Lifestyle
On Good Footing After a Polo Tournament
Even before Dr. Orion Paul Mercaitis saw Olivia Louise Stringer, he heard her trying to get a fractious horse to settle down in October 2023 in the back of a trailer at New Haven Farm in Aiken, S.C.
“I don’t have a string of polo ponies, so I had to lease one,” said Dr. Mercaitis, 35, who lives in Guilderland, N.Y., outside Albany, and is a senior manager in the United States market access division for oncology drugs at Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company.
When he landed that job, Mr. Mercaitis couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate than playing in a three-day polo tournament a couple of weeks later in Aiken, alongside Adam Snow, a polo champion and an owner of New Haven Farm.
“Get on the horse,” said Ms. Stringer, when she brought out a thoroughbred named Flash, one of three ponies for him to try that day. “I’m pretty direct,” she added. “He definitely laughed.”
Ms. Stringer, 40, a professional women’s polo player, owns Liv Polo, which provides rentals, sales, training and coaching in Aiken and the Northeast. She started playing polo at 13, representing United States in matches in international women’s polo in India in 2018 and Australia in 2022.
“We were pretty surprised to see each other,” said Ms. Stringer, who graduated with bachelor’s degrees in equine science and English from Colorado State University, and whose clients are usually adult amateurs, 50-plus. “He assumed I was older as well. He was a young, attractive person.”
Dr. Mercaitis, who graduated with high distinction with a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of California, Berkeley, fell in love with polo in his 20s while studying at Oxford, where he received a master’s degree in musculoskeletal sciences in 2020. He also has a medical degree from the University of Miami, and a Master of Public Health in epidemiology from Harvard.
“This is the kind of guy I should consider dating when the time comes,” Ms. Stringer recalled thinking. Her previous marriage ended in divorce earlier that year, and she was not yet dating.
After Dr. Mercaitis left Aiken, they sent each other texts about polo, shared photos of their dogs, and she sent him a few images of his favorite ponies.
“We were both being professional,” said Dr. Mercaitis, who thought “she was so perfect and unfathomable.” He figured he didn’t “have a chance.”
As New Year’s Eve approached and Ms. Stringer asked him if he had any plans, it seemed like an opening to him. He asked if she would like to celebrate at Wildflower Farms, a new Catskills resort in Gardiner, N.Y.
On Dec. 30 — after she visited family in Florida, then flew up to Albany — he drove them down to the Catskills.
“I had my Jack Russell, Comet, very much my sidekick,” Ms. Stringer said, and he brought his golden retriever Sirius (he named his polo team after him).
Both dogs got along, and so did they.
“We started talking and never stopped,” she said. “It was a three-day first date,” with farm-to-table meals, soaks in hot tubs and hikes with their dogs.
After dinner on New Year’s Eve, they had a first kiss, and as the band later played “Auld Lang Syne,” they began the year with another kiss and Champagne.
Before Ms. Stringer returned home, he gave her a tour of his hometown, the Albany area. He took her for flying lessons in Saratoga, N.Y., where she then flew a helicopter around the New York State Capitol. They landed in an Albany airfield, and then she took a Cirrus SR20 plane for a spin around the capitol. He is finishing up a pilot’s license in both.
Later in January 2024, she joined him for Robert Burns Night, an annual celebration of the Scottish bard, on the Royal Yacht Britannia in Edinburgh. He donned a kilt with his Oxford College tartan and she a matching sash as they enjoyed haggis and poetry readings.
In March, he drove to Aiken to celebrate her birthday, but the night before Easter he received shocking news. His father had died. Ms. Stringer stood by him during the next difficult weeks, and traveled to Albany to be with him.
“I didn’t know they made women like this,” he said, and then he stayed in Aiken until the end of May.
Over the summer, they spent time with her family in Baltimore, and her parents then joined them on a trip to Provincetown, Mass., in Cape Cod in late August.
