World News – Page 5 – MIL-OSI Export

Five years ago, Logan Paul set a world record when he purchased a Pokémon card for US$5.275 million (NZ$8.74 million). It proved a sound investment – the influencer and wrestler sold that card for a jaw-dropping $16.492 million (NZ$27.3 million), with a diamond encrusted necklace thrown in.

The rare Pikachu Illustrator card –– one of just 39 created for a Pokémon illustration competition in the late 90s –– went under the hammer on Goldin auctions on Monday.

It is believed to have earned the WWE star more than NZ$13 million in profit after auction fees, a sale he called “absolutely insane”.

The auction had been running for 42 days but came to an end after hours of extended bidding Monday, with Paul saying “we may have tired someone out” during a YouTube live stream.

“Oh my gosh, this is crazy,” he added once the auction closed and confetti rained down.

Moments later, a Guinness World Records official appeared onscreen and confirmed Paul had sold the most expensive trading card ever at auction.

This time around the card was sold inside a custom necklace worn by Paul at WrestleMania 38 and with his promise to hand-deliver it to the winning bidder.

Pokémon is the world’s highest-grossing media franchise, surpassing even Disney and Star Wars. Cards have rocketed in value, outpacing sports cards and beating the S&P stock market by 3000 percent in the past 20 years, Goldin founder and CEO Ken Goldin told CNN in December after Logan confirmed he would be auctioning off the card.

“This is the most coveted trading card in the world,” he said.

Goldin said the Illustrator is considered “the holy grail of all Pokémon cards” and Paul’s card was what everybody wants because it’s virtually flawless – the only Illustrator card considered a Grade 10 card by authentication agency PSA.

As Monday’s bidding drew to a close, the price initially held at $11.41 million until a flurry of last-minute offers during an extended bidding period lasting several hours drove the final auction total to $27.33 million from 97 total bids.

Paul has a reputation for taking collectibles to extreme levels and has spent millions to secure some of the rarest items ever produced, including NFTs – unique, verifiable digital assets traded on the blockchain.

The WWE wrestling star bid farewell to the card on Saturday in an Instagram post, saying “goodbye my friend. What a privilege it’s been to be the owner of the greatest collectible in the world.”

The card is just one of 20 Illustrator cards graded by PSA.

Paul got his hands on the ultra-rare Grade 10 card by swapping a PSA Grade 9 Pikachu Illustrator card he previously owned – worth $2.11 – and $6.6 million in cash for it in July 2021.

Only eight of the Pikachu Illustrator cards have been awarded a PSA Grade 9 and Paul’s sale is the only PSA Grade 10, the highest and most desirable grade assigned by PSA.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/17/logan-pauls-holy-grail-of-pokemon-cards-sells-for-27-3-million/

February 17, 2026

Our Changing World: Science for future fashion

Source: Radio New Zealand

Senior technician Sean Taylor displays the new solution for mounting sensors onto smart clothing. RNZ

Follow Our Changing World on Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Over the last three decades the rise of fast fashion, and the explosion of plastics in our clothes like polyester and nylon, has created sustainability and environmental issues.

Globally 92 million tonnes of textile waste is produced each year, and an estimated half a tonne of unwanted clothes is sent to landfills in New Zealand every five minutes. The fashion industry is a major contributor to carbon emissions, and each wash of petroleum-based textiles produces more microplastic pollution that gets into our waterways.

Enter the European UPWEARS project, which aims to use science and innovation to tackle these problems.

Future fashion

“We are expecting to have a totally new, sustainable and innovative supply chain for the textile industry,” says Dr Yi Chen.

UPWEARS is a four-year, €7 million (NZ$13.7m) research project involving 14 partners from seven countries, one of which is New Zealand’s Bioeconomy Science Institute. While the project is led by the French national research institute INRAE, Yi is the UPWEARS New Zealand lead, based on the Institute’s campus in Rotorua (previously Scion).

It is a lofty goal. One that they have split into different sections to tackle; replacing plastic-based yarns with natural ones that will biodegrade, creating new textile processing technologies that are more energy efficient, designing smart sensing ‘e-textiles’ and figuring out if there’s a way to recycle existing textile waste.

Bioeconomy Science Institute

The project is funded by Horizon Europe, the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation. New Zealand can bid for funding by applying with European partners and the New Zealand government pays back to Horizon Europe what is received in grants.

This international collaboration is key, says Yi. The Bioeconomy Science Institute has expertise in biomaterial development, and the campus has biodegradation facilities that will be vitally important for later in the project to test whether the clothing they create can break down. The European partners bring state-of-the-art research facilities like particle accelerators and large-scale additive manufacturing, as well as textile industry knowledge.

The project kicked off in November 2024 with a meeting in France and the next gathering will take place in Rotorua in 2027.

At that stage, they hope to have produced a prototype example of ‘clothing of the future’ – a smart cycling suit with built-in sensors capable of analysing your sweat or environmental conditions. All made from natural fibres that can be reused or biodegrade at the end of the clothing’s life.

Dr Kate Parker at the Bioeconomy Science Institute’s biodegradation facility. RNZ

Creating clever yarn for smart clothing

In one of the chemistry labs on campus Dr Robert Abbel holds up a clear plastic bag with two fibres inside. One is a pale-yellow colour. This is what their European partners send to him – samples of the natural-based yarns they have developed made from hemp and European flax.

The other is a dark black colour, a result of Robert’s efforts to make this yarn able to conduct electricity.

To do this he makes use of a molecule called lignin which is naturally found in wood but is stripped out as waste in the paper-making industry. But Robert has found a way to put this waste to use.

“We process the lignins into nanoparticles and then give them a high temperature, so-called carbonisation, treatment. So they turn into carbon. That means they get conductive. And then we deposit them on the yarns in order to make the yarns conductive so that they can be woven into functional textiles.”

Their collaborators will use these conductive yarns in their aim of creating smart textiles – sensors that are part of the clothing that can monitor different health or environmental markers, such as breathing and heart rate, or air pollutants.

But they will need something to mount these sensors on, and work is underway on that too in Rotorua.

Dr Robert Abbel has been working on how to make the natural fibre yarn conductive using the waste product lignin. RNZ

Putting paper-making skills to new use

Senior technologist Sean Taylor spends much of his time in one of the oldest labs on campus. Once it would have been used to investigate how best to make paper out of wood pulp. Now Sean is applying this knowledge to new research questions.

Cellulose, the main strengthening component of wood, is the most abundant polymer on Earth, and is the basis of papermaking. Now, Sean says, while demand for paper production seems to be waning, there’s growing interest in using cellulose to replace plastic polymers wherever possible.

Sean has been combining cellulose from different sources (different tree species have different length cellulose fibres) with waste lignin to produce a paper-like material that’s stiff, robust and water resistant. Perfect to mount a sensor on for this new smart clothing.

As well as this innovation around biomaterials, some of the Rotorua-based UPWEARS team are also investigating whether there are solutions for existing textile waste.

End of life

In a garage-like space at the back of the campus, Louise Le Gall flicks leavers and pushes a satisfyingly-large red button to switch the big yellow extrusion machine on.

As it hums to life, she explains that it uses a combination of heat and mechanical pressure exerted by two turning screws to melt and mix whatever is fed into it. Louise is currently researching whether she will be able to give used textiles a new lease of life using this machine.

Louise Le Gall is the materials engineer tasked with try to figure out how to recycle waste textiles into 3D printer filament. RNZ

The goal is to take different types of materials and use them to create 3D printing filament, but it is all about characterising what you are working with, she explains.

“You have to know how to play with the parameters to obtain the product you want at the end. So in the case of the UPWEARS project, we have some textile waste. You can have nylon, you can have polyester, you can also have cotton. And our goal is to find which parameter we’re going to choose to mix all that together in the machine, without burning one material and melting the other.”

If it works, they’ll use this recycled textile filament to 3D print padding to be used in the sportswear. Which the team are hoping will be ready for a test run in Whakarewarewa Forest Park in Rotorua in 2027.

Sign up to the Our Changing World monthly newsletter for episode backstories, science analysis and more.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/17/our-changing-world-science-for-future-fashion/

February 16, 2026

Benefits of intermittent fasting ‘fail to match the hype’, major review finds

Source: Radio New Zealand

Intermittent fasting has become a popular phrase in dieting, promising to boost metabolism, shed body fat, and even help reduce the risk of diabetes, hypertension and obesity.

From the 5:2 diet to the eight-hour feeding window, it has become a hot topic for researchers to study and internet personalities to promote.

But intermittent fasting regimes “fail to match hype” for significant loss and reducing health risks in people who are overweight, according to a major review of studies by the Cochrane Collaboration.

Fasting is prevalent among the Indian community.

Adobe Stock

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/16/benefits-of-intermittent-fasting-fail-to-match-the-hype-major-review-finds/

February 15, 2026

Is Wuthering Heights actually romantic? Heathcliff would say no

Source: Radio New Zealand

Emerald Fennell’s film of Wuthering Heights, starring Australian actors Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff and Margot Robbie as Catherine, bills itself as the “greatest love story of all time”. A poll of British readers agreed.

But what would Heathcliff think?

Heathcliff, if you’ve not read the book, seen one of the many adaptations, or heard Kate Bush’s iconic song, is the protagonist of Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë’s sole novel (published originally under the pseudonym Ellis Bell). He’s the ethnically ambiguous foster child of the Earnshaw family, who live in the titular Wuthering Heights on the windswept, desolate Yorkshire moors: the backdrop for his obsessive, doomed relationship with his foster-sister Catherine.

