Keith Urban undoubtedly had a difficult year, but he went out on a high note on New Year’s Eve.
The country singer, 58, performed upbeat renditions of his song “Straight Line” and New Radicals’ “You Get What You Give” during New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash on Wednesday, December 31. Urban sported a black shirt and dark jeans while he crooned lyrics from “Straight Line” such as, “I ain’t buyin’ this life’s gotta be such a mother / ‘Cause we kinda got it all when we got each other / You and me used to be like a year-round summer / Let’s go back / Oh, hit the gas.”
The live New Year’s Eve special — which aired on CBS and Paramount+ — was hosted by comedian Bert Kreischer and country music star Hardy and featured additional performances by Jason Aldean, Lainey Wilson, Bailey Zimmerman, Brooks and Dunn, Dwight Yoakam and more.
Urban’s New Year’s Eve outing comes three months after his split from estranged wife Nicole Kidman made headlines in September. One day after the news broke, she filed for divorce, citing “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for their separation. The pair were married for nearly 20 years and share daughters Sunday Rose, 17, and Faith, 15.
“They had been quietly separated for a while now but needed time to figure out if they were going to actually divorce,” a source exclusively told Us Weekly in October. “She had faith they could work it out.”
According to the insider, Urban was the one who pulled the plug on his marriage to Kidman, 58.
“This wasn’t Nicole’s decision, and she is devastated,” the source continued. “Her trust was lost, and it was too far gone. Nicole had been trying to get them to work on their marriage and did not want this to get out to the public. She didn’t tell many friends what was really going on with them and was holding this in for months.”
While Urban and Kidman once appeared to be the ideal A-list couple, they were actually spending “a lot of time apart due to work commitments” and living “separate lives” behind the scenes.
“Nicole and Keith were not on the same page,” the insider told Us. “Rumors around town have been circling that they were living apart, were focused on their own projects and that Keith had moved on. They are moving in two different directions, and their worlds are not overlapping as much as they once did. The distance between them had grown more obvious recently.”
Later in October, a source revealed that Kidman was in a “good headspace” amid her divorce from Urban, but “the hardest part” of the situation was “navigating the dynamic with their daughters.”
“The last thing Nicole wanted was a broken family,” the insider told Us, adding that Kidman “raised her daughters to be strong and is leading by example for them.”
As a new single mom, Kidman planned to “focus on creating new traditions with her daughters and keeping their home life as steady and loving as possible.”
Urban, for his part, “has moved on and has been open with Nicole about where he stands,” a source told Us in October, noting that their divorce was a “long time coming.”
Per the insider, “The two had grown apart quietly over time, and by the end, the decision to separate was more about acceptance than surprise.”
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“What a gift,” Vanessa, 43, wrote via her Instagram Stories on Tuesday, December 30, sharing a screenshot from End of an Era. “We love you @taylorswift 💙!!!!!!”
As Swift, 36, practiced an acoustic section mashup ahead of one of her last Eras Tour concerts in Canada, she was dressed in a blue Mamba & Mambacita Sports Foundation sweatshirt. (Kobe’s widow founded the organization after her husband and daughter Gianna tragically died in a 2020 helicopter crash, along with six other people.)
In a follow-up slide, Vanessa posted another pic of Swift wearing her Mamba merch and added a “We [heart] you” sticker, alongside one of an illustrated pair of hands making a heart like Swift’s Fearless symbol.
Swift has a long history with the Bryant family, starting in 2015 when she enlisted Kobe to join her onstage during the Los Angeles stop on her 1989 Tour. Kobe even presented the pop star with a banner honoring her record 16 sold-out shows at the same venue where his Lakers played home games.
Kobe died at age 41 five years later in a helicopter crash alongside 13-year-old daughter Gianna. (Kobe and Vanessa also shared daughters Natalia, Bianka and Capri.)
“My heart is in pieces hearing the news of this unimaginable tragedy. I can’t fathom what the families are going through,” Swift tweeted in 2020 after the NBA icon’s death. “Kobe meant so much to me and to us all. Sending my prayers, love, and endless condolences to Vanessa and the family and anyone who lost someone on that flight.”
