The holiday season is taking a delicious turn at TULUM Rooftop Bar & Restaurant, where festive dining, vibrant flavors, skyline views, and live entertainment come together at W Miami in the heart of Brickell. This holiday season, TULUM Rooftop Bar & Restaurant invites Miami locals and visitors to gather around the table for a lineup of special experiences designed to make Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the start of the New Year feel anything but ordinary. Located on the 15th floor of W Miami, TULUM Rooftop Bar & Restaurant brings local and global flavors together in a lively setting overlooking downtown Miami and the surrounding bay. For the holidays, the restaurant is adding seasonal menus and celebratory touches to its signature rooftop dining experience. Thanksgiving at TULUM Rooftop Bar & Restaurant On Thursday, November 26, Thanksgiving takes on a festive rooftop twist with a seasonal prix fixe menu served from noon to 8 p.m. The menu features Butternut Squash Soup, Harvest Salad, Traditional Roasted Turkey, Green Bean Almondine, Candied Sweet Potatoes, Cranberry Relish, and a trio of indulgent desserts including Pumpkin Pie, Pecan Pie, and Apple Crumble. Priced at $60 per person, plus taxes and service charge, Thanksgiving at TULUM Rooftop Bar & Restaurant also includes live entertainment and skyline views for a holiday gathering that blends familiar traditions with the energy of Miami. [Read the full Thanksgiving article →] Surf & Turf Christmas Eve Celebration Christmas Eve brings a more indulgent experience to TULUM Rooftop Bar & Restaurant with a classic surf-and-turf pairing. On Thursday, December 24, from noon to 8 p.m., guests can enjoy an expertly grilled 8-ounce filet mignon paired with butter-poached lobster tail, truffle potato purée, asparagus, and red wine reduction. The Christmas Eve experience is $58 per person, plus taxes and service charge, and is available exclusively on Christmas Eve. [Read the full Surf & Turf Christmas Eve article →] Christmas Day Brunch at TULUM Rooftop Bar & Restaurant Christmas Day calls for brunch, and TULUM Rooftop Bar & Restaurant is celebrating with an expansive chef-curated buffet from noon to 4 p.m. on Friday, December 25. The holiday spread includes artisan pastries, brioche selections, muffins, pancakes, croissants, Danish pastries, seasonal fruits, breakfast favorites, fresh seafood, ceviche and aguachile stations, grilled meats, fish and chicken, lobster rolls, sliders, salads, and a decadent dessert display. Live entertainment adds to the festive atmosphere. Pricing is $55 per adult and $35 for children ages 4–12, plus taxes and service charge. [Read the full Christmas Day Brunch article →] New Year's Weekend Brunch at TULUM Rooftop Bar & Restaurant Start 2027 with a festive brunch at TULUM Rooftop Bar & Restaurant on Friday, January 1, and Saturday, January 2, from noon to 4 p.m. The New Year's Weekend Brunch buffet draws inspiration from Latin and Mediterranean flavors, with egg specialties, fresh seafood, tomato and burrata selections, roasted chicken, grilled meats, seasonal salads, and a made-to-order pasta station. Artisan pastries and desserts inspired by tres leches, baklava, and churros round out the spread. Pricing is $65 per adult and $35 for children ages 4–12, plus taxes and service charge. [Read the full New Year's Weekend Brunch article →] Make TULUM Part of Your Holiday Plans Whether Thanksgiving means gathering with family, Christmas Eve calls for an elegant dinner, Christmas Day deserves a leisurely brunch, or the New Year begins with one more celebration around the table, TULUM Rooftop Bar & Restaurant offers a series of festive ways to experience the holidays in Brickell. All four experiences take place at TULUM Rooftop Bar & Restaurant at W Miami, 485 Brickell Avenue, Miami, Florida 33131. Reservations are recommended, with booking available through OpenTable. For additional information, go to W Miami. By ML Staff. Photos/Marriott.

The Main Square was already saturated by nine on our first morning. Horse carriages queued along one side, a man in a dragon suit posed for photographs near the cloth hall, and three separate walking tours converged under the same tower while their guides raised competing umbrellas. We had done all of this properly on an earlier trip. It was lovely then. It was not what we had come back for. So we gave ourselves two days and three districts: Nowa Huta out to the east, Kazimierz just south of the old walls, and Podgorze on the far bank of the Vistula. We walked most of it and took trams for the rest. What follows is what we actually saw, including the parts where we were bored, and the parts where we found ourselves standing still without much to say. Nowa Huta: a city built to argue with another one Nowa Huta was founded in 1949 as a new industrial settlement beside Krakow, and absorbed into the city two years later. The steelworks opened in 1954 as the Lenin Steelworks, grew into the largest mill in Poland within two decades, and now carries the name of the metallurgist Tadeusz Sendzimir under foreign ownership. The intent behind it was not subtle. Krakow was a university city with a cathedral and a royal castle and an awkward relationship with the new order. Nowa Huta was to be its opposite number: workers, furnaces, and a plan. We took a tram east from the centre. It took about half an hour, and the ride itself was the first useful thing. You watch the tenements give way to postwar blocks, then to greener, looser ground, and by the time the tram swings into Plac Centralny you understand that this is a separate place that happens to share a ticketing system. The square is the hinge of the whole design. Avenues run out from it at fixed angles, framed by long arcaded blocks in the heavy classical style that Polish planners were required to use in the first half of the 1950s. It is genuinely impressive in the way a drawing is impressive. It is also, at eleven on a Tuesday morning, almost empty. We stood there for a while feeling nothing in particular. I will be honest: the first twenty minutes in Nowa Huta were dull. There is no obvious thing to look at, no facade you are meant to photograph, and the scale defeats the camera anyway. The quiet we did not expect What turned it around was leaving the avenue. The blocks are built around courtyards, and the courtyards are full of mature trees, benches, playgrounds and a great deal of grass. Nowa Huta is often described as the greenest part of Krakow, and walking through it we could believe it. There were prams, dogs, three men repairing a bicycle, a woman carrying shopping across a lawn that in most cities would be a car park. Traffic noise dropped to nothing about forty metres in from the main road. We spent an hour drifting between courtyards without a destination, which is not something the Old Town permits. The other thing worth walking to is the Arka Pana church, built between 1969 and 1977 and consecrated by Karol Wojtyla shortly before he became pope. It was raised after years of pressure from residents in a district that had been planned without a church at all, and the shape is meant to read as an ark: a hull, a prow, a roof that seems to be pitching forward. Inside it is dim and rough and much stranger than the exterior suggests. We were the only visitors. Tourism here is real but thin. We saw two small groups near Plac Centralny and a vintage car waiting for a booked tour, and that was the whole of it. This is also where the practical shape of a Krakow trip becomes obvious. The airport sits about eleven kilometres west of the centre, with a train that