Category: US

CNN
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The Georgia Bulldogs have advanced to the College Football Playoff Championship after defeating the Ohio State Buckeyes 42-41 in the second semifinal College Football Playoff game Saturday.

Trailing by six points late in the 4th quarter, defending national champion Georgia mounted a 72-yard drive capped by quarterback Stetson Bennett’s third touchdown pass of the game to take the lead with 54 seconds remaining.

Ohio State used that time to drive the ball into field goal range, setting up a 50-yard attempt for kicker Noah Ruggles. But Ruggles hooked the kick left, and the Bulldogs escaped with the 1-point win.

Georgia is the first team to come back from a 14-point fourth-quarter deficit in College Football Playoff history, according to the NCAA.

Earlier Saturday, No. 3 Texas Christian University’s Horned Frogs came into the first semifinal game as underdogs and pulled off a major upset, delivering a thrilling 51-45 win against No. 2 Michigan Wolverines.

The Horned Frogs, who began the season outside the Top 25, defeated the previously unbeaten Michigan Wolverines 51-45 in the highest scoring Fiesta Bowl ever. The Big Ten champions entered the game favored by more than a touchdown, but TCU never trailed in the game en route to a shot at the national championship.

Heisman runner-up Max Duggan threw for 225 yards and four total touchdowns, while running back Emari Demarcado added 150 yards on the ground at the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Arizona.

The Bulldogs will face the Horned Frogs Monday, January 9, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, for the Championship game.

TCU will be seeking its first national championship since 1938 and the first for a Big 12 team since 2005, while Georgia will be aiming to be the first back-to-back national champion since Alabama in 2011 and 2012 and the first repeat champion in the College Football Playoff era.

CNN
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Anita Pointer, one of the founding members of the R&B group The Pointer Sisters, has died at age 74, according to her publicist Roger Neal.

Pointer passed away Saturday at her home in Los Angeles where she was surrounded by her family, Neal said in a statement to CNN. The cause of death was cancer, he said.

“While we are deeply saddened by the loss of Anita, we are comforted in knowing she is now with her daughter, Jada and her sisters June & Bonnie and at peace,” Pointer’s family said in a statement. “Heaven is a more loving beautiful place with Anita there.”

“She was the one that kept all of us close and together for so long. Her love of our family will live on in each of us,” the statement said, while also asking that the family’s privacy be respected “during this period of grief and loss.”

The four Pointer Sisters began singing together more than 50 years ago in their hometown church in Oakland, California, where their father ministered. Bonnie Pointer and her youngest sister, June, made their professional singing debut as a duo in 1969. They later recruited older sisters Anita and Ruth to join them, before releasing their first album together in 1973.

The group won their first Grammy Award for their crossover hit, “Fairytale,” in 1974. They are also known for hits like “Slow Hand,” “Neutron Dance,” and “Jump.”

The group won three total Grammy Awards and had 13 US Top 20 hits between 1973 and 1985.

CNN
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Russia’s war in Ukraine has proven almost every assumption wrong, with Europe now wondering what left is safe to assume.

Its invasion in February managed to startle in every way. To those who thought Moscow was sane enough to not attempt such a massive and foolhardy undertaking. To those who felt the Russian military would waltz across a land of 40 million people and switch to clean-up operations within 10 days. And to those who felt they had the technical and intelligence prowess to do more than just randomly bombard civilian areas with ageing artillery; that the Kremlin’s military had evolved from the 90s levelling of Grozny in Chechnya.

And finally, to those who felt nuclear saber-rattling was an oxymoron in 2022 – that you could not casually threaten people with nukes as the destruction they brought was complete, for everyone on the planet.

Still, as 2022 closes, Europe is left dealing with a set of known unknowns, unimaginable as recently as in January. To recap: a military once considered the world’s third most formidable has invaded its smaller neighbor, which a year ago excelled mostly in IT and agriculture.

Russia spent billions of dollars apparently modernizing its military, but it turns out that it was, to a large extent, a sham. It has discovered its supply chains don’t function a few dozen miles from its own borders; that its assessment of Ukraine as desperate to be freed from its own “Nazism” is the distorted product of nodding yes-men, feeding a president – Vladimir Putin – what he wanted to hear in the isolation of the pandemic.

