![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1785666311_627_.png\")
\n The FBI poster for Mary Carole McDonnell FBI<\/p>\n
FBI\n<\/p>\n
Mary Carole McDonnell falsely told people she was an heiress and made a television career out of telling true-crime stories, but it turned out her story was worthy of one of her documentaries. Now she\u2019s on the FBI\u2019s Most Wanted list for fraud.\u00a0<\/p>\n
(Business Insider<\/a>, approx 20 mins reading time)<\/p>\n McDonnell was used to hustling: She told people she was heir to a famous aerospace fortune, but she started her television career from the bottom like everyone else, working her way up from secretary to chief executive over more than four decades in the business. Her employees whispered that the queen of true crime had done it while scarred by a terrible tragedy of her own: the murder of her 11-year-old sister in a botched kidnapping.<\/p>\n When McDonnell approached a bank for a lifeline, she leaned on a dramatic backstory, claiming she was related to the founders of the McDonnell Douglas Corporation and was soon due $80 million from a family trust. Thanks to allegedly forged documents, she eventually obtained $14.6 million in loans. Not long after, McDonnell vanished, leaving behind her California life \u2014 her mansion, her Porsche, her adult sons \u2014 and a string of lawsuits from a bank and unpaid employees in her wake.<\/p>\n 2. Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s girlfriend<\/a><\/p>\n Karyna Shuliak, a 37-year-old Belarusian dentist, was the last person Jeffrey Epstein phoned before he died. Now, report Matthew Goldstein and Sharon Otterman, she stands to inherit\u00a0as much as $100 million from his estate.<\/p>\n (The New York Times<\/a>, approx 15 mins reading time)<\/p>\n Dr. Shuliak, 37, emerges as a complicated and unusual figure in Mr. Epstein\u2019s world, based on a close review of the files and conversations with several people familiar with her. A native of Belarus who met Mr. Epstein when she was 21, she has not identified herself as a victim, nor have federal authorities considered her a co-conspirator in Mr. Epstein\u2019s sex trafficking. There is no indication that the Federal Bureau of Investigation ever interviewed her, and lawyers for hundreds of his victims have never deposed her. He once called her his \u201cfavorite\u201d and often told her he loved her. She had free use of a credit card to buy whatever she wanted. They jetted around the world together, and he funneled payments of nearly $1 million to her over the years. He also sent tens of thousands of dollars to her parents in Belarus, the files reveal.<\/p>\n 3. Fifa vs Uefa<\/a><\/p>\n Alamy Stock Photo\n<\/p>\n European football\u2019s governing body was the first to slam Fifa president Gianni Infantino\u2019s plan to sell stakes in the World Cup. The feud between the two most powerful bodies in world football has intensified in recent years, and shows no sign of easing.\u00a0<\/p>\n (The Athletic<\/a>, approx 14 mins reading time)<\/p>\n At UEFA, the opposition to FIFA\u2019s expansionism is sincere in some quarters and pragmatic in others. This is due to a growing sense throughout Europe that FIFA is seeking to make incursions into both UEFA\u2019s dominance and income. For a long time, FIFA has been the organiser of World Cups and, in name at least, the most powerful organization in the sport. But it rarely had a stake in major club competitions.\u00a0Europe is financially dominant within football. Before the 2026 World Cup, UEFA would tend to make more than double FIFA\u2019s revenue, largely via its extremely successful annual Champions League for clubs and the European Championship for its international teams, which is held every four years.<\/p>\n 4. The influencer recession<\/a><\/p>\n Once upon a time, an influencer knew they could become successful by posting videos on their outfit of the day, vlogs about their holidays and their workout routines.<\/p>\n But now that millions of other people are sharing videos like that every day and brands are becoming more selective about who they work with, they\u2019re having to find a way to adapt if they want to keep making money.\u00a0<\/p>\n (Vulture<\/a>, approx 17 mins reading time)<\/p>\n Attention, like everything, is a supply-and-demand business. \u201cThere are a decent amount of lifestyle creators who five years ago were part of quite a small pool and could throw a big number at the wall and very often it would stick,\u201d explains Grace Murray Vazquez, executive vice-president of strategy at Fohr, an influencer marketing firm. Many of those creators can no longer command the same fees from brands, and more often than not their followers are tired of the same old content. Last year, the longtime beauty influencer Jaclyn Hill complained that TikTok wasn\u2019t promoting her videos like it used to. \u201cI just feel like I\u2019m talking to myself,\u201d she said. Hill\u2019s commenters saw something different. Instead, her plummeting viewership was, in their words, \u201cbecause your era is over and that\u2019s ok.\u201d \u201cWe\u2019re tired of watching influencers rub their wealth in our faces,\u201d said one. \u201cTeach me something. Educate me. That is what I want,\u201d wrote another.<\/p>\n 5. Saving the monarchs<\/a><\/p>\n Alamy Stock Photo\n<\/p>\n The populations of this species are on the rise, thought to be down to efforts to save their habitats in Mexico, the US and Canada. For this piece, Vann R. Newkirk II followed three monarchs \u2013 Cinderella, Eric, and Carle \u2013 on their mission to migrate north and lay eggs.<\/p>\n (The Atlantic<\/a>, approx 28 mins reading time)<\/p>\n Cinderella, Eric, and Carle had all been tagged in Sierra Chincua, which meant that I could deduce certain facts about their lives. They were already bona fide world-class wanderers, having flown there all the way from Canada in the fall, a three-month trip. Along the way, they\u2019d dodged birds and windmills and cars, eventually reaching the same patch of forest\u2014perhaps even the same trees\u2014that their great-grandparents had roosted in. For much of the winter, they had not eaten and had barely moved, jamming themselves so tightly against their fellow travelers that from a distance they looked like scales armoring the sides of the trees. Now they\u2019d awakened, stretching their wings and warming up.\u00a0Though I couldn\u2019t spot them in the sky, I could see from my phone that Cinderella, Eric, and Carle were near. Over the next several weeks, I would keep tabs on them, following their movements with a level of detail that would have been impossible only a year ago.<\/p>\n 6. The Odyssey<\/a><\/p>\n Before Christopher Nolan\u2019s blockbuster came out, the online right (including one Elon Musk) had already written it off as \u2018too woke\u2019. So far, it\u2019s surpassed $700 million at the global box office. Sam Adams writes about why you should never bet against the Oscar-winning director.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"file-photo-dated-29062024-of-uefa-president-aleksander-ceferin-left-with-fifa-president-gianni-infantino-ceferin-says-taking-matches-away-from-their-community-roots-risks-breaking-football-iss\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1785666312_910_.jpeg\")
\n Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin with Fifa president Gianni Infantino in 2024. Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n![\"mexico-michoacan-state-angangueo-unesco-world-heritage-monarch-butterfly-biosphere-reserve-el-rosario-monarch-butterflies-danaus-plexippus\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1785666313_661_.jpeg\")
\n Monarch butterflies in Mexico. Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n