reaches the main station in under twenty minutes but takes you no closer to any of the three districts we cared about; from there it is another tram, and the distances between Nowa Huta, Kazimierz and Podgorze are real distances, not strolls. We are usually the sort of travellers who improvise, and we still found that sorting out transport in Krakow before we arrived saved us the two hours of standing in the wrong queue with luggage that ordinarily opens a trip. Once inside the city, trams did everything else we needed. Kazimierz: layers that refuse to sit neatly Kazimierz is a twenty-minute walk from the Main Square, or four minutes on any of several trams down Starowislna. It was a separate town for centuries before it became a district, and from the late medieval period it held Krakow's Jewish community. That history survives in an unusual concentration of buildings within a few hundred metres. On Szeroka Street alone you have the Old Synagogue, dating to the early fifteenth century and now a museum of Jewish history, and the Remuh synagogue of 1556, which is one of the few in the city still used for prayer, with its old cemetery behind. Walk two streets over and there is the High Synagogue on Jozefa, the Izaak synagogue on Kupa Street from the 1640s, the Kupa synagogue on Miodowa, and the Tempel, built in the 1860s in a style borrowed from Vienna. The Popper synagogue is now a bookshop. That one stayed with us longer than the museums did, partly because nobody announces it, and partly because a room full of paperbacks is a strange and quite gentle afterlife for a building like that. Szeroka itself we found difficult. It is ringed with restaurant terraces, several of them playing amplified klezmer at lunchtime, and the effect is of a set dressed to look like the thing that used to stand there. We ate elsewhere. Others will feel differently. We could not get past it. Plac Nowy at eleven at night Two streets west, Plac Nowy is the centre of Kazimierz as it currently functions. The round brick building in the middle went up in 1900 as a kosher poultry slaughterhouse and served that purpose until the German occupation. It now has hatches cut into its sides, and those hatches sell zapiekanki: a long half-baguette loaded with mushrooms, cheese and whatever else, grilled and cut into pieces and handed over in cardboard. They run very late. We ate ours standing up at half past eleven with beer from a bar across the square, surrounded by students and a group of men in football shirts, and it was one of the better meals of the trip in every sense except nutritionally. By day the square is a market. Stalls sell vegetables and cheap clothes on ordinary mornings, antiques on Saturdays, second-hand clothing on Sundays. We went back on a Saturday morning to a completely different place: older, slower, mostly local, with the bar tables stacked and hosed down. Kazimierz is heavily touristed and there is no honest way to describe it otherwise. But the pressure is concentrated. Szeroka and Plac Nowy carry almost all of it, and the streets behind them, Jozefa and Meiselsa and the courtyards off them, were quiet enough on a weekday afternoon that we could hear our own footsteps. Podgorze: over the bridge, and heavier Podgorze is across the Vistula, reachable by footbridge in a few minutes. The change is immediate and physical. The noise drops, the streets straighten, and the buildings are plainer. The centre of it, for most visitors, is Plac Bohaterow Getta, Ghetto Heroes Square. It was called Plac Zgody before the war. During the occupation the ghetto was established in these streets, and this square became the assembly point from which people were deported. In 2005 it was redesigned by the architects Piotr Lewicki and Kazimierz Latak, and the design is a field of empty chairs in bronze and iron, spaced on a grid across the paving, each raised slightly off the ground. They refer to the furniture left behind in the square during the deportations. Trams still stop here. People sit on the chairs, wait, check their phones, and get on the tram, which is unsettling for about a minute and then feels correct. Under the arcade on one side is the pharmacy that operated inside the ghetto, now a small museum. A short walk away, at Lipowa 4, is Oskar Schindler's former enamel factory, a museum since 2010. It is worth saying clearly what it is, because we arrived expecting something else: the permanent exhibition covers Krakow under German occupation between 1939 and 1945, the city and its people, and Schindler's own story arrives late and briefly. The reconstruction of his office is near the end. We failed to get in on our first attempt because the timed tickets had gone, went back the following morning having booked, and needed about two and a half hours. It is a dense, dark, well-made exhibition and we came out of it not wanting to talk. Which is partly why we then walked up the Krakus Mound. It sits on Lasota Hill, sixteen metres of earth on a sixty-metre base, and nobody is certain who built it or when. Excavations in the 1930s found a wooden core and objects from roughly the eighth to tenth centuries; some researchers have argued for a much older origin. The path up takes five minutes. From the top you get the whole city on one side, the quarry and the industrial edge on the other, and a lot of wind. A spring festival called Rekawka was held on its slopes for centuries, lapsed, and has been revived in recent decades. Two Districts, One Afternoon If we did it again, we would keep the pairing that worked by accident. Kazimierz in the morning and Podgorze in the afternoon make one continuous walk joined by a single bridge, and the shift in weight between them is the point: from a district that has been noisily reoccupied by bars and bookshops to one where the same history sits in near silence on the other bank. Doing them on separate days would break something. Nowa Huta needs its own day, and needs you to accept that the first half hour will feel like nothing is happening. It is not a museum of communism, whatever the tours imply. It is a residential district where people live ordinary lives among monumental plans that were never finished, and the interesting part is the gap between those two facts. We skipped plenty. We never got to the mound at Wanda, never went inside the Tempel, and left Podgorze's riverside without walking as far as the old camp site at Plaszow, which we knew was a decision made out of tiredness rather than judgement. On the last evening we came back through the Main Square on the way to dinner. It was still full, still floodlit, still very beautiful. It just no longer felt like the whole of the city, which is the only thing we had really wanted from the trip. Before We Left Krakow does not become less interesting when you leave the Main Square behind. It becomes harder to summarise. Nowa Huta is wide, quiet and stubbornly ordinary. Kazimierz is crowded in places, commercialised in others, but still full of buildings that carry histories far older than the restaurants beneath them. Across the river, Podgorze asks for a different kind of attention altogether. We came back to the centre on our final evening and found exactly the Krakow we had remembered: beautiful, busy and polished. But after two days of trams, courtyards, synagogues, empty chairs and long walks beside the Vistula, it felt like one district among many rather than the city itself. That turned out to be the better way to leave Krakow: not by avoiding its famous centre, but by finally understanding that it was only the beginning. By ML Staff. Images generated with OpenAI.

