By Madeline Holcombe, CNN

(CNN) — Say everyone had a best friend who was always available, never judgmental, totally on the same page about everything and needed nothing in return. Wouldn’t that solve the loneliness so many people are facing?

No, experts say. In fact, having a best friend like that might make things much worse.

That potential “BFF” already exists in artificial intelligence — a technology that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg suggested last year could help fix feelings of loneliness and isolation. This is a problem that needs solving.

The World Health Organization made loneliness a global health priority in 2023. The US Surgeon General called loneliness a national epidemic the same year. And the crisis is a public health issue, as research has found that people who experience social isolation had a 32% higher risk of dying early compared with those who do not.

In this week’s episode of CNN’s “Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever,” airing at 9 p.m. ET Saturday, May 9, Swisher digs deeper into the impact loneliness has on longevity, the ways people can feel more connected, and whether AI is helping or harming efforts toward less social isolation.

Swisher, a journalist, gave both AI companionship and analog relationship building a try in this week’s episode. Spoiler: AI had its draw but was no match for what she experienced in person.

“Social media was a gateway drug to AI companionship,” said Dr. Sherry Turkle, the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “First, we talked to each other through machines. Now we talk directly to machines. We became accustomed to looking to a screen for attachment.”

AI: The illusion of a friend

It makes sense that people feeling lonely, isolated or disconnected are tempted to reach toward a machine trained to interact like a human.

Not everyone feels drawn to AI. The problem is that those most at risk are the ones who are already the loneliest, said Dr. Rose Guingrich, a researcher on human and AI interaction who earned a doctorate in psychology and social policy from Princeton University this year.

People who feel fulfilled in their relationships generally can see AI chatbots as a tool that they can take or leave, but people who have a strong desire for more quality emotional connections tend to report a greater attachment to this technology and a bigger impact on their real life, Guingrich said.

For those looking for more or deeper relationships, fear of judgment or backlash can be a powerful force keeping people from interacting socially with others, Guingrich said. Someone else could disagree, get offended or think less of you depending on how an exchange goes.

That risk shrinks when having what feels an awful lot like a conversation with a chatbot.

How real a user thinks these interactions are can vary, Guingrich said. Some people know that there is no human on the other side but say that the simulation of connection and understanding is enough. Others can be convinced that the algorithm they are speaking to has an emotional experience to which they can connect.

“People report developing things that look akin to real human friendships, mentorships and romantic partnerships, and feel as though their AI chatbot loves them back,” Guingrich said.

People may feel like they love AI, but it doesn’t love them back.

Training you out of real relationships

Conversations with AI are missing some key components — a void that can make these seemingly lifelike interaction

By Michael Ballaban, CNN

(CNN) — To board the yacht named Christina, in the glamorous late middle of the 20th century, was to float amid the highest levels of fame, celebrity and royalty: Winston Churchill! Liza Minnelli! Rudolf Nureyev! Its owner, the Greek shipping magnate and definitive international playboy Aristotle Onassis, equipped it with a lapis lazuli fireplace, an onyx spiral staircase, a swimming pool with a mosaic bottom that ascended to become a dance floor, and barstools upholstered in whale-penis leather.

This was where Onassis wooed the already-married Maria Callas, who would become his romantic partner for years, and later courted the widowed Jacqueline Kennedy, who became Jackie Onassis in 1968. After their Greek island wedding, it was the Christina that hosted the reception.

Now the Christina, currently known as the Christina O, is on sale for nearly half off — its asking price slashed to 52 million euros (or roughly $60 million) from an initial 90 million euros, convertible pool and original bar furniture included. In today’s market, it’s still a tough sell.

“We had some interest, but no deal went through,” Tim Morley, the broker handling the sale, said on the phone from Nafplion, Greece, at the Mediterranean Yacht Show. While the late Irish businessman Ivor Fitzpatrick, who owned the yacht for the past few years, had loved owning it, his widow, Susan, has lowered the price with the goal of moving it more quickly. “It’s not her passion, and she has multiple businesses,” Morley said. “And so she wants it to go to another person who will look after it for the next chapter.”