During that trip, as the two walked along a quiet stretch of beach at Race Point, he pretended to see a dolphin to distract her. After she looked for it, and turned back around, he was on one knee.
On March 1, the Rev. Canon Calhoun Walpole, the rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Johns Island, S.C., officiated before 72 guests, at least 30 were polo players, at Grace Chapel on Wadmalaw Island, S.C., where the bride walked down the aisle to a trumpet player and pianist playing Pachelbel’s “Canon in D.”
Later, at the Charleston Yacht Club, where two polo mallets with their initials appeared on cocktail napkins and other items, they enjoyed a Southern menu including shrimp and grits, barbecued pulled pork and brisket.
During the following week, on March 5, her birthday, their offer was accepted on a dream farm in Aiken — a 30-acre, 27-stall barn with a polo field, and plan to call it Outfoxed Farms.
“Olivia is bright and witty, and always a step ahead of me,” he said, with a laugh.
What freedom looks like today.
Getty Images/Viktoriia Miroshnikova/Photo illustration by NPR
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Getty Images/Viktoriia Miroshnikova/Photo illustration by NPR
What does freedom mean today?
Happy Juneteenth! For those not in the know, today commemorates when U.S. federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people were freed – a full two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Since then, Juneteenth has been celebrated all over the country, especially in Texas and across the South, where Juneteenth parades, cookouts, festivals and pageants happen every year. Two weeks from now, the country will celebrate the Fourth of July – and its 250th anniversary. For many Black Americans, there’s always been a tension between these holidays – and their two different ideals for what it means to be free. As voting rights protections are rolled back and Black history is being scrubbed from government websites, what does freedom look like for Black Americans today?
To get into it, Brittany is joined by Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson, chair of Africana Studies at Wellesley College.
For more episodes about the quality of Black life in America, check out:
Jesse Jackson & the end of the civil rights superhero
Is the economy slowing? Ask Black women.
What to expect when you’re expecting racism
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This episode was produced by Corey Antonio Rose and Liam McBain. It was edited by Neena Pathak. We had engineering support from Josephine Nyounai. Our Supervising Producer is Cher Vincent. Our Executive Producer is Barton Girdwood. Our VP of Programming is Yolanda Sangweni.
First released in 2000, the acclaimed film Amores perros, which was produced and directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and written by Guillermo Arriaga, has been remastered and is returning to theaters.
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Before Amores Perros became widely regarded as a modern classic, it belonged to Mexico. The film premiered at the 53rd Cannes Film Festival in 2000, where it won The Grand Prix, launching a run of international acclaim that has never quite ended. This month, Amores Perros is back in theaters in a fully remastered format from its original Kodak film stocks.
The film’s plot centers on three strangers whose lives intersect at the scene of a car crash. Each story wrestles with overlapping issues of social class disparities, crime and familial betrayal. The release in Mexico coincided with the end of the Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI’s 71-year hold on power. Amores Perros was followed by a period of original, contemporary films in Latin America that would prove the region’s studios could compete with Hollywood in scope and complexity.
One of the film’s lead charachters, Octavio, is played by actor Gael García Bernal.
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The film marked the directorial debut of Alejandro González Iñárritu, who would go on to win four Academy Awards including back-to-back best director awards for Birdman (2014) and The Revenant (2015). In a recent interview with NPR, Gael García Bernal, a lead actor in Amores Perros, called the film’s launch “a new geography in cinema.”
González Iñárritu and García Bernal spoke with Morning Edition’s A Martinez about their early collaboration and the film’s continued resonance with new audiences.
Listen to the interview by clicking on the blue play button above.
The broadcast version of this story was produced by Margaux Bauerlein.
Preparations underway for the Great American State Fair, as seen on Washington, D.C.’s National Mall last week.
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A lot is changing these days in Washington, D.C., with even more on the horizon: 10 city blocks of the National Mall will soon transform into a multi-week state fair spectacle, complete with a Ferris wheel, in honor of the country’s 250th birthday.