Swift remained close to Vanessa and her family in the years since Kobe and Gianna’s deaths. When the Bryants attended Swift’s Eras show in L.A. in August 2023, Bianka received the “22” hat.
Taylor SwiftCourtesy of Vanessa Bryant/Instagram
“Every person in that audience, hopefully, is being shaped positively in some way by something that they see or something that they hear,” Swift explained of the tradition in her Disney+ docuseries. “The ‘22’ moment stems from a hat that I wore on the Red Tour, so I wanted to really bring back that moment of just kinda, like, [having] a moment with a fan where I actually get close with them.”
While performing “22,” Swift sashayed down her catwalk to give her Red-inspired fedora to a waiting concertgoer.
“What’s so interesting about that moment every night is I never know what kid I’m gonna meet,” the Grammy winner said. “I’ve got people in the audience, scouring the crowd for the first couple of eras, trying to find a kid who knows every single word to the songs and having the time of their lives at this show.”
According to Swift, the lucky child chosen is “basically a representative of every kid in that crowd.”
“It could be, like, a little kid that gets really shy when all of a sudden they’re seeing 60,000 people for the first time or, it could be, there are kids that bloom under the bright lights and they’re just, like, ‘I’m a pop star now.’ It’s always wild to be in this moment with this person that I’ve never met before, this little kid, and everything’s going on around us and somehow we’re able to just have this moment be completely between us.”
Taylor Swift: The End of an Era is now streaming on Disney+.
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President Trump confirms the first known U.S. strike inside Venezuela, saying it targets drug trafficking as critics warn it risks escalation. Iranian authorities shut down cities and security forces move in to contain growing protests as anger over inflation and sanctions boils over. And the flu is spreading fast across the U.S., with a new strain driving cases higher just as vaccination rates slip and hospitals brace for what’s next.
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p class=”readrate”>Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Rebekah Metzler, James Hider, Rebecca Davis, Mohamad ElBardicy, and Alice Woelfle.
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p class=”readrate”>It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas.
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p class=”readrate”>We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.
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p class=”readrate”>(0:00) Introduction (03:30) U.S. Strikes Inside Venezuela (07:25) Iran Protests (11:22) Flu Cases Surge
Tatiana — who is the granddaughter of late president John F. Kennedy and former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis — confirmed in an essay published by The New Yorker that she was battling acute myeloid leukemia and was given a year to live by doctors.
She learned that she has a “rare mutation called Inversion 3” that could not be “cured by a standard course” of treatment shortly after welcoming her daughter, Josephine, in May 2024. (Tatiana and her husband, George Moran, also share a son, Edwin Garrett Moran, who was born in 2022.)
“I did not — could not — believe that they were talking about me. I had swum a mile in the pool the day before, nine months pregnant. I wasn’t sick. I didn’t feel sick. I was actually one of the healthiest people I knew,” Tatiana wrote in The New Yorker. “I had a son whom I loved more than anything and a newborn I needed to take care of.”
News broke in December 2025 that Tatiana died. She was 35.
Keep scrolling for more information on Tatiana and her family.
George Moran
Tatiana Schlossberg met her future husband, George Moran, while they were both undergraduates at Yale University. Moran became a doctor at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, while Schlossberg worked for The New York Times, Vanity Fair and The Washington Post as an environmental reporter.
The New York Times reported in September 2017 that the couple had tied the knot at the Kennedy family home in Martha’s Vineyard in a ceremony officiated by former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick.
Tatiana’s younger brother, Jack Schlossberg, announced on NBC’s Today in 2022 that his sister and her husband had welcomed their first baby, a son named Edwin Moran.
“I can’t get away from them,” Jack said of his sister and his newborn nephew. “I love them.”
Tatiana and George welcomed their youngest child, a daughter, in 2024. They have chosen to keep her name private.
Following her terminal cancer diagnosis, Tatiana credited George for his immense support following her cancer diagnosis.
