When a marriage hits the fan in the world of high-stakes fame, it’s rarely just a quiet exit. It’s a heartbreak played out on a global stage. We’re talking about those ugly and public breakups—the ones where the betrayal is loud, the Instagram captions are lethal, and the fallout lingers long after the papers are signed.
From royal rebellions to social media meltdowns, here we list some divorces that didn’t just end relationships; they became a permanent part of our cultural memory.
Bob Crawford, the bassist for The Avett Brothers, shares with “CBS Saturday Morning” why he believes John Quincy Adams is an underrated American hero amid the release of his new book “America’s Founding Son: John Quincy Adams, from President to Political Maverick.”
Saturday Sessions: Courtney Barnett performs “Mantis” – CBS News
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Grammy-nominated Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett’s latest studio album “Creatures of Habit” takes inspiration from recent life changes, including her move to Los Angeles. Here is Courtney Barnett with “Mantis.”
Grammy-nominated Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett’s latest studio album “Creatures of Habit” takes inspiration from recent life changes, including her move to Los Angeles. Here is Courtney Barnett with “Stay In Your Lane.”
Grammy-nominated Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett’s latest studio album “Creatures of Habit” takes inspiration from recent life changes, including her move to Los Angeles. Here is Courtney Barnett with “One Thing At A Time.”
Tara Brach is a well-known American psychologist, meditation teacher, and author who has gained recognition for her work in the integration of Western psychology and Eastern spirituality. With years of experience in mindfulness and emotional healing, Tara Brach has helped numerous people develop self-awareness, compassion, and inner peace. Her lectures and talks have focused on the importance of radical acceptance, or living life to the fullest and completely, without any opposition or judgment.Tara Brach is a leading mindfulness teacher in the present day and has written influential books such as “Radical Acceptance”and “Radical Compassion”. Her work and lectures have inspired people to live in closer association with their inner selves and the world. Her work is based on compassion and has enabled people to move beyond fear and self-doubt to live an open and fulfilling life.The quote, “With an undefended heart, we can fall in love with life over and over every day. We can become children of wonder, grateful to be walking on earth, grateful to belong with each other and to all of creation. We can find our true refuge in every moment, in every breath” is attributed to Tara Brach and reflects her core philosophy of mindfulness and openness.
What the quote conveys
At the center of this quote is the idea of living in a state of vulnerability and openness. To have an “undefended heart” is to be in a state of being without any defenses or walls to protect us from possible pain and suffering. Rather than putting up walls to protect ourselves from getting hurt, we open ourselves up to life and all of its experiences. It is in this state of openness and awareness that we are reminded of our connection to a childlike sense of wonder and curiosity, in which everything in the world is fresh and full of meaning every day.The quote also talks of the need for gratitude and interconnectedness. As we become aware of our presence in the world and our interconnectedness to others and to nature, we learn to be grateful not only for our presence but also for our interconnectedness to others and to nature. This helps to remove the alienation and loneliness that we feel as a result of not having a sense of belonging to something bigger than ourselves. Furthermore, the quote of finding “true refuge in every moment” is also talking of mindfulness and the ability to find our anchor in the present moment through something as mundane as our breathing. Instead of seeking happiness elsewhere, we find happiness within ourselves and in the present moment. The words of Tara Brach are a gentle yet powerful reminder to us all of the need to make life more meaningful by living life in an open and conscious manner. Letting go of our defenses and living life in a state of gratitude in every moment of life is to rediscover the beauty of simply being alive.
Ryan O’Hanlon is a staff writer for ESPN.com. He’s also the author of “Net Gains: Inside the Beautiful Game’s Analytics Revolution.”
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Let’s take a minute to do something I’m not sure has ever been done before: think about all of the things that went well for the U.S. men’s national team at the last World Cup.
Their best player — and the best player in the history of the program — played like it. Christian Pulisic risked the future of his lineage to score the winning goal in the final match of the group stage against Iran. He either scored or assisted every goal the U.S. generated in Qatar, and he backed that up with consistent threat. He led the team in both expected assists and expected goals. You can’t ask for much more than that.
