By Barry Neild, CNN

Lebanon, Kansas (CNN) — To find the very middle of America, you have to drive a long way — but it’s worth every undulating mile of blacktop.

It’s a journey that perfectly captures the dream of the American road trip. Wide-open highways stretch across vast acres of arable emptiness. Pit-stop towns crouch under towering skies. Lonely radio transmitters broadcast into the constantly shifting air.

What awaits you when you get there is surprising. Not some bombastic monument to the mighty nation that spreads out in all directions, but a modest set of landmarks and a sentiment so positive in a world of turmoil that it’ll stick with you all the way home.

The exact location of America’s center is open to debate. Metaphorically, “Middle America” covers the cultural experiences of more or less everyone living between New York and Los Angeles, or just the average American — whoever that may be.

Geographically, there are several contenders. Various formulations set down after Alaska and Hawaii were added to the mix in 1959 have the center hopping all over the Dakotas. But, as the US Department of the Interior dryly noted in a 1964 report: “There is no generally accepted definition of geographic center, and no completely satisfactory method for determining it.”

For decades, however, there was. Back near the start of the 20th century, when the United States was confined to 48 states stretching from sea to shining sea, enterprising experts at the US Coast and Geodetic Survey figured it out by the scientific method of cutting out a cardboard map of the country — and balancing it on the head of a pin to find its center of gravity.

That pivot point was in northern Kansas, just outside a town called Lebanon. And over the next half century, a place that raised the same corn, wheat and livestock as every other community for days in any direction, enjoyed a small and unexpected tourism boom.

A homecoming

There’s no easy way to get there, but the 260-mile drive west from Kansas City, the closest major population center, is a trip back in time. Past Topeka, I-70 passes a historical marker sign informing motorists that the next eight miles were the first section of interstate in the United States. Its 1956 opening kicked off President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s program to shrink America with highways.

If they were intended as a teaser for what was to come, those eight miles do the job. Kansas may have a reputation for being flat, but this section rises and falls in a straight line to the shimmering horizon. Above, depending on the day, the sky is stacked with impending weather, the meteorology changing faster than the 75 mph speed limit.

I-70 only takes you so far. The route dives deeper into the grid of country roads that cover rural Kansas, passing through the river town of Manhattan or “the Little Apple,” and then Clay Center — another mid-point, this one marking halfway between Los Angeles and New York.

Smaller communities fly by, with grain elevators, water towers, red-sided barns, shuttered Texaco gas stations and fields as far as the eye can see. For anyone who has long idealized the American heartlands, this feels like a homecoming.

There’s a classic US road trip attraction just short of the main event. In Cawker, about 25 minutes’ drive from the geographical center, a gazebo by the side of Route 24 shelters the unlikely spectacle that puts this tiny town on the m

By Ben Church, CNN

(CNN) — It was over four minutes of pure, unadulterated cinema. A total of 266 seconds that put soccer fans across the world through the entire spectrum of emotions.

If you missed it live, you’ve likely seen the fallout debated across your social media platforms over the last 24 hours. We are, of course, talking about the VAR decision at the end of Arsenal’s Premier League match against West Ham. A moment so dramatic that it could define the entire season.

First to set the scene. A game between these two clubs is already enough to get the blood pumping. The London rivals have locked horns countless times over the years and things always get a little tasty when teams are from the same city.

But then you add the context of this season’s Premier League. Arsenal needed a win to keep up its push for a first league title in 22 years. West Ham needed a result to boost its hopes of avoiding relegation from the top flight. The stakes could barely have been higher.

So, to the game. Arsenal scored in the 83rd minute to take the lead, a goal that put the Gunners on the brink of becoming champions. It just needed to hold out for the remainder of the game and it would be firmly in control of its destiny with just two games left in the season.

But then, in added time, West Ham looked to have equalized. It all came from Arsenal failing to clear a corner, with Callum Wilson waiting to smash the rebound towards goal after 94 minutes and 18 seconds of the game. The referee then took around two seconds to check the ball had indeed crossed before awarding the goal with just over a minute left to play. Cue bedlam inside the London Stadium.

West Ham fans and players celebrated what could have been a pivotal point in their survival, as Arsenal’s fans fell silent. A draw would have opened the door for Manchester City to storm back into the title race once again and reignite the narrative that Arsenal always “bottles it” when the pressure is on.