When The Great British Bake Off returns for its 17th series this autumn, viewers will be greeted by a new judge – Nigella Lawson. There are connections between Lawson’s domestic goddess persona and the world of Bake Off, which make her a logical choice for the show’s new judge. Channel 4 / Patch Dolan For more than two decades, Lawson has occupied a distinctive place in British food culture. Since the publication of How to Be a Domestic Goddess (2000), she has cultivated a tongue-in-cheek persona that reimagined domestic labour for the noughties generation. The title of Lawson’s cookbook was deliberately provocative. At a time when domesticity was often framed as something women should escape, Lawson embraced and reinvented its language. Her domestic goddess persona was neither the dutiful housewife nor the professional celebrity chef. Instead, she offered a mode of culinary femininity that was sensual, confessional and self-consciously performative. As I argue in my new book, Women, Food, Performance: The Tyranny of the Domestic Goddess, the persona Lawson popularised remains a defining cultural figure through which the fantasies and contradictions of food, femininity and domesticity are performed and negotiated. Cooking, in Lawson’s world, is less about obligation than pleasure, transforming the kitchen into a space of self-expression. This is where the first alignment with Bake Off emerges. Although framed as a competition, the programme has become a key stage for telling stories about family, heritage, local identity and nationhood, generating powerful narratives of togetherness and belonging. Since 2010, Bake Off has helped revive interest in home baking in Britain, positioning baking as a meaningful social and cultural practice. Audiences invest in contestants’ journeys and discuss weekly challenges and disasters. It not only represents community through baking but also actively produces it through shared spectatorship. Who can be a ‘star’ baker? A second alignment lies in their shared celebration of amateurism. Lawson has always identified as a home cook rather than a professional chef. Through autobiographical storytelling and stylised television aesthetics, she celebrates everyday pleasures and amateur culinary creativity, inviting audiences into an aspirational yet accessible world. Similarly, Bake Off emphasises encouragement, camaraderie and amateur expertise. Contestants are valued not only for their technical skill but also for qualities associated with home baking: patience, generosity and care. The programme’s enduring appeal rests on the idea that ordinary people can create extraordinary things, a vision central to Lawson’s construction of the amateur cook. Yet, despite its reputation for kindness and camaraderie, Bake Off is also a place where particular baking identities are produced, judged and legitimised. Contestants perform their skills before judges whose authority rests on established ideals of expertise, tradition and taste. Former winner Nadiya Hussain has spoken about the problems she has faced after appearing on the show. Wikimedia Women contestants have frequently faced scrutiny of their appearance, competence and emotions. This was reflected in the experiences of former contestants Ruby Tandoh and Nadiya Hussain, who have spoken publicly about sexism, racism and the heightened scrutiny surrounding their participation in the programme. The tent, then, is not simply a celebration of baking but a space where the figure of the star baker, and who gets to embody it, is continually negotiated. Lawson’s presence brings these questions into sharper focus. Through television, cookery writing and the domestic goddess persona, she has spent over 25 years shaping understandings of food and femininity. Her significance lies in her ability to connect food to the intimate textures of everyday life. She does this by using cooking to organise and aestheticise the messy realities of pleasure, care, family and domesticity into a coherent and aspirational way of living. Tongue-in-cheek cooking Perhaps the strongest connection between Lawson and Bake Off is their investment in domestic fantasy. Neither presents baking as an obligatory feminine duty. Instead, they turn it into a pleasurable performance, inviting audiences to enjoy idealised visions of home, tradition and community while recognising their artifice. Their shared irony lies in presenting baking as both sincere and self-conscious. It is a source of genuine comfort and connection, but also a carefully staged cultural performance. This sensibility can be seen in their similar use of humour and innuendo. Whether through Lawson’s flirtatious descriptions of food or Bake Off’s famous “soggy bottoms”, both cultivate an affectionate, self-aware approach to domesticity that prevents baking from becoming too earnest or moralising. Nigella’s tongues in-cheek approach to food fits well within the world Bake Off. Channel 4 / Patch Dolan Twenty-six years after How to Be a Domestic Goddess, the “domestic goddess” figure that Lawson popularised continues to resonate because it captures a persistent cultural contradiction. Domesticity remains a powerful source of pleasure and creativity even as its relationship to gender remains contested. Both Lawson and Bake Off thrive by inhabiting this tension, inviting us to enjoy the comforts of home and tradition while acknowledging that they are also cultural performances. Lawson remains influential because she embodies a form of femininity that is modern and traditional, glamorous and domestic, privileged and somehow also ordinary. Her arrival in the Bake Off tent speaks to her ability to make a highly classed and culturally privileged version of British femininity feel warm, intimate and attainable. Beneath the cakes, bunting and good humour lies an ongoing negotiation over who gets to represent culinary culture, what expertise matters and how domestic life is valued, desired and performed. Words by Jenny Lawson, Lecturer in Contemporary Performance, University of Leeds. Special thanks for The Conversation. Support and donate today.

In case you missed it, Rachel Cusk’s new novel Life of M has been the centre of heated online debate. Dubbed a “biogossip” (biography based on gossip) allegedly inspired by the actress Natalie Portman, the novel investigates fame, power and truth with a particular emphasis on storytelling. Gossip by Charles Haigh Wood. Wikimedia Much of the discussion of the book revolves around the similarities between Portman’s real life rather than how Cusk explores her chosen themes. In a recent article for The Guardian, journalist Elle Hunt provides a handy list of must-know information for those wishing to read the novel but may be unsure of all the details. The biogossip argument is certainly plausible. For instance, references to Léon: The Professional (1994) and Black Swan (2010) are easy enough to pick up if you are aware of Portman’s filmography. At the conclusion, Hunt asks whether more gossip in literature could solve the crisis of people reading less than ever. It is interesting to consider whether easy-to-spot references to public figures are the key to drawing new readers in. However, asking for more gossip may be addressing the symptoms rather than the cause and ignores the fact that gossip has always existed in literature, and to a far greater extent than you might think. Since the birth of the modern novel, scandalous discourse has permeated stories in complex and exciting ways. The genre of the biogossip has existed since the 1600s, with French writer Madeleine de Scudéry credited with writing the first roman à clef (French for “novel with a key”). Stories within this genre satirise current affairs, placing real figures behind thinly veiled character disguises. Faber These books were a way of discussing controversial topics and sharing insider knowledge while avoiding charges of libel. Take de Scudéry’s novel Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus (co-written with her brother Georges) discusses major figures associated with The Fronde (1648 to 1653), a series of uprisings against the regency government of Queen Anne of Austria and her chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin. Using ancient Persia as a veil for 17th-century French court dynamics, de Scudéry contributed her tuppence-worth via the ten volume novel. But liking gossip and being a good gossiper goes much further when it comes to reading. Consider the last time you had a really good gossip session with a close friend, going over an incident in excruciating detail. It feels like a simple thing to engage with when, in reality, complex social processes are occurring simultaneously. Gossip relies on individuals holding knowledge about a social network, and the quality of the conversation is dependent on the extent to which participants engage with the information being evaluated. It is expected that you offer an opinion, which not only contributes to the communal knowledge pot but is also a demonstration of a your morals, perceptions and assumptions. We are not always conscious of this happening, but we usually walk away from a conversation with a better understanding of other people and ourselves – how we react to certain behaviours, actions and motivations. The same process can be applied to literature. Regardless of genre or era, novels naturally rely on characters interacting with their fictional contexts, including social networks. The intimacies and power dynamics navigated through a novel can be decoded by using the same skills we exercise when we gossip. Every conversation a reader is privy to in a novel is essential to the practice, as it is the author providing breadcrumbs that lead to deeper character insights. Their reactions and responses inform our understanding of what the novel is trying to do. By engaging with the text in the same way we gossip, it unlocks a channel through which classics and other supposedly inaccessible texts can be understood. Mrs Bennett is a consummate gossip. Wikimedia Take, for example, the first page of Pride and Prejudice. Austen deploys gossip to illustrate the Bennett parents’ attitude to marriage: Mrs Bennett has heard from Mrs Long that Netherfield is to be occupied by a young eligble man, which only excites the local mothers. Mr Bennett remains unmoved, he’s even disparaging of the prospect of one of his girls marrying the handsome, single, rich landowner. Mrs Bennett’s desperation to get her girls married versus her husband’s lax attitude hints at the forthcoming conflicts of the novel. Eagle-eyed readers can notice this and unlock how Austen is satirising marriage culture from the opening lines. The same can be applied to Shakespeare plays. Much Ado About Nothing is in essence a series of carefully constructed gossip that relies on the subject of conversation to be within earshot and so generating the plot and moments of character development. The play’s subplot involves Don Pedro, Ursula and Hero playing matchmakers for Benedick and Beatrice. Don Pedro’s gang carefully arrange a conversation in which Benedick overhears them gossiping about Beatrice’s unrelenting affection for him. Likewise, Ursula and Hero ensure Beatrice is present for their gossip about Benedick’s affections for her. The result? They confess their love for each other and the subplot is resolved – all thanks to the power of gossip. So, what does that mean for readers? It is generally understood that fictional stories are excellent ways to wrestle with what it means to be human and all the messy parts that go with it. By reading as a gossip, we specifically practice the identification of behavioural signs and patterns and can apply the knowledge to future scenarios, both fictional and non-fictional. In the process of gossip, we become better at reading social situations because we have an insight into the potential subtexts of any given conversation. It also makes reading more enjoyable and helps illuminate the similarities between someone from the 18th century and us in the present. It unveils the persistence of humanity’s problems, from awkward interactions to first loves, and helps us realise that we are not alone in our experiences. I invite you to pick up a book and keep an eye out for any gossip – you might just find out something new. Words by Tabitha Rowland, PhD in Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool. Special thanks for The Conversation. Support and donate today.