Timothy Weah balanced out the other side of the attack, scoring the opener against Wales and stressing the depth of the opposition backline. The Europe-based midfield of Weston McKennie, Yunus Musah and Tyler Adams was the strength of the team — most notably nullifying England in a group-stage match in which the Americans contested possession high up the field.
The fullbacks, Sergiño Dest and Antonee Robinson, were vital buildup-play engines: the former with his passing and dribbling, the latter with his never-ending off-ball running. Tim Ream, in his first World Cup at age 35, allowed the U.S. to control possession and build from the back in a manner we’d never seen at a World Cup. And Matt Turner looked like Matt Turner, even though he was riding the bench for Arsenal.
In other words, all of the best American players played like the best American players. The problem wasn’t a lack of top-end talent. Obviously, Pulisic, McKennie, & Co. all need to play well this summer for Mauricio Pochettino’s team to make a deep run, but the reality is that these are really talented players who play well more often than not.
Instead, what really hindered the Americans in Qatar — and what, beyond luck, will determine how far they advance this summer — was their depth, or lack thereof. Every team that wins the World Cup has depth, and the USMNT didn’t have it four years ago.
To answer this question, I went back and looked at the past 16 World Cup semifinalists.
In 2006, soccer was still stuck in that reactive tactical netherworld created by Jose Mourinho and Rafa Benitez, but by 2010, Pep Guardiola’s possession-based approach had won out, and the physicality of Jurgen Klopp’s gegenpressing was just beginning to bubble up. The demands of the game were quite different in 2006, so I decided to cut off the analysis there.
I looked at the semifinalists because these are the four teams who have objectively achieved success at the tournament, and then I looked at how each team employed its bench players. In other words, how important was depth to the teams that did well at the World Cup?
First, here’s a comparison of the average percentage of minutes played by the 12th- through 16th-most used players across the 16 semifinalists:
And here’s how those numbers broke down, per tournament:
So, 12th-man usage has remained pretty consistent over time, but the reliance on players 13 through 16 has risen significantly. That’s driven by a combination of a growing understanding that managers should be subbing more often, and also the increase from three subs allowed per game to five since after the COVID-19 pandemic.
But there’s a bit of noise in these numbers since two of the semifinalists ultimately play in a third-place match in which they’re rarely selecting their full first-choice starting 11. That’s probably going to boost the number of minutes for all of these players. If we only look at the eight finalists from the past four World Cups, then this is how the minutes have been distributed:
That’s not much of a difference, but it’s a slight decrease in every slot.
As for the per-tournament numbers of the finalists:
Of course, there have been specific quirks to each tournament. The 2010 World Cup was played in the South African winter. The 2014 World Cup featured cooling breaks because it was so hot in parts of Brazil. The 2018 World Cup was in Russia and yet … mostly normal? And then 2022 in Qatar was played in the middle of the club season — in December, instead of June.
Given how hot it’s likely to be in the United States this summer, the peak numbers from 2022 feel like the right ones to guide us the rest of the way. They might even be a little too conservative.
In Qatar, France manager Didier Deschamps doled out his minutes like so:
12th: Ibrahima Konaté, Liverpool center back: 44.2% 13th: Youssouf Fofana, Monaco midfielder: 34.1% 14th: Randal Kolo Muani, Eintracht Frankfurt forward: 27.3% 15th: Kingsley Coman, Bayern Munich winger: 25.0% 16th: Marcus Thuram, Inter Milan forward: 22.3%
And here’s how it looked for coach Lionel Scaloni, as he guided Argentina to its third World Cup trophy:
12th: Lisandro Martínez, Manchester United center back: 43.6% 13th: Angel Di María, Juventus winger: 42.0% 14th: Lautaro Martínez, Inter Milan forward: 34.5% 15th: Leandro Paredes, Juventus midfielder: 32.5% 16th: Gonzalo Montiel, Sevilla fullback: 17.1%
Winning the World Cup probably requires at least four players beyond your most-used 11 who play 25% of the minutes or more. And in 2022, those players pretty much all had to play for Champions League or Champions League-quality teams.
How did the USMNT compare?