The “Great American State Fair” will run from June 25 through July 10, promising to bring state-themed pavilions, movie screenings, musical performances, military flyovers, nostalgic snacks, a daily rodeo — and potentially scores of tourists — to the nation’s capital.
It will feature more than 150 exhibits, with full participation across the United States and several U.S. territories, as well as “businesses, innovators and civic organizations,” according to Freedom250, the White House-backed campaign that is organizing the fair in addition to other semiquincentennial events.
“A master-planned celebration will unfold along the National Mall from the Capitol to the Washington Monument, featuring vibrant pavilions representing every U.S. state and territory,” says the White House website, adding that the beaux-arts style tents will also highlight national themes like agriculture, the arts, faith and family.
Workers started setting up the fair, in view of the U.S. Capitol, in late May.
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However, not all states are sending official government delegations to the fair. Officials in more than half a dozen states — including Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington — confirmed to NPR that they are not participating directly. Most cited financial considerations and a desire to prioritize celebrations in their own communities, though others voiced political concerns.
Rachel Reisner, a spokesperson for Freedom250, emphasized in an email that there is “a vast majority participating” among the states. Additionally, others are being represented by local businesses and organizations — such as two companies from North Carolina and a museum from Illinois.
“Whether represented by a governor’s office, a tourism board, or a beloved state company or organization, every community will be celebrated, and every American will see themselves in this once-in-a-generation event,” Reisner said.
The state fair is one in a series of patriotic anniversary events planned for D.C. this summer, including the UFC fight night outside the White House last Sunday and a fireworks-heavy July Fourth celebration that President Trump rebranded as a political rally in a Truth Social post on Monday.
In another post that day, Trump encouraged people to attend the kickoff to the fair on Wednesday — and, by extension, the “summer long Celebration of 250 years of American Independence.”
“We are going to have fun, and celebrate America!” he wrote.
That opening event was originally billed as a concert, though many of the performers originally attached to it — including Martina McBride, Bret Michaels, the Commodores and Young MC — have withdrawn in recent weeks. Organizers now say the kickoff will feature remarks by Trump and performances by Lee Greenwood and Christopher Macchio, musicians who have sung at Trump events before.
What to know about the fair
The fair is an all-day, rain-or-shine event. It is free and open to the public, though preregistration is encouraged.
Freedom250 is promising attendees an interactive experience at the state pavilions, from Michigan’s mechanical milking cow to Florida’s re-creation of a Spanish fort honoring explorer Juan Ponce de León.
There will also be activations by a wide range of companies, organizations and government agencies, from NASA and John Deere to Meta and the Washington Commanders.
Each of the fair’s 16 days has its own theme, including two “MAHA Mondays” and a military and veterans’ appreciation day. July Fourth is branded as the Independence Day Celebration, and the fair’s final day is billed as “The Next 250: Innovation.”
The extravaganza will span a wide swath of the National Mall, much of it already blocked off with fences and construction cranes. The fair may also impact air travel in the area.
In a press release this week, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority warned travelers at D.C.’s Reagan National Airport that their flights might be adjusted or delayed due to some of the America 250 celebrations — including the opening and closing days of the state fair.
“Many events will include downtown flyovers or other aerial displays such as fireworks or parachute jumps, which will affect flights periodically at Reagan National,” it said, adding that the most significant disruptions are expected on July 3 and 4.
Why some state governments aren’t participating
Nearly 10 states say they will not be spending funds or sending personnel to the D.C. fair. While all but one are led by Democratic governors, many told NPR the decision not to attend was a financial decision, not an overt political statement.
“The states were expected to fund and to staff a multi-week exhibit in Washington, D.C., which would entail getting staffers down to D.C., housing them, feeding them, and with the booths and everything … the estimated budget was at least $100,000,” said Cathryn Vaulman, a spokesperson for Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont.
