EVERYWHERE, WE CHEER with ENHYPEN! ✨ Grab your lightsticks and join the fun! See you at the cinemas! 🎬 🎬 Oct 24–31, 2026 (*Japan dates vary) 🎟️ Tickets On Sale Now 🔗 More Info: @ENHYPEN #ENHYPEN# #엔하이픈# #HYBECINEFEST2026#

EVERYWHERE, WE CHEER with ENHYPEN! ✨ Grab your lightsticks and join the fun! See you at the cinemas! 🎬 🎬 Oct 24–31, 2026 (*Japan dates vary) 🎟️ Tickets On Sale Now 🔗 More Info: @enhypen #ENHYPEN# #엔하이픈# #HYBECINEFEST2026#

EVERYWHERE, WE CHEER with BOYNEXTDOOR! ✨ Grab your lightsticks and join the fun! See you at the cinemas! 🎬 🎬 Oct 24–31, 2026 (*Japan dates vary) 🎟️ Tickets: Sales start Sep 30 (*Varies by region) 🔗 More Info: #BOYNEXTDOOR# #보이넥스트도어# #BND# #HYBECINEFEST2026# #HYBECHEERINGPARTY#

D-1 with ENHYPEN! ✨ Tomorrow is THE day! EVERYWHERE, WE CHEER! See you tomorrow! 🎬 Oct 24–31, 2026 (*Japan dates vary) 🎟️ Don't miss ENHYPEN WORLD TOUR 'BLOOD SAGA' on the big screen! 🔗 Get Tickets: @ENHYPEN #ENHYPEN# #엔하이픈# #HYBECINEFEST2026#

The last baby born in my friend Ikeda's hometown was born in 2014. It's a mountain town in Japan. The school closed. The summer festival stopped. The bus stopped coming. His mother is 84, and she is one of the young ones. Japan has thousands of towns like that now. There's a Japanese word for the place your heart comes from. Furusato. Ours are disappearing. This fall, Ikeda's company sent him to Nebraska for three months. He asked to live in the smallest town they had. Population: 640. Americans call it flyover country. He sent me a message every Sunday. "There are babies. Everywhere. In the café. In church. Asleep on their dad's shoulder at the hardware store. I counted eleven at one service. My hometown has had zero in twelve years." "The high school has 112 kids. On Friday night, the whole town went to the football game. So did the next town. They came to watch their rivals lose. Afterward, both towns went to the only pizza place for forty miles. Same booths. Different shirts." "The fire chief is also the pharmacist and the Little League coach. I asked him when he sleeps. He said, 'Winter.'" "Homecoming parade. One fire truck. Two tractors. A horse. A marching band of nineteen. Every kid in town throwing candy at every adult in town. It took four minutes. Everyone cheered like it took four hours." "A farmer at the café told me the population sign was wrong. 'It's 641 now. The Hansens had a girl Tuesday.' The whole café clapped. For a number." "A young man came back from Omaha this summer to take over his grandfather's farm. He's 26. The town threw him a supper in the Lutheran church hall. In Japan, nobody comes back. Here, they throw you a supper when you do." On his last Sunday, Ikeda told the Sunday school class about his hometown. The town with no children. The kids didn't understand. One of them asked who the playground was for. The next week, nine envelopes arrived at his mother's house in Japan. Crayon. Stickers. One had a dollar in it "for candy." They were addressed: "To the new baby (whenever you come)." His mother took them to the town office. They're in a drawer there now. Waiting. America, you call it flyover country. Half the world is losing exactly what you have down there. You're flying over your own furusato. (Ikeda's company asked him for a final report. Page one has one sentence: "Recommend we land.")