Everyone sleeps, but not everyone understands much about sleep. One of my favorite parts of being a sleep psychologist is that when people hear what my job is, they always have tons of questions, like why do we need to sleep? Why do we dream? Do dogs dream? I get that one a lot, and the answer is yes! Talking in your sleep is more common in children than adults.Cavan Images via Getty Images Sometimes people want to chat about their sibling they share a room with who mumbles nonsense out loud all night long. Or maybe they’ve been teased themselves after delivering a complete but one-sided conversation while fully asleep at a slumber party. I’ve studied sleep for almost two decades, and I’m still not tired of discussing different aspects of it, especially what are called parasomnias: things your body does or your mind goes through while you’re asleep, such as nightmares, sleepwalking or talking in your sleep. Most are common and completely harmless; they only count as a disorder when they happen so often that they cause real problems. What’s happening while you’re asleep Sleep is not one single thing; you go through several stages of sleep every night. About a quarter of your sleep is what’s called REM sleep, short for rapid eye movement. This is the stage when most dreams, especially the vivid ones, happen. Non-REM sleep, which includes the deeper stages of sleep, usually takes up between 75% and 80% of your night. It is an important stage of sleep where your body really throttles down, allowing it to rest and repair itself. Doctors refer to these stages all together as your sleep architecture. People go through cycles of these stages roughly every 90 minutes each night. Non-REM sleep makes up more of your sleep right after bedtime, and then REM becomes a higher proportion of sleep in the early morning hours. Many animal species also need plenty of shut-eye to stay healthy. Waitforlight/Moment via Getty Images All mammals, from mice to cats to elephants, appear to sleep in some form or another. Researchers have found sleep is important for many things. When you’re asleep is when a lot of your memories get strengthened so they’ll last long term. Sleep is when growth typically happens in kids, and it is one of the times when your immune system is most active. Sleep is an important time for your brain and body to recharge and take care of themselves. Doctors recommend that teens get 8-10 hours of sleep per night, and even more for younger kids: 10-13 hours for little kids ages 3-5, and 9-12 hours for bigger kids ages 6-12. Talking out loud while you’re asleep Even though someone who is asleep may look pretty much shut down for the night, their brain is not turned off. Different parts of the brain are active doing different things during different parts of the night. Scientists think that sleeptalking happens when the parts of the brain responsible for language and speech are active while other parts of the brain that would typically prevent your mouth from physically talking are asleep. For the most part, sleeptalking is not even words. Usually it’s mumbles, laughs or whispers. If a sleeptalker does use language, it is most commonly the word “no” – that’s about 5% of all words that are said while asleep. If the sleeptalker is saying words, they’re often questions and sometimes profanity. Rarely are the things sleeptalkers say polite, and often it sounds like they’re having a conflict with someone. Sometimes it can sound like the sleeptalker is having a real conversation, pausing to allow the other person to speak – even if there’s no one else in the room. Researchers suspect you might be overhearing one side of a verbal exchange from a sleeptalker’s dream. What a sleeptalker is saying out loud during REM sleep matches what they’re dreaming about at that moment about 80% of the time, according to studies in sleep labs. A sleeptalker is far more likely to speak gibberish than a real secret. megaflopp/iStock via Getty Images Plus You may be able to actually interact with someone who is sleeptalking; researchers have found that roughly half the time a sleeptalker will respond to a spoken question or statement. But don’t get excited that you can get someone to spill their secrets or reveal something they don’t want to. There’s no scientific evidence of this happening. There is not a ton of research on sleeptalking yet, but it appears that this phenomenon can happen in any stage of sleep. Studies do suggest there are differences between the sleep of people who sleeptalk and those who don’t. For instance, one study found that sleeptalkers get more than an hour and a half less sleep per night and roughly half as much REM sleep as nonsleeptalkers. Why do people talk in their sleep? The best explanation we have for sleeptalking is that the brain does not fall asleep all at once, and for some people the areas responsible for sleep remain active longer than the parts that help keep them quiet. This phenomenon is fairly common, with over two-thirds of people sleeptalking at one time or another. It isn’t something to be concerned about if it has happened to you, though it does increase your likelihood of experiencing other parasomnias such as sleepwalking. Sleeptalking is far more common in childhood. Researchers don’t fully understand why, but we do know that children have more of what’s called slow-wave non-REM sleep. The proportion of slow-wave sleep you have each night declines as you grow older, so it is possible that less sleeptalking comes with this change in sleep architecture. Looking at the big picture, sleeptalking is considered normal. But if you’re bothered by it – or by other parasomnias, such as sleepwalking, night terrors or bed-wetting – remember, they all become less common as you grow up. And there are treatments you can get from a sleep psychologist like me. One last tip: Scientists do know that sleeptalking, as well as several other parasomnias, is more common when you’re overtired. So, the next time you talk in your sleep, you’ll know that it’s nothing to worry about, but perhaps a sign that you need to catch up on some extra zzz’s when you can. Words by Michael R. Nadorff, Professor of Psychology, Mississippi State University. Special thanks for The Conversation. Support and donate today.

