Coldplay’s Chris Martin calls out camera-shy cozy couple at Massachusetts concert

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Updated 18 July 2025
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Coldplay’s Chris Martin calls out camera-shy cozy couple at Massachusetts concert

Coldplay’s Chris Martin calls out camera-shy cozy couple at Massachusetts concert

MASSACHUSETTS: A “kiss cam” moment at a Coldplay concert at Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts this week has gone viral on social media after the band’s frontman suggested the camera-shy pair were either “having an affair” or just really shy.

The group was performing “The Jumbotron Song,” when the camera showed a man and woman cuddling as they watched the stage. 

The two panicked and attempted to leave the frame in hopes to cover their faces.



“Whoa, look at these two,” the band’s lead singer Chris Martin said. “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy,” he jokingly said.

The man and woman were identified as Astronomer CEO Andy Byron and HR Chief Kristin Cabot.

Several internet users noted that Byron’s wife had recently removed his last name from her social media profiles. 

There has been no official response from Byron or Cabot although fake ‘apologies’ have circulated the internet.

 


McDonald’s Japan’s Pokemon card Happy Meals promotion comes to an unhappy end

McDonald’s Japan’s Pokemon card Happy Meals promotion comes to an unhappy end
Updated 13 August 2025
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McDonald’s Japan’s Pokemon card Happy Meals promotion comes to an unhappy end

McDonald’s Japan’s Pokemon card Happy Meals promotion comes to an unhappy end

TOKYO: Fast-food chain McDonald’s Japan has canceled a Happy Meal campaign that came with coveted Pokemon cards, apologizing after resellers rushed to buy the meals and then discarded the food, leaving trash outside stores.

The meals, called Happy Sets in Japan, were meant for children. They came with a toy, such as a tiny plastic Pikachu, and a Pokemon card. They sold out in a day, according to Japanese media reports.

Mounds of wasted food were found near the stores.

“We do not believe in abandoning and discarding food. This situation goes against our longtime philosophy that we have cherished as a restaurant to ‘offer a fun dining experience for children and families.’ We sincerely accept that our preparations had not been adequate,” the company said in a statement Monday.

McDonald’s said it was working on ways to prevent such a situation from happening again, such as limiting the number of meals each person can buy and ending online orders. It said it might deny service to customers who fail to abide by the rules.

“We vow to return to the basics of what lies behind the Happy Set, which is about helping to bring smiles to families so we can contribute to the wholesome development of the hearts and bodies of children, who are our future,” the company said.

Collecting Pokemon cards is popular among adults and children in many places, with the most popular cards selling for $1,000 or more.

Unusually large crowds were seen flocking to McDonald’s stores when the meals with Pokemon cards went on sale. The cards were later being resold for up to tens of thousands of yen (hundreds of dollars) online.

McDonald’s has been selling Happy Meals for more than 40 years. In Japan, they usually sell for 510 yen ($3.40).


Gulf tourists say Polish mountain town is a cool place

Gulf tourists say Polish mountain town is a cool place
Updated 13 August 2025
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Gulf tourists say Polish mountain town is a cool place

Gulf tourists say Polish mountain town is a cool place
  • Thousands of Gulf residents spending their summer vacation in Zakopane, a resort known for its ski lifts and hiking trails, where historic wooden houses mix with modern hotels

ZAKOPANE: Saudi photographer Fahad Alayyash gazed over the Alpine-like panorama of the Tatras, Poland’s highest mountain range — and a surprising new hotspot for Arab tourists.

The 38-year-old is among thousands of Gulf residents spending their summer vacation in Zakopane, a resort known for its ski lifts and hiking trails, where historic wooden houses mix with modern hotels.

“We’ve completely taken over the place,” Alayyash said while standing on Gubalowka, a peak overlooking Zakopane, where dozens of visitors drink coffee, shop for souvenirs and enjoy the view.

Zakopane, located in southern Poland, has become a major summer draw for holidaymakers from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, with up to seven daily flights from the region at nearby Krakow Airport.

The boom started with a Saudi travel agency representative, said Agata Wojtowicz, head of the Tatra chamber of commerce.

She said the official came to Zakopane to scout for a new destination with a direct connection to the Gulf and “was astonished” by the town.