The new film poster evokes a romance ‘clinch cover’.

Supplied

. The novel’s narrator, housekeeper Nelly Dean, chastises him for how badly he’s treating her. Isabella loves him, Nelly tells Heathcliff reproachfully, or she would not have abandoned the comforts of her home in the warm, welcoming, comfortable Thrushcross Grange to marry him and live him in the cold, dreary Wuthering Heights.

“She abandoned them under a delusion,” Heathcliff sneers in response, “picturing in me a hero of romance, and expecting unlimited indulgences from my chivalrous devotion.”

Here, Heathcliff explicitly rejects the idea he is any kind of romantic hero. However, for more than a century, he has been interpreted as one, with his intense connection with Catherine – a passion that endures long past her death – captivating audiences.

Indeed, this kind of romantic positioning is evident on the film poster, depicting Heathcliff and Catherine. It is strongly reminiscent of a “clinch cover”: common among historical romance novels published in the late 20th and early 21st century (most infamously associated with male model Fabio).

Plenty of modern readers agree with Heathcliff’s self-assessment, though. “Heathcliff from ‘Wuthering Heights’ isn’t a romantic anti-hero,” reads the headline of one article by Christopher Shultz, “he’s a f#$%ing monster”.

A romance?

People regularly claim Wuthering Heights as their favourite romance novel, to the exasperation of romance readers and writers. It might be considered a love story, but Wuthering Heights is not a romance.

This is clear if we look at it against the (embattled) Romance Writers of America definition: a romance novel needs a central love plot and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending. Other 19th-century classics fit the bill – Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, for instance – but Wuthering Heights does not.

Even the biggest fans of the book would probably not argue Heathcliff and Catherine’s relationship is in any way healthy.

Warner Bros Pictures

The love story between Heathcliff and Catherine is certainly the element of the book most readers remember – and, indeed, many adaptations focus on it almost entirely. However, the couple are never actually together in any formal way, and their tortured relationship consumes surprisingly little page space.

Notably, Catherine dies approximately halfway through the book. While Heathcliff is tormented by grief for the rest of it, the primary action shifts to their children. This makes it difficult to argue theirs is a “central” love story.

Given Catherine’s death and Heathcliff’s subsequent misery, it is also difficult to make a case that Wuthering Heights has an optimistic ending.

The book ends with a potentially happy union between Catherine’s daughter (also named Catherine) and her cousin Hareton, and the suggestion Heathcliff and his Catherine might be wandering the moors together as ghosts. This is arguably emotionally satisfying – they are together in death the way they were never in life – but not really optimism, especially taking into account the many lives they destroyed along the way.

Dark dynamics

So – if Wuthering Heights is not a romance per se, can we argue that it is romantic?

This hinges on how we define romantic. There’s no doubt that it’s Romantic, with a capital R. Wuthering Heights is deeply influenced by Romanticism, a literary and artistic movement which emphasised intense feeling and passion over logic and reason.

Modern conceptions of romance, though, place more of an emphasis on intimacy, closeness and overall functionality. Britain’s Romantic Novel of the Year awards, for instance, require a “healthy relationship dynamic between the main characters” – and even the biggest fans of the book would find it hard to argue Heathcliff and Catherine’s relationship is in any way healthy.

This said, some of the most popular romance subgenres at the moment revel in dynamics which are – like Heathcliff and Catherine’s – dangerous, intense, destructive and toxic. Dark romance is the most notable example.

Amoral people, illicit passion

As English professor David Shumway notes in his book Modern Love, romantic love was long considered a “destructive passion” – something that was a threat to marriage, rather than its building block. He writes:

In the nineteenth century, romance became grafted onto marriage, but it has never become entirely at ease with the union. This combination produced a tension within the discourse because [romance’s] essential characteristics derive from adulterous love.

Wuthering Heights was published in 1847, right in the middle of the 19th century. In it, we see this tension between companionate marital love and adulterous passion played out. Catherine swears repeatedly that she loves her husband Edgar, but this is at best an uneasy love: a pale shadow of the immense, destructive passion she has for Heathcliff.

“You loved me — then what right had you to leave me?” Heathcliff demands of Catherine on her deathbed.

you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.

The appeal of a genre like dark romance – of which Wuthering Heights is surely an ancestor – is its excessive intensity. While dark romance today ends happily, the intensity of Heathcliff and Catherine’s adulterous passion might have been muted if they had ended up together in romantic bliss – and, as a result, this book might not be half so compelling.

Speaking broadly, Heathcliff and Catherine are two mostly amoral people who bring destruction to the lives of everyone around them (as well as each other). Whether or not we consider it “romantic”, it is the force of their illicit passion that has made Wuthering Heights memorable.

Jodi McAlister received an Romance Writers of America academic grant in 2019.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/15/is-wuthering-heights-actually-romantic-heathcliff-would-say-no/

February 14, 2026

Why being hopeful is more radical than ever now

Source: Radio New Zealand

The most radical thing that you can do right now is hope, according to acclaimed British playwright Simon Stephens.

Best known for his Tony and Olivier award-winning adaption of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Stephens says sharing an experience with people who you might disagree with politically, ideologically or culturally has never been more radical than now.

“It’s an increasingly rare thing nowadays to go and sit in a room with people you don’t know and share an experience, to look in the same direction and engage in the same story together … to turn your phone off and look in the same direction with people who you not only might not know, but if you did know them, you might not agree with them about some things,” Stephens told Saturday Morning.

Playwright Simon Stephens accepts the award for Best Play for “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” onstage at the Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on 7 June, 2015 in New York City.

Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions / AFP

.”

He admits it may sound “hopelessly romantic”, but he truly believes it.

Despite the challenges theatre has faced, especially since Covid, it needs to persevere, he says.

He draws a parallel with the decade following the World War II – a period when playhouses across Europe were physically and financially devastated. Yet by 1956, the works of the likes of Irish playwright Samuel Beckett and German playwright Bertolt Brecht felt like a creative revolution, he says.

“Part of me thinks 2026 could have the same optimism.”

Simon Stephens: World’s most hopeful playwright

Saturday Morning

Stephens is drawn to the observations of actor and writer Peter Ustinov, who reiterated that an optimist was a person who understood how sad and miserable the world could be. But facing the world with that knowledge is brave, Stevens says.

“I always take the notion that optimism and hope will always be the radical option,” he says.

“It’s always been difficult. It’s not the most difficult time ever. It’s a time which is kind of charged with a grip of a kind of neoliberal technology that’s like paralysing people’s imagination and leading people into a polarised position of fear, and that is monetising fear and monetising polarisation.

“There’s a rank dishonesty and a kind of like unapologetic capital drive to that that I kind of have a fair contempt for, but I think what happens when you go to a theatre, what happens when you go to a gig, what happens when you look at art, proper art, what happens when you engage in real storytelling is you realise the complexities and the nuance of the world, and you realise that there is a determination in the kind of human spirit to keep going.

“You realise that polarisation is a pernicious lie and that the nature of the human animal is really one of contradiction and complexity and uncertainty and that’s the thing that theatre can provide. That’s what theatre is for. It’s what it’s always been for.”

Now one of the world’s most performed living writers for theatre with over 45 plays to his name, Stephens didn’t actually aspire to have a show on in London’s West End when he was younger.

“The writers who most inspired me when I was a teenager, when I was a kid, were songwriters. I kind of went to the type of school that if you kind of like admitted to somebody that you wanted to be a writer or that you liked English or you like reading or you like writing, you just get thumped.

“So, the one art form that allowed a kind of celebration of linguistic expression was songwriting.

“It was only when I was in my 20s that I realised that I had a really quite singularly terrible singing voice and that I was never going to make it as a singer-songwriter. And it was also then that I started going to the theatre for the first time and realised the kind of like kinetic connection between the two art forms, the liveness and the unpredictability, the volatility.”

Stephens is hosting the inaugural Playwrights Workshop as part of the Auckland Theatre Company’s new three-year masterclass project.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/14/why-being-hopeful-is-more-radical-than-ever-now/

February 13, 2026

The dangers of living by your ‘love language’

Source: Radio New Zealand

Do you need words of affirmation? Quality time? Acts of service? Gifts? Or physical touch?

Figuring out your “love language” has become one of the most successful relationship ideas of the past two decades. Why? Because the idea is simple, flattering and easy to apply.

While incredibly popular and often used as a “go-to” tool on first dates, recent research suggests that the idea lacks strong scientific evidence for its central claims.

Gary Chapman’s five love languages – words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, or physical touch – are based on his reported experience working with couples as their pastor.

Moody Publishers

.386666666667″>

Introduced by Gary Chapman, an American Baptist pastor, author and marriage counsellor, in his 1992 book The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts, the idea is now a dominant framework in modern relationship advice.

Instead of scientific theory, love languages function like a culturally appealing system that individualises relational strain, obscures power and substitutes a checklist for the harder work of understanding how relationships actually function over time.

A simple idea replacing scientific evidence

The popularity of love languages is exactly what makes them an archetype of bad pop psychology as they package a complex set of relational processes into a simple idea, providing a memorable vocabulary, and then get treated as explanation, diagnosis and solution all at once.

Most notably, this framework emerges from a pastoral counselling context rather than systematic research, and its core claim — that people have a stable primary language that should be matched for relational success — doesn’t apply well to how relational needs operate.

Figuring out how you give and receive love has become one of the most successful relationship ideas of the past two decades.