Learning another language is a highly complex mental activity. It requires people to remember words, distinguish unfamiliar sounds, recognize patterns, work out grammatical rules and retrieve the right expression at the right moment. All of this happens while listening, interpreting and preparing a response. Age changes the way languages are learned, but adults remain capable of learning new languages throughout life. DrAfter123/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images Could all this mental activity also help keep an aging brain healthier? Research suggests it can. Concerns about memory and dementia can send aging adults looking for ways to exercise their brain and maintain cognitive function, whether it is solving crossword puzzles or playing a musical instrument. Language learning might not seem like the same kind of brain exercise, but it is a complex activity that engages several mental processes at once. I am a linguist who studies language acquisition, use and loss. My new book, “Beyond Words: How We Learn, Use, and Lose Language,” examines language and the mind across people’s lifespans. Research increasingly suggests that language learning and bilingualism can offer cognitive benefits – including for older adults. Learning another language can also create opportunities for communication and social connection. Language learning may not keep the brain young, but it can be a way to support cognitive resilience as people age. nicoletaionescu/iStock/Getty Images Plus A workout for the brain A person’s brain remains capable of change throughout their life. This ability to adapt in response to experience is known as neuroplasticity. Learning unfamiliar sounds, vocabulary and grammatical patterns requires the brain to form and strengthen connections. Language learning engages several mental processes at once, requiring people to absorb and retrieve information, notice when something does not work out, and adjust. This sustained mental effort makes language learning a particularly rich form of cognitive exercise. Research on bilingualism has found differences in both the brain’s gray matter, which contains neurons and their connections, and white matter, which consists largely of nerve fibers linking different parts of the brain. Studies have shown greater gray matter density or stronger white matter integrity in bilingual people, compared with people who speak one language. These findings suggest that language experience can be reflected in the brain’s structure, as well as its activity. But brain differences are only part of the picture. The brain as it ages One reason researchers are interested in language and aging is the idea of cognitive reserve. This term refers to the ability to maintain cognitive function despite age-related changes or damage to the brain. Bilingualism has been proposed as one factor that can help the brain cope with the effects of aging, because managing two languages places ongoing demands on people’s attention and cognitive control – ultimately helping to strengthen cognitive reserve. Some studies have found that bilingual people who develop dementia show symptoms at a later age than people who speak one language. This suggests that bilingualism may provide some protection against the effects of brain aging, although it does not necessarily prevent dementia or the brain changes associated with it. The potential benefit may therefore be greater resilience in the face of those changes, rather than prevention of the underlying disease. Learning later in life This raises another question: If lifelong bilingualism may help protect the brain as we age, can people gain similar benefits by learning a language later in life? Age changes the way languages are learned, but adults remain capable of learning new languages throughout life. Adults and kids bring different strengths to the task. Children tend to have advantages with pronunciation and some aspects of grammar, while adults bring larger vocabularies and better-developed strategies for learning. Research involving older adults suggests that learning a language can produce cognitive benefits, although the findings are mixed. The potential benefit may come less from achieving fluency than from the process of learning itself. Language learning is a sustained challenge that keeps people learning, practicing and adapting. There are social benefits, too. Learning another language can deepen cultural understanding, improve interpersonal communication and encourage people to empathize with other people’s perspectives and experiences. It can also connect people with others from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, creating opportunities for conversation and friendship. There is no established formula for how much language learning is needed to provide these benefits. Studies have used everything from intensive classroom instruction to short daily sessions with language-learning apps, over periods ranging from weeks to months, to see whether language learning can improve cognitive function. Rather than a magic number of hours, what matters may be sustained engagement in a challenging activity like learning a new language. Aging inevitably changes the brain, but keeping our brains engaged in demanding new activities may help offset the effects. Zöllner/ullstein bild via Getty Images Building cognitive resilience Learning another language is not a miracle cure for aging, and it cannot guarantee protection against Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia. But it is an unusually rich form of mental activity. Perhaps the most useful way to think about language learning is not as a way to keep the brain young, but as a way to support cognitive resilience – the ability to keep learning, adapting and functioning despite the changes that come with age. Aging inevitably changes the brain, but people retain the capacity to learn throughout life. Keeping our brains engaged in demanding new activities may contribute to that resilience. Words by Karen Stollznow, Senior Research Fellow of Linguistics, University of Colorado Boulder; Griffith University; University of New England. Special thanks for The Conversation. Support and donate today.

Smartwatches have become an increasingly popular way for people to monitor their health and fitness. About 100 million – nearly 4 in 10 – U.S. adults own a smartwatch. Worldwide, market research estimates approximately 560 million smartwatch wearers. Study participants rode a recumbent bike while wearing four smartwatches and breathing into a metabolic analyzer. Taimy Alvarez/Florida International University Yet a growing body of research demonstrates that one of the most commonly used smartwatch metrics – number of calories burned – is often inaccurate. I’m an exercise scientist, and I study physical activity behavior and the integration of wearable technology. I recently worked with a team of colleagues at Florida International University’s Medical Photonics Laboratory on a study examining how well commonly used smartwatches measure physiological responses during exercise, and whether that accuracy differs across individuals. Our team found that not only can these devices err substantially in their measurements of calories burned, but those errors also increase as the wearer’s body fat percentage rises. Smartwatch basics Most smartwatches contain accelerometers that measure movement and use a light-based sensor to estimate heart rate. With each heartbeat, the amount of blood flowing through the vessels in your wrist changes. Blood absorbs light, allowing the watch to track changes in the light reflected back to the sensor. That pattern allows the watch to estimate your heart rate. The watch combines the data from these sensors with information about the user, such as age, sex, height and weight. It then uses an algorithm to estimate how much energy that person expended. Heart rate and movement are relatively accessible signals for a wrist-worn device, but caloric expenditure is much more complex. It requires the watch to use several pieces of information that it can measure reasonably well to predict something it cannot measure directly. But differences in the wearers’ body composition, fitness, movement efficiency and physiological responses to exercise can all affect that prediction. How we did the study For our study, we recruited 58 Hispanic adults from Miami, where our lab is located, representing a wide range of body fat percentages and skin tones. These differences allowed us to ask not only whether the watches were accurate overall, but whether their accuracy changed depending on who was wearing them. Each participant completed a standardized cycling session while wearing four popular consumer devices: an Apple Watch Series 8, Garmin Forerunner 955, Samsung Galaxy Watch5 and Fitbit Sense 2. Participants alternated between moderate- and vigorous-intensity exercise on a recumbent bicycle for 10 minutes. As they pedaled, we measured their energy expenditure using a metabolic analyzer, which captures and measures the gases a person inhales and exhales via a mask. In exercise science, this is considered the most reliable way to measure calorie expenditure. That measurement gave us a value against which we could compare each watch’s calorie estimate. Our protocol provided the watches with a relatively controlled environment in which to perform. We intentionally used recumbent cycling because it allowed us to tightly control exercise intensity while reducing wrist movement, which can interfere with the heart rate measurement used by wearable devices. Each participant wore two watches on each wrist. We randomized their placements just in case one position provided an advantage. We didn’t find any evidence it did. Substantial error All four watches demonstrated substantial error in measuring caloric expenditure. The median error across the devices was about 15% to 25%, meaning that even before considering individual differences, the watches’ estimates were often meaningfully different from our laboratory measurement. Apple, Garmin and Samsung all systematically overestimated caloric expenditure. Apple had the smallest average systematic error, while Garmin and Samsung produced larger overestimates. Fitbit presented a different problem. Although its average error was not systematically positive or negative after data-quality exclusions, it produced several clearly implausible estimates, which we treated as device errors, including seven readings exceeding 450% of the value measured by the metabolic system. The general inaccuracy was not particularly surprising and has been well-documented in previous research. What surprised us was the strength of the relationship between body fat percentage and error. We found that as body fat percentage went up – meaning the more body fat the wearer had – the more inaccurate the watch’s measurements of calories burned. This was true for all the devices we tested, although the magnitude of the effect varied significantly by brand. The errors for some watches ranged from about 50% to 100% or even more for the study participants with higher body fat percentages. To put that into more practical terms, imagine that our gold-standard metabolic analyzer measured an energy expenditure of 100 calories during an exercise session. A 50% overestimate would result in the watch displaying approximately 150 calories. A 100% overestimate would result in the watch displaying approximately 200 calories. We did not find that skin tone had a significant effect on caloric expenditure error under the conditions we tested. What this means for smartwatch users We cannot determine from this study why body fat percentage had such a substantial effect. How the estimation algorithms are developed and calibrated may also play an important role, but because each device uses its own version of a proprietary algorithm, we can’t know exactly how it is measuring caloric expenditure. People with higher body fat percentages are likely among those most interested in using wearable devices to support weight loss. Yet our results indicate that they may also receive the least accurate estimates of caloric expenditure. An error of 50 or 100 calories in a single short exercise session may not seem particularly important, but that error can add up over time. In practical terms, if you have a body fat content of 35% or more and you’re exercising 4 hours a week, your watch could be 1,200-2,400 calories off per week. If you’re trying to manage your weight using your watch’s output, you could be consuming nearly an entire day’s worth of calories in error, thinking you’d burned them in your workouts during the week. What consumers can do This does not mean smartwatches have no value. In a companion study using the same exercise protocol, our team found that these devices measure heart rate with reasonable accuracy. Depending on the activity, these devices can also provide useful information about other metrics, including workout duration, distance and pace. Based on the results of our study, I recommend that smartwatch users treat the calorie number as an estimate rather than an exact measurement. If your goal is to lose weight, I would be conservative about using that number to determine how much to eat or to evaluate the success of a workout. Looking at patterns over time may also be useful, particularly when considered alongside heart rate, exercise intensity, changes in body weight and your own experience. However, a consistent number is not necessarily an accurate number. A device can systematically overestimate caloric expenditure and still appear very consistent from workout to workout. Wearable technology will continue to improve. Better sensors may contribute to that progress, but improving how energy expenditure is estimated across people with different body compositions may be just as important. In our lab, we are now extending our experiments with smartwatches to strength training, where the combination of wrist and whole-body movement, along with varying exercise intensity, may make accurate estimation even more challenging. Other labs around the world are also working to improve these technologies and learn how they can better inform health decisions. Words by Jason Kostrna, Associate Professor of Sport and Exercise Psychology, Florida International University. Special thanks for The Conversation. Support and donate today.

