Lifestyle
Alex Rodriguez Shares Shredded Shirtless Photo W/ Fitness Model Girlfriend
![Alex Rodriguez Shares Shredded Shirtless Photo W/ Fitness Model Girlfriend Alex Rodriguez Shares Shredded Shirtless Photo W/ Fitness Model Girlfriend](https://imagez.tmz.com/image/38/16by9/2024/01/05/38fb79ad6fad4980beb179b0a6bb5a93_xl.jpg)
Alex Rodriguez isn’t a pro athlete anymore, but don’t tell his abs … the legendary slugger shared a shredded shirtless photo, posing with his equally jacked girlfriend, and they look incredible!
48-year-old A-Rod and his fitness trainer boo Jac Cordeiro are on vacation in the Dominican Republic … and the couple shared some snaps from the trip. Alex’s daughter Ella is also on the vacay.
Rodriguez last played baseball in 2016 as third baseman for the New York Yankees, before hanging up his glove and leaving the sport as one of the most feared hitters ever.
Despite being an immortal player, A-Rod admittedly let himself go a bit in retirement, so much so his family expressed concern for him in late 2021, saying he “looked unhealthy.”
Rodriguez decided to make some changes to his life (more plants, less red meat, intermittent fasting, and walking) … and he says it made all the difference.
In 2023, Alex revealed, with help and support from Jac, he’d lost 32 pounds!
Rodriguez didn’t spend the whole trip posing without a shirt (though could you blame him?) … he also spent some quality time with his fam, from some fun in the sun to a chess game with his daughter.
A-Rod isn’t the first athlete we’ve seen who actually looks fitter in retirement … 46-year-old Tom Brady has avoided shirts like the plague since he retired, and he looks amazing! 🔥
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Lifestyle
Reality TV, romance, and race : Pop Culture Happy Hour
![Reality TV, romance, and race : Pop Culture Happy Hour Reality TV, romance, and race : Pop Culture Happy Hour](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/08/30/illustration-04_wide-7dd217900b34715e4db366c6451a3764dcb3a481.jpg?s=1400&c=100&f=jpeg)
Some people may flinch at the genre of reality TV – it’s full of tropes and manipulative editing and ridiculous premises. It’s been referred to as a funhouse mirror of our culture. But it can reflect back to us new ways of understanding what we accept as a society – especially when it comes to things like gender, sexuality, class and race. Today we’re bringing you an episode of NPR’s Code Switch that zeroes in on the The Bachelor and Love Island.
Lifestyle
Celeb Baby Bumps Guess Who!
![Celeb Baby Bumps Guess Who! Celeb Baby Bumps Guess Who!](https://imagez.tmz.com/image/aa/16by9/2024/08/29/aa4e1deed9184994957154b9de291a85_xl.jpg)
These moms-to-be have been puttin’ in that work, and if anyone deserves a day off to kick back and relax, it’s these growin’ n’ showin’ ladies! Before they go into labor, strap on your bibs and see if you can spill the baby mama rockin’ her pregnant belly in the baby bump pic!
From rappers to singers … reality TV stars and more, our growing gallery is filled with pregnant gals galore! Push through the holiday and take a scroll through these celebrity baby bumps … Can you namedrop the expecting mothers before they pop!?
Happy Labor Day!
Lifestyle
In 'Miss Merkel,' Germany's former chancellor is a crime-solving amateur detective
![In 'Miss Merkel,' Germany's former chancellor is a crime-solving amateur detective In 'Miss Merkel,' Germany's former chancellor is a crime-solving amateur detective](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/2598x1461+0+135/resize/1400/quality/100/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fe6%2Fac%2F04a577a043eebf003cefab44af9e%2Fe1-3.jpg)
In a scene from the German TV series Miss Merkel, actress Katharina Thalbach, playing the amateur detective based on the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, takes a closer look at her pug Helmut.
RTL/Maor Waisburd
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RTL/Maor Waisburd
BERLIN — Little is known about how Germany’s former Chancellor Angela Merkel is spending her retirement, and that seems to be the way she likes it. Thanks to a German crime fiction series adapted for television and now proving a hit in Italy, she is back in the headlines — this time as a fictional small-town amateur sleuth.
As the title suggests, Miss Merkel is a whodunnit that imagines the former chancellor as an Agatha Christie-style detective who starts solving crimes out of sheer boredom. For want of a G7 or European Union summit, Merkel is desperate to put down the garden shears and get back to solving something, anything! This time, it’s a village murder. Move over, Miss Marple!
The TV adaptation stars German theater doyenne Katharina Thalbach as Merkel. Like Merkel, Thalbach is 70 and from former East Germany. She says it wasn’t too hard to prepare for the role.