Hiveboxx / Unsplash+

People typically value all five domains: quality time, words of affirmation, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch. They shift depending on stress, life stage, illness, caregiving demands and conflict history.

What gets named as a “primary” language is often better understood as a moving indicator of current deprivation – “this is what I’m not getting” – and not a durable trait. Because the categories are broad and emotionally resonant, they also invite the Barnum effect, in which the model feels deeply accurate precisely because it is flexible enough to fit most people most of the time.

When intimacy becomes a simplified checklist

Another problem with the five love languages is what they do to how people think about relational support. They turn intimacy into a problem of translation: if you just deliver the right behaviours in the right format, your partner will feel loved.

That can push couples toward transactional care (“I did your language, so you should be satisfied”) and away from curiosity and context (“What is happening for you this week? What support do you actually need?”). It also promotes a form of individualisation in which relational issues become framed as mismatched preferences instead of relational processes that require ongoing work.

Once the label enters the relationship, it can function like a conversational dead end.

It also doesn’t seriously address conflict regulation, responsiveness or how couples cope under stress, all of which are areas where relationship science has far more to say. Many “love language” conflicts are not actually about the absence of gifts or affirmation, but are about chronic misattunement, uneven emotional labour, perceived disregard or an unsafe climate.

The structural conditions love languages ignore

Love languages can also obscure power and normalise inequality.

Some categories are easily folded into gendered divisions of labour, like how acts of service and emotional affirmation often land on women as feminised care work, while other partners receive the benefits without addressing uneven burdens.

The framework also sidesteps structural constraints like poverty, disability, illness, class and religious norms that shape what is possible.

When someone is overworked, sick or carrying the relationship’s invisible labour, the problem is rarely that their “language” is being spoken incorrectly. It is these relational and structural conditions make mutuality difficult, and “speaking languages” can become a way to manage the symptoms while leaving the conditions untouched.

The model is also particularly risky where consent and vulnerability are involved. Physical touch as a love language, for example, can be used to moralise access to someone else’s body, especially in contexts of sexual pleasure, coercion, post-partum recovery, trauma or chronic pain.

The love languages framework tends to treat touch as an unambiguous good instead of a context-sensitive practice shaped by consent, safety, timing and bodily autonomy.

Getty Images / Unsplash +

The love languages framework tends to treat touch as an unambiguous good instead of a context-sensitive practice shaped by consent, safety, timing and bodily autonomy. (Unsplash)

What sustains relationships beyond labels

The love languages framework tends to treat touch as an unambiguous good instead of a context-sensitive practice shaped by consent, safety, timing and bodily autonomy in health contexts like having cancer, disability, medication changes and depression. Intimacy largely shifts because bodies and conditions shift.

A model that encourages partners to “deliver touch” can easily misfire when what’s needed is patience, alternative sexual scripts and coordinated coping, not increased physical contact as proof of love.

Above all, love languages only thrive because they are marketable. They offer the satisfaction of self-knowledge, compatibility narratives and quick fixes.

Relationships, of course, are not solved by personalisation alone. Importantly, they are shaped by mutual responsiveness, practical and emotional equity, the ability to repair after harm and the capacity to adapt to changing bodies and lives.

If love languages are useful at all, it is as a thin starting vocabulary for talking about care, and not as a diagnostic framework or substitute for confronting misattunement, power and the real conditions that make intimacy sustainable.

Maha Khawaja is a PhD Student at McMaster University.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/13/the-dangers-of-living-by-your-love-language/

February 12, 2026

James Van Der Beek was synonymous with Dawson. This is why he embraced it

Source: Radio New Zealand

A beloved early 2000s heart-throb, Dawson’s Creek actor James Van Der Beek never shook off the character that shot him to fame.

But how he leaned into it, playing himself in Don’t Trust the B in Apartment 3 and numerous other cameos, enshrined his legacy as one of TV’s most sensitive leading men, baring his soul on and off the screen.

“It’s tough to compete with something that was the cultural phenomenon that Dawson’s Creek was,” he told Vulture in 2013.

“It ran for so long. That’s a lot of hours playing one character in front of people. So it’s natural that they associate you with that.”

James Van Der Beek, star of Dawson’s Creek, has died. The news was shared in an Instagram post.

Instagram

.434482758621″>

Van Der Beek’s family announced on Thursday morning that he died of colorectal cancer, which he told fans he was receiving treatment for in 2024.

“Our beloved James David Van Der Beek passed peacefully this morning,” a statement from the actor’s family on Instagram read.

“He met his final days with courage, faith and grace. There is much to share regarding his wishes, love for humanity and the sacredness of time.

“Those days will come.”

Iconic characters

Van Der Beek’s first major film role was in Varsity Blues, playing a second-string high school quarterback who rises to the challenge when the star suffers an injury.

His character, Mox, yearns for a college education to escape his small Texas town, where football is everything.

“I don’t want your life,” he screams in one of the film’s most recognisable lines.

While still a cult classic to many ’90s kids, for most people, he will be forever tied to Dawson’s Creek, playing the titular character Dawson Leery from 1998 to 2003.

The clip of Dawson bursting into full, body-shaking tears as the breeze blows through his hair in the finale of season three became one of the most infamous GIFs of all time, replicated millions of times in online conversations.

The scene was the peak of a seasons-long story arc about Dawson watching his soulmate, Joey, played by Katie Holmes, get together with his best friend, Pacey.

The stars of Dawson’s Creek: Joshua Jackson, Katie Holmes, James Van Der Beek, and Michelle Williams.

Photo12 via AFP

“It wasn’t scripted that I was supposed to cry; it was just one of those things where it’s a magical moment and it just happens in the scene,” Van Der Beek told Vanity Fair.

“All of a sudden, six years of work was boiled down to one seven-second clip on loop.”

Yet in life after Dawson’s Creek, he came around to embracing the character that resonated with so many, even recreating the scene for a skit on Funny Or Die.

Van Der Beek played a fictionalised version of himself as well as cameos as Dawson Leery in several shows and movies.

The most prominent was his role in Don’t Trust the B in apartment 23, which ran for two seasons from 2012.

As a parody of himself, his character was arrogant, self-centred, and shamelessly self-promoting, taking on increasingly bizarre roles to try restarting his career.

James Van Der Beek plays himself in Don’t Trust the B in Apartment 23.

Getty Images/Kelsey McNeal

‘Clown in a leading man’s body’

He also made a cameo as himself in the movie Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, and played Dawson Leerey in Scary Movie.

“The more you make fun of yourself and don’t try to go for any kind of respect, the more people seem to respect you,” he told Vanity Fair in 2011.

“I’ve always been a clown trapped in a leading man’s body.”

Between 2003 and 2013, he made appearances in shows like Criminal Minds, One Tree Hill, and How I Met Your Mother.

He also co-created and played Wesley “Diplo” Pentz, a dull but likeable music producer in the mockumentary satire on Viceland, What Would Diplo Do?

Van Der Beek tried his hand at several reality television competitions, too, becoming a fan favourite on the 28th season of TV contest Dancing with the Stars, finishing fifth overall.

His dance partner, Emma Slater, wrote a tribute on Instagram about their lasting friendship.

“I’m so grateful for you and all you have done for me. Your kindness, patience and empathy for others is unmatched,” she wrote on Instagram.

Last year, he was revealed to be the Griffin on The Masked Singer after two performances.

James Van Der Beek shared this photo with his daughter two weeks before his death.

Supplied/Instagram

Vulnerability shared online

His emotional side, which was immortalised in many tributes from former co-stars and friends, came across in his personal social media accounts, depicting his family’s life in Texas with wife Kimberly Brook and six children.

Van Der Beek’s Instagram account was known for beautifully shot photos of his children and long, heartfelt captions.

“She turned 7 yesterday. My little gem of a human,” he wrote in a post about his daughter’s birthday last year.

“Every time you wrap those tiny arms around my neck for a hug, I revel in how blessed I am to be your dad, and how lucky I am to know you at this age.”

A photo of his family shared on the star’s Instagram.

Instagram/James Van Der Beek

In March last year, he wrote a long tribute to his wife for helping him through his illness.

“There were many moments this past year when the only thing you could’ve done … and the most helpful thing you could’ve done … was to just allow me to be exactly where I was at in my process,” he wrote.

“As agonizing as it was for you. That took a strength I don’t know that I have. As much as it’s sucked to be me at times… I’d wouldn’t for a second have traded places — and not because I’m that altruistic — because I don’t think I could have taken it.”

In his final months, he continued to share about navigating his illness online.

In a post late last year, Van Der Beek spoke about how he found comfort in meditating outside and urged people over 45 to get an early detection test for colorectal cancer.

“If I had caught it early.. The what ifs are a slippery slope,” he said in a video while sitting cross-legged under an oak tree on his property.

“I would like to save anybody I could from having to go into that what-if spiral.”

He walks with one of his sons, tossing a football around.

“The sooner you know it when it comes to cancer, the better off you’ll be.”

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/12/james-van-der-beek-was-synonymous-with-dawson-this-is-why-he-embraced-it/

February 12, 2026

Dawson’s Creek star James Van Der Beek dies aged 48

Source: Radio New Zealand

Actor James Van Der Beek, best known for his role in popular 90s TV show Dawson’s Creek, has died.

“Our beloved James David Van Der Beek passed peacefully this morning. He met his final days with courage, faith, and grace,” read a statement shared to Van Der Beek’s official Instagram page on Thursday (NZ time).

“There is much to share regarding his wishes, love for humanity and the sacredness of time. Those days will come. For now we ask for peaceful privacy as we grieve our loving husband, father, son, brother, and friend.”

