A Royal Caribbean cruise ship happened to be at the right place at the right time Sunday evening when it encountered a group of castaways. Come Cruise With Me reported that the Enchantment of the Seas ship was en route from Tampa, Florida to Costa Maya, Mexico, when it diverted from its original course to avoid Hurricane Humberto and Tropical Storm Imelda, leading to the discovery of 12 people aboard a makeshift raft. According to reports, the castaways, who were floating in the Caribbean Sea, were saved just as the raft “was starting to fall apart.” Upon discovering the individuals who were “in distress at sea,” the cruise ship investigated the situation and rendered aid, bringing the individuals onto the vessel and gave them drinking water. It is not known who the castaways are or how they came to be in their situation. Passengers onboard recorded the incident and shared the video on social media. This is not the first time a Royal Caribbean cruise has saved lives; CNN reported in February that the Brilliance of the Seas cruise ship rescued 11 individuals floating on a small boat in the Gulf of Mexico. The Daily Beast has contacted Royal Caribbean for comment.
Posted by Jeffrey Walker on Sunday, September 28, 2025
South Africa’s ambassador to France plunged to his death in Paris after the “secure window” of his 22nd-floor hotel room was “forced open,” according to French prosecutors. Emmanuel Nkosinathi Mthethwa, 58, had been reported missing on Monday after his wife received a “worrying message.” Police initially scoured nearby woods, fearing he had died via suicide, but his body was discovered Tuesday “right next to” the four-star Hyatt Porte Maillot in the northwest of the capital, Le Parisien reported. “The secure window was forced open,” the prosecutor’s office said. French outlet Le Figaro reported that initial findings suggest Mthethwa jumped, though investigators have opened a full inquiry. Mthethwa, appointed ambassador in February 2024 and South Africa’s permanent delegate to UNESCO, had a decades-long political career. His death came amid scrutiny in South Africa where an ongoing inquiry is probing allegations of political and criminal syndicates meddling in police affairs. He was the former Minister of Police. A police commissioner had accused Mthethwa of attempting to influence the inspector general of intelligence to drop charges against a former head of police crime intelligence.
If you or a loved one are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing or texting 988.
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No one makes headlines, warps reality, or bends the world to his will quite like Donald Trump. But what actually fuels the most powerful—and polarizing—man alive?
Inside Trump’s Head is a new twice-weekly Daily Beast podcast that unpacks everything that’s really going on in the psyche of the man the world can’t stop watching. Each episode, Michael Wolff—the definitive Trump biographer, who has spent more time studying Trump’s thoughts and patterns than nearly anyone else alive—joins our Chief Creative and Content Officer, Joanna Coles, to fearlessly dissect the President’s moves, motives, and madness to understand what’s actually driving his decisions.
From hidden health issues to alleged Epstein connections to all of the chaos still to come, Inside Trump’s Head brings you unfiltered analysis you can’t find anywhere else. Episodes drop on Tuesday and Thursday on YouTube and Wednesday and Friday on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all major podcast players. Subscribe now—because looking away isn’t an option.
A man who was partaking in a long-distance swim off the coast of California was bitten by a shark Tuesday morning. According to authorities, the unidentified swimmer, aged between 50 to 55, was swimming the popular 20-mile Catalina Channel, which takes swimmers from Catalina Island to the mainland, when he was attacked. The Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) was alerted to the incident around 1:30 a.m. by crew members from the swimmer’s pace boat. “It sounded like about a three to four-foot white shark just nipped at his leg and his foot and then took off,” said LAFD Fireboat Pilot Shaun Corby to KTLA. The victim was around halfway between Catalina and the mainland coast when he was bit, resulting in minor wounds that were already treated by the time the Fire Department arrived at the scene. “He had minor wounds to his leg, and they were already wrapped up,” Corby said. “We just grabbed the victim and transported him back to our station, and transported him to the hospital.” According to Corby, shark bite incidents in this region of the Pacific Ocean are considered “super rare.”
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A man has allegedly confessed to killing, cooking, and eating two of his pet peacocks, telling deputies he did it to “prove a point” in a fight over a neighbor feeding them. Craig Vogt, from Hudson, Florida, was arrested after he posted a letter through the neighbor’s mailbox boasting about the killings and warning he’d do it again if she kept feeding the birds, according to a report in The New York Times. The 61-year-old was arrested on Sept. 23 and charged with aggravated animal cruelty after he admitted to cutting the peacocks’ necks and frying them, according to an affidavit. While being transported to jail, Vogt allegedly threatened to kill the rest of his birds upon release so no one else could take them. Court records indicate he requested a public defender.
