build a tiny house. “I didn’t really know what I was doing. I only knew that I needed to find a new way for my life, that in some ways I was searching for freedom,” he recalls. 

He found a boat builder in Barrosinha, and worked with him in his free time. “I was so inspired by the people I met making things with their hands, so it became harder and harder to return to my computer.” He eventually gave up finance for furniture design and, six years ago, moved his studio from Lisbon to an old sawmill in Barrosinha.

Those old people are the biggest hipsters I had ever met, with their seasonal and local eating, how they conserve things and deal with waste and how ultimately ecological they were

“During Covid I moved my family into a neighbouring farmhouse,” Anghel says, adding that he was inspired by the elderly workers who remained in the village even after it went bankrupt in 2009. “They were all over 80. It’s kind of like a Blue Zone,” he laughs. “Those old people are actually the biggest hipsters I had ever met in my life, with their seasonal and local eating habits, how they conserve things and deal with their waste and how ultimately ecological they were.”

Soon after moving to Barrosinha, Anghel met Lionel Jadot. The Belgian designer has spent the past decade building Zaventem Ateliers, an old paper factory transformed into workshops now inhabited by a collective of artisans. Together, the two designers recognised the potential of reviving this agricultural village of almost 5,000 acres with a community of skilled craftspeople and artists. “I thought it could be a Zaventem 2.0,” he says.

In the summer of 2023, they, along with their third partner, the real estate developer and investor Edouard Fernandez, secured a 10-year operating agreement to develop part of the property; renovating several of the main industrial buildings, and regenerating the land, bringing back the vineyards (this past December they sold their first 1,000 bottles at a fundraising event in Brussels). They also opened a café and restaurant and built several workshops; their first artists — Lisa Egio and Elliot Kervyn — the artist duo behind Frizbee Ceramics moved in last autumn.

Currently they are in the middle of bringing on a stable of investors to help fund the next steps. Phase two, which will begin once the next round of investment is completed, involves bringing in innovative architects and landscape architects, such as Bas Smets, to redesign and regenerate the land and build sustainable homes “in harmony with the land and nature”, says Jadot. 

“We are spearheading a different kind of business model,” says Pierre Rousseau, former head of global markets for BNP Paribas Asia Pacific, and one of Barrosinha’s early investors. “Most people want a return immediately and they don’t grow their business right and their assets collapse. But when you do things right — by creating value over a long period of time — you create resilience and ultimately, end up more profitable.”

Fernandez, who helped master plan the Diagonal Mar community project in Barcelona, which transformed a depressed industrial area into a vibrant hub, says that while there are quite a few visionaries currently working on what he dubs “place-making regenerative developments” around the globe, Portugal is most interesting to him and others because in the past several decades it hasn’t been developed as much as other Mediterranean countries. And because it has “an ideal climate for hospitality-related projects focused on nature-based solutions, a great underlying culture of warmth and acceptance and, in the past 10 years, an influx of residents from abroad and tourists who are looking to be more in touch with nature”.

Like the Herdade No Tempo development, Barrosinha’s master plan is designed with nature and regenerative land management at its centre, but it also prioritises arts and crafts. Its founders believe that they can grow a model of a community that repairs and resets our current value systems. “The issue with our current western society is that we are paying money for things that are essentially bad for us and not paying for things that are good for us — nature, fresh air, biodiversity, social impact — and because the value of those things is not measurable, we end up not being able to protect them,” says Anghel.

“For me the essence of creativity is to impact the world around you, making situations and spaces more fun and liveable, to inspire people to dream,” says Elliot Kervyn. “Artists do this all the time but are rarely given credit. Here at Barrosinha we have a chance to be the main actors, to show the value of artists and makers beyond what we make.”

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In HBO’s “White Lotus,” shady Greg Hunt (Jon Gries) plotted successfully to kill his rich heiress wife, Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge). But Gries, 67, and two-time Emmy winner Coolidge, 63, won’t let a dark storyline end their real-life friendship.