Miami bass and gqom – hardly connected, are they? Actually, the bass-heavy styles of music do share some similarities. Bass, cars and South Florida Miami bass emerged in South Florida in the mid-1980s, influenced electro, hip-hop, Caribbean music, and the booming bass of loud car stereos. Its sound is based on fast rhythms, 808 kicks and bass that could fill a vehicle. By the late 80s and 90s, car audio had become part of the scene itself, with customized systems and sound competitions blasting music loud enough to be heard three or four streets over. Durban had its own thing Gqom developed much later, emerging in Durban, South Africa around 2012 from local house, kwaito and township party culture. Its rhythm is usually broken rather than four-on-the-floor; sparse percussion, heavy kicks, ominous synths and repetition create a different kind of tension than Miami bass. Gqom has been described as the sound of Durban’s parties and streets, partly because producers used local taxi drivers to help spread the word about new tracks. Taxis were an important platform for producers who struggled to get their music played in clubs. Public spaces Jubilee is an artist who grew up in South Florida, on Miami bass and other bass-heavy genres. She told DJmag.com that in the 2020s car music culture was still thriving. (See the “Motor Bass” feature about car culture, Miami bass, trap, hip-hop, gqom and other styles.) In "the right little pocket" in New York on a weekend, said Jubilee, music brings everyone together. During this same decade, Florida’s betting landscape changed significantly with sports-betting rules changing markedly in 2023, when the Seminole Tribe’s Hard Rock Bet service returned after a nearly two-year legal interruption. Legal statewide online betting is tightly controlled through the Tribe’s Hard Rock Bet operation. Real-money online casino gambling remains illegal in Florida, though tribal casinos and licensed facilities offer legal in-person casino-style gaming. If Miami residents travelled to South Africa to experience gqom first-hand, they might also try other casino games and play 777 Strike slot online or similar. Miami’s car culture made the vehicle a mobile listening room. Producers could make bass-heavy tracks with woofers in mind, and drivers used their systems to advertise their cars, but also their taste and status. Local Miami producer Bass Mekanik once told Electronic Beats that when Miami bass grew in the 80s, it was like a “party on wheels”. Photo/Joakim Honkasalo/Unsplash In Durban, many people relied on taxis for everyday transport, so the vehicles provided a moving audience for music that was not getting support from established clubs or radio. Gqom producers like DJ Lag and Citizen Boy gave their tracks to drivers, whose sound systems helped circulate them through the city. Taxi competition could also give drivers a reason to seek out the newest and loudest material. Producer Menzi said the drivers “wanted to show off” their cars’ loudness. Gqom is still in the charts It might’ve been around for a while now, but gqom is still heard in South Africa’s charts and in the clubs. Bandcamp reporter Mike Steyels recently described gqom as “a part of daily life.” Regional variations such as CPT gqom or “gospel gqom” (from Cape Town) have grown as gqom has spread far outside Durban. Steyels wrote that its roots will always remain in the city, but the record label Unticipated Soundz was quoted as saying that gqom was now “a global language”. Gqom has evolved beyond its raw, heavy Durban roots, with as many as ten subgenres (depending on who you ask). Early expansions include sgubhu (also called dombolo or idombolo), a smoother, more melodic variant. Newer forms like uThayela embrace rougher, aggressive textures, while isqinsi experiments with heavier, stripped-back rhythms and diverse electronic elements. The collective Omgoqa have said that innovation keeps the culture fresh and gives younger artists room to create, provided gqom’s foundational sound and identity remain respected. Two scenes… one bass-heavy idea? Miami bass grew with privately owned cars and the culture of customizing vehicles. Gqom’s grew partly thanks to taxis. One scene turned personal vehicles into sound systems; the other used transport networks to spread new music around. But the musical similarities are more straightforward. Both styles prioritize drums, repetition and low-end impact, and both work best when played loudly. Yet gqom’s broken rhythms and spacious arrangements give it a different structure from the quicker, more overtly party-driven patterns of classic Miami bass. Arguably what connects them most strongly is the idea that electronic music doesn’t have to stay inside clubs. In both cities, transport and everyday listening helped shape how a local sound became a world-renowned scene. By ML Staff. Photo/Tuan Nguyen/Unsplash

Choosing the best sunscreen for bald head protection is about more than SPF alone. It should feel light, disappear into the skin, and avoid turning a clean shave into a greasy spotlight. That matters in Miami, where strong sun, heat, and humidity can make heavy formulas difficult to wear. We compared one scalp-specific sunscreen with four popular face and body options to find the best balance of protection, comfort, and finish. Best Sunscreen for Bald Head: Quick Picks These five formulas take different approaches to daily sun protection, from scalp-specific shine control to hydrating facial lotions and lightweight gels. Product Best For Key Advantage Domepeace DAILY SCALP SPF 50 Best overall Scalp-specific clear gel with a matte finish La Roche-Posay Anthelios Clear Skin SPF 60 Oily scalps Oil-free and water-resistant for 80 minutes CeraVe AM Facial Moisturizing Lotion SPF 50 Dry or sensitive skin Moisturizer and daily SPF in one step Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch SPF 70 Budget-friendly protection Lightweight face-and-body formula Supergoop! Unseen Sunscreen SPF 50 Premium invisible protection Clear, weightless gel with a natural finish Why a Bald Scalp Needs Daily Sun Protection Hair provides some natural shielding from sunlight. Once the scalp is bald or closely shaved, however, that exposed skin receives direct UV exposure whenever you step outside. Repeated exposure can lead to sunburn, premature skin damage, and a higher risk of precancerous changes and skin cancer. The Skin Cancer Foundation notes that bald spots are particularly vulnerable. Sunscreen should also cover the forehead, ears, and back of the neck. A baseball cap helps, but it leaves several areas exposed, so pair it with sunscreen or a tightly woven, wide-brimmed hat. How We Compared the Sunscreens Our comparison looked beyond the SPF number. We weighed broad-spectrum protection, texture, visible shine, white cast, ease of application, water resistance, and value. We also considered how comfortably each formula could be spread and reapplied across a shaved scalp in Miami’s heat and humidity. Most entries were created for facial or body use; Domepeace is the only scalp-specific formula. Product specifications came from current manufacturer information, and brand claims were not treated as independent test results. The 5 Best Sunscreens for Bald Heads Each option provides SPF 50 or higher, but its texture, finish, and intended use can make a significant difference on an exposed scalp. 