All posts tagged: turbulent

A hidden cloister in the center of Rome has a turbulent past etched on its walls

A hidden cloister in the center of Rome has a turbulent past etched on its walls

Published by Sam Flores

ROME (AP) — A hidden cloister just a few steps from Rome’s Pantheon is a peaceful place for silent meditation — if the millions of tourists who trudge past even know it’s there. Behind the large wooden door, its frescoed walls closed to the general public reveal details of the compound’s dramatic history, including papal conclaves and the Inquisition interrogation of Galileo Galilei. At the center is a pond with goldfish and turtles surrounded by olive trees, two large palms and a tree laden with bright oranges that the friars use to make marmalade. Well-fed cats lounge about in sunny spots on the grass. There are still 20 friars who live in the convent around the cloister carrying out their duties. “It is designed to be a place of prayer, of meditation and therefore in some way to encourage prayer and the meditation of the friars,” said Friar Aucone. Over the centuries, this space has attracted important figures, St. Catherine of Siena and the Renaissance painter Fra Angelico, both of whom are buried in the …

Find Comfort in Friendships During Turbulent Times

Find Comfort in Friendships During Turbulent Times

Published by Jenni Sidey

I’ll admit it. I’ve always been an introvert—a card-carrying, dyed-in-the-wool introvert. A “don’t mess with me, I need my alone time” introvert. Maybe some of you can relate. Lately, I’ve started noticing the importance of friendship in my life. This comes at an unheard-of time of change, disruption, and societal trauma. While it may not be surprising that I’m personally feeling the importance of a few close, deep friends (‘heart friends’), it spurred me into thinking about how others are faring at this time and how close, bonded friendships may help us. In fact, friendships are positively correlated with emotional well-being, which we all could use more of right now. How are you holding up right now? For most of us, this is a loaded question. Many of us have recently found ourselves on a giant ship that felt like it is perilously close to sinking, heading toward a hurricane. How do we navigate the rough and scary waters, seemingly filled with sharks and serpents, and waves that threaten to swallow you whole? Do we …

Don’t panic and stay invested: top tips to protect your pension in turbulent times | Money

Don’t panic and stay invested: top tips to protect your pension in turbulent times | Money

Published by Sam Flores

Resist opting out early All employers must automatically enrol their employees in a workplace pension scheme if they meet the eligibility criteria: the employee must be a UK resident, aged between 22 and state pension age, and earning more than £10,000 a year, £192 a week or £822 a month, in the 2025/26 tax year. The total minimum contribution to a workplace scheme is 8%. This doesn’t all come out of your pay, as your employer will stump up a chunk of that and your contribution will be boosted by tax relief. While your employer must automatically put you into the scheme, you can opt out, and this may be tempting if you are on a low wage. However, that means turning down free money from your employer and through tax relief. It also means missing out on the growth of that money. “The earlier you start, the better,” says Mark Smith, a spokesperson for Pension Attention, an industry-led campaign. If you opt out, you’ll be automatically enrolled again three years later, but Smith says that …

Inside the turbulent Latvian shoot of Assayas’s film

Inside the turbulent Latvian shoot of Assayas’s film

Published by Sam Flores

Arras, a medium-sized city in northern France, on a November evening in 2025. Despite the cold settling, a line had formed in the center of town. The 900 moviegoers were the lucky ones; they would be the first in France to see Olivier Assayas’s latest film, screened at the Arras Film Festival. The Wizard of the Kremlin, which depicts Vladimir Putin and one of his advisers, was billed by organizers as “a gripping geopolitical thriller where fiction takes hold of reality.” British actor Jude Law plays the Russian president in this big-budget production, made with a €23 million budget. “A film in English, shot in Latvia, with American and Latvian actors and a French crew, aimed primarily at a French audience,” summarized Olivier Assayas as he introduced it to the public. The director, who did not respond to Le Monde‘s requests for an interview, alluded to the obstacle-filled journey of his feature film, from its source of inspiration – a sometimes controversial book – to the filming itself, a curious Franco-Russian tale set against a …

‘Designed for uncertainty’: windbreakers are a hit in turbulent times | Fashion

‘Designed for uncertainty’: windbreakers are a hit in turbulent times | Fashion

Published by Sam Flores

Power dressing usually comes in the form of a suit or a wide-shouldered wool coat. But right now, things look a little different. This week, Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, appeared at a joint press conference with Denmark’s leader to say that he had no intention of acquiescing to Donald Trump’s stated desire to “own” Greenland – all while wearing a glacial-blue windbreaker. It is a garment Nielsen wears regularly but, in this shifting geopolitical moment, it took on a new, loaded and striking messaging. A practical outer layer, the windbreaker or anorak is widely seen as a modern descendant of the parka, which was invented in the Arctic region to which Greenland belongs. Traditionally made from intestinal membranes from marine mammals – a proto-Gore-Tex – the parka was designed for survival. Nielsen’s jacket has been called “a modern take on the Inuit anorak”. Timothée Chalamet in London wearing a Marty Supreme promotional windbreaker. Photograph: Neil Mockford/GC Images The windbreaker’s resurgence has also been fuelled by popular culture. It followed one of the most rollercoaster …

Giving Thanks in Turbulent Times

Giving Thanks in Turbulent Times

Published by Jenni Sidey

When the world feels chaotic—when grief, uncertainty, or heaviness settles into your body—gratitude can feel distant. Yet these are often the very moments when giving thanks becomes a steadying force. Naming what we’re grateful for can’t erase hardship, but it can anchor us. It reminds us what is good and what is possible, even in the hardest seasons. Gratitude, from the Latin gratus—thankful, pleasing—is a multidimensional experience. At its core, it’s an appreciation for what’s valuable and meaningful to you. It shows up as a virtue, a pleasure, an emotion, and a habit: being thankful for an act of kindness, feeling the lift that comes from noticing what’s good in your life, and practicing that awareness over time. Gratitude offers social, physiological, and neurological benefits. And thank goodness for thankfulness: Cultivating a gratitude practice, much like exercising regularly, strengthens your capacity to feel and express gratitude more often. Psychologically, expressing gratitude during uncertainty supports emotional regulation. It quiets the nervous system, eases stress, and gently shifts the mind’s focus from fear toward connection. Research shows …

‘A watery gold sunrise lights the turbulent water’: the wild beauty of the Suffolk coast | Suffolk holidays

‘A watery gold sunrise lights the turbulent water’: the wild beauty of the Suffolk coast | Suffolk holidays

Published by Sam Flores

The crumbling cliff edge is just metres away. An automatic blind, which I can operate without getting out of bed, rises to reveal an ocean view: the dramatic storm-surging North Sea with great black-backed gulls circling nearby and a distant ship on the horizon. A watery gold sunrise lights the clouds and turbulent grey water. I’m the first person to sleep in the new Kraken lodge at Still Southwold, a former farm in Easton Bavents on the Suffolk coast. It’s a stylish wooden cabin, one of a scattering of holiday lets in an area prone to aggressive coastal erosion. The owner, Anne Jones, describes the challenges of living on a coast that is rapidly receding in the face of climate-exacerbated storms: the waves have eroded more than 40 hectares (100 acres), and the family business “is no longer a viable farm”. Instead, it is home to low-carbon cottages and cabins, “designed to be movable when the land they stand on is lost to the sea”. The latest projects include a sea-view sauna and a ‘dune …