Russia has also met a West that, far from being divided and reticent, was instead happy to send some of its munitions to its eastern border. Western officials might also be surprised that Russia’s red lines appear to shift constantly, as Moscow realizes how limited its non-nuclear options are. None of this was supposed to happen. So, what does Europe do and prepare for, now that it has?

Key is just how unexpectedly unified the West has been. Despite being split over Iraq, fractured over Syria, and partially unwilling to spend the 2% of GDP on security the United States long demanded of NATO members, Europe and the US have been speaking from the same script on Ukraine. At times, Washington may have seemed warier, and there have been autocratic outliers like Hungary. But the shift is towards unity, not disparity. That’s quite a surprise.

Declarations that Russia has already lost the war remain premature. There are variables which could still lead to a stalemate in its favor, or even a reversal of fortune. NATO could lose patience or nerve over weapons shipments, and seek economic expediency over long-term security, pushing for a peace unfavorable to Kyiv. But that does, at this moment, seem unlikely.

Russia is digging in on the eastern side of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine, and has the advantage that the Donetsk and Luhansk frontlines in Ukraine’s east are nearer its border. Yet its challenges are immense: poorly trained, forcibly conscripted personnel make up 77,000 of its frontline troops – and that’s according to the glossy assessment voiced by Putin. It is struggling for munitions, and seeing regular open, internal criticism of its winter supply chain.

Ukraine is on home territory, with morale still high, and Western weapons still arriving. Since the collapse of Moscow’s patchwork of forces around the northeastern city of Kharkiv in September – where their supply lines were cut by a smarter Ukrainian force – the dynamic has all been against Moscow.

The prospect of a Russian defeat is in the broader picture: that it did not win quickly against an inferior adversary. Mouthpieces on state TV talked about the need to “take the gloves off” after Kharkiv, as if they would not be exposing a fist that had already withered. Revealed almost as a paper-tiger, the Russian military will struggle for decades to regain even a semblance of peer status with NATO. That is perhaps the wider damage for the Kremlin: the years of effort spent rebuilding Moscow’s reputation as a smart, asymmetrical foe with conventional forces to back it up have evaporated in about six months of mismanagement.

The question of nuclear force lingers still, chiefly because Putin likes regularly to invoke it. But even here Russia’s menace has been diminished. Firstly, NATO has been sending unequivocal signals of the conventional devastation its forces would mete out were any form of nuclear device used. Secondly, Russia’s fairweather allies, India and China, have quickly assessed its losing streak and publicly admonished Moscow’s nuclear rhetoric. (Their private messaging has likely been fiercer.)

And finally, Moscow is left with a question nobody ever wants to learn the answer to: if its supply chains for diesel fuel for tanks 40 miles from its border do not function, then how can they be sure The Button will work, if Putin reaches madly to press it? There is no greater danger for a nuclear power than to reveal its strategic missiles and retaliatory capability do not function.

Despite this palpable Russian decline, Europe is not welcoming in an era of greater security. Calls for greater defense spending are louder, and heeded, even if they come at a time when Russia, for decades the defining issue of European security, is revealing itself to be less threatening.

Europe is realizing it cannot depend on the United States – and its wild swings between political poles – solely for its security.

Meanwhile thousands of innocent Ukrainians have died in Putin’s egotistical and misguided bid to revive a Tsarist empire. More broadly, authoritarianism has been exposed as a disastrous system with which to wage wars of choice.

Yet some good has come from this debacle. Europe knows it must get off its dependence on Russian gas immediately, and hydrocarbons in general in the longer term, as economic dependence on the fossil fuels of dictators cannot bring longer-term stability.

So, how does the West deal with a Russia that has experienced this colossal loss of face in Ukraine and is slowly withering economically because of sanctions? Is a weak Russia something to fear, or just weak? This is the known unknown the West must wrestle with. But it is no longer such a terrifying question.