Gries and Coolidge are BFFs. He promises.

“We’re always in touch with each other,” Gries tells USA TODAY, offering the best, only-in-Hollywood proof that involves “Saturday Night Live” original player Garrett Morris: “We just spent Christmas together. We went over to Garrett Morris’ house. It was an amazing day.”

Walton Goggins on ‘White Lotus’ Ep. 3 Why he was really terrified of snakes, but why Rick freed his ‘spirit animal’

How are Jon Gries and Jennifer Coolidge connected to Garrett Morris

What’s the connection between Gries, Coolidge and Morris, 88? Gries played scatterbrained producer Shawn McDermott on TV’s “Martin” from 1992-94, when Morris played Martin’s (Martin Lawrence) first boss Stan Winters. And Coolidge starred as Polish businesswoman Sophie on “2 Broke Girls,” in which Morris co-starred as Earl, the Williamsburg Diner cashier.

“So we all go way back,” says Gries. “We picked up a box of donuts and went to Garrett’s house with coffee in the morning. We just sat around and laughed. It was an incredible Christmas.”

Onscreen, the relationship between Greg and Tanya started after they met in Hawaii, the setting of the first season in 2021. Tanya fell to her death in a yacht disaster off the coast of Italy in Season 2, among a gang with suspicious links to Greg, her new hubby. In the current third season (Sundays, 9 ET/PT), Greg calls himself Gary and lives a billionaire life in Thailand. However, White Lotus Hawaii therapist Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), who was supposed to go into business with Tanya, is visiting Thailand and has spotted Greg/Gary.

Coolidge wants to see Greg/Gary punished on the show, telling Forbes, “I hope he gets it!”

The last time I visited Shigeru Ban’s office, it was on top of the Pompidou Centre. The Japanese architect had just won a competition to build a new Pompidou Centre, in Metz, but didn’t have the money to rent a studio in Paris. So he did a deal, marking out a little real estate overlooking the city’s zinc rooftops from amid the huge trusses and tubes of the original Pompidou.

It looked oddly at home there, although it was made not of steel and glass but of cardboard tubes and paper, like a model of an aeroplane fuselage knocked up by talented students using wrapping paper rolls, glue and cheap timber. It was one of the most thrilling architect’s offices I have ever seen, and certainly in one of the best spots.

This time when I visit, the offices are in a rather more conventionally Parisian building at the back of a courtyard. Most of the interior is still made of cardboard tubes, though, including the shelves behind Ban, which are packed with models and books, including Taschen’s huge blockbuster Shigeru Ban: Complete Works 1985-Today (almost an architectural component itself). We talk in a garret studio, the rain beating down outside.

In September, Ban won the Praemium Imperiale, one of culture’s biggest prizes, sponsored by Japan’s imperial family on behalf of the Japan Art Association. Previous architecture awardees have included Zaha Hadid, David Chipperfield, Frank Gehry, Norman Foster and Tadao Ando.

Ban is in esteemed company, then, yet he is a curious kind of success. Despite global acclaim, he remains remarkably unstarry, a little shy and impeccably modest. He carries out much of his work not in cultural quarters and upmarket urban neighbourhoods, but in the mud and misery of refugee camps and disaster zones.

How, I wonder, looking at the shelves behind him, did he alight on those cardboard tubes as his wonder material? “It was initially because I hated to waste anything,” he says, almost sheepishly. “We did drawings on tracing paper and it came in huge rolls and I didn’t want to throw the cardboard tubes away. The same with the tubes for the fax paper. And then we were commissioned to do this exhibition on Alvar Aalto [the Finnish architect and designer] and we couldn’t afford to use wood. We found the cardboard tubes worked fine. One critic called me an ‘accidental environmentalist’.”

