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Celebrities converge on Venice for Bezos-Sanchez wedding gala

VENICE (Reuters) — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and journalist Lauren Sanchez began three days of lavish wedding celebrations in Venice on Thursday with tight security shielding their VIP guests from protesters.

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Bill Gates, Orlando Bloom and the Queen of Jordan were among the latest arrivals, joining Oprah Winfrey, Kris Jenner and Kim and Khloe Kardashian.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who showed up on Tuesday, have used the extra time for sightseeing and shopping.

Some 200-250 A-listers from show business, politics and finance are expected to take part in what has been widely dubbed “wedding of the century”, estimated to cost around $50 million.

The event has stirred a debate about its impact on one of the world’s most beautiful cities, with protesters seeing it as an example of Venice being gift-wrapped for ultra-rich outsiders, but others enjoying the spectacle and the spending.

An activist climbed one of the poles in the main St Mark’s Square on Thursday, unfurling a banner with the words “The 1% ruins the world” to protest against the presence of the billionaire Bezos in Venice.

Bezos, 61, and Sanchez, 55, landed in Venice via helicopter on Wednesday and took up residence in the luxury Aman hotel, where rooms with a view of the Grand Canal go for at least 4,000 euros ($4,686) per night.

They are set to exchange vows on Friday on the small island of San Giorgio, opposite St Mark’s Square, in a ceremony which, according to a senior City Hall official, will have no legal status under Italian law.

Debris from SpaceX explosion landing in Mexico is investigated

MEXICO CITY (NYT) — Time and again, rockets from SpaceX, the Elon Musk-led company based in South Texas, have exploded. Now, the debris from the latest explosion is creating political fallout across the border in Mexico.

President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico is considering taking legal action after one of SpaceX’s giant Starship rockets disintegrated this month in a giant fireball, as it was being fueled for a test firing of its engines. No one was injured in the explosion, which rained down detritus on the beaches of the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

“We are reviewing everything related to the launching of rockets that are very close to our border,” Sheinbaum said at a news conference Wednesday. If SpaceX violated any international laws, she added, “we will file any necessary claims.”

Sheinbaum, whose leftist party holds enormous sway around Mexico, was responding to calls to take action against SpaceX amid a growing outcry among scientists, regional officials and environmental activists over the impact that the company’s operations are having on Mexican ecosystems.

Environmental activists in Tamaulipas, across the border from Starbase, have said that the debris from SpaceX’s latest explosion of a Starship rocket had caused a large die-off of marine life including fish, dolphins and sea turtles. Residents of Matamoros, a city in the state, have reported finding pieces of metal and entire canisters on local beaches.

In a statement on X, Musk’s social media site, the company said that there were “no hazards to the surrounding area” and no chemical, biological or toxicological risks to Starship materials.