Every backyard fire pit in America has one man. You know the man. He cannot be replaced. My coworker Morita met him in Idaho. Last month, our company sent Morita to a supplier in a small Idaho town for two weeks. On Thursday, the plant supervisor, Ed, told him: "Come over Friday. We're having a fire." Morita spent the next 24 hours trying to figure out who was getting fired. (Nobody. In Idaho, a fire is not an accident. It's an event. You attend it.) Friday night. A backyard. A ring of stones. Eleven people in hoodies. A cooler. A dog. And in the middle of everything, Ed, holding a stick. Ed's nine-year-old son, Colby, explained the rules. Nobody asked him to. He just felt Morita needed to know. "Rule one. It's Dad's fire. Rule two. That's Dad's stick. Don't touch it. It's just a stick. Dad found it in 2014. It's been the stick ever since. Rule three. Don't put a log on unless Dad says. Uncle Jimbo did once. We don't talk about Uncle Jimbo." Uncle Jimbo was sitting right there. He nodded. Morita understood immediately. In Japan, the tea ceremony has a whole part that is only about the charcoal. It's called sumidemae. A tea master trains for years to place a few pieces of charcoal with metal chopsticks. Nobody else touches them. Everyone else watches in silence. Morita had flown five thousand miles and found a tea master in Idaho. His name was Ed. He was wearing Crocs. So Morita did what you do at a tea ceremony. Every time Ed poked the fire, Morita bowed. Ed noticed. Ed has been poking fires in that backyard for 22 years. Nobody had ever bowed. So Ed poked again. Morita bowed again. Ed poked a little more seriously. He moved one log one inch to the left. He stepped back. He looked at it. Morita bowed deeper. Ed's wife, Trish, leaned over to her sister and whispered, "What is happening." Her sister said, "I think Ed found his people." By ten o'clock, the fire did not need anything. Ed kept poking it. Morita kept bowing. Nobody could remember who started it. Trish says it was the happiest she'd seen her husband since Boise State beat Oklahoma in 2007. Then came the smoke. Everywhere Morita sat, the smoke followed him. He moved. It followed. He moved again. It followed again. "Smoke follows beauty," Trish told him. Morita is 41. He is an engineer. In his life, he has been called many things. Reliable. Punctual. "Fine." Never beautiful. He moved six times. The smoke found him six times. The seventh time, he stopped moving. He sat in the smoke, eyes streaming, and said quietly: "I am beautiful." Eleven Americans cheered. Then came the marshmallows. In Japan, there are schools of swordsmanship that have been arguing with each other for four hundred years. In America, it's marshmallows. Trish belongs to the Golden School. She holds one marshmallow eight inches above the coals and turns it slowly for eleven minutes. She does not speak. She does not blink. It comes out the color of a church window. Colby belongs to the Burn It School. He shoves it straight into the flames, waits until it's screaming, blows it out, and eats the charcoal. Each school believes the other is a crime. Morita chose the Golden School. At minute nine, his marshmallow slid off the stick and fell into the fire. Silence. Then Ed said, very gently, "The fire takes one." Every adult nodded. "Every night, it takes one. You don't get it back. You don't ask why." Morita says it was the most spiritual thing anyone said to him in America. Uncle Jimbo says it was the most Ed has talked since 2019. Around eleven, something happened that Morita still can't explain. Everybody stopped talking. Eleven Americans. The loudest people on earth. Staring into a fire. For forty minutes. Nobody checked a phone. In Japan, we pay a lot of money for that. It's called a meditation retreat. In Idaho, it's free, and it comes with a hot dog. At midnight, Ed stood up and said, "One more log." At 12:40, he said, "One more log." At 1:15, he said, "One more log." Morita has a degree in mechanical engineering. He tried to calculate how many logs "one more log" is. There is no answer. "One more log" is not a number. It's a feeling. By two in the morning, everyone had gone inside except Morita, Ed, and the dog. Then Ed did something Trish says he has not done once in 22 years. Not for his brother. Not for the pastor. Not for her. He handed Morita the stick. Morita took it with both hands. He poked the fire once. Very carefully. One spark floated up into the Idaho sky. Ed watched it for a long time. "Good poke," he said. Morita bowed. Ed bowed back. Two grown men, bowing over a dying fire at two in the morning in Idaho. The dog went inside. Morita came home to Tokyo last week. You are not allowed to have a fire in a Tokyo apartment. So on Friday nights, he lights one candle on his balcony, sits on a cushion, and adjusts the wick with a chopstick. Last Friday, his wife reached for the chopstick. Morita said, "That's my fire."