I was disappointed because what we do is we serve power and money. I wanted to use my profession for the general public

From those beginnings as a hoarder — his word — Ban moved to ever larger structures, from expo pavilions (notably the undulating Japanese Pavilion at Hanover in 2000) to a “Cardboard Cathedral”, created for Christchurch in New Zealand in the wake of the devastating earthquake in 2011. It is one of the most remarkable, uplifting and joyful churches I have seen, one that takes an almost childlike pleasure in its chunky tubes, elemental, building-blocks form and translucent surfaces.

More impressive still is the emergency housing that Ban has been designing and building in the world’s disaster zones since the mid-1990s, also using cardboard tubes. How did the humanitarian work that now occupies so much of his time begin? “I’d come back to Japan from studying in the US in 1984 and started my own practice with no experience,” he says. “After 10 years, I had a little more freedom to think about what I was doing, what architecture is, and I was disappointed because what we do is we serve power and money. I wanted to use my profession for the general public.”

Ban first designed emergency housing for Rwanda in 1995, following the civil war and genocide against the Tutsi, using a series of simple paper-tube structures covered by standard UN plastic sheeting. It looked like a rigid tent. He gradually refined the designs, working in the wake of the Kobe earthquake back home in Japan in 1995 and another in north-west Turkey in 2000. “Earthquakes don’t kill people,” he tells me, as an aside, “buildings kill people when they collapse; architects are responsible for that too”.  

Paper, you might think, is a profoundly impermanent material, but Ban proudly points out that one of the “Paper Log Houses” he erected in Gujarat after the 2001 earthquake (made of paper tubes, bamboo, plywood and rubble) is still being used 23 years later, as a health centre.

In parallel, Ban was building a name for himself as an adventurous, often eccentric architect of some of the era’s most remarkable buildings. His Curtain Wall House (Itabashi, 1995), for instance, saw him play with ephemerality, as solid walls were replaced by curtains and rooms made to theatrically open up to the elements, while the Wall-less House (Nagano, 1997) took the idea even further with disappearing sliding walls, so that the interior appears defined only by a roof. 

Slowly, there came higher-profile international commissions. A Nomadic Museum (2005) on Manhattan’s Pier 57 was made of shipping containers, tarpaulins and cardboard tubes, and designed to be easily reassembled in other cities around the world. The rather lumpy Pompidou-Metz (2010) coincided with radical designs in cardboard for everything from schools to bridges, luxury villas, condos and pop-up pavilions for fashion brands including Hermès.

Currently on Ban’s drawing board is a tower for Tirana, Albania; a continuation of the huge Liangzhu Museum in Hangzhou, China, and a small cabin for victims of the recent floods in Pakistan. “There is also a hospital I’m designing for Lviv [Ukraine]. Their existing hospital is operating over capacity. I started working with the mayor designing emergency housing and it led to this.”

When, incidentally, Ban says “I’m designing . . .”, he is not being arrogant, denigrating the others in his office. His colleagues tell me he designs every last detail of every building. And draws them, too. “Oh yes, we still do hand drawings,” he says. “Technology does not make architecture better. The computer is a tool to save time, but as architects we should be spending more time on architecture, not less.” 

After our meeting I chat to one of Ban’s colleagues at the Paris office. When I ask how they manage to fund the disaster relief work, which, I suggest, must be incredibly time-consuming, a slightly pained expression crosses his face. “Mr Ban is really not that interested in money,” he says, which means, I think, that maintaining the balance is difficult.

The computer is a tool to save time, but as architects we should be spending more time on architecture, not less

Ban’s true enthusiasms clearly reside with the displaced. But when I raised the difficulty of reconciling these parallel careers with Ban himself, he said: “We are experimenting in both. We have to always try new things, otherwise we will never learn anything. For me there is no difference between the emergency work and the other projects . . . except whether I’m being paid or not.” 

