She was so sure she deserved to be in power (and to be clear, I believe by the law of the land Rhaenyra is the rightful ruler) but once she made it to the iron throne she had no clue what to do next. I found this shocking. Rhaenyra was named heir when she was 14 or 15-years-old (just 8-years-old in the books). When she rejected Criston Cole around that time, she was crystal clear about her future. She literally said, “I am the crown.”

So why wasn’t Rhaenyra prepared to actually do the work of ruling Westeros?

I blame Viserys.

King Viserys I Targaryen was Rhaenyra’s father. When he failed to produce a son, he named Rhaenyra as his heir. Then, he ended up producing three potential kings in his last marriage to Alicent Hightower: Aegon II, Aemond, and Daeron. Despite this, he maintained on his deathbed that Rhaenyra was his heir and should succeed him as ruler of Westeros.

But he didn’t actually train her to rule. He just named her as successor.

Viserys should have made young Rhaenyra his hand, or even assigned his hand to teach her about politics, leadership, and military strategy. She needed to be formally trained with a sword, if even just for appearances. She needed to be taught the subtleties of holding court, how to get people on your side, how to preside over the small council. Everything Viserys did as king he should have taken Rhaenyra along with him to give her instruction and advice and groom her into a great leader.

Contrast Viserys with a patriarch like Tywin Lannister, who dedicated himself to fathering heirs who were competent. Each of his children were expected to be a savvy player of the game of thrones who would protect and advance the interests of House Lannister. Even Tyrion, who Tywin hates, was given an elite education and groomed to be a political asset.

When it’s hinted that Jamie Lannister had dyslexia and struggled to read as a child, Tywin insisted it was part of his duty to read and study. In the same situation, Viserys probably would have been satisfied to have a son who was a great swordsman. But Tywin wanted Jamie to inherit Casterly Rock and wanted him to be intelligent and educated as well. Ironically, Jaime doesn’t fully appreciate the value of that education until much later in the books. After losing his sword hand, he’s forced to rely on the skills he once considered secondary: diplomacy, judgment, and command. He negotiates surrenders, manages sieges, and resolves disputes through persuasion rather than combat. In a way, he begins to exercise the broader leadership qualities Tywin had tried to instill in him years earlier.

Unlike Viserys, Tywin never considers his daughter to be a legitimate contender for the role of heir. However, he still gives Cersei far more instruction than Viserys gave Rhaenyra! Cersei herself often thinks that her father taught Jaime everything he taught her. In the books, she repeatedly insists that the only difference between them is that Jaime was born male. Although Tywin knew Cersei would be restricted to women’s roles by her gender, he also knows politics matter just as much as armies and expects her to do as much as she can for House Lannister.

Viserys was a loving father, but he failed to prepare Rhaenyra for the realities of ruling and to create a political environment in which she could realistically inherit the throne without a devastating civil war. The Dance of the Dragons occurred because Viserys believed that his commands, his oaths from the realm, and Rhaenyra’s claim would be enough to secure a peaceful succession. He underestimated the need to build institutions, reward loyalty, and ensure that his heir possessed the political strength to defend her claim. The result was a civil war that cost tens of thousands of lives—including those of his brother, children, and grandchildren—devastated Westeros, and brought the dragons, the very foundation of Targaryen power, to the brink of extinction.

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The US has burned through “virtually all” of its long-range precision missiles fighting Iran, and each one costs more than $1 million.

The stockpile took five months of war with Iran to drain, and now the Army may not have enough left to deter Russia or China.

Rebuilding it means outrunning a fight that hasn’t stopped.

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Eala trailed Pegula by a set at the rain-delayed Washington Open final before flipping the match, winning 4-6 6-4 6-0 to take the trophy on Monday.

Pegula was chasing a third Washington title after wins in 2019 and 2021, but Eala won 10 of the 13 games played once the match resumed, closing out the decider behind a heavy left-handed serve and fearless baseline hitting.

The win stretched her streak against top-10 opponents to five, following victories over Elena Rybakina, Iga Swiatek, and Elina Svitolina twice. It also lifts her to a career-high world number 20 when the new WTA rankings come out.

She started at 4 in the Philippines, training after school with her brother and her grandfather Roberto “Lolo Bob” Maniego, who coached her for roughly a decade. She still dedicates big wins to “younger me” and “all the girls with ruffled socks and chubby cheeks.”

At 13 she left home for a scholarship at the Rafa Nadal Academy in Mallorca. Świątek gave the speech at her 2023 graduation. Eala has since beaten her twice.

Washington also closed a loop from last summer, when she reached her first tour final at Eastbourne and lost after holding championship points.

“To see how far you’ve come over the last couple of years when we first played, to see the amazing fans that follow you every place you go, it’s not fun to play against but I think it’s amazing,” Pegula said.

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Bradley Cooper and Gigi Hadid privately married in a small ceremony attended by only their closest family and friends, sources tell Naughty But Nice.

