GRIF MAG

Nicole Kidman opened up about her biggest on-set faux pas during the March 11 episode of the Las Culturistas podcast

NEED TO KNOW

• The 58-year-old said fresh breath was "very important" to her when she was expected to kiss a costar

• Kidman went on to reveal one incident when her Big Little Lies costar Alexander Skarsgård had eaten a falafel sandwich just before a kissing scene, which she wasn't happy about

Nicole Kidmanis keeping it real about bad breath!

Appearing on the latest episode of theLas Culturistaspodcast, released Wednesday, March 11, Kidman, 58, opened up about how she struggled to kissBig Little LiescostarAlexander Skarsgård, 49, after he ate a falafel sandwich.

"I'm like, 'No, no, no, Alex,'" the star quipped.

"'I'm meant to be into you and kissing you — put away the falafel now because the bad breath does not turn me on,'" Kidman recalled.

The Perfect Couplestar went on to say that the taste and smell of a costar's mouth was "very important" to her.

She continued, "I'm sure [Skarsgård] did not eat a falafel ever again. I said, 'No more falafel. Not before you kiss, not before you make love.'"

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Continuing on the topic, Kidman said that bad breath was the ultimate dealbreaker for her.

"I don't think so honey, if you have bad breath," she said. "I cannot stand bad breath. This is a deal-breaker for me. You could be the most gorgeous, gorgeous guy, and you came at me with bad breath, I'm like, no.'"

She continued: "If I say, 'Breathe on me,' and I have to recoil, yikes, I'm out. You could not offer me enough money."

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Kidman added that she was "relieved" when she lost her sense of smell after COVID due to it being her most heightened sense.

"Finally, I was free," she said.

Elsewhere in the podcast, Kidman discussed the famous person she'd met that smelled "the best ever," disclosing that it was singerRihanna.

The Australian actress called the "Umbrella" singer's scent "Intoxicating."

"Like I will follow you around," she added.

Kidman's fun podcast appearance came after she broke her silenceabout her divorcefrom husbandKeith Urbanfor the first time.

"I am, because I'm always going to be moving toward what's good," she toldVarietyin an interview published on March 11, when asked if she was "doing all right" in the months following herseparation.

"What I'm grateful for is my family and keeping them as is and moving forward. That's that," she continued. "Everything else I don't discuss out of respect. I'm staying in a place of, 'We are a family,' and that's what we'll continue to be. My beautiful girls, my darlings, who are suddenly women."

Kidmanfiled for divorcefrom Urban in September 2025; the former couplefinalizedtheir divorce on Jan. 6. ThePractical Magicstar and country singer sharetwo daughters: Sunday Rose, 17, and Faith Margaret, 15.

Read the original article onPeople

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio State elevated its chief academic officer to president Thursday, moving swiftly past theabrupt resignationof former President Walter "Ted" Carter Jr. following revelations about his "inappropriate relationship" with the female host of a podcast for military veterans.

Trustees voted unanimously to appoint Executive Vice President and Provost Ravi Bellamkonda as Carter's successor — bypassing the traditional nationwide search — and Ohio State's fourth president since 2020.

The trustees want what's best for the university, board chair John Zeiger said.

"The right leader is already at our university," he said during a special board meeting, "and his vast experience, his personal values and management skills, his strong record here at Ohio State and his ability to inspire excellence in all those around him give this board great confidence" that Bellamkonda is the right fit.

Days earlier, the board of trustees confronted Carter about a tip from outside the university. He disclosed that he had "made a mistake in allowing inappropriate access to Ohio State leadership," according to his public statement, and submittedhis resignation. The retired Navy vice admiral was just two years intoa five-year contractunder which he made more than $1.1 million a year, plus bonuses and residency at Ohio State's president's mansion.

He did not elaborate on the nature of the relationship and his statement indicated he and his wife, Lynda, are still together.

Expressing surprise and disappointment, Zeigeraccepted his resignationSunday and the university said it was investigating Carter's "inappropriate relationship with someone seeking public resources to support her personal business."