Forty years or so ago, a label emerged for a particular type of architect who drew with visionary flair, but whose buildings were deemed too fantastical to build, or were never conceived for the world beyond the page: “paper architects”. Ban has completely subverted the label. He draws on paper, he builds with paper and from that cheap, sustainable material he has fabricated an oeuvre that is useful and beautiful; physically present and yet still, somehow, fantastical.

‘Shigeru Ban: Complete Works 1985-Today’ is published by Taschen

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“Nobody has ever attempted to move Napoleon,” says Olivia Fryman, keeper of the Wellington Collection, referring to the huge marble statue at the foot of the staircase in Apsley House, on London’s Piccadilly.

The nude — commissioned by the French emperor but dismissed by him as “too athletic” — was presented to Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, by the Prince Regent (later George IV) following his victory at the Battle of Waterloo, which ended the Napoleonic wars.

Antonio Canova’s work, “Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker”, is the most striking of the items associated with the emperor that populate Wellington’s former home. The floor beneath it had to be strengthened to accommodate its 13 tonnes.

The original Apsley House was built in red brick to the designs of the Neoclassical architect Robert Adam for Henry Bathurst, 1st Baron Apsley, in the 1770s. After taking up residence in 1817, Wellington made the house “more fitting for his status” by employing architect Benjamin Dean Wyatt to make extensions and alterations, including facing it with Bath stone, says Fryman. 

The grandest addition was the Waterloo Gallery, completed in 1830 to host his annual Waterloo Banquet celebrating the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte. The double-height room has an ornate gilded ceiling and a Versailles-style wall of seven mirrors that act as window shutters, sliding open to reveal views of Hyde Park. On display are paintings from the Spanish Royal Collection that Wellington received from King Ferdinand VII of Spain. Wellington commissioned a lockable glazed cover for his favourite work, “The Agony in the Garden” (c1525) by Correggio — he held the key himself. 

The field marshal received so many gifts from grateful monarchs that he created a museum in his house to display them. A porcelain service from King Frederick William III of Prussia features scenes from Wellington’s life, including his school, Eton College.

The field marshal received so many gifts from grateful monarchs that he created a museum in his house to display them

Many pieces in the house reflect Wellington’s military career but personal items on show when I visit include his false teeth and a walking stick with an inbuilt hearing aid. Fryman says he experienced hearing loss in the 1820s after standing too close to an artillery gun as it was fired. 

There is also a portrait of his wife, Catherine Pakenham, to whom Fryman says he was “very unhappily married”. They had two sons. The 1772 piano in the yellow drawing room probably belonged to Wellington’s father, a professor of music at Trinity College Dublin.

Wellington, who was born in Dublin in 1769, was twice prime minister during his political career that followed Waterloo. Apsley House remained in the family after his death in 1852 until the 7th Duke of Wellington donated it and many of the contents to the nation in 1947. Part of the house remains a family home for the current and 9th Duke, Charles Wellesley. 

In one of the public rooms cared for by English Heritage, William Allan’s Battle of Waterloo painting (1843) depicts Napoleon in the foreground on his white horse. Fryman interprets the preponderance of objects associated with the French leader as showing “a degree of respect” on the part of Wellington. “It’s almost a way of telling the story without blowing your own trumpet as well,” she says.

english-heritage.org.uk

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An out-of-his mind lighthouse keeper. A brooding vampire. A small-time criminal. Batman.

Robert Pattinson has played so many roles that it inspired Korean director Bong Joon Ho to cast him as multiple versions of the same dude – 18 of them, in fact – in a followup to the filmmaker’s Oscar-winning “Parasite.”

In the dark sci-fi comedy “Mickey 17” (in theaters Friday), Pattinson plays Mickey Barnes, a guy who owes money to the wrong people and tries to leave Earth ASAP. He signs up to be an “expendable” on a colonizing expedition to an ice planet, but never reads the fine print: Mickey becomes a lowly worker who’s regularly put in ultra-hazardous situations, and when he dies, a new Mickey is printed out with a high-tech machine and discarded organic material, with all his memories intact. Over and over and over again.