In 2022, Ream, Adams, Turner, Musah, Robinson, Dest, Pulisic and Weah all played at least 85% of the minutes. McKennie was the only member of the true core who was below that mark, but he was still out there 75% of the time.
As for the bench, well, there wasn’t much of one. This is how the USMNT’s usage compared to France and Argentina:
Now, part of the reason the U.S. numbers are so low is that they played only four matches, and France and Argentina played seven, including the unforgettable final that went all the way to penalties. It’s natural that the managers would need to dig deeper into their rosters as the number of overall minutes ticked upward.
You might also want to look at this and blame U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter for not managing his squad more aggressively — but when you look at the players and how they performed, it’s hard to really blame him. Wright mostly looked out of place, and his goal against the Netherlands in the round of 16 was a happy accident that ricocheted off of his heel. I will also never forget the moment against the Netherlands when Aaronson squared up 32-year-old Daley Blind, who was pretty much a human traffic cone at this point in his career, for a 1v1 and got stone-walled.
Carter-Vickers came in for the Iran match and was fantastic, but he’s a center back. Reyna’s family was trying to get Berhalter fired during the tournament, and he was completely forgettable in his round-of-16 cameo and then for the rest of the club season afterward. Ferreira, meanwhile, just wasn’t at the same level as his other teammates.
The nine core players for the U.S. in 2022 were all playing, or had recently played, at a high level in Europe — but that was it. The fact that Berhalter rotated out Walker Zimmerman for a must-win match speaks to the uncertainty of the center back spot next to Ream, and then center forward, with Wright, Ferreira, and Josh Sargent all getting chances, was a black hole.
This wasn’t a roster equipped to handle a deep run.
What about the 2026 World Cup?
This is where I encourage U.S. fans to have some hope.
The biggest question is goalkeeper, but otherwise I’d say this is inarguably a better lineup than what we saw in Qatar. Ream is four years older, but Chris Richards and Mark McKenzie are big upgrades on the other center backs who played in 2022. And then, obviously, Folarin Balogun is way ahead of where any of the U.S. strikers were four years ago.
But what about the players who might occupy those 12th-through-16th depth roles?
There’s Weah, who started in 2022 and is currently a starter for Marseille, the third-place team in France. There’s midfielder Johnny Cardoso, who just played all 180 minutes of Atletico Madrid’s dominant win over Tottenham in the Champions League’s round of 16. There’s attacking midfielder Malik Tillman, who has played about two-thirds of the minutes for Bayer Leverkusen, another Champions League team.
PSV forward Ricardo Pepi seems likely to move for tens of millions of dollars at some point really soon. Fullback Alex Freeman just moved to Villarreal, who are in third behind Real Madrid and Barcelona in LaLiga, for €3.5 million. Hybrid defender Joe Scally continues to play every minute of every game for Monchengladbach in the Bundesliga.
Even the likely bench players who were on the bench four years ago have improved. Wright is second in the English Championship with 14 non-penalty goals, and he’s doing it for a team with a 22-point lead atop the table. Aaronson is scoring and assisting goals at double the rate he was at with Leeds in 2022.
There are a number of other really good Championship players, Aidan Morris and Patrick Agyemang, and the MLS players this time around, specifically Cristian Roldan and Max Arfsten, look more likely to have a positive impact than what we saw the last time.
If the U.S. is going to win at least one knockout round match, then it’s going to need memorable contributions from the players who don’t start every match.
While we’re still waiting for the first true American superstar to emerge, Pochettino will head into this summer’s tournament with something no American manager has ever had: a bunch of Champions League starters and European stalwarts, sitting on his bench.
In other words, if depth is necessary for a deep run at the World Cup, this iteration of the U.S. men’s team has a chance to go further than it has gone in a long time.
Morocco believe their successful appeal against their 1-0 defeat by Senegal means the case of the AFCON crown is closed.
Published On 28 Mar 202628 Mar 2026
Senegal may still possess the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) trophy and have launched a legal battle against the decision to strip them of it, but as far as new champions Morocco are concerned, the case is closed.
Although the Atlas Lions lost 1-0 in the January final, the Confederation of African Football awarded them a 3-0 victory last week because of several Senegal players leaving the pitch in protest at the award of a penalty.