JobsOhio, the state's privatized economic development office, said Carter's resignation was "possibly connected" to his relationship to Krisanthe Vlachos, host of what was supposed to be a four-episode veterans' podcast pilot, The Callout, for which it paid $15,000 an episode. Only one episode was delivered and the state is trying to claw back its $60,000, the office said.

"Ohio State is a trusted partner and Admiral Carter, sharing our passion for military and veterans, recommended The Callout Podcast as an opportunity to build and engage a military and veteran audience in Ohio," the office posted on X, "and connect them to the massive job opportunities coming to Ohio's super sectors like advanced aerospace/defense and energy."

VetEarnUSA LLC, an Ohio businessregistered by Vlachoson Dec. 20, is part of the investigation, said Ohio State spokesperson Ben Johnson. She listed the address of the operation as that of WOSU Public Media. WOSU has said Vlanchos had a contract with them to record her podcast inside their studios in Columbus. The business filing also listed a St. Louis ZIP code.

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Carter was a guest on the first podcast and JobsOhio said it supplied Vlachos a vendor pass to attend theConsumer Electronics Show - CES, to "meet people and identify angles for the remaining three podcasts."

The office further said it paid Vlachos $10,000 toward a theater production for veterans called "Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret." It was part of the office's Hometown Heroes program, which brings free programming to military, veterans and their families.

Lastly, Vlachos had submitted a proposal to JobsOhio, the Ohio State president's office and others for a mobile job-search app for Ohio veterans.

"We conducted due diligence and decided not to move forward with any investment," the office said on X, asserting it followed all appropriate protocols in its partnerships with Carter's office and Vlachos, and that there were "no irregularities in our contracting or our vetting process."

After the board meeting, Bellamkonda told reporters that stakeholders are certain to have a spectrum of reactions to Carter's swift departure and potential misconduct, and he pledged to move forward and hold the university to a high standard.

The university brought Carteron board in 2023from the University of Nebraska system. He is also a former superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy and he attended the Navy Fighter Weapons School, known as Top Gun.

Bellamkonda, a bioengineer and neuroscientist, joined the university after holding leadership, research or teaching positions at Emory University, Duke, Georgia Tech and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. He earned his Ph.D. in medical science and biomaterials at Brown.

He pledged to redouble the university's commitment to excellence.

"Looking ahead, knowing our collective strengths, I promise you this: Together we will take on hard things that are worth doing," he said. "Hard things that are worth doing in athletics, in healthcare, in education, in fact in all the things we do. We will lead and we will not be afraid to lead."

This story has been corrected to show the new president is Ravi Bellamkonda, not Ballamkonda.

Get ready. The world's most influential natural weather feature is coming in for a landing.

"The El Niño cometh," saidclimate scientist Zeke Hausfather on X recently.

An El Niño is forecast to develop later in 2026 along the equator in the eastern Pacific Ocean, and some signs show it will be a strong one, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center said on March 12.

The developing El Niño may impact the number of hurricanes we can expect in the 2026 hurricane season, which officially begins on June 1.

It may also bring strong heat waves, droughts and flooding around the world.

In addition, El Niño often leads to some of the hottest years on record, such as the record-breaking worldwide average temperature in 2024.

If El Niño develops as expected, it "would push up our estimate for 2026 global temperatures (though it's still unlikely to surpass 2024 as the warmest year), and make 2027 very likely to be the warmest year on record." Hausfather said on X.

What's the forecast?

The current La Niña climate pattern is fading to eventually be replaced by a strong El Niño pattern, according to NOAA's Climate Prediction Center.

The likelihood of an El Niño forming in the late summer is currently estimated by the CPC at 62%. It's expected to "persist through at least the end of 2026," the prediction center said in the March 12 report, which officially declared an "El Niño watch."

"Even though model forecasts are relatively less accurate this time of year, the increasing odds of El Niño are supported by the large amount of heat in the subsurface ocean and the expected weakening of the low-level trade winds," the report said.

"If El Niño forms, the potential strength remains very uncertain, with a 1-in-3 chance that it would be 'strong' during October-December 2026," the prediction center said in the report.

What is El Niño?

El Niño is a natural climate pattern in which surface sea water temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean are warmer than average.

Its name means the Little Boy, or Christ Child in Spanish. El Niño was originally recognized by fishermen off the coast of South America in the 1600s with the appearance of unusually warm water in the Pacific Ocean around Christmas.