‘Biggest moment in VAR history’

But then came a moment that most soccer fans dread. With celebrations still ongoing, referee Chris Kavanagh put his hand to his earpiece, signalling that the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) had started checking the goal.

As viewers watching on television started seeing replays, it became clear that the VAR was checking for a foul on Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya. As the corner before the goal was swung in, the Spaniard had attempted to catch the ball but was seemingly hampered by West Ham defender Pablo, who put his arm across Raya’s outstretched hands.

As the replays continued to loop over and over on televisions around the world, fans inside the stadium could only wait for a decision, huddling around phones to try to find more information about what the VAR was looking at.

Then, as the clock ticked toward 97 minutes, a moment that sparked yet more contrasting emotions. The on-field referee signaled that he had been sent to the VAR screen at the side of the pitch to watch the incident again, an act that usually means the on-field decision is about to be overturned.

After watching the replays himself and having a discussion with the VAR official Darren England, Kavanagh announced his decision over the microphone as the clock ti

By Lianne Kolirin, CNN

(CNN) — Martin Short has spoken publicly for the first time about the “nightmare” of losing his daughter Katherine earlier this year.

The “Only Murders in the Building” star told CBS in an exclusive interview aired Sunday that Katherine’s death by suicide back in February has been devastating. Katherine Short was 42 when she died, according to media reports at the time. She was one of three children the now 76-year-old comedian adopted with his wife, Nancy Dolman, who died of ovarian cancer in 2010.

Speaking ahead of the release of a new Netflix documentary about his life, Canadian-born Short said that “it’s been a nightmare for the family,” but he explained that it has helped him to understand that “mental health and cancer (like my wife) are both diseases, and sometimes with diseases they are terminal.”

He went on to tell interviewer Tracy Smith about his daughter’s long-term struggles. “My daughter fought for a long time with extreme mental health, borderline personality disorder, other things, and did the best she could until she couldn’t. So Nan’s (Nancy’s) last words to me were ‘Mart, let me go’ and she was just saying ‘Dad, let me go.’”

The loss has led Short to become involved with a nonprofit organization called “Bring Change to Mind,” started by actress Glenn Close as a result of mental illness in her own family, he said.

Short said he had a “deep desire” to be involved with the organization, which is “taking mental health out of the shadows, not being ashamed of it, not hiding from the word suicide, but accepting that this can be the last stage of an illness.”

The documentary movie “Marty, Life is Short” goes behind the scenes of Short’s long career as a much-loved comic actor with the help of never-before-seen archive footage. Directed by Lawrence Kasdan, it’s dedicated to the memory of Katherine and to Short’s good friend Catherine O’Hara, the “Schitt’s Creek” star, who died just weeks before his daughter.

Short is no stranger to grief, as he discussed in the interview. By age 20 he had lost both his parents and his older brother David, who was killed in a car crash. “What it developed in me is this muscle of survival and handling grief and a perspective on it and it stayed with me,” he told Smith.

He said his experience gave him “an understanding from my childhood that the end of life was going to happen to all of us.” He said that while it comes too early for some, keeping their memory alive is all -important. “They’ve just gone into the next room for a while, (and eventually) you’ll be in that room,” he said.

Short said he had never been in therapy, instead preferring his own coping mechanisms. “You just have to breathe in, breathe out,” he said. “What I do is I dictate into my phone and I transcribe it. And I look at it and rewrite it and put it away.”

He added: “I think we are all in denial about our limited time on this Earth. It’s very difficult to accept it.”

“The more you accept it, I think, it does lift you and make you feel that thi

By Edward-Isaac Dovere, CNN

San Francisco (CNN) — The last time this city’s voters had someone other than Nancy Pelosi representing them in Congress, there were no self-driving taxis on the streets, no AI ads competing for space around the tie-dye shop in Haight-Ashbury. The youngest San Franciscans who could have voted then are nearing retirement age now.

“I’m not sure what came first, Pelosi or San Francisco,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a close Pelosi ally and a former mayor of the city, told CNN recently.

Now with just weeks to go in the first round of the race to replace Pelosi, an iconic center of liberalism — one that sits almost fully within one congressional district — is trying to figure out what comes next.