For over 70 years, the Russians and West held the world in the grip of mutually assured destruction. It was a peace based on fear. But fear of Moscow should be ebbing slowly, and with that comes the risk of miscalculation. It also raises a less chilling prospect: that Russia – like many autocracies before it – may be fading, undermined by its own clumsy dependence on fear domestically.

Europe’s challenge now is to deal with Russia in a state of chaotic denial, while hoping it evolves into a state of managed decline. One abiding comfort may be that, after underestimating Moscow’s potential for malice, the risk for Europe would be to overstate its potential as a threat.

(CNN) — New year equals new outlook. Apply this formula liberally to travel planning in 2023.

After nearly three years of travel disruptions and complications, many countries have dropped most of their pandemic restrictions. People are traveling internationally in large numbers, and there’s plenty of pent-up demand to spread around the world.

Many travelers are charging full steam ahead into the new year — with good reason.

Here are 23 destination ideas from CNN Travel to get you started:

Poland

From the main square in Krakow, pictured, to forests, lakes and mountains, Poland invites exploration.

Sergii Figurnyi/Adobe Stock

So whether you fancy that Warsaw palace, a city break to the likes of Krakow, Gdansk, Wrocław or Poznań — all hundreds of miles from the Ukrainian border — or to get away from it all in the forests, lakes and mountains of the countryside — now’s your chance to do some good by taking a vacation. — Julia Buckley

Western Australia

A full solar eclipse will be visible in April in Exmouth, Western Australia. The landscape is worth a long look, too.

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But the state of Western Australia offers much more than some 60 seconds of wonder.

Liverpool, England

Mersey paradise: Liverpool.

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England’s port city of Liverpool, best known around the world as the birthplace of The Beatles, is adding another chapter to its musical legacy.

Charleston, South Carolina

Charleston, a city of undeniable refined, historic beauty, is also looking more closely at its troubled past.

Sean Pavone/Adobe Stock

Charleston parades its past like no other US city, but it often glossed over the history of its Black residents. It’s been taking steps to fix that.

Vilnius, Lithuania

To mark the milestone, there’s a yearlong program, including music festivals and exhibitions. But use the anniversary as a push to visit rather than following a program religiously.

Don’t miss the frothy bell tower of St. John’s church (you can climb it for sweeping city views) or the church of St. Casimir, topped by a giant crown. Got an eye for social media? This is Europe’s only capital city that allows hot air balloons to cruise over the city skyline. — JB

Fiji

Scenes like this await visitors to Fiji.

Martin Valigursky/Adobe Stock

To learn about the local Indigenous communities, travelers can take part in a kava welcoming ceremony — named for the traditional drink at its center — or enjoy a lovo, a meal cooked by hot coals in an underground pit covered with banana leaves.

Fiji Airways now has direct flights from Los Angeles and San Francisco, making it relatively easy to get to the islands. As the Fijians say, bula! — LM

Manaus, Brazil

As the fate of the Amazon rainforest hangs in the balance, two eco-lodges around Manaus — the capital of Brazil’s Amazonas state, and gateway to the river — have used their pandemic pause to get even more environmentally friendly.

Guests can take long jungle hikes through territory home to jaguars, pumas and giant armadillos in what’s one of the Amazon region’s most remote hotel facilities, then spend the afternoon in a hammock or by the pool. For 2023, the lodge is planning overnight stays in a creekside tent for small groups.

Don’t miss Manaus itself — eating behemoth Amazonian fish outside the pink 1896 opera house is a bucket list experience. — JB

Thessaloniki, Greece

Enticing flavors, history and proximity to beaches and mountains are just a few factors working in this Greek city’s favor.

Panos Karapanagiotis/iStockphoto/Getty Images

Throw in a popular waterfront and proximity to beautiful beaches and inland mountains, Thessaloniki is surely a contender for one of Europe’s best city-break destinations.

What could make it even better? How about a gleaming new metro system? All being well, November 2023 should see the opening of the main line of an infrastructure megaproject that will eventually connect the city’s downtown to its international airport. Driverless trains will whisk passengers through tunnels whose excavation has added to Thessaloniki’s already rich catalog of archeological discoveries, many of which will be on display in specially created museum stations. — Barry Neild

Rwanda

It’s the first project outside Italy for Daniele Kihlgren, whose part-hotel, part-living history projects keep local tradition alive. A nonprofit delivering money straight to local communities, Sextantio will see guests fishing on the 1,000-square-mile lake, paddling in dug-out canoes, trying local banana beer and wildlife-spotting — and not just the chickens, cows, pigs and goats that roam around the property.