The couple, together three years, deliberately skipped the guest list, the drones, and any official announcement.

“Bradley and Gigi wanted a marriage, not a media event,” one source says. “They wanted the day to belong to them, not the headlines.”

Speculation started after the two were photographed in Paris wearing matching Boucheron wedding bands, thin enough to almost miss. Neither has confirmed the reports, and their representatives declined to comment.

Another insider tied the choice directly to the timing: “Watching Taylor’s wedding only confirmed they’d made the right decision. They admire Taylor, but they wanted the complete opposite. Their perfect wedding was the one nobody even knew had happened.”

Don’t expect a wedding album either. “Privacy wasn’t a compromise,” one source says. “It was the plan from the very beginning.”

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A mystery woman suited up in a mask and snorkel and joined Brady in the water off the coast of the South of France on Wednesday. There’s no word yet on whether she’s a friend or something more.

Brady’s love life has drawn attention since his 2022 divorce from Gisele Bündchen. He’s been linked to Irina Shayk and Alix Earle but hasn’t gone public with a serious relationship.

Gisele has moved on, marrying jiu-jitsu instructor Joaquim Valente in December 2025 after welcoming a baby boy with him earlier that year.

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Daniela Avanzini was the only one to break the all-black code, pairing a satiny full-length dress with a ruched bodice and crisscross side lacing with green pointed-toe heels in a semi-transparent, PVC-like upper.

She and three groupmates, Lara Raj, Megan Skiendiel and Yoonchae Jeong, attended the Los Angeles screening of “Katseye: Wild Hearts” on Tuesday, each in a different take on the black dress.

Jeong went the edgiest, with black croc-embossed stiletto boots that ran knee-high, finished with silver buckles on the vamp and dangling locks, worn under a high-neck minidress with a fitted bodice and ruffled skirt.

Raj and Skiendiel landed on the same silhouette, a black pointed-toe pump. Raj’s was a patent leather Christian Louboutin, what looked like the brand’s Kate style, over a partially sheer lingerie-style dress with lacy detailing. Skiendiel kept it matte in a black leather pump and a simple silky slipdress.

The screening was a premiere-style event ahead of the film’s limited theatrical run, which starts August 12 and lands two days before the group’s third EP, “WILD,” drops on August 14. Directed by Nadia Hallgren and made by the team behind Netflix’s “Pop Star Academy: Katseye,” the roughly 80-minute doc traces the group’s post-debut grind through behind-the-scenes footage, member interviews, and fan-submitted videos from their EYEKONS fandom, which the film’s official framing calls “a love letter to the EYEKONS.”

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Some of the people ICE detained at airport gates in July had valid work permits and no criminal record, according to an immigration attorney.

Federal agents pulled more than 30 travelers at airports in a single month.

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Not everyone’s domicile is equally nasty and soiled, though. To determine exactly what the most revolting part of your home is, we must look to the stars…

1. Aries

It’s nice that you have sponges, both in your kitchen and your bathroom. It’s also nice that every once in a while, you’ll place a sponge or two in both places to give visitors the false impression that you don’t live in a living, breathing germ trap. But if any scientist were to take those sponges and place them under a microscope, they would scream so loudly at the sight of what bacterial nasties are creeping and crawling and slithering and squirming in those sponges, every last bacterium would die of fright.

2. Taurus

Have you looked inside your microwave oven lately? Do you realize it looks like a slaughterhouse in there? I’m not sure what you’re cooking inside that thing, but it resembles the aftermath of a lacrosse team having a food fight at Golden Corral. There are traces of hardened crust that look like they used to be ketchup, macaroni and cheese, ramen noodles, and something that I’m hoping was gravy, because I don’t even want to think of what it was if it’s not gravy. Get a scrubber, some cleaning solution, a pair of rubber gloves, and redeem yourself, please.

3. Gemini

I say this with the love that only a parent can have and the sort candor that only your best friend can confide in you, but your bodyis the filthiest thing in your home. Even though it’s a medical fact that the cells in the human microbiome far outnumber the cells in the human body—I mean, it’s not even close—why did you choose to wear all of those bacteria, germs, and fungi on the outside of your body? I command you to grab a gallon of liquid soap and stand under a hot shower for an entire season. It’s going to take at least 90 days to clean you up. 

4. Cancer

Take comfort, little Crab—compared to Gemini, your body is sparklingly clean. It’s your soul that is dirty. Looking at you, no one would have the slightest clue what a pervert you are. No one could believe the sinister revenge schemes you are always plotting. No one, not even the most accomplished horror novelist, would be able to comprehend the wicked glee you take at imagining your enemies suffering. Other than that, you keep a very tidy house.

5. Leo

Doormats are there for a reason—you wipe your dirty shoes on them and then enter your abode without tracking mud onto the floors. But here’s the thing about doormats—you’re supposed to do more than just step on them. Every once in a blue moon—say, at least once every ten years—you’re supposed to clean them. Put them through a rugged wash cycle using bleach. Hang them out to dry. Quit treating your doormats as if they were, y’know, doormats. They deserve better than that.