1. Domepeace DAILY SCALP SPF 50 — Best Overall for Bald Heads Domepeace was developed specifically for bald and closely shaved scalps. According to the brand, its broad-spectrum SPF 50 uses a clear gel that settles into a natural matte finish without leaving a white cast or greasy shine. That specialized design makes it the most direct choice for men who dislike the glossy appearance of conventional facial sunscreen. Unlike the four multipurpose formulas below, this matte sunscreen for bald heads is intended for application across the entire scalp. 2. La Roche-Posay Anthelios Clear Skin SPF 60 — Best for Oily Scalps La Roche-Posay’s Anthelios Clear Skin was developed for oily, acne-prone facial skin, but its features translate well to a shiny scalp. The oil-free formula is designed to absorb excess oil and reduce shine, while broad-spectrum SPF 60 and 80-minute water resistance make it practical for humid days, workouts, or time near the water. The brand also says it blends invisibly across skin tones. Because it is oil-absorbing, it may be less comfortable for people with dry or freshly shaved skin who prefer a more moisturizing finish. 3. CeraVe AM Facial Moisturizing Lotion SPF 50 — Best for Dry or Sensitive Skin CeraVe’s AM Facial Moisturizing Lotion combines daily hydration with broad-spectrum SPF 50, making it a practical choice for a scalp that feels dry or tight. The lightweight hybrid formula uses mineral and chemical filters alongside ceramides, hyaluronic acid, and niacinamide. CeraVe describes it as fragrance-free, non-greasy, and blendable without white residue. The tradeoff is that it is not marketed as water-resistant; the brand recommends choosing another sunscreen for swimming or sweating. Its hydrating finish may also appear less matte than a scalp-specific gel. 4. Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch SPF 70 — Best Budget High-SPF Option Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch is a familiar drugstore choice for shoppers who want high SPF without a premium skincare price. The broad-spectrum SPF 70 lotion is marketed as lightweight, fast-absorbing, non-greasy, and suitable for the face and body. That makes it practical for someone who wants one sunscreen for the scalp, neck, and other exposed areas. However, it was not formulated specifically for bald heads, so the finish may vary by skin type. SPF 70 also does not last longer than SPF 50; it still requires regular reapplication. 5. Supergoop! Unseen Sunscreen SPF 50 — Best Premium Invisible Option Supergoop’s Unseen Sunscreen is a clear, weightless gel designed to leave no white cast across skin tones. It provides broad-spectrum SPF 50 and dries to a natural finish, making it appealing to anyone who dislikes opaque lotions. Its smooth, primer-like texture can spread easily over the forehead and scalp, although it was created for facial use rather than bald-head care. The finish is natural rather than explicitly matte, so its shine control may not match a dedicated scalp product. It is also one of the more expensive options in the group. What to Look for in Sunscreen for a Bald Heads Start with broad-spectrum SPF 30 or higher, then choose a texture you’ll actually wear daily. Lightweight gels and non-greasy lotions are often more comfortable across an exposed scalp than thick creams, especially in Miami humidity. A clear or easily blended formula also reduces the chance of visible white residue. Match the sunscreen to your routine. Water resistance matters for sweating, swimming, or long outdoor days, while fragrance-free formulas may suit sensitive or freshly shaved skin. Mineral sunscreens can leave more visible residue; chemical formulas often feel lighter. Neither is automatically better. The right choice should spread evenly, feel comfortable, and be easy to reapply. How to Apply and Reapply Sunscreen on a Bald Scalp Apply sunscreen generously and evenly to a clean, dry scalp about 15 minutes before going outdoors. Work it across the crown, sides, hairline, forehead, ears, and back of the neck, then let it absorb before putting on a hat. When you remain outside, the American Academy of Dermatology recommends reapplying about every two hours and immediately after swimming or sweating. Reapply after towel drying as well. If a formula is labeled water-resistant, check whether protection lasts 40 or 80 minutes; the FDA notes that water-resistant does not mean waterproof. On long Miami days, keep sunscreen nearby rather than relying solely on the morning application. The Bottom Line Domepeace is the strongest scalp-specific option for readers who want a matte finish. La Roche-Posay suits oilier skin, CeraVe adds hydration, Neutrogena delivers budget-friendly high SPF, and Supergoop prioritizes an invisible feel. Whichever formula you choose, apply it evenly, reapply it outdoors, and pair it with a protective hat. Consistency matters most when choosing the best sunscreen for bald head protection. Photo/domepeace.co

Vertical construction is progressing rapidly at Bentley Residences Miami, the world's first and only residential tower branded by Bentley Motors. Located at 18401 Collins Avenue in Sunny Isles Beach, the 62-story development has reached the seventh floor, with structural assembly advancing at a rate of approximately one floor every five to six working days. The 716-foot tower is on track for completion and delivery in 2028, positioning it among the tallest oceanfront residential buildings in the United States. This vertical milestone follows a massive foundation pour led by Coastal Construction. The execution set a record for the largest residential construction pour in Florida and stands as the second-largest foundation pour in national history. This structural achievement established the groundwork necessary for the ascent of the $5.8 million-and-up luxury condominium tower. Penthouse West Unit East Unit Developed by Dezer Development in collaboration with Bentley Motors and designed by Sieger Suarez Architects, the project features 216 residences tailored toward automotive enthusiasts. The building incorporates the patented "Dezervator" car elevator, which transports residents and their vehicles directly into private, glass-ensconced sky garages attached to each unit. Kitchens feature state-of-the-art Miele appliances and Italian cabinetry with clear views into the three- to four-car in-home garages, while primary bathrooms include spa-style finishes, soaking tubs, and private saunas. Amenities within the 62-story tower span 20,000 square feet of resort-style spaces, highlighted by Proper English by Todd English. The concept represents the first residents-only restaurant by the four-time James Beard Award-winning celebrity chef, offering oceanfront dining, in-residence catering, private events, and cooking demonstrations. Additional features include a five-star pet spa, a whiskey bar, a cigar lounge, a cinema, a spa, an oceanfront beauty salon, a fitness center, and a landscaped beach club with full cabana service. Custom furnishing concepts for the project are being curated by Bentley Home in partnership with Luxury Living Group. For more information on Bentley Residences or to schedule a sales gallery visit, please visit: bentleyresidencesmiami.com, call 305-BENTLEY, or email info@bentleyresidencesmiami.com. By ML Staff. Photo courtesy of Bentley Residences Miami.

