Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have released the crew of the Galaxy Leader more than a year after they seized the Bahamas-flagged vessel off the Yemeni Red Sea coast, Houthi-owned Al Masirah TV has reported.
It said on Wednesday the crew were handed to Oman “in coordination” with the three-day-old ceasefire in Gaza’s war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Juan Guillermo Garcés had a brush with death while burning jungle for cattle pasture – now he runs a nature reserve in Colombia where more than 100 new species have been discovered
Words and photographs by Anastasia Austin and Douwe den Held
Juan Guillermo Garcés remembers coming face to face with death at age 17. Smoke filled the air, choking his lungs. The temperature rose and Garcés struggled to see through the haze. Panic set in as he watched monkeys, snakes, lizards and birds desperately trying to escape the flames surrounding them.
Garcés and his brother started the fire that nearly killed them to clear a large stretch of land. But when the wind suddenly changed direction, they found themselves locked in. The brothers survived, but the fire destroyed the little remaining patch of virgin forest on the family’s 2,500-hectare (6,200-acre) ranch, nestled along Colombia’s Magdalena River. Experiencing firsthand what the animals and plants endured was a turning point for Garcés.
Got something you’d love to ask the former Baywatch star about her life and new career directions? Now’s your chance
Director Gia Coppola had only one actor in mind to star in The Last Showgirl: Pamela Anderson. Having watched Ryan White’s Netflix documentary Pamela, A Love Story, Coppola knew she would be perfect as Shelly Gardner, an ageing Las Vegas dancer facing the closure of Le Razzle Dazzle, the classic revue she has starred in for three decades. The problem was, Anderson’s (now former) agent threw the script in the bin. Coppola did not take no for an answer. She got in touch with Anderson’s son Brandon Thomas Lee, who made sure the pitch reached his mum. Now trailing accolades, award nominations and an Oscar buzz, the film is bringing the 57-year-old icon something she struggled to find earlier in her career: respect.
Having risen to fame as a Playboy Playmate, Anderson became an international superstar in the 1990s in Baywatch, which cemented the sex-symbol image she struggled for years to shake off. Recently, however, her public persona has morphed into something much more multilayered, thanks not only to the Netflix doc but also to her thoughtful 2023 memoir Love, Pamela and her well-received Broadway debut the previous year as Roxie Hart in Chicago. As she said in a recent magazine interview: “The stars have aligned.”