The headwinds have come from a convergence of current events and the yacht’s own history. It’s an uncertain moment for selling luxury vessels in general, because of war in Eastern Europe, war in the Middle East, and a slumping economy in Europe thanks to both, Julia Skop of the Monaco-based yacht brokerage Smart Yachts said. And though the yacht is in fine shape and is an imposing 325 feet long, its old-fashioned proportions and Onassis’s designs for a hospitality-first party palace don’t necessarily match the preferences of today’s ultra-rich.

But the ship has been on steep discount before. It was launched as the Canadian River-class frigate HMCS Stormont in 1943 at the height of World War II, where it served in the Battle of the Atlantic and the D-Day landings at Normandy. After the war, though, the Canadian Navy needed to downsize, and Onassis bought it for $34,000, which was the scrap value at the time.

He then proceeded to pour $4 million (nearly $50 million, adjusted for inflation) into converting it into his dream yacht, which he named after his daughter, Christina. There had been ostentatious boats before — automobile millionaire Henry Dodge had commissioned the luxurious but smaller SS Delphine in the 1920s — but Onassis brought floating plutocratic potency into a whole new age. “The world press, it just went nuts with the whole thing of the Christina,” Morley said, “because she was the ultimate symbol of opulence and glamour.”

Still, the memory of past romance hasn’t yet been enough to overcome the realities of the yacht business in 2026. In the aftermath of Covid, a sales boom cleared out shipyards, Skop said, till “they were telling you okay, come back in 2026, 2027.” Now inventory has recovered, and on the resale market, Skop said, “we are approaching a buyer’s market now.”

That said, it’s likely that yachts like the Christina O will find buyers soon, Skop said.

“The world is still full of rich people,” Skop said. “We are going to see some big transactions in the next two or three years, for sure.”

In the meantime, she said, many Russian buyers have dropped out of the market since the invasion of Ukraine, and the war on Iran has left Middle Eastern buyers wary of making major commitments. And in a busin

Análisis por Zachary B. Wolf, CNN

Al igual que Lucy con el balón de fútbol, ​​el presidente Donald Trump no deja de insinuar que el acuerdo para poner fin a la guerra con Irán está prácticamente cerrado.

Es uno de los muchos argumentos sobre Irán que lleva repitiendo desde hace meses.

La guerra en sí ha cambiado, pasando de una estrategia de conmoción y terror a un alto el fuego de un mes de duración en el que cada bando ha impuesto un costoso bloqueo al otro.

Pero los argumentos de Trump siguen siendo los mismos. Las ideas que repite incluyen los puntos clave de que Estados Unidos tiene el control, que las fuerzas iraníes están devastadas y que todo terminará muy pronto.

Todo esto hace que sea muy difícil saber hasta qué punto conviene tomar en serio sus garantías sobre la proximidad de un acuerdo.

Si nos fiamos de las pesimistas encuestas, el mensaje de la Casa Blanca sobre la guerra ha sido ineficaz, pero la adhesión de Trump a su propio discurso ha sido inquebrantable.

“Esto terminará rápidamente”, prometió Trump durante un mitin telefónico en apoyo de un candidato republicano en Georgia esta semana.

“Creo que hay muchas posibilidades de que esto termine, y si no termina, tendremos que volver a bombardearlos sin piedad”, declaró a PBS a principios de semana.

Es una táctica que ha empleado una y otra vez desde que Estados Unidos e Israel atacaron por primera vez a Irán.

“Muy pronto”, declaró a los periodistas el 9 de marzo.

El plazo específico se ha extendido desde las cuatro a seis semanas que Trump proyectó al comienzo de la campaña, pero siempre ha permanecido un poco lejano.