“You could always see the burden of power in Merkel’s shoulders, how it weighed on her,” Thalbach tells NPR. “So, I focused on my shoulders, put on a wig and one of her signature colorful boxy blazers and I had the feeling I was her. That I am Angela Merkel!”
![Miss Merke solves the murder case while her invited guests Katharina von Baugenwitz and police officer Lena Amado listen attentively.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/2598x1732+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F18%2Fee%2F5665fad847e48fc386dc02657293%2Fe1-12.jpg)
In a scene from the TV series, Miss Merkel, played by Katharina Thalbach, solves a murder case while her guests listen attentively.
RTL/Maor Waisburd
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RTL/Maor Waisburd
Thalbach has met Merkel a number of times but is not sure whether the ex-chancellor is a fan of Miss Merkel.
“The last time I saw Angela, I tried to find out whether she’s read the books or seen the series,” Thalbach recalls. “But she deftly dodged the question, saying instead that her office staff are big fans.”
The books’ author, David Safier, known previously for his fictional accounts of the Holocaust and his work as a scriptwriter, says he’s also none the wiser as to what Merkel thinks of his alternative retirement plan for her.
![Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives for a conversation with journalist Alexander Osang on stage at the Berliner Ensemble theatre on June 07, 2022 in Berlin, Germany.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/8192x5464+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F82%2F95%2Fd9b29cc0497da7c14ebb9cddec95%2Fgettyimages-1401585388.jpg)
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives for an onstage conversation in Berlin in 2022, the year after she retired from politics.
Sean Gallup/Getty Images
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Sean Gallup/Getty Images
“Probably she has read the novels,” Safier speculates. “To be honest, if there would be a crime novel where you are the hero, wouldn’t you at least read the first 10 pages?”
While the books are a commercial success, the small-screen adaptation by RTL — which will be available to stream later this year in the U.S. — has received lukewarm reviews in Germany. The broadsheet Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung acknowledged the star power that Thalbach’s performance brings to the production, but lamented the show’s “corny jokes.” German magazine Fokus suggested the production company engage Safier as the scriptwriter, seeing as he won an Emmy for a German sitcom Berlin, Berlin.
Safier came up with the idea for Miss Merkel in 2019, on the day Merkel announced she wouldn’t be running for a fifth term. He says he sat down to watch an old rerun of Columbo that same evening and the idea for his top-10 Spiegel bestseller was born.
Safier says Angela Merkel makes for a consummate detective.
“Merkel is highly intelligent, much more intelligent than other politicians,” he says. “She is strongheaded. And, after 30 years in politics, she’s used to dealing with sociopaths and psychopaths.”
Like Miss Marple, Merkel is often underestimated — something the former chancellor used to her advantage throughout her political career. Thalbach says this particularly baffled alpha-male politicians.
![Miss Merkel and her husband Joachim Sauer are bored in the audience watching the drama on stage.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/2598x1732+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fb5%2F50%2Fd5bac66149e9a3ee9fe5ec5c6fa7%2Fe1-1.jpg)
In a scene from the TV series, Miss Merkel, played by Katharina Thalbach, and her husband, played by Joachim Sauer, sit in the audience watching a play.
RTL/Maor Waisburd
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RTL/Maor Waisburd
“The real Merkel was brilliant at finding skeletons in the closets of her political rivals,” Thalbach asserts. “But she had none of her own: the perfect trait for an ace detective!”
Safier says it’s the references to Merkel’s former life as chancellor that tickle his readers.
In the first book, Miss Merkel attends a community theater production and remarks that “compared to six hours of Beijing Opera with Xi Jinping, everything else is a piece of cake.”
“Her experience helps her to solve crime mysteries. When she’s questioning a suspect, she knows that she has to wear him down,” Safier says of his main character. “Merkel knows what it’s like to probe and ask questions over and over again. She did it until the early hours at countless EU summits.”
Unlike Miss Marple, Merkel is actually a Mrs. — a Frau Dr., that is, with a Ph.D. in quantum chemistry. In the TV series, Merkel’s husband asks why she’s still wearing her trademark pantsuits in retirement. Her answer could be considered classic Merkel logic: “I’ve still got 50 of them in my wardrobe.”
Angie nostalgia aside, Safier says that in his next book, Miss Merkel is seeing a therapist after realizing, while writing her memoirs, that she neglected to solve a number of issues during her time in office — be it Germany’s ailing railway system or relations with Russia.
Merkel was something of an enigma in office. Now, in retirement, the fictional version of her is an open book. The real version is set to be revealed in November. That’s when Safier’s next installment comes out — and when the real Merkel publishes her autobiography.
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