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/12/dawsons-creek-star-james-van-der-beek-dies-aged-48/

February 12, 2026

Samoa authorities detain NZ passport holder following marijuana seizure at airport

Source: Radio New Zealand

Samoa Customs and police found the 43-year-old man in possession of six bottles containing marijuana and other drug paraphernalia. 12 February 2026 Samoa Government

A 43-year-old Samoan national holding a New Zealand passport has been detained in Apia after allegedly being found with 90 grams of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, local authorities said on Thursday.

The man, who resides in Australia, arrived on a Fiji Airways flight on Thursday and was allegedly found in possession of six bottles containing marijuana, along with a cannabis grinder and rolli.ng papers..

He was intercepted during routine border clearance processes at Faleolo International Airport and is in custody for further investigations and questioning, the Ministry of Customs and Samoa Police said in a joint statement.

“The items, which are deemed prohibited goods, were detected during standard screening and examination processes conducted by frontline Customs officers. The substances and associated paraphernalia were seized in accordance with the Customs Act and Narcotics Act,” the statement said.

According to the Samoa Customs CEO, the seizure reflects the agency’s ongoing commitment to protecting Samoa’s borders from the importation of illicit drugs and prohibited goods.

“We continue to utilise risk profiling, intelligence, and screening technologies to safeguard our communities from the harmful impacts of drugs,” the Customs CEO was quoted as saying.

The Customs Ministry said the importation of illicit drugs and related paraphernalia into Samoa is strictly prohibited and carry severe penalties under local laws.

It added that travelers to the country are urged to declare all goods accurately and to familiarise themselves with Samoa’s import restrictions prior to travel.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/12/samoa-authorities-detain-nz-passport-holder-following-marijuana-seizure-at-airport/

February 12, 2026

Britney Spears sells rights to music catalogue in reported $330m deal

Source: Radio New Zealand

US singer Britney Spears has become the latest musician to sell the rights to her catalogue that includes hits like ‘…Baby One More Time’ and ‘Oops!…I Did It Again’, US media is reporting.

The deal is believed to be worth around $US200 million (NZ$330 million), according to sources cited by celebrity site TMZ, though it said the exact amount is not detailed in legal documents.

That sum would be comparable to the sale of Canadian singer Justin Bieber’s catalogue in 2023.

Reuters and US outlets reported Spears had sold the rights to independent music publisher Primary Wave, which is also home to artists including Whitney Houston, Prince and Stevie Nicks.

Neither Spears nor Primary Wave have responded publicly to the news.

Spears, 44, joins a growing list of artists who have sold their music rights in recent years including Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, as well as Shakira and KISS.

Owners of a song’s publishing rights receive payment for every broadcast, album sale or use in advertising and films.

The growing music rights market allows artists to monetise their catalogues, which are attractive long-term assets for investors in the streaming era.

Major labels like Sony, Universal and Warner have also expanded in this line of business, alongside specialist investors Recognition Music Group and Concord Music Publishing.

Spears shot to fame in the late 1990s but has largely stepped back from the music scene in recent years.

In 2021, a US court terminated a 13-year conservatorship that had allowed Spears’s father to control her finances — an arrangement the singer had described as abusive.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/12/britney-spears-sells-rights-to-music-catalogue-in-reported-330m-deal/

February 11, 2026

Why are new tea towels worse at drying dishes than old ones?

Source: Radio New Zealand

There’s a peculiar ritual in many kitchens: reaching past the crisp, pristine tea towel hanging on the oven door to grab the threadbare, slightly greying one shoved in the drawer.

We all know that old faithful dries dishes better, even if we can’t quite explain why. It seems counter-intuitive – shouldn’t brand new towels, fresh from the packaging, outperform their worn-out predecessors?

Yet here we are, instinctively choosing the frayed over the fresh.

That “worn in” feeling we associate with our favourite bath towels, tea towels and even bed linens isn’t just nostalgia.

Arina Habich

. There’s genuine science behind why your tea towels actually improve with age, and understanding it might change how you think about all your household textiles.

The science of soaking it up

Tea towels are typically made from cotton or linen fibres, chosen specifically because these natural cellulose fibres are inherently hygroscopic, or water-loving.

But fibre type alone doesn’t determine how well your towel performs. A textile’s absorption is the result of a complex interplay between fibre, yarn, fabric structure, and any finishes applied during manufacturing.

Textiles absorb and hold water in two key places: within the fibre structure itself, and in the spaces between fibres and yarns. This is why fabric structure matters so much.

Think about bath towels – when was the last time you used a smooth, thin one? Bath towels are typically thick terry pile construction with lots of small loops on the surface. These loops dramatically increase surface area, allowing water to be easily wicked into the fabric.

Tea towels come in various constructions: plain weave, twill weave, waffle cloth, or terry. Plain weave towels – the kind you see with printed designs – require a smooth surface for clean, crisp screen printing.

Waffle cloth, which looks exactly as its name suggests, has a three-dimensional texture that makes it incredibly effective. Like with terry towels, this structure increases surface area and enhances water absorption.

Why old beats new

So what makes your battered old tea towel superior to its pristine replacement? Three key factors are at play.

Silicone finishes. Many brand-new textiles arrive coated in silicone softeners that provide softness and wrinkle resistance, making them appealing on store shelves.

But here’s the catch: these same finishes are often water resistant. Your brand new tea towel may literally have a water-repellent coating. The fix is simple – always wash new tea towels in hot water before first use.

The impact of laundering. Fabrics undergo significant changes during their first several washes – typically up to six cycles. During manufacturing, whether knitted or woven, fabrics are held under tension. Washing causes the yarns to relax in what’s called “relaxation shrinkage”, reverting to their natural, tension-free state. Industry typically tolerates up to 5% shrinkage.

Here’s where it gets interesting: while your tea towel’s dimensions may shrink slightly, its mass stays the same, meaning the fabric becomes thicker and denser. In waffle weave towels, this shrinkage can make the three-dimensional texture more pronounced, increasing surface geometry and absorption. This phenomenon has been documented in terry bath towels, as well.

Fabric ageing. Repeated washing and drying causes minor surface damage that actually improves performance. Small fibres gradually raise up from the fabric surface, creating a fluffier, “hairier” texture.

Really smooth tea towels aren’t very absorbent because water struggles to wet the surface – it can almost bead up due to the contact angle between water and the smooth fabric.

But as washing raises more fibres off the surface making a “rougher” textile, the contact angle decreases, making the fabric easier to wet. Waffle fabrics, with their irregular surfaces, are inherently more absorbent from the start due to favourable contact angles.

In short: washing leads to more surface texture, leading to better absorption.

Not just tea towels

The real revelation here isn’t just about tea towels – it’s about how we think about textiles in general.

That “worn in” feeling we associate with our favourite bath towels, tea towels and even bed linens isn’t just nostalgia. Many of our home textiles are genuinely performing better after repeated laundering, having shed their factory finishes and relaxed into their true structure.

So before you send your old tea towels off for recycling to replace with new ones, remember: those frayed edges and faded patterns represent months of your towel becoming exactly what it was meant to be.

And when you do buy new household textiles, wash them at least once before using to remove any residual finishes.

Rebecca Van Amber is a Senior Lecturer in Fashion & Textiles, RMIT University.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/11/why-are-new-tea-towels-worse-at-drying-dishes-than-old-ones/

February 11, 2026

When Valentine’s Day forces a relationship reckoning

Source: Radio New Zealand

For people who have been quietly struggling with doubts about their relationship, the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day can feel fraught. As 14 February approaches, questions that were once easy to sidestep often become harder to ignore.

In a study that tracked romantic couples over a year, relationships were about 2.5 times more likely to end during the two weeks surrounding Valentine’s Day than during the months before or after. When researchers accounted for relationship length, prior relationship history and gender, the odds of a breakup during this window were more than five times higher.

At first glance, this timing may seem strange. Why would couples break up just before a holiday devoted to love, connection and commitment?

Participating in Valentine’s Day sends a message — not privately, but visibly — that a relationship is intact and future-oriented. And that pressure might just be too much for some couples.

Unsplash

.

A psychological turning point

These findings suggest that Valentine’s Day functions less like a wrecking ball and more like a spotlight.

For couples who have been struggling for months, Valentine’s Day can bring those feelings into sharper focus, forcing people to confront questions they may have been postponing: Are we happy? Are we moving forward? Is this relationship something I want to celebrate?

Psychologists refer to moments like Valentine’s Day as temporal landmarks: points that divide time into a psychological before and after. They prompt people to take stock of their lives and make decisions they have been postponing. Romantic relationships are no exception.

Rather than creating doubt, these dates tend to accelerate decisions that were already unfolding, turning private uncertainty into a sense that change is overdue.

Valentine’s Day makes other people’s relationships unusually visible, often in idealized form, encouraging social comparisons that add fuel to the fire.

123rf

The pressure to perform

Not all temporal landmarks carry the same emotional weight, however. Valentine’s Day is an unusually ritualized and commercialised landmark. Consumer research shows that the holiday tends to evoke polarized reactions — people are far more likely to either love or loathe Valentine’s Day than to feel neutral about it.

In the weeks leading up to the holiday, advertising, store displays and social media amplify expectations about what counts as love: gifts, effort, public displays and visible commitment. Taking part in the ritual signals commitment and investment in a shared future; opting out can invite questions or disappointment.

In this sense, Valentine’s Day does not just invite reflection — it demands a performance.