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On one mission, Mickey 17 is left for dead but is saved by the planet’s indigenous species. He’s rescued and runs into Mickey 18, which causes all sorts of political, personal and existential issues for the underdog hero.

Watching Pattinson in “The Lighthouse,” “I could just see the madness in his eyes in that performance, and that’s exactly what I wanted for Mickey 18,” Bong says through a translator. Pattinson’s superhero in “The Batman” is “different from Mickey in every single way, but there was this strange sense of melancholy to that character. His version of Batman just constantly was blaming himself. I thought that could resonate with Mickey, in some ways.”

“Mickey 17” examines themes of identity and colonialism, but in adapting Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel “Mickey7,” Bong was most attracted to exploring Mickey as a sad character who’s been printed more than a dozen times. It’s “presented as this advanced technology, but if you think about it, it’s kind of tragic, ridiculous and cruel, all at the same time,” the director says. “And in the middle of it is Mickey and all the struggles and turmoils that he goes through in those circumstances.

“His story felt very much like a journey of him recovering his selfhood (and) his self-esteem, maturing into reclaiming his own humanity.”

Pattinson thought it was an intriguing role, someone with no self-worth haunted his whole life by thinking he caused the accident that killed his mom by pushing a button in their car when he was a little boy. “I found it this fascinating thing to think, when you have a 5-year-old’s mentality, ‘I pressed the button and then my mom died and then my life turned (bad) afterwards,’” he says. “You get 20 years in the future and there’s so many things tangled up in your mind and it becomes more and more true the more things that go wrong.”

But every Mickey is a little different: Co-worker/girlfriend Nasha (Naomi Ackie) calls 17 “mild Mickey” and 18 “habanero Mickey.” The latter is essentially a misprint because when the scientists are printing him out, one of them trips and dislodges one of the cables on the machine, so “18 comes out completely insane, basically,” Pattinson says. “It’s almost like he knows he’s only got a little bit of time on the planet and wants to live it up as much as he can and basically just exists to teach 17 a lesson, in a lot of ways.”

Bong joked among fellow filmmakers that “if this film were to be turned into a Netflix series, each Mickey would have his own episode and the episode would begin with the new iteration coming out of the printer,” he says. The film offers glimpses of some old Mickeys – Nos. 12 through 16 die in vaccine trials during a zippy montage ― while others are mentioned in passing: No. 6 is the annoying and clingy one.

“He can only process each individual Mickey as a separate being to himself because it’s like, you are not human anymore. You’re literally made out of trash,” Pattinson says.  “He has empathy for all these previous incarnations of himself. It’s just a way of him dealing with the sort of awful situation he’s got himself in. Instead of saying, ‘Oh my God, I’m having a total existential crisis,’ it’s like, ‘No, that was my older brother Mickey 3 who existed three months ago.’”

The human printing machine itself symbolizes the film’s “tone and manner,” Bong says. “Despite having this fancy printer and going on colony expeditions, humans are still as pathetic (and) foolish as they are now making the same mistakes.” Looking like a souped-up MRI, it was designed to perform like an inkjet printer from the 1990s.

A Mickey moves in and out, in and out in jittery motion while being printed, and Bong says he had “a lot of fun” playing with the switch that controlled Pattinson coming out of the machine.

In those scenes, “you feel very much like a guinea pig,” Pattinson says. He let a stuntman take over when a Mickey falls out of the printer and onto the floor ― “It’s actually quite complicated to flop out onto your head” ― and didn’t love trying to act unconscious while steel rollers pinched his butt.

On one printing day, Pattinson recalls a new background actor getting an unfortunate job: “They’re like, ‘OK, we want to do a closeup where you’re putting a pipe up Rob’s ass.’ The guy just looked so deeply uncomfortable doing it. I’m sort of sitting there like, ’It’s OK, man, just jam it up there,’ ” he adds, laughing. “It was a real character forming experience.”

