GRIF MAG

Margaret King via Storyful

NEED TO KNOW

• Meg King's son Cooper became trapped inside a claw machine in Missouri on Saturday, Feb. 7

• She had "glanced" away for just seconds when Cooper, 2, climbed inside to play with the toy balls

• "We were like 'Cooper, try to go back down,' and he was just shaking his head," said King of the incident

A toddler was rescued from inside a claw machine after somehow climbing inside to play while at a recreational center in Missouri.

On Saturday, Feb. 7, Meg King brought her two-year-old son, Cooper, to the Soccer Dome in Webster Grove to watch his brother play. She told local news outletFirst Alert 4that she briefly looked away while Cooper was pretending to play with a claw machine.

Moments later, she heard someone yelling that he had somehow gotten inside and was playing with the toy balls.

"If anyone knew my son Cooper, they would totally understand that he would do something like this," said King, per First Alert 4. "I literally glanced over there. He was pretending to play with the claw machine. I looked away for, I would say, maybe 15 seconds."

Margaret King via Storyful

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King said Cooper was "laughing" and "throwing balls everywhere," while blissfully unaware that he had gotten himself trapped inside the device.

She rushed to call 911 after trying and failing to guide Cooper on how to climb out of the machine.

"We were like 'Cooper, try to go back down,' and he was just shaking his head," King told First Alert 4.

Officers from the local police and fire department arrived at the scene within minutes. However, it wasn't until someone who worked for the vending company showed up with a key that Cooper was released from the machine.

Margaret King via Storyful

Footage and photos shared online show Cooper playing with the toys inside the claw machine as first responders were stumped about how to get him out. He appeared "perfectly fine, safe and having a ball," King told Storyful.

Since going viral on social media, King said commenters have asked why she didn't try to use the claw to get Cooper out of the machine.

"I was going to comment back that I didn't have enough change since he used it all," she joked, per First Alert 4.

"In today's world, everyone needs someone funny on their TV and what's not funny about a 2-year-old playing in a claw machine?" King concluded.

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MOSCOW (AP) — Mourners gathered in Moscow Monday to mark two years since the death in custody of Russian opposition leaderAlexei Navalny, under the shadow of a Kremlin crackdown and just two days since a new analysis reinforced suspicions that he was killed by poisoning.

Russia Navalny Anniversary

Navalnydiedin an Arctic penal colony on Feb. 16, 2024, while serving a 19-year sentence that many believed to be politically motivated. His death at the age of 47 left the Russian opposition leaderless and divided, struggling to build an effective or united front without one of its most visible and charismatic figures.

On the second anniversary of Navalny's death, we look at the latest investigation into its cause and the continuing political repercussions, both within Russia and beyond.

Across Russia, Navalny's supporters pay their respects

Navalny's mother,Lyudmila Navalnaya, and his mother-in-law, Alla Abrosimova, were among the mourners laying flowers on his grave. A mound of bouquets rose above the heavy drifts of snow that blanketed Moscow's Borisovsky Cemetery.

Representatives from several European embassies also paid their respects, watched by a conspicuously high security presence. Later, a small choir gathered to sing by Navalny's graveside.

Addressing the crowd, Lyudmila Navalnaya restated her belief that her son waskilled by the Russian authorities, a scenario which has also been backed by several European countries in recent days. "We knew that our son did not simply die in prison," she said. "He was murdered."

The Kremlin has denied the allegations, saying that Navalny died of natural causes.

Flowers were also laid at the memorial to the victims of political repression in St Petersburg. Access to the site was later blocked with temporary fences, local news outlets reported.

European nations believe Navalny was poisoned

The anniversary coincides with the release of a joint statement by five European countries, which said that Navalny was poisoned by the Kremlin with a rare and lethal toxin found in the skin of poison dart frogs.

The foreign ministries of the U.K., France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said on Saturday that analysis in European labs of samples taken from Navalny's body "conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine." The neurotoxin secreted by dart frogs in South America is not found naturally in Russia, they said.

A joint statement said: "Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison."

In a written tribute to Navalny on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron also linked the Kremlin with the opposition leader's death.

"Two years ago, the world learned of the death of Alexei Navalny. I pay tribute to his memory," Macron wrote on social media. "I said then that I believed his death said everything about the Kremlin's weakness and its fear of any opponent. It is now clear that this death was premeditated.

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"Truth always prevails, while we await justice to do the same."

Moscow has vehemently denied its involvement in Navalny's death, saying that the politician had become unwell after going for a walk.

When asked about the allegations by journalists on Monday, presidential spokesperson said that the Kremlin does "not accept such accusations."

"We consider them biased and unfounded. In fact, we resolutely reject them," he said.

Saturday's announcement came as Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, attended theMunich Security Conferencein Germany. She said she had been "certain from the first day" that her husband had been poisoned, "but now there is proof."