This helps explain why breakups often happen before Valentine’s Day rather than after. Ending a relationship afterward can feel deceptive, especially if gifts were exchanged or plans were made. Many people would rather leave than perform romance they no longer feel, or accept gestures that imply a level of commitment they are unsure they can sustain.

That timing reflects a broader tendency to delay difficult decisions around holidays. Ending a relationship is emotionally uncomfortable at the best of times, and research shows people sometimes delay breakups to spare their partner pain. Holidays can intensify that hesitation.

In a nationally representative survey, 22 per cent of American adults said they ended relationships before Valentine’s Day because they did not want their partner to buy them gifts or spend money when they already knew the relationship was ending.

Uncertainty becomes impossible to ignore

The sense of being torn — wanting to avoid hurting a partner while also feeling unable to keep pretending — reflects a state psychologists call ambivalence.

Ambivalence is not indifference; it is the uncomfortable experience of holding competing motivations and emotions at the same time. Many people feel ambivalent long before a relationship ends, even in relationships that look stable from the outside. Research shows that this kind of internal conflict predicts lower satisfaction and greater instability over time.

Valentine’s Day intensifies ambivalence because it transforms private uncertainty into public signalling. Participating in the holiday sends a message that a relationship is intact and future-oriented. Dinner reservations, office flower deliveries and social media posts all carry symbolic weight.

Social comparison can add fuel to the fire. Valentine’s Day makes other people’s relationships unusually visible, often in idealised form. Couples appear everywhere — online and offline — celebrating love with carefully curated gestures. Decades of relationship research show that commitment is shaped not only by how satisfying a relationship is, but by how it compares to expectations and perceived alternatives.

When Valentine’s Day raises the bar for what love is supposed to look like, a relationship already marked by ambivalence can suddenly feel inadequate by contrast.

Not everyone experiences this pressure in the same way. Research shows that people who are uncomfortable with emotional closeness or public displays of romance often find Valentine’s Day especially stressful, which can amplify dissatisfaction and make withdrawal more likely.

Valentine’s Day rarely ends relationships on its own, of course. But it can make months of uncertainty suddenly very real, turning private doubts into decisions that feel urgent and unavoidable.

Emily Impett is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/11/when-valentines-day-forces-a-relationship-reckoning/

February 10, 2026

Wuthering Heights is one of the year’s most controversial films

Source: Radio New Zealand

Ever since whispers of casting choices began popping up on social media, Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights has been a lightning rod for controversy. Now days away from the movie’s highly anticipated premiere, fans and critics are still arguing.

Fennell is not the first to attempt a screen adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic novel; the 1847 story has been thrown onto the silver screen more than a dozen times in multiple different languages.

But whether it be the nature of modern internet discourse, or Fennell’s reputation as a provocative filmmaker, Wuthering Heights has been picked apart for everything from its leads to the quotation marks Fennell draped around her title: “Wuthering Heights”.

This video is hosted on Youtube.

.

What is Wuthering Heights?

A story within a story, Wuthering Heights follows the lives of two families tumbling through the trials and tribulations of the late-18th-century British class system, with the relationship between heiress Catherine and brooding blow-in Heathcliff embedded in its heart.

A staple of many high school curricula, part of why fans are so fierce around Wuthering Heights is the story’s ability to grow and unfold as the reader does.

Margot Robbie’s (left) LuckyChap production company has had a hand in all of Emerald Fennell’s feature films.

Universal/Warner Bros

“It is a book that keeps on giving,” says Claire O’Callaghan, senior lecturer in English at Loughborough University and editor-in-chief of Brontë Studies.

“You can read it when you’re 15 and take away one set of ideas and insights and then read it again years later and find new ideas in it.”

O’Callaghan says the subtext bubbling beneath the novel’s surface is what’s kept the text relevant for hundreds of years.

“The book’s complexity speaks to so many different themes that we are all still grappling with — the line between passion and obsession, the nature of revenge, belonging, family, the importance of friendship, complex relationships — familial and otherwise — and trauma, so much trauma,” she says.

“The book’s detail is extraordinarily rich, and it is a book that generates debates, discussion and division. Its themes remain relevant now; we’re still grappling with so many of the ideas and issues Emily wrote about.”

Who is Emerald Fennell?

Barely half a decade into her feature directorial career, Emerald Fennell has already, for better or worse, garnered the reputation of a provocateur.

Her debut feature, 2020’s Promising Young Woman, followed Cassie (Carey Mulligan), a 30-something med school dropout who practised vigilante justice in memory of her fallen friend.

“Promising Young Woman was an unflinching excoriation of male violence against women, led by a sterling turn from Carey Mulligan,” film critic Stephen A Russell tells ABC Arts.

“[Mulligan and Fennell were] willing to go to the darkest places without losing sight of mordant humour and a surreal sense of style. I, for one, was exhilarated by her punching-up pluck.”

Weaponising the concept of the “nice guy”, Promising Young Woman announced Fennell as a potential new Hollywood auteur — scooping up five Academy Award nominations and a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Fennell.

Her follow-up, 2023’s Saltburn, saw Fennell once again playing in the world of power imbalances, this time shifting her focus from sex to class as she sent blue-collar Oxford student Oliver (Barry Keoghan) to infiltrate the upper-class Catton family at their lavish estate.

Bolstered by her dazzling debut, Saltburn outperformed Promising Young Woman at the box office but split critics.

“That ability to set cats against perturbed pigeons can be a double-edged sword, with many folks feeling Saltburn was a decided step-down in terms of original writing, in favour of the low-hanging fruit of flap-starting scenes,” Russell explains.

Jacob Elordi starred as oblivious rich kid Felix in Saltburn.

MGM and Amazon Studios

“The more morally ambiguous nuance of Promising Young Woman seemed to be thrown out with Saltburn’s playing-to-the-cheap-seats bathwater.

“Nothing we’ve seen so far of Wuthering Heights — acknowledged to be seen through Fennell’s teenage horn — suggests more of the former over the latter. We’ll see soon enough.”

What is the internet saying?

As a text heavy with history and meaning to millions of fans, questions of fidelity to the original story have arisen around Fennell’s modern Wuthering Heights.

Many were quick to point out that the casting of Caucasian Australian Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff strips the story of integral class context.

Fennell said seeing Elordi with sideburns while filming Saltburn inspired her choice for the actor as Healthcliff.

Universal/Warner Bros

“In the opening chapter [of Wuthering Heights], Heathcliff is described as ‘a dark-skinned gypsy in aspect’ and then regularly described as Black or dark in various ways,” O’Callahan says, elaborating that other characters muse if Healthcliff’s origin is Indian or Chinese.

“To that end, even while being ambiguous about Heathcliff’s precise ethnicity, Emily constructs Heathcliff as a non-white and non-English character.”

In the run-up to the film’s release, some fans have pushed back on this interpretation to argue that the description of Heathcliff meant something different to those reading in the 19th century.

“Jacob Elordi’s casting overlooks Heathcliff as a person of colour, and this has raised concerns not only about how the book is represented but how this particular adaptation and casting decision reflects other issues regarding race and representation onscreen and in culture more widely,” O’Callaghan says.

Multiple other Caucasian actors have played Heathcliff in film adaptations, including Lawrence Olivier, who was nominated for an Oscar for his 1939 performance and then-newcomer Ralph Fiennes in the 1992 remake.

One of the few deviations was Andrea Arnold’s 2011 adaptation, which saw Black actor James Howson as Heathcliff.

When directly asked about the casting choices, Fennell said her casting of Elordi was inspired by how she imagined Heathcliff as a teenager.

She told the Hollywood Reporter: “I knew right from the get-go I couldn’t ever hope to make anything that could even encompass the greatness of this book. All I could do was make a movie that made me feel the way the book made me feel.”

When the same question was pressed on Elordi, the actor also impressed that the film was a product of Fennell’s particular vision — pointing to the inverted commas in the title as a differentiation between film and text.

Fans also have raised concerns with the casting of Margot Robbie, who is in her mid-30s, as Catherine who is in her late teens for a majority of the book, as well as the modern costuming being at odds with the setting of the book.

“The images released from the film, especially Cathy’s white wedding dress, have again raised concerns about accuracy — here, historical accuracy,” O’Callahan says

“The poofy, white gown Catherine is shown to wear on-screen is more akin to the types of bridal gowns that came later in the 19th century.”

“Some have suggested that the style of Catherine’s gown is more reminiscent of Queen Victoria’s wedding gown worn from the 1840s onwards,” O’Callahan says.

Universal/Warner Bros

Anything else?

Beyond aesthetic interpretations, O’Callahan says there’s one important aspect to get correct in order for the filmed adaptation to be faithful to the text — that Cathy and Heathcliff’s relationship is not one to aspire to.

“For me, the complexity of the fine line between love, loss and grief are paramount to Wuthering Heights, as is the tale of revenge,” O’Callahan says.

Fennell has said the inverted commas around her film’s title represent that it’s her teenage interpretation of Wuthering Heights.

Universal/Warner Bros

“I don’t know if the new adaptation will glorify or glamorise the relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine, but the novel certainly doesn’t do that.

“Heathcliff is a character that is loved and loathed by readers in equal measure — and in some cases, readers love to hate him too. He is reviled as much as he is pitied.”

What are early reactions saying about Wuthering Heights?

While full critical reviews for Wuthering Heights are being kept under embargo until the film’s 12 February release, first reactions have started to pop up on social media.

Overwhelmingly positive, IndieWire editor Anne Thompson predicted the movie would “soar at the box office”.