Flydubai launched the first Dubai-Krakow connection in 2018 and Emiratis are now coming in droves — helped by their visa-free access to the European Union.

Last year they were Poland’s fastest-growing tourist group, according to the tourism ministry, with numbers 66 percent higher than in 2023.

Manal Alanazy, a 45-year-old educational technology professor at King Saud University, said Zakopane is well-known among Saudis.

“When I told my dad and my brother that I’m going to Poland, my brother didn’t like it. He said: ‘It’s all Gulf people there,’” she told AFP.

Zakopane uses social media to attract Gulf tourists who have created “a snowball effect” of growing interest, said Wojtowicz.

Over the past three years, Arab influencers have been invited on promotional visits, according to Grzegorz Biedron, chairman of its tourism organization.

Both Alanazy and Abdullah Alotaibi, a 30-year-old Kuwaiti ship captain, learnt about Zakopane from X.

“I saw on Twitter (X) a thread about Zakopane, and how it treats all people the same, and there is no racism about religions, so I liked it and I came,” said Alotaibi.

Arab tourists cite the feeling of safety as one of Zakopane’s key assets.

“It was dark and I was walking... I’m like, ‘You’re not in Poland, you’re in one of the Gulf countries. Just look. Nothing will happen,’” said Alanazy.

For Zakopane’s business owners, the Gulf clientele has been a blessing.

“This year, around two-thirds are Arabs,” Anna Stoch-El Einen, who owns a kebab restaurant and souvenir shop, said of her customers.

“We have very few Polish tourists in the region, perhaps because of the weather,” she added.

The hospitality industry has adapted fast to the preferences of Middle East visitors.

Stoch-El Einen offers menus in Polish and Arabic, and has a “halal” certificate displayed over the counter.

“We also make sure that we have a halal menu,” said Wiktor Wrobel, CEO of the region’s Nosalowy hotel group.

Arab customers constitute up to 30 percent of all summer guests at his five-star hotel in Zakopane.

City mayor Lukasz Filipowicz told AFP “local entrepreneurs are very happy about the presence of tourists from the Middle East.”

He said the biggest challenge was the difference in driving cultures, with visitors often breaking parking and entry laws.

“Every municipal police patrol is equipped with a handbook in Arabic... so that tourists from the Middle East can understand and comply with the applicable regulations,” Filipowicz said.

The day is rainy, but the drizzle did not deter Gulf visitors escaping the infernal summer heat in their home region. Temperatures sometimes top 50C in the Gulf, whereas Polish summers are generally mild.

Alanazy initially wanted to vacation in Paris.

“I canceled because the heatwave hit the European countries,” she told AFP, adding that “the weather is perfect” in Zakopane.

Wrobel said climate change is a reason behind the surge in Zakopane’s popularity.

“The respite that visitors from Arab countries are looking for cannot be found in Italy or Spain, where temperatures have also risen significantly,” he told AFP.

Hanka Krzeptowska-Marusarz, whose family runs a guesthouse in Zakopane, recalled seeing a Kuwaiti in full Islamic attire as she stood in a meadow, arms spread out, soaked in torrential rain.

“I thought it was beautiful,” she said.


Venus Williams to get new Barbie as part of Inspiring Women collection

Venus Williams to get new Barbie as part of Inspiring Women collection
Updated 13 August 2025
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Venus Williams to get new Barbie as part of Inspiring Women collection

Venus Williams to get new Barbie as part of Inspiring Women collection
  • Williams’ doll, to be released on Friday, will celebrate the tennis great and pay equity champion
  • The doll, suggested to retail for $38, will feature Williams in all white with a green gem necklace, wristband, racket and tennis ball

Venus Williams has a new Barbie, this one part of the dollmaker’s Inspiring Women collection.

Williams’ doll, to be released Friday, will celebrate the tennis great and pay equity champion with a doll wearing the uniform she wore while winning Wimbledon in 2007.

Williams’ win for the fifth of her seven grand slam titles was the first time a woman received equal prize money as the men at a top-level tournament.

The doll, suggested to retail for $38, will feature Williams in all white with a green gem necklace, wristband, racket and tennis ball.

Williams also had a Barbie doll released in May 2024 that highlighted nine trailblazing female athletes as part of Barbie’s 65th anniversary celebration.