"Putin killed Alexei with a chemical weapon," she wrote on social media, describing the Russian leader as "a murderer" who "must be held accountable."

Navalny was the target of an earlier poisoning in 2020, with a nerve agent in an attack he blamed on the Kremlin, which always denied involvement. His family and allies fought to have him flown to Germany for treatment and recovery. Five months later, he returned to Russia, where hewas immediately arrestedand imprisoned forthe last three yearsof his life.

Russia's opposition is struggling to start a new chapter

Navalny's closest allies, as well as otherkey members of Russia's opposition, now continue their fight from exile.

Many have been handed lengthy prison sentences in absentia in Russia and are unable to return home. Some have been designated "terrorists and extremists" by the authorities, a designation that was also applied to Navalny in January 2022.

Yet Russia's opposition has failed to form a united front and a clear plan of action against the Kremlin. Instead, rival groups have traded accusations that some see as efforts to discredit each other and vie for influence.

In one small victory for opposition activists, Europe's leading human rights body, PACE, announced in late January the creation of a new body — the Platform for Dialogue with Russian Democratic Forces — tasked with giving opposition Russians a voice and a formal platform to engage European lawmakers.

It has been heralded as a victory for anti-war Russians, but also attracted criticism as the body was not elected democratically. Members ofNavalny's anti-corruption organizationare also absent from the group

In a statement to mark Navalny's death, Russian members of the Council of Europe's human rights body, PACE, said that Navalny's death was "an inevitable link in a chain of systemic crimes by the Kremlin regime against its own citizens and the citizens of foreign states."

"Alexei Navalny gave his life for a free Russia," the statement said. "We are obliged to ensure that his death was not in vain."

ROME, Feb 16 (Reuters) - A famous rock structure on Italy's Adriatic coast known as the "Lovers' Arch" collapsed ‌on Valentine's Day after days of bad weather, prompting ‌local officials to warn that other stretches of the fragile coastline could ​be at risk.

Drone view of Italy's 'Love Arch'

The natural arch, part of the Sant'Andrea sea stacks near the town of Melendugno in the southern region of Puglia, had long been a popular backdrop for wedding proposals ‌and tourist photos.

"This ⁠is an unwanted Valentine's Day gift," Melendugno Mayor Maurizio Cisternino told the local Corriere Salentino newspaper, ⁠calling the collapse "a very hard blow" for the area's image and for tourism.

Cisternino said days of heavy rain, strong winds and ​rough ​seas had battered the coastline ​and ultimately destroyed the arch. "Nature ‌has taken back what it created," he said.

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Officials have warned that other parts of the rocky coastline could also collapse, with cracks visible along the cliff, underscoring the growing threat of coastal erosion.

Storms and heavy rain in recent days ‌have also eaten away at long ​stretches of coastline on the Ionian ​Sea, from Ugento to ​the beaches of Gallipoli, damaging beach structures, ‌causing small cliff falls and harming ​ports.

Weeks of ​terrible weather this year have also caused damage estimated at well over a billion euros in southern Italy, including ​a landslide that ‌has forced more than 1,500 people to evacuate ​their homes in the Sicilian town of Niscemi.

(Reporting by ​Crispian BalmerEditing by Ros Russell)

Robert Voets/CBS

They were the closest of allies… until they weren't.

Tiffany ErvinandQ Burdetteworked closely together at the start ofSurvivor 46to somehow survive being stuck on one Yanu, of the worst tribes ever. But an alliance forged out of shared perseverance was shattered at the merge when Q moved against Tiffany and told others about her immunity idol.

That led to a big blow up back at camp and an evenbiggerblow up at Tribal Council. In the end, the friction and drama got both players voted out of the game. And now they're back. So how will Tiffany handle Q if they end up on the same beach at some point onSurvivor 50(premiering Feb. 25 on CBS)? We asked the 35-year-old Tiffany exact that when we sat down in Fiji just days before filming began, and she got into her Q strategy as well as what else she needs to improve upon during her second outing, including "fact-checking everything."

Robert Voets/CBS

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Tell me why you're going to winSurvivor 50, Tiffany.

TIFFANY ERVIN:I'm going to winSurvivor 50because I've spent the last two years thinking about everything I did wrong and how I could come back and make it right.

Give everyone the update what have you've been up to since you last playedSurvivor.

Since I last playedSurvivor, I've left the East Coast. I now live in L.A. I'm an East Coast girl at heart forever, but L.A.'s not been bad. It has been treating me well. The weather's nice. I'm still working on art. I've been producing videos for different media companies since I've been out there freelancing. I've been having a pretty good time.

Why come back and do this again?