Critic Kirsten Lopez praised the changes made to the text by Fennell, saying “Emily Bronte girlies like me are gonna eat up Wuthering Heights with a spoon”.

Multiple reactions also praised the performances of Elordi and Robbie, while also conceding the 2-hour-and-16-minute run time feels overly long.

US critic Randy Jones provided a more cryptic reaction, repeating the phrase Aretha Franklin gave when asked her opinion on Taylor Swift’s artistry and placing aspects of the film alongside forgotten literature adaptations Beastly and Red Riding Hood.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/10/wuthering-heights-is-one-of-the-years-most-controversial-films/

February 10, 2026

Catherine O’Hara’s cause of death revealed

Source: Radio New Zealand

Emmy-winning actress Catherine O’Hara, who starred in Schitt’s Creek and Home Alone, died from a blood clot in her lungs, her death certificate reveals.

The Canadian-born performer was rushed to the hospital on 30 January after having difficulty breathing at her home in the ritzy Brentwood neighbourhood of Los Angeles.

The 71-year-old, who starred in Beetlejuice and more recently in Apple TV’s Hollywood satire show The Studio, was declared dead a short time later.

The actress’s death certificate said she had died of a pulmonary embolism and listed rectal cancer as a secondary factor.

O’Hara was born in Toronto in 1954, where she joined the legendary comedy theater Second City, alongside Eugene Levy, with whom she would collaborate throughout her career, including on the smash TV series Schitt’s Creek.

Her break into movies came in 1980 with Double Negative – also alongside Levy, and John Candy.

In 1988, she played Winona Ryder’s stepmother in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice. She would later marry the film’s production designer Bo Welch. The couple had two sons, Matthew and Luke.

But it was in 1990 that she became widely known to a global audience, as the mother of Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin in Home Alone.

She would reprise the role in the film’s sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which featured a cameo from Donald Trump, decades before he would become US president.

In 1993 she collaborated again with Burton on The Nightmare Before Christmas.

The versatile comedienne also appeared in British filmmaker Christopher Guest’s mockumentaries that revel in silly spectacles of Americana, like zany dog handlers in Best in Show, vain folk singers in A Mighty Wind, and award-hungry actors in For Your Consideration

But she is perhaps best known by modern audiences for her role in Schitt’s Creek, created by Eugene Levy’s son, Dan Levy.

The role brought her an Emmy for best lead actress in 2020. She was also awarded a Golden Globe and a SAG Award.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/10/catherine-oharas-cause-of-death-revealed/

February 10, 2026

Palace ready to help UK police in any inquiry into king’s brother Andrew

Source: Radio New Zealand

By Michael Holden, Reuters

Britain’s King Charles III has made clear his “profound concern” at allegations against Andrew, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said. AFP / POOL / PAUL ELLIS

Buckingham Palace says it is ready to support any police investigation into King Charles’ younger brother after emails suggested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor might have shared confidential British trade documents with Jeffrey Epstein.

Mountbatten-Windsor, already cast out of the royal inner circle over his close relationship with Epstein, has faced fresh scrutiny since the recent publication of millions of new documents relating to the late convicted US sex offender.

“The king has made clear, in words and through unprecedented actions, his profound concern at allegations which continue to come to light in respect of Mr Mountbatten-Windsor’s conduct,” a palace spokesperson said.

Royal family ready to back investigation of Andrew

In the latest files released in the US, emails suggest he shared official British trade documents with Epstein in 2010, after Epstein’s conviction for child sex crimes, leaking information from his then-role as an official government envoy.

The documents appear to show that Andrew forwarded Epstein reports about Vietnam, Singapore and other places, which he had been sent in relation to an official trip.

Trade envoys are usually barred from sharing sensitive or commercial documents. The 65-year-old second son of the late Queen Elizabeth has always denied any wrongdoing and has not responded to requests for comment since the latest release of Epstein files.

Thames Valley Police said the issue had been reported to them and that they were assessing whether to formally investigate.

The palace added: “While the specific claims in question are for Mr Mountbatten-Windsor to address, if we are approached by Thames Valley Police, we stand ready to support them as you would expect …

“As was previously stated, their majesties’ thoughts and sympathies have been, and remain with, the victims of any and all forms of abuse.”

The king’s son Prince William and his wife Kate had said on Monday they were deeply concerned by the continuing Epstein revelations, in another pointed message from the royal family.

“Their thoughts remain focused on the victims,” their spokesperson told reporters ahead of the prince’s arrival on a high-profile tripto Saudi Arabia.

Andrew and Epstein an embarrassment for King and royals

Mountbatten-Windsor was forced to quit all official royal duties in 2019 over his ties with Epstein and, in October, King Charles removed his title of prince. Last week, he was forced to move out of his royal mansion.

In 2022, he settled a lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre which accused him of sexually abusing her when she was a teenager, through her association with Epstein. Giuffre died by suicidelast April.

While the royal family have attempted to distance themselves from Mountbatten-Windsor, he remains a thorn in their side.

“Charles, how long have you known about Andrew and Epstein?” a man shouted from the crowd as the king arrived in Clitheroe, northern England, the second time he had been heckled in a week.

Last week, police also said they were reviewing a new allegation against Andrew, triggered by the latest files, involving a woman being taken to an address in Windsor near London, where he has lived on the royal estate.

Over the last 10 days, revelations from the files have also engulfed Prime Minister Keir Starmer in what is widely viewed as the biggest crisis of his premiership for having appointed Peter Mandelson, an acquaintance of Epstein, as ambassador to the U.S.

Like Andrew, it appears that Mandelson also shared sensitive government files from 2009 and 2010 with Epstein, and police are investigating claims of misconduct in public office.

– Reuters

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/10/palace-ready-to-help-uk-police-in-any-inquiry-into-kings-brother-andrew/

February 10, 2026

Why Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance matters

Source: Radio New Zealand

In just over 13 minutes worth of music, stars and symbolism, Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny rewrote what it means to be American in a time of strife.

For months, conservatives from the president on down have painted him as anti-American. Last night, Bad Bunny asked: What if I’m the real American?

Bad Bunny — who introduced himself with his real full name, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio — brought the iconography of Puerto Rican culture to his Super Bowl halftime show performance, a joyous and high-energy affair that celebrated the island where he was born and its place in the American story.

Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny performs during Super Bowl LX Patriots vs Seahawks Apple Music Halftime Show.

AFP / Patrick T Fallon

.

After playing some of his biggest hits, Bad Bunny stared down the camera and spoke in English for the only time during the performance to say, “God Bless America”.

He followed with a list of more than 20 nations in North, Central and South America while dancers trailed him displaying the flags of many of those nations, with the US and Puerto Rican flags most visible directly behind him.

While the US often uses the word “America” to identify itself as a single, distinct country, many of its neighbors use it to refer to a greater unified continent, a point that Bad Bunny hammered home when he spiked a football that read “Together we are America,” before launching into his nostalgic anthem ‘DtMF’.

Bad Bunny performs onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show.

Chris Graythen / Getty Images / AFP

The message was clear: Bad Bunny declared himself an American patriot in the broadest sense of the term and he doesn’t think it’s a view that should really be left up to a coin toss.

Meet Lincoln Fox Ramadan

While performing ‘NUEVAYoL’ — a song considered to be a tribute to immigrants and Puerto Rico’s diaspora in New York — Bad Bunny was seen giving a Grammy statuette to a young boy who seconds before was watching the moment the musician won the award on TV, alongside two adults.

The young boy was played by a child actor named Lincoln Fox Ramadan, who was cast based on his resemblance to a young Bad Bunny. The segment was meant to symbolise the artist handing a Grammy to his younger self, a representative from Ramadan’s talent agency W Group told CNN on Sunday.

Wendy Woods, talent agent, owner and CEO of The W Group Artists and Entertainment group in Florida, said she was “blown away” by Ramadan’s performance and was “honoured” to help him get on the stage with Bad Bunny.

Bad Bunny performs onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show.

Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images via AFP

For a brief moment, the internet ran with rumors that the boy was Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old who was taken into ICE custody in Minneapolis and placed with his father in a family detention facility in Texas, before being released earlier this month while his case plays out.

Though ultimately untrue, the moment could be seen as a message of support to immigrants across the US, harkening back as it did to the night Bad Bunny aligned himself with those calling for an end to the Trump administration’s unprecedented immigration crackdown.

A wedding moment

Throughout the show, Bad Bunny celebrated pastimes beloved in Puerto Rico, from dominoes to boxing, and also the families and generations that make up life on the island.

At one point in his performance, a man was seen proposing to a woman; later, they were seen together wearing all white, getting married. It was the story of this couple’s nuptials told throughout the performance.

Performers portray a wedding during Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny performance during the Super Bowl Halftime Show.

AFP / Josh Edelson

Once the crowd parted after the wedding ceremony, Lady Gaga made a surprise appearance to sing a Latin-inspired rendition of her Grammy-winning collaboration with Bruno Mars, ‘Die With a Smile’, serving as the wedding singer for the couple, who were then seen cutting into a multi-tiered wedding cake and sharing a long kiss.

Bad Bunny and Lady Gaga perform onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show.

Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images / AFP

This was yet another moment when the show tidily hammered home its point about freedom and the pursuit of happiness, while making clear that celebrating marriage and children is not a uniquely conservative pursuit.

The show called back continuously to Puerto Rican culture and also featured many famous ‘backup dancers,’ including Jessica Alba, Karol G, Cardi B and Pedro Pascal, and a surprise performance from Ricky Martin, who sang ‘Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii’, a warning about the cost of gentrification.