6. Virgo

I’d say that your floors were the dirtiest part of your home, but I’d only be speculating. That’s because I can’t see your floors, what with all the fast-food wrappers, pizza boxes, clothes discarded in the heat of passion, stacks of hoarded books, and sundry personal items that are blocking your floors from my sight. Maybe your floors are clean under all of that. Or maybe not. Probably not. OK, most definitely not.

7. Libra

Can I talk about your bed without hurting your feelings? I’ve already given up on trying to tell you to make your bed every morning, because you’ll just shrug and say, “Why? I’m just going to mess it up again tonight.” But is there a chance in hell that I can convince you to wash your bedsheets periodically? And when I say “periodically,” I’m not directly referring to menstrual periods, but they can be a problem, too…along with the dried sweat, slobber, bodily fluids, and the literally trillions of dust mites who’ve found a final resting place in your pillowcases. You don’t need just a HazMat crew to fix your bed—you need an exorcist.

8. Scorpio

Yeah, OK, about your toilet, which is in your “restroom,” AKA your “bathroom.” As we all know, the main reason people have restrooms and bathrooms is not because they rest in there or take many baths, but it’s because no one wants a toilet sitting out there in the dining room. Toilets are naturally disgusting. They are living proof that we never really eat or drink anything—we only borrow it for a while.

9. Sagittarius

Sagittarius is known as the Archer, but it’s a pity that you don’t aim so well when it regards your commode. If you don’t know what I mean, I’m talking about the area around your toilet. There are designated federal Superfund cleanup sites that are less toxic than that godforsaken wasteland. You’re going to need some sort of scuba-diving outfit and some form of high-tech autoclave before you can even hope to make that area fit for human habitation again. 

10. Capricorn

I’m surprised that you’re even able to read this, because the screens on your digital devices are so deeply caked in all manner of facial grease, fingertip smudges, and Lord knows what else, it’s a miracle you’re able to make out the words. I hope, for your sake and theirs, that you don’t do any kind of FaceTiming or Skyping with anyone else on those things, because you probably look like a blurry monster to them. There these things known as “alcohol wipes.” You can get like a hundred of them at any drug or department store for only five bucks. 

11. Aquarius

I’m sure that you think your pet is absolutely the most precious, lovable, huggable creature in the galaxy, but between you and me, the thing stinks. But that’s the law of the jungle, isn’t it? Even though the jungle is where the wild things roam free and feel no shame, the problem is that neither you nor your pet live in the jungle. It’s such a dirty little critter, I’m tempted to tell you to take on a leash through a car wash, but that would be inhumane to both of you. But please reserve an entire day at a local pet salon to address your little fur baby’s hygienic issues.

12. Pisces

Every doorknob in your home is host to more pathogens than the Centers for Disease Control. They’re so disgustingly filthy, it leads me to believe that you’re sticking more than your hands on them, which is a thought so horrifying that I regret even typing out the first part of that sentence. Let’s just dial it back and say that you need to keep your hands permanently dipped in sanitizer, because they’re so dirty, your doorknobs have seriously thought about whether they need to wear masks.

Tate McRae says the 88-date “Miss Possessive” tour left her so depleted that she wanted “to go into a black room and not look in a mirror for six months.”

She couldn’t sleep and had to counter the thoughts running through her head: “You’re not the worst person in the world. You’re not the ugliest person in the world,” she remembers telling herself.

McRae read poetry on the road and relied on her journal to make sense of what she was feeling. She saw herself in Sylvia Plath and repeatedly returned to an Anaïs Nin line: “I’m restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.”

The tour grossed more than $100 million, but seven months after its November finale at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles, much of it remains a blur. “I have early signs of dementia, I think, because I can’t remember anything that’s ever happened to me,” she told Variety.

Now 23, McRae is regrouping in New York, where she moved less than a year ago. She lives in NoHo, does hot Pilates, has learned to cook ground turkey, eggs and sweet potatoes, and calls her mom in Canada about seven times a day. “I’m living with my mom on FaceTime,” she said.

Onstage, she becomes Tatiana, an alter ego she compares to Beyoncé’s Sasha Fierce. The character helps her tap into the confidence and energy her performances demand.

McRae broke through with her 2023 album “Think Later” and the No. 3 hit “Greedy.” Her 2025 follow-up, “So Close to What,” debuted at No. 1. She is also headlining Montreal’s Osheaga and Chicago’s Lollapalooza over the same weekend in early August, with Osheaga marking her first festival performance in Canada.

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Ward won UniSport National bronze in the 800m this April. She died at 21.

She medalled as a junior and ran at the 2024 Australian Championships, and she was studying exercise and sports science at Macquarie University.

Between races she worked at a Nike store, where a customer says she spent her time helping his son find the right track shoes.

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