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The entire natural climate cycle is officially known as El Niño – Southern Oscillation, called ENSO by scientists. The cycle swings between warmer and cooler seawater in a region along the equator in the tropical Pacific. La Niña is marked by cooler-than-average ocean water in the region.

Could it be a 'Super' El Niño? Or a 'Godzilla' El Niño?

Although they're not official terms, some excited scientists and headline writers have dubbed the potentially strong El Niño a"Super"or"Godzilla"El Niño.

Experts at the Climate Prediction Center do not use these terms. As noted above, government scientists say there's a one-in-three chance of the El Niño reaching strong levels.

One other expert, though, said a strong one could be on the way: "Whew,"said climate scientist Daniel Swain recently in an X postafter reviewing the latest model data. "All signs are increasingly pointing to a significant, if not strong to very strong, El Niño event."

Why do we care about El Niño?

The ENSO cycle is the primary factor government scientists consider when announcing their winter weather forecast because it mainly influences our weather in the colder months. El Niño doesn't have a strong summer climate impact for most of the country,NOAA said.

During an El Niño winter, the southern third of the United States typically experiences wetter-than-average conditions, while the northern third sees enhanced chances of below-normal precipitation, according to the Climate Prediction Center.

As for temperatures, "El Niño winters are typically warmer across the continental U.S., especially from the Pacific Northwest to the Great Lakes," Matthew Rosencrans, NOAA's lead hurricane seasonal forecaster, said in an e-mail to USA TODAY. "The warmth can extend farther down the West Coast and into the Southeast, but those signals are much less certain."

How does El Niño influence hurricanes?

El Niño can have a huge impact on the severity of the hurricane season in both the Atlantic and the Pacific.

"Typically, El Niño leads to more rising air over the tropical Pacific, which then leads to stronger upper-level wind shear and sinking air across the tropical Atlantic," said associate scientistAndy Hazelton of the University of Miamiin an email to USA TODAY. "This usually reduces the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic, especially in the Caribbean and Gulf."

However, he said we've seen El Niño years where the Atlantic was very warm, and that offset some of the El Niño effects − such as during 2023, he added.

Conversely, "El Niño years are typically associated with more activity in the eastern Pacific," said Rosencrans.

Doyle Rice is a national correspondent for USA TODAY, with a focus on weather and climate.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:NOAA forecasters say strong El Niño may be brewing

And then there were two—frontrunners.

Ryan Coogler'sSinnersis themost nominated(16) film in Oscar history.Paul Thomas Anderson'sOne Battle After Another, such are the Oscars-so-white ways of Hollywood, is still touted as the favorite for Best Picture.

Nonetheless,Sinnersshould win the Oscar for Best Picture. And the race shouldn't even be close.

Apologies for the ample spoilers ahead.

OBAA, a dark comedy and action thriller set in a fictional California town, begins with a focus on Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio), a member of a revolutionary group called the French 75, and his partner Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), a Black woman. It opens with the group raiding an immigration detention center. In the process, Perfidia, who's characterized as domineering and insatiable in her sexual appetite, humiliates Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn), strife that sets off Lockjaw's psychosexual obsession with her, desire replete with a tryst. Perfidia becomes pregnant, and Bob trades the life of a leftist revolutionary for fatherhood. In the film's long prologue, Perfidia abandons her new family, is caught, snitches on her comrades, and gets ghost.

The second half of the film picks up when their daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti), is a teenager. Lockjaw, who's been offered the chance to join a cabal of powerful Christian nationalists, starts hunting Willa to test his paternity of her and the attendant risks to his dreams of leveled-up white supremacy.

Before the PTA acolytes blaspheme me a hater: Kudos for directing the performances of Deandre (Regina Hall), who along with Willa, are Black characters distant from satire. Kudos for Sensei Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro), who's a calming force on the film and funny without straining for laughs. Kudos to Penn for disappearing into the role of the racist officer, one conflicted with unforgettable idiosyncrasies. Kudos to the pulse-gunning action of the film's last third. Kudos to Anderson for dramatizing a secret society of prominent white men who echo the Epstein files.