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Morocco drew 1-1 against Ecuador on Friday in a friendly in Madrid, in their first match since the final and the controversial decision to punish Senegal.
It was new coach Mohamed Ouahbi’s first game at the helm, just three months out from the 2026 World Cup.
After becoming the first African side to reach the final four in Qatar in 2022, expectations are high for Morocco, and they are looking to the future, despite Senegal’s outrage.
“We’re focused on what’s to come and not getting into that [topic],” Morocco goalkeeper Yassine Bounou told reporters.
“The answer from us [about whether the decision was fair] would be what our federation said, and that’s all … we’re looking forwards.”
Thousands of Morocco fans, many draped in their country’s flag and tooting vuvuzelas, are convinced justice was served.
“If someone says there are regulations, you have to follow them,” said Yassine el-Aouak, 35, a Morocco supporter who travelled to the game from Italy.
“I think we will bring the trophy home [eventually] – we know that we deserve it.”
Before being awarded victory against Senegal, Morocco had won the Africa Cup of Nations only once, in 1976.
“The rules are the rules … they are so clear, you go outside the pitch without any reason, you lose 3-0,” said another Morocco supporter, Taha El Hadiguy, 22.
“It’s very different to winning on the night of the final, to win two months later, but a win is a win. We have one more star on our shirt.”
Like the players, the Moroccan media was more concerned with the upcoming World Cup and Ouahbi’s tactical approach than whether Senegal are right to feel aggrieved.
Ecuador’s coach Sebastian Beccacece said his were satisfied with a draw against the “African champions”.
Ouahbi’s team are now technically unbeaten in 25 matches, despite falling 1-0 on a dramatic night in Rabat against Senegal in the AFCON final.
They lacked precision in attack against Ecuador, but Ouahbi, who led Moroccan youngsters to Under-20 World Cup glory last year, highlighted the strength of his team.
“I don’t talk in terms of weaknesses. They’re not weaknesses. We are a top-level team – the Ecuadorian coach reminded us of that,” Ouhabi told reporters.
“If you are a top-level team, ranked eighth in the world and World Cup semifinalists, you don’t have weaknesses.
“You only have strengths, and then any qualities we’re missing, areas where we’re not performing, we have to make up for collectively.”
Morocco will face record five-time World Cup winners Brazil in their first game at the tournament this summer on June 13, one of the most intriguing match-ups of the group phase.
Before then, the Moroccan Federation’s lawyers may have to defend their status as African champions against Senegal’s case, but Ouahbi and his players are only looking forward to the summer, when they have a chance to win another trophy, this time on the pitch.
Spice Girls star Mel B has opened up about her decision to move her family from Los Angeles to her hometown in northern England in 2019, following her divorce from her second husband, Stephen Belafonte.
The 50-year-old British pop star, whose real name is Melanie Brown, was married to film producer Stephen Belafonte from 2007 to 2017, a marriage she described in a new interview as “horrible” and “coercively controlled.”
Two years after finalizing her divorce, Brown traveled back home to the U.K., bringing her three daughters: Phoenix, now 27, Angel, now 18, and Madison, now 14.
“My father was dying, and I hadn’t seen or spoken to him or my mum or anyone for a good part of nine years,” the singer told The Times of London in a new interview. “So I flew to England. My dad was in the hospice at death’s door, but thankfully he waited for me before passing away.”
(L-R) Mel B rallied three of her Spice Girls bandmates, Geri Halliwell, Emma Bunton and Melanie Chisholm, for a 13-date reunion tour in 2019 (Getty Images)
Mel B relocated her family from LA to northern England in 2019 (Getty Images)
When it came time to return to Los Angeles, Brown remembered: “Angel said [Brown affects an American accent], ‘Mommy, why are we going back to America when all your family’s here?’ I’m like, ‘OK, good point. But you’re all California kids, do you really want to move to London with all the different weather?’ They were like, ‘Yeah! But not London — Leeds!’”
Brown claimed that after her costly divorce from Belafonte, whom she has also accused of financial abuse during their relationship, she was left with only £700 to her name. She was forced to move into her mother’s bungalow with her children and dog.