Of course, you’ll want to see gorillas. Adjoining Volcanoes National Park, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund opened the 4,500-square meter Ellen DeGeneres Campus in 2022. Its visitor center includes exhibits, virtual reality gorilla “encounters” and nature trails.

Over in Akagera National Park, white rhinos — transferred from South Africa in 2021 to aid conservation — are already calving. It’s easier to get there, too. A new route from London joins Brussels, Dubai, Guangzhou and Mumbai as the only direct flights to Kigali from outside the African continent. — JB

Gothenburg, Sweden

Once a major trading and shipping town, Gothenburg is now considered to be one of the greenest destinations in Europe, with 274 square meters (2,950 square feet) of green space per citizen, while 95% of its hotels are certified as eco-friendly.

Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustav, who celebrates 50 years on the throne this year, will be in town on June 4, Gothenburg’s official birthday, and the city’s major anniversary festival is being held in the Frihamnen port district from June 2 to 5, with concerts and art events among the activities on offer.

The festivities will continue throughout the summer until the September 3 kick off of Göteborgsvarvet Marathon, a new 26-mile race following on from the city’s popular half marathon, which takes place on May 13. — Tamara Hardingham-Gill

Ras al-Khaimah, United Arab Emirates

The Dhayah Fort in Ras al-Khaimah is one of the few remaining hill forts in the United Arab Emirates.

creativefamily/Adobe Stock

When travelers think of the United Arab Emirates, the dazzling skyline of Dubai is usually what springs to mind.

Just 45 minutes from Dubai, it’s often called the “adventure Emirate,” and for good reason. Offering beaches, deserts and mountains, outdoor attractions abound, such as sand boarding, trekking, wakeboarding, skydiving, scuba diving and even the world’s longest zipline.

Laos

Three-tiered Kuang Si Falls is just south of UNESCO-listed Luang Prabang.

Sasipa Muennuch/Moment RF/Getty Images

Sharing borders with Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China and Myanmar, landlocked Laos has long been a must-hit spot for time-rich travelers making their way through the Southeast Asia circuit.

You’re still going to have to make some hard choices — there’s a lot to see in Laos.

Gruyères, Switzerland

Minneapolis, Minnesota

A modern Indigenous restaurant in Minneapolis has earned one of the culinary world’s highest honors, and it’s not alone in shining light on Native communities in the area.

Bogotá, Colombia

While Colomia’s busy capital can be congested, it’s also home to the historic neighborhood of La Candelaria.

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Caribbean coast destinations such as the Rosario archipelago or the UNESCO heritage list city of Cartagena are rightly top of most Colombia travel wish lists, but also deserving a look-in is the country’s somewhat unsung capital of Bogotá.

Yes, it’s a messy, traffic-snarled urban sprawl, but it’s also a high-altitude crucible of culture and cuisine. There are tours that chart the city’s transformation from graffiti wild west to incredible street art gallery.

Mustang Valley, Nepal

Famed for its mountain treks through ancient trails that once facilitated trade between the Himalayas and India, Nepal’s stunning Mustang Valley sits on the doorstep of Tibet.

In addition to trekking, Mustang visitors can explore ancient villages and Buddhist monasteries. Also not to be missed, the man-made Mustang Caves sit above the Gandaki River and are filled with 2,000-year-old Buddhist sculptures and paintings.

Getting to the Mustang Valley is part of the adventure. Travelers will need to take a 25-minute flight from capital Kathmandu to Pokhara then hop on another plane for the 20-minute journey to Jomsom. The views alone might make this option more pleasing to some than the alternative — a 12-hour drive from Kathmandu. — KC

Tanzania

From the spectacular wildlife to the beautiful national parks and beaches, Tanzania is absolutely bursting with visual splendor.