Bad Bunny made good on his promise that viewers didn’t need to learn Spanish in order to enjoy his halftime show.

It was a dance party with a message, one that was blasted on a screen at Levi’s Stadium as he closed out his set: “The only thing that is more powerful than hate is love.”

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/10/why-bad-bunnys-super-bowl-performance-matters/

February 9, 2026

Doctors recommend pregnant women avoid retinoids. What’s the evidence?

Source: Radio New Zealand

Being pregnant comes with a minefield of advice from doctors, midwives, well-meaning friends and family, not to mention social media and other mums.

There are foods you’re recommended to avoid, and medications that aren’t approved. But skincare is less clear: some products are fine whereas others are not recommended.

The family of ingredients known as retinoids, for example, are booming in popularity in skincare products but there is conflicting advice on their safety for pregnant women.

Retinoids are commonly used to treat acne.

Barbara Krysztofiak/Unsplash

?

Retinoids is an umbrella term for vitamin A derivatives that treat all manner of skin concerns from acne to wrinkles, fine lines and pigmentation.

“They’re pretty much the gold standard skincare ingredients because they work for so many things,” says Michelle Wong, a chemist and science communicator based in Sydney.

Retinoids come in different forms.

The most potent are prescription-only acne treatment drugs such as isotretinon, which is taken orally, and tretinoin which is applied to the skin to treat severe acne.

Then there are pharmacist-only products containing adapalene, and a range of “over-the-counter” retinoids such as retinal and retinol which are in topical creams applied to the skin at much lower concentrations.

It’s widely accepted that oral retinoids are not safe for pregnant women and may cause birth defects — and that is labelled clearly on the packaging and drug information leaflets. Prescription-only and pharmacist-only topical retinoids also carry warnings.

But what about over-the-counter (OTC) topical retinoid products?

Confusing advice for pregnant women

NSW Health’s Mothersafe, a service for mothers run by NSW Health, says OTC creams are safe for pregnant women to use because they are applied topically and contain smaller doses, but advises against the use of prescription topical treatments.

Wong agrees.

“Looking at standard retinol products on the market, it should be safe for pregnancy, as long as people are not using it in weird ways,” she says.

But many health practitioners advise against using any type of topical retinoid.

Laura Gerhady, a maternal fetal medicine specialist who studies the effects of medication in pregnancy says there is insufficient research to make clear determinations for the use of topical retinoids during pregnancy.

“Part of that is because most people using topical retinoids will be using them for conditions that are not vital to treat during pregnancy, things like acne.”

There are no mandatory standards for labelling cosmetic skincare products containing retinoids such as retinal and retinol. The only non-prescription topical products that require labelling are those containing adapalene. These products were recently downgraded from prescription-only and made available as behind-the-counter products in pharmacies.

Gerhardy says there isn’t clear labelling because there isn’t a specific guideline on what is and isn’t safe.

“For [all] topical retinoids, the message is that we don’t have great information, but if you use it, it’s probably fine.

“To communicate that in a single sentence on packaging is quite difficult. It is straightforward with oral retinoids — they are certainly harmful in pregnancies.

“But topical is more challenging because we just don’t have the data,” she says.

As research about both prescription and OTC topical retinoids is limited, guidance from health practitioners is typically interchangeable.

Deshan Sebaratnam, a dermatologist at Liverpool Hospital says he advises his pregnant patients to avoid using all retinoids — including retinol — as a precaution.

“Much like alcohol, the safest choice would be to avoid retinol in pregnancy but the absolute risk is low,” he says.

Likewise, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists says that even though the amount absorbed by the body is low, neither prescription nor OTC products are recommended.

What happens if you accidentally use a topical retinoid while pregnant?

Wong says pregnant women who may have used topical retinoids without knowing should not be alarmed.

“Topical retinoids are generally not recommended during pregnancy but it’s not worth panicking about if you accidentally use it once or twice,” she says.

“If applied topically, the amount of product that would enter your system would be quite low.

“Including from prescription creams,” she says, but adds: “There’s still a hierarchy of risk though. For example, tretinoin is the riskiest one.”

A large Nordic study published last year found that while the use of topical retinoids had significantly increased over the past 20 years, there was no evidence of increased risk of birth defects in babies exposed to topical retinoids during pregnancy.

While the authors say those findings are “the strongest evidence to date on the safety of topical retinoids during pregnancy”, they also acknowledge their study may underestimate the risk and more research is needed.

If you are thinking about using topical retinoid products, speak to your healthcare practitioner for advice.

Other skincare ingredients to look out for

Sebaratnam recommends avoiding minoxidil (a hair growth formula) and hydroquinone, which treats dark spots.

“Most other over-the-counter beauty products are probably safe,” he says.

“But mums need to weigh up whether they really need to be using them or not.”

Other products Wong recommends watching out for are online products that might be unregulated or high doses of salicylic acid, a cleanser that is also a chemical exfoliator.

Mothersafe NSW says salicylic acid is safe for use in smaller doses, however “quantities of salicylic acid absorbed may be higher in specific situations so safety of use should be confirmed with MotherSafe or your healthcare provider”.

Wong also cautions against using beauty products bought online that don’t have verified information.

“I would be cautious about those sorts of products that are really cheap and too good to be true,” Wong says.

For most pregnant women, the safest approach is to stick with simplicity; use well-regulated products, and speak to your healthcare practitioner.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/09/doctors-recommend-pregnant-women-avoid-retinoids-whats-the-evidence/

February 9, 2026

Bad Bunny brings out Lady Gaga as surprise guest in Super Bowl halftime show

Source: Radio New Zealand

Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny turned the Super Bowl into a giant street party, delivering his hits on one of the world’s biggest stages – and becoming the first-ever halftime show headliner to sing only in Spanish.

Anticipation was high for the 31-year-old’s set, amid rampant speculation about whether he would use his platform to renew his criticism of President Donald Trump’s administration in front of tens of millions of viewers.

Just a week ago at the Grammys, where he won the coveted Album of the Year prize, Bad Bunny made a searing statement about Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown, earning cheers for saying “ICE out” from the stage.

Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny performs during Super Bowl LX Patriots vs Seahawks Apple Music Halftime Show.

AFP / Patrick T Fallon

.

In a set featuring a sugar cane plantation, a traditional “piragua” cart selling treats, and even a wedding, he opened with ‘Titi Me Pregunto’ and feminist anthem ‘Yo Perreo Sola’, with a cast of dancers fueling the party atmosphere.

A wedding during Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny performance during the Super Bowl Halftime Show.

AFP / Josh Edelson

Actors Pedro Pascal and Jessica Alba, and rapper Cardi B were among the guest stars vibing in his familiar ‘La Casita’ backdrop, representing a home in Puerto Rico.

Pedro Pascal, Karol G and Cardi B dance to Bad Bunny’s performance during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show.

Chris Graythen / Getty Images / AFP

Bad Bunny wore an all-white ensemble, with a football jersey featuring the number “64” and “Ocasio,” before donning a classy suit jacket.

He delved into more political territory with ‘El Apagon’ (Blackout), which touches on the displacement of Puerto Ricans on their own island, and the constant problems caused by the unreliable power grid. He carried a Puerto Rican flag at one point.

Bad Bunny performs onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show.

Chris Graythen / Getty Images / AFP

Surprise musical guests included Lady Gaga, who sang a Latin-inflected version of her hit ‘Die with a Smile’ – the only English lyrics in the show — and Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin.

Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin performs during Super Bowl LX Patriots vs Seahawks Apple Music Halftime Show.

AFP / Josh Edelson

At the end of the set, after listing Latin American countries, Puerto Rico and the United States, Bad Bunny spiked a football that said “Together, we are America.”

A giant screen in the stadium read: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”

Signage that reads “The Only Thing More Powerful than Hate is Love” – from Bad Bunny’s Grammys Award acceptance speech – is displayed on the scoreboard during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show.

Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images / AFP

Early backlash

Bad Bunny has been Spotify’s most-streamed artist in the world four separate times, including last year, and won Album of the Year at the Grammys with Debi Tirar Mas Fotos – the first Spanish-language work to win music’s highest accolade.

But the decision to showcase his work at the Super Bowl in California met with conservative outrage – specifically about the idea that he would not sing in English.

Bad Bunny performs onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show

Chris Graythen / Getty Images / AFP

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell defended the choice, calling Bad Bunny “one of the great artists of the world.”

The National Football League is also seeking to bolster its international fan base, so booking a global superstar for the primetime musical interlude made perfect sense.

Bad Bunny performs onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show.

Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images via AFP

The NFL entered into an agreement in 2019 with Jay-Z’s entertainment company Roc Nation, which leads the league’s entertainment strategy and helps choose the halftime show artist.

Since that time, the list of Super Bowl headliners includes: Jennifer Lopez and Shakira (with a guest spot for Bad Bunny); The Weeknd; hip-hop legends Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige and Eminem; Rihanna; Usher; and Kendrick Lamar.

But JLo and Shakira did not perform exclusively in Spanish, leaving Bad Bunny to set that benchmark.

Participants partake in the performance onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show at Levi’s Stadium on February 08, 2026 in Santa Clara, California.

Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images via AFP

From Vega Baja to Super Bowl

The son of a truck driver and a teacher, Bad Bunny was born on 10 March, 1994 and grew up in Vega Baja, a small municipality near Puerto Rico’s capital San Juan.