En abril, el programa “Inside Politics” de CNN publicó un montaje con las ocasiones en que Trump había dicho que la guerra terminaría pronto. Desde entonces, no ha dejado de insinuarlo.

Trump no ha dudado en usar la palabra “guerra” para describir un conflicto militar, que sigue sin estar autorizado por el Congreso. Pero prefiere describirlo con un término menos drástico.

“Lo llamo una escaramuza porque eso es lo que es, una escaramuza. Y nos está yendo increíblemente bien”, manifestó Trump en la Casa Blanca el miércoles.

La palabra escaramuza es relativamente nueva, pero la idea que la rodea ha sido una constante.

“Esta es una breve incursión en algo que debería haberse hecho hace 47 años”, señaló a los periodistas el 7 de marzo a bordo del Air Force One.

“Así que hicimos un pequeño desvío y está funcionando muy bien”, indicó en la Casa Blanca el 4 de mayo.

“No tienen armada, totalmente aniquilada. No tienen fuerza aérea, totalmente aniquilada. No tienen capacidad antiaérea, totalmente aniquilada. No tienen radar. No tienen líderes. Los líderes han sido aniquilados. Todo… y luego leo los periódicos y dicen lo bien que les va. No les va bien”, se quejó Trump el 5 de mayo en la Casa Blanca.

Un día antes, había repetido lo mismo.

“No tienen armada, no tienen fuerza aérea, no tienen equipo antiaéreo, no tienen radar, no tienen nada. De hecho, no tienen líderes. Sus líderes… los líderes también desaparecieron”, aseguró el 4 de mayo.

Es un argumento que Trump ha repetido hasta la saciedad, tanto antes del alto el fuego del 7 de abril como después.

He aquí un ejemplo de su encuentro con periodistas el 20 de marzo, en el que argumentaba que Estados Unidos ya había ganado la guerra en esencia:

“Hemos destruido su armada, su fuerza aérea. Hemos destruido su defensa antiaérea. Lo hemos destruido todo. Estamos en libertad. Desde un punto de vista militar, lo único que hacen es bloquear el estrecho. Pero desde

By Dana O’Neil, CNN

(CNN) — Back before they had a name, before a generation crowned such things as “vision boards” and started talking about “manifesting” their dreams, Cherie DeVaux wrote down her goals and pinned the notes to her bedroom walls.

Sports, grades, life – whatever it was that the self-described Type A personality was seeking that year, she’d jot it down.

DeVaux got so invested in setting her standards that her mother, Janet, worried she might be aiming a little too high. “Don’t you think that’s a little lofty?” Janet once said to her daughter.

“And then as I pulled down one by one, I was like, ‘OK, mom. Tell me what else I can’t do,’” DeVaux said.

As DeVaux recounts the story to CNN Sports on a Zoom call, she stops herself mid-sentence and her eyes pop wide. “Wait,” she says. “You just reminded me.” DeVaux reaches down beneath her seat and grabs a black folder. From it, she slides out a piece of paper and flips it over to the camera, displaying it with all the pride a kindergartner might bring to show and tell.

“My first vision board ever,” she says, explaining how on January 1, she accessed a Canva account to create the nouveau version of her childhood goal list.

In the top left corner of her board sits the very first item on Cherie DeVaux’s 2026 to-do list: A picture of the garland of roses that hangs around the winner of the Kentucky Derby.

Four months and one day later, long after the sun set and the crowds had dispersed from the 152nd running of the Kentucky Derby, DeVaux and her family giddily tromped across the mud of the Churchill Downs track to the backside. Each carried with them a single rose, taken from the blanket only just removed from Golden Tempo, the Derby-winning horse trained by DeVaux.

“I made that vision board before the LeComte,” DeVaux says of the first stakes race Golden Tempo won to put him on the trail to the Derby. “Do I believe in that stuff? I do now.”