Lebanese craftsman keeps up tradition of tarboosh hat-making

Lebanese craftsman Mohammed Al-Shaar sews the brim of a tarboosh at his workshop in the northern Lebanese costal city of Tripoli
Lebanese craftsman Mohammed Al-Shaar sews the brim of a tarboosh at his workshop in the northern Lebanese costal city of Tripoli
Updated 13 August 2025
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Lebanese craftsman keeps up tradition of tarboosh hat-making

Lebanese craftsman Mohammed Al-Shaar sews the brim of a tarboosh at his workshop in the northern Lebanese costal city of Tripoli
  • Brimless hats made with maroon, black or green felt, some embroidered with Lebanon’s national emblem, the cedar, sit on display in the small workshop

TRIPOLI: Nestled among shops in a bustling market in north Lebanon’s Tripoli, Mohammed Al-Shaar is at his workshop making traditional tarboosh hats, keeping up a family craft despite dwindling demand.

With a thimble on one finger, Shaar, 38, cuts, sews and carefully assembles the pieces of the conical, flat-topped felt hat also known as a fez, attaching a tassel to the top.

Reputedly the last tarboosh craftsman in Lebanon, the Tripoli native has been making the hats for 25 years in know-how passed on by his grandfather.

“Our family has been carrying on this craft for 125 years,” said Shaar, who also studied tarboosh making in Egypt.

The brimless hats made with maroon, black or green felt, some bearing floral motifs or embroidered with Lebanon’s national emblem, the cedar, sit on display in the small workshop.

While the tarboosh has been around in Lebanon for several centuries, it became particularly common during the late Ottoman period.

“The tarboosh used to have great value — it was part of day-to-day dress, and the Lebanese were proud of it,” Shaar said, noting the hat now is largely seen as a traditional item or appealing to tourists.

“Nowadays, people barely wear the tarboosh, except for traditional events,” he said.

As well as a onetime symbol of prestige or social status, the hat was used for non-verbal communication, Shaar said.

“When a man wanted to woo a beautiful young woman, he used to slightly tip his tarboosh to the left or right,” he said, while knocking someone’s tarboosh off was offensive.

As successive crises have hit Lebanon, including a catastrophic 2020 port explosion in Beirut and a recent war between Israel and Hezbollah, tourism has diminished.

Shaar said his “work has slowed, and demand for the tarboosh has dropped” as a result.

Sales have plummeted to just four or five of his handmade hats a month compared to around 50 before the crisis, he said.

Recent customers have mainly been music and dance troops, or religious figures who wear the tarboosh covered with a turban.

Shaar said he used to employ three others but now works alone, selling his handmade hats for around $30.

But he said he wasn’t about to close up shop or abandon his passion for tarboosh making.

“I feel like my soul is linked to this craft. I don’t want to shut or to stop working,” he said.


Fans celebrate the 80th birthday of the Moomins, Finland’s most lovable literary cartoon family

Fans celebrate the 80th birthday of the Moomins, Finland’s most lovable literary cartoon family
Updated 12 August 2025
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Fans celebrate the 80th birthday of the Moomins, Finland’s most lovable literary cartoon family

Fans celebrate the 80th birthday of the Moomins, Finland’s most lovable literary cartoon family
  • The chubby, white, hippopotamus-like characters have captivated readers worldwide
  • Characters were from Tove Jansson’s ‘The Moomins and the Great Flood’ published in 1945

TAMPERE, Finland: The Moomins, Finland’s most lovable literary cartoon family, are celebrating their 80th birthday this year.

The chubby, white, hippopotamus-like characters have captivated readers worldwide since author and illustrator Tove Jansson published “The Moomins and the Great Flood” in 1945. The children’s book features Moomintroll and Moominmamma in their search for the missing Moominpappa.

Jansson, a Swedish-speaking Finn who died in 2001, went on to write eight more books, multiple picture books and a comic strip about the Moomins in Swedish.

The series, set in the fictional Moominvalley, has been translated into more than 60 languages, and sparked movie and TV adaptations, children’s plays, art gallery exhibitions and an eponymous museum – plus theme parks in Finland and Japan. Finnair, the national carrier, has even put Moomins on its airplanes.