He was working at a supermarket bagging groceries when he got a call from a label over his viral plays on the DIY platform SoundCloud.

Thus began the reggaeton star’s rapid explosion to the top of global music.

Late last year, Bad Bunny released Debi Tirar Mas Fotos, a history lesson in Puerto Rican music that he promoted with a hometown concert residency in San Juan and a world tour.

In Puerto Rico, a US territory since 1898, there was nothing but pride for the island’s native son.

“For someone from here to be at one of the most important events in the United States is a source of pride for every Puerto Rican,” Olvin Reyes, 39, told AFP.

“It’s going to be an event to share with family, something very exciting.”

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/09/bad-bunny-brings-out-lady-gaga-as-surprise-guest-in-super-bowl-halftime-show/

February 8, 2026

Who is megastar Bad Bunny and why he sings in Puerto Rican Spanish

Source: Radio New Zealand

Bad Bunny is on a roll. Among the three wins at the 68th Grammy Awards, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (I should have taken more pictures) became the first Spanish-language record to win Album of the Year.

On Sunday, Bad Bunny will be the first Latino and Spanish-speaking artist to perform as a solo headliner at the Super Bowl halftime show.

Born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, and raised in Borinquen (the Taíno-language name for Puerto Rico), Bad Bunny’s life and music have been marked by political, social and economic crises affecting the archipelago: government corruption, failing infrastructure and debt.

Puerto Rican reggaeton singer Bad Bunny waves a Puerto Rican flag as he takes part of a demonstration demanding Governor Ricardo Rossello’s resignation in San Juan, Puerto Rico on 17 July, 2019.

AFP / Eric Rojas

.685279187817″>

Bad Bunny has used his voice to protest in both his music and public statements against national crises and the ongoing effects of colonialism, while celebrating Latinx and Puerto Rican identities.

Bad Bunny started posting songs on SoundCloud in 2016. In 2018, he released his first album, X 100PRE. Sung in Spanish, the album reached number 11 on the Billboard charts.

His third album, 2020’s El último tour del mundo (The Last World Tour), became the first Spanish-language album to reach number one on the Billboard charts. His fourth record, 2022’s Un Verano Sin Ti (A Summer Without You), also topped this chart, this time for 13 weeks.

DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS stands out against Bad Bunny’s previous albums for its focus on Puerto Rican identity and ongoing fight against colonisation. This is reflected in the album through national symbols, genres and, of course, language. Bad Bunny addresses these themes through companion videos explaining central aspects to the collective memory of Puerto Rico.

The current climate in the United States of interventionism and mass deportations, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS has made the domestic Puerto Rican experience resonate among global audiences.

Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny (R) performs during his “Debi tirar mas fotos” world tour at the Atanasio Girardot Stadium in Medellin, Colombia, on 23 January, 2026.

AFP / Jaime Saldarriaga

Language and genre

Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory that belongs to the US, and Puerto Ricans are US citizens, but the territory is not counted as one of the country’s states. The US exerts control over the military, politics and economy of the archipelago.

Spanish plays a complex role in Puerto Rico, as a colonial language that was imposed in the archipelago. More recently, Spanish has been embraced as a resistance to English dominance.

Bad Bunny speaks Puerto Rican Spanish, which combines influences from the indigenous Taíno language, African languages, Spanish and English. Studies have found that Spanish speakers may consider this variety as incorrect because its characteristics are seen as distant from the Castilian Spanish norm: perceptions anchored in colonial ideologies that privilege Castilian Spanish.

The Puerto Rican slang Bad Bunny uses on DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS features numerous Anglicisms, or words borrowed from English – a feature of Puerto Rican Spanish.

AFP / Angela Weiss

Among other genres, Bad Bunny sings reggaeton, a Caribbean genre that draws on Jamaican dancehall, American hip-hop and Dominican Republic dembow.

Reggaeton is a popular music genre with underground roots and explicit lyrics. In the 1990s, Puerto Rican reggaeton was subject to government prosecution (including confiscation, fines and negative media campaigns) due to its alleged obscenity. That did not stop its increasing popularity among young audiences in the Caribbean and beyond.

The international popularity of reggaeton artists such as Don Omar, Daddy Yankee, Young Miko, Ozuna and Bad Bunny has changed the perception of Puerto Rican Spanish from a history of deficit views to more social prestige. In the past, the distance from the Castilian Spanish norm was considered something negative, but there is now a strong interest among students of Spanish to learn this variety.

Fluid use of language

Bad Bunny performs onstage at the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Awards at Dolby Theatre on 17 March, 2025 in Hollywood, California.

Monica Schipper / Getty Images / AFP

Bad Bunny’s language does not reflect a purist vision of language with rigid boundaries. Instead, he embraces a creative use of language with fluid boundaries.

The Puerto Rican slang Bad Bunny uses on DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS features numerous Anglicisms, or words borrowed from English – a feature of Puerto Rican Spanish.

He uses unadapted borrowings – such as the words shot, pitcher, flashback, follow, blondie, glossy, brother, bestie, eyelash, underwater and movie. And he also uses hybrid realisations, compound words that combine English and Spanish components such as janguear (adapted from the English “hang out”), girla (girl), ghosteó (ghosted), stalkeándote (stalking) and kloufrens (close friends).

Bad Bunny embraces his Puerto Rican identity in the pronunciation of lyrics and in public commentary. For example, he pronounces the letter “r” as the letter “l” in songs like ‘NUEVAYoL’ (New York) and ‘VeLDÁ‘ (Truth).

The letter “l” becomes a strong identity feature of NUEVAYoL when compared to other iconic renditions of the city, such as those of Frank Sinatra.

By using his voice to celebrate characteristics of Puerto Rican Spanish previously not perceived as prestigious, Bad Bunny is contributing to the values of linguistic diversity and fighting language ideologies inherited from colonialism.

A woman poses in front of a mural at La Placita de Santurce in San Juan, Puerto Rico on 12 July, 2025. The day before Bad Bunny kicked off his blockbuster residency that’s expected to bring hundreds of millions of dollars to the island while showcasing its rich culture, he posted a simple message: Shop Local.

AFP / Ricardo Arduengo

Music as defiance

The way Bad Bunny uses language has been described as an act of defiance and survival. Bad Bunny does not break down language and make it easier for listeners. Rather, listeners have to make the effort of decoding it.

Notably, the lexicographer Maia Sherwood Droz created a Spanish dictionary for DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, including definitions of words, phrases and cultural references to decode the meanings in the album.

In an album loaded with references to the ongoing fight to preserve Puerto Rican identity, he evokes community symbols of “pitorro de coco” (homemade clandestine rum) to “la bandera azul clarito” (the light blue flag, referring to a 1895 Puerto Rican emblem.

When accepting an award at the Grammys, Bad Bunny said:

We’re not savage. We’re not animals. We’re not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans.

Bad Bunny’s acceptance speech is explicitly rejecting dehumanisation in a ceremony where, finally, music in languages other than English and, importantly, in Puerto Rican Spanish, was honoured and celebrated as the best album of the year.

*Beatriz Carbajal-Carrera is a Lecturer in Spanish and Latin American Studies at the University of Sydney.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/08/who-is-megastar-bad-bunny-and-why-he-sings-in-puerto-rican-spanish/

February 8, 2026

Table tennis in film – from Forrest Gump to Marty Supreme

Source: Radio New Zealand

Table tennis and film have a surprisingly entangled history. Both depended on the invention of celluloid – which not only became the substrate of film, but is also used to make ping pong balls.

Following a brief ping pong craze in 1902, the game largely disappeared and was widely assumed to have been a passing fad. More than 20 years later, however, the British socialite, communist spy and filmmaker Ivor Montagu went to great lengths to establish the game as a sport – a story I explore in my current book project on ping pong and the moving image.

He founded the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) and codified the rules of the game in both a book and a corresponding short film, Table Tennis Today (1929).

Timothee Chalamet makes it hard not to laugh at Marty Mauser’s wildly offensive claims and believable conviction.

Central Pictures / A24

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/08/table-tennis-in-film-from-forrest-gump-to-marty-supreme/

Category: World News

Logan Paul’s ‘holy grail’ of Pokémon cards sells for $27.3 million

Our Changing World: Science for future fashion

Future fashion

Creating clever yarn for smart clothing

Putting paper-making skills to new use

End of life

Benefits of intermittent fasting ‘fail to match the hype’, major review finds

Are these the worst wellness trends of the year?

Is Wuthering Heights actually romantic? Heathcliff would say no

Why being hopeful is more radical than ever now

The dangers of living by your ‘love language’

James Van Der Beek was synonymous with Dawson. This is why he embraced it

Dawson’s Creek star James Van Der Beek dies aged 48

Can hairdressers spot skin cancer?

Samoa authorities detain NZ passport holder following marijuana seizure at airport

Britney Spears sells rights to music catalogue in reported $330m deal

Why are new tea towels worse at drying dishes than old ones?

When Valentine’s Day forces a relationship reckoning

Wuthering Heights is one of the year’s most controversial films

Catherine O’Hara’s cause of death revealed

Palace ready to help UK police in any inquiry into king’s brother Andrew

Royal family ready to back investigation of Andrew

Andrew and Epstein an embarrassment for King and royals

Why Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance matters

Doctors recommend pregnant women avoid retinoids. What’s the evidence?

Bad Bunny brings out Lady Gaga as surprise guest in Super Bowl halftime show

Who is megastar Bad Bunny and why he sings in Puerto Rican Spanish

Table tennis in film – from Forrest Gump to Marty Supreme