“George did everything for me that he possibly could. He talked to all the doctors and insurance people that I didn’t want to talk to; he slept on the floor of the hospital; he didn’t get mad when I was raging on steroids and yelled at him that I did not like Schweppes ginger ale, only Canada Dry. He would go home to put our kids to bed and come back to bring me dinner,” she recalled in the New Yorker.
Tatiana added, “I know that not everyone can be married to a doctor, but, if you can, it’s a very good idea. He is perfect, and I feel so cheated and so sad that I don’t get to keep living the wonderful life I had with this kind, funny, handsome genius I managed to find.”
Edwin Moran
Tatiana’s younger brother, Jack, announced that he’d become an uncle during a 2022 interview on NBC’s Today.
“[Tatiana’s son’s] name is Edwin but I like to call him Jack,” the Kennedy heir teased.
In her New Yorker essay, Tatiana recalled that Edwin’s visits to the hospital were rare bright spots as she received cancer treatment.
“My son came to visit almost every day. … The nurses brought me warm blankets and let me sit on the floor of the skyway with my son, even though I wasn’t supposed to leave my room,” she recalled.
Tatiana reflected on a bonding experience with her son as her hair began to fall out during treatment.
“My hair started to fall out and I wore scarves to cover my head, remembering, vainly, each time I tied one on, how great my hair used to be; when my son came to visit, he wore them, too,” she said.
Josephine
Tatiana and George welcomed their daughter, Josephine, in May 2024. After giving birth, Tatiana spent five weeks at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital and was transferred to Memorial Sloan Kettering to undergo a bone-marrow transplant. She later underwent chemotherapy at home.
She wrote in her New Yorker essay that one of her biggest fears after receiving a terminal diagnosis was that her newborn daughter wouldn’t remember her.
“My son might have a few memories, but he’ll probably start confusing them with pictures he sees or stories he hears,” she wrote. “I didn’t ever really get to take care of my daughter — I couldn’t change her diaper or give her a bath or feed her, all because of the risk of infection after my transplants. I was gone for almost half of her first year of life. I don’t know who, really, she thinks I am, and whether she will feel or remember, when I am gone, that I am her mother.”
When the family announced Tatiana’s death in December 2025, it was revealed that her daughter’s name is Josephine.
John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy
Tatiana is the granddaughter of late President John F. Kennedy and former first lady Jackie Kennedy. The Kennedys shared daughter Caroline Kennedy and son John F. Kennedy Jr. (They also lost two children, daughter Arabella and son Patrick.)
President Kennedy was killed at age 46 in a fatal shooting on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. Jackie later married Greek-Argentine magnate Aristotle Onassis, who died at age 69 in 1975. Jackie succumbed to Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 64 in May 1994.
Caroline Kennedy
John and Jackie Kennedy welcomed daughter Caroline Kennedy in November 1957. She was only 5 years old when her father was assassinated in 1963.
As an adult, Caroline worked at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she met her future husband, Edwin Schlossberg. They tied the knot at Our Lady of Victory Church in Centerville, Massachusetts in 1986 and later welcomed three children: Rose, Tatiana and Jack.
Caroline eventually followed in her family’s footsteps by entering politics as an ambassador to Australia and Japan during Joe Biden and Barack Obama’s presidential administrations.
Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg in November 2013.MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
Tatiana credited her parents and siblings with helping to raise her two children while she underwent grueling cancer treatment.
“My parents and my brother and sister, too, have been raising my children and sitting in my various hospital rooms almost every day for the last year and a half. They have held my hand unflinchingly while I have suffered, trying not to show their pain and sadness in order to protect me from it,” she wrote in her New Yorker essay. “This has been a great gift, even though I feel their pain every day. For my whole life, I have tried to be good, to be a good student and a good sister and a good daughter, and to protect my mother and never make her upset or angry. Now I have added a new tragedy to her life, to our family’s life, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
Edwin Schlossberg
Caroline’s husband Edwin Schlossberg is an artist and designer. He founded the firm ESI Design and has written several books about design philosophy.
Edwin was appointed to the Commission of Fine Arts by President Obama in 2011, after receiving the prestigious National Arts Club Medal of Honor in 2004.