The East African country holds a seemingly endless list of incredible sights, with Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain, UNESCO world heritage site Serengeti National Park, and the Zanzibar Archipelago, among its many highlights.

This year, flag carrier Air Tanzania will launch new routes to West and Central Africa, along with the UK, in a bid to transform the country’s largest airport in Dar es Salaam into a transport and logistics hub, while construction on the country’s first toll expressway is also scheduled to begin.

Meanwhile, the Delta Hotels by Marriott brand is making its Africa debut with the opening of its Dar es Salaam Oyster Bay property later this year. –– THG

Cairo, Egypt

Cairo is pulsing with life and a rich blend of cultures.

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While the Pyramids of Giza are the city’s tour-de-force, there’s still more to see. Start with Islamic Cairo. This area has one of the largest collections of historic Islamic architecture in the world. While there, visit the Al-Azhar mosque, which dates back to 970.

The city also has a rich Christian tradition. Coptic Cairo, part of Old Cairo, has a concentration of Christian sites that pre-date the arrival of Islam.

Naoshima, Japan

However, Naoshima is so much more than its famous yellow gourd or its works by Kusama.

There are five small, walkable “art islands” in the Seto Inland Sea, which is located between the main islands of Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku in southeastern Japan. The largest collection of things to see — not to mention the only hotel — is on Naoshima. Together, the five champion modern and contemporary art, with emphasis on Japanese artists.

Don’t come here expecting calligraphy and other classical forms. Instead, be awed by Tadao Ando’s massive stone monoliths, a tiny gallery where patrons can listen to nothing but the beats of human hearts, a makeshift thunderstorm created inside a wooden house and an exhibit where jumping in and taking a bath is intended to be part of the artistic experience. — LM

Belize

With direct flights to Belize City from about a dozen North American airports, this Central American country is a low-hassle hop for many travelers during the November to April high season.

Farther south, the Great Blue Hole — a massive underwater sinkhole — is an aquatic magnet for both scuba divers and aerial photographers.

But Belize offers way more than its enticing islands.

Lush rainforests, cave networks, winding rivers and rich Mayan archaeological sites invite exploration in a country that’s had an evolving sustainable tourism master plan since 2012. Ruins of the Mayan city of Altun Ha are just about an hour north of Belize City. Or farther west, Lamanai is one of Belize’s largest and most fascinating Mayan sites. — MH

Oaxaca, Mexico

Mexico is arguably as rich in culinary heritage as it is in Mesoamerican archaeological treasures, and Eva Longoria explores many distinctive flavors in her series “Searching for Mexico,” airing on CNN in 2023.

The state of Oaxaca, which Longoria visits, has an especially deep well of culinary traditions. Plus, Oaxaca produces most of the world’s mezcal.

Tlayudas, known as Oaxacan pizzas, are a street food staple. A large corn tortilla is typically layered with lard, beans, traditional Oaxacan cheese, pork and other toppings such as avocado and tomato. The state is also renowned for its seven mole sauces, with recipes that may call for dozens of ingredients from chiles and sesame seeds to chocolate and dried fruit.

In the city of Oaxaca, Mercado Benito Juárez is one of many markets across the state selling items such as dried chiles, fresh produce, handicrafts and crunchy grasshoppers. To sample the state’s increasingly popular beverage, the town of Santiago Matatlán is the place for mezcal distillery tours and tastings. — MH

Ottawa, Canada

In the winter, the frozen Rideau Canal in Ottawa becomes the world’s largest skaing rink.

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It doesn’t have Montreal’s French flair or Toronto’s international oomph, so the Canadian capital can get overlooked. That would be a mistake. Graceful and understated, Ottawa has its own draws.

Uganda

Treks through the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest are among Uganda’s highlights.

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There’s considerable change brewing in Uganda’s travel offerings at the moment with the East African country looking beyond the traditional staples of safari and wildlife spotting to appeal to both regional and international visitors.

And why not? From the expansive shores of Lake Victoria to the snowy Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda is a beautiful wilderness playground, with opportunities for adventure including treks through the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest or up to the craters of the Virunga volcano chain or whitewater rafting along the Victoria Nile.