Reflecting on the move, she said: “It was perfect, because then I had no choice but to mend the relationships with my mum, my sisters, my friends who didn’t know what I’d been going through. So it put our family back together.”
She now lives in a £2.2 million farmhouse, surrounded by 15 acres of forest, with her third husband, 37-year-old hairdresser Rory McPhee.
Brown, affectionately known as Scary Spice, first rose to fame in 1996 as a member of the Spice Girls, the Nineties girl group consisting of Victoria Beckham, Melanie C, Geri Halliwell, and Emma Bunton.
“I’m always keeping my fingers crossed,” she said during an appearance on Heart Breakfast.
Her remarks came amid excitement and speculation among fans of a highly anticipated reunion, which was sparked when Bunton celebrated her 50th birthday alongside bandmates Mel C, Beckham, and Halliwell.
The group last reunited in 2019 for a 13-date reunion stadium tour, albeit without Beckham.
“Looking back to 2019, when we did our stadium tour, Victoria wasn’t with us. So she has to have that experience,” Mel C said.
Hunched over a table in a hotel conference room, 42-year-old Yvonne Feucht snaps the final blue jigsaw piece into place, revealing a vibrant, beachy collage of San Diego landmarks. It took her just 54 minutes and 41 seconds to complete. Instead of the quiet satisfaction that usually ensues after finishing a jigsaw, the room erupts in cheers as Feucht raised her hands over her head, letting out a sigh of relief. The Los Angeles-based TV and film camera operator had just become the inaugural champion of the 2022 USA Jigsaw Puzzle Nationals — America’s first-ever major competitive puzzling tournament.
This weekend, Feucht returns to try to reclaim her championship title at the 2026 edition of the Nationals. Hosted by the USA Jigsaw Puzzle Association, the three-day event, taking place in Atlanta from March 27 to 29, will welcome hundreds of puzzlers from around the world and just as many zealous spectators. Consisting of three events: individuals, pairs and teams of four, the competition sees contestants race to complete unreleased 500-piece and 1,000-piece puzzles.
Jigsaw puzzles have been around for centuries, believed to have been invented in 1770 by British cartographer John Spilsbury as an educational tool to teach geography to children. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, they saw a massive surge in popularity as an affordable escape thanks to the introduction of cheaper, die-cut cardboard puzzles. Since the new millennium, their popularity dipped slightly with the rise of television and video games.
However, the once-solitary pastime is now undergoing a quiet but transformative reimagining — as a highly competitive sport, with national and global competitions and a rapidly expanding fan base.
Yvonne Feucht became the inaugural USA Jigsaw Nationals champion in 2022 (Courtesy of Yvonne Feucht)
I first discovered speed puzzling on Instagram — time-lapse videos of people assembling puzzles at lightning speed, pure kryptonite for my ADHD. The biggest star on the platform is Karen Puzzles, a 35-year-old from New Jersey with more than 550,000 followers across YouTube and Instagram.
“I think a lot of people never considered [speed puzzling] as an option,” Karen Kavett, the creator behind Karen Puzzles, tells me over Zoom. “Even if they enjoy puzzling, they didn’t know events like this existed.”
Kavett began posting puzzle content in 2018, when speed puzzling and puzzling in general had little online presence. However, fueled by the 2020 pandemic — and thanks in part to Kavett’s videos — interest in the hobby-turned-sport has grown exponentially.
Karen Kavett, 35, is one of the sport’s most well-known figures (Courtesy of Karen Kavett)
“I found out about speed puzzling because of Karen Puzzles,” says Jen Ferris, a third-grade teacher in South Florida. Ferris, 36, had always loved jigsaw puzzles as a child, but drifted away from the hobby in adulthood — particularly during a difficult and unhealthy marriage. She eventually stumbled across a TikTok of Kavett’s appearance at the 2024 World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship.
