Veteran CNN anchor Poppy Harlow will leave the struggling cable news network after she was cast aside from its disastrous morning show that featured Don Lemon.
CNN boss Mark Thompson told staffers of Harlow’s departure during CNN’s 9 a.m. editorial call Friday — and Harlow confirmed her exit in an email to Vanity Fair.
“When I walked in the door at CNN in 2008, I was 25 years old and had never been on live TV. Green is an understatement! Harlow wrote.I grew up here: as a journalist and as a person.”
Harlow thanked Thompson, as well as Amy Entelis — the executive vice president for talent, CNN originals, and creative development — writing that the two have “been wonderful and have given me the space to make this decision.”
She will officially exit CNN next week.
Harlow, who has held various reporting and anchor gigs at CNN, most recently served as a co-host on “CNN This Morning,” the troubled morning show launched in 2022 under former CEO Chris Licht.
She co-hosted the show with Kaitlan Collins and Lemon, who was fired after a series of missteps, including blowing up at Collins off camera and declaring on air that Nikki Haley, then GOP presidential candidate, was not in her prime.”
Collins was moved to primetime, while Phil Mattingly, CNN’s chief White House correspondent was named as Harlow’s new cohost on the ratings-challenged show.
In January, “CNN This Morning” averaged 322,000 total viewers, while MSNBCs “Morning Joe” drew 988,000 and Foxs “Fox and Friends” pulled in 1.07 million.
Thompson announced a shakeup in February, which entailed axing the morning show and replacing the hosts with anchor Kasie Hunt, who anchors the early-morning newscast from Washington, DC., from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m.
Weeks later, Mattingly was named chief domestic correspondent, but Harlow’s future was uncertain.
Vanity Fair said Harlow was offered a new role at the same time as Mattingly but eventually turned it down.
Poppy is a unique talent who combines formidable reporting and interviewing prowess with a human touch that audiences have always responded to, Thompson said in a statement to VF. Shes been a wonderful colleague at CNN, and we know she will have much success in her future endeavors.
Poppy leaves CNN after more than 16 memorable years, thousands of hours in the anchor chair, and hundreds of reports from the field, Entelis said in a statement.
The Met Gala always produces the most memorable red carpet looks of the year.
Following this year’s theme, Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion, and a Garden Of Time dress code, the stars pulled out all the botanical stops with their outfits, with floral and garden-inspired fashion unsurprisingly dominating.
The term “inauguration” may feel slightly misleading. After all, this is not his first time.
Today’s ceremony will be the fifth occasion Vladimir Putin has been sworn in as Russia’s president, and it marks the start of another six years at the top.
He is already the Kremlin’s longest-serving leader since Joseph Stalin, having been in power for nearly two and a half decades – 20 years as president, four as prime minister.
By the end of this term, only Catherine the Great will be ahead of him – she ruled Russia way back in the 18th century.
So, to some, President Putin may feel more like Permanent Putin.
There is a whole generation here that hasn’t lived under anyone else.
The ceremony itself will be a lavish affair, inside the glittering Grand Kremlin Palace, Russia’s “new” leader will swear an oath of loyalty to the people in front of thousands of guests.
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Former Hollywood action hero (and now Russian citizen) Steven Seagal and Germany’s ex-chancellor Gerhard Schroder were among the celebrities and VIPs last time around in 2018.
A lot has changed since then, though. It will be fascinating to see who accepts their invitation.
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Putin 5.0 is no surprise, of course. His victory in March’s election was a given.
The only question was his level of support. Officially, he won 87% of the vote, which was widely condemned by Western governments as being neither free nor fair.
The latest polling, however, points to a similar figure. According to the independent Levada Centre, Putin’s current approval ratings are 85%, not far off his all-time-high.
In part, that is down to a “rally behind the flag effect”, says Levada head Denis Volkov, which Putin has been tapping into since his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
But there are other factors too – namely, silencing of the opposition.
“If not Putin, then who?” is a common response, Denis says, when Levada conducts its polls.
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Boeing has called off its first-ever astronaut launch at the final moment after discovering a valve problem in the Atlas V rocket.
The two NASA test pilots had just strapped into Boeing‘s Starliner capsule at Cape Canaveral space station for a flight to the International Space Station on Monday night (US EST) when the countdown stopped – two hours before the planned lift-off.
It was the latest delay for Boeing’s first crew flight, on hold for years because of capsule trouble.
The Atlas V rocket is manufactured by the United Launch Alliance, which includes Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
United Launch Alliance’s chief executive Tory Bruno said the most recent delay may have been caused by an oxygen pressure-relief valve on the upper stage of the rocket that started fluttering open and closed, creating a loud buzz.
The valve may have exceeded its 200,000 lifetime cycles which means it will have to be replaced, pushing the launch into next week, Mr Bruno said.
In an update, NASA said the launch will take place no earlier than Friday.
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Mr Bruno said similar valve issues had occurred in previous years on other Atlas rockets launching satellites and these were resolved by turning the valves off and back on.
But the company has stricter flight rules for astronaut flights, prohibiting valve recycling when a crew is on board.
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“And so we stayed with the rules and the procedures, and scrubbed as a result,” Mr Bruno said at a news conference.
It meant the two-member crew of NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore, 61, and Sunita “Suni” Williams, 58, had to be removed from the capsule by technicians, before they were whisked away from the launch complex to await a second flight attempt when the issue is resolved.
NASA’s commercial crew programme manager Steve Stich added: “We’re taking it one step at a time, and we’re going to launch when we’re ready and fly when it’s safe to do so.”
Starliner’s first test flight without a crew failed to reach the space station in 2019 and Boeing had to repeat the flight. The company then encountered parachute issues and flammable tape.
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NASA hired Boeing and SpaceX a decade ago to ferry astronauts to and from the space station after the shuttle programme ended, paying the private companies billions of dollars.
Atlas V has been in operation for more than 20 years after it was designed by Lockheed Martin.