As the Democratic Party churns over what makes a progressive and what kind of fighters its base wants, how to tackle affordability, or even whether to use the word “genocide” about Gaza, those fights are coming to a head in the city Pelosi has represented in the US House since 1987.

Candidates and their advisers admit that though they’ve been preparing for this moment for years, they’re still struggling to figure it out.

They’re building outreach programs, explaining to voters that Pelosi isn’t running in the June 2 nonpartisan primary, finding the right balance between attacking President Donald Trump and digging in on parochial issues like the enduring controversy over the Great Highway running along the Pacific Coast, a stretch of which has been closed to cars.

Pelosi had long been quiet about the race but has become more explicit about her potential preference with time running out before June 2. Pelosi has appeared at events for Connie Chan, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and speaking positively about what Chan could do in Congress.

Still, a spokesperson for the former speaker points back to a November statement after she announced her retirement that she did not plan to endorse.

“For her seat to be open is wild for the city,” Mayor Dan Lurie told CNN, sitting in the office in City Hall he won by ousting a fellow Democrat in a 2024 race that became its own referendum on whether traditional Democratic governance had failed the city. “I don’t think we even know quite what to make of it.”

A candidate’s long ambitions

Scott Wiener has been preparing to make something of it for years. Raised in New Jersey, Wiener has lived for nearly 30 years in the Castro, one of the nation’s most prominent gay neighborhoods. He started as a lawyer and then made his way from LGBTQ political activist to the Board of Supervisors (San Francisco’s equivalent of a city council) to representing a state Senate district that overlaps almost entirely with Pelosi’s House district.

Wiener’s years of preparations to follow Pelosi were about as subtle as Chonkers, the oversize sea lion that’s been showing up at Fisherman’s Wharf. That came to annoy Pelosi. Weiner acknowledged that a relationship that started out strong has become “a little bit strained” as he made it clear that he was going to run for her seat this year before her announced retirement, and that he wouldn’t step aside for her daughter Christine, now running for Wiener’s state Senate seat.

“That is what it is,” he said.

Wiener is the kind of local politician constantly popping up at events back and forth between his district and Sacramento. Newsom, who is staying neutral, calls him “a bit of a legend up here in terms of his ability to carry bills.” Onetime rival and now endorser Rafael Mandelman called him a “transit su

CNN

By Alexandra Banner, CNN

Democrats and Republicans in Washington are uniting around an unlikely cause: making it easier for daycares to hand out fruit instead of chips. Congress may not agree on much these days, but seeing lawmakers find common ground on the so-called “banana bill” feels oddly heartening.

Here’s what else you need to know to get up to speed and on with your day.

1⃣ Hantavirus

At least 17 Americans who were aboard the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship arrived in Nebraska today, where they will be evaluated at a highly specialized quarantine unit. One of the passengers has tested positive for the virus and another has mild symptoms, according to US health officials. Read more.

WATCH: Acting CDC director defends US response to hantavirus

2⃣ Gas prices

The Trump administration may consider suspending the federal gas tax to give Americans some relief at the pump, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday. This comes as the national average gas price has climbed to $4.52 per gallon, up $1.38 from this time one year ago. Read more.

ALSO: It’s not just drivers who hate high gas prices. So do gas station owners

3⃣ Iran war

President Donald Trump dismissed Iran’s latest peace proposal as “totally unacceptable,” underscoring that deep divisions remain over how to end the conflict. Tehran’s counter-proposal called for recognition of its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz and compensation, state media reported, with no mention of the nuclear program Trump wants dismantled. Read more.

4⃣ Runway fatality

Denver International Airport is conducting a safety analysis after a person who jumped over a fence onto a runway was struck and killed by a Frontier plane during takeoff on Friday. The fatal incident has highlighted the difficulty of securing a facility twice the size of Manhattan. Read more.

5⃣ World Cup

Excitement is building with just a month to go until the start of the FIFA World Cup, but expensive tickets mean many fans across the US may have to watch from home or elsewhere. Diplomatic tensions and travel costs are also making headlines before a ball has even been kicked. Read more.

Breakfast browse

Conflict of interest?

Experts are raising conflict-of-interest and ethical concerns after President Trump hosted a LIV Golf event at his Virginia property over the weekend.

A glamorous superyacht, discounted

The yacht where Jackie Kennedy found new love Read more