On Saturday, fans flocked to Tampere in southern Finland – home of the Moomin Museum – to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the 1945 publication as well as Jansson’s Aug. 9, 1914, birthday.

Fans from childhood to adulthood

For Rosa Senn of the United Kingdom, the festivities reminded her of her childhood. Her Norwegian mother, a fan since her own youth, read all of the tales to Senn and her sister growing up.

“Moomins have been such a special thing in my life, my whole life,” Senn said. “I just carried that love for Moomin, for Tove Jansson, with me into my adult life.”

When Senn met her now-wife, Lizzie, they were initially in a long-distance relationship for the first year and a half. Senn introduced Lizzie to the books and the couple used a plush doll of Moomintroll to feel closer to each other while they were apart. The doll was the ringbearer at their wedding, and they traveled to Tampere on their honeymoon.

The Senns also made an Instagram page documenting the trio’s adventures, which now has nearly 11,000 followers. The social media account has connected them with Moomin fans all over the world, including Stefanie and Michael Geutebrück from Germany.

Moomin merchandise

Stefanie Geutebrück said she remembers falling in love with the Moomins while watching their animations during her childhood in East Germany. She also brought the Moomins into her husband’s life, to the point where they also traveled to Tampere for Saturday’s entertainment.

“Now he’s a total fan and our apartment looks like a Moomin shop,” she said.

Beyond the Geutebrücks’ home, Moomin merchandise is hugely popular. There’s a massive market for Moomintroll, Moominmamma and Moominpappa souvenirs across the globe, and secondary characters like their friends Stinky, Sniff, Snufkin, Snork Maiden and Hattifatteners are also well-loved.

“The Moomin mug is one of the best-known collector items worldwide,” Selma Green, director of the Moomin Museum, said. “You buy a Moomin mug, you like the characters, you maybe see something on TV – but we all go back to the books, the original illustrations.”

Depictions of the character Stinky, described as a lovable rogue who has captured Moominmamma’s heart, generated debate and outcry in Finland this summer after reports emerged in Finnish media that Stinky was removed from a mural in an exhibit at the Brooklyn Public Library in New York due to concerns that the cartoon might be perceived as racist.

“A single image of Stinky was removed from the youth wing – which had the potential to be negatively misconstrued by young children without a fuller understanding of the Moomin universe,” the library said Monday in a statement to The Associated Press. “However, Stinky does appear in other areas of the exhibition and the Moomins books remain available for patrons to check out as they always have.”

Jansson’s drawings of Stinky shows the character with a dark, fuzzy body, with skinny legs and antennae. He has a reputation as an unsuccessful criminal – whose plans get foiled or he gets caught in the act – with an appetite for furniture and other wooden things.

“To me, this became as quite a big surprise because I have more thought about Stinky being close to a mole or a vole,” Sirke Happonen, a Moomins scholar and associate professor at the University of Helsinki, said of the library’s decision. “He’s an interesting character in many ways, like controversial and fun.”

Moominvalley as an escape

The Moomin stories honor the idea of family as a flexible concept. Diverse gender roles and queer themes also come across in Moominvalley, as well as in Jansson’s other works, reflecting her LGBTQ+ identity.

Her partner of more than 45 years, engraver and artist Tuulikki Pietilä, was memorialized as the character Too-ticky in “Moominland Midwinter.” The couple lived in Helsinki and spent their summers on the small rocky island of Klovharu in the Gulf of Finland until the 1990s.

Jansson’s stories also reflect war and catastrophe. The first book, “The Moomins and the Great Flood,” features the displaced Moomin family and was published in the final months of World War II. The conflict had ruined Finland, even though it had remained independent, and one of the author’s brothers went missing during part of his time at the front.

While Jansson sought to portray Moominvalley as an escape, Moomin stories have always had a mixture of peril and comfort.

“Her first Moomin book came out in a dark era. She felt it was very difficult to paint, and she started writing what she called a fairy tale, but she excused herself not to include princesses or princes,” Happonen said.

Moominvalley was borne of a need to find beauty at a time when Jansson’s existence, along with everyone else in Finland, felt frail.

“I think she wanted to make a contrast – Tove Jansson loved contrasts – by writing about this beautiful world, full of friendship and love,” Happonen said.