Ferris remembers thinking, “What is this? This is speed puzzling? This is a thing?” It wasn’t until she finally left her marriage that she picked up some jigsaws and tried her hand at speed puzzling. “I do feel like I was able to lean on this hobby and go back to [something] I used to love. That, honestly, I forgot that I loved,” she reflects. “It was kind of like finding myself [and] learning to love myself again. It helped me heal, but it also helped me find my purpose again in life and find my people.”
Jen Ferris will compete in her first USA Jigsaw Nationals this weekend (Courtesy of Jen Ferris)
Speed puzzling has only recently been recognized as a sport. The World Jigsaw Puzzle Federation was founded in 2019 and hosted the world’s first jigsaw puzzle championship later that year in Valladolid, Spain. The following year, the USAJPA was created and held the country’s first premier national championship in San Diego.
Feucht and Kavett have competed in both competitions several times, with Kavett coming in second just behind Feucht at the 2022 Nationals. Looking back on her victory four years later, Feucht remains just as stunned as she was at the time. “I couldn’t believe it,” she recounts. “I had to double-check that I’d actually won.”
Nationals is a high-energy, knockout-style event, where individuals, pairs, and teams are steadily whittled down through multiple elimination rounds before a final showdown crowns the fastest puzzlers. At the starting signal, competitors rip open their bags and frantically flip pieces face-up, scanning for patterns amid the chaos. Some stick to the classic method — building the border first, then working inward — while others plunge straight into assembling whatever fragments they can find.
Strategy, however, only goes so far. As Feucht puts it, the real advantage lies in memory and an instinctive feel for color — skills that allow the best competitors to recognize, sort, and place pieces at remarkable speed.
It’s no fortune, but first-place winners receive a cash prize of $1,500 in the individual division, $1,000 each for pairs, and $750 each for teams, for a total of $6,500 in cash prizes. The winnings are intended to help fund participants’ travel to other speed-puzzling events in the U.S. and abroad.
As a result of her standout performance at Nationals, Feucht became a notable figure in the puzzling community. Like many, she has fond memories of completing puzzles with her mother as a child. She later returned to the activity as an adult after coming across the popular speed-puzzling website speedpuzzling.com.
Kavett has posted puzzling content online since 2018 (George Feucht)
For Feucht, speed puzzling has opened the door to new friendships. More broadly, the practice has helped ease her social anxiety and deepen her connections with family. “I like to dump out a puzzle during holidays, and I feel like a lot of people come and join me,” she says. “It’s lovely, because normally people don’t sit down and talk for that long — but when there’s a puzzle and a shared goal, people come, they sit, and they talk.”
Compared to the first Nationals, which featured 33 teams of four, 93 pairs, and 99 individual puzzlers, this year’s competition saw registration skyrocket, more than quadrupling to 200 teams of four, 400 pairs, and 800 individuals.
“It’s very exciting to see speed puzzling grow so that more people can discover it,” USAJPA founding member Valerie Coit tells me in an email. “We’ve heard many stories from USAJPA members that they’ve ‘found their people’ and that getting involved in the community has changed their lives for the better.”
That was certainly the case for 36-year-old Emma Landgraf, who discovered puzzling just over a year ago during a period of intense stress from a demanding job. “I was so stressed and burned out that I needed something to grab on to that was joyful,” the Chicago-based data strategist said.
Landgraf put herself to the test last April, competing in her first Nationals in Washington, D.C. This year, she’s eager not only to compete but also to volunteer.
Emma Landgraf (left) returns this weekend for her second USA Jigsaw Nationals (Courtesy of Emma Landgraf)
“This is a very passionate group that wants to make sure they take part in making it happen,” she says. “And you really want to be a part of that.”
Landgraf recalls the overwhelming passion on display at last year’s Nationals, where nearly every team arrived in matching team shirts, head-to-toe puzzle ensembles, and even handmade crochet puzzle tops — a true celebration of the community’s creativity. “There’s just a lot of excitement over something that, in theory, is kind of silly and niche and boring,” she says. “It’s puzzles, it is what it is, but it’s a really warm, loving group of people.”
What was once a solitary pastime has quietly transformed into a global phenomenon. Yet despite its surging popularity, puzzling remains rooted in something more enduring: a shared challenge, a source of joy, and a growing community coming together, one piece at a time.