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NYC, where I live, is a city built in large part from glass. It’s not the famed sheet-glass skyscrapers that catch my eye, though, but something more mundane: the patchwork of glass blocks embedded, unceremoniously, into building facades across town. Glass blocks proliferated globally during the 20th century before falling from fashion, making them today as ubiquitous as they are unloved. And yet this past year, in homes from Kansas City to Kreuzberg, the humble glass block is making a clear comeback. 

Patented by Swiss engineer Gustave Falconnier in 1886, the original glass blocks were faceted to allow filtered light into factories. In the 1920s, with the Art Deco and Bauhaus movements’ fixation on geometry, glass blocks became a mainstay of residential architecture. This period was so bananas for blocks that entire buildings, such as Pierre Chareau’s Maison de Verre, were constructed from them. Then, after fading from fashion mid-century, blocks resurfaced in the 1980s, becoming newly synonymous with that era’s oversaturated, Miami Vice aesthetic — equal parts seedy and sexy. This bad reputation has plagued them ever since.

Glass blocks are, today, the Marmite of building materials, inspiring both love and hate. Abby Happel, a Chicago-based architect, is in the former camp. “I have a thing for buildings with glass blocks,” she says, explaining how last year, this obsession led her to create @sexyglassblock, an Instagram account cataloguing archival and contemporary examples. “Sometimes I have to ask myself: do I actually like this building? Or does it just have a glass block in it?”

Most people said they hated glass blocks, that they reminded them of their grandma’s house. Well, maybe your grandma has better taste than you

While the page’s posts can amass more than 250,000 likes, initially the feedback was polarised. “Most responses were from people saying they hated glass blocks, that they reminded them of their grandma’s house,” she says. “Well, maybe your grandma has better taste than you.”

This bygone association is precisely what drew designer Madelynn Hudson to use glass blocks in a recent Kansas City renovation. The guest bathroom features a partition constructed from alpha glass blocks, which have a circular motif embedded within the block’s square. When stacked, this style of block creates a plane evoking a sheet of bubble wrap. “The geometric repetition — it’s pure Deco,” Hudson says. “History repeats itself, and we’re now experiencing an Art Deco revival. We’re in the 1920s again, after all.”

But the glass block’s 1980s connection is equally compelling for Hudson. “People are afraid of glass blocks because of how cost-effective they are, and so how overused they became,” she says, adding that the material’s relative affordability is an asset with today’s rising construction costs. 

“Were there some gaudy things happening in the 1980s? Oh, of course. But we have enough distance from that decade now to really see the interesting and cool design elements,” she says. “We’re coming out of a period of organic minimalism,” she adds. “That preference is giving way to a desire for something more eventful, expressive and bold.”

The geometric uniformity attracted ceramicist and designer Danny Kaplan to use them in his newly completed Manhattan home and showroom, designed alongside architect Peter Martin of Ashe Leandro. “Their grid-like pattern juxtaposes beautifully with the organic forms of my ceramics,” says Kaplan. He opted for Doric glass blocks, which feature wide vertical ribbing that underscores the material’s clean lines. This more singular style of block, rather than the rippled-water Nubio style overplayed in the last century, ensures the space feels contemporary.

Glass blocks are, in fact, the first thing visitors to Kaplan’s home-slash-showroom encounter. As elevator doors open into the space, diaphanous glass-block partitions create an intimate foyer. Blocks are used in this way throughout the space, segmenting the open-plan loft without making it feel dark. “They delineate spaces in a visually open way,” Kaplan says. “The translucency adds a luminous quality to the interiors, filtering natural light while maintaining an element of privacy.”