Rose Kennedy Schlossberg
Caroline and Edwin’s eldest daughter, Rose Schlossberg, arrived in June 1988 and was named after her maternal great-grandmother, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy.
She attended Harvard University, where she once gave Lindsay Lohan and her then-girlfriend Samantha Ronson a campus tour, according to the Boston Herald. She later received her master’s degree in interactive telecommunications from New York University.
Rose has worked as a production assistant on the TV show Brick City and the 2012 documentary Hard Times: Lost on Long Island. She co-wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning documentary series The Kalief Browder Story in 2017 and helped open a permanent exhibit for her late grandfather, John F. Kennedy, at the Kennedy Center in 2022.
She married restaurateur Rory McAuliffe in California in 2022.
John ‘Jack’ Bouvier Kennedy Schlossberg
Caroline and Edwin’s youngest child, son Jack Schlossberg, was born in January 1993.
As an adult, he became popular on social media for his shirtless selfies and pop culture clapbacks — including criticizing American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy’s planned series about Jack’s late uncle John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. (The couple were killed in a 1999 plane crash, along with Carolyn’s sister Lauren Bessette.)
In November 2025, Jack announced plans to run for Congress in New York’s 12th congressional district in the 2026 midterm elections.
Caroline Kennedy, Edwin Schlossberg and Jack Schlossberg in May 2015.Paul Zimmerman/Getty Images
“I’m not running because I have all the answers to our problems. I’m running because the people of New York 12 do. I want to listen to your struggles, hear your stories, amplify your voice, go to Washington and execute on your behalf,” he wrote via Instagram.
Jack continued, “There is nowhere I’d rather be than in the arena fighting for my hometown. Over the next eight months, during the course of this campaign, I hope to meet as many of you as I can. If you see me on the street, please say hello. If I knock on your door, I hope we can have a conversation. Because politics should be personal.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Like most of her family, Tatiana has had a strained relationship with her cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr. since he endorsed Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. RFK Jr. was later appointed by Trump to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which drew concern over his history of vaccine skepticism.
Tatiana wrote about her rift with her cousin in her New Yorker essay, revealing that his confirmation to the HHS role added stress during her illness. She pointed out that her husband George’s job at Columbia University was potentially in danger because the school was “one of the Trump Administration’s first targets in its crusade against alleged antisemitism on campuses.”
“If George changed jobs, we didn’t know if we’d be able to get insurance, now that I had a preëxisting condition,” she wrote. “Bobby is a known skeptic of vaccines, and I was especially concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get mine again, leaving me to spend the rest of my life immunocompromised, along with millions of cancer survivors, small children, and the elderly.”
Tatiana unequivocally distanced herself from RFK’s statement that “there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective” during a 2023 appearance on the “Lex Fridman Podcast.”
“Bobby probably doesn’t remember the millions of people who were paralyzed or killed by polio before the vaccine was available,” she added. “My dad, who grew up in New York City in the nineteen-forties and fifties, does remember. Recently, I asked him what it was like when he got the vaccine. He said that it felt like freedom.”
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President Trump doubles down on demanding Hamas disarm after meeting with Israel’s prime minister, and warned Iran not to rebuild its nuclear program. Ukraine’s president presses the White House for decades-long U.S. security guarantees as part of a proposed peace deal with Russia. And a year after DOGE’s push to shrink government, agencies are smaller, spending is higher, and millions of Americans’ data remains in play.
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p class=”readrate”>Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Ruth Sherlock, Anna Yukhananov, Mohamad ElBardicy, and Alice Woelfle.
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p class=”readrate”>It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas.
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p class=”readrate”>We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.
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p class=”readrate”>Our Supervising Senior Producer is Vince Pearson.
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p class=”readrate”>(0:00) Introduction (03:13) Trump Pushes Hamas Disarmament (07:25) Ukraine Peace Talks (10:45) A Year Of DOGE
Dec 29 2025 (IPS) – CIVICUS discusses environmental accountability in Zambia with Christian-Geraud Neema, Africa editor at the China Global South Project, an independent journalism initiative that covers and follows China’s activities in global south countries.