Breaking the barn ceiling

It has been a blissfully bleary-eyed week for DeVaux, the spot on her schedule usually reserved for afternoon naps now filled with interviews and appearances. Pat McAfee, Dan Patrick, CNN and the Today Show are just a few of the outlets that have featured DeVaux and her story. The Yankees invited the New York native to throw out the first pitch.

There is always a whirlwind that follows winning the Derby but hers is an especially busy vortex thanks largely to the tagline that has permanently attached itself to DeVaux’s name: “The first female trainer to win the Kentucky Derby.”

It is her hard-earned and rightful place in history. The Kentucky Derby is the longest-running continuous sporting event in the United States. It has survived two World Wars, Prohibition, pouring rain, searing heat, and even a global pandemic. Though three fillies have crossed the finish line first, no female jockey or trainer had won it until DeVaux busted through the barn ceiling, taking down the old-boy network made of flannel, denim, seersucker and cigars.

Yet the addendum makes DeVaux a little weary. Not in the bone-tired sense but in the exhausted sense.

“I’m just glad I don’t have to answer that question anymore,” she quipped post-race when asked about being the first female trainer to win the Derby.

When DeVaux created her vision board back in January, nowhere on it did she mention a woman winning the Derby. She just wanted to win the race.

“I always wanted to focus on my career,” she says. “And using my gender as part of

By Lilit Marcus, CNN

(CNN) — This week in travel news: Korean cafe culture has taken over the world, Delta Air Lines is changing its snack policy, and a cemetery is hoping to become a hot tourist attraction in New York.

Love is in the air

Angela Buckner was flying from Wichita to New York City just to go on a blind date. But it turned out that the journey was the real destination. She glimpsed flight attendant Brittany Hairston chitchatting with an older couple and immediately felt butterflies.

“I’m glad that we both took a chance and an opportunity, because I don’t think I could see my life without her,” Angela says. “I’m glad we leaned into the uncomfortable and put ourselves out there, and now hopefully our story can resonate with other people and just say, ‘Hey, you just never know.’”

Angela joked that “flight attendants meet people all the time and flirt.” But she knew this was something different. By the end of the flight, the cabin crew member and the passenger in row 28 had exchanged numbers. Six months later, they were an official couple. Now, they’re getting married and buying a house together.

K-Pop, K-Beauty, K-Drama

Despite its small size, South Korea punches way above its weight culturally — and the Western world has taken notice. These days, tourists are flocking to South Korea to try beauty treatments, visit locations from their favorite movies and TV shows, and sample all the flavors of Korean food.

So, where to start? In Seoul, the best shopping experience isn’t in the capital’s myriad malls — it’s on the streets, especially on Sunday when the outdoor market scene thrives.

Meanwhile in Busan, the country’s second biggest city, the vibes are very different. Located on the southern Korean coast, Busan is all about the outdoor experiences. The city is home to a robust surfing community, super-fresh seafood, and the annual Seven Bridges Tour bike ride, which explores all of Busan’s seaside neighborhoods.

And no matter where you are in South Korea, you can count on the country’s popular coffee culture. Here, it’s not just about the beverage itself — amid fierce competition, shops have taken design to the next level in order to really stand out on social media.

How did a relatively small country gain such a massive influence on the rest of the world? Hosted by Daniel Dae Kim, “K‑Everything” is a four-part global travel docuseries exploring how South Korea evolved into a cultural superpower. The series airs Saturdays on CNN International at 8 p.m. ET starting May 9. Also available to CNN streaming subscribers.

Under African skies

It’s never too soon to daydream about future travel. In 2030, travelers heading to Ethiopia can arrive at Africa’s largest airport, which is due to open its first phase at the start of the next decade.

Currently, many air journeys from one part of Africa to another involve transiting off the continent to make a connection. But Bishoftu International Airport, located 30 miles outside of Addis Ababa, aims to change that.

The new hub will debut with two runways and capacity for 60 million passengers per year, with a final goal of 100 million once the whole facility is open. The country’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed Ali, has described Bishoftu International as “the largest aviat