Architecture practice Flack Studio is likewise captivated by the visual qualities of glass blocks. “Thanks to their chunkiness, they reflect light in a super dynamic way,” says founder David Flack. For a recent Melbourne project, Flack constructed exterior walls from glass blocks. “A flat glass panel has a direct relationship with the landscape, whereas the glass block is much more abstract, distorting the view,” he says. “It invites your imagination to fill in the gaps between what you can see and what you want to see.”

Recent manufacturing developments have introduced a new breed of glass blocks with enhanced thermal insulation and energy efficiency, akin to your classic double-glazed unit. For Flack, the glass block is chic without sacrificing sustainability.

It’s not just the material itself that’s evolving, but the way designers are approaching it. In a residential project by Studio Beck on Australia’s Gold Coast, for example, glass blocks form the igloo-like structure of a bathtub. For an apartment in Berlin’s Kreuzberg neighbourhood, meanwhile, architecture practice Studio Karhard created a glass-block wall in the living room, backlit by programmable LED panels.

Glass blocks are well suited for innovative application, says Karhard co-founder Thomas Karsten: “It’s a very old material that has a futuristic quality. It works as well today as it did 100 years ago.”

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“The Amazing Race” is back for its most jam packed adventure in the show’s nearly 25 year run.

Season 37 of the Emmy-winning reality competition series hosted by Phil Keoghan will follow 14 duos traveling across the world, the largest cast in the show’s history, all vying for the $1 million prize.

Though the goal of each team has always been simple – to not be last – the journey is anything but. Competitors must overcome mental and physical challenges at various Pit Stops in order to learn their next location. The teams that are last to reach the Pit Stop will gradually be eliminated with each episode.

The Season 37 cast’s first stop will be in Hong Kong, where the contestants will learn a surprise twist that forces them to choose which direction and route they want to take, CBS confirmed. The twist will create two parallel races where two teams will be eliminated at separate pit stops.

Here’s what to know about Season 37 of “The Amazing Race.”

When does ‘The Amazing Race’ Season 37 premiere?

The new season features 90-minute episodes, including the premiere, which airs Wednesday, March 5 at 9:30 p.m. EDT/PDT on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.

Subscribe to Paramount+ to watch “The Amazing Race”

How to watch ‘The Amazing Race’

New episodes of “The Amazing Race” Season 37 will air Wednesday nights at 9:30 p.m. EDT/PDT on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.

New episodes will be available to stream the day after the episode airs and on-demand on Paramount+ with Showtime subscribers, or on demand for Paramount+ Essential subscribers. The first 36 seasons are also available on the streaming platform.

‘The Amazing Race’ 2025 cast

“The Amazing Race” Season 37 will feature the following teams of two:

• Alyssa Borden and Josiah Borden: Married couple
• Bernie Gutierrez and Carrigain Scadden: Friends
• Brett Hamby and Mark Romain: Married couple
• Carson McCalley and Jack Dodge: Best friends
• Courtney Ramsey and Jasmin Carey: Dating
• Ernest Cato and Bridget Cato: Father and daughter
• Han Nguyen and Holden Nguyen: Siblings
• Jackye Clayton and Lauren McKinney: Sisters
• Jonathan Towns and Ana Towns: Married couple
• Mark Crawford and Larry Graham: Best friends
• Melinda Papadeas and Erika Papadeas :Mother and daughter
• Nick Fiorito and Mike Fiorito: Brothers
• Jeff ‘Pops’ Bailey and Jeff Bailey: Father and son
• Scott Thompson and Lori Thompson: Married couple

‘The Amazing Race’ Season 37 cast: Meet the 14 teams racing around the world

Who won ‘Amazing Race’ Season 36?

New York City couple Ricky Rotandi and César Aldrete won Season 36 of “The Amazing Race.”

Rotandi is a preschool teacher and Aldrete is a chef. The pair won seven of the 11 legs and came in second place three times.

Best friends Juan Villa and Shane Bilek ultimately came in second place, while married couple Rod and Leticia Gardner came in third.

Contributing: Haadiza Ogwude, Cincinnati Enquirer

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