Christian-Geraud Neema
A group of 176 Zambian farmers has filed a US$80 billion lawsuit against a Chinese state-owned mining company over a major toxic spill. In February, the collapse of a dam that was supposed to control mining waste released 50 million litres of toxic wastewater into the Kafue River system, killing fish, destroying crops and contaminating water sources for thousands of people. The compensation demand highlights broader questions about mining governance, environmental oversight and corporate accountability.
What’s this lawsuit about, and why are farmers seeking US$80 billion?
The farmers are suing Sino-Metals Leach Zambia, a subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned China Nonferrous Metal Mining Group, because on 18 February, the company’s tailings dam collapsed, releasing an estimated 50 million litres of acidic, toxic wastewater and up to 1.5 million tonnes of waste material into the Kafue River. This led to water pollution affecting communities in Chambishi and Kitwe, far beyond the immediate mining area.
The lawsuit reflects real harm and frustration. From the farmers’ perspective, the company is clearly responsible. Their livelihoods have been destroyed, their land contaminated and their future made uncertain. In that context, seeking accountability through the courts is a rational response.
That said, the US$80 billion figure is likely exaggerated. It shows the absence of credible damage assessments rather than a precise calculation. When no one provides clear data on losses, communities respond by anchoring their claims in worst-case scenarios.
This case also highlights a broader accountability gap. Mining companies should be held responsible, but governments must also be questioned. These projects are approved, inspected and regulated by state authorities. If a dam was unsafe, why was it authorised? Why was oversight insufficient?
It should be noted that Zambia’s legal framework allows communities to bring such cases domestically, which is a significant step forward compared to earlier cases where affected communities had to sue foreign companies in courts abroad.
What caused the toxic spill?
There is no single, uncontested explanation. There were clear structural weaknesses in the tailings dam. Reports from civil society and media suggest the dam was not built to the required standards under Zambian regulations. But the company argues the dam complied with existing standards and that it was encroachment by surrounding communities that weakened the structure over time.
These two narratives are not mutually exclusive. Even if community interactions with the site occurred, the primary responsibility still lies with the company. Mining operations take place in complex social environments, and companies are expected to anticipate these realities and design infrastructure that is robust enough to withstand them. Ultimately, this incident reflects governance and regulatory failures. It was not an isolated accident.
What were the consequences of the spill?
The impacts have been severe and multidimensional. The spill polluted large sections of the Kafue River, reportedly extending over 100 kilometres. It killed large numbers of fish, contaminated riverbeds and disrupted ecosystems. Agriculturally, farmers using river water for irrigation saw their crops destroyed or rendered unsafe. Livestock and soil quality were also affected. Acidic and toxic substances entered water sources used daily for cooking, drinking and washing, and communities were exposed to serious health risks.
What makes the situation particularly troubling is the lack of reliable and independent data. There has been no transparent and comprehensive assessment released by the government, the company or an independent body. This absence has left communities uncertain about long-term environmental damage and health effects, and fuelled emotionally charged debates instead of evidence-based responses.
Was the disaster preventable?
Absolutely. At a technical level, stronger infrastructure, better-quality materials and stricter adherence to safety standards could have significantly reduced the risk. At an operational level, companies know mining sites are rarely isolated, and community proximity, informal access and social dynamics must be factored in when designing and securing tailings dams.
But prevention also depends heavily on governance. Mining companies are profit-driven entities, and in weak governance environments, the temptation to cut costs is high. This is not unique to Chinese firms. The main difference in how companies operate is not their origin but their context: the same companies often operate very differently in countries with weak or strong regulatory oversight. Where rules are enforced, behaviour improves; where oversight is weak, shortcuts become the norm.
The key issue here is enforcement. Zambia has good environmental laws and standards on paper. The problem is their implementation.
Could this case set a precedent?
This case has the potential to strengthen existing accountability mechanisms rather than create a new precedent. Zambia has seen similar cases before, including lawsuits involving western mining companies. What is different now is the increased legal space for communities to act locally.
If successful, the case could reinforce civil society advocacy for responsible mining, greater transparency and stronger enforcement of environmental regulations. It could also raise awareness among communities living near mining sites about their rights and the risks they face.