Dozens of people onboard a cruise from San Diego have fallen ill in a massive outbreak of norovirus. The outbreak hit 71 passengers and one crew member on the Royal Caribbean Serenade after it had left San Diego en route to Miami via Mexican riviera, Costa Rica, the Panama Canal and Cartagena, Colombia. All 71 have been confined to their rooms to help contain the spread of the gastrointestinal illness, whose primary symptoms include diarrhea and vomiting. The 13-night voyage departed on Sept. 19 and is disembark its more than 2,000 passengers in Miami on Oct. 2. “The health and safety of our guests, crew, and the communities we visit are our top priority,” the Royal Caribbean Group said in a statement. “To maintain an environment that supports the highest levels of health and safety onboard our ships, we implement rigorous cleaning procedures, many of which far exceed public health guidelines.” Following the outbreak, Royal Caribbean had “increased cleaning and disinfection procedures,” the CDC reported. Nineteen gastrointestinal outbreaks have been reported on cruise ships this year, 14 of which were caused by the norovirus.
Authorities have seized 14 ancient Egyptian artifacts being “illegally smuggled” into the U.S., prosecutors have said. Prosecutors said the items were transported to various airports from overseas between August 2020 and April 2021. Among them was an “Old Kingdom Limestone Funerary Statue,” believed to be from Saqqara or Giza, and worth approximately $6 million. The items were allegedly bound for private collectors, with at least one known to be in Maryland. They included “amulets, stone figurines,” and a vase. U.S. Customs and Border Protection looked at “numerous parcels from overseas shippers transiting through airports in Anchorage, Alaska, Cincinnati, Ohio, and New York City,” a Maryland Attorney’s Office statement said. They were labeled misleadingly, it added, purporting to contain erroneous items such as “home decor,” “stone garden statue,” and “decoration.” Evan Campanella of Homeland Security said, “The deceptive practices used to smuggle these treasures into the United States not only violate our import laws but also undermine efforts to preserve and protect the integrity of cultural history.” The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland secured a default judgment for forfeiture of the smuggled treasures.
Police in California grappled with an existential question as they attempted to fine a self-driving car caught performing an illegal U-turn in the middle of the street. Officers in San Bruno pulled over a vehicle during a DUI operation, only to discover it was an autonomous Waymo taxi, which are in use throughout the Bay Area. “Since there was no human driver, a ticket couldn’t be issued (our citation books don’t have a box for ‘robot’),” the force explained in a post on Facebook, adding that it had alerted Waymo of the glitch and that “hopefully the reprogramming will keep it from making any more illegal moves.” Waymo issued a statement confirming they were “looking into” the situation and are “committed to improving road safety through our ongoing learnings and experience,” The Guardian reports. Last year, California passed a bill that will allow police to issue a “notice of noncompliance” if a self-driving car breaks traffic rules, but the ruling does not take effect until July 2026. There are around 2,000 Google-owned Waymo taxis on the streets of San Francisco, although 1,200 had to be recalled last year due to software glitches that caused the cars to crash into chains, gates, and roadway barriers.
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Sleep can be hard to come by these days. From city noise and snoring partners to late-night scrolling and spiraling thoughts, there’s a lot that can get in the way of a good night’s rest. In fact, research suggests that one in three adults doesn’t get enough sleep. (Hello, fellow insomniacs!) Luckily, you don’t have to accept exhaustion as your default—Ozlo Sleepbuds can help improve sleep hygiene sans habit-forming treatments or sleeping in separate rooms (aka ‘sleep divorce’).
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A man has died in the same area of Colorado where two hunters were killed more than a week ago. Dispatchers in Conejos County said they received an emergency call from hunters in the South San Juan Wilderness around 11.30 p.m. Friday, who said they were already performing CPR on a member of their party—a 54-year-old man from Tennessee, who has not yet been publicly named. Tragically, the man had already died by the time rescuers were on the scene. “Due to hazardous nighttime conditions, it was not safe to conduct a recovery mission with the Flight for Life helicopter,” officials from the local sheriff’s office clarified in a statement. It comes after elk hunters Andrew Porter and Ian Stasko, both 25, were found dead following what’s thought to have been a lightning strike in the same region, having suffered injuries consistent with an “intense electrical jolt,” according to the county coroner. The cause of death for the man who died on Friday has not been released.
Boeing is in the early stages of developing a replacement for the 737 MAX, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. It cites sources at the airplane manufacturer who say “early-stage” plans for a new narrow-body plane are in the works. CEO Kelly Ortberg is reported to have met with U.K.-based firm Rolls-Royce about a new engine, while a new flight deck is also being designed. The Journal reports the move is “a sign that the company is betting that a cutting-edge plane design could power its business for the next few decades.” It comes after a slew of high-profile incidents for the premier U.S. plane manufacturer. In January 2024, a door plug blew out on an Alaska Airlines flight from Portland to Ontario, California. Before that, in 2018 and 2019, a pair of similar incidents claimed the lives of 346 people. An internal Lion Air flight in Indonesia and an Ethiopian Airlines flight between Ethiopia and Kenya both crashed due to the MAX’s internal flight control system, called MCAS. The incidents led to the entire MAX fleet being grounded, sparking concerns among travelers and investors alike about the model’s safety. A Boeing spokesperson told the Daily Beast the company remains “focused on our recovery plan, including delivering on our existing backlog of nearly 6,000 commercial airplanes” and certifying new models. “At the same time, as we have done over the decades, our team evaluates the market, advances key technologies, and improves our financial performance, so that we will be ready when the time is right to move forward with a new product,” the spokesperson added.