There's a moment every new parent hits: the drawer full of impossibly tiny, adorable outfits, half of them still with tags on, none of them fitting anymore. A little sleeper looked perfect in the shop, only to feel snug within weeks, and somewhere between nappy changes, messy meals, and a baby who suddenly won't stop kicking, the whole approach to buying clothes has to shift. Whether you're shopping for a baby in Miami or preparing a wardrobe anywhere else, the best strategy isn't just picking the cutest print, it's choosing pieces built for comfort, fit, and the sheer pace of a baby's first year. Choose Soft, Baby-Friendly Fabrics A baby's skin is delicate, so fabric should be one of the first things you consider. Soft cotton is a popular everyday choice because it's comfortable, breathable, and relatively easy to care for, while lightweight fabrics suit warmer climates and slightly heavier layers help during cooler months. Pay attention to how the material feels rather than relying solely on how it looks. Rough seams, stiff fabrics, scratchy labels, or bulky decorations can become uncomfortable quickly. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends dressing babies in one more layer than you'd wear comfortably in the same environment, and choosing clothing appropriate for the temperature to avoid overheating, particularly during sleep. Get the Fit Right Without Buying Too Much Babies grow quickly, which can make sizing tricky. A little room to grow can be practical, but excessively oversized clothes become awkward and uncomfortable, the aim is leaving enough space for natural movement without drowning the baby in fabric. Sizing can vary between brands too, a "3–6 months" label isn't identical everywhere, so checking measurements is often more useful than relying on the age printed on the tag. It also helps to avoid buying an entire wardrobe in one size, a few pieces in the next size up can save you from replacing everything at once as your baby grows. Prioritise Clothes That Are Easy to Change Babies go through a surprising number of outfit changes. Between nappies, feeding, spills, and everyday messes, you'll appreciate clothing that makes changing quick and straightforward, complicated buttons or multi-step outfits become genuinely frustrating with a wriggly baby. The AAP's own dressing guidance specifically recommends looking for garments that: Snap or zip all the way down the front, rather than the back Snap or zip down both legs, making nappy changes considerably easier Have loose-fitting sleeves, so your hand fits underneath to guide the baby's arm through Skip ribbons or strings entirely, since these can knot up or pose a choking risk Cute details are nice, but practical design matters far more once you're changing an outfit for the third time in one afternoon. Think About the Season and Your Local Weather Where you live should influence what you buy. In a warm place such as Miami, lightweight, breathable clothing is especially useful for everyday wear. During cooler weather, layering lets you add or remove clothing without needing an entirely different wardrobe. Instead of buying heavily seasonal pieces, build around versatile basics that combine different ways. A simple bodysuit can work alone in warmer weather, or underneath trousers, a cardigan, or a lightweight jacket when temperatures drop. Look for Clothes That Allow Movement Babies don't stay still for long. Even before walking, they're kicking, stretching, rolling, and gradually becoming more mobile, so clothing should allow that movement rather than restricting it. Avoid pieces excessively tight around the legs, waist, chest, or arms, soft elastic and flexible fabrics make everyday clothes more comfortable as your baby becomes more active. Comfort also matters in car seats, carriers, high chairs, and play areas. Clothing that looks great but restricts movement isn't likely to become a favourite. Build Around Versatile Basics A baby's wardrobe doesn't need dozens of different styles. A smaller collection of practical pieces is often more useful than a large number of outfits that only work for specific occasions: Bodysuits, the genuine everyday foundation layer Soft trousers and lightweight tops that mix and match easily Sleepsuits for both sleep and lounging A couple of comfortable outer layers for cooler weather From there, add a few more distinctive pieces for family gatherings, photographs, or birthdays. When you're looking through cute outfits for baby boys, it helps to look beyond individual outfits and think about how each piece will work with the rest of the wardrobe. Gerber⁠ Childrenswear offers a range of baby boy clothing that can provide inspiration for combining everyday basics with more polished pieces. Don't Forget About Safety Appearance should never come before safety. When choosing baby clothes, keep these points in mind: Avoid loose parts: Small buttons, decorations, or other detachable pieces can become a concern as babies explore with their mouths. Be careful with cords: Avoid loose or decorative cords that could pose a safety risk. Choose suitable sleepwear: The AAP recommends fitted sleepwear rather than loose blankets in a baby's sleep space to help reduce safety risks. A little extra attention to these details can make everyday clothing choices both practical and safer. Consider the Next Size Before You Need It One simple way to stay ahead of growth spurts is to keep a few outfits in the next size ready. You don't need a large supply of clothes, but having a couple of comfortable options available can save time when your baby's current favourites suddenly become too small. It also helps to check the wardrobe regularly and move outgrown clothes aside before they pile up. Keep the sizes that fit now easy to reach, with the next size nearby so you're ready when your little one suddenly needs a change. Conclusion Buying clothes for a growing baby boy is less about filling a wardrobe with adorable outfits and more about choosing pieces that work in real life. Soft fabrics, comfortable fits, practical fastenings, easy-care materials, and appropriate seasonal layers make everyday dressing considerably easier. Since babies grow quickly, it also helps to avoid overbuying one size and instead build a flexible collection that adapts as they change. Once those practical basics are covered, there's plenty of room to add fun colours, patterns, and cute outfits for baby boys that make getting dressed enjoyable for both parents and little ones. By ML Staff. Images generated by OpenAI.

Miami has long been associated with beautiful beaches and vibrant nightlife, but it is also a serious business destination. Finance, technology, real estate and international trade bring executives through South Florida throughout the year, often with schedules that leave little room for wasted time. Photo/Marina Baklarova/Pexels For CEOs and senior executives, a successful trip is less about adding luxury at every opportunity and more about making the working day easier. Start With Where You Need to Be Choosing a hotel on the wrong side of the city can add unnecessary travel to an already busy schedule. It makes sense to plan accommodation around important meetings, rather than simply choosing the best-known address. Brickell is an obvious base for appointments in the financial district, while Downtown puts visitors close to major offices and venues. Miami Beach can work well when a trip combines business with dinners, hospitality, or time away from meetings. The same principle applies to getting into the city. Executives traveling on demanding schedules could use private jet charter when they need greater control over departure times or are connecting with destinations that are awkward to reach on a commercial itinerary. The value is often in shaping the journey around the diary rather than the other way around. Photo/Julia Volk, Pexels Give the Diary Some Breathing Room A packed calendar can look efficient before you arrive. In practice, leaving no space between appointments makes a business trip harder than it needs to be. Traffic is one reason, and Miami is known for it’s traffic build up. Back-to-back commitments in different parts of the city should include realistic transfer time. Senior-level meetings also rarely end precisely when expected. A conversation over coffee may develop into lunch, or a short introduction could become an opportunity worth pursuing. Focus on the meetings that justify the trip and leave enough room for them to develop naturally. Choose Meeting Spaces to Suit the Conversation Not every business discussion belongs in a boardroom. A hotel lounge can work well for an informal introduction, while conversations that need more privacy are better suited to a business suite or dedicated meeting room. Lunch meetings are another useful option, allowing more time for conversation without taking another large block out of the day. For an important dinner, a waterfront restaurant can offer a more relaxed setting once formal meetings are finished. The priority, however, should still be convenience. Crossing town for an impressive venue rarely makes sense if there is an equally good option nearby. Photo/Nadin Sh, Pexels Keep Ground Travel Simple Once the main appointments are fixed, ground transport deserves some thought. For a short stay with several meetings, having a car and driver available can remove the need to arrange individual journeys throughout the day. If your plans are more flexible, rideshare services can be useful, particularly if your appointments are concentrated in one area. Walking can also be practical in some neighborhoods, although the heat and humidity can make it unpleasant, especially if you’re in business clothes and about to head into a meeting. The best arrangement is usually the one you barely have to think about once the working day begins. Make the Hotel Work Harder For an executive trip, a hotel could become your office, a meeting point, and a place to reset between commitments. Being able to return to your room between appointments can be more valuable than having extra facilities you never use. If you’re expecting early calls with Europe or late conversations with the West Coast, you’ll also benefit from a quiet room and dependable connectivity. A good restaurant or comfortable lounge also gives you somewhere to host a meeting without adding another journey to the day. This is where premium travel earns its place. When planned carefully, it can reduce the small complications that compete for your attention. Leave Some Room for the City Spending the entire visit moving between a hotel room and meeting spaces rather defeats the point of being somewhere this distinctive. If the diary allows, leave an evening open instead of filling it with another business dinner. A walk by the water or an unhurried meal can provide a welcome change of pace. Remember, though, there’s no need to over-schedule your downtime. Let yourself relax and explore. Final Thoughts Premium business travel works best when it removes friction. Choose a base close to your priorities, allow realistic time between appointments, and make travel decisions around the schedule you actually have. Get those details right, and you can concentrate on the conversations that brought you here, while still having enough space in the diary to enjoy where you are. By ML Staff. Photos/Pexels