Vaulman said that money would have come out of the state’s budget for its own 250th celebrations — so leaders made a “resource-based decision” to focus on those instead. But she noted that plenty of other blue states, like New York, are still planning to staff the state fair.
Some other states estimated their costs as $100,000, though others were much higher: Sarah Hansen, director of the Maine Semiquincentennial Commission, told NPR that its cost estimates were “half a million dollars or more,” which she said was not feasible for the state, “given the federal government’s refusal to provide any funding.”
Washington Lt. Gov. Denny Heck’s office told NPR over email that the state opted out in large part because of confusion over costs.
The fair will span 10 city blocks on the National Mall for over two weeks.
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“We had heard participating states (whether that was state agencies, tourism authorities, etc.) were generally planning for their costs to be anywhere between $100k to nearly $1m,” Dallas Roberts, Heck’s chief of staff, said in the email.
Each state and territory gets about 600 square feet to build its exhibit, with no set dollar amount required to participate, according to Freedom250. It acknowledges that cost was a concern for many states, which is why some partnered with tourism bureaus and companies.
“Our ask was not your government entity must do this and give money; it was an invitation to the state to represent their culture, heritage, and landscape however they would like,” Reisner, the Freedom250 spokesperson, wrote in an email, adding that the event is funded by “both private and public dollars.”
Officials in a handful of states have been more outspoken in their criticism of how the event is being run.
Speaking to GBH News’ Boston Public Radio earlier this month, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, who also opted out, said Trump “invited all the states to participate and wants to charge us to go down and put something on his exhibit.”
“It’s just ridiculous,” she added. “This is taxpayer money.”
Luke Harkins, a spokesperson for Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, told Oregon Public Broadcasting that the state is not participating “due to both the cost of participating in the Fair and growing concerns that the event in Washington, D.C. is shaping up to be a more partisan affair than originally presented.”
Officials from different states told NPR they had different understandings of how representation from their state would work.
Jayette Bolinski, a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, said the Peoria Riverfront Museum volunteered to represent the state with an “Illinois-centric pavilion” featuring a hologram of stories from over 50 residents — none of which was paid for by state funds, she stressed. Vaulman, of Connecticut, said she believes its booth will have photos and posters of some sort, while Hansen of Maine said their inquiries to Freedom250 about this “have gone unanswered.”
What else is on the anniversary agenda — and who’s planning it
Planning for national 250th anniversary events mainly falls to two main groups, which have become increasingly politicized.
In 2015, looking ahead, Congress created a nonpartisan commission to orchestrate anniversary celebrations, which in turn created a nonprofit called America250. It’s composed mostly of private citizens, along with several members of Congress and representatives from federal agencies.
America250 appears to focus mainly on getting Americans involved in celebrations at the local level, such as attending synchronized nationwide block parties. It has gathered — and recently sealed — a time capsule with contributions from every state and is hosting a July Fourth concert in Los Angeles, with tickets selling for $17.76, featuring the Smashing Pumpkins, Chris Stapleton and Queen Latifah.
Freedom250, on the other hand, emerged from a Trump 2025 executive order establishing a task force for celebrating the milestone. Critics — including progressive consumer advocacy group Public Citizen — see this group as Trump’s attempt to bypass America250 after trying unsuccessfully to pack it with loyalists.
Freedom250 describes itself as “the national, non-partisan organization leading the celebration of our Nation’s 250th birthday.” Another sign of its standing in the administration: The official White House webpage for the 250th links out to Freedom250, not America250.
The group has organized many other high-profile anniversary events, including the White House UFC event, the July Fourth rally on the Mall, a July Fourth tall ship event on the East Coast and the Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington, D.C., an Indycar event scheduled for the National Mall in August.
Trump’s executive order says the 250th task force must disband at the end of the year, unless he extends it. And many of the beautification projects his administration is undertaking in D.C. — from restoring fountains to installing statues to repainting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool — are tied to the anniversary but could shape the city far beyond it.
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