Well, the money. That's the obvious answer, but I'm also here because the level of transformation that I feel like I went through after playingSurvivorthe first time, I feel like it can only double or have amazing ripple effects in my life if I do it again. I learned to trust myself a little bit more. I learned to lean on my own opinions versus relying on the opinions of others about what I should do, how I feel about myself. And more than anything, I kind of just want to prove to myself that I can do it again.

Robert Voets/CBS

How do you think the other contestants see you as a player?

That's a question I've been asking myself for quite some time. I don't really know how they see me, but if I had to guess, I would assume that they probably think that I'm a pretty smart player, pretty good strategically, if they watched my season.

But I think that they probably also think that I'm easy to read. They would more than likely think that I'm a person who's going to say what's on my mind 90 percent of the time. So I don't think there's a lot of confusion around how I navigate the game. I don't know how many people see me as a threat. I didn't win a lot of challenges when I was out there last time, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm hoping I'm underestimated. I'm actually banking on it.

What's your biggest weakness as a player?

I think my biggest weakness as a player, at least the last time I played, was not trusting my own intuition and leaning on others, sharing too much information and not double checking my sources. I looked back when I watched my season, and there are so many moments where I was fed information and I didn't question it. If I had questioned it or gone to the source three or four times throughout my season, I think things would've ended a lot differently for me. Now I'm fact-checking everything. I don't care. You don't want me to tell this person that they said my name? I'm asking anyway. I don't care.

Is it surreal being out here with some of these people?

It's absolutely surreal realizing that I'm about to be playing with the people that I've been watching since I started watchingSurvivor. It's so crazy to think about. I've been watchingOzzyandCiriefor years, and now to think I'm about to be competing against them, I am still trying to wrap my mind around it.

Tell me who the people you're really excited to work with.

I'm really excited to work withChristianand I'm really excited to work withMike White.

Why Christian and Mike White?

Well, Mike White, I'm more excited to just kind of kiki with him. He's funny. I feel like our personalities would gel really well and I think he would just be really fun to play with. Christian, I would love to pick his brain watching how his mind works mathematically. That's not a place where I'm super strong, but I think that it would be very interesting to work with him. I feel like I could learn a lot from him. I would love to work with Cirie. She's Cirie! I don't even know how else to say it. I'm a little weary of Ozzy.

Robert Voets/CBS

Ozzy has this larger-than-life reputation when it comes toSurvivorfor being this crazy challenge beast. And obviously that's going to be one of his strengths out here, assuming that he plays the way he played previously. But his social game, I'm weary because Ozzy just seems like a person who could kind of flip flop and go back and forth and change his mind a lot. And he also seems like a person who might want to stick with old-school players and not really be open to working with new-school players. He has something to prove.

That old-school versus new-school thing happened onWinners at War. Do you think that's going to happen again?

Winners at Waris kind of all I have to go on right now. There hasn't been a returning season since fricking 2016, so I do think that naturally that's going to happen. And I think that if people want it to change, they're going to have to actually put in the work to bridge the gap between old-school and new-school.

Dalton Ross

Let's talk about your season. There's three of you out here. Does that help you or hurt you in this game?

Well, considering the people that I'm out here with, it does not help me. It hurts me tremendously. These aren't people that I was super strong allies with during my season. One of was my number one ally and then turned on me. So that is something that has been hanging over my head. And thenCharlie, I thought we were cool, and then he wrote my name down, so it hurts because we're going to be perceived as a trio, but then at the same time, these aren't people that I even really am sure I'm going to work with out here.

How much pre-gaming did you do with other players? Everyone knows it happens.

If I'm being totally honest, the only person I spoke to pre-game was Q. I did not exchange words with anybody before coming out here other than Q. But that's because Q and I are actually real-life friends. So crazy to think about. We're like arch nemeses on TV, but we're real friends. We FaceTime all the time. I'll be on FaceTime with his son. I know his wife.

We're cool, but I cannot depend on that because the first time we played the game, we were so cool and he turned into a ticking time bomb. So I'm not putting any faith in the fact that just because we're friends in real life, it's going to translate out here.

You know what a chaotic element he is, and chaotic elements are very dangerous. So how do you want to handle him the second time around?

My plan to handle Q is to take the opposite approach of what I did last time. I think the reason Q and I have so much friction when it comes to competition is because we're alike in a lot of ways. We have a lot of alpha energy, both of us.

But I think this time, even though it goes against every fiber in my being, I'm going to seemingly take the backseat and allow Q to believe that he's driving the car. I think that the best tool that I have at my disposal out here is Q's ego, and if I learn how to manipulate that to my will, then I can do whatever I want.

Wait, does Q have an ego?

Oh, please. Q's ego is big enough to fly us all home. Please!

What about Charlie? What's your relationship been off the island?