“I remember asking assistant coach Mo Cheeks, what’s harder to do? Workout after practice or before?? I only asked cuz by time I would get to the gym, Russ was already done in the morning and I usually got mine in after practice. Mo like, “coming in before practice is probably harder”…since then, it’s been my routine….a lot of people looked at the emotions on the court and thought Russ was loud, nah to me, he was quiet and methodical. He lead by example and once the lights were bright, he let everything out and experienced pure freedom. It was inspiring as his teammate and everywhere I went, I seen it inspire people from all walks of life, crazy thing is, he didn’t say much, he just showed up. For 18 years. This basketball life is sacred to us as professionals, what we put into that court means everything. Some of us wish we could go back and do things with a little more intent and some can just wipe their hands and be satisfied with the time spent. Who u gonna be? We know what zero was on…keep inspiring in the next phase of life champ.” (via Kevin Durant — @KDTrey5) KD congratulates Russ on an iconic career! 👏💯

I remember asking assistant coach Mo Cheeks, what’s harder to do? Workout after practice or before?? I only asked cuz by time I would get to the gym, Russ was already done in the morning and I usually got mine in after practice. Mo like, “coming in before practice is probably harder”…since then, it’s been my routine….a lot of people looked at the emotions on the court and thought Russ was loud, nah to me, he was quiet and methodical. He lead by example and once the lights were bright, he let everything out and experienced pure freedom. It was inspiring as his teammate and everywhere I went, I seen it inspire people from all walks of life, crazy thing is, he didn’t say much, he just showed up. For 18 years. This basketball life is sacred to us as professionals, what we put into that court means everything. Some of us wish we could go back and do things with a little more intent and some can just wipe their hands and be satisfied with the time spent. Who u gonna be? We know what zero was on…keep inspiring in the next phase of life champ. I don’t care what happens, can’t erase what it was…The first YNs, finals run in our early 20s, all star games, seeing each other get injured and bounce back, the bus rides, plane rides, card games, jokes and arguments, the whole thing, memorable!! …to the whole Westbrook family, Nina, the kids, mama Westbrook, big Russ, Ray, Donnell, everybody from luezinger high and ucla and many more that I’m forgettin, much love and Congratulations on a iconic career.

Something has to change with the cost of food in America and BOTH sides are not listening This woman is in charge of public school lunch ordering, she gives examples of items that kids love but are becoming so expensive they just can’t order them anymore “Staying within that budget right now in this 2026 economy, it is starting to feel impossible — we serve at our high school level, we serve a Philly cheesesteak sandwich. It is one of the top meals that we serve. Students and staff love it. It's delicious. It's wonderful — So last January, yep, 9 months ago, we paid $237.58 for a 30 pound case of the shaved Philly seasoned meat — I just went to look at the price of it. $323.60 for the same case 9 months later. So that is a $96 increase in 9 months per case” By the way, that’s a 36% jump on price in just 9 months… This isn’t just school lunches it’s everywhere, I’m America we’re now dealing with $7 bags of chips, $12 soda cases, $8 chocolate chips, $3 heads of lettuce and $8-11 per pound ground beef Halloween bags of candy are like $25 bucks Something has to change, Americans are not getting the relief they need

"Everywhere we want to go, we want to dominate. Otherwise what's the point?" Revolut CEO Nik Storonsky tells @TomMackenzieTV the digital bank's offering will be "at par with Amex or JPMorgan Chase," and add products those card giants don't have