Entertainment
Kate Middleton spotted after rampant speculation about her post-op whereabouts
Catherine has been spotted for the first time since December, months after her January hospitalization, which spawned rampant conspiracy theories, and viral suppositions about her alleged “disappearance.”
The Princess of Wales, formerly Kate Middleton, was photographed Monday by Backgrid, a photo-hosting agency, near Windsor Castle in the U.K. sitting in the passenger seat of an Audi driven by her mother, Carole Middleton, according to TMZ.
The Daily Mail reported that Monday’s princess sighting came via paparazzi pictures that were not authorized by the palace.
The casual outing — featuring the princess in sunglasses and without security — is the first time that the 42-year-old has been seen in public since she celebrated Christmas at Sandringham estate in eastern England with husband Prince William, their three children and rest of the royal family, People reported.
The senior royal was admitted to the London Clinic on Jan. 16, Kensington Palace said, for a planned abdominal surgery and successfully underwent the procedure. The palace added, however, that the princess was expected to be hospitalized for 10 to 14 days after the mystery surgery and “before returning home to continue her recovery.” She would return to her public duties after Easter — March 31 — based on current medical advice, the palace said.
“The Princess of Wales appreciates the interest this statement will generate,” Kensington Palace said. “She hopes that the public will understand her desire to maintain as much normality for her children as possible; and her wish that her personal medical information remains private.”
Despite her desires, the announcement — coupled with father-in-law King Charles III’s simultaneous health issues — ignited even more interest in her condition and plenty of wild speculation given her absence from the public eye, as well as that of her children and parents. Amid theories about an organ donation to Charles, a Brazilian butt lift, mommy makeover or the possibility that she was in a coma, the topic (hashtag #whereiskatemiddleton) has been a talking point ever since.
As many a Redditor and casual social media user wondered, “What is going on with Kate Middleton?” the BBC analyzed the “royal dilemma” over Kate’s health, the New York Times touched on the rumors swirling around her, Vogue tracked “The Curious Case of the ‘Disappearing’ Princess,” and this newspaper tried to figure out what the frenzy over her alleged “‘disappearance’ says about the royals — and us.”
Kate left the hospital on Jan. 29 and returned to Adelaide Cottage in Windsor, where she was reunited with her kids. Prince William, the second in line to the British throne, temporarily stepped back from his royal duties to manage childcare but continued with other royal engagements in Wrexham and London.
Last week, the 41-year-old prince — who is also expected to take on more royal duties after his father’s cancer diagnosis — provided further fodder for the rumor mill when he cited a “personal matter” for his absence from the funeral of his godfather, King Constantine of Greece.
Nonetheless, a spokesman reiterated the palace’s stance that there would be no “running commentary” provided on Kate’s health despite Internet rumors.
That, according to the Telegraph, was testing the Firm’s policy of “never complain, never explain.”
“From our perspective, we were very clear from our statement at the start of this in January that the Princess of Wales planned to be out of public action until after Easter, and that hasn’t changed,” a spokesperson for the family told the Telegraph.
“We were always clear we wouldn’t be providing updates when there wasn’t anything new to share,” the spokesperson said. “The last thing anyone wants is a running commentary of the Princess of Wales’s recovery. Nothing has changed from that approach in January.”
Movie Reviews
Michael Movie Review: Did Jaafar Jackson Stuns as MJ?
Michael, the biopic on Michael Jackson, has released internationally and is receiving strong responses from fans and cinema lovers. The film presents an energetic musical journey, tracing Michael Jackson’s life from his early years to the peak of his global stardom.
Jaafar Jackson plays the lead role and has received widespread praise from critics and audiences. Many believe his performance stands out as one of the best this year. Strong media attention has also positioned him as a potential contender in the upcoming awards season.
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The film is appreciated for effectively using Michael Jackson’s iconic music. It blends songs with dance and emotional moments led by Jaafar Jackson’s performance. Director Antoine Fuqua is also being praised for presenting the story with depth and sensitivity.
Audiences have noted how the film captures the essence of Michael Jackson’s personality. The storytelling focuses on both his musical journey and personal struggles. This balance has helped the film connect well with viewers across different regions.
Michael has not yet released in India but is expected to arrive on 24 April 2026. Fans are already showing strong interest, with many planning to book tickets early. The anticipation around its India release continues to grow.
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Entertainment
Coachella 2026: Violent winds disrupt festival, campgrounds
Strong winds disrupted the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on Friday night and the forecast calls for more gusts throughout the weekend.
Windy conditions are not unusual to the festival, which attracts roughly 125,000 attendees to the Empire Polo Club each of its weekends, but it’s rare to see the weather cause performances to be canceled.
On Friday night, EDM artist Anyma canceled his much-anticipated performance set for just before midnight on the festival’s biggest stage due to the weather.
“Due to strong wind conditions affecting Anyma’s stage build, he is unable to perform. Coachella & Anyma have made this decision together with your safety as the priority,” the fest wrote in a message on its app just after midnight on Saturday morning.