Honestly, Charlie and I are cool too. I don't have really any bad blood with anybody from my season. I told myself as soon as I got back to Ponderosa, I was leaving everything out there on the island. Charlie and I are cool. We text every now and again. No beef. We don't talk as often as Q and I do, but we're cool too. But that doesn't mean it's going to translate out here. Charlie's a very shrewd player. He's smart, he's sneaky, and I thought he had my back last time and there wasn't even an inkling that he didn't. So I'm putting in less faith in Charlie than I am in Q.

What about these two 49 people? You all haven't even seen their season.

I think the best approach to unknown is to go in head first. You got to figure out who they are, what makes them tick, what are they driven by? Are they good allies? Are there things that they do? Do they have quirks that you could kind of pin on them to make other people or dislike them? At the end of it, you got to get to know who they are before you make any assumptions because the easy thing is to be like, "Let's just get the new people out we don't know." But at the end of the day, they could be valuable tools to my game.

Want to be kept up with all things Survivor? Dig deep and sign up for Entertainment Weekly'sfree Survivor Weekly newsletterto have all the latest news, interviews, and commentary sent right to your inbox.

OtherSurvivor 50deep dive player interviews:•Survivor 50star Ozzy Lusth opens up about hitting 'rock bottom of my life'•Survivor 50star Aubry Bracco opens up about the 'freedom when you fall from grace'•Colby Donaldson reacts to playingSurvivorfor the first time without Jerri•Angelina Keeley refused to doSurvivor 50unless they gave her a jacket•Survivor 50's Coach goes deep on evolving from an 'arrogant ass' into the… Tide Walker?•Survivor 50star Jenna Lewis-Dougherty is 'here to f--- you over in every way, shape, or form'•Cirie Fields says winningThe Traitorsdoes not take sting out ofSurvivorloses•Mike White on how he is handlingSurvivor 50castmastes angling forWhite Lotuscameos•Chrissy Hofbeck opens up about controversial season 35 finish and being bashed by previous cast•Rick Devens explains why he is a lunatic that wants to play with other lunatics•Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick wants to prove that 'mom really is a badass'•Christian Hubicki wanted to tell Survivor 50 pre-gamers to 'f--- off'•Genevieve Mushaluk on why watchingSurvivor 50will be more terrifying than playing it•Dee Valladares welcomes being one ofSurvivor 50's biggest threats: 'I want them to come for me'•Q Burdette reveals ridiculous things he did to prep forSurvivor 50•Kamilla Karthigesu feared she would be cut fromSurvivor 50for pregaming•Emily Flippen says 'If I winSurvivor, something crazy has happened'•Jonathan Young shares theSurvivorlessons Boston Rob gave him before season 50

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Laura Dernis looking back on her role in making TV history.

The actress, who starred in the 1997 episode of the ABC sitcom "Ellen" whereEllen DeGenerescomes out, talked about the support she has received from the LGBTQ community. Dern told hostsBowen Yang and Matt Rogerson the"Las Culturistas" podcastFeb. 11 episode that in order to "affect change," someone had to be "first."

"The idea of culture catching up to storytelling had to be a thing when someone would go first," she said, referring to the "Ellen" episode.

Dern said she was excited to be a part of the episode, which was one of the first times a character came out as gay on TV and came shortly after DeGeneres came out in real life. But the actress said her choice to star in the episode amid her film success in "Jurassic Park" confused the people around her.

She said it was an "honor and privilege" to be a part of the episode alongside her "friend," with other guest stars includingOprah Winfrey,Demi Mooreand Billy Bob Thornton. She called it a "massive moment" but also recalled the series receiving bomb threats and losing advertisers.

"In a way, the assumption is you're going to do this thing and thank God people will wake up, love their relatives and their neighbors, see them, everything will expand, culture will catch up, and it will be a beautiful celebration," she added. But instead, there was "major security for a couple of years for any of us involved, the world went 'no, no, no,' she lost her show."

Dern faced intense backlash for starring in the episode, once telling DeGeneres on her talk show 10 years after that she did not work for a year and a half after because of it. But, she added, for the LGBTQ community, seeing that representation on screen meant a great deal.

"You go, 'Oh, right.' That's why you want culture to catch up later. Culture is doing it when nobody's caught up," she continued. "It's such a gift."

In the two-part "The Puppy Episode," Ellen's character connects with a woman named Susan – played by Dern – who suggests she might be lesbian, but Ellen rejects the idea. But after Ellen admits the connection to her therapist, played by Winfrey, she rushes to the airport to catch Susan and comes out to her, though mistakenly doing so over the airport's intercom.

"Being part of that moment with Ellen, it wasn't that I was somebody supporting an actor or a friend by being part of the show," Dern said. "But I was holding her hands as they were shaking, and she was looking in my eyes, saying for the first time, 'I'm gay' out loud with people watching."

She continued: "The privilege, the luxury of feeling it for someone in a moment was so beautiful, literally holding space. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Laura Dern on Ellen DeGeneres coming out on TV, making history