Critics have hailedOBAAas a "deeply humanist story of rebellion." Proclaim "there is nothing trivial in [PTA's] portrait of shattered lives and relationships and of an American society shaken to its core." But I found those claims to be untrue. The film is undeserving of the Oscar for Best Picture, most of all because its portrayal of Black people is somewhere between insidiously problematic and flagrantly anti-Black.

The most glaring example is Perfidia (this ain't me knocking Taylor or her prodigious talent but a critique of the role), who's sexualized to the point that I wondered whether she should be read as satirical. While Black women, too, contain multitudes, her hypersexuality seems grounded in the stereotype of a promiscuous Black woman (never to be divorced from the virtuous white woman) and appears aimed at titillation rather than some other essential story function. Perfidia is also presented as a woman who's at least a second-generation revolutionary, and aren't revolutionaries people of principle? It was tough for me to buy that a legacy revolutionary would snitch with the quickness on her coconspirators, if at all. The "no snitching" dictum in Black culture is rooted in a legitimate mistrust of the justice system. That Perfidia and others in the group go from radicals to state informants in the time it takes a grenade to blow maligns the integrity of Black resistance.

Perfidia also abandons her infant—"You realize I put myself first, right?" she tells Bob on her way out—a decision I judged against the extensive discourse on a so-called crisis of broken Black families. Plus, Perfidia is the only member of the group who murders someone during their missions. And whom does she kill? A Black security guard.

The lone Black male member of the French 75 is Laredo (Wood Harris). Laredo has almost no lines, but Anderson saw fit to depict a moment in which he kisses Mae (Alana Haim) and says, "Regular working white girl. Now do your thing," before sending her off to a bank job. A cringe line that seems meant to reify the trite trope of Black men objectifying and coveting white women.

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The problematic portrayal of Blackness extends to Junglepussy (Shayna McHayle), who jumps on a bank teller's counter during that same lethal mission and declares her code name. While McHayle uses Junglepussy as her rap moniker, it's telling that Anderson chose not only to keep the name for her character but to have her trumpet it—and that her moniker is the lone one borrowed from real life. Not to mention that Bob, the man in an interracial relationship with a Black woman, is christened "Ghetto Pat," which is a hella curious handle, ain't it, given the long history of Black people being maligned as "ghetto"?

Deep into the action of the film, Sergio quips to Bob, "I've got a little Latino Harriet Tubman thing going on." What was the point of having Sergio, a Mexican man, turn one of Black history's most iconic figures into a punchline, when he could've mentioned someone like Manuel Luis del Fierro, the Mexican who protected an absconding slave from kidnappers in 1850?

OBAAportends itself a film about a government that has devolved into an authoritarian regime and its relentless persecution of immigrants, about humanity and the measures the people employ to fight oppression. But it's hollow on those subjects. Beyond showing Bob half-watchingThe Battle of Algiersat home, Anderson shortchanges the history of revolutionary social movements. Politics are treated with a flippancy that undermines the import of radical action and the people who dare it—the pure antithesis of the message we need now. How could it do anything but fall short of satirizing a regime that has proved near boundless in its violence and corruption and blatant bigotries, that treats contrition as anathema. And if satire ain't its aim, I can abide even less its antagonism toward my people, not to mention how it trivializes resistance. Plus, the film recapitulates Hollywood's familiar message: The battle for the fate of America, often synonymous with the fate of the world, is at base a battle between white men, struggles that evermore foreordain a great white savior.

Sinners, the genre-bending horror thriller set in Jim Crow–era Mississippi, centers Blackness. It begins with Sammie (Miles Caton), a young blues-loving sharecropper from Mississippi being recruited by his twin cousins Smoke and Stack (both Michael B. Jordan) to play their brand-new juke joint. On the juke joint's first night, white vampires surround it and prey on the patrons, setting off a battle for lives and souls.

Before anybody gets to accusing me of overt bias: Critics contend thatSinners's "moments of tragedy and violence are never dwelled upon properly." Argue it's a "messy picture that throws the kitchen sink at the genre, and yet, somehow, often misses." But I view the film as a triumph for its deliberative treatment of violence. For how it coheres into a story that explores African folklore and the healing power of culture; Black freedom and self-determination; love of family and community; with how it models resisting injustice.