On Friday night, there were social media reports that showed that the Do Lab — a stage on the southern side of the festival grounds, which includes shade structures with colorful bolts of fabric — was closed for the night with yellow caution tape around the area and that a speaker may have fallen to the ground.
Festival promoter Goldenvoice and the organizers of the Do Lab stage did not provide comment at the time of publication.
The wind wreaked havoc in the campsite as well, blowing tents and canopies over.
“It was definitely pretty impactful last night. The wind reports in the area saw gusts up to 35 to 40 mph yesterday during late afternoon,” said Isaac Longley, a meteorologist with AccuWeather. “Unfortunately, that was when there were a lot of performers on the main stages, and a pretty impactful situation with the tents at Coachella.”
According to the online forecast for the weekend from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, temperatures in Indio were expected to reach 86 degrees on Saturday with 5- to 10-mph winds in the afternoon and a low of 56 degrees with the winds increasing to 15 to 20 mph and changing direction after midnight. Gusts were expected to be up to 30 mph later into the evening.
“As we head into Saturday afternoon and evening, we expect pretty similar conditions to [Friday] and for winds to pick up,” Longley said. “I would definitely consider staking my tent down.”
Sunday’s forecast was cooler, with a high of 79 and winds of 10 to 20 mph in the day. The expected low is 53 with winds expected at 15 mph with gusts of up to 30 mph.
There’s also an air quality alert for the windblown dust through 5 a.m. Sunday.
Movie Reviews
‘Thrash’ Review: It’s Netflix and Chomp, as Phoebe Dynevor Stars in a Familiar but Gruesomely Competent Shark Thriller
“Thrash,” like just about every shark thriller, has a grade-Z son-of-“Jaws” quality. (The one exception: the ingenious “Open Water.”) Everything in the movie, from the chomping shark attacks that splash up the waves with Hawaiian Punch foam to the way a humongous great white meets her fate at the end, takes an obvious page from Steven Spielberg’s gambits and techniques. But shark movies, because of that derivative quality (and because the directors are not Spielberg), often tend to be dreary and claustrophobic affairs. Whereas “Thrash” has a lively competence about it, a touch of fluid originality in the staging.
It’s set in the small town of Annieville, S.C., which in the first half hour gets subjected to a hurricane so intense it’s like a tsunami, bolstered by vintage stupido lines like, “If they ever considered creating a Category 6, this would be it. It’s a monster!” It’s all part of the film’s environmental message (the storm starts off as a Category 2 until it hits record-temperature warm waters off the coast). But once Hurricane Henry floods the town, the film’s writer-director, Tommy Wirkola, turns a submerged neighborhood block into a kind of water-world stage set, like a giant pond with the top halves of houses poking out the top. They’re places of refuge, only they keep shifting and collapsing.
The storm has brought with it a school of bull sharks, who are smaller and faster than great whites, but just as ravenous. The movie wastes no time delivering the gory goods, which are served up for our delectation like the killings in a slasher movie. If fear was once the pulse of a shark thriller, now it’s voyeurism — our chance to feast on what it looks like when a shark feasts. In this case, though, only the unappealing characters get eaten. That’s part of the lip-smacking quality of it all — the idea that certain movie characters deserve to have their limbs bitten off.
Of the ones in “Thrash” who don’t, the most original character is Lisa (played by Phoebe Dynevor, from “Fair Play”), not because there’s anything complex in how she’s drawn, but because she’s pregnant — as in not just about to have a baby, but she’s going to have it during the movie, as she struggles to wriggle away from the sharks. That sounds precarious, and is, but once her infant son has popped out, talk about providing someone with motivation to take on nature’s predators. She’s assisted by Dakota (Whitney Peak), the film’s other, younger heroine, who at one point makes her way over a floating rooftop and rickety branches, improvising the acrobatics of survival. Dakota, whose mother recently died, is being raised by her marine-biologist uncle, played by Djimon Hounsou as the film’s token scientist-philosopher of disaster.
Wirkola, who’s Norwegian, has written a bare-bones script, but he knows how to play with space. He stages an encounter in which Ron (Stacy Clausen), a teenage okie foster child, is swimming around in a basement, with that great white on his tail, and the sequence has a delectably flowing sense of danger.
Mostly, though, we’re watching the kills come right on cue. This is a Netflix and Chomp movie, just 80 minutes long (if you don’t count the closing credits), and the compact run time does more than keep “Thrash” from wearing out its welcome. It’s part of the film’s lean-and-mean structural unity — the way it treats an entire underwater street and its houses like the shark boat in the last act of “Jaws,” as a safety zone that’s rapidly disintegrating. Ron and his two siblings have been living with foster parents who are government-sponging creeps (they eat steak in the basement while tossing their meal-ticket kids packages of Wonder Bread), and when Bob (Josh McConville), the loathsome father, gets what’s coming to him, it’s not scary — it’s closer to mutilation porn. He’s the steak, there to sate our hunger.
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