WhileOBAApostures at it,Sinnersis radical in that there are no white saviors, in that Black people are not the stock sidekicks of courageous white people but heroes at the heart of the film. In fact most of its white characters, including all who first surround the juke joint to prey on its patrons, are depicted as hostile to the Black community (as well as the Asian characters and the mixed woman who are its denizens). Like the character of Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), who, though she professes to love Stack, enters a veritable sanctuary for Black folks against warnings. Mary becomes the vampires' first victim, which is also to say their first coconspirator. Like the husband of married vampires who's a Klan member before he's bitten. Like the Klansman who sold the twins the barn that became their juke joint and returns the next day to slaughter all present. And yet, somehow,Sinnersis so soulful that the lead vampire, Remmick (Jack O'Connell), is imbued with more humanity than most of the Black characters inOBAA.

This article appeared in the April/May 2026 issue of Esquiresubscribe

Then there's the fact thatSinnersis just all-around extraordinary movie-making. There's the originality of Coogler's Oscar-nominated screenplay. There's Ludwig Göransson's superb Oscar-nominated score. There's the sublime one-shot scene in which Sammie's singing conjures a journey (in which African times past, present, and future exist all at once) that not only sets the stakes for the main characters but, as Coogler has explained, features "ancestor spirits from both the past and the future" of Black music: African drummers, an electric guitarist, a hip-hop DJ and dancer, even Chinese opera dancers. There's the indelible Oscar-nominated performance of Michael B. Jordan, a man who became two humans, each intimately connected and miraculously distinct.

Damn the naysayers, there is only one—worthiest.

Coogler'sBlack Panther, which was also nominated for Best Picture, became not just a blockbuster but a cultural touchstone. This time, without the help of a superhero franchise, one of Hollywood's finest auteurs has done it again: delivered a transcendent work of art that is at once ingenious, an astute story about America, and a paean to his people. Which is why, come Oscar Sunday, when an A-lister announces the last award, iswearfogod, there better be a whole lot of ecstatic Black folks bounding onto that stage.

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Many restaurant owners are working to keep menu prices down even as rising costs eat into already slim profit margins, according to two new industry reports.

Americans are dining out less as affordability concerns grow. Combined with rising costs across food, labor, rent and technology, restaurants are feeling the impact.

New reports from the National Restaurant Association and the James Beard Foundation show restaurant owners say managing margins is a constant challenge as prices of multiple products have increased.

Restaurant owner John Simmons is among those who have seen profits slip.

"It added a couple points to my food costs which, that equates to tens of thousands of dollars," he said.

RELATED STORY |Inflation steady in February, but Iran war threatens higher prices

He is not alone. 42 percent of restaurants said they weren't profitable last year.

Chad Moutray, chief economist for the National Restaurant Association, said rising costs are hitting restaurants from multiple directions. "Well, we've seen overall labor and food costs go up 35% since the pandemic," he said "But it's not just those costs. We've seen insurance and taxes and everything else go up, utility costs, et cetera."

"Those extra costs have really eaten into the bottom line," he added.

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The solution isn't as simple as raising menu prices. According to the James Beard Foundation's report, establishments that raised prices by more than 10 percent were most likely to lose customers and then made lower profits.

Anne McBride, vice president of impact at the James Beard Foundation, said restaurants have reached a tipping point with customers.

"Chefs and operators feel that they can no longer pass on any additional increasing costs to their customers. We really hit a spot where consumers, diners, cannot pay any more at restaurants than they already are," she said.

Labor is another top concern, with 49 percent of restaurant operators reporting some level of staffing shortage. That trend could continue as operators look to cut costs.

RELATED STORY |Gas at $3.53 a gallon: Are EVs more affordable?

McBride said restaurants are restructuring to address the challenge.

"Restaurants are dressing labor shortages by being ruthless in their business structure and looking at, you know, our how many people need to be on the floor at any given time, how many People need to in the kitchen."

According to the latest jobs report, restaurants and bars lost nearly 30,000 jobs in February.

One big silver lining: according to the James Beard Foundation's report, nearly 3 in 4